Darkest Designs

by Dale Mayer

  Tammy is with Paxton.

  Right. Tammy needed to go home. To avoid too many cross traffic scenarios, better to go to the Torans’ dimension, then back over to the Louers’ dimension. Of course Paxton wouldn’t think much of that either. He wouldn’t want them to go directly to the Louers’ as that would make it easier for the Louers to travel to his dimension.

  Arrrg. This was getting so confusing. Why couldn’t it be easy?

  She’d made life complicated by crossing over to the Louers’ dimension. And meeting Eric. But that was a good thing. Not a complication. Keeping a relationship going – now that was a complication. How were they going to do that? She wasn’t ready to leave her dimension and doubted Paxton would be willing to have her permanently anyway.

  She stilled. Something had changed. What? She opened her gaze and studied her bedroom.

  Her hand had stopped moving.

  She stretched out her arm and gave it a good shake. It throbbed like crazy. Not injured, but bruised and aching as if she’d hung onto a tree branch or something for a long time before dropping to the ground. The elbow joint was especially bad.

  Moving stiffly, she struggled to her feet and caught a glimpse of the top of her bed. Food wrappers and empty boxes, cracker crumbs and napkins littered the crumpled bedding. All she did was clean up behind those two. She smiled. They felt like a family already.

  A whisper of sound behind her had her spinning around. She held her hand to her head as the room twisted crazily. Why was she starting to feel faint? Weak.

  Black mist filled the room. Eric.

  She smiled brightly. “Yes! Perfect timing. We’re done.”

  Eric stared at her through the blackness. But he never said a word. It was as if he couldn’t see her.

  She waved her arms back and forth in front of him. “Eric? What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

  The black mist slowed worked its way down his body. He opened his mouth and closed it again. His gaze spanned the room before zooming back to her. “Storey?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Uh oh. Do I look different? Sound different? What is it?” She turned to look around her room. It looked as it had before he’d left. A mess. Normal. She, on the other hand, felt sick. Like really sick. Not the upchuck type of sick, but a woozy pass-out-kind-of-sick.

  She took a step and wavered. She started to panic. Stylus. What’s wrong here?

  Silence.

  Stylus. Talk. To meeeeee. She collapsed to the floor.

  But she did hear Eric’s voice, calling, “Storeeeey?”

  ***

  “Oh no. Storey, where are you?” Eric called out, desperation and panic filling him. He couldn’t move yet for the mist, but he couldn’t see her anywhere. The door was closed, but he couldn’t tell if it was still locked from the inside. She should be there.

  As he looked around he caught sight of something faint, like a misty outline of something, but it wasn’t clear enough to identify.

  “Paxton. Is Storey still in the same location?” His fingers tapped the codex frantically, fumbling to get it right as he stayed…stuck in the portal. And then he realized that’s what he was. Stuck. Had he come back during the reset? Whatever that meant. Was he now caught between time?

  Clearly something odd had happened. He hadn’t even questioned the repercussions of his return jump on Storey. He’d acted out of instinct. Fear. The need to save her. He’d presumed she’d still be there.

  And she was…or some part of her was.

  Or was he going crazy? He was locked into his portal. Outside the black smoke, the room looked the same. And to make matters worse, he could hear someone racing up the stairs in the main house. He couldn’t move. And if that wispy image was Storey, it seemed neither could she.

  Paxton, he tapped. We need help and now!

  There was no answer.

  “Damn it! I heard someone in there. I heard someone calling.” A woman’s voice cried out in pain.

  That was Storey’s mother. She sounded….devastated. Like her only child had died. Which, as he looked around the room yet again, his stomach muscles contracting, Storey might have. It was one thing to end up banished in the Louers’ dimension and another to be dumped into In-between, but if that ghost-like essence was Storey – something was even more wrong than before.

  And all he wanted was for things to finally go right.

  Was nothing ever as it seemed to be? Even his world appeared to be fake. A deceptive face on reality. Paxton a Louer, their supposed enemy. The styluses, alive and also Louers, had proven to be staunch friends and allies.

  His father, a betrayer, instead of his beloved leader.

  Storey wasn’t even what he’d always believed. In fact, he’d been raised to be afraid of the Humans. They were destroyers, he’d been told. War mongers. Instead, she was the most caring, loving, of all the species he’d met yet. And that didn’t say much about his own people

  His own father had attempted to kill her – several times in fact. So who were the war mongers?

  In contrast Tammy hadn’t been afraid of Storey or Eric. Yet she’d been raised in harsh conditions brought about by Eric’s own people. Had she been raised to hate his people? Not according to her behavior. Maybe the adults in her world hated his people, but from what he’d seen so far, the adults were fighting between themselves to try and improve their lot in life. Having seen their home world, Eric was willing to cheer them on.

