by C. B. Wiant
Dahlia’s agitation spreads like the flu. Reed doesn’t appreciate someone else pacing. Stalking and sulking in paranoia is his territory.
Everything is overly sanitized. Always has been. But today the lemon astringent irritates Willow’s nose. She’s most likely allergic to cats, dogs, horses, grass, molds, and red dye forty. She may be the reason our food is consistently bland and cardboard tasting. Either way, she’s digging for treasure with her finger protected in a tissue condom. She is knuckle-deep in her nose. She’ll probably give herself a nose bleed.
There’s no mirror to help me spy. I’m washing my hands. I’m also staring directly at her.
Willow pulls her finger out. Inspects the tissue and goes back in as if unsatisfied. Maybe the allergic itch is a parasite and she won’t be satisfied with the tissue contents until she’s horrifically traumatized by what she finds. Or maybe she’ll give herself a nose bleed.
I’m sufficiently grossed out. And everything irritates me.
I grab a hand towel and dry my hands and wrists. The ironed corners of the towels and uniforms bother me. I discard my hand towel on the edge of the hamper. I routinely toss my towel in the hamper, just as I toss my garbage in the trash can. It’s instinctive to have cleanliness—an engrained you were raised better mantra.
The hand towel hangs limply out of the hamper.
I go through each of the shelves knocking all the contents to the ground. A monochromatic sea of cotton tumbles to the floor. The different pieces layer in waves.
Guardian’s signature clomping enters the dormitory. I’m rounding the corner out of the communal when I hear, “Ruby and Lily, it’s time.”
He leads the way down the aisle. The backdoor opens. Ruby walks through the portal. Snow crumbles over the threshold like granulated sugar.
Brusquely, Guardian says, “Lily.”
When I walk through the portal, my feet crunch in the snow. Each step sounds like I’m stepping through a stack of crackers. The trees are bare and covered in thick ice. I follow Ruby’s steps through the few inches of snow. A laugh bubbles up my throat because the scenery before me looks exactly like the stationary my mother used. On the bottom right corner, it read: When you only saw one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you. The quote is common enough. Normally it’s seen layered on top of a beach scene as a piece of art. Footprints in the sand. Yet when my mother bought the stationery, it was an image of footprints in deep snow walking towards a forest. The massive stationary was a light blue. The quote and image took up most of the space.
I follow Ruby’s footprints to meet her.
11
Ruby Blue
Standing beside Ruby I ask, “Are you waiting for the Beasts?” We’re twin pillars of darkness. Ruby nods. Her gaze is on the frozen forest. Her back is against the sixth stone.
Ominous and overcast, the Arena is a wash of grays. Darkness bleeds out of the forest like spilled ink.
“What was in the letter?” It’s none of my business, but I want it to be. The note had to come from Onyx.
“The final contact shot. The kill. Keep me.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
Ruby sighs, “It’s about marbles. Have you ever played?”
“No,” I say in response instead of shaking my head. I want to communicate with Ruby.
“I knocked him out of the ring.”
Shadows slither between the frozen forest’s limbs. One shadow triplicates, then doubles and divides itself in three before scattering and quadrupling.
One row of eight, followed by another, crunch and crack through the tundra. The Beasts are here and slip out between the trunks languidly. There are only two of us against the many of them. Some Beasts realize the oversaturation and sink back into the forest shadows.
My heart beats out of my chest. Adrenaline has me hummmmmmmmmmming.
Ruby smiles. I literally light up. My palms blaze bright like a torch. Flames feather off the back of my hands. Ruby’s eyes are pure delight, yet they aren’t black. Was anyone’s eyes black during the First Watch? I can’t even recall looking to confirm during the chaos.
“Are my eyes black?” I ask, hoping to garner extra strength from the darkness.
“No, that phased out with the well. The darkness would have killed you if you hadn’t killed first, it’s an insurance policy.” How does she know the intricacies? There is no time to ponder further.
