Misery Saves the Night

by Brittany Allen

  He started with ripping tree roots out of the ground with a mere upwards movement of his hands. Ian saw this coming and his heart lurched and ended up in his throat. Bracing for impact, Ian threw his hands in front of his face. Then several seconds later, when the roots should have wrapped themselves around him, Ian lowered them. The tree roots burst into billions of little atoms and dispersed in to the air around them.

  “Well, got any more tricks up your long sleeves?” The nature oriented boy was already planning his next attack.

  “I… I don’t know.” Ian watched the blue energy trickle in his finger. “But I would sure as heck like to find out.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Miuan was planning his next moves. He was thinking of using the water from a nearby stream.

  BOOM! Miuan was not the only one thinking about the stream. Ian had already gathered the water and sent it at Miuan’s stomach. When Miuan recovered, he looked up to see the lieutenant still in control of the water. Almost everyone who struck using fresh water in that form lost hold of it, that’s why most officers carried containers of salt water with the where ever they would go. Salt water was denser and held better to manipulation.

  “Let’s go!” Twirling the water around his body like it was a serpent, Ian taunted his opponent.

  Not much could hurt or break water, but Miuan had a plan. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Everything in the musky night air seeped through his pores. Air started to pick up speed and swirl around him. Ian knew what was happening and sent the water at the boy. Miuan was faster than Ian’s attack and sent the electric charge build up in his body as a lightning bolt. This had effectively broke the water serpent and electrocuted Ian, but not severely.

  Lying on the ground, Ian so graciously took the hand that was reaching out to him. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.” Miuan joined him on the ground. “I did knock you down and all. Surprised to see you are still conscious.”

  “I did not mean thank you for the hand.” Ian brought his legs close to his chest. “But for this battle.”

  “Did not know you could do any of that.” In a sportsman like gesture, Miuan punched Ian in the shoulder.

  “Neither did I, though I suppose it all stems from my telepathic abilities.” His eyes stayed transfixed on the stars above them.

  Miuan got up off the ground and helped Ian to his feet. “It must have been that time you spent in Farous. We all know you were not capable of that before your mission.”

  They traveled back to the car where Ian took the driver seat this time. Miuan had carried his bags back to the car. A sort of cost of losing their little match.

  “Yeah, probably. Maybe.” Ian tried not to think about it too much. Each time he tried to think of the mission his mind sent him back other memories or focusing on driving.

  It was Ian’s turn to drive and rain started to sprinkle on the windshield and with the orange glow of the street lights that lined the road, the small droplets sparkled. Something made him think of another place where there was a glow like that. He remembered a place with brick streets and the smell of the ocean. Just reminders of his trip to Farous Ian thought. All of it was just faint remnants of a routine trip and nothing more to him.

  Next to Ian in the passenger seat, Miuan slept without a sound. As a nature oriented super powered human, Miuan really felt most content when the elements manipulated themselves. Like when it rained or when a bolt of lightning would strike a tree and cause a fire. Earthquakes also put them at ease when most people would be worrying about their lives. It was when things like tsunami’s and hurricanes struck that made this particular set of humans feel the most connected to the earth and grounded in a sense of euphoria.

  Ian envied his partner. He knew what the rain did to his kind and he wished there was something to put his mind at ease. So many nights had he been tossing and turning unable to go to sleep. Insomnia was the word Ian was looking for to describe his condition. With all of the quietness around him at those early morning hours when he tried to sleep, Ian’s mind was the most alert. Always thinking of a hundred things every minute and never able to keep on one subject, Ian was becoming a ‘bit’ sleep deprived.

  “Huh.” Ian laughed. “Must be losing it this time.” He chuckled while watching the image of a cloaked figure in the middle of the road.

  As his car kept getting closer the figure remained firmly put in that one spot. Ian’s mind took a few seconds to catch up with him. He jammed his foot on the break and tried to swerve to avoid the person standing in the middle of the road who he now believed was flesh and blood and not just something his mind fathomed. None of the commotion jolted Miuan from his slumber. As long as the rain continued to fall, the man was basically useless.

  “Shit!” The vehicle slid off the road and into a ditch. Ian punched the steering wheel.

  The dip into the ditch was not so bad. Ian was still conscious and Miuan seemed to be okay. He got out of the now sideways car to survey the damage. Besides being nose first into a thick mud ditch, there were no visible signs of damage, apart from being stuck in a hole.

  “Now what?!” Drenched from the rain, Ian threw his arms in the air defeated. Ever since he returned from Farous, his life had been a living hell. “Humph.”

  Ian held back the mucus running out his nose, but he could not stop the tears from running down his face. He kicked the cars bumper only have his thin leg slip off and land in the mud. This only angered him further and in a flash of blind and furious rage he unintentionally sent the car flying out of the ditch and crashing on the road. Still the car had yet to receive any damage and Miuan still seemed fine.

  Climbing out of the hole, covered in mud and soak with rain, Ian sent off waves of energy. Trees split in half, transformers blew, and much to Ian’s own amazement the rain stopped in midstream. Millions of little rain drops stayed in place only to confuse Ian further creating a dozen new questions.

