Eden

by Nathan Evans

  A tree appeared before him, split clear in half, a web of thick roots curling and piercing into the ground. The dense halves of the trunk were warped. Char marks ran along the edges and billowed out from there, as if second hand smoke from a massive cigar had seeped into the bark. Dead leaves, coated in thick, white ash, clung stubbornly to the branches, defying the violent gale.

  The Girl stood beneath them.

  She was frozen—her fair, delicate features impervious to the maelstrom that was destroying her reality. Her still form was consumed by a blue dress. The hem of the dress was long, its undulating print a sharp contrast to her stillness. The wind blew the strands of her black hair taut. She was a photograph; a masterful snapshot that some omnipotent artist had animated around.

  A burning ire welled in Akio’s chest. Despite his crumbling fantasy, this last slight was the most perverse—he’d never seen her clothed before. It was unnatural—criminal. She was perfection, to cover even a swatch of her porcelain skin was a sin.

  Her arm extended towards the ashen leaves, her palm open, her thin fingers clutching a shiny, red apple. She held the fruit in a manner that did not suggest consumption, she hadn’t picked it; she held it as an offering.

  A garter snake—it’s body thick, impossibly massive—had coiled loose from the lowest branch. Its lime-green skin was not of the Garden; the hue was unlike anything he’d seen in this world or even the other. It didn’t belong.

  It was immobile, spared the consequences of its harsh surroundings. Its curved, flat snout was cracked in half. Bright pink gums were stretched thin, the elastic flesh revealing a sharp, pointed tooth angling towards the apple.

  Even more disconcerting than the animal’s gaping maw, were its eyes. The sleek curves that should’ve formed the snout were obstructed by wide, watery irises too large for its body. Dark, vertical ovals cut a swath through their rippling, red surface. They were same eyes that had appeared through the slot in the door.

  Akio sprinted towards her. With the same vehemence with which he knew that the door could not be allowed opened, he knew that he had to get the Girl away from the serpent.

  He dashed across the expanse, stumbling at the rise of the small hill the tree rested on, plunging his hands into the soft earth to recover. Beads of sweat trickled against his forehead. He came upon her and reached out for the offering arm. The surface of her porcelain skin rippled at his touch, pond water disturbed by a stone, then burst in an explosive shower.

  Her face contorted in agony. Her body was still. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” Akio grabbed her waist. His hand passed through her. The rain washed her away. Her form ran through his fingers and was absorbed by the earth.

  “Akio!” A scream cut through the cacophony of the storm.

  All at once, the tree, and the wicked creature it housed, disappeared. The Girl, as complete and whole as she’d been before, ran towards him in the distance. Her steps were manic, her face contorted in sheer terror. Her ragged breaths filled his ears as if they were his own.

  A shadow, an abyss, large and horrible, loomed behind her. Its inky black tendrils snaking out from its surface, nipping at her bare heels.

  Akio was once again moving, lunging towards her. As he neared, the abyss began to shift, somehow the darkness within morphed and receded, revealing the angry red eyes, larger and more furious than they’d been before.

  The Girl reached out for him. She tripped, the tips of her fingers brushing his before burying themselves in the soil. A tendril caught her, twisting its way around her ankle. It pulled.

  Her screams threatened to burst his eardrums. She was dragged back towards the darkness, her frail fingers leaving claw marks that trailed across the surface.

  Akio struggled to catch up. His lungs burned and his legs ached. The ground softened to nothingness. He plunged through the surface, the grass puckering, swallowing him whole.

  His hand wrapped around hers; each of them struggling to keep the other from disappearing into the dark. “Please, Akio,” she said, “don’t let him take me.”

  The familiar metallic chunk shook the sky. The tendril grew taught. She was pulled from his grasp.

  Her screams were the last thing he heard before he was devoured by the earth.

  CHAPTER 4

  “No!” Akio screamed. He thrashed against his restraints as the light died and the visor released its grip. His feet found purchase, the harness lowering him to the ground, releasing him. He continued to convulse, guttural cries of anguish pouring from his slack jaw.

