jmsmagid

[jmsmagid]

A Story in Nightmares Pt. 1

Lucia Blake is scared of rats, of their nibbling teeth, and scritching little nails. She can feel one crawling on her as soon as she sees it, can feel the molecules of disease scampering off of it and rushing into her body, gnawing her from the inside out…

It all began when she was nine years old, waiting on a rainy street corner to be picked up from school. Her skin was already crawling against the rubbery yellow nightmare of a raincoat her grandfather had shoved her into, and the feeling of water collecting on her hair and skin despite it. Lucy didn’t like to be wet unless she was washing up, and the water was warm and soapy, and she knew just where it was coming from.

She tapped her thumbs against each of the other fingers on their respective hands. Grandpa had never failed to send someone to pick her up. And the last bell of the day had only rung about five minutes earlier. She told herself to be patient. Lucy was good at being patient, but she really didn’t like to be wet.

It was probably less than ten minutes in total that she spent standing in the rain. Years later her memory would exaggerate it, and she would recall her littler self being drenched through to the bone, and already half drowned when a vehicle that she didn’t recognize pulled up to the curb.

They bite her in her dreams now, and she thrashes in her sleep (once upon a time she would wake up and insist on being tested for rabies). She imagines she can hear the chewing of her own flesh, and the gurgles of their little stomachs…

Lucy’s grandfather didn’t always send the same car to pick her up each day. And she didn’t know every one of his assistants by sight. But she always kept a list of trustworthy license plate numbers in her notebook, and she listened when Grandpa told her who to look for at the end of the day.

But on this particular day she was very cold, and wet, and unhappy, and eager to feel the inside of a warm car. And the man behind the wheel had seemed as uninterested in her as the people who work for her grandfather always were.

It wasn’t until she was inside with the door shut behind her that she realized there was more than one person in the minivan. The only times that had happened before had been when her Grandpa had come to pick her up himself. But he wasn’t here now; she didn’t recognize any of these people. There were three of them. The driver, and a pair wearing masks in the back seat. A new kind of chill seized her as they pulled away from the curb.

All she could manage to say past the lump in her throat was, “I’m not buckled yet.”

They laughed.

The tiny teeth are a blessing when they start to chew through the cloth that binds her mouth and eyes, but a curse when they abandon those fibers in favor of sinking into the sweeter meat of her flesh…

They drove for a long time, and after the first few minutes Lucy’s eyes and mouth were tied. The cold began to leave her bones, but rainwater remained trapped against her skin, and the beat of fear amplified the sensation.

The voices around her were muffled by bindings that were too big to properly fit over her small head. All she gleaned over the course of that nightmare of a road trip was that her captors were a group of two men and one woman, and that they were mad at her Grandpa.

That made sense, she thought distantly. Everyone said Nicholas Blake wasn’t the easiest man to work with. She could believe it; he wasn’t really the easiest man to live with either.

At some point they came to a stop and she was jostled forward. She still hadn’t had a chance to get her seat belt on.

Lucy imagines not many people have had a chance to experience being eaten alive, so she tries to catalog the sensations associated with it, for posterity, she thinks hysterically. She imagines she can still feel the bits of herself that are gone as they’re being digested…

Something happened after some number of hours of very little happening.

Lucy couldn’t figure out if it was good or bad at first, could only grasp bits and pieces. Someone had found them. Not someone who was associated with her grandfather, or who had anything to do with her. Someone else who her captors had wronged in some way. Someone they were afraid of.

She could hear and feel a flurry of motion. Amongst what few words she could make out, one distinct voice saying, “oh shit,” over and over again became particularly seared into her mind.

Sometimes that voice still features in her dreams…

Her captors ran away. It took some time to realize what was happening in the chaos, to cycle through a hope that their demise would be her salvation, and a fear that they would kill her if profiting off her became unachievable. There was yelling, and scuffling, a loud motor outside.

And then it all stopped.

Lucy didn’t know what to make of the sudden silence. It took a few minutes for her heartbeat to drain out of her ears enough that she could be sure the world around her really had quieted down.

She made a noise behind her gag, then flinched, waiting to be yelled at, at the very least.

Nothing happened.

She struggled against her bonds. Surely they wouldn’t allow that. But no one stopped her.

She stopped on her own, once she realized the knots restraining her were beyond her strength to overcome.

She found herself waiting alone in utter silence and darkness, not fully understanding what had happened to her captors, not knowing if her grandfather had been given her location, not having any idea what her fate would be.

The rats came that very first night.

Lucy lives with the phantom feeling of curious scratches, and probing whiskers against her skin…

She stayed in that basement for the better part of five days, although she wouldn’t know that until after the fact.

What she did know was that after what seemed like an impossibly prolonged period of isolation, she had a non-rodentian visitor.

Lucy was lying on her side. The rags over her face were mostly gone, but the ropes around her arms and legs were deteriorating at a rate far slower than her own strength. She wasn’t sure she could tear through a sheet of toilet paper by that point.

It was nighttime- she had been able to tell for a little while, since the rats had gnawed off her blindfold and left a narrow slit of a window in the top corner of the wall in her view. She could see the moon.

The moon from its vantage point could also see her.

Something glimmered in her blurry vision, and that blurry glimmer morphed into a humanoid shape.

At that point, the pain from the gnawing and clawing of the rats was gone, though she couldn’t imagine why they would stop. Maybe they hadn’t, and she just couldn’t feel them anymore. Maybe this was the end.

“I’m so sorry,” said a voice, that she was too tired and delirious to be startled by. Something other than a rat touched her arm, and she tried to focus her eyes on the shape in front of her, but it remained only a vague light.

“I’m going to help you,” the voice- the shape?- said.

Lucy blinked, which was more work than it should have been.

“Perhaps in the future, you can help me.” There was silence for a moment, and then, “but you need not worry about that just yet.”

The humanoid shape angled itself as if it were examining Lucy carefully.

“Oh you poor thing,” it said. Then the light around it grew until its form was swallowed and distorted by it, until the dingy room disappeared, and the pearly light was all that Lucy could see no matter which way her eyes twitched.

She thought that this glowing might be death, that this being might be here to take her away. But the light faded- though in a matter of seconds, moments, or hours, she could not tell- and she was still in the basement. Something was different though. The light had faded, but everything still seemed brighter than it had been before. She was no longer lying on her side, or bound by ropes. She was still very weak, but she was no longer completely immobilized.

She looked up at the glowing entity, now shrunk back to the size of a regular adult, and in the process of the movement felt that her neck had somehow become elongated. She felt like she was in a half awake dream, where she couldn’t be sure whether or not her body was moving when she willed it to.

“You are now as free as I can make you,” the voice told her. “The rest of it is up to you. Do you understand?”

Lucy didn’t, but she figured that this was a hallucination anyway, so that shouldn’t really matter.

“You may take your leave through the window,” the voice offered.

Lucy frowned at that, and found that changing her expression did not take up as much strength as she had feared it would. The basement had only one window, and it was too small for her to crawl out of. The stairs leading up to the door would be agony to navigate, but that still had to be a surer way out. That was assuming she could move at all, which she still wasn’t ready to bet on. 

She examined both potential exits. If she had her faculties more about her, it might have occurred to her that up until a moment ago she hadn’t been able to hold them both within her line of sight without turning her head, and that it was an inexplicable change for her to be able to do so now. But her mind wasn’t really up to the task of identifying such abnormalities at the moment.

Carefully, she reached for control of one of her newly freed legs- how had they been freed again? She didn’t remember- and tried to kneel, knowing better than to try to stand. She would be crawling out of here if she was getting out at all.

Something strange happened then. The world shifted around her, like it does when one changes positions, but not in the way she had been expecting. She found herself at once on her feet, and still at the level of the ground. Disoriented, she shifted from side to side, and found that the movement felt entirely alien. In fact her whole body felt estranged, not as pained or weakened as it had moments before, and not struggling to move the way she had expected it to, but still not quite right.

It wasn���t until she tried taking a step that she realized the basement she was in seemed to have gotten bigger. She was looking up at as much of it as she had been when she’d been lying on her side, but that couldn’t be right, not if she was really standing up, which she certainly seemed to be.

She moved herself forward, towards the window, even though she’d already decided to try for the door. Each step she took was accompanied by a rubbery thwapping sound. It was a stark contrast from the sharp scuttling of little rat feet, but still not at all the sound she normally made while walking. At some point she found herself sitting on the ledge of the window, despite being positively certain that it had been well out of her reach, and staring out into the night. Up close it certainly seemed like she should be able to fit through it. Maybe some kind of delusion had been- or still was- distorting her perception of things?

There was no screen or glass, only a board of wood covering about a third of the window. Lucy was small enough to duck under that though, and within what seemed equally like hours and seconds she was dropping a few inches onto the ground, and standing on a patch of dead grass.

She turned to look up at the abandoned house that had held her prisoner, and was surprised to see that it was huge. Not huge like a mansion either; it was like a regular house, but for giants, something that was impossible to wrap her exhausted brain around. She turned to the rest of the neighborhood instead. It was all the same. All massive and looming in the dark.

The voice from before, now no longer accompanied by its body of light, departed with a few final words.

“You may have to change back to get help.”

As soon as the voice spoke, Lucy found herself lying in the middle of the street, with everything around her seemingly its proper size again. The brief strength she had had was no longer in her though. It seemed for a moment that her body was just going to give out outside rather than inside. She had the vague thought that that was at least a little better, before slipping into unconsciousness.

The last thing she saw was another light, not pearly and ethereal this time, but the glaring headlights of an approaching vehicle.