  “And where the hell did that person who caused all this.” He kicked a stray stone.

  “Head home.” A voice whispered. “She is there.”

  It did not take any more than that for Ian to get back in the car and head back to the Disten NSSH headquarters. The rain stayed frozen in place and only began to fall again after Ian left the area. There was something wrong with his world and now he knew it for sure. Missing memories, unexplained new developed powers, and his increasing twitches. Something was telling him that there was one place where he could get the answers he was looking for.

  Tory was waiting at the edge of the Disten shoreline. Following Rheanne’s orders, he was on his way back to his homeland, Farous. Since the NSSH left Farous, laws on the water were a bit more relaxed for the people of Disten wanting to visit Farous. The Farous government lifted the travel ban for Distenian’s and only held a limit to those who may visit their land. But every week, the limit decreased and more ‘tourists’ visited the forbidden land.

  The FPA watched as their economy improved from the revenue of their tourism division. They became so blinded by the money and all the happy words the NSSH was telling them that they did not seem to notice much else. It was hard to see that people from Disten were arriving in Farous, but not leaving. Only thing they did see was their bank accounts growing. Not even the comments, letters, and emails of concerned Farous tax paying citizens seemed to get to them.

  Rheanne and her clan saw this and that was why Tory was to set off across the water and bring the data sticks from the other three NSSH branches. These data sticks held all of the NSSH files that would not show up on any scan of their computers or employees minds. She had great faith in the boy and reassured Tory that Recarie would be fine until he came back. Besides, Tory would have other things to worry about on his trip.

  Watching the sun rise over the water and turning the sky all the soft colors of sherbet, he fumbled with the data sticks. Three out of four, the last being the NSSH headquarters, but it would not be long before that would be in his maste
r’s possession as well. A boat cut across the water. A shabby little ship with a stubby little man in a white captain’s uniform waving at him.

  Joining Tory on the boat was six other trusting looking people. A newlywed couple looking forward to their one of a kind honeymoon on the once forbidden continent of Farous held each other tight looking out over the side of the boat. Then there was an older man in his late sixties and three high school graduates, all jittery about seeing Farous. The boat docked and everyone scrambled on board. No one seemed to notice Tory, but the less attention he got the smoother his quest was bound to go.

  He still had to figure out how he would get his findings to the FPA. Though, even if he did that, how would they respond to the data? Tory had plenty of things to mull over on the twenty some odd hour’s trip. That is, if he could keep his focus as the boat rocked and half way tipped over each time it hit a wave.

  Miuan had awoken once the rain cleared and the sun rose. “Ugh!” He screamed seeing Ian’s tilted smiling face looking at him. “Dude! Have you been watching me sleeping?!”

  “No…” Ian had been, but he was a good liar, one of the things he was sure about. “We’re here.” He got out of the vehicle, grabbed the bags and opened Miuan’s door for him.

  “Okay…?” The other man took his senior officers assistance and after a very long yawn, he hopped out the car. “Whoa!” Seeing the mud splattered all over the vehicle shocked him awake. “Fall in a hole or something while I was out?”

  “No, no.” Ian led the way into the NSSH headquarters. He and Miuan split ways as Ian went to turn in their findings to the lab all the while he looked like someone had slipped him some very, very happy pills.

  He took the elevator to the top floor, level six where the labs were held. The elevator’s panel on the inside only had six buttons on it, but on his little break before Miuan woke up, Ian had time to fully notice the building he worked in. From the outside, the building only had six floors, but using his new found powers he broke through the guise over it and saw that the sixth floor was twice as tall as the other floors.

  “Hm…” It was at that point something sparked in his mind. “Why would that floor be taller than the rest? Hm…” Did not take a genius to figure it out. So there Ian was and the little lights on the door kept flashing as he waited for it to reach six.

  Thankfully for Ian, no one else had needed to use the elevator and security was busy laughing at the former officers as they drooled on themselves in a monitor on the other side of the security room. Four, Ian’s heart rate increased. Five, now his palms sweated. What was he going to do when he reached floor six or even the fabled floor seven for that matter?

  “Level six.” The female voice announced on the elevator automated speaker system. Ian took a deep breath as the bell dinged and the door opened. A bright white greeted him, the florescent lights on that floor. The whole situation seem familiar somehow.

  Exhaling the breath he had been holding in, Ian stepped into the hallway. There was no going back now and Ian had yet figure out a battle strategy. In front of him were two double doors with an oak frame. After passing through the doors he gave a weak wave to the woman at the receptionist desk. This floor was known throughout the Disten communities for having a female only staff. Not that men weren’t allowed, it was just not many men had the qualifications to make it in that particular field.

  “Samples from the Miuan/Ian disturbances and unbalances quest.” Ian laid all the samples on an idling cart and signed several sheets of paper work. He also used that time to study the floor. “Looks at tall as any other floor.” Now that the receptionist was wheeling the samples into a back room, Ian mumbled freely to himself. “But where is that seventh level?”