Ruby whips out an electrical rope and lassos two Beasts at long distance. Their bodies slice in half. The top half of one topples backward and rolls into the dark forest.
Ruby side-eye’s me like I need to help myself to the Beast à la carte. She encircles another Beast and pulls the slack. The noose tightens and the lasso slices laser smooth. She glides behind me, smooth and precise like a ballerina—and kicks me square in the back.
I fall forwards with my palms open. A Beast kicks me in my spleen. My hand grips around their body as I fall. The appendage I clutch is malleable, like wood-derived foam or Rice Krispies Treats. My fingers crunch, mesh, and destroy. I crumble to my knees coughing on the instant cremation.
Hacking spittle dissolves in the air as quickly as it falls from my lips. Beasts shuffle before me. They’ve left the security of the forest, yet are still out of reach. I lift myself off the ground. My hands are in the universal stop position. STOP.
I’m Ruby’s close-range defense. I’m between her and the Beasts.
Fire spreads and weaves up my arms. I’m slowly catching on.
Again, Ruby kicks me square between my shoulders. I’m launched forwards and wrap my arms around the knees of a Beast. Their torso drops matching their height to mine before tipping and bleeding out. The lower half, the half I’m wrapped around, turns to ash. I fall. My arms windmill for mere seconds until my face plants in a gritty combination of bodily fluids, mud, ash, and bone.
My pants soak in the bloody plaster.
With each of my movements, the radius of melt shifts to match. I stagger to my feet. The ground thaws and softens, and is no longer blanketed with snow. I’m slipping and sliding in mud.
Ruby kicks me in the hip and I tip out of the mud and am propelled towards more Beasts.
Like a suicide bomber, one Beast launches themselves at me, changing my trajectory. I slam back toward Ruby.
Except a hard ice wall greets me instead. I hit a tree.
Ash crashes around me like an angry storm.
I combust. I’m all fire.
The tree only darkens and tarnishes where it’s contacted my burning body. The tree never catches fire, only Beasts turn to ash. I push off the tree and turn right into Ruby’s electrical whip’s next arc. Before the whip slices me, it thins to the width of a hair strand and slices a sliver down my chest. I fall in my puddle of steaming blood.
Ruby rapidly kills the remaining Beasts with no fanfare or showmanship. Their bodies lay scattered and soiled. They’re leaky bags ready for trash day pick up.
Ruby drops beside me and uses me to warm her hands. I’m her campfire.
“You can stop your fire now,” Ruby says. Her hands bask over my bellybutton.
The hobbit door window light shines brightly. It’s only a yard away and provides a contrasting flashlight backdrop to my flames. A halo effect.
“You can’t, can you?” Her clothed feet slurp as she maneuvers up my body, closer to my face. She plops in the mud and crosses her feet. Ricochet mud sprays on my nose.
I struggle to ask, “How do you know the intricacies?”
Ruby rubs her hands together over my collarbone. “I’ve been here longer. This isn’t my first season.”
Her hands hover over me as if her palms are marshmallows roasting. “I was naïve. When Opal died, my tracker attacked me. Her name was Violet.” Ruby spits Violet out with distaste.
“I stayed in the well concussed. Eventually, they fished me out and put me into the Arena. My season wasn’t interested in working as a team against the Beasts. Things were differe
nt then…”
“What do you mean?”
She doesn’t elaborate. She waits until my body drains and my light flickers out. Unlike her electrical whip, I tire. My once warm body is soaked and shaking in cold.
Ruby stands, “Tell me why he gave you the letter.”
She kicks mud in my eye and steps on my face mashing my cheekbone in the ground made moldable by my blood and heat.
“Onyx gave it to me when he brought me back.” Except given my situation, it sounds like, “On-x Huh Ack,”
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”
I don’t say anything. She can’t understand me and I don’t care if she does. Her foot steps off my face.
I gasp for a full breath.