They started out so careful around her. She was massive compared to them after all, a real apex predator. Their caution was discarded after some unknown period of time- after they realized she was nothing that posed any threat to them- and their little clawed feet began to scamper over her carelessly…

When Lucy woke up she was in a hospital bed, and her body was full of tubes. Somebody was holding her hand. She tried to squeeze, but wasn’t sure if she managed to accomplish it until the gaze of the woman who was sitting beside her bed snapped onto her face.

“Lucia!” She breathed out, tears heavy in her voice, but not on her face.

“Aunt Elaina,” Lucy tried to say when she recognized the woman- Elaina Byrne, not a blood relation, but a close friend of the mother she’d never known, who’d been around as long as she could remember.

“Don’t try to talk, sweetheart, they have you incubated.”

‘Incubated’ was a worrying word that it took her a few minutes to recall the meaning of. It was another little while before she started to recall what had happened to her, and longer still until she realized that she really had no idea what had happened.

“You had us worried, Lucy.”

Lucy’s own fear hadn’t worn off. In fact, the more awake she became, the more prominently terror was taking hold throughout her body. Crying through the breathing tubes hurt, but she couldn’t get herself to stop.

“Shh…” Aunt Elaina soothed. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You got yourself out! You- you did amazing! You got yourself back to us! It’s okay now. You’re safe. Breath with me, all right? In two three four, and hold two three four, and out two three four.”

Aunt Elaina counted her through every inhale and exhale, until their breaths were coming in sync, and Lucy’s tears began to slow down.

“Good. Good. There you are.”

She brushed some of the hair from Lucy’s face, and Lucy took a moment to let her eyes drift around the room. Her aunt had said ‘us’ a few times, but there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room.

When she tried to voice her question she was shushed again. But she didn’t give up. She couldn’t talk around the tube, but there had to be some way for her to communicate. She did her best to gesture with the one hand she still had some feeling in, hoping that her miming for a pen came across.

“You need to rest,” Aunt Elaina told her.

Lucy shook her head minutely, and tried to speak again.

“Stop that. You’ll hurt yourself… Do you want to know about your grandfather?”

Lucy nodded as earnestly as the apparatus surrounding her would allow.

Aunt Elaina nodded back more slowly, something wary and uneasy passing through her expression.

“He’s been here,” she said steadily.

Something in Lucy relaxed. She knew her grandpa was busy, but it was good that he had at least been able to come.

“He stepped out to take a call.” She glanced at the door. “Would you like me to go and get him?”

Lucy thought about it, and then shook her head as best as she could, and tightened her grip on Elaina’s hand.

Her aunt smiled softly, and gently squeezed back.

“All right. I’ll stay right here then.”

Sometimes the rats in her dreams would start to speak, all in the same shared voice, that always sounded strangely like her grandfather. But the words would devolve back into disparate squeaks before she could decipher anything…

Lucy spent weeks in the hospital before being released. Once she could speak again, she had people coming in to ask her questions. So much of her captivity was a blur in her mind though. And it was difficult to answer anything helpfully. 

For years after the fact, all she would say when asked about her escape was, “I had a dream I was a bird.”

[jmsmagid]

A Timely Intervening

Ryan woke to the phone ringing at 4:32 in the morning. He cracked his knee on the side table getting out of bed, which woke his husband up just long enough for them to both grumble out a curse in unison.

Reaching the source of the disruptive noise in the near total darkness was something of a perilous undertaking, one that had led to several near disasters in his first few months here. But he had had years to acclimate, and now the stairs creaked so familiarly he could almost find his way by the sound alone. He entirely avoided stumbling into another table, and got his hand on the receiver on the first try. Yanking it up to his ear, he made a point of releasing a loud sigh before rousing himself to speak.

“What?”

“Ryan?”

He blinked. That voice was familiar, not that he had expected it not to be, but he certainly hadn’t been expecting-

“Ryan?” His brother-in-law’s voice repeated. “Is that you? You left us the number so long ago. Are you still-”

“Yeah,” he finally managed to get out. “Yes. It’s me.”

Something that sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief echoed in his ear, a sound which left him feeling confused and unnerved.

“It’s Cal,” the other man said.

“... Yeah,” he managed, almost laughing at the mundanity of the introduction.

“Yeah,” Cal echoed. “... Listen. I know we don’t talk a lot…”

Ryan didn’t stop himself from scoffing out a laugh at that.

“I wonder whose fault that could possibly be!”

“Well you'd be the one who moved without leaving a forwarding address.”

“Because you people gave us such a good reason to trust you with that information.”

“Listen,” Cal pleaded.

“To what? What are we breaking over a decade of silence to discuss?”

“When did it start?”

Ryan stifled a yawn. 

“When did what start?”

“Y'know, the stuff.” He sighed. “You said that that man- Warren?- Larry?”

Ryan frowned. He didn’t like his family talking about his husband. But he helped Cal to what he was looking for anyways.

“Lawrence.”

“Lawrence!” he repeated. “That was it! And you said he wasn’t always, you know, that he didn’t always have that- that curse of his, just, w-what exactly did you say it was that happened to him?”

“Nothing happened to him, you ignorant...” he bit his lip. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.” He sounded like he was about to cry. “Were there signs, when he was younger, that he was, well, the way he is?”

“Uh, yeah.” He rubbed his forehead. “From the time he was little, they said he'd react to things that weren’t there, just the same as he would to things that were. Cal, why?”

There was no answer.

“Why?” He wasn't keeping his voice down anymore, and he was pretty sure he could hear Lawrence moving to get up above him. “Cal, you really have to tell me-”

“It’s Shane.”

The mention of his nephew brought a horrified crashing feeling into his chest. The hardest part of moving to Lawrence’s home in the northern settlements all those years ago had been sacrificing the chance to be a part of his sister’s children’s lives, knowing the kinds of people he was leaving them to be raised by. Last time he saw Shane he’d been just a baby.

“My son,” Cal continued. “He- he’s getting worse. His curse-”

The crashing in Ryan’s chest amplified to drown out whatever Cal said next. When he spoke next he didn’t know whether or not he was cutting Cal off, he didn’t care.

“Shane’s inherited the gene?”

There was a sound on the other end of the phone, a strained approximation of speech, that it took Ryan a few seconds to read as an affirmative. When he spoke again his own voice was none too steady.

“How long have you known?”

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the slightly incredulous “we’ve known for years,” that he got as a reply. That nearly brought his heart to a stop.

“It’s getting worse. Marianne ’s scared, and-”

“No!” Ryan said. He knew what his sister was like when she was scared. “Cal, listen to me, do not let her do anything.”

“I don’t exactly control her-”

“We’re coming over!” He decided. “We’re getting in the truck. We’ll be on our way in less than an hour. We’re coming, okay, just do not let her do anything until we get there.” He was already feeling around in the dark for his shoes and jacket.

“Do you even know where we are?” Cal asked.

“Are you not where we left you?”

Cal let out a nervous laugh.

“Marianne ’n the kids’ve lived in over a dozen different cityships since you left Learden. Today’s the first time they’ve been back here since the kids were real little.”

“What!?”

“Well she hasn’t wanted anyone to find out about him, so-”

“You just let her take your children?!”

“They’re her children too. What was I supposed to do?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?”

“Ryan, you know I’m not like you-”

“No! Not acceptable! You said they’re back in Learden now?”

“They are,” Cal confirmed. “But-”

“We’ll be there by tomorrow. Don’t you dare let those children out of your sight before we get there!”

He hung up without waiting for a reply, and ran into Lawrence halfway up the stairs. He barely had to say a word. They were out the door twenty minutes later.

* * * * * * * *

It was a journey that neither of them had been expecting to make again. Half dressed, running on adrenaline, and shivering from the tense cold, they made their way over winding dirt trails, and out of the settlements.

A few hours through the forest, they passed into a region where the trees stopped growing leaves, and started growing little winged insects that bunched in chrysalises, and would emerge every autumn in time to migrate south. It was a remarkable occasion when the glittering, chittering swarms finally burst forth, though it rendered  a wide patch of woodland uninhabitable for months every year. The region stretched on for a few leagues, and led them out into the open field that sprawled across the forest’s southern doorstep.

The bulk of the trip took them over these grasslands, which on a good day were blessedly silent, and empty as the open ocean. The closest thing they passed to a landmark out there was a silhouetted range of mountains in the distance. Centuries ago, a previously unheard of variety of radiation had weakened their stone, so that now when the wind was strong enough they would sway back and forth.

The far off outlines of the wavering mountains marked around the halfway point of their trip.By the time they finally reached the imposing manorial city that was their destination, the sun had not only risen, but was starting to set.

They got out of the truck and slammed the doors. Ryan had already stopped making regular visits to his sister’s place well before moving away from their home city. That didn’t mean he had to rack his brain to remember the route to the house she’d left her husband in. Some things stayed in the mind forever.

The door to the place was unlocked. Of course it was unlocked. There were walls here, and rules, and guards, and every security they could convince you was necessary. Why would any door need to be locked in such a safe place?

Lawrence led the way in. The interior of the house was unnaturally dark for so early in the evening. No lights were on on the first floor, and the curtains were thick enough to mask the last luminations of the day.

It was far from silent though. They could hear the shouting before they were all the way inside. And once the door was shut behind them there were other sounds, loud breathing coming from nearby. Ryan moved toward the hall closet, while Lawrence turned in the opposite direction.

“I’m going to cut the phone line, make sure she can’t call anyone from the cityship, if she hasn’t already.”

They passed by each other, and Ryan opened the closet door. The frantic breathing grew louder as he knelt to face the adolescent hiding behind it.

“Shane?” he whispered.

The boy’s head shot up, and he jerked backwards when he saw Ryan, reaching toward something that was hidden behind a pile of coats.