  In the white padded cell, two nurses were escorting a drugged Daouen back into the room. Now there were only four of them left. At times when they were lucid, Daouen and the rest knew the others had died during the experimentations and had been harvested for parts. It would not be long before Daouen succumbed to that fate. His body could only take so much torture. Their food rations did not help their bodies recover after the procedures.

  Vile after vile of blood, injecting them with strange and questionable concoctions, and everything else the scientist wanted to do to them took its toll on their malnourished bodies. Once the drugs passed through his system, Daouen saw he had five new holes in his body being held together by cheap thread. Two stitches over his left hip, one over his heart, and another two on his right foot. He had seen those same injuries on the last guy who left and never came back. That just meant Daouen had one more trip to the operating table before he would not be coming back.

  Recarie continuously kept running into the same wall. She often did that and Daouen would turn her around, but he was too weak to move now. If you stared at Daouen long enough, he would blend perfectly into the white wall he was slumped against and Recarie was getting there too. None of the nurses ever came to retrieve Recarie for their experiments. They would enter the room make her swallow pills and inject her with funny bubbling liquids.

  He knew they were prepping Recarie for the operation they were trying to perfect on the rest of the former agents. “Recarie.” Daouen gasped. His voice was like two cinder blocks scrapping against each other. Every time he found a burst of strength, he would try to shake Recarie from her trance. “Recarie!” He pleaded with the girl.

  Something seemed to click in her mind and she approached him. Her head tilted slightly to the right side as she stared at him with her mouth hanging wide open. Daouen almost fainted. That was the best thing that had happened to him since they were herded into that room.

  “You!” He coughed. Bits of blood splattered on his fist. “Take my hand.” Daouen held all of his hopes as he was used to disappointment.

  For three minutes all Recarie did was stand there and stare. Oh, and she also drooled a puddle on the floor where she stood. The doctors stood outside the door and chattered quite excitedly from what Daouen could tell. Something from their experiments on him must have went right because two nurses came in the room and they each took a person back with them.

  It was too late. The final stages of their plan were taking place. Soon they would come for him and then lastly for Recarie. Daouen waited for the doctors to head back to the operating rooms at the other end of the floor. Once he knew for sure that they were not in range of them, Daouen sprang at Recarie. He heard two bones pop, both of them his, as they pair toppled to the floor.

  “Dangn it!” His boney fingers gripped her wrists. “Remember!”

  Inside her mind, Recarie was quite contempt with her current situation. She was wandering through a maze of glass mirrors. They showed pictures of birds and mountains. Some showed meteor showers and rain storms. Recarie could smell all the scents that came with each scene. To her, life was good.

  She spent all of her time exploring the maze and discovering new sensations. There was nothing else Recarie wanted. Anything she needed was there. Her body did not cry for food or water and all she wanted was more maze to explore. This was how her life, as far as she had known it, had been for months since her return to Disten.

  It was not until Daouen jumped on top of her with his near weightless being that she sensed something was wrong. All of the mirrors turned to horrible images of people being killed by a winged vixen and Recarie knew she had been some where similar.

  “Ugh!” In her maze world, Recarie dropped to her knees and covered her ears from a deafening screech.

  All of the mirrors shattered and turned into glittery dust around her. The sound stopped and she stood again to survey her new surroundings. Nothing but darkness on all sides took the place of the maze. Everything seemed to be cast in a light blue neon light.

  “Burr.” Recarie shivered and spoke for the first time since she became imprisoned in her mind. “Oh.”

  Gently all of her memories popped back into her head. She felt a sense of serenity now that she had become whole again. B
ut even with her mind whole, she still longed for several things and one of those things was freedom. The sound of something she compared to a stage light clicked and the blue light formed a rectangular path in front of her that led to a white door. With her first step, Recarie burst into a full run for the door as the glitter continued to fall.

  An eternity passed and she finally had her hands on the door knob. She swung the door open without any hesitation and jumped into the black void on the other side. Seconds later her eyes opened to an egg shell white ceiling and a corpse lying on top of her. In a spell of freight, Recarie pushed the dead boy off of her.

  “Huh!” She covered her mouth and eyed him over. “Daouen…” With all the questions that came with her newfound freedom, Recarie did what she did best. Wiping the drool off of her mouth and neck, she ran.

  As much as she wanted to give Daouen a proper burial, she would have to leave him for now. After all, wasn’t he already claimed to be legally dead by the NSSH? Recarie pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and searched for an exit.

  “Great.” She rolled her eyes. “Another door.” Even in a situation such as the one she found herself in, Recarie was still full of sarcastic comments.

  All she needed to do was summon a few sparks of energy and the lock would melt, or unlock itself. She had not used her powers in quite some time and was not sure of how it would manifest itself. Recarie touched the cold steel and searched for that place where her powers derived from. With her eyes closed, Recarie tried to find that feeling that lead to her powers, but there was nothing.

  “Shit!” Recarie directed her anger at the knob and the door opened. She could not believe what had happened, but took the chance and ran out of the white padded cell.

  Immediately Recarie found herself at a crossroads of sorts. There was a hall to her left, right, and directly in front of her. If her powers were working, Recarie would have just blown a hole in the ceiling and flown out of there, but they weren’t working so she relied on intuition.