by John Kerry
Sammy needed pain killers and water.
She hadn’t been out, though.
Sammy sat up, stuffing her head into the underside of the mushroom she’d been sleeping under and covering herself in more luminous spores. She sneezed, slumped back onto the painful stone she’d been sleeping on, and then rolled to the side. She remained where she was, face down in the dirt. She considered going back to sleep, but her mouth was dry and her stomach was chewing a hole in itself.
Sammy slowly dragged herself from under the mushroom and, with excruciating lethargy, heaved herself up out of the yellow bushes. The first time she came to Perseopia, she awoke to the soft, voluminous bedding of Golden Egg Cottage, not crawling out of a shallow ditch covered in itchy mushroom dust.
Mehrak had even left her a bowl of mushroom soup to wake up to. She still remembered how good his soup had been. Or rather, thought she remembered. Nothing seemed clear to her right then.
Sammy stretched, then slouched. She had no energy to do anything. Time to dig deep and find some hidden reserves. This was an opportunity to prove she could fend for herself. Finding food and water was the first order of the day. Mehrak had cooked mushrooms as part of every meal and they were clearly in abundance. She’d start with that.
Sammy set her sights on a small one, kicked it over and picked it up.
She took a bite. The mushroom ruptured in her mouth, gushing with bitter tasting slime. She spat it out.
Perhaps you were supposed to cook it first. That made sorting a campfire the new first objective on the agenda. Or maybe second. Before that, she needed water to wash the taste away. She was thirsty. The heat wasn’t helping. She hadn’t remembered it being this warm in the forest before. Aside from when the tall figure in black had appeared.
Sammy dropped the mushroom. She located the arrow she’d drawn in the dirt and moved swiftly in the prescribed direction.
After a while, she slowed up.
The temperature wasn’t going up. She was just jumpy. Bizarrely, the hit of adrenaline her panic had released had eased her headache somewhat. She still needed to find food and water, but at least she was feeling better. Someone once told her that you could live for days without food, but not water. That gave her no choice but to keep going until she found a river or body of water.
A flock of white sparrows with thin beaks flew past in perfect formation. They wheeled round her like a miniature cloud, then blew away through the brown creepers.
She realised then that she’d not been sending out mental feelers to scan the area for threats. Perseopia was continually lulling her into a false sense of security on account of how fantastical the environment was. It was doing it again now, making her forget the dangers lurking just around the corner. Her absentmindedness was probably linked to her lack of hydration and general fatigue, but regardless of the cause, the result would be the same if she let a threat sneak up on her. She’d have to remember to be more careful going forward.
The scan came back clear. Nothing big, no pig-dogs certainly. She sensed a family of small mammals burrowing nearby, but nothing else.
The forest may be dangerous, but her Perseopia-charged superpowers were far greater now than they’d been back home.
She picked up a fist-sized stone and launched it into the air. As it flew upward, she imagined it in great detail, willing it to the side. The stone veered sharply from its upward trajectory and she lost it.
The direction change had been immediate. Sammy laughed. She shouldn’t be surprised, given how easy it had been to lift the rock that she’d killed the pig-dog with, but the force she’d been able to summon just then had been immense.
She searched the ground for another stone. She spotted one poking out of the dirt and went to pick it up. Then stopped. She should hone her skills in case she needed to use them again.
Sammy concentrated on the stone. It wobbled, but stayed where it was. She relaxed and held out her arm. With her hand above the stone, she latched onto it with her mind and pulled.
The stone burst from the soil, clipping her hand and continuing up into the sky.
Sammy yelped. She squeezed her hand between her thighs, took it out and blew on it. She hadn’t expected the stone to move so quickly. Her palm was in pain. Like, proper pain. She could’ve broken her hand if the stone had hit her full on. She stepped back a pace in case the stone landed on her head on the way back, but she didn’t need to. She sensed it returning and latched onto it as it fell. The stone slowed until it floated down to head height and stopped. She was actually doing this. Suspending the entire weight of the stone in the air with her powers. Sweet.
She’d possessed her manipulative powers for over two years back in Sheffield. She’d progressed them as much as she was able. But this? This was way beyond what she’d been capable of. She rubbed the pain out of her palm, then held it out.
She flew the stone a quick loop around her head. Spun it on its axis and then lowered it into her hand.
She looked around for other stones. She spotted four and in a second all four had freed themselves from the earth and were sailing around her like mini satellites. She tossed the first stone from her hand to join the others floating in the air.
This was so awesome.
She sent the stones flying at a large tree-sized mushroom. They thudded into the trunk like bullets, embedding themselves in the rubbery flesh.
These were genuine superhero powers. Forget rolling a pencil across a table.
Sammy made gun shapes with her hands using her index and middle fingers as barrels. She raised more stones from the dirt and brought them over to hang around her wrists like floating bracelet beads. She aimed her right ‘hand’ gun at a large mushroom and fired a stone from her floating bracelet. She spun on her heel and fired a second from her left. She performed a flawless commando roll, then leapt up. Three shots with her right and two with her left. Sammy blew on the tips of her fingers and pretended to holster them. Man, did she have some awesome skills! No pig-dogs would stand a chance against her. She almost felt sorry for them, but not entirely.