Ryan quickly put his palms up in front of him.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Who the hell are you?”

It was a fair question, no matter how badly it hurt to hear.

We never should have left. It was the first time that thought formed coherently, though the essence of it had been floating around his head through all the long drive. I would have stayed if I had known.

“I’m your uncle,” he said slowly.

Shane narrowed his eyes.

“I’m here to make sure nothing bad happens to you.”

A crash from upstairs made them both jump.

“Menthia!” Shane screamed, scrambling to stand, pulling what looked like a fire poker up with him.

Ryan stepped back as he stepped forward. When Lawrence came to join them, Shane swung his suspicious glare over onto him.

“You do know us,” Ryan tried to explain. “You won’t remember. But this is Lawrence; he’s like you. Do you know what that means?”

There was a clattering noise from upstairs, and Shane ran past them without a word. They exchanged a brief look before following him into the master bedroom.

The door was already open. Cal was sitting on the bed and rambling nervously, his presence going seemingly unnoticed by the room’s other occupants. Marianne was yelling, and seemed to have thrown the telephone across the room. The young woman yelling back at her was the only one standing in a way that gave her a view of the door. She had dark hair, light freckles, and a row of bands and bracelets on each arm, and she had barely been five years old the last time Ryan had seen her, but her set and determined face hardly seemed to have changed.

“Shane!” She shouted, causing their parents to pause and turn toward the door.

“I told you to stay downstairs!” She said.

“I heard a noise!”

“I wear headphones when you’re the one fighting with Mom, why can’t you do the same?”

“Shane-” Marianne  began.

But before she could continue, Menthia noticed the other newcomers. Her gaze narrowed in on them, and Ryan watched her eyes until he saw recognition come to them.

“Uncle Ryan?”

“You know them?” Shane confirmed.

Menthia looked between the three and nodded.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” Marianne demanded.

“Making sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

Menthia scoffed.

“Where have you been for the last twelve years?”

Shame crept up, temporarily silencing him, even as the teen’s glare dared him to speak. She took a few steps closer, and for a second he wondered if the barrage of fury radiating from her was about to be turned on him. But she stopped once she was between her brother and her parents, and turned back around.

Marianne looked over her head like she wasn’t there, eyes zeroing in on Ryan.

“So neither of us set foot in Learden for over a decade, and then all within the same day we both decide to return? Why are you here, Ryan?”

Cal looked at him pleadingly and shook his head.

“Your husband called me.”

He returned his gaze to the floor as she glared over at him. 

“Ex-husband,” she corrected. “And he had no right to involve you!”

“And what would you be doing right now if he hadn’t?”

“Just what they say you're supposed to,” she reasoned, “the cityship, and the guardians. There's a facility south of here, in Springfield-”

“No!” Ryan found himself chorusing with Lawrence and Shane.

“Jesus Christ, Mom!” Menthia overlapped. “Springfield Manor is a prison!”

“You don’t understand anything,” Marianne dismissed. “Stand. Down.”

“You don’t get to raise us on horror stories about that place and then tell me to ‘stand down’.”

“That was when I thought that we could help him.”

“Oh for crying out loud, Marianne,” Ryan sighed. “He doesn’t need any help. You’re the one who’s terrified of a thirteen year old!”

“Not of him,” she pressed. “For him.”

“That is such bull,” Menthia said.

“You shut your damn mouth,” her mother warned. “I’ve heard more than enough from you tonight, and I will deal with you later.”

Menthia’s spine straightened, and her shoulders pressed back.

“Shane,” she said. “Go back downstairs.”

“Menthia,” he began.

“Why don’t you go with him?” Ryan suggested softly.

She whirled around to face him, and fixed him with a glare so intense he might have shrunk under it if it weren’t for the adrenaline pumping through his veins. She scrutinized him for several long seconds, before nodding once, and pushing past him to reach her brother.

Ryan didn’t turn to watch them go, but he heard thumps of feet retreating down the stairs, and felt Lawrence’s presence fading from behind him. He kept his gaze on his sister as she came closer, shifting his frame to fill more of the doorway.

“You know we want to help? There are people back where Lawrence lives who are like him, who wouldn't let him be taken away.”

Marianne shook her head, and tried to push past him.

“They've brainwashed you. Him too. If Shane goes with you he'll end up like him.”

Ryan moved to block her path.

“Is that so bad that you'd rather he spend the rest of his life locked away?”

“I'd rather him die then let him succumb to the curse the way he has.”

She pushed her way out of the room, and he rushed to follow her down the stairs.

“There is no curse for him to succumb to!” He insisted. “Your son is an Inheritor, there are thousands of them. And you don’t have a choice; I will not let you hurt that child.”

He was just two steps from the bottom when she stopped short and spun around to face him. He finally noticed that Cal had been coming down behind them when he walked right into him.

“My child.” Marianne’s voice cracked. “You're trying to turn me into the villain, Ryan. But I'm not. There's no bad guy here, just a sick kid who shouldn't be around other people for a while.”

“You can’t just take people’s word for that.”

All three of them started and turned when Lawrence spoke, though without moving from their formation on the stairs.

“I know everyone says people like me, people like your son, are dangerous,” he continued calmly. “Has it ever occurred to you to question that?”

Ryan’s eyes scanned briefly for the children, but he couldn’t spot them from where he was.

“Based on what?” Marianne demanded. “Your word? If we can get the guardians over here they're taking you away too.”

A sudden- and somewhat uncharacteristic- protective rage had Ryan shoving her aside, and rushing down the rest of the stairs to Lawrence, catching him in a half embrace. Marianne rushed by them, her frantic footfalls echoing through the house.

“Shane?” She called. “Menthia?”

She circled around the first floor a few times before stomping up to where Ryan and Lawrence were still standing.

“Where are my children?” The half beat of silence that passed was apparently too much for her, because her voice was rising again before any of them could have had time to respond. “Where the hell are my children?”

The question seemed to shake Cal from his daze on the stairs. He rushed down and wound his way around the first floor just as his ex-wife had a moment before.

Marianne was still invading their space, breathing like an enraged animal.

“Cal!” She shrieked.

He responded to her call by rushing past them to throw open the door, running into the street in his pajamas and screaming for help that Ryan couldn't help but think that Cal knew in his heart they didn't need.

Marianne smiled, relieved, vindicated, as easy to read as she had been when they were children.

Learden was a small town. Someone would get here soon and then they would be stuck. It would all be over. 

“We need to go,” Lawrence said under his breath.

Ryan nodded, but didn’t move. He knew that they probably had minutes to get out. He felt confident that the two of them could fight off Marianne. And while he wasn't sure about Cal, it would take some time for him to get back to the house. The truck was closer to them than he was. But where were the kids?

Outside, Cal was attracting more and more attention. Soon enough the gaudy colors and intricate designs of the guardian vehicles would begin to pattern the street.

“We need to go,” Lawrence repeated, in a tone that didn’t leave room for him to do anything besides follow.

Marianne raced after, but there wasn’t exactly anything she could do to reach them once they were in the truck with the doors locked.

“The kids?” Ryan asked under his breath as Lawrence settled behind the wheel.

Lawrence just nodded and started to drive.

Nearby, the first of a handful of guardian officers were filing out of a pair of local vehicles. Ryan watched Cal jogging to meet them, and pointing wildly after their truck. He took some comfort in the knowledge that the cityship’s engines weren’t made to cover anywhere near as great a distance as theirs.

The officers held knives carved from precious stones, and carried weaponized hardware painted with the Learden colors. After a few confused seconds half of them started reloading themselves into one of the vehicles.

“They’re coming up behind us,” he observed. “Turn up here.”

“What? Why?”

“If they think we’re heading out of town they’ll alert the gate officers. If anyone manages to stop us from leaving it’ll be them. This way’s less direct, but it’ll still get us out.”

He kept looking over his shoulder until it started to make him nauseous. They made a turn, and lost their pursuers for a fraction of a minute. He calmed himself on the confidence Lawrence radiated, and with the knowledge that it was unlikely to occur to anyone within the city that they- or anyone for that matter- might be trying to leave it.

“You have to tell me where to go,” Lawrence said. “I don’t know the city’s layout.”

Ryan refocused on the road ahead, and directed him until they reached the opening in Learden’s outer wall they had passed through earlier that evening. There were guardians stationed at it, as always, but there was no physical barrier to prevent them from exiting. As far as the people of the city, with their limited engines, and even more limited knowledge of the world, were concerned, there was nothing beyond the wall to escape into. Anybody seeking to exit this particular cityship would undoubtedly be headed for another one; and if they were involving themselves with anything unsavory then any cityship could deal with them as well as any other.

As they approached, the officers were preparing to meet with them. Ryan didn’t need to see their faces to know how utterly shocked they were to be sped right past, and left in the dust.

Once they were beyond the wall, he let out a breath that he had been surprised to find himself still holding. The cityship’s guardians were still in pursuit, but out on the open plain that didn’t mean much. Their engine would be dead in its tracks within a few hours; the unfamiliar ground and grass beneath their wheels would wear them down to worthlessness well before that. And that was all assuming that the guardians wouldn’t just give up on them the second the chase threatened to take them out of view of Learden. People brought up in the cityships that dotted the grasslands and everything south tended not to concern themselves with things that happened too far beyond their own walls. The chase would continue for a while, but the threat was gone.

“Where are the kids?” Ryan asked again.

“Underneath the fake floor in the bed. The second we got downstairs she told him to get his bag, and asked me where they could hide.”

Ryan looked uselessly over his shoulder.

“We’ll stop and let them out once we’ve run out the city’s engine.”

He nodded to indicate the shrinking speck of a vehicle still chasing them.

