Mana Dissociation

by Christopher George

  Karen appeared to be in a conflicted state of both being relieved that I had returned and furious that I’d just disappeared. She talked about making protests to the police. I answered her questions as best I could, but I wasn’t sure that it was a good idea to tell her that they hadn’t been police. It just didn’t seem to be a good idea, besides the last thing I wanted was a lengthy conversation with Karen. All I wanted to do was to go to bed.

  “On that note, I’m going to bed,” I sighed, “I feel awful.”

  “Don’t come into work tomorrow,” Karen informed me, “I’ve cancelled your training sessions. You’re not well enough. Take a day. Rest. Get better soon.”

  I didn’t have to tell from the expression that getting better sooner rather than later would be highly appreciated.

  When I got back to my room, I ran my eyes over the room service menu, but I didn’t think that I could stomach anything. It wasn’t that I wasn’t hungry. I was. It was that the thought of food made my mouth go dry and wretch. In the end, I simply had a glass of water, took a couple more painkillers and went to bed.

  I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t even come close. I couldn’t decide if I was too hold or too cold. The moment I pulled the covers over me I became sweltering hot, but once I’d thrown them off I shivered as if I were trying to sleep in a snowstorm. I drifted in and out of consciousness with an eye focused on the alarm clock’s orange glow. I watched the numbers count and was unable to do anything other than toss and turn and wish for sleep. It was the single longest night of my life.

  The next day, I wondered if I should go to a hospital, but I had no idea how that even worked in a foreign country. Would it cost me a fortune? I had no idea if work had included travel insurance when they had booked my flights. Or was that something that I should have done? I had no idea and I really wasn’t in any condition to be making these decisions.

  I eventually fell asleep the next morning and woke up just past lunchtime. I was famished. I’m not sure how long I slept for.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I still felt like crap. I’d spent the majority of the day in bed and didn’t seem to be getting any better. If anything, I seemed to be getting worse. Maybe I should have gone to the hospital after all. The only thing that seemed to be changing was the mysterious lights that were appearing on my body. They seemed to be becoming more languid in their movements. When I had first seen them, they had raced across my skin like they were in a hurry to get somewhere. Now they simply circled around with no particular place to go.

  I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. The only thing that led me to believe that it might have been a good thing was that the lights were now looking more like the lights that I had seen briefly on Aiden and then again on May. This was of course assuming that this was all related.

  It was too coincidental for it not to be related, but if it was then what the hell was going on? I’d preferred it when I’d thought that they were a side effect to a migraine. That at least made sense. If I went to the hospital, what would I even say? That I have a fever, a headache and a glowing blue lights problem? Surely, they didn’t have a prescription for glowing lights.

  The next day, I returned to back to training and, whilst I was still suffering, I seemed to be getting a little better. Maybe the painkillers had simply kicked in. Everyone was incredibly gracious about my absence, but I still felt bad. We were behind schedule because of me. Everyone was really nice about it, but I could tell that the timeline was now tighter.

  I really wasn’t sure of the quality of the training that I was providing. I was still very much out of it. I must have eaten nothing but a few slices of toast over the past 48 hours and it was beginning to take its toll. The issue was that whenever I looked at food my nausea seemed to kick back in and I couldn’t eat. There’s nothing like dry retching to put you off your food. Still, I managed to get through the sessions without fainting or throwing up so I suppose it could have gone a lot worse. All in all, I was prepared to chalk that one up as a win.

  I only saw Karen the once during the morning. She had checked in on me to make sure that I was feeling better. I assured her that I was fine, but I’m not sure she had believed me. I had, however, showered and applied makeup so that I didn’t look quite so frightful. So she didn’t seem to have much to comment on.

  I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her as she’s been rushing off for a teleconference with the office back home. I really wanted to ask her what was going on with Aiden. Would they send another programmer to take his place? Had they heard anything about him? I wasn’t even sure if anyone was even looking for him.

  Well, that wasn’t quite true. I knew someone was looking for him. May definitely was. It was just that I suspected that she didn’t have his best interests at heart. I hoped he was okay. It’s strange looking back on it, but I really did hope he was okay. He had after all saved my life, by all rights I should have been nothing more than a fine red mist over the road as I had run in front of that car.

  I threw myself into my work in an attempt not to think about how miserable I felt and to my heartfelt relief this seemed to help. Once work had finished, I hadn’t planned on going out, but I found myself at the bar where Aiden had shown me his eyes. I hadn’t meant to go there, but my feet had just seemed to walk themselves there on my way back from the office.

  Karen had left a message that she would be in meetings until late tonight and that I shouldn’t wait for her. I had all the time in the world in a foreign city. By all rights, I should have been having the time of my life. But I wasn’t. It wasn’t just that I was sick, although for the record being sick in a foreign city is worse than I could ever have imagined. It was that something just seemed off. The world seemed greyer than normal and I wasn’t simply talking about the weather. Something had fundamentally changed in the way that I was looking at things.

  The only thing that seemed vibrant were the markings on my skin. Everything else just sort of faded back into monochrome. I didn’t order any drinks. I didn’t even order dinner, although I had thought once I walked through the doors that I might be tempted to try something more solid than toast tonight.

