Sonder (Rise of the Omni Book 1)

by S. L. Horne

  That name burns in her mind. “Calista,” he moans over and over.

  Smack!

  He slaps her ass, the sting strong on her backside. She feels cold air rush to the heat of the abuse. Another ripping sound fills the room and he chuckles with satisfaction. His hand moves from her neck and onto her back between her shoulder blades. The other hand works at his own belt buckle and as she turns to look, he exposes himself.

  His weight shifts again and she cannot move, a dry pitiful scream parts her lips as he forces himself into her. He repeats her name as he rocks himself to his own rhythm. The fight in her re-energizes, but as he meets it with both hands on her neck once again, her consciousness fails.

  Opening her eyes, the world comes rushing back. The room is rocking back and forth, back and forth, every muscle in her body screaming words she cannot. She’s on her back now, eyes fluttering open to see the man on top. He’s focused on his task, talking to himself and to her.

  Her arms and legs are weak, her body yielding to his actions. Pain overwhelms her, while her body betrays every part of her being and biology takes over. He thrusts into her, smiling as he knows she’s looking up at him.

  She shakes with an orgasm, and horror fills her as she listens to her name spoken over and over, him calling her his dirty girl.

  He smiles with the pleasure of knowing he made her cum. Why would her body betray her like this? she wonders and the feeling of absolute disgust fills her entire being.

  Darkness creeps into the corners of her vision again, releasing her from thought.

  Opening her eyes once more she discovers that time has fallen away and skipped to another scene. Her legs wobble as she pulls him by his arm. She looks around trying to take in what has happened. Blood runs down her legs onto the floor and she looks down to see she’s dragging him in it.

  Time skips like a scratched record, and her knees buckle on the stairs. The cold prickles her skin and her knuckles are white on the railing as she holds tightly to it. Unsure why she is outside, she barely feels the snow falling gently to kiss her skin. Her arms pull her weight toward the door before she looks back. A faint memory of the gray sky growing light with the morning fills her vision. A thumping sound, like a heavy object sliding over the ground, faintly registers. Turning to inspect the base of the stairs, she sees that random steps are missing their coating of snow and the freshly covered ones are spotted with bright red. A lumped mess lays at the bottom of the staircase, seemingly fallen in on itself.

  Even though the man she knew as Danny now lays at the base of the steps, and Calista is unsure if he’s alive or dead, she pulls herself back up the stairs, closes the door behind her, locks it, and crumples to the floor. A darkness, unfamiliar, makes itself known to her at this moment. As if seeing his defeated form lying helpless at her own mercy, awakens a part inside of herself that was there all along.

  “Calista.” Her name, that name, called out by his voice plays over and over in her nightmares. She wakes in intervals and curls her knees into her chest, sobbing till her tears run dry and her own voice is hoarse.

  The next time she wakes it’s to a distant alarm, her phone going off in another room to remind her to get ready for work. Stumbling across the apartment, she clings to the walls and counters to steady herself.

  She reaches for the phone but her grip falters and it drops to the floor. She runs her fingers shakily across the screen to silence the sound. Tapping the screen, she hits her speed dial for work and calls in sick.

  No one questions her illness, and Calista knows her voice sounds rough. Her coworker wishes her to get well soon and Calista hangs up with relief.

  She lies on the floor until she’s gained enough energy to make her way to the shower. Hot steam burns her skin, but no amount of soap washes away how dirty she feels. No amount of detergent washes away the pain or the sound of his voice. Drained, she slides down to sit on the shower floor. No tears come, and self-loathing fills her pores along with thoughts of filth that flood her mind. Unable to understand how her body could forsake her, she convinces herself she is in the wrong.

  How could she leave him there?

  Memories of her body shaking with an orgasm while taken unwillingly plays over in her head. Looking in the mirror, she sees the dark blue and black marks from where his hands were on her neck. Running her fingers gingerly over the evidence, Calista asks herself, what if someone sees? What if someone looks at her and they guess what happened? She stares, afraid the marks will never go away. Knowing the deeper scars never will.

  She calls in sick for the entire week, until the bruises on her neck and arms, torso and wrists fade enough to be covered with makeup or bracelets. She spends most of her time laying in silence, replaying the entire event over and over in her head.

  Having avoided the door to that room long enough, she finally opens it to see empty beer cans on the coffee table. With her hand still on the doorknob, a rattling sound bounces around the apartment as her fingers shake it viciously.

  She wants never to touch anything in that room again. Her eyes stare blankly ahead as her mind wills the room to no longer exist. But the smell of stale alcohol lingers and she runs to the toilet to wretch.

  She has struggled so hard to keep hidden and protected. In the music, she tries not to face her fears. In this moment she tries hard to forget her name. A single word, a name she does not associate with anymore. On paper and official documents this is still her true name, but it is not who she is. The old name is a doorway to that voice, a whisper warm against her ear and cold to her heart.