* * * * * * * *

It was the middle of the night when they finally slowed down. They hadn’t quite reached the forest that protected the settlements, but they were far enough north that no one would be running into them on their way to or from any city.

They came to a smooth spot in the flat and empty expanse, and Ryan hopped out of the hub of the car to jiggle open the false floor of the truck bed.

His niece and nephew jolted at the sudden change. She went from lying on her side to kneeling upright in a single, seemingly instantaneous movement, her headphones dropping to hang around her neck, but still playing just loudly enough for the impression of music to reach him where he stood. For a second there was a gun in her hand, but she seemed to recognize him quickly enough to lower it before he had a chance to react.

Shane had stayed lower, crouched like an ancient world tiger, and tensed in a manner that might have been threatening if it weren’t for the giant backpack making him visibly topheavy.

There was also an overstuffed duffle bag sitting in the truck bed, and a few empty chip bags.

They stared at each other for several seconds. Menthia’s eyes stayed on Ryan as she climbed out of the truck. Once she was on the ground he offered a hand to Shane to help him down. All the while Lawrence was watching them from the open door.

“You kids okay?” Ryan asked after a minute.

Shane looked over at his sister, eyes wide and nervous.

“We’re okay,” she confirmed.

“Good… good. Uh, let’s get you two situated a little more comfortably-”

“Where are we going?” Shane interrupted.

Ryan looked past their heads to where Lawrence was sitting. The kids followed his gaze, shifting to keep both adults in view.

“The cityships’ reaches don’t extend as far as the woodlands. There are settlements amongst the trees where we’ll be safe.”

“I’d like to clarify that we’re on the same page about what that means,” Menthia said.

There was a bite to her voice that Ryan had to force himself not to be reminded of her mother by. He nodded at the question, and leaned against the truck.

“You, uh, remember your Uncle Lawrence?”

Menthia looked over at him, nodding slowly, then whipped her head back.

“We wouldn’t be here if I didn’t remember you.”

“Right. Well, do you remember when we left? You were very young. I don’t know if-”

“I do.”

“Right,” he repeated. “Well the reason I had to leave Learden- leave you- to be with him, was because he wasn’t safe in the cityships.”

“Because he has the curse,” Shane provided. “Like me.”

“It isn’t a curse,” Lawrence cut in, coming forward a few paces to join them. “There’s a gene that I inherited from an ancient ancestor, someone who lived back before the cataclysm, that’s resurfaced in me- like it’s resurfaced in you- after generations of dormancy.”

“A gene,” Shane repeated. “Well where does it come from? What is it that made it ‘surface’ in me? Wh-”

His sister put a hand on his arm to cut him off.

“What is it about this forest that makes it safe for people with this gene?” She asked.

“I think it might mean more to ask what it is about the cityships you know that make them unsafe,” Lawrence offered.

“Can you just answer the question you know I’m asking?” She snapped.

Lawrence smiled.

“What I’m trying to say is that what you know isn’t the norm. No one would think to call an Inheritor ‘cursed’ outside the cityships. Most of the rest of Terrestria is so full of beings and things that are a hell of a lot stranger than you and me. In the northern settlements, people understand what we are.”

Shane looked at Menthia.

“Understanding what I am sounds pretty good.”

“Where would we live?” She asked. “With you?”

“...If you wanted to,” Ryan said, after a short silent conference with Lawrence.

“Okay, so how much have you actually thought this through?”

This time when he looked up at Lawrence, she did too, scrutinizing them each in turn, eyebrows angled upward expectantly.

Ryan sighed, and propped himself against one of the truck’s back protruding tires.

“We got a call from your dad less than twenty four hours ago saying he was worried about you, and we came as soon as we could.”

Shane’s eyebrows rose above his hairline.

“Dad called you? Really?”

Ryan nodded.

“From the sound of it you hadn’t been back in Learden for long when he did.”

“It was past midnight when we got in. We left Grevlin in a hurry. Something… something happened.”

“Something your mother didn’t feel like sticking around to explain,” Lawrence presumed.

Shane nodded.

“It’s always been like that.”

“Dad doesn’t care about Shane though,” Menthia cut in. “We saw him from the truck, running into the street, crying for help.”

“People are… complicated.” Ryan began, flinching at how simplistic the words sounded, practically to the point of being meaningless. “Sometimes someone doesn’t know what to do because they don’t know what they want. When that happens it can be especially hard to make sense of their actions. Truthfully, I don’t know what made your father pick up the phone and call us. I don’t know what he wanted, or thought he wanted from us, or if he regretted it the second he picked up the phone. I don’t know what made him run out into the street either. I don’t really care; I’m just glad that he made that call, and that we could get to you. To answer your question, Menthia, we’ve barely had time to think, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t fully committed to doing whatever is in our power to keep the both of you safe. All right?”

She nodded stiffly.

“What do you say we get back to the settlements? We- you can decide how you want to go forward from there.”

* * * * * * * *

They were still a few hours out. Ryan sat in the back with the kids for the rest of the ride. His heart still had some slowing down to do before it was back at its regular pace, but getting them out, and being in the open in the night air certainly helped.

“Your dad said you’d been living all over.” He was reluctant to press them, but he wanted to build a clearer picture of how they had gotten to where they were now. “That he wasn’t used to seeing much of you.”

“We used to visit Learden more when we were little,” Shane said. “A couple times a year maybe. More recently it’s been more like every few years. Mom didn’t like going back to the same places more than once. I guess it made her feel like it was more likely someone would find out about me.”

“What was it specifically that was happening that she didn’t want anyone finding out about? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Shane looked to his sister like he was getting permission. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, still drilling the bulk of her attention into Ryan, and shrugged.

“I guess sometimes there were things that weren’t really there, but that I would put there, so it would be like they were there?” He made a helpless gesture. “It’s kinda hard to explain. Sometimes things would move, or happen, and it’s like I would be doing it, but not really… More like I could see how things were happening when other people couldn’t? I don’t know.”

“He moves things,” Menthia offered. “Like with his brain.”

Shane almost looked affronted by the briskness of her explanation. For a second it made Ryan want to laugh. Instead he just nodded, feeling not for the first time that maybe Lawrence should be the one doing this.

“There’s a term you’ll sometimes hear Inheritors use: ‘hallucinogenic telekinetics’. Have you heard it before?”

“No.” Shane pulled out a notebook and scribbled something down. “What does it mean?”

“Lawrence could probably explain it better…”

“Well I know what hallucinogenic means,” Shane said. “And telekinesis, I’ve heard people call it that before. So, is it like, mind powers that make you hallucinate, or hallucinations that give you mind powers?”

“It’s less like one causes the other, and more like a third thing causes both.”

“Something that came from one of my ancestors?”

“Exactly… Lawrence says the hallucinations are your mind’s way of justifying things for itself. It’s hard for people to conceptualize making something float through the air, easier to convince yourself you saw someone or something carrying it. That’s part of what makes it so hard to control; not everyone realizes that it is in their control.”

He and Menthia watched Shane finish scribbling something down.

“Okay,” he let out a shaky breath, and held his pen at the ready.  “Could you go back to the genetics part? What does that mean? Like augmented genetics?”

“Kind of,” Ryan said. “Inheritors came about at around the same time as Augs, within the final century or so of the ancient world. The world of genetic modification was widely ungoverned. Everyone was all eager to have their anatomies remixed, or their germlines reshuffled, so excited to see the latest new strand of DNA that could be added to their own.”

“It’s not like we don’t have Augs in the cityships.”

Ryan dipped his head.

“Sorry, Menthia. I don’t mean to condescend. It’s just in my mind, the two things are so similar. Augs had themselves spliced and molded and remade all those years ago, and it’s carried through to their descendants. Inheritors are the same, except that their mixed up genes skip more generations than they hit.”

“There’s also the small matter of Augs not being psychic,” Menthia said.

“The nature of the original experiments, all those years ago, may have been different,” he conceded.

“I’m an Aug,” Shane said quietly.

“Sort of,” Ryan agreed.

Shane set his notepad down, and stared into the space in front of him for several seconds, before starting to laugh. He buried his face in his hands, and laughed until he doubled over on himself, then kept laughing until he started to cry.

* * * * * * * *

It was nearing daybreak when they reached the treeline. Shane had calmed quickly, no thanks to Ryan’s lamentable efforts to soothe him, and after a while had fallen into an uneasy sleep. Menthia stayed up, trading off watching the other two, her brother’s head a dead weight on her shoulder.

He woke up when they were in the forest, and seemed startled by the change in environment. In fact both kids became more alert amongst the trees, suddenly watching the world passing around them with intent fascination. The slight change in mannerism made them seem somehow younger, closer to their actual age.

Once in the forest, it didn’t take them long to reach the settlements. Their community unit was the third in from the west, bordered on three sides by small lakes, and cross woven by dirt roads.

They left the truck in a small engine yard, and brought the children to the cabin that had been their home for the past eleven years. The exhaustion hit him as they were walking in.

“There’s a spare room down here.” He tried and failed to stifle a yawn. “We can get the beds made up for you.”

“We can do that,” Menthia offered. “You should rest. We can talk tomorrow, we’ll still be here.”

He looked at her for a minute, then nodded and went for the stairs.

“Bedding’s in the hall closet.”

Lawrence followed him upstairs. The kids had been going non-stop for even longer than they had. He wouldn’t be surprised if they slept for the next week.

But then he came back down a few hours later- determined to force himself to remain someone who slept at night and stayed awake during the day- and Menthia was at their high kitchen table. There was a partially unfolded map beside her, and an arrangement of dirty plates and empty coffee mugs in front of her, none of which had been there the previous night.

She looked up when he cleared his throat, and stared for several seconds, before saying, “I’m going to clean this up.”