  I made my way outside the pub and found myself standing in front of the spot where the accident had taken place. I shouldn’t have come here. The site had been thoroughly cleaned up, but you could tell something had happened here. There were indents in the road where the car had hit and I could see stains where petrol had leaked from the wreak. Worse still, if I looked hard enough I could see a few shards of glass from the windscreen that had somehow eluded the cleanup effort.

  Was May telling the truth? Had people died here? Because of Aiden? No, check that – because of me. He wouldn’t have had to lift the car if I hadn’t run out in front of it. I stood for several minutes on the side of the road looking at the spot where it had happened. I couldn’t seem to drag myself away.

  In the end, I turned my back and walked around the corner to cross. It didn’t seem right to cross there. It seemed somehow like sacrilege. It felt like I was mocking those who had lost their lives there. I crossed the street and walked down the sidewalk. My intention was to make it back to the hotel, but I never made it.

  * * * * * *

  The sidewalk was pretty busy at this time of night with a lot of people heading home from work. However, even with the extra foot traffic, it didn’t take me long to realize that I was being followed. They weren’t being too subtle about it either. Two men in large trench coats had been trailing me since I left the pub. I had no idea who they were, but they were clearly following me. I was only a couple of buildings short of the hotel when one firmly grasped my arm and directed me towards the alley besides the hotel.

  “Miss Wright, you will accompany us.” he hissed immediately and I quickly suppressed the urge to scream, “Mr Penderghast has been seen in the area. We have orders to move you to a safe location.”

  “I don’t appreciate being pulled off the street.” I huf
fed, angrily pulling my arm free once we got into the alley, “You gave me a phone. Why didn’t you use it?”

  The moment the words were out my lips I cringed. They probably had used it, but I hadn’t thought to bring it with me to work. It was probably still sitting on my night table where I had left two nights ago. It didn’t matter much anyway as the men clearly had no intention of answering me.

  “We have a car waiting,” they ordered as they directed me towards the entrance to the hotel car park. I tentatively made my way toward the carpark and found that anytime I stumbled or delayed they were there to pull me back into step. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit. The whole thing was crazy. Aiden wasn’t going to hurt me. He had saved me! Why was any of this necessary?

  Once they got me into the carpark, it was obvious where we were headed. They were leading me towards another one of those stupid blacked out luxury cars. Didn’t these guys drive anything else? One firmly placed his hand on my shoulder again to direct me towards the car. I was just about to angrily turn and shake him off when I saw his eyes flare open in panic and then a flash of blue light smashed against him like a bolt of lightning and he just flew backwards. It happened so fast that I barely had time to register it. One second he had a dour expression on his face, then immediately followed by shock, fear, pain and then he was gone. I couldn’t even see how far down the carpark he’d been thrown. The second guard immediately jumped away from me and sought shelter behind a parked car. I instinctively turned around to see where the flash of light had come from only in time to see a figure leaping down onto the carpark. His arm was swinging wide.

  I didn’t have time to react. The guys who were meant to be protecting me had both disappeared instantly and had left me on my own. What kind of protection was that? I couldn’t see well enough in the carpark who the figure was, but I knew that it was Aiden. I saw the lights flare down his arm and, from his fingers, a curved ribbon of light emerged. It was awesome! I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. All the hairs immediately stood up on my arm as I watched the ribbon of light flare around in a wide arc. At first, it looked it was heading towards the other guard, but it fell short. Soon however, I realised its intended target as it slammed into the car that my erstwhile protector had been hiding behind. I expected to see it smack into the side of the car and leave a dent on the panel, but to my surprise when it hit the car the entire car slammed against his neighbor. There was a scream of agony as the guard was caught between the two cars as they smashed into each other. I didn’t know if he was dead or not and didn’t have a chance to find out.

  Aiden finished his leap and landed a few metres away from me, and moved forward with his hand outstretched towards me. “Come with me!” he ordered, his voice seemed deeper than I remembered it.

  I must have stood there for a few seconds as he eventually scowled, “We don’t have time! They’ll be here any second. I came to rescue you!”

  He never bothered to explain who ‘they’ were or how they’d get here. He just issued the order with the assurance that I was going to follow it. It reminded me of the way that May had spoken. What had I gotten myself into here? I almost didn’t obey him. I almost ran for it and I really wish that I had. Instead, I stood there as his face twisted and he grabbed my hand and pulled me into a run.

  I didn’t know where we were headed, but Aiden seemed to know where he was going. I heard a loud explosion of noise behind us and another flare of the strange blue light shone from behind us. Aiden’s face fell as he pulled himself in behind me and turned around.

  “Mr Penderghast,” a voice called, “You cannot get away.”

  I recognized that voice. It was May’s. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or scared. Aiden kept himself pressed up against me from behind keeping me between himself and May. If he had been intending to rescue me, he wasn’t doing a very good job. I glanced up at May as I felt a weight wind itself around my neck and I was roughly pulled from the ground. What the hell was going on? I frantically kicked out trying to get my feet to touch the ground, but I must have been several feet off the ground by now.

