by Kate Sander
"No!" Senka fought with all her might to free her legs and get to the little girl.
"Momma! Momma!"
The wall of water closed in. Buildings smashed into a million pieces, concrete and metal flew in the air. Cars were propelled in front of the thirty foot high crashing wave.
"Momma!" the little girl yelled, sobbing. Screams could be heard from the people farther down the road as they were violently swallowed, their last sounds on this earth muffled by the crash of the water.
"NO!" Senka tried to free her feet with all her might. It was no use, she was stuck.
"Momma!"
The little girl was swallowed by the torrent of water.
Senka closed her eyes, ready for death. Welcoming it in the cacophony of sound.
Kai bounded through the fog, grabbed her shirt in his massive jaws, and pulled her backwards. Water chased them as Senka allowed herself to be dragged back through the fog, back to The Other Place. Water pooled around their feet as it followed them into the jungle with a trickle. Once back through the fog and into the jungle, Kai dropped her from his jaws onto the damp ground.
The sun rose in the east.
As quickly as the fog appeared, it was gone. Jungle stretched out in front of her.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?" she screamed at Kai. He slunk past her, giving her a knowing stare. She went to punch him on his hind quarter, but he was too quick for her.
"Leave," she snapped to the panther as he walked into the jungle. "I never want to see you again."
Kai slunk away into the dawn.
"I could have saved her!"
A wet, slapping sound distracted her. On the jungle floor, a few feet away, a four foot long bull shark flopped around. It's gills worked hard in the air, trying desperately to breathe. A few moments later the tail stopped moving and the body stopped writhing in pain. The shark died in the wrong world, on the ground of an unfamiliar jungle.
"I COULD HAVE SAVED HER!" she yelled at Kai desperately.
Silence answered.
No wind. No birds.
Kai was gone.
Only the screams of the dead echoed in her ears.
4
Black Eyes
Black Eyes leaned against a tree, spinning a dagger in her hand, waiting for an opening to make her move. Thunder clapped overhead, the boom so loud it hurt her ears. Dark skies above broke open and rain started pounding the ground.
You couldn't expect anything else at a funeral.
There was a small circle of people standing around two piles of dirt. Two graves for two different women. Heads bowed, only a few opened umbrellas to try to shelter themselves from the downpour.
"Elizabeth was my best friend," her target said loudly, trying to carry his voice over the thundering rain. He was large and black, like Black Eyes herself, like all Melanthios. Except this man kept his hair cut short and his shoulders were slumped. This world was... crazy. There were no tribes and everyone lived in giant steel buildings with fake everything surrounding them. Everything was so different, and Black Eyes hated it. "I only knew her for a few years, but my life will forever be changed for the better," her target continued.
Black Eyes studied the man she'd been sent to see. He was large, with dark skin and broad shoulders. He would fit right in her world as a Melanthios warrior. His name was Carter, and he had known the woman Senka in this world. This was her funeral, but for some reason they were calling her Elizabeth. Black Eyes shook her head. There were so many names, and she cared little about knowing them all.
A horn blared in the distance. Black Eyes didn't startle this time. It had taken her a while to get used to, these things called cars. Life here, in this concrete world, was a prison. People bustled through their day, heads down, looking at small, brightly lit rocks in their hands. No one made eye contact. Black Eyes couldn't wait to get back to her own world. The people of this world seemed lonely.
Still, she was separate from humanity.
Even now, she was separate from the elements. Rain soaked the grieving people around the grave. She remained dry, spinning her dagger, watching the show.
The eulogy ended and the crowd dispersed. Most of the crowd anyway.
She knew what lonely was... after all, she was dead.
It would be nice to have other dead people to talk to, but she was the only one she knew. She'd spent years attached only to Tory, not able to make contact with anyone else. Only in the last few weeks, as Tory grew in power, had she been able to make contact with other people.
"That was evasive," a skinny man with red-rimmed eyes and a gaunt face said to Carter.
"James..." a woman begged desperately, grasping his arm.
"No, mom," James said as he shook her off and put his finger squarely in Carter's chest. Black Eyes raised her eyebrows. If anyone tried doing that to her she would slice off their finger where they stood. Carter simply stared at the raging man. Another difference between worlds. "I want to know why we're burying Elizabeth in Toronto. I want to know why she's being buried with a woman named Dr. Charlotte Penner. I want to know why the Canadian Government paid for the funeral. AND I WANT TO KNOW WHO THIS ASSHOLE IS!" spittle flew as he yelled.
"James, calm down," his mother said. "Elizabeth wanted it this way. She told me herself."
"Your sister is a hero of this nation," Carter said, democratically, emotionless. "As was the woman she was buried with. Thus the government is paying for the funeral."
James punched him in the face. Any trained fighter could see it coming from a mile away, but Carter stood there and took the hit.
"James!" his mother said harshly. "Go wait with your brothers."
Carter took the pocket square out of his suit and dabbed at the drop of blood leaking from his nose.
Tears, mixing with rain, poured down James' face, as he turned and strode away.
"Sorry about him," the woman said. "Elizabeth told me that I should expect something like this. I never passed on the message."
