Otherland

by Almondie Shampine

  She looked for other phenomenas. Articles popped up of a rare occurrence, similar to narcolepsy, but the periods of sleep lasted a lot longer. They spoke of people that went through periods of comatose states throughout their lives, states that mimicked sleep, where, seeming sudden, they’d just wake up and be fully-functioning again for however long a period of time before turning to this sleep-like comatose state once again.

  The greatest phenomena they’d observed about it, the case-studies that they’d followed, was that the body did not seem to age as a regular human body did, and even years spent comatose, they’d wake up and look the same exact age as when they’d gone in. Of course, the scientific community called it impossible.

  Lydia opened one article questioning the truth or myth of a person named Jacob Knight, followed for almost a century, but the documented case-study by a Doctor Alan Lolitt died with him at 103 years old, nearly 50 years ago, claiming to have followed a man, aged 22 at the time commencing the case study, noting frequent occurrences of comatose and active states.

  It was this Doctor’s life’s work following this person, and the doctor claimed that, whereas, the person should have been over a 100 years old, his body was only 28 after the passage of a century. She tried to pull up a picture, but it was black and white, and the resolution was very poor. The picture was of this Jacob Knight comatose, lying there in a seemingly very peaceful state. There was something on his lower abdomen on the right side, but she couldn’t quite make out the image.

  The sun was setting. She’d been here for hours. She stretched, and her stomach growled. She searched up one additional thing and made a phone call. In her memory, she could see the letterhead of the place that had sent her the correspondence that had told her she had a type of medical condition she’d been born with that made her completely sterile, unable to ever have children. This is the place she called.

  “Name?”

  “Lydia – uh – Aliyah Destiny Demonica.”

  A lengthy time passed. “Yes, we still have your records. Come by tomorrow around 3:00 with identification and we’ll release them to you.”

  Identification? “Yes, all right, tomorrow at 3:00. Thank you.”

  Where the hell was she supposed to get identification?

  20 minutes later, she was home, Cherise standing impatiently at her door with an overnight bag.

  “You owe me, Lydia. I still ain’t understandin’ why you can’t just stay at my place.”

  “Got you covered. I bought Chinese. Besides, call it girls’ night. You really want to spend it with your husband and kids?” Lydia jested.

  “He ain’t happy ‘bout dis. He ain’t know how to get them kids to bed.”

  “It’s time he learn. I’m sure he can handle one night of you being away.”

  Cherise chuckled good-naturedly. “You right. Let him know what I got to do every single night. I know this supposed to be a keep-Lydia-from-getting-haunted-in-the-night, but damn girl, dis my freedom. You ain’t know what it like. … Sorry, I don’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s okay, Cherise,” Lydia tried to laugh. “You offend me so much on a daily basis, it doesn’t even bother me anymore.”

  “But you my girl. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  “I don’t think you give me a choice,” Lydia remarked.

  Cherise, with far too much energy, laid out the plates and poured both of them a glass of wine.

  “I don’t think I should be drinking tonight, Cherise.”

  “Girl, shut up. This my night, and I’m goin’ enjoy it. Eight months we been friends, we ever do this? And I can’t ever get yo’ hermit ass to go out with me. This what we got right now, so this what we doin’.”

  Cherise’s good mood was contagious. Lydia tried to think about the kind of life it must take to have a husband, kids, a family. She’d been devastated when no one had come to claim her and tell her who she was. No family. No anybody. She’d mourned that off and on for the past 14 months, feeling so completely alone in the world.

  She’d felt betrayed by whatever family she didn’t remember for not searching for her, trying to find her. She’d envied Cherise for having that, having a home, a place of belonging, people that loved her, a devoted husband and kids. But she’d failed to recognize the responsibility of such as well.

  Cherise, always so full of energy, always having a smile and her blunt attitude, waking up every day, taking care of her kids, her husband, going to work, returning home to again care for her husband and children, the responsibilities endless, while Lydia maintained a completely different life of having nothing, no one, having no idea who she was, what her purpose was, where she’d come from, nothing, but not having any responsibility to anyone else, either. As if Cherise didn’t have enough on her plate, she was also taking responsibility for Lydia.