“Do it,” I say and unconsciously ignite.
12
On A Scale
I’m not in the Arena. I’m not in the dormitory. I’m not in the hospital room. I’m surrounded by gray flat steel. I’m naked in a box. More likely a shipping container.
Beep. “Lily.” Beep. It’s not a question but a statement. Onyx is behind the intercom in an undisclosed location. A cold spray wets my skin. Like crisp greens in the vegetable section or fresh flowers in the flower shop, I’m misted.
Beep. “I can’t let you die.” Beep.
The mist turns into rain and I lie in it. Or do I lay in it? Am I laid to rest?
Each drop, white with chemicals, splashes and steams away from my flesh. My fire burns. A thick gray smoke wafts off my body.
I kindly struggle to breathe.
My fingers splash in a couple centimeters of white liquid—it no longer sprays from above but seeps in my pores from below. I’m resting on an autopsy table.
My fire is on like a pilot light, permanently wasteful, depleting my energy. There’s no feeling in my firelight. There is no fear.
Beep. “Lily.” Beep.
The liquid around me froths like steamed milk.
Beep.
“Fuck.”
Beep.
Beep. “I can’t let you die, Lily.” Beep.
I can’t remember wanting, let alone wanting to live. I turn my head toward Onyx’s voice. An old High School speaker is five feet from my face—vintage from the 1800s, with thick wires like mangled invasive roots that intrude through gray steel.
I stay down—seething and thinking about the color gray. Specifically, the shade of the shipping container with all the required little gray heads for little gray screws. Gray smoke wisps unfiltered off my largest organ, my sickly pallor gray skin.
Beep. “Lily.” Beep.
Gray steel. Gray tombstones with deep dark gray groove etchings. Gray towers. Gray planes.
Fuck, I need a less morbid gray.
Gray Eiffel tower. Is the Eiffel tower even gray?
My thoughts simmer in Paris and try to assimilate the symbol of love.
Is Love the epitome of the Paris syndrome? — when the allure of famous writers, artists and history brims and overflows. Instead of a glass being half full, it’s full. The meniscus level is at the tippy top with expectations for the romantic city. For Love.
Then the visit happens, and French wasn’t a language learned. Taxi drivers are vulgar. Waiters are discourteous. Rats are everywhere. It’s a crime-ridden, filthy city.
It’s a fucking city. You fucking fell in love.
The divide between fantasy and reality is too much.
A slight urine smell is everywhere and pungent.
There is no love shared, Paris is overflowing in homelessness. It is not the Paris of dreams. It’s a city that does not like foreigners.
I’m a foreigner and my lover hasn’t found me.
Where is Hudson?
Click Errrrrrr
The door opens on a groan.
“Lily,” Onyx says without the garble and distortion of an archaic intercom.
I sit upright on the gray slab, “Ox.”
“What happened to Honest Ox?”
I don’t trust you like you said I should, is on the tip of my tongue.
“I need you to get control of yourself; you’re requested in the Arena.”
I lift my right middle finger as a response.
“There is no way to get you from here to there without killing you. And I need you there.”
I lift my left middle finger and start dual rounding shots at Onyx.
“If you listen to me and fight, I’ll help you again.” He tosses a new set of black scrubs onto the floor of the shipping container. I can’t dress in my lit state.
“I don’t trust you.”
Onyx grabs the back of his neck for a moment before releasing his grip. His arm falls back to his side. “This is where we stand: You can stay in here and die. You can try to make it to the Arena as is and die. Or you can calm down, settle your fire, and enter the Arena like a normal fucking human being.”
“Why can’t I go in blazing?”
“Shiloh.” Enough said. Shiloh tried to use his abilities in an ‘off/silent’ zone and it didn’t work out favorably for him.
“If you think this ends well, you haven’t been paying attention... Where is your scale tipping right now?”
“I don’t have a scale,” I say.
“Right, but if you could give your anxiety a number from one to ten, where do you register?”