  Maybe Storey was right. Could they help the Louers to have a better life? Give them the tools to build what they’d need in their own world? Would that bring peace to the three worlds? Not that Storey had mentioned bringing her world into an alliance or anything. She didn’t appear to be naive about her own society. She’d even mentioned that peace wasn’t likely. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t help fix the problems between the Louers and the Torans.

  The Torans had banished the Louers after all. Maybe they could rectify that by giving them assistance right now.

  Or maybe he should leave well enough alone.

  And then he heard the man outside the door say, “Look, we can check. It’s not that big a deal.”

  The door opened.

  Eric stood frozen in place.

  Storey struggled to her feet and stared at Eric, finally realizing he couldn’t see her. What was going on?

  She was supposed to leave and come back so that the changes could take place. Sure, she’d delayed her departure, but just long enough to clean up. It’s not like her stylus had said go now. Hell, she didn’t even have a portal ready. In fact, she’d half assumed she’d have a portal made for her and she wouldn’t even know it. She’d been doing so much that was out of her control. Why not that? But this…this being here, but not being seen…was horrible. And frightening.

  What was going on?

  She felt normal. At least as normal as she could after having just collapsed to the floor. She had no idea what that had been about either.

  She stared at her fingers.

  Talk about scary. Her hands appeared normal-shaped, but they were faint, thin. As if she had been half erased or something. As if she were only half here. Her stomach bottomed out. If there was a bottom. She wore the same clothes, but she could see through them. She had shoes on. But she saw the floor underneath them. She’d become transparent.

  She spun to look at Eric. Could he see the bit of her that was left?

  God, she hoped so.

  “Eric?”

  He spun around and she gasped. His features seemed almost blurry around the edges.

  “Oh thank God. You can hear me?” she asked.

  “Storey? Where are you?”

  “Eric, I’m right in front of you.” She stepped forward again into his line of sight. “Eric, can you hear me?”

  His face crinkled up and he tilted his head toward her. As if hearing something. But not her apparently. She heard the same noises he did. To her, the sounds were faint, like coming down a long tunnel. Maybe that’s how he hea
rd her, too.

  Stylus? What’s happening?

  Silence.

  That worried her more than anything else so far. She needed to connect with the stylus. It had the means to save her.

  Wait. The Broken One should be with her. She should be able to communicate with him. And if she couldn’t, then she didn’t understand anything because he was inside her. One with her and she could talk to herself.

  She heard a sound. She spun around and watched her bedroom door crack open slightly. And then it started to fade too.

  She shouldn’t be here. She knew that deep inside. While whatever was happening was probably good for her world, it was not good for her. She needed to get out of this place. And so did Eric.

  How?

  “Broken One,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  A stuttering whisper slipped through her mind, her thoughts.

  Fading, he said. Quickly.

  “Why? What’s happening?” Storey needed answers. And fast. That was the only way she’d get out of this.

  The dimensional change happened more quickly than anticipated. This dimension was already trying to revert back to its natural state, but there were just enough changes that it couldn’t. Now that we have unlocked the restraints the dimension is spontaneously swinging back to the way it should be.

  “Am I here?”

  You are caught in the dimensional shift.

  There was a neutral pause, then he said, As am I.

  “Will we die? Or is there a way to port out of here and save us?”

  A weird hum filled the air. Instead of scaring her, it reassured her that the stylus was there, thinking. But she wanted her stylus. She’d connected to it in a different way. She needed it.

  “Stylus are you there?” She waited for a long moment, feeling tears welling up at the weird sense of loss. “Stylus,” she whispered plaintively. “I need you.”

  A rumble slipped down her spine. But inside. She shook her head at the weirdness of it all. “Can you help me, stylus?”

  Stay calm, the Broken One said. We will ride through the shift.

  “And where will we come out at the other end?” She spun around, hating the sense of panic happening inside her. The room faded in and out. Falling and then stabilizing as if the earth itself was attempting to reassert some control. Every movement she took sent her off balance. She careened from side to side trying to remain steady in an unsteady world.

  At the same time, she felt like the world was tilting. She tried to lean into the curve, sure she’d fall over. Eric stood still in front of her. Frozen. He hadn’t moved, but the floor where he stood shifted – with him. His eyes had locked on the door handle and that was it. She hadn’t seen him even blink.

  She ran a hand through her hair. Oh man, this was beyond nuts. And scary. She hadn’t been this scared since she’d dropped into Eric’s dimension so long ago.

  The floor, the planet, gave a hard shake.

  Earthquake?

