The Rift

by Skn Hammerstone

  “Just drop it,” I told him, adding firmness to my voice, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Fine,” he agreed, “We won’t talk about this now but we will talk about it later.” Jesse held open the door to a classroom and I walked in. I was completely unsure as to where I was supposed to sit. I should have been able to determine location by where other students were sitting but there were only a few there.

  “Second to last row, far side of the room,” Jesse guessed my predicament.

  “I knew that,” I insisted.

  “I’m sure you did,” he wasn’t convinced. I walked over to the seat and Jesse sat down behind me. At least I would know one person in this class. A few seconds later a tall blonde walked into the class. He immediately spotted me, putting his books down on his desk and continuing to walk towards the back of the room. His eyes remained completely focused on me as he ignored the cheerleader that tried to talk to him. If I hadn’t seen the picture in the article I wouldn’t have known who he was. Nicholas Jefferson. Even seeing him in person didn’t spark any long lost memories.

  He stopped at the desk beside mine and I could immediately feel a sense of tension coming from Jesse. So they definitely did not get along. Nicholas leaned against the desk he had stopped by, still watching me. I pretended I didn’t notice but it was hard not to. Did he want me to say something? I waited for another few seconds before saying anything.

  “Can I help you?” I didn’t know what he wanted to hear.

  “I just wanted to ask you how you were feeling,” I didn’t believe that he was the type of person to actually care. Maybe I just didn’t remember some sensitive side he had but from everyone else’s reactions to him, I was probably right.

  “I’m feeling fine,” I answered.

  “Do you remember what happened?” Something told me to just make him believe that I agreed with his story.

  “Yeah. You pulled me out of the river,” I told him. He didn’t seem to like that answer as he shifted his body to one side and sighed.

  “So you remember despite the amnesia, or you don’t and someone told you what happened?” Ok first of all, why was this so important to him? And second of all what was it with these people and wanting to know every little detail of my life?

  “Who would have told me?” I played innocent.

  “It doesn’t matter. You could have heard it anywhere considering everyone in this whole town knows. Do you really remember what happened?”

  “No,” I decided to admit the truth. Now he could tell everyone out there what he wanted since the other witness didn’t know what had happened to her.

  “What do you remember?” he was strangely serious and I was starting to become creeped out. Jesse moved closer to me. The hostility practically rising off of him in a cloud did not help any shred of feeling not creeped out that was left.

  “I don’t know,” I started. I was fully intending to explain further but he interrupted me.

  “I want to know what you remember. Not what you don’t know.” Well someone was impatient.

  “Leave her alone. She doesn’t want to talk to you,” Jesse informed him in a warning tone. Nicholas turned slightly to view him in a condescending way. It wasn’t the typical football player condescending. It was more like a military officer to a private or a new recruit; cold and almost disgusted.

  “What do you remember?” he repeated, still looking at Jesse, contempt in his ice-blue eyes. By ice blue I mean they were literally the color of ice. They were more of a silvery, grayish, kind of clear color with a hint of blue and there was no feeling in them.

  “What part of not wanting to talk to you didn’t you understand?” Jesse started to get out of his seat as angry looks passed between them like bullets. I understood Jesse. He was protecting his best friend even if she didn’t remember him. What I didn’t understand was why Nicholas wanted to know all of this. Was it some sort of hero complex where he was fascinated with the person he had saved? I heard the bell ring and the teacher moved to the front of the room but Nicholas still didn’t move.

  “Take your seats,” the teacher stated. He still didn’t leave. Hadn’t he heard her?

  “Nicholas Jefferson,” It took him a few seconds to acknowledge his own name.

  “What?” He was obviously irritated not only with her but the entire situation as he refused to acknowledge her with even a glance in her general direction.

  “I don’t care if you are the star football player. You will not take that tone with me and you will sit down with the rest of the class,” the teacher told him. Nicholas turned back to me, still refusing to listen to her. Maybe he was the one suffering from amnesia because even I knew that he should be doing what she was telling him to. Or maybe he just had an attitude problem.

  “Nicholas!” She snapped, “In your seat now!” He slowly turned an annoyed expression towards her. I looked back to see Jesse still glaring at Nicholas. The two of them obviously did not have a good past where the other was concerned. I had no idea why though. The teacher pointed at his desk but her hand shook slightly. She was intimidated by him and he knew it. Instead of using it against her, however, he slowly returned to his desk, sitting down and crossing his arms like he had suffered some kind of shaming experience. By the look on the cheerleader’s face I could tell that this wasn’t his usual behavior.

  4

  I could feel the heat rising off of the ground where I was laying even before I was fully conscious. I opened my eyes to red and orange firelight flashing in my vision as I lay on my back on a seemingly endless field of black stone outside of a huge city that looked like it was on fire. Smaller fires burned on the stone in random places. For the second time I had woken up in a strange place with no idea as to how I had gotten there, which was extremely unsettling to me. I got to my feet and turned in a complete circle several times.