  And with flare, as she poured herself a second glass of wine.

  “Girl, dis so excitin’. As crazy as you are, I gotta thank you. I needed this bad. Hmm, hmm, hmm, this the life. Free food I ain’t have to cook, crazy company, good wine, freedom. Right now, my kids be like, ‘So Mom, what we goin’ do?’, after I work all day, cook, and I got dishes stacked this high. They be lookin’ at me to entertain them, like I ain’t got nothin’ else I’m doin’. So, what you do today?”

  “Research.”

  “You know who you is now?”

  “I found out I killed the only relation I could find out about,” Lydia casually said.

  Cherise choked on her honey chicken, “You say you did what?”

  “Yeah, they said he was my guardian, not my parent or anything, and I was his dependent, and I made the decision to pull the plug on his life support after he’d been in a coma for six months. Dwayne Demonica, it said his name was. Over three years ago.”

  “Girl, that ain’t mean you kilt him. Hospital probably tried pressurin’ you. His insurance probably run out. You know how those things work. You actually remember it?”

  “No. Someone who is supposed to have been my guardian, but I can’t see any of it. If he was my guardian, that means something must have happened to my parents, and if I have his last name, it must have been when I was very young, less I would have kept my parents’ last name. Maybe Aliyah wasn’t even the name I was born with. Go figure, the only person that might be able to tell me who I am is dead.”

  “That fine man know somethin’. He knew yo’ name. Led you to learnin’ mo’ about yo’self.”

  Lydia rolled her eyes.“He also told me that the picture I drew is a real place in another world that one leaves their body and travels to when they’re sleeping. And told me I had a son, when that is impossible.”

  “He say he might be yo’ son. He didn’t say fo’ sure.”

  “I’m going to the facility tomorrow to check out my records. Well, Aliyah Destiny Demonica’s records.”

  “How you can know details like that and not know anythin’ else?”

  “Perhaps I’ll remember more tomorrow when I see the records. They need ID, though, and my ID says Lydia Smith, so I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Just tell them the truth. Maybe they have a picture or somethin’ o’ dis Aliyah, and you be able to know if it’s you or not.”

  “Well, there’s no denying the signature of Aliyah written on the back of the creepy fallen angel canvas.”

  “You regrettin’ gettin’ rid of him so easy, you are. Now you don’t know where to find him if they a chance he can give you mo’ info’mation.”

  “You kicked him out, Cherise,” Lydia accused.

  “I was only doin’ what my girl wanted. My opinion, I thought the two a’ you might be good together. You both a little odd, you believin’ yo’ paintings real and he sayin’ the same thing. Is it really that difficult to believe when we believe in God and Satan and heaven and hell?”

  “You believe in that stuff, Cherise. Not me.”

  “Where you think we go when we die? How you think we got here to begin with? All I�
��m sayin’ is it’s really not all that far-fetched.”

  “The same place a plant goes when it dies. It decomposes into the soil, and another plant is born,” Lydia said.

  “We ain’t got seeds like flowers. We can’t just decompose in the soil, and voila, another human born.”

  “What I’m saying is when our time is up, it’s up. We don’t move on into an afterlife, as much as a plant doesn’t. It dies, and due to the reproductive properties of all things, the species continues.”

  “So how the very first people get here?” Cherise inquired.

  “How did the dinosaurs? I don’t know. A baby begins as a single cell. Obviously, that’s how we started.”

  “So you saying back after the dinosaur days, a human egg just happen to be relaxin’ by the lake where a sperm just happen to be swimmin’ along, and he say, ‘Hey baby, how you doin’? I gotta proposition. You – me – we goin’ create the first human.’ You see how stupid that sound?”