  His eyes were on fire. They felt as if they were melting from their sockets. A stabbing, unrelenting twinge filled his head and pierced his temples. He leaned back on his knees, working the edges of his palms against his eye sockets. The burning continued unabated.

  “She’s in danger… she needs me… she…” He forced his eyes open, half expecting the hell he’d just escaped. He was in the Den. Plug was at his console, an eyebrow cocked, confused. A row of others leaned against the wall, all of them staring.

  “No, no, it’s not…” His stomach twisted and he lurched forward, pressing his forehead against the steel floor. He felt his Adam’s apple work and acid build up in the back of his throat. He swallowed hard and managed to keep himself from retching. “It was real… It was real.”

  The ground shook beneath Plug’s boots as he moved toward Akio. The memory of the ground opening and swallowing him returned. Plug gripped his arm, the hand an inky tendril slithering up his armpit. Akio panicked, wrenching free and scrambling away. “No—NO!”

  Plug’s massive hands enveloped his shoulders, setting him upright. Akio struggled against his grip, grabbing the man’s bicep and pushing. “No—let go, let me-”

  Plug’s open palm connected with his face. The throbbing pain that filled his skull threatened to cleave it in two.

  Plug’s indifferent tone was a thunderclap: “Get a grip, Aki. It was a bad trip, that’s all.”

  Akio was still, the sting of the slap slowly beginning to deaden. “A bad trip,” he said, “right… right.”

  “We good?”

  Still in his grip, Akio turned to Plug. Plug was staring at him, tentative, almost daring him to act out again. Anger and embarrassment rose up in Akio at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to lash out at Plug. Repay him for the slap. A single glance at the stressed vein that worked its way up the man’s chiseled arm staved off the urge.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re good.”

  “Good,” Plug said. “Get out, I got payin’ customers waitin’.”

  Akio nodded slowly in agreement. Plug released his grip and walked away, gesturing to one of the waiting addicts. “You’re up.”

  Akio trailed in Plug’s wake. He reached for the door when another user spoke: “Looks like some people can’t handle their high.” Someone snickered.

  Akio stopped where he was. Through puffy pink eyes, he glared.

  The addict merely smirked, taunting him to do something.

  Akio’s shoulders slumped as he left The Den.

  …

  Stumbling home, Akio buried his face in his palms. The hot pain hadn’t subsided—it’d transformed. Rather than the burn boring through his retinas, his eyes were sensitive, as if the thinnest sliver of their surface layer had been peeled away.

  Every brush of open air caused a vibrant ghost of the initial sting to flare, so he closed them, allowing the lids to temper the scorching surface. He was rewarded with the Girl of the Garden’s anguished face. The recollection was dim, yet never absent.

  But she was, wasn’t she? Even before this, he’d never gazed upon her, never brushed against her skin, never placed his lips on hers—she was a figment, a culmination of desire.

  So why did her screams continue to reverberate in his mind?

  He felt a twinge of guilt at the question; as if thinking of her this way were some unforgivable slight. Every touch, every taste, every sense experienced while jacked into that world had prod
uced a result in the real one. She may not be real, but her effect on him was.

  He remembered visiting the garden for the first time, seeing her—fully formed—perfect. Initially, like most first time users, he’d been wary, hesitant to give himself over to the machinations of the system—to her. The feeling hadn’t lasted. The effect of Haven was more pleasurable, more palpable, than any substance he’d ever ingested. As every user that came to the system’s defense could attest, there was no herb, no cocktail of chemicals acting on your mind—there was only you.

  She had sprang from him, and now she was in danger.

  But that wasn’t right either, it was just a bad trip. Until now he’d never once experienced one, but he had borne witness to them. There had been the man that awoke screaming, tearing at his own body, convinced that a thousand tiny spiders had burrowed beneath his skin. There was the woman that had been reduced to a sobbing mess, forced to relive some scarring intimate trauma. Then there were the others, the ones that never came back. The ones that gained access to a space within themselves either too terrifying or too idyllic to escape. How many had he seen freed from Haven’s restraints, their faces slack, their eyes glazed?