Carter nodded. "I wasn't lying, she died a hero. Senka saved my son. I cannot ever thank you or your family enough."
The woman smiled sadly, eyes dead. The eyes of a mother who was burying her child. "Put that name on her headstone," she said, turning away from Carter. "I lost Elizabeth along with her father in that car crash all those years ago. She chose to be Senka after that, and she should be buried as such." With that, she followed her son to the limo.
Carter sighed and hung his shoulders, rain pouring around him, pooling at his feet. The rest of the mourners left him alone. Black Eyes watched and waited. Sighing, he turned to look at the two mounds of dirt.
"You really left us fucked this time, didn't you?" Tears were streaming down his face. "I told you to get out of there, Senka. I told you! And you both had to go and fucking die. You left me here all alone..." He drifted off and started sobbing quietly. After a few minutes he seemed to pull himself together. "Mark my words. I will find this Freudman again. I will find the Ampulex. I will rip their organization apart, no one will be safe. I will avenge you Senka. I will avenge you Tomo."
He turned. "I hope you found each other over there. I hope you know how much we miss you."
Carter strode away through the mud towards the bustling street where a long, black vehicle was parked waiting for him.
Black Eyes smiled and ran for the vehicle. She had a plan.
Carter's head was down and Black Eyes didn't want to be seen, so she easily slipped by him into the vehicle.
"Back to ZTF headquarters," Carter said to the driver up front. "And take the long way, I need some time to think."
He rolled up the window separating the driver from the back of the vehicle. Black Eyes took the opportunity to make herself visible.
"Holy shit," Carter gasped, dropping on the floor his little handheld rock that everyone carried in this world. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my limousine?"
Black Eyes smiled at him and spun a knife in her hands. "Those are your only questions?
Hmph. Tory told me you were smart."
"Who the fuck are you?" Carter snapped. He drew a weapon and pointed it at her. It was one that Black Eyes had only seen in this world, small and black, it had a small trigger that let loose a projectile, killing everything in its path.
"Fire at me," she said, smiling. "You won't hit much. I'm faster than you and you can't kill what's already dead."
Carter's hand showed only a slight tremor. Black Eyes was impressed. Apparently coming to a decision, Carter clicked something on the side of his weapon and put it back into a holster on his waist. "You know what? I'm not even surprised," he said. He turned to a clear decanter in the door. "Whiskey? I promised Senka I wouldn't drink again but I have to have one shot just for her. She loved her whiskey."
There was something in his eyes.
"You loved her?" Black Eyes said. "Hmm, Tory never mentioned that. I didn't know that Senka was in love with anyone."
"What do you want?" Carter asked. He raised the glass of amber liquid and drank it in one go. "Last drink, Sen, I promise."
"Tory sent me."
"Who, pray tell, is Tory?"
"Tory is the most powerful being in what you would call The Other Place," Black Eyes said matter-of-factly, brushing a long dreadlock out of her face. "She was friends with Senka the last time she was over there. She sent me to find Senka and then you."
"Senka is dead," Carter said. "I suppose you were at her funeral. She's been dead six weeks now. The funeral was only this late because we had to scrape her off the floor and the Germans just released her body. They don't take kindly to explosions of child trafficking compounds in their country."
"She's not dead, she's back in The Other Place," Black Eyes shrugged. "There were some pills or something. I'm not sure how they worked, not my area of expertise, but that other woman designed them and they work."
"Bullshit. There's no way you know that. There's no way they work. You can't be dead here and alive in The Other Place. Granted, most of this shit is a mystery but that's never happened. You die here, you die there. That's pretty much the only concrete thing we know about Zoya."
Black Eyes let him ramble. "Alright then. So that makes me a figment of your imagination. How does that feel?"
"Aren't you? I haven't slept in weeks. I need to track down that asshole Freudman before he takes more kids. I'm going through alcohol withdrawal, sleep withdrawal, and sex withdrawal. You are more than likely a hallucination that stems from all three. Oh, plus I've just buried two women I loved dearly. Yes, you're a hallucination."
Black Eyes shrugged, "Well if you have it all figured out... but I'm staying. Tory sent me and we've agreed to work together. Meaning you're stuck with me."
The limousine came to a slow halt. The driver hopped out and opened the door for Carter. Carter exited, silent. The driver's eyes glazed over and he held the door open a moment longer for Black Eyes to exit.
"Have a good day, sir!"
Carter shook his head and strode into the nondescript high rise in downtown Toronto. The Zoya Task Force headquarters was housed on two floors about halfway up. Carter entered the elevator with Black Eyes darting in behind him. A quick flash of his wristwatch and a screen popped up on the elevator beside him. He scanned his hand and the elevator took off in a flash.
"No one else can get to our floor. They don't even know we exist. Only ZTF members know the floor is there, most people just think this building has 33 floors instead of 35."
Black Eyes stared at him.
"And I don't know why I'm telling you this because you're a fucking hallucination."
"What if they use the stairs?" Black Eyes asked. "I've been in this world for about six weeks. You have crazy stuff that I've never seen before. We live in huts in the forest. But every one of these buildings has this.... elevator? And a set of stairs. What if they use the stairs?"