  Lydia laughed. “Not anymore stupid than the idea that there’s this spiritual God and creator of all things that used magic to create a world, create life, and everything else, and he just sits up there on his throne in heaven, watching all his little creations suffer at the hands of a supposed fallen angel, Satan, that houses all the evil things in the world, and instead of the all-powerful God getting rid of Satan and all those evil things, he allows them to prosper. Where did God come from? Who or what created him? Or did he just magically appear? Your belief and my belief are equally stupid.”

  “Drink yo’ wine, bitch. You thinkin’ too much. No wonder you can’t never sleep.”

  When Cherise was on the phone telling her kids goodnight, Lydia had another memory. The memory was of her always having the memory of constantly having the same dream of carrying a baby. A baby boy.

  The adventures changed. The environment changed. What didn’t change was the bundled baby boy in her arms. Now that she remembered these memories, she remembered always questioning why she kept having those dreams with that same baby boy. Now she remembered she used to think that it was her mind playing tricks on her, forever reminding her of the child she could never have, and so in her dreams, and her dreams only, could she have that son that she could never have in life.

  She told Cherise about it.

  “Lift yo’ shirt,” Cherise said suddenly. She was three-quarters to intoxicated after inhaling more of Lydia’s wine than Lydia had.

  “I’m not lifting my shirt, Cherise.”

  “I ain’t hittin’ on you, fool. They marks. Mother marks. The mother line. The stretch marks. All kinds of proof of when a woman has a baby.”

  “I already told you, Cherise. I was told it was impossible for me to ever have a child. There’s no proof to look for.”

  “Just let me see and we know fo’ sure.”

  “Stop it, Cherise,” Lydia involuntarily laughed, as Cherise’s attempts at lifting her shirt tickled her.

  “If you ain’t noticed, we got the same parts. Yours just be white. It ain’t nothing I ain’t seen befo’. Jus’ let me look real quick.” Cherise continued to chase after her and reach for her.

  “Cherise, no, you don’t understand,” Lydia said, suddenly fearful, but Cherise was too intoxicated and too fixated to notice the change in her voice. Once cornered, Lydia reflexively turned her back, and Cherise lifted her shirt. There was a noticeable silence.

  “Shit, girl, what the hell happen to you? You look like you done been whipped a hundred times.”

  Lydia trembled uncontrollably.

  “Hey, girl. Everythin’ all right. Let’s get you mo’ wine. I’m sorry. Not my problem we been best friends all dis time and you ain’t tell me nothin’.”

  Cherise guiltily dragged Lydia into the kitchen and placed a glass of wine in her hand. Lydia, at the moment, continued to shudder violently, almost like she was having a seizure, and her eyes looked to be in an entirely different place.

  “You aiight, girl. You havin’ a memory? Come on, drink yo’ wine. Tell me what you seein’.”

  “I … can’t,” Lydia said, her voice marked with so much pain.

  “Maybe, maybe there be a good reason you ain’t have your memories, Lydia. Maybe it be best if you just keep on bein’ Lydia and let the past be in the past. It probably better that way.”

  As much as Cherise tried, she couldn’t get Lydia back 100 percent, so she got her tucked into bed, had one more glass of wine, turned the lights out, and curled herself in her sleeping bag for the night.

  ***

  Finally, darkness descended, and the Dark soul could move about again. Making up for lost time, he flew through the night faster than he ever had before. He sensed the air and followed the trail to where she was, moving through buildings, traffic, and all those physical things he could move right through, until he was standing above her. He panted. He couldn’t help it. The urge so powerful, so strong. It was her. Older, but still her. Crying out in her dreams, perhaps remembering him. He’d hoped she’d never forget, so when she opened her eyes, she’d know exactly who he was.

  “Aliyah,” he hissed, and attempted to wrap his hands around her throat, but just like the buildings, they moved right through her. “No!” he cried. “NO! NO! NO!” He tried grabbing her hair, tried hitting her, tried picking her up, nothing. And she just kept on sleeping, seeming completely undisturbed by his presence.