  There were no people around me. No nurses or heart monitors like there had been the last time and yes, I had figured out what those things were. I tried to remember the last thing I had done, afraid that somehow I had wandered into wherever this was. The last thing I remembered was going to bed. Was I dreaming? I had to be dreaming.

  “Do you like it?” a familiar voice asked. I turned around quickly. Nicholas sat in a black wooden chair that I could have sworn wasn’t there before. Well he looked like Nicholas but he didn’t really seem like him. He wore a tailored black suit with both a black shirt and a black tie. There was also something about his character that was vastly different from the Nicholas everyone described but not too different from the one I had actually met. He was definitely arrogant but not full of himself like the Nicholas everyone else knew. It was more like he knew he was in charge and he didn’t even need to bother to tell anyone because they should already know.

  “Nicholas?” I wasn’t completely sure that was who it was.

  “Nicholas? No. That is not who I am, it is simply who I am wearing,” well that was definitely disturbing and this was definitely a dream. I struggled to wake up but I couldn’t.

  “You cannot wake up because you are not asleep,” he told me.

  “Who are you and where am I?” This had to be a dream. There was no way it was real. I had to wake up.

  “You may call me Joshua and you are outside of the City of Chaos,” I felt like I should know what that was but once again I couldn’t remember. Losing your memory is like losing one of your senses. You become handicapped and at a disadvantage to everyone else.

  “How did I get here?” I asked.

  “I brought you here. How else would you have gotten here? I’m the only way in,” There was something about the way he said this that was even more frightening than not being able to wake up.

  “Why?” It was the first question that popped in my head.

  “Because you belong to me,” he answered.

  “No,” I shook my head, slowly backing up, “I don’t belong to you. I don’t even know you.”

  “Yes, you do belong
to me,” he stood up but seemed unconcerned with me trying to get away from him, “You are mine to do with as I please. You are mine to protect or to kill.” If this wasn’t a dream, I was about to be murdered.

  “No,” I repeated, moving faster to get away.

  “One thing you are going to learn is that you cannot say no to me. You are my property,” That was enough. I didn’t know who he was but I knew that I definitely did not belong to him. I turned and began to run away but suddenly found myself sitting in his chair, unable to move.

  “You cannot escape me, Rachael. You will never be able to escape me,” I could feel his breath on my neck as he spoke from behind me, “Even in your mind.” He grabbed my arms and pain like a hot iron seared my skin where his touched mine. I screamed partially in fear but mostly in agony.

  “You are mine forever,” he hissed in my ear. I suddenly jerked to a seated position, still screaming, in my own bed. The pain was gone and so was he. I glanced around myself, a cold sweat dripping from my forehead.

  “Rachael?” my mom came quickly into my room, “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I said in relief. “Just a dream.”

  5

  I walked into my English class the next morning, completely exhausted. I hadn’t gotten any sleep after that strange dream. I put my books down on my desk, relieved that I had remembered which class and desk I had to go to. I had the wrong book though.

  “You look tired,” Jesse stated the obvious as I sat down. “What were you doing all night?”

  “I had a weird dream,” I told him.

  “It must have been really weird,” he decided. He was treading lightly today. I guess he was more concerned about helping me recover than pressing me to feel guilty about what I had done. Nicholas walked into the classroom and I felt a chill run down my spine as he looked over at me almost immediately. Fear. Maybe it was because of what the person in the dream looked like or maybe it was just because of how he wanted to know all of these things about me that I didn’t even know.

  “Just what I need,” I put my head down on my desk, hoping he would leave me alone. But he didn’t.

  “What could you possibly want now?” I looked up as he stopped by my desk.

  “I want to talk to you, preferably alone,” he glanced back at Jesse who met his look with one equally as cold.

  “No. How about no,” I was starting to become more irritated than creeped out. I just wanted to be left alone. Couldn’t I just not have to think about it? Was that too much to ask?

  “This is very important that you tell me what I want to know,” he wouldn’t be shaken off.

  “She doesn’t have to tell you anything, Nicholas,” Jesse came to my rescue once again. I’m sure Jesse could possibly intimidate someone his own size but Nicholas was at least 6 inches taller than him and was not affected at all. I believe that Jesse knew this but he didn’t care.

  “Listen, I don’t need to hurt you, so back off,” Nicholas threatened, turning his attention to Jesse.

  “I actually do want to hurt you, so back off,” Jesse stood to make his point. Nicholas tightened his grip on the desk he was leaning on and a slight amount of smoke rose from it. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

  “I’m not the kind of person you want to mess with,” he stated. No, that was definitely smoke. Wasn’t anyone else seeing this?

  “Neither am I,” Jesse refused to back down as the bell rang and the teacher got up from her desk.

  “Everyone get to your seats.” Her voice trembled slightly as she noticed that Nicholas was standing again.

  “You are very lucky,” Nicholas went back to his seat and the teacher looked relieved to know that she didn’t have to argue with him. Jesse sat back down as well.

  “I’ll make sure he leaves you alone,” Jesse told me. I would have been relieved except for the fact that if they ever got into a fight, I knew Nicholas would win. In addition to that it seemed I was seeing things now.