She continued to fire off stones in all directions as she walked through the forest, replenishing her floating bracelets with other stones as she went. Occasionally she’d spot a baby mushroom with a wide hood that she’d use as a target. Sometimes she’d pattern the mushroom trunks by embedding the stones at high velocity. On one trunk she recreated her initials in stones. It looked like it had been written by a toddler but it didn’t matter. She’d get better.
From a distance, Sammy spotted another pig-dog. It saw her too, however, a volley of stone projectiles had it running away, squealing.
She probably should’ve shot the animal for her supper. Her stomach constricted then. She’d been having such a good time exercising her superhuman abilities that she’d almost forgotten the needs of her mortal body.
Movement in the bushes ahead. She aimed both arms and let rip, emptying both bracelet clips into the plants.
A feeble squeak followed. Then silence.
That didn’t sound good. Sammy squirmed uneasily. She approached the bush, tip-toeing closer until she could peer through the leaves.
A small furry body lay prone on the ground. A rabbit with long, almost kangaroo-like legs. Its fur was matted with blood and its ribcage pumped rapidly.
Black, round eyes stared up at Sammy as the animal shivered in a small pool of its own blood.
It flinched when she extended a hand towards it, so she withdrew.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She was normally so good at remaining impassive in her day-to-day life, yet tears were already rolling down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to do this to you.”
The rabbit squeaked and twitched. Sammy moved to scoop the poor creature up in her arms, but it saw her coming and began frantically crawling away on its front paws, dragging its limp hind legs behind it.
Its back was broken. There was no chance of survival in the Fungi
Forest if you couldn’t outrun predators. Its life was essentially over because Sammy thought she was cool with her new superpowers.
She couldn’t keep it together any longer. She dropped to her knees and wept. How could she have done such a thing to a defenceless little creature? A pig-dog when it attacked was fair game, but an innocent little rabbit that posed no threat and had never hurt anyone?
She’d have to put it out of its misery. That was the only humane thing she could do for it now. With tears blurring her vision, Sammy scavenged around for a large rock.
She found one, floated it into the air over the rabbit and took several steps backwards. She’d send the rock flying at its head, then turn away at the last minute so she didn’t have to watch it die.
She held the rock in mid-air while she psyched herself up. She was a coward. She didn’t even possess the courage to watch.
No. Not like this. She was going to do it properly. She took a deep breath, plucked the rock out of the air and crouched by the rabbit. Dragging a sleeve across her eyes, she positioned herself over the wretched little creature. She watched its breathing get more ragged, then slow. She raised the rock.
Come on. Just do it!
The rabbit stopped trembling, its breathing slowed further, then stopped.
Sammy waited, then tossed the rock aside. Saved from having to do something unpleasant. She’d been too cowardly to put the poor animal out of its misery and had let it live its last moments in pain.
Sammy often felt that she lived outside the lives of everyone else. Others were mostly unaffected by her presence. Being unimportant had become her safety blanket. Something she’d initially hated, but over time had come to embrace. She enjoyed her anonymity, preferred not to make impressions in other’s lives, as that led to no expectations of her. But she hadn’t remained on the outside this time. She’d inserted herself into this rabbit’s life and she’d killed it by her actions.
She picked up the still-warm animal, cradled it in her arms, carried it to a patch of ground devoid of mushrooms and shrubs and laid it down. She scraped out a hole in the earth with her hands and put the rabbit at the bottom. She filled it back in and placed a ring of stones around the burial mound.
Then she got up and walked away.
–SEVEN–
THE WHISPER
Crying had majorly diminished her water reserves. Sammy rubbed her puffy eyelids and kneaded the headache lingering in her temples. She was so thirsty, hungry and drained she could barely go on, so she shuffled to a stop.
She didn’t care what happened to her any more. She was a cold-blooded murderer and deserved whatever fate had in store. She slumped to the ground and rolled over onto her back.
When had dirt become so exquisitely soft? It was like the memory foam mattress Jerry had in his spare room. What a bizarre recollection to have as she lay in a forest of mushrooms, dying of dehydration.
Her eyes were already closing as she reached out her mental feelers to scan for potential threats. The sweep came back clear as she drifted off, half-hallucinating, half-dreaming.
Sammy was playing football. Playing hard, running, getting thirsty. She grabbed a water bottle at the sideline and drank heavily. Finishing the bottle, she grabbed another but her thirst wasn’t being quenched.
A few of the guys were beginning to jeer at her, telling her she didn’t belong on the team. Girls didn’t play football, apparently. She thought nothing of it, but then they were chasing her from the pitch.
They cornered her outside the library block. Instinctively, she raised stones from the driveway and let them fly. The bullets cut through the boys, tearing them to shreds, making them dance like marionettes.
When their bodies hit the floor, the realisation of what she’d done sank in. What should she do? Should she run? The boys were writhing around on the floor in pools of their own blood, looking up at her in shock, pleading with their eyes. Dragging themselves away with broken back legs.