  “Get away from her, black beast,” he heard yelled behind him, moments before the lights singed him and he had no choice but to return into the night. He howled.

  “Lydia, wake up!” Cherise shouted, her entire body quivering.

  They both screamed when the hatchback door slammed open against the wall.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Somebody betta’ tell me what the hell is goin’ on or I’m goin’ freak out,” Cherise said, pacing the floors, back and forth. She’d turned on all the lights in the house, and this time it was Lydia placing the glass of wine in her hand, telling her to drink it and to calm down.

  “You ain’t see it, Lyd. I did. Dis enormous black thing standin’ over you, like it tryin’ to hurt you. It had these eyes, these eyes so black, like hell itself. I saw it and ain’t no one goin’ tell me I didn’t see what I saw. Then you show up, just like that, like you done been standin’ at the door the entire time,” she pointed shakily at the Light knight.

  “I’m fine, Cherise. Look. I’m unharmed. Whatever you saw obviously couldn’t hurt me.” But Lydia was shaken up herself at just the thought of something standing over her while she was sleeping.

  “No, in its spiritual form, it can’t touch you. You’re physical. It’s not. The best it can do is terrify you like what happened with Cherise in seeing it,” the Light knight explained. “Now it knows that, though, so it may very well take a different course of action.”

  “You keep sayin’ it. What is it?” Cherise asked.

  “I’m sorry, Cherise. You shouldn’t have been made a part of this, but you are now. He’s broken the Bylaws, which means he’s probably not going to return when we’re summoned. It obviously has no impulse-control, which we’d already suspected it wouldn’t. We only needed to use him for me to locate Aliyah, as he knew her personally when he was human, so he would be able to sense her location.”

  “Am I the only one here freakin’ out about dis and not makin’ any sense of it right now?” Cherise cried.

  “You have every reason to feel the way you do, Cherise. They are frightening creatures to look at when you’re not accustomed to them.”

  “Hoo, hoo, hoo,” Cherise breathed loudly. “My world jus’ completely turned upside down. Now I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Cherise, you’re the one that believes in heaven and hell and an afterlife and spirits and all that. You were just telling me all about it earlier,” Lydia said, a bit sharply.

  “That’s just believin’ in those things. I never expected to see it. It scares the piss out o’ me. Ain’t you scared? I mean, it was sta
ndin’ over you, Lydia. It was after you. Don’t I get no thanks for scarin’ it off to begin with? It was moanin’, woke me right up.”

  “Thank you, Cherise,” Lydia said tiredly. “So, who or what is it?” she directed her question toward the Light knight. He was proud to see her so grounded, especially after earlier’s hysterics.

  “He claims to have been your guardian during his human life.”

  “Dwayne Demonica?” Lydia questioned.

  “Is that his name? So you remember him, then?”

  “No, I don’t. I just did some research earlier on the name you provided, and that’s something that came up.”

  “He claims that you killed him and –.”

  “Ha ha, Cherise. See? I told you I killed him,” Lydia laughed, as though they were doing nothing more than talking about good times.

  “- and that you brought him to Otherland and had him eternally imprisoned in the Darkness,” the Light knight continued.

  “Why would I do that? How would I do that?”

  “I don’t know, only the High master has access to the documents of the names and lives of the souls in Otherland.”

  “The High master?” Lydia questioned with a big smile on her face.

  “Is she okay?” he asked of Cherise.

  Cherise smacked her.

  “What the hell, Cherise?” Lydia yelled.

  “Yep, she be fine. What kinda guardian he be that Lydia, or Aliyah, would need to kill him and have him imprisoned in the – the – ?”

  “The Darkness. It’s a place with spiritual restraints as tough and unbreakable as stone. There is not a smidgeon of light in the darkness, but for one place. Those imprisoned there can’t hope to ever escape. He’s evil. More evil than most. You can tell by the color of the darkness the deeds one did in their human life. Aliyah had very, very good reasons, I’m sure, for being rid of him.”