He waved a hand.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She took a bite of her toast, and narrowed her eyes at him. Something about the sudden intensity of her expression, perhaps combined with his own persistent exhaustion, had him fighting to hold back a tired laugh.

“What is it?” She demanded.

“Nothing. I- nothing.” He pulled up a stool a respectable distance from her. “What are you working on?”

“Just wanted to make sure I know where we are.”

He glanced at the map, mostly hand drawn, but done over a faded representation of the region from centuries earlier. A scribbled key in the bottom corner showed indicators for various kinds of danger.

Extreme Environmental Conditions

Mutant Wildlife

Cults & Fanatics

Something newly relabeled ‘Inheritor Hunters’

“Have you slept at all?” He asked.

She took a long sip of coffee.

“You’re safe here,” he tried. “Nothing’s gonna get you.”

“Yeah, I noticed most of the hardware on your doors looks like it’s been upkept pretty well, and your floor joists are set in triangles; that’s good for stability.”

“My joi- Were you under our house?

She looked dubiously at him as she finished her toast, waiting until she was mostly done chewing to reply.

“… Yes?”

As if she didn’t quite understand why he was asking.

They stared at each other, each patently waiting for the other to offer some kind of explanation.

“You don’t do house checks?” She asked eventually. “When you go places with Lawrence? That’s the first thing we do, every place we’ve ever been. How else do you know it’s safe?”

“Well like I said last night, there’s not really anyone threatening him around here.”

Menthia rolled her eyes.

“I mean how do you know the house could stand up to it? If he had an episode, or whatever you wanna call it?”

Oh. Ryan finally understood.

“And has that-” he began, then thought better of the question. “That’s happened. Shane’s disrupted the integrity of houses you’ve lived in.”

Menthia looked down and away, rubbing her thumb around the handle of her coffee mug.

“I mean he hasn’t brought buildings down or anything, but nudged beams around, shifted the workings of what’s going on inside the walls, messed with electrical systems, you know. I noticed you didn’t have alternating locks, so I installed mine. I wanted to ask you about the lumber this place is made of. Do you know how old it was? I’ve got no idea why, but for some reason wood from trees with roots in the ancient times does a better job holding up against the mutant fauna.”

“Slow down for a sec,” Ryan implored, then held his breath for a moment, because what the hell was he supposed to say right now? “So you-?”

“He can’t undo alternating locks in his sleep by accident,” she explained, as if that was all there was to explain.

Ryan nodded slowly.

“Riiiight… So, wherever you go, you do a ‘house check’, you change out the locks-”

“Mom always liked to get a rundown of a building’s history when we could, or plans for it if we could…” She paled as she trailed off, eyes drifting to an empty spot on the table.

He waited for her, watching out of the corner of his eye as she carefully set her expression, and tightened the corners of her jaw.

“Menthia?” He prompted after giving her a minute.

Her head snapped up.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

He fought back the urge to apologize right back to her, sensing that it wouldn’t be well received.

“You do all this before you go to sleep in a place?” He asked instead.

She shrugged.

“Gotta make sure nothing happens. So that no one’ll find out.”

“So you still haven’t slept yet.” This time it wasn’t a question.

“I’ll get around to it.”

“There’s a question that I have to ask you,” he said, because there would never be a good time for this. “I want to make sure you get that I’m asking because I need to know, not because I’m planning on passing it around to anyone. It might help me in figuring out how best to help the pair of you.”

“Shoot.”

Ryan sighed deeply, leaning one arm onto the table.

“You talk about making sure nobody finds out. Is that all the precautions are for?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

The dark understanding that had flooded Menthia’s eyes as he’d spoken somewhat undermined the question. He humored her with a clarification anyway.

“Has Shane ever hurt anyone?”

Menthia was already shaking her head before he could finish.

“No.”

“I don’t mean on purpose-”

“No.”

“But if anything ever happened-”

“It hasn’t.”

“It would be okay to tell us.”

“Stop it!” Menthia struck the table so hard the vibration reached where Ryan was leaning. “I said he hasn’t!”

The panic in her eyes and voice said something different, but he wasn’t enough of a fool to press the issue further. He nodded.

“Okay.”

Menthia got up, and was starting to gather her dirty dishes.

“You don’t have to do that,” he told her. “I’ll deal with it later.”

He wasn’t sure if she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the running sink, or if she was just ignoring him. Either way he was at a continuous loss on what to do next.

It was a bit of a relief when Shane entered the kitchen before she was finished cleaning up. Unlike his sister, he had changed since arriving, into a t-shirt and a pair of striped pajama pants. Ryan recognized the blanket he was currently wearing like a cape as something from their linen closet. He smiled uncertainly at Ryan, and took a seat next to him.

Ryan waited for the water to stop running before speaking.

“I was planning to offer to get breakfast. We don’t have much to cook with at the moment, but there’s a pastry shop down the road. I know Menthia’s eaten already, but I’d still be happy to head down there.”

The kids looked at each other, calculating, like they were deep into consideration of all possible pros and cons of the proposal.

“I’m going to go,” Ryan decided.

“All right,” Shane said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. When I get back, we can talk about what the two of you plan to do next.”

* * * * * * * *

By the time he had walked to the bakery and back, Lawrence had gotten up, and Shane had gotten dressed. The three of them were sitting around the table. Menthia was drinking what had to be her third or fourth cup of coffee, while the other two talked animatedly.

“I’ve got donuts!” He announced, making a point of fastening the absurdly intricate lock that Menthia had installed once he was inside.

“And for this I love you,” Lawrence said.

Ryan kissed him on his way to grab a stack of plates, listening to Menthia and Shane echoing their thanks while his back was turned.

“I think we have a lot to discuss,” he said as he finally sat down.

There was a general murmur of distracted agreement, as the other three looked over the contents of the box he had brought back.

He had spent the majority of his walk thinking over what he was going to say, how he was going to say it, and even after prolonging the journey with a few laps around the outside of the house he felt unprepared.

“Obviously you’re under no obligation to stay here, but you’re certainly welcome- will always be welcome.” His eyes shot over to Lawrence, seeking confirmation that what was coming out of his mouth wasn’t horrendously wrong. The single nod he received calmed him like nothing else could.

Across the other axis of the table, the children were exchanging looks of their own.

“We were going to leave,” Shane said. “Once we realized that Mom was thinking seriously about Springfield. We were going to…” He looked over at his sister.

“We were planning to take the car,” she filled in. “We were waiting for a chance.”

“Where were you going to go?” Lawrence asked.

“We were going to keep going like we had been,” Menthia said. “Bouncing between cityships. Just with only two of us this time.”

“We drove a city engine,” Shane explained. “It would have taken us weeks to reach up here in that thing, not that we knew there was anything up here to reach.”

“Yes,” Ryan said. “I noticed that your map didn’t show much more in the way of modern landmarks than the region around the cityships. That’s something we can help you with, getting your hands on books that’ll give you a broader picture of the world, give you a broader sense of what your options are.”

“Are there books about the curse too?” Shane asked.

“You mean the inheritance?” Lawrence confirmed. “Yes. Though I don’t think there are any that will teach you as much as a fellow Inheritor can.”

“Are there many of you- of us here?”

“Our numbers might be a little higher here than on average, what with so many coming up from the cityships, but it’s not like there are that many of us in total. I’d say maybe a couple hundred dispersed amongst the different community units.”

“And you could introduce me to them?”

“Definitely some of them.”

He gave each of the other three a wide eyed look, the last of which landed on his sister.

“You wanna stay?” She asked.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, eventually answering a slow, drawn-out, “yes…”

Then after a moment.

“Is that bad?”

Menthia shook her head.

“It’s not like there’s an obvious alternative presenting itself right now.”

The rest of them seemed to come to a silent agreement to not address the irritation in her voice at that particular moment.

Shane angled himself to face Ryan and Lawrence.

“Then we can stay?”

“Of course you can say,” Lawrence said.

“For as long as you need.”

[jmsmagid]

Angel Traders

A rushing of wind slides over cobblestone, and whistles through the narrow pathways between merchant carts. It sets off chimes, and drags a rattling percussion of pebbles and sticks across the ground to accompany them. It’s Market day, and the vendors who come to trade- they call themselves Angels- brave the wind, and the rain that blows horizontally, to stake their claims to prime spots. They mark their territories with vibrant canopies, but display no wares on their intricately carved tables.

Shoppers who have been waiting for this day since the close of last month’s Market hem themselves along the cutoff points of a dozen and a half different streets and roads that the traders have nestled themselves at the intersection of. Shoppers whose disinterest in the Market, and whose distaste for the Angels has long been made publicly known, linger a little farther away. They glance surreptitiously over their shoulders, and say “Oh my, was that today?” to nobody in particular.

Curving around the Marketplace, like a distant protector, is a line of homes raised up like mountains. Designated for the city’s elites, the estates occupy a somehow at once steadfast and fleeting place in the minds of those living within their sights. The structures are a great point of pride for many people who had no hand in their construction. The outer walls covered to the last square inch with carved murals elevate the sophistication of the city. Towers and turrets, tinted such a pure shade of blue that looking upon them once could forever ruin any other iteration of the color, make the monument impossible to forget. There is a fantasy that takes automatic root in the minds of all those who behold the grandeur, an indulgent thought that they might someday have the fortune to call such a place home.

There can be no doubt that the place is well loved. But it is not so well known. There are those whose minds might drift to linger on the beauty of the crescent of houses, and the fantasy of a life there every day, who have never given a moment’s thought to its current residents. If asked for information on them, most citizens will admit that there is nothing that they know, but few if any will respond that there is nothing that anyone knows.