  Oddly enough, the memory of these lost souls served to put him at ease; their fate was better than the alternative. A bad trip was a freak occurrence, usually caused by some personal turmoil the subconscious was focused on. The alternative, the idea that the Girl was gone, was unacceptable.

  Even if the Girl was in peril, there was nothing he could do for her now. He was out of credits, with no foreseeable way of acquiring more. Akio’s boot scraped against the front step of his stoop and he pushed his troubled thoughts to the wayside.

  The front door of the apartment building loomed over him. He paced at the bottom of the steps, working up the courage to face Irving. The wind and rain picked up, forcing his hand.

  He knocked on the door, flinching as the peep hole slid open; half expecting blood red irises to greet him. There was a fleeting moment of relief at the sight of Irving’s blood-shot yellow. “Akio,” he said, “hold up.” The peep hole slid closed, followed by the rattle of the many locks on the other side. Irving cracked the door, “Come in.”

  Akio obliged, avoiding eye contact, making a beeline directly for the stairs.

  “Rent?”

  He stopped where he was and turned slowly. Arms crossed, Irving stared at him; stern and skeptical.

  In an instant, the trepidation that marked Akio’s face was replaced with a smile and a soft chuckle. “About that,” he said, rolling his shoulders—sighing, “there was a mix up at Buffone’s. I’m guessing there was some clerical error made by the bank—I don’t know.” He smirked at Irving, exuding every ounce of the manipulative charm addicts cultivated. He paused in his excuse to gauge whether or not Irving was buying it: the man merely scowled. “Anyway, Buffone was a little short on creds and he was only able to pay two-fifty. I told him not to worry about it. I didn’t want to kick the man while he was down. You know how it is.”

  He tried his best smirk—nothing—Irving was silent. Sensing the direction of the conversation, Akio scrambled to fill the dead air: “Of course, the creds are all yours. I’ll figure something out for food and stuff until the next paycheck—you’ll have the rest of it then.” He rolled up his sleeve and extended his hand, his barcode face up.

  Irving’s lip curled at the gesture. He never broke eye contact with Akio. “Office.” He said.

  The smirk disappeared from Akio’s face. Rolling his sleeve down, he began the walk down the dark hallway to the left of the staircase. The office’s crooked gold nameplate gleamed against the door set in the far wall. The hall was short, but the walk was long. The metallic snap of the closing locks punctuated each step. He tried the doorknob but it didn’t budge. He leaned against the wall, his head down, arms folded, waiting.

  Irving’s boots thudded methodically as he drew near. He produced a rusted gold key and freed the door, stepping into the dense dark of the office. Akio followed suit.

  There was the rattle of a chain and a dim light filled the room. It pierced Akio’s already throbbing eyes. He gasped at the exquisite pain, his arm flying to his face to shield them.

  “Sit down.”

  Akio set his arm back at his side, trying—and failing—to disguise the fact that he was squinting. Before him, sitting squat in the center of the room, was a slab of a wooden desk. On its surface was a cracked, green domed desk lamp; the source of his misery. Half blind, his hand flailed for the arm of the rickety chair nearest him. He found it and eased himself down.

  Irving took up an abused padded chair on the opposite side. Without speaking, he slid out his desk drawer and removed a portable scanner; a black panel with a palm sized digital readout connected by a looped cord. He slid it toward Akio. Akio put his hand against it and let the machine do its work. A moment later it beeped, the readout flashing red. Irving grunted, then set the contraption back in its place.

  Akio’s fingers bit into the chair arm as he fidgeted in his seat; his lower lip disappearing beneath the top one as he did his best to manage the pain. The sound of his own rustling thundered in his ears. The room was silent.

  Irving’s back curled over the desk. His palms consumed his face as he rubbed them against it; the ensuing sound resembling that of sandpaper against wood. He sighed and cracked his neck, the wrinkles in his forehead attempting to wipe away some internal annoyance. He rested both hands on the desk top, one lying over the other, and looked Akio straight in the eye: “You must think I’m stupid.”