  “Don’t do this!” May warned. She had stopped moving forward and was gazing at us warily.

  “Don’t make me!” Aiden snarled back from behind me, “I’ll snap her neck! I’ll do it!”

  What? I tried to turn around to stare at Aiden in outrage, but, unfortunately, the weight around my neck was holding me tight. In vain, I tried to use my fingers to claw the thing from my neck, but I couldn’t seem to grasp it. Instead, I ended up painfully scratching myself along the side of my throat as the thing seemed to constrict cutting off my air. I gasped frantically as I sought to restore my breath but only ended up scratching myself further.

  “Let us go!” Aiden called again, “I’ll do it! You know I’ll do it!”

  I couldn’t see the look in May’s eyes, but I heard the defeat in her voice. I knew in that moment and she fully believed that he would do it. She fully believed that he would kill me. Terror tore through me as I realised just how close I was to death.

  “Okay, you win, drop the girl. We’ll let you go.”

  “I don’t think so,” Aiden murmured, “We leave together.”

  “I can’t let you take her,” May cautioned.

  “You can’t stop me. You’ll only end up killing her,” Aiden warned, “Don’t make me do this.”

  He bit off every word. May sagged in defeat and I felt the pressure on my neck lessen and I fell to my feet. Aiden immediately wrapped an arm around me and pulled me backwards.

  “You won’t get away,” May called, “I will find you and bring you back.”

  “No, you won’t.” Aiden replied confidently.

  Aiden strong armed me into the passenger seat of a car and immediately pulled the car into a tight arc as it shot out of the car park. I saw May throw herself to one side to get out of the way as we sailed passed her. Aiden didn’t talk. He was having enough trouble driving, navigating the narrow carpark, and trying to peer through the rear vision mirror to make sure that May wasn’t going to try anything.

  I nervously rubbed my neck and pulled my hand away to find it smeared with blood. I wasn’t sure how deeply I’d managed to scratch myself when I had been clawing at my throat, but it was clearly deeply enough to draw blood.

  Aiden was driving like a maniac and we must have burst from the carpark like a bat out of hell and onto the main street. I wasn’t even sure if he was looking at the road that he’d just merged onto. It seemed that all his concern was on the rear vision mirror and the woman we’d just escaped from. Unfortunately, his driving was doing nothing for my nausea and I thought I was about to throw up. I closed my eyes and placed my head down between my knees. It helped, but only a little.

  “I’m sorry about back there,” he murmured sullenly, “I wouldn’t have actually… you know. I was trying to save you.”

  He trailed off. He wouldn’t have what? Killed me? The bastard! He still might kill us! If he wasn’t currently driving like an idiot through a crowded London street, I would have struck him. My anger flared up like a lightning rod only to be cooled with the realization that he had apparently killed people before.

  May had believed him. I’d seen the defeat in her eyes. When he’d threatened to kill me, she’d taken him seriously. It was true. He was a killer.

  Hell, he’d probably killed those men back at the carpark. It had happened so quickly that the reality of it hadn’t set in. He’d killed them so quickly. As if they hadn’t mattered at all.

  He claimed that he was trying to save me, but what would set him off? What would it take for him to turn on me? The answer was simple – I didn’t know, and until I did perhaps it was wise not to antagonize him.

  “I couldn’t just leave you with them.” he murmured, but it seemed that he was talking to himself rather than to me.

  I was starting to get really scared. I’d never seen him like this. I’d never seen anyone like this. What the hell
was he going to do to me? He looked like he was crazy and hadn’t slept in a week. No, it was more than that. He was acting deranged.

  “Where are we going?” I croaked. Fuck, it hurt to talk. How hard had he squeezed my throat?

  “Don’t know,” he sighed, “Away, far away. Got to get as far away as possible.”

  “Do you know where you’re going?” I replied as he pulled onto a major highway.

  “No,” he admitted, “But doesn’t matter. Must get away from them. They’ll be tracking us.”

  Tracking us? How? That didn’t make any sense and yet Aiden was still staring at the rear vision mirror as if he expected her to appear right behind us at any minute.

  “There’s no one following us,” I assured him.

  “You don’t understand,” he snarled angrily, “The mana will lead her straight to us.”

  I was getting a little tired of everyone being so mysterious.

  “Mana?”

  “Yeah, the stuff you’re seeing on your skin,” he explained, his voice softening a little, “It allows us to do stuff.”

  “Like the stuff you did back there?” I prompted.

  “Yeah, lift stuff, throw stuff.” Aiden called back as if this explained everything.

  What the hell was going on? Was this real? It certainly seemed real enough. Maybe I’d fallen into a coma or something and this was the product of a dream. I quickly pinched myself several times on the thigh. Nope, if this was a dream it was an incredibly detailed one.

  “You used it to kill someone,” I murmured.

  “You don’t understand,” Aiden sighed, “That doesn’t matter. None of the matters. The only thing that matters is that we need to get away.”

  I edged myself further into my seat. What the hell had I managed to get myself into this time.