Those rare few who give the matter any thought might reason that the interior of any structure with such a sublime outer view must surely be equally grand. Perhaps even grander? Perhaps the godly colors and transcendent shapes that they show to the world are mere scraps compared to what they keep for themselves. If that is the case, then what reason would they have to come out? The other thought that is sometimes spared for the city’s noble class is that perhaps they simply don’t exist. The evidence for this theory- though no one has ever requested that any be presented- would be the absence of any specific indication that they do exist. The city’s shining glory could well be a hollow shell- perhaps waiting to be filled, some will think hopefully. What the people know for sure is that the path linking the edifice to the crossroads is the only one for miles that remains untrodden on Market days. And that’s just as well to them. Anyone in attendance will readily tell you that the place is far too crowded already.

From the moment it opens the vendors are swarmed. Visitors from afar slide and slip on the rain-slicked rock, while the city’s natives pass them by with grips affixed to the bottoms of their shoes. The shoppers who have waited with baited breath, and the ones who proudly tote their disinterest become indistinguishable in the din. Thousands of voices in dozens of languages raise in a cacophony not even the wind can be heard above. The intersection becomes a mass of pulsating energy. But Angels are cool headed creatures. They straighten themselves up. They smooth down their hair. If they have mouths, then they smile. They are open for business.

The first fortunate customers to arrive at each empty table, do so huffing from the fight to get there. They stand in front of the vendors, with no goods, no money on them, and they begin to make their offers.

An eye for a leg, a hand for a foot, a tooth for a toe, and if they deem the proposed trade to be a favorable one, the Angels oblige.

A man offers up one of his two remaining fingers in exchange for an eleventh eye. A pair of girls enlist the aid of an Angel to facilitate the exchange of an eye between them, and wear each other’s as a proud display of their friendship. A mother searches desperately for a leg to replace her son’s mangled one. She’ll give anything of her own in return.

The crossroad bustles.

Noon breaks, and the rays stretching down from the sun are still silvered by the fog. Midday marks the emergence of new merchandise. Crates and cages take up residence on the once empty tables. A sense of giddiness begins to flit through the tightly pressed crowd, as draped canvases, and darkened screens are moved aside to make the reveal.

Animals: the most effective means of storing spare parts. There was a time when Angels kept their wares in boxes and storerooms, spent every spare moment attending to their condition, and still lost merchandise to decay. The rather ingenious solution came about several decades back, when under the contract of Angels, select farmers began to breed storage animals.

The change that stemmed from that was remarkable. Suddenly Angels could remove the assumption that they would lose a quarter or more of their stock each month as a factor when they calculated their trades. Better deals came of it.

Better still, the Rots were cleared up. Disposal mounds for body parts that had gone bad had once littered the edges of the farmlands around the city. Travelers from far off lands had begun to consider them a staple of the country, and would only travel through it wearing masks with scented herbs stitched inside. The problem of them was once thought to be an unsolvable one.

The new storage practice also gave rise to an unexpected trend. Interspecies trades were once so rare as to have been almost completely unheard of. But the days of that are long in the past. Today a quarter or more of those browsing the Market have come for wings, or horns, or gills.

Beneath a red and gold awning a deer with no antlers watches the crowd through two sets of eyes, neither the ones it was born with. At one booth a bird with one wing eats seeds from the palm of its own hand. One Angel has just brought out a tank full of reptiles with human skin in place of their scales.

A man with aspirations of flight pushes his way through the Market. A single pair of wings would hardly be enough to hold him in the air, so he will have to collect hundreds. This will likely take months, if not years, and he worries that some of the wings he has at home already will rot and die before he can see the mission through. Once he has enough- if he ever has enough- he will need to enlist the aid of an Angel to stitch them all together, and fit them onto his back. If he has to locate an Angel outside of Market season, then that will be a greater undertaking still.

A woman on the other side of the intersection is presented with her own selection of wings. She is not looking to fly though, simply to leave an impression during a visit with seldom seen relatives. She picks out a pair from a cardinal, and trades the vendor for her own ears. “Take care of them,” she says. She will want to trade back in a month or two.

The Market lasts for three days of each summer month, and there isn’t an hour out of those days that offers a break from it. The square is loud and alive, vibrant and awake, even in the warmest light of early morning, even draped in the shawls of heavy night. When the darkness comes fires are lit in pits between the streets. Merchants and customers sprinkle shavings of metal over them to dye the flames. They sacrifice bioluminescent life to stain the outsides of buildings, and spread their insides out between the cobblestone cracks. Lamps are strung up amongst the chimes between the canopies, and their lights peak through sheets of fog and rain to watch the Market-goers. The illumination is a convenience, but not a necessity; if it was pitch black out they would still find a way to make their trades.

The origin of the practice is lost to a hazy past. Some people will say that no one knows how it began. Others will tell stories they’re convinced are true, or make something up on the spot. Some will say outright what everyone truly thinks, which is that it really doesn’t matter.

The second day of Market dawns over a young family, a pair of parents, a pair of children. A little girl is being carried, while her brother squirms his way ahead. He will make his first trade today, a true right of passage. His parents’ friends, and distant relatives have long been whispering their curiosities about what it will be. “Fingers and toes are traditional for a first time.” “I remember for my first I gave my wrist.” “The innkeeper’s girl down the street started with her tongue! Can you imagine?!”

-Of course the innkeeper’s daughter has been deaf from birth, and is quite happy with the extra pair of arms she received in exchange for something as valuable as a tongue.-

The first timer finally gets in front of one of the barren tables- animals are never brought out before noon, and they would hardly be appropriate partners for an initiation trade- and proudly offers his thumb for an extra ear to be placed just behind his left one.

The Angel before him accepts the offer fondly. A thumb, though undoubtedly valuable as fingers go, may not quite be worth what an ear is. But this Angel is a sentimentalist, and knows this trade will be the boy’s first of many.

The intersection is strangled with life, bright, and buoyant, and cutting into the circulation of half the city’s key roadways. Shoppers are spilling over the confines of the Market, in every direction but one.

Go far enough up the road that leads to the higher class housings, and the discord of the Market begins to fade away, until at last the whistle and rattling of the wind can be heard again.

The palatial form casts its shadow away from the Market, as if it isn’t even paying attention. Droplets of rain blow through windows that were opened years ago and never shut. A sumptuous growth of mildew adorns the walls of some rooms, bringing an organic air to their decor, delicately offsetting collections of golden ornaments.

Two truths coexist within the halls of these raised mansions, neither of which anyone in the rest of the city has been made privy to.

The first is that they are empty, as some may have guessed- or perhaps we should say ‘considered’, as ‘guess’ might imply too much intent on the part of the thinker.- And while the interiors are grand, they aren’t any grander than the lodgings of any given one of the country’s lords. It is a disappointment that is greater than if the insides had all been desolate and drab. For the sight of spider webs, and crumbling stone at least would leave a mark on the mind. But no, nothing is here to distinguish these homes, save for the complete lack of non-fungal-based life between their walls.

The second truth is that admission is granted under strict ordinance, and only under very specific conditions. The nobility do not earn their place in the crescent’s manors through great deeds, nor are they born into their positions. The estate is not an inheritance, not a gift. No, residence in the upper echelon is purchased.

From who? No one knows.

By who? No one really knows that either.

There is no good or service in the city, country, or any of the lands beyond that is priced so high. For those who secure themselves a position there, it is the final expense they ever pay, the final trade they ever make.

No one pays much attention when an ambitious neighbor heads out into the world to seek his fortune. Lofty dreams alone can be enough to explain away a sudden absence. And if he doesn't come back? Well, those few who would bother to wonder will reason that he probably found something better, someplace else.

Some never realize that he left, they’re so sure that they saw him just the other day. They recognized his eyes… his profile, his posture. They’re not able to direct you to him per se, but he’s still here. They see enough of him around.

[jmsmagid]

The Down Days

I cancel plans

To stay home peeling off my skin

And pulling out my eyelashes

What is that about?

"Something icky touched me”

Scrape it off

The blood is a byproduct

My hands are rough

So rub them down

The blood is smooth at least

Except my hands aren’t rough

Doing things

Makes me tired

Doing nothing

Makes me tired

The cold?

Makes me tired

The heat?

Makes my skin itch

Gives me a headache

Makes me nauseous

Makes me tired…

Bed early

Bed late

Up early

Up late

Tired

Tired

Tired

Tired

Lying awake

Every night

12 hours of sleep

At least, a day

10 o’clock

Feeling low

Cause what I’m worth

Is what I do

And what I do

Is sleep

[jmsmagid]

Chapter One

An excerpt from chapter one of my YA series

Each morning before the sun could shine down onto the Prax Medical Center it first had to make its tenuous trek up the mountains that lay on the eastern border of the expansive facility. On some days it would be well into the morning before it rose high enough to shine down without any impediment, at which point Mia Smythe would sometimes give guests tours of the grounds.

Mia typically wore a blazer for these occasions, which she thought made her look more professional, though on this particular day it was left open in the front, and so failed to entirely hide the lilac colored dragon on her t-shirt. The sophistication of the blazer was further undercut by the bright, artificial orange of her hair, which she was keeping out of the way with a tight bun.

At 10:34 p.m. she was emerging from the New England pine forest that encircled most of the facility’s eastern side, leading three guests in through a tall gate hidden amongst the trees.

“The oldest part of the Gray Building’s been around since the eighteen twenties,” she was saying. “It’s been restored several times since its construction, and in the seventies Prax began using it as a residential and community meeting building. The hospital itself wasn’t finished until seventy-eight, and the smaller buildings you’re about to see have been put up over the course of the past few decades.” She spoke in a bright tone, what her friends called her ‘tour guide voice’, in stark contrast to the unease and suspicious with which the members of her group were regarding her.