  “What? No, really—that’s what happened. It was an honest mistake. Like I said, I’ll get you your credits.”

  “If you don’t spend it on dope first, am I right?”

  The fidgeting ceased, the stabbing pain in his eyes dulled, replaced with shock. “No, I don’t know what you’re-”

  “What’s your thing? Meth, crush, Haven…”

  Akio attempted a response but came up short, his body betraying the attempt at yet another lie.

  Irving glared at him before turning away, shaking his head in disgust. “Ain’t that some shit,” he said under his breath.

  “Look,” Akio said, “It’s not what you-”

  “Shut up—don’t speak—don’t say another God damn word while you’re in this office, you understand? Nod if you understand.”

  Akio’s jaw went slack before clasping shut. His gut twisted and there was a burning in his eyes that had nothing to do with the damage from the Haven Den. His gaze dropped to the floor. He nodded.

  “Good. Now let me explain how this is going to go.”

  Akio cringed, the wicked metallic brow and glowing red eyes of the Authority seizing his consciousness.

  “You’re going to continue living here…”

  His brow scrunched, perplexed by what he’d just heard.

  “But the rent’s gone up. Two thousand creds a month—plus what you owe me.”

  Akio visibly recoiled. Before he could stop himself, he attempted to speak. Irving stopped it with a gesture.

  “No.” He stood, still hunched over the desk, a finger jammed in Akio’s face. “Not a word.” He waited, daring Akio to respond. He didn’t. Irving leaned back into his chair and continued. “I know that’s a lot of money, but junkies like you,” the finger bobbed, “y’all find a way.

  Now, you’re going to get it in your head that it’s not fair, but remember, you aren’t just payin’ rent anymore; no—you’re payin’ to keep me quiet. Keep that in mind and things will go easy. And I ain’t gonna lie. If the cops come around looking for you, I’m going to let them know what I know. I’m not doing time for you.

  “Again,” Irving said, his shoulders back, palm on the desktop, his eyes locked with Akio’s, “am I understood?”

  Akio’s lips diminished to a thin slit. He stared back at Irving with all of the malice that was left in him. Then he nodded.

  “Good,” Irving said, “now get out of my off
ice.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Akio opened his eyes to find himself alone in his bedroom, then he closed them; the initial sting of light filtering through the blinds too much to bear. Despite the relative warmth of the room, he was cold, slicked to the bone with sweat. His breathing was ragged and strained. His hands shook. He buried his face in them.

  A dream, he’d been dreaming, of what or who he couldn’t remember. Against his better judgment, he opened his eyes and focused on the dark of his palms, trying desperately to recall the black thoughts that had jarred him awake. All he was able to drudge up were the echoes of muffled screams, his own, and the copper taste of ink at the back of his throat.

  “Jesus.” He whispered. Vertigo took hold and the room shifted. His mind threatened to spin out of its housing. Attempting to keep it in place, he worked the edges of his palms against his eyelids. It wasn’t until the room settled that he dared to open them again, the sting from the evening before finally subsiding.

  He angled his feet over the side of the mattress and stood, his malnourished body protesting with groans and pops. Clad only in boxers, he stretched, doing his best to work the kinks from his spine.

  As the fog of sleep seeped away, he took in the room. It was spare, filled only with the mattress, a nightstand and a mound of unwashed clothes next to a white plastic basket. He made for the mound, retrieving a wrinkled pair of jeans and a black shirt.

  He padded out of his bedroom and into the main room. The space was tiny. Opposite him was the doorway that led to the building’s hallway. To the right of that was the living room. A ratty couch and holo-projector filled the space.

  His stomach groaned. He made his way to the left, to the stubby island of cabinets and drawers set beside the hunk of metal that was his refrigerator. He maneuvered past a round table and lone chair. Removing a chipped bowl from one of the cabinets, he cracked the door of the fridge. The compartment was cool, clean and barren; a carton of milk and various plastic containers filled with old, blackened bits of uneaten food were all it housed. He removed the carton and shut the door.