Then she was behind bars.
Her mother was outside the cell with Jerry. “I always knew you’d end up like this,” she said. “I always tried to be there for you but you shut me out. You’re a thug. Just like your father.”
“Mum. Please!” Sammy pushed her face into the space between two of the bars. “Help me!”
“You’re past helping, Sam. You’re a murderer. I want nothing to do with you. Come, Jerry. Let’s go.”
Sammy pulled the bars apart, bending them out of her way. She ran after her mother and found herself back in the Fungi Forest. Lost.
She wheeled around. “Come back!” she called. But her mother had gone.
She started running, charging between the mushrooms, tearing creepers out of her way. The thirst was unbearable. She tripped and fell, rolled over on the ground.
Then a voice came to her, whispering, echoing through the forest.
“Seek out the path, cross the river of light,
“Descend through the depths and when you alight,
“Take a trip through the gate, where the mountain will fall,
“And that’s when the realm becomes darkest of all.”
Sammy woke with a jolt as the rhyme came to an end. For a moment, she thought she could still hear an echo of it being whispered. Like it hadn’t totally been part of her dream. She was so weak and exhausted she could well be hallucinating, but she couldn’t get over the feeling that the rhyme was still present, echoing in her head.
Pain was also in her head. Not so much echoing, but jack-hammering on the inside of her skull.
Why did she come back? She was hopelessly lost and dying of thirst. She would’ve cried if it were possible to wring any more liquid out of her barren tear ducts. How could she not have considered the consequences? She’d signed her own death sentence to spite her mum, who probably wouldn’t be that bothered anyway.
That wasn’t fair. Of course she’d be bothered. After she’d calmed down.
Sammy staggered to her feet and dusted herself down. Her head was all over the place but she had powers, so she was safe … relatively. She hadn’t tested them on crabmen, but she’d killed one the last time she’d been here and she’d only been sixteen. Her powers had come on loads since then. If she put some effort in, she might even be able to use them to create fire and cook something.
Sammy rolled her head on her shoulders and massaged the base of her neck.
Food and water. The obtaining of which was becoming increasingly pressing. She wasn’t about to kill any more animals, but she could cook up some mushrooms. She picked a few, small, juicy-looking specimens and piled them on the floor. Now for something flammable to light. Sammy trawled the surrounding area until she found a dead bush and pulled it from the ground. She dragged it over to the mushrooms, sat cross-legged and began snapping pieces off and piling them up. When the bush had been dismantled, she placed one of the larger sticks in front of her and rotated a second stick back and forth on top of it to create a divot. Divot achieved, she latched onto the vertical stick with her mind and let go with her hands. The stick remained upright. Then she made it spin. Fast. In moments, the stick began whirring, producing a whistling noise. Smoke trailed up from the point of contact. Then it caught.
Sammy kept it going until the entire stick was aflame, then she sent it onto the pile and the whole lot went up. Easy.
She picked up a baby mushroom, skewered it on a stick, then held it over the fire. When it had browned sufficiently and the gills had stopped glowing, she blew on it and took a bite. Hot, and still squidgy, but much nicer than the uncooked one she’d tried earlier. It was quite juicy, too. Juicy enough that by the time she’d finished, it had taken the edge off her headache.
She would need to find proper water, but at least she might survive another day.
–EIGHT–
DAS KAPITAL
Baxter stared out of the window as he waited. The roofs, the buildings, everything outside city hall tainted purp
le by the smog roiling above them. He hated purple. The only parts of the city not purple were the main thoroughfares and parliament square below him, lit up brilliant white by gas lampposts that banished purple to the alleyways between buildings. Citizens of the capital milled about, heading to and from work. In this part of the city, most of them would be civil servants, carrying out their daily duties, blissfully unaware of the crabman armies amassing hundreds of stadia to the west and cutting off trade routes to the other big cities. All they saw were food and produce price hikes and unscrupulous politicians wringing their purses for more tax. If that was the extent of their worries then perhaps they were better off living in ignorance as they were. Still, it would be nice for some appreciation or even recognition that the government was protecting the population from troubles going on elsewhere in Perseopia.
Footsteps behind him.
Grand Master Zubin Aegis came lumbering along the corridor. He was a large, hunched man with broad shoulders and big hands. It was said he’d developed his stooped gait by listening rather than talking. The half-closed eyes that peered out from under his black hood made him look dopey and half asleep, but Baxter knew that much went on behind those eyes. The few times he’d seen the man speak, he’d cut down those with opposing views in moments. He could shatter preconceived notions, convince people of his opinions, and they’d leave his company with their prior beliefs in tatters. People said he could defeat any who came before him with words, and from Baxter’s limited experience, he was inclined to believe it.
Clutching his notes, Baxter turned from the window and fell into step with the grand master as he walked.
Aegis lifted the hood of his cloak back to reveal a scant thatch of unkempt white hair that had spread down the sides of his head and joined the thin beard that clung to his chin. “I’m on my way to an appointment,” he said.