  Swaying to the music, she uses the singer's voice to protect her against another’s, stains in the form of words that have soaked deep into her soul, holding the air out of her lungs as he did.

  He had been quick in his efforts, ripping at her pants, uncovering her. Unprotecting her. Darkness. Vulnerability. This is what that name now means. It means the tight grip of a hand on her inner thigh and nails digging into her skin.

  The taste of fabric in her mouth, and adrenaline coursing through her body. This one word is the single thing it took to expose himself and enter her. A girth of a word, hard and merciless, throbbing and distracting as the smacking sound of a palm on her ass cheek opens her without mercy.

  Shock and bruises linger in the aftermath of the storm. This name reaches to her core and rips her apart. It invades everything she has done her best to defend against. A color the richness of blood red saturates her mind and her body. It means anger so strong she loses the little control she has left. It is the feeling of sand slipping between her fingers, forgotten. Bits of memory piling at her feet, leaving her to fill in the blanks of what happened. She scrapes up the pebbles of memory and tries to remember what order they were in.

  She would start new, a deep unhealthy level of disassociation fills her mind to push out this memory. She replaces it with recklessness, not caring anymore what happens to her, for what is there to fear now?

  Hours have elapsed, the morning greeting her as she pulls into a gas station to fuel up and stretch. With her vehicle packed to its brim and totes strapped to the top, she studies her car while she pumps gas. Cracking her neck, she is proud of herself for being so brave. The entire world feels stretched out before her and apparently that world comes with bugs, lots and lots of bugs. Taking a squeegee from the blue liquid-filled bin, Calista washes her windshield and headlights. A section next to the station hosts an area for large truck and semi parking, the speaker overhead announcing an available shower to the drivers. Holding her head high, she walks into the mart to purchase a much-needed pop and snacks for the road.

  With a plastic bag looped around her wrist, she climbs back into her vehicle and unloads her fresh haul. She places drinks in the center console cup holder, dumps the snacks onto the passenger seat, and a package of donuts on her lap. The plastic wrapper crinkles loudly as she pulls away from the station and back onto the interstate. Powdered sugar smatters her shirt and pants and Calista p
ays it no mind. She looks around as she drives, scanning for a place to pull over and paint for a while, a way to break up the driving and something to remember the journey by.

  The open fields on either side of the road slowly become scattered with trees, and the flatlands roll and cut into the horizon now. She spots an area on the shoulder made broader next to a cluster of tall trees at the edge of a forest with a single bench near the pull-off point. Parking her car, she searches under the seats for her wooden briefcase which holds her paints and brushes. The case opens to make a small easel and taking a knife from her pocket she cuts off the top of a water bottle. A palette slides from inside the case as well, and she positions herself on a bench that looks into the trees.

  Chapter 5

  She stares at the colors and even as she paints, they seem to lift from the palette, some floating away, the rest just growing into webs with a mind of their own. She brushes them down to keep them still and takes away the white—there is so much white—overbearing the possibilities. Laying a heavy coat, again and again, the colors blend together to make a deep and rich black.

  Her mind wanders, not for the first time, back to that moment. She can taste metal in her mouth and her gut wrenches. Quickly, she taps herself on the face with open hands to remind herself this is not the time, nor the place. She cannot close her eyes without hearing his voice calling her name, that name, over and over again. The word bounces around inside her head, it’s whispered, yelled, groaned and screamed into existence. Spoken so often, it becomes less than a name, but something strange on someone’s tongue, the name changing in its form to become the name of someone else as she escapes from her mind. The word brings out a fire inside of her, one of anger and recklessness. It stokes away at her, dominating another part of her which backs away uncomfortably. The name has no power if the name is not hers. She is on her way to a new start, a fresh beginning. She wants to claim a new name, take that power away from him. Forget everything he did. She slaps the brush to the canvas to take away the remaining white.

  Mixing beautiful greens and making small vines with leaves that creep in from the distance of the dark. A sharp and yet subtle contrast to the pitch. Leaves reach out from the edge of the fabric and leap from that darkness. The story behind the image plays out intricately in her mind as she continues.

  No light shines on the house of the man. A house of three children, a loving wife, and faithful wait staff. The house bustles with life and joy, but at night is quiet and peaceful. The mysterious dark-haired woman must be quiet as she slips off her shoes, grasps the doorknob with care, and holding it tight, twists the handle. She does not open the door until she knows the latch is free. Steady and slow the woman pulls the door toward her. The handle remains turned, just one step at a time, she reminds herself. As the entrance widens with her efforts, she slowly releases her hand, and no sound leaves the handle or the door.

  Barefoot, she creeps into the house, holding her breath. A silly precaution as no one in the house can hear such a silent thing as her breathing.

  She knows the spots on the floor that creak by now, and she forms a zigzag to avoid them. She must be quick. Stepping through yet another doorway, she’s now free from the worry of getting caught. Her heartbeat slows back down to normal, and a smile stretches across her face. A warm smile returns at her arrival, a handsome face it truly is.