From where she stood this was no ordinary day, but she couldn’t be sure if they knew that. Did they watch the news? Even if they did, they might have easily missed it; there was enough else going on in the world that it seemed nothing was too big to overlook… 

Mia pulled herself back into the present. She reminded herself not to fidget, something she’d scarcely had to do since she was ten, and reordered her thoughts to prioritize the tour. The main part of the facility was just coming into view.

The buildings that she had mentioned were primarily spread out along the forest line. The hospital, a four story high rectangular structure made mostly of steel and glass, was close to where they had entered. The Gray Building was a few dozen yards away, a renovated Victorian manor with new and old nooks and crannies, and several pointed roofs at different heights. The rest of the houses were small and square; none were any taller than one level, and few were more than one room.

Mia could name the residents of each one. She had been in every building on the hospital grounds, and there were none that she couldn’t easily produce short anecdotes or trivia about.

But people didn’t come to The Prax Facility because it was a friendly neighborhood.

Mia stopped part way between the two large buildings. She turned and smiled. No one was smiling back, but after a brief silence the woman closest to her spoke.

“Well at least I can say it’s the largest hospital we’ve seen so far…”

“…It’s a bit more than just a hospital,” Mia said. “We’ve recently filed a petition with the state of Massachusetts to have Prax recognized as a village. If you’re interested, you can read about it on my-”

“-But it’ll need to be more than that if we’re going to entrust you with our son’s wellbeing.”

There was a boy about Mia’s age standing between the two adults, staring down at his shoes over the heavy copy of Joanna Prax’s Understanding Elthentity that Mia had given to him when they arrived. She let her gaze rest on him for a minute before she continued on.

“The nature of the hospital’s specialization has built a real sense of community here, and ensures Prax’s place at the forefront of its field. There’s really no other place that compares when it comes to finding new treatments for Elthentity specific ailments.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” the woman said. “Each and every place thinks it’s the best. And we care more about getting Sean better and back home than we do about whatever team bonding exercises your staff might run here.”

Mia’s thoughts had been beginning to drift. She thought of all those other members of her community here, wondered how many of them had heard the day’s news. She thought of those who she was most eager to discuss it with: her friend Michael, Polly Ashe who ran the tutoring program for residential patients… 

Once again she had to make an effort to recenter herself in the moment. She inhaled and shifted the way her hands were held in front of her.

“Well we’re certainly the only facility on this side of the country that specializes in the Elthentity condition,” she said.

If he’s going to get better at all it’s going to happen here. She didn’t say it. She could have. She thought about it. But she didn’t. She barely had time to feel proud of herself for her restraint before the mother cut in again.

“Don’t think we haven’t done our research, Ms. Smith. Our son’s health is important to us. We know Prax’s record. Many of your patients find themselves coming back here after being released don’t they?”

Mia nodded through the mispronunciation of her name, wondering if she could get the tour going again if she just continued walking. Since they had stopped in their little circle she had become acutely aware of the silence between their words, the blades of grass poking through the openings in her sandals, and the sunlight raising up high enough to threaten her eyes. She was eager to conclude this chapter of her day and move on to the next. She took another deep breath and separated her hands.

“Unfortunately patients with the particular conditions that our doctors specialize in treating tend not to get single fast releases from anywhere. So yes, many of them do return for check-ins, or after realizing that they’re flaring up again. Then there are plenty who choose to shift over to us for their primary care if they’re able to. Besides that you have to look at the fact that nearly thirty percent of Prax patients end up returning as staff, which we’ve noticed helps to ensure a certain quality of care.”

The woman watched Mia skeptically. “We visited a doctor in Pennsylvania whose patients never return once he has them released.”

“I can’t speak to that, ma’am. Maybe you want to talk to one of our doctors. Unfortunately, Dr. Prax herself is away in D.C. at the moment, but I can take you into the medical center to see who else might be available. Or if you’d rather we could check out the residential accommodations.” She looked over at Sean, who was still looking at his shoes. “There are a lot of young people here,” she said. “There’s a very active community of residential youths. The tutoring program is really one of the best of its kind, if falling behind on your academics is something that you’re worried about.”

“It’s awfully depressing to think about children making a home in a hospital,” the mother said.

“I understand where you’re coming from with that,” Mia said. “You’re right. But like I was saying before, our facilities provide more than just medical treatment. Not everyone who’s here is only here because they need to be for their health, and the ones who aren’t can help the ones who are to feel more like they’re still part of the world. I’m not sick enough to need round the clock access to care anymore, but doing volunteer work here has provided me with access to so many other kinds of resources that most people like us don’t get.” Her eyes flickered to Sean.

“How do your parents feel about all the time you spend here?” His mother asked.

Mia shifted her smile and silently huffed. “I have a position at an internationally recognized facility, and I receive private tutoring that they don’t have to pay for. They don’t have to worry about my health, and they don’t have to worry about my education. My parents are thrilled.”

She refrained from verbalizing the curiosity that had plagued her for the past several years regarding just how much of that thrill was actually relief at not having to care for a seemingly continuously sick child. It generally didn’t do her any good to dwell on personal matters when she was giving orientations.

Sean’s parents exchanged looks that embodied nothing remotely resembling thrill or relief.

Mia continued. “Is there something particular you’d like to see next? Or are there any other questions I can answer?”

“Questions,” Sean’s mother said. “Yes. We have those. But I don’t know how many of them you can answer.”

“Well I can tr-” Mia began.

Sean’s father interrupted. “I think I’d like to talk to someone who knows a little more than this young lady- no offense, honey.”

“Oh none taken,” She paused before adding “dear,” then continued before they could register and respond to the endearment. “There are doctors here who are experts in your son’s condition; and I admit to not being one of them. I’m sure if we go inside we’ll be able to find someone else willing to meet with you.”

“What do you say?” The man asked.

The woman turned to her son. “What would you like to do, Sean?”

He shrugged. His mother sighed and turned to Mia.

“I think we’d like to see the inside of this specialized hospital you’ve been boasting about.”

“Of course! Right this way.”

She led them back along a path they had already trodden over, thrilled to be in motion again. The anxious tingling that had been with her all day still remained, but the reverberance of each footfall throughout her body did as much to distract from it as she figured anything could.

“And before I forget,” she said as they walked. “You should take these.” She pulled a pair of cards from her pocket and passed them backwards to Sean and his parents. “In case you have questions that come up later on. Those have my professional email, phone number, and Elthconnect information on them. Reach out to me on any of those and I should get back within a few days.”

She pretended not to notice the woman behind her folding the card in half before shoving it into her pocket.

“What’s that last one?” The father asked.

“Elthconnect?” Mia repeated. “It’s a social network that puts Elthentity people in touch with each other. I recommend making an account. I’ve found some great resources through it.”

He made a noncommittal sound as Mia led them through the entryway of the facility’s main building. A gust of strong air from the ventilation system welcomed them in, and Mia waved to a pair of men who were talking over the front desk, before turning back to her charges and gesturing them toward one of the nearest halls.

“Right this way.”

The tour of the building was much shorter than the tour of the grounds had been. There were only so many parts of it that Mia had free access to, and after a while the parents began shooting suspicious looks at the patients who sometimes passed by them in the hall.

She was relieved when eleven o’clock came and she was able to hand them off to one of the nurses and head back to the Gray Building. It was all fine and good to be doing whatever she could to help out the facility’s overworked staff, or make things easier for the new patients, but engaging with people like Sean’s parents always left her feeling drained.

[jmsmagid]

Ethedarianism

Dare I become content in my world?

As the sky fills its Lungs

And Breaths one day into the next

Dare I to let out my Breath?

Should I seek to find comfort here

When Here may in an instant disappear

How solid can the ground be?

How lasting the clouds?

How long before a whisper

Grows horribly loud?

Laws manmade will come and fade

The wider world’s rules may be much the same

I won’t claim to have lived long enough

To see them change

But transformations may occur outside my sight’s range

What if you should fall at ease in this moment?

Just when it turns itself to dust

I would not promise I would not laugh

You could not say you were unwarned

[jmsmagid]

The Brain

A short story

You’re standing in a room. You’re pretty sure of it at least. You can’t see any walls, or a floor, or ceiling, or anything with a definitive beginning or end to it. But how would your footsteps be echoing the way they are if there was nothing solid beyond you for them to bounce off of?

You’re standing in a circle. There is a boy to your left, a girl to your right, each offers you a hand. As you take them you notice a sphere hovering above you. It glows, and pulsates, and hums, and you recognize it. The children’s grips tighten on yours and you look between them, though they are difficult to see.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“I am you,” they say, pulling your hands up to touch to the sphere.

It’s cold, and burning, and soft, and vibrating.

And then things change.

You’re standing in a room. This time there’s no doubt of it. The floor and walls are as solid as anything. It’s large and empty. The floor is tiled. It shines like it’s just been washed, and a cold fog rises from it, obstructing your view of everything below your knees. The fog smells like cleaning product.

There’s a window right across from where you’re standing. It stretches up past the ceiling, down past the floor, and far out into the distance in every other direction. You can’t see any place where it ends; it’s as if it’s there to show you everything.

You go toward the window, light filtering in from it clears some of the mist. There’s a pen in your hand. You peer out and see the world. Then you lift up the pen and move it toward the glass, ready to write that you see the world. But a hand stops you. You feel its long fingers wrapping around yours and prying them open. You turn to see a tall creature looming over you. Its spindly body is wrapped in wet cloth. Only a few patches of skin, and a wide, lipless mouth poke out from under it.

As soon as it appears the world you see becomes its world. It slides between you and the window with ease, raising your pen to the nice clean glass. It does not occur to you to try to stop it.