  19

  The Rift

  6

  I opened my eyes, still screaming as the fiery pain continued to burn in my arms. Still screaming? The pain stopped and I took a shaky breath.

  “You humans burn so easily. You’re so cold,” Joshua came around from the back of the chair to stands in front of me. It was like I had never even stopped screaming, like I had never left this dream and never woken up. I was still in the chair outside of the burning City of Chaos in this strange dream.

  “I woke up. This dream was over,” what was happening to me?

  “Woke up? Rachael, this is not a dream. I already told you that. You never left,” he informed me.

  “I can’t move,” I realized, slightly panicked.

  “I’m aware of that,” he leaned back against a chair that I hadn’t seen before, staring intently at me.

  “Why can’t I move?” I was panicking about not being able to move instead of this not being a dream. I needed to get my priorities straight.

  “Because,” he put a hand on each arm of the chair I was sitting on, leaning down so that I was forced to look in his eyes. “Because I don’t want you to.”

  “Why not?” I asked. If I could move I would have been shaking in fear.

  “I don’t need a reason,” he answered. “You belong to me!” his voice changed to an animalistic growl and the human features of his face faded for a split second to reveal a glimpse of sharp fangs, deformed and twisted features that mirrored third degree burns, and eyes made of liquid fire.

  “What just happened to your face and your voice?” I asked. This just wasn’t normal. Even though I didn’t remember anything since I woke up in the hospital, I knew it wasn’t right.

  “Sadly human forms can’t last long in this extreme heat,” he stood and took a few steps away from me, “they just melt away.” Did human forms include me? Was I going to melt away?

  “No. You won’t melt. You might burn but melting is not in your near future. Yet.” He had somehow known exactly what I was thinking. So he had control over my mind in addition to my body. This just kept getting worse.

  “Are you going to kill me?” Talking to him seemed to keep him in a fairly good mood.

  “Possibly,” he stated, “I haven’t really decided yet. It depends on if you please me or not.”

  “How did you come to own me?” I couldn’t think of anything to say to him that wasn’t a question. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay here, wherever it was. I just had to be dreaming.

  “I was tricked into purchasing you. I paid very highly for you, thinking you were something extraordinary and something beyond comparison that would bring shame to everyone who tries to force me to serve them. But you aren’t. You are a pathetic, suicidal, worthless human being. There is nothing even remotely special about you.” Well that was not a good sign.

  “I’m sorry.” Calming the beast was all I could do at this point.

  “You are so much more trouble to me than you are worth; but,” he turned to look at me again, “there’s just something about you that is unnaturally hypnotic.” That was a first. I had been called many things since I woke up. Psycho, suicidal, pathetic, most of these coming from him, but hypnotizing wasn’t one of them.

  “I never thought of myself as hypnotizing before,” I was slightly confused. If I was so hypnotizing to him, then why was he being so cruel?

  “By unnatural I mean that it isn’t you. I’ve never been swayed by human beauty. What I mean is someone has done something to you to make you irresistible to me, and I want to know why. In the meantime I will be enjoying myself. It is the least you can do after all of the trouble you have caused me,” he explained. He moved back over to me and touched the side of my face with a single finger. I struggled to not show pain as it seemed to annoy him and one false move could kill me.

  “Tell me what you want,” he ordered.

  “I want to be able to move,” I decided.

  “Done,” he stated, “You can move.” I felt the strange froze
n feeling fade away.

  “And,” try not to think, try not to think. I couldn’t risk him reading my mind and finding out what I was going to do now that I could move.

  “And?” he lifted an eyebrow.

  “I want to wake up,” I started to move my leg to knee him but he grabbed it as soon as I started. I then started to move my arm to push him away but he caught me. The pain of his searing skin became even worse and it was more than I could handle.

  “You aren’t dreaming,” he told me. I began to breathe hard, fighting the urge to scream. “You were never dreaming. You are completely awake.”

  “Rachael! Wake up!” it was my mother’s voice. The pain disappeared again and I was in my room where I had fallen asleep that night.

  “What’s happening to me?” I asked, fear rising.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to take you back to the psychiatrist tomorrow morning. We’re going to find out what’s wrong with you.” I nodded but it didn’t help me. What if it wasn’t a dream? What if this was the place I went to in my mind to escape the pain? What if none of this was real?

  25

  The Rift

  7

  “Alright Rachael, explain to me the nature of these nightmares.” I strongly disliked the psychiatrist for some reason but I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was the way he treated me like I was 5 when I was 17.

  “There is this guy in them that looks like the guy from my school that saved me,” I inwardly winced at that. I hated saying that he had saved me, “But he doesn’t seem human.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Joshua,” I answered.

  “What do you do with him?” he asked.

  “He keeps me unable to move and when he touches me it burns worse than anything I have ever felt. He tells me that he owns me and that I’m worthless but he can’t kill me yet,” I explained. Why was it that explaining it to someone made it seem so stupid when it really wasn’t?