“I don’t register, there is no scale.”
“Right.” He’s back to squeezing his neck. “Explain where you are now, emotionally.”
“Fuck You.”
“Can you elaborate?”
No, my death glare articulates.
“Ok, so full shut down, that’s your ten.”
Thumbs up, but instead of thumbs, I resurrect my middle fingers to no standing applause.
“Ok, ok, good. Good. What is zero?”
“What is zero?” I parrot back uncommitted to the conversation.
“My zero,” he pauses and scrubs his hand through his black hair. “My zero is the full breath before pressing on the trigger.”
“The calm before the storm,” I say to the wall.
“Is that your zero?”
“No,” I pause to marinate on where my base level would be. “My zero is the limbo between REM cycles. Floating.”
“What does that tell us?”
“That you’d be the dominant, and I’d be the submissive?”
He smiles and runs his hands across his lips. He holds his chin before crossing his arms, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
He takes a step back to the door, wraps his fingers around the handle, and says, “What it tells us, is that there is hope for you yet. You have a scale. Let’s tip it in our favor. You have a zero and a ten. Figure out the numbers in between and level yourself out. I’ll be back.”
The door shuts behind him.
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Base,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, Paralysis
Base, Peace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Sleep, Peace,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, Down
Base, sleep, peace, sleep, if only I can sleep. Could sleep. Might be able to sleep?
Alone in the shipping container, I walk each of the four corners. The ceiling is misting the white solution again. I absorb Ipsumroot transdermally.
“Zero is my base.” I take a step.
“One is still floating.” My arms oscillate like a soft wave. I’m talking to myself. “I am at peace with magic. I’m the glint off the first snowflake of the year.”
I take a step sideways, away from the wall. “Two…” I lift my foot to take another half step forward. “Two…” I sidestep back to where I was against the wall in the corner, “There is no two.”
I wedge my toe into the corner like an ill-fit stiletto. “Baseline, peace, lost.”
I take a step back, “Baseline, peace, lost, embarrassed…”
Beep. “Talk me through the numbers.” Beep.
I jump out of my skin at the jolt of Onyx’s voice through the intercom.
Beep. “Zero is base. One
floats. Two is lost.” Beep.
“No, No.” I interrupt, “There is no two.”
Beep. “Why is there no two?” Beep.
Beep. “Logic presumes two falls between one and three.” Beep.
“This is my scale. Odd numbers are the settling ground. Odd numbers are established feelings for reference.”
Beep. “And the even numbers?” Beep.
I pause, spin, and walk to the other side of the storage container.
“The even numbers are the in-between feelings. I save the even numbers for the moods without words that linger and stick like glue.”
Beep. “Ok, ok, so what is three?” Beep.
“Three is lost.”
Beep. “Lost what? Be specific.” Beep.
“Lost car keys. Lost phone. Lost hair-band. Lost pen and coffee cup. Lost head if it wasn’t attached. A noun is lost. A physical manifestation vanishes—it was just right there.”
Beep. “And five?” Beep.
“Five is the halfway mark, embarrassment. Five is saved for the public. Five is the fear of showing up to class or an office unprepared for the test or presentation. Five is the epic failure broadcasted.”
Beep. “Seven? Tell me about seven.” Beep.
I pace the length of the storage container counting to seven five times on my fingers. Each number builds upon its predecessor like a house. “Seven is unrestricted loss…”
Beep. “Where is seven?” Beep.
“Lost in a rural town. Strangers give wide birth. An outsider with no cell service and no one to rely upon, the native tongue is unknown, lost in translation.”
Beep. “Truly lost at seven. What about nine?” Beep.
“There is no nine. Ten is next.”
Beep. “Why not nine?” Beep.
I throw my hands in the air. “We already established a ten.”
Beep. “Zero is base. One floats. Three is lost. Five is publicly lost. Seven is truly lost, and ten is shut down.” Beep.