"The stairs are actually a touch bigger than regulation for the entire building. Not a big deal and no one notices, but in 35 floors it’s enough to entirely cover the fact that there are two extra floors. We have doors that lead to the stairs but they just open from the wall, unmarked."
The elevator stopped and Carter shook his head, trying to clear it.
The doors opened and the Zoya Task Force headquarters spread out in front of Black Eyes. There were screens everywhere, some men and women talking on their little rocks and staring at their screens. A skinny man rushed at Carter when he saw him.
"Boss did you hear about Salvador, Brazil?"
Carter shook his head, "Been a bit busy, Ram. What about it?"
Ram led him to a couple of big screens. They were showing aerial footage of an ocean with the roofs of buildings poking up through the waves. Boats were driving between the buildings, pulling bodies out of the sea.
"It's gone. There was a tsunami there this morning, wiped out the entire city. No survivors."
Carter stared. "How many?"
"Two million. The waters never receded, there's an entirely new coast line."
"Holy shit."
"That's not the worst part."
"There's something worse?" Carter's jaw was hanging open, as was Black Eyes'. Two million people killed by the sea. She wouldn't have believed that many people actually existed until she set foot in this world, the world of a million-people cities.
Ramjeet handed Carter his tablet.
"I think it's going to happen again."
5
Senka
The jungle was thick and Senka was lonely, but she persevered.
“It’s not the heat that gets you, it’s the humidity,” she mumbled to herself. Chuckling, she realized just how much she sounded like her father. Laughing harder, she realized she was laughing at herself.
“You need to find some civilization.”
“True that.”
She needed to find someone, anyone, who could tell her what country she was in and how to get to Langundo. Tory would know the answers. Or Tomo. Someone who was smarter than she was would help her seek revenge on...
She wasn't even sure who she was supposed to be fighting. The Ampulex seemed like a good start, but did they even exist in this world? And if they did, were they really as bad as she thought they were?
One thing was for sure, there seemed to be a thinning of the gap between worlds. And catastrophic events were occurring. Senka had to figure out how to stop them.
A branch whipped her face. "Dammit," she spat and stopped running, catching her breath and listening. A trickle of water reached her ears and Senka walked towards it, rubbing the blood off her cheek. The run felt good, it opened her lungs and helped her focus but she needed to hydrate. She couldn't cramp up or get sick as she was now alone in the jungle.
Kai was gone. His familiar aura was gone. She'd expected him to keep his distance after her outburst and to, eventually, make his way back to her. Apparently she was wrong.
"Way to burn your last bridge with anything that actually likes your company," she muttered. The water was a small stream that ran between her feet.
"So you should probably follow that downhill. Might take you to civilization. Or to more cannibals. But cannibals can talk back to you."
Stretching her shoulders, she loosened up and followed the stream downhill. The stream eventually widened as it was joined by more water from the jungle. The small stream became a meandering river. The small river began to get loud and rough as the decline of the hill increased.
"This land mass does end!"
She stopped jogging as she came to a cliff and a massive waterfall. Creeping to the edge of the cliff, she lay on her stomach and looked over the hundred foot drop.
Small huts littered a beach that stretched for miles in front of her. A dock with small fishing vessels was nestled into a small cove at the foot of the waterfall. From her perch, Senka could see the sails of a larger vessel anchored out in deeper waters. It looked like some small boats were approaching the docks from the larger vessel.
And it
seemed to her that the boats had drawn quite a crowd. There was a steep path hewn into the rock wall to her right. She used the commotion down below to quickly descend and dash to a small rocky outcrop.
If the people of this village were also cannibals, she needed to be very careful to not be caught. She wished Kai was here.
Biding her time, she watched the village for any movement. Surprised there was no lookout, she eyed a small fishing vessel in the cove to her left. If she could reach it and row it out to the larger vessel, she could sneak aboard and...
"Do not move," a voice said from behind her.
Senka raised her hands. She'd gotten sloppy in her time alone in the jungle.
"It's been a long time since someone got the drop on me," she said lightly.
"Turn around slowly," the voice said. It was low and gruff. Something was oddly familiar about it. The sound nagged at her distant memories.
"I said turn around," the voice barked.
Senka obeyed.
Her hands dropped to her sides in shock.
There was a loud clang of a warhammer as it fell to the rocks.
"No," he breathed quietly. "You're dead."
"Ujarak?" Senka said, almost breathless from the shock. "Ujarak what the hell are you doing here?"
"Start from the beginning," Senka said. "Where are we and how did you get here?"
They were sitting in a small cabin. It seemed that Ujarak was respected in this community. They served a fish dish with a flatbread and a mulled wine. Senka ate faster than advisable but she didn't care... the last two months of eating roots and berries had taken its toll.
As did the sobriety.
Stoic, Ujarak watched her eat and drink. He was a large man, towering over everyone. Dark skinned with long black hair, he was the classic Melanthios warrior. Or two Melanthios warriors, if you took into account the width of his shoulders. A villager came into the hut, eyes averted. Ujarak whispered something to him and he scurried away.
"They respect you," Senka said through the fish in her mouth. "What did you do?"