Dissolve

by Andrea Heