by Micah Thomas
As it turned, Henry got a good look at its huge eyes, a dozen reflective jewels that shimmer and shine darkly, blinking occasionally with heavy, fleshy eyelids and long hairy lashes. Something changed when it fed, something changed for the person. He could see that their delight in receiving the attention they craved gave way to sudden and terrible despair. All Henry wanted was to find Cassie and get the hell out of this place.
Henry tried to focus his mind, to locate and trace his tethered line to Cassie, but he could not entirely resist the feelings assaulting him in this place. Feelings of need, and how could he possibly standout in such a crowded thirsty mess? He reached inward, towards the memories of Cassie, her own memories they shared when they commingled identity and personhood. He found one of her, a sentiment of loneliness, from when she'd been injured in some foreign land. Waiting and hoping to be discovered, she'd felt her life was meaningless. The memory became a beacon, and her pain a unique light that Henry could follow at last.
He found her, still wrapped tightly in the muddy muck.
He used his hands like a trowel, digging around her neck, while he whispered, "Wake up, Cassie. This isn't real. We need to go."
It was then that the beast landed on him. Its dexterous legs spun Henry over like a child on a changing table. He instinctively reached for the fire within, but in its absence, he was vulnerable and had nothing inside to fight back with. It lowered its weighty body on him, bringing its spider like face close to his. In its hypnotic mirrored eyes, he saw himself, a smiling profile pic, clever about you section, and photos with many many likes of him living the good life. He was captivated and had a rush of delight despite his obvious danger. It was himself as the hero, as the make-good loser, a father and a friend that he'd never been, but could have been. In these images of posts to some generic social media of the mind, he'd come through the hero's journey and overcome his demons. He could finally help others and not just take their help. The image was like coming home, it felt so good.
But, then the spider god blinked. The images and feelings changed as the thing pumped raw psychic sewage directly into Henry's mind. He saw those that he'd killed, bodies melting and burning up in horrific detail. He moaned in agony and tried to look away, but the images were inside him, consuming him. Finding the nerve, the thing intensified its quest to bring him low and get the really good juice out of him.
Unloved, it said to him in feelings. Unwanted. Unworthy of love. Forgotten. Left behind. His childhood hit him in a montage of low lights. Henry wet the bed and no one helped him. Henry, small little man, sat on the toilet for hours crying for someone to help him wipe. The agony of toddler abandonment, a sense of a father there and then gone. A mother turning away from his little hands needing comfort. Unwanted. Tears in the dark, face pressed against the wall, wanting to die, even as a child, wanting to die. Angry adult faces, scornful reprimands, and loss after loss. Henry relived it and wept for himself. Every shame confirmed his worst fears, that he was unloved, unworthy of love.
Cassie was lost in her own dark dream, her own memory of isolation, her concerns over not living up to lifestyle blogs and magazine covers, watching her friends post their wonderful lives on social media, never measuring up. A tug at her midsection, starting like a nagging pull, erupted into a menstrual like cramp, and she was awake. Something was wrong, she thought and with that thought came her steel, a reserve of power she always knew she had. Anger suffused her body and she hulked out, straining against her bonds until they snapped. This wasn't her, she said to herself. Self-pity left a bad taste in her mouth and she spat it out, following the tugging tendril of light to Henry, gaining speed and momentum of thought as she flew.
She slammed into the spider's ass with all of her might. It recoiled away from her confidence, her mentation a bitter taste so very different from the need it fed on. As it scampered off to easier feeding, Cassie floated down, laying her body next to Henry. Information about what he was feeling was pulsing through their connection into her mind. It was heartbreaking and she resolved to reach him.
He didn't react immediately to her presence. He was deep in there, she thought with worry. She put her cheek to his and sent counter thoughts without words over to him, a soothing, comforting, forgiving love.
"I accept you," she said, "You're ok, baby. You're ok."
Henry returned her embrace with a gratitude she had never felt before. A love she'd always hoped to find.
"I didn't mean to," he said.
She shushed him, and held him tighter, "It's ok, baby. You're ok."
These simple magic words were shared without judgment or denial, acknowledging the past, and accepting who each other was inside. Honest relief coursed through Henry as he gained distance from the intensity of experiences. He knew he'd always be angry and a little hurt, but he felt Cassie lending him strength and his mind returned to him. The power in those feelings, emotions of caring and nurturing, he couldn't believe it, but she'd healed over the wounds in his mind. There'd be a scar, for sure, but this closeness was changing him and Henry knew it.
They merged again in a single entity of pulsing light, and thrust their intent skywards, away from the web of need and inadequacy. Once on the other side, Henry sent his gratitude towards Cassie again. No words could contain it, and she accepted it solemnly. Their minds were closer together now, and words were not needed as thoughts flashed directly into each other's headspace.
Aloft in the ether sky, neon flashes of energy streaked from an island in the distance. With fewer voices in the wind, they could make out Wiseman-esque sentiments, arguments for caution, belabored explanations of what was and what should not be. He was not winning, and Cassie/Henry returned to the search for fire.
"I don't know how many more of these I can take," Henry said wearily.
"You said yourself, we have to try," Cassie returned.
They mustered the will and dove again, choosing another sphere at random, bracing for the horrors that may be within.
Immediately on diving in, they were treated to something utterly unexpected. Pulsing psychedelic lights flashed and their bodies suffused with a sense of the erotic. The scene was straight from Caligula, cocks and pussies, fucking and fucking. Henry couldn't even see as his mind filled with throbbing and veiny dicks squiggling yearning for penetrating wet recesses.
"Oh, Christ," Cassie said, pushing off the advances of a woman who crawled between her legs, trying to lap at her pussy.
Henry's mind cleared and he saw his own penis, huge and erect, dripping at the tip. He laughed and looked at Cassie, whose own swollen labia clapped open and shut.
"I'm not doing this," she said.
A sea of squirming butts rose and fall, beckoning, fuck me, fuck me harder.
Henry and Cassie held hands, even as their genitals leaned on their own accord towards each other. The pitch and intensity of the orgy increased and soon there was blood in addition to the various viscous fluids flying around. Kisses turned to bites and thrusts turned to stabbing frenzies.
"Oh shit," Cassie said feeling her body pull her towards the fucking porno turned gore fest.
Then the world went dark. Cassie squeezed, feeling Henry's hand and the murderous lust went out of them. A door shaped square opened and a young woman, producing her own illumination walked through it, towards them.
She was dressed like an average teen, hoodie and skinny jeans.
She took out an ear bud and said, "You don't belong here. This is my dream."
The woman's face flickered and for a moment they saw an older woman, face full of rage contorting sensuous lips, stained blood red.
"Henry, we should go," Cassie said.
At Henry's name, the girl perked up, "Henry," she said knowingly.
"You're like me. We were neighbors, but you left. I could hear you screaming at night in your sleep," she said.
"Uh, sure," Henry said not at all sure of what she was talking about.
"Your friend. The burning one is over
there," the girl said opening another door in the dark, this one bordered by hotly burning flames.
She flickered again, hands rubbing her pussy mound and grinning like a beast in heat. She shook her head and was the young woman again.
Cassie said, "Thanks, we'll be going now."
The girl nodded quickly as if anxious to have them leave so she could return to her party.
Hand in hand, Cassie and Henry went through the burning door.
The door disappeared behind them as they walked out into the world. No sphere of madness made flesh. Soft grass beneath their feet and trail leading to the tree on the point of a peninsula. Henry felt relief and guided Cassie along the path he'd traveled so many times before.
"This is it," he said.
As they approached the tree, there it was, the fire, an orb of hot light, spinning its internal cycles, containing the soul of a living sun, the power to unlock energetic changes in all matter.
"Who the fuck are you?" came a voice from behind the tree.
Erik looked worse on this side than he did in reality. The monstrosity on his back was a greasy oil slick of bad thoughts. It wound its tentacles and creeping slime through Erik's face, tendrils of black through left eye and squirming back through his nose. His hands were blistered and charred. Had he been trying to grasp the flames this whole time?
"I set the fire. I burned people up, you know. It's mine," he said in a creaking voice.
"I don't think so," Henry said.
"Fuck you, you fucking thief," Erik spat out in reply and charged at Henry, who stepped in front of Cassie defensively.
Henry didn't need to take action. The fire leapt between them, shooting deep roots of swirling fire directly into Henry and Cassie. They were encased in that protective spirit and the sense, familiar to Henry, one of double perception, settled upon them like an old shoe.
"We've been through too much together, dude. I don't know what happened to you, but you best back off," Henry warned Erik.
Erik's parasite screeched and squelched, squeezing Erik's head in a tighter grasp.
"It's for me," he screamed and continued advancing, reaching slimy and burnt fingers out towards the fire.
Henry sighed, and pulled the flames within him, within both of he and Cassie.
The engines of combustion merged with their joined selves, particles shifting and arranging into strong bonds before sending a thin line of force towards Erik. Erik's eyes widened with anticipation, perhaps still believing he had a chance before the living oil slick began to combust. Henry had no desire to extend any unnecessary suffering, but he'd never burnt anything in this place before. This wasn't matter, this wasn't excitable electrons. This was essential soul stuff, but it worked more or less the same. Whatever this guy had gotten into, it would burn and it did. Henry and Cassie felt a grim satisfaction as their joined mentation fed the flames to a white hot focal point, incinerating and breaking down their enemy. When it was done, there was nothing but a hazy smoke and particles of ash that blew away in the wind. The fire abated, content to have returned home.
"What now?" Cassie asked.
"Wiseman, I guess," he said.
There was no question where that confrontation was at. They only had to follow the shouts in the wind, the lines of force etched across the sky like lightening. Henry didn't know what he expected. Maybe a battle, slinging arrows of energy in a Michael Bay explosive confrontation? As they flew towards the main arena, the picture was different. A massive energy formation, blue light, the telltale of Hakim messaged thoughts and concepts down at the Wiseman entity, smaller and whitely glowing egg, whose response was measured and slow. Beneath them sat President Chissom and the brown skinned man Henry thought of as Hakim. If this was a battle, it was unlike anything Henry or Cassie had expected.
"I thought we were going to help, to fight?" Cassie said.
"I thought so, too," Henry replied.
Conservative slow thought and wisdom countered the spirit of authoritarian decisiveness. As they got closer, Cassie could see that, rather than spinning up whole little worlds, they were using the minds of the sitting men as evidence to prove their points in small clashes of argument and competing vision.
An image of slow growth, response to petty tyrannies played out emanated through Chissom.
"I have the best words," he seemed to say.
The thought cloud said, "they are dominated by arrogance and ignorance. Now how does that serve a greater good?"
The Wiseman entity replied, "Yes, but over time, this is a learning moment. Making mistakes, even if such a thing is a mistake, allows them to decide for themselves."
Hakim, the man not the spirit, had his turn to lay out the ideal, a world of plenty, of clear knowledge of the world, one where death has no sway, where order is a just and absolute given, where emotions could be explored and new realities discovered, a golden rule that would last forever.
"That is a short cut that cuts them off from ever having faith, from ever growing up," Wiseman replied.
Henry and Cassie could feel the impatience from Hakim. Diplomacy required a patience that wearied them all.
"Who do we want to win here?" Cassie asked as they hovered in a distance that was probably not all that safe.
"Humanity, I guess," Henry said.
"Why don't you just go back to sleep? You can't even stop this," Hakim said through both the entity and the man's voice.
The Wiseman entity cast out spiraling arcs of white energy burrowing into the ground, and within an unconcealed appeal to another.
"Oh shit, things are about to get real," Henry said.
The land replied with a voice loud and deep, one Henry had the displeasure of hearing before, "WHO IS THERE?"
"For fucks sake, don't involve him in this," the Hakims said together.
"What is that?" Cassie asked.
"It's this place. This whole damned place has a root thing, a living core thing, like the others, but bigger and first," Henry tried to explain.
Wiseman pumped his argument through this line of communication, the whole picture, the stand he'd tried to make a dozen times on television, the wonder that is Ellen, and Facebook, and fossil fuels, and human failings and potential for self-discovery, that they are children and deserve a chance.
"Old man, its senile. It's nothing, it never made a move between any of us at any time. Why would it be mindful now?" the Hakims said, exasperation clear.
Wiseman ignored Hakim and continued making his best case. Henry could feel the earnestness of it and did understand. The land, all the islands and earth and seas convulsed and lost coherence. Cassie, Henry and the fire clung to each other as the world lost meaning and transformed into indescribable interlocking, cycling mandalas of color, energy, thought, and concepts. Wiseman's call had been heard, but this alien thing could not converse in words, only in grand gestures of formation, cycles of never ending change and dynamic intrigue, infinite complexity and motion at the micro and macro, patterns repeating in an acid trip kaleidoscope. Cassie felt like a small sock lost in a giant washing machine, while Henry perceived that they were witnessing the engine of existence processing data and making calculations.
A decision was made. The thing wanted to go back to sleep. The decision was final.
In what must have been like the first, the big bang that gave birth to this strange universe, the place they'd been collapsed back into formative nothing, jettisoning the collective inhabitants elsewhere. Henry, Cassie, and the fire didn't know, had no sensory perception of where the rest went, human souls, strange others, but almost immediately, they were back in Vegas.
***
The sleeping crowd produced a collective snoring and wheezing as their bad dream turned worse. Hakim sat in a meditative pose. The President sat slumped like a lumpy stuffed bear. Erik's corpse, a sad sideways and lying in a heap. Time slowed, and the seconds were long drawn out moments of quiet breathing.
They must have been first back. There could be no
other explanation, nor did they have time to contemplate it. Henry, Cassie, and the spirit of fire saw their opportunity and took it. They took in the scene and reached out into the thick world of matter, stretching their will deep into the earth for fuel, taking even the air above for inspiration, and, yes, all the people, too. This was the gambit to take out Hakim, and potentially even themselves. Finally, a Michael Bay moment after all.
Like a key clicking into a lock, they released the energy dormant in all things within their reach. The heat, the deepest fire sparked alive in a rising phoenix, a vast ball of shimmering plasma, melted glass, steel, pavement, cars, bodies, and rock beneath. The reaction was subatomic. The forces binding the world of matter released, encouraged to excite and exploit all avenues of combustion. Seconds into the blast, air rushed inwards to fill the sudden vacuum and a mile-wide crater crushed inwards across the city, forming a deep rivulets of molten slag, looking all the world like a volcano.
Through the blast, Cassie felt herself dissolve into energy, watched as the particles making up her flesh broke their atomic chains and convert to some other form, but she did not lose coherence. She did not burn up. She was herself and considered herself beautiful in this state, even as she felt a mad urge to escape. It blotted out all other thought as she was pulled by the impetus of the fire entity, up and out, higher and higher, an arrow into the sky. She turned her awareness back and saw the cloud of destruction envelop the city. So many lives, she thought with a sorrowful ache that she couldn't dwell on. No, her mind was a distracted dream. Escape, but observe, some other voice told her. She saw a single pulse of blue light shoot out of the carnage below, reaching higher than the growing mushroom cloud. A sphere of blue energy traveled up the trail, and zipped away at a high speed. In some way, she knew that they had failed, but it didn't matter. She was flying in the arms of the wind, a hot breeze, a ray of sunshine, and her concerns were forced from her mind as she was lulled into a dreamless sleep.