  No. The dimension reasserting itself. God, what had she done?

  Her head started to swim. She shook it to clear her mind, and heard the Broken One in the background.

  Let go. Let yourself fall. It will be alright.

  She didn’t know if she could trust him. She wanted to hear her stylus tell her that.

  And there, so faint it was only an impression, a whisper slipped into her mind.

  All is well. Reset is happening. Go.

  She took a deep breath, recognizing her stylus. And stopped resisting.

  For the second time she fell, only this time, the floor, as it trembled and shook, gave one last hard ripple and rose up to meet her.

  ***

  What was happening? To his amazement, the view in front of him shifted and wavered like a ripple from underground. As if someone had picked up a corner of the floor like a rug and gave it a hard shake. Even the bed rippled up and down. The few items on the table flipped up into the air, only to land exactly as the item had sat before the flip.

  It couldn’t be an accident the way everything came back down in precisely the same way. Was this what happened when something moved through the shift?

  Like he presumed he had when he’d arrived at the start. If Storey had still been there at the time, he figured she’d be like the bed, and land exactly where she’d been at the start of the shift. But the styluses had said she was supposed to leave the dimension and then return.

  Had she done that? Had her trip gone wrong – like so many other trips? Was the whispery version of her that stood in front of him residual energy? He closed his eyes on that thought. Please not.

  He tried to move again, but his feet were cemented to the floor. He could lean and twist but he couldn’t take a step. As everything else rippled around him, he appeared to be caught and held in the eye of the storm. The portal mist swirled in place around his feet. Protecting him? Or unable to complete the port because the conditions were too unstable?

  Either was probably in his favor.

  Then what about Storey?

  Another hard ripple zapped the world. He closed his eyes and rode the wave.

  How long could this last?

  This ripple wasn’t slowing. Fear clutched his heart. Why wasn’t it stopping? The mist around his feet snugged up close. Then the tendrils wrapped around his legs as if clutching him tight. He could only think he was being held down.

  Pressure built around him, his head started to pound, his chest squeezed tight. He gasped for air. His vision blurred. He tried to focus, but every movement was like plowing through molasses.

  Something was wrong. Storey? Paxton? Someone?

  He couldn’t breathe. His chest clamped and locked with his next breath. Black spots appeared before his eyes and his ears pounded. He felt himself falling, but the portal mist had climbed higher up his legs, as if trying to escape this hell as well.

  He couldn’t hold on any longer. Pain took out his senses, weakened his resolve. He needed help.

  Now.

  Then another mighty shove sent the world slamming up against him. A gasp escaped, taking the last of his air with it.

  Storey, I’m so sorry.

  And he lost consciousness.

  Storey woke to a hell of a headache. She could barely open her eyes. And wasn’t sure she wanted to make the effort. What happened? Then she remembered. Her and her brilliant idea to fix the chaos she’d created messing around with things she shouldn’t.

  That she’d done it all with the best of intentions didn’t matter. Now she had to deal with the results of this latest mess. Had her world reset? Was it back to normal? Or was she not that lucky?

  She hadn’t been lucky yet.

  Even as she thought that, she chastised herself for ignoring all the good things that she’d done. And the people she’d met through her actions. She had to believe it was all for the best and things would work out.

  Still, the teen who’d been so despondent over the loss of her boyfriend seemed a long ways away. She’d grown and then some.

  Would anyone else notice? School seemed so juvenile. And so…necessary. And didn’t that beat all. She’d not had any purpose to going before, except that it gave her a reason to get up and do…something. She hadn’t been lost, but neither had she been found. If that made any sense. Not that anything did these days.

  She’d been gone from school for so long. Everyone thought she’d been sick to begin with. So now they’d think she’d been really sick. She giggled at her earth humor. Not that her black wit was helping her adjust to the current mess.

  Her body ached like she’d struggled through a thorny thicket barely ahead of a bear. Her skin had taken on a scraped, raw feeling – from the inside out. She tried to take stock. With her eyes closed, she wiggled fingers, then toes. She rotated her ankles and shifted her legs. Rolling onto her back she stared up at the blue sky. Then closed her eyes again.

  And had to wonder. Who’s blue sky was it?

  Where had she landed? She’d
been inside her bedroom before the shift. And if she could move her body, did she have a real body or only that weird, ghostly, half-there-half-dead-and-gone version? To find out would mean opening her eyes again. And that hurt. Like the rest of her. Her neck was stiff. Her throat felt swollen, too large for her mouth.

  Kind of a horrible feeling, actually.

  She groaned. And at least heard that. So she had a voice, and her ears worked. But that didn’t erase the feeling of having survived a bomb blast.