  “Hi,” he whispers, holding up the covers to invite her beside him. They both know the effort is only out of courtesy. If only he knew how much she wanted to be there.

  Out of habit, she returns the courtesy greeting. “How was your night?”

  Their actions do not follow their words. Sliding into the bed, straddling him, her eyes say much different from it all. “You tired?”

  His hands answer the question as they wrap around her hips, her long shiny hair falling around her waist and onto his chest and torso. Like a game though, he replies, “I’m probably just gonna go to sleep.” His hands work feverishly to say otherwise.

  She likes this game of cat and mouse; they both know where it leads. “Hmm, I am not so sure I like that answer.” The corners of his eyes wrinkle deeply as he smiles wide in answer to her whispered words.

  A small spiral of a vine creeps inside through the cracked window. “How long is she going to be gone this time?” the mystery woman asks. She leans down and meets his lips. Cracks spread through the walls of the bedroom, spider webbing from the window which buckles under the weight.

  “Hush, let’s not talk about her. She won’t be back tonight and that is what matters,” his words muffled against her warm skin, his wiry facial hair scratching her neck.

  He does not notice the damage befalling the house around them. With children asleep in their beds, the ivy slowly extends to the other rooms. Slight moans come from the bedroom where the lovers are gathered in each other's bodies. They drown away the night together as they have many times before, and fall asleep in each other’s arms.

  Morning light spreads its rosy fingers upon the house, the light casting long shadows across the lawn. A door silently opens and closes allowing a dark-haired mistress her escape. Leaves rustle in the breeze and the word “lies” is rasped from the tongue of the wind. The bricks of the house peek out from beneath engulfing foliage, the growth stops, and the leaves recede.

  The maiden steps into the forest on the edge of the land and the trees slowly close around her. A path opens, wide enough for the mistress to slip by without the branches tugging at her dress. Quietly she moves deeper into the forest until she comes upon a small tent made from the skins of forest creatures. Slipping in underneath a hide, she kneels next to a dimming fire. Small jars, herbs, and plants lay scattered on the ground of the yurt. Setting quickly to work, she begins to mix miscellaneous herbs and items from jars into mortar and pestle. Dusting the mixture into the fire, she chants, “I give these herbs to you, return me to my true, by the light of midday, return my hair of gray.”

  As the sun perches high in the sky, the mistress makes her way back down the same path. When her shadow no longer lays before or behind her, hair begins to fall in wisps from her head. Strands drop to her clothes and shoulders, falling heedlessly to the ground. Reaching up to grab handfuls of what remains, she tugs and yanks her locks away without mercy. Vines reach down to brush away the lingering tresses, replaced with a rapidly growing silver mane. Crow's feet cut deep into the corners of her eyes and youthful lips fall to a weary pucker. The gown which clung to her body only moments before, now drips off like water on an oiled surface. Without faltering her steps, the forest wraps her once more in a shift, this time of modest color and fashion. The trees part at the edge of the land, and she steps into the clearing where the house sits, a home humbled by age and neglect.

  Pulling keys from her pocket, she turns the lock and enters the home.

  “Good morning,” her husband starts. “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon!” Scrambling over to meet his wife, he wraps her in his arms and kisses her gently on the forehead. “How was your trip?”

  “Oh, the usual… Work as always and such a long flight. No matter how many times I fly, I can’t seem to get over how exhausted it makes me.” He guides her to the bedroom and helps her to bed, looking his wife up and down, filled with worry about her increasing age. He carefully lifts the covers for her, helping her adjust the pillows behind her shoulders.

  “I worry about you, Dear, these trips seem to really be taking a lot out of you.” His eyes glisten with affection.

  “You know I must go. Please let’s not fuss over it.” Exasperated, she turns to her side and falls fast asleep.

  The man walks over to the window, closing the light out, and the fabric snags on something. Pulling the curtain away, he discovers the vines from outside have made their way into the home. They cling like Velcro to everything they touch, and he runs his fingers on the cracks growing from the opening. His mind is full of worry for his wife, but wanders quickly to his lust for his mistre
ss. His finger catches on a crack and he pulls it back with a small inhale between his teeth in pain. Blood drips from his finger onto the floor and he curses under his breath.

  This home he built with his bare hands crumbles around him now. He feels tired from his activities of the night, and as his children are not yet back from school for the day, he climbs into bed with his wife. They lay apart from each other, a distance which could span an entire ocean between them.

  A week stretched before the wife’s next trip, and each day passed with the monotonous complacency which has become normal for the family in the past few years. The children still play, and the house is still bustling with activity; however, the span between wife and man grow larger. Night time draws in after the wife leaves, and the man grows excited for his expected visitor.

  The bedroom door silently opens, the moon shines in through the open window and casts light on the mistress’s shiny dark hair and youthful face. “I’m sorry,” she says, only loud enough for him to hear, and places her shoes down at the foot of the bed. As she bends down for a kiss, the man grabs her face and pulls her closer.