‘I could jump through this window,’ it writes. ‘I could scream. I could shout. I could leave… and never come back.’

“But why would you?” you ask.

The creature does not respond.

‘I am hated,’ it writes instead. ‘I am horrid.’

The script the words are written in imprints itself against the inside of your eyelids. It will probably be there until you die.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“I am you,” it says. Its voice is a thousand times louder than you were expecting. It hits you like a rushing wind and sends a sharp hissing sound into your body. It pushes out against the inside of your skin, and you shatter like glass and reform a thousand times. 

You go to cover your ears, but there’s no blocking out the things that happen in this place. Nowhere is more inescapable.

After the creature speaks it turns back to the window.

‘Where did you come from?’

You try to ignore it, to focus on the window instead. You try to take in the world through the gaps between the thickly lettered words. But taking in the world is a very difficult thing to do without a pen.

You make a feeble reach for it.

‘Where did you go?’ the creature writes.

“Can we not do this now?” you ask it.

‘Where did you come from?’

You grab the pen before it can write again. You hear the grinding clacks of its finger bones jostling against each other as its hand and yours collide. The noise sits in your ears even after its faded from the air. It’s a sound that crawls down the sides of your neck and drums against your shoulders.

You find a patch of clear window and go to make your first mark on it.

But then the creature catches up to you. You don’t remember a struggle but suddenly it has the pen in its hand again. This time when you take a step toward it you’re shoved backwards, and sent sliding across the silvering floor.

Your head falls toward the fog’s level. It cracks against the floor, and the mist rushes forward to be breathed in, to blur your eyes, and clog your ears.

You think you hear the dampened air whisper.

“I am you.”

Even when you regain your footing the fog encircling your head rises with you. Now only what can filter through it is able to reach you.

You look to the window, to where the world is, and through the fog it is far too bright. And with fog in your ears it is far too loud. The fog in your body hates the touch of cold, almost as much as it hates the touch of warmth. Through it you see the terror and discomfort of the world.

You try to blink your vision clear, try to shake the fog from your head, cough it out of your lungs. But none of that can be done.

You want to think more clearly. Or maybe to see, hear and feel things less clearly. You aren’t sure. You’d need your pen back in order to experience sureness.

But the creature still holds it.

The creature still writes.

‘Cotton-eye Joe.’

“Why?” you ask. Your voice sounds strange. You can’t tell if it’s been changed by the mist, or if your ears have.

The creature shrugs.

‘Do you want to die?’

“No,” you say.

‘Why not?’

It watches you for a while, then seems to grow bored when you don’t reply.

‘We should put sand in our mouth,’ it writes.

“No we shouldn’t,” you tell it.

You’re becoming very tired.

‘Do you see that man?’ it asks.

You peer through the window. You do see a man. You nod.

‘He’s going to try to kill you.’

“No he’s not,” you say, but you have your doubts.

‘Oh yes he is. And you’re going to have to pull the skin off your thumbs and wash your feet in boiling water if you don’t want him to succeed.’

You’re silently added: pull skin off thumbs, and wash feet in boiling water onto your to-do list when the squeaking of the pen climbs up your spine, and demands your attention again.

‘What about that man?’ The creature points to another figure beyond the glass.

“Do I need to be afraid of him too?” you ask.

‘I think we should throw rocks at him.’

“All of your ideas are terrible,” you inform the creature.

It seems unperturbed. Its writing continues, but you have no interest in remaining in its company. You walk the perimeter of the room until you find a door. It isn’t locked- none of the doors here are; not to you anyway- and it doesn’t stick or creak. You open it with ease and immediately find yourself somewhere entirely different.

You’re sitting on the ground. You don’t remember when exactly you sat down, but you must have at some point because you don’t feel the same straining weight on your legs anymore.

There are hands resting on your arms, at least half a dozen pairs. They’re cold, and they’re so smooth, and you find yourself jealous.

The one who the arms belong to draws you closer, and the light adjusts so you can see each other. And what you see is that your new companion has the look of a toy, or machine that’s been shaped to mostly resemble a person, at least in the broadest sense. Its face seems to have been painted on. Its veins glow like it should bleed lightning. And one of its many hands seems to be devoted to continuously winding a key in its stomach

“Who are you?” you ask.

“I am you,” the robot says.

You are not surprised.

“We’d better hurry,” it continues. “There’s a lot we need to do.”

You glide along behind it as it moves, brushing against what feels like the wall of a cave. Eventually you’re set into place in front of it, still held by many arms

A metal file is fitted into your too-rough hand.

“Fix it,” the robot commands.

“Of course,” you say.

Half aided by the hands on your arms, you begin the process of filing down your fingers. You scrape your body against itself, wearing it away.

But quickly you find that you don’t shrink cleanly, like rocks rubbed down by sand and waves.

No. you shrink with the loss of bloody tears and chunks. You’re skin goes from rough to sticky, and despite the pain you find yourself glad, because at least fresh blood is smooth.

“Isn’t that better?” the robot asks after a while.

“It is,” you agree.

“Now you need to wash your hands.”

It drags you along again, this time to a still underground lake. The water itself is pristine, sparkling clear, but just around its edge there’s a very thin, low border of trash, peels, and tags, old bandages wrinkled napkins.

“I can’t get there,” you realize. “There’s a barrier.”

“You can’t,” the robot agrees. “But you need to wash your hands.”

You nod. “Then we have to clear a path.”

“We can’t,” says the robot.

“You’re right,” you realize.

And the pair of you stand a short distance from the lake, and stare at it in silence.

“There’s only one thing to do.”

And without another word, the root hoists you up and flings you over the minuscule barrier, plunging you into the water. You don’t have time to protest.

It is too hot.

It is too cold.

You miss being able to breathe. But you suppose you’d rather be clean.

Eventually you resurface somewhere new, not a room this time. You are standing in a field. You’re only wet from the ankles down, making your feet feel twice as heavy as the rest of you combined. Your wet socks are too tight around your toes, and you can feel your skin wrinkling beneath them.

You can’t take it. You lower yourself onto the grass to remove your shoes. But from the ground you see something new, something rushing toward you from a nondescript distance.

You spring up! One foot is still clammy and cold, and trapped in a wet shoe. The other quickly collects dirt that you hadn’t previously noticed beneath the grass. You hear the robots voice in your head.

“You Need to wash it…”

But there’s nothing to wash it in. And there’s no time.

The new thing has reached you.

You can’t tell exactly where it ends and the grass begins, the two resemble each other so uncannily. It has ears large enough for you to enter its brain through them. Its hands are the size of its head, and drag uselessly behind it on the ground. When it’s close enough, you can see your reflection in its monstrous teeth.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“I am you,” it replies, voice high and soft, and seemingly coming from somewhere other than its mouth.

You nod, as the thing begins to circle you. Then you begin to notice that with each of its laps around you become smaller. The monster’s gliding motion breaks off into frantic hops, and soon enough you’re so small that your world shakes each time it hits the ground.

A smaller, yet somehow also larger, monster hops and paces the same trail in your chest, shaking you from the inside as badly as you’re being shaken from the out.

As the monster gets closer its movements slow. Soon it isn’t jumping any more, and your head and chest are given a reprieve. But it doesn’t stop getting closer, and soon its clutching you like a constrictor, and the nature of the terrible sensations in the world start to change.

Grassy fur and furry grass come to cover every part of your expose skin. You itch, and you burn, and you wish you had the robot back. You’re suffocated. Your mouth and nose are free, and yet you’re suffocated. Do you breath through your skin, you wonder. You think you remember hearing something about some kinds of animals that did that, but you were pretty sure weren’t one of them.

But that was back when you could be sure. Would it even be possible now?

You shout something at the monster. You’re not sure what. You’re not even sure that your mouth moved, or that any noise came out. You don’t know how you know that you spoke, but you did. And it gives the monster pause for a moment.

“I am you,” it repeats after a while. This time its voice is like nails being drilled into your spine

It uncoils, and stumbles a short distance away. You still feel the prickle of its touch and the reverberations of its footfalls as if they were there. You find yourself missing the blood that had so recently coated your hands. Without it they feel rough.

The monster reaches for you.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“I am you.” Its voice echoes like the voices of millions.

It moves away from you, and grows into its hands before reaching one out to pick you up.

As the grassy palm folds over you, you begin to feel yourself falling back through water, struggling to breathe, choking in darkness. You’re dragged and thrown through doors and halls. A clattering racket builds around you (or is it inside of you?) and crescendos as the rushing movements finally still.

Now you’re in a room made of glass.

You collapse in it and catch your breath. Through the walls, the ceiling, even the floor, you can see the world, but it isn’t as you feel it should be. Sounds from it penetrate the windows and pound in your head. The lights from it are flashing and blinding. The monster has faded through the glass and infused all of it’s terrible noise and roughness into everything beyond. The monster has ruined the world.

You dig your nails into your arms. You feel the reach of the robot compelling you to press harder.

“You need to…” its voice says.

But the monster is impossible to scratch away. The monster is everywhere. Seemingly unseen by all but you.

You hear a light tapping. The creature has arrived, and it has the pen, your pen.

‘This is the worst thing imaginable,’ it writes.

“This is nothing,” you tell it.

‘The world would be quieter if you didn’t have any skin.’

“That doesn’t make any sense!” you protest.

‘But do you know for sure that it isn’t true?’

“Yes!”

The creature shrugs.

The robot presses your nails deeper into your flesh.

The monster speaks from beyond the glass, from everywhere at once.

“I am you. I am you.”

“I am you,” the others say.

‘I am you.’

“I am you,” they cry in tilted unison.

I must be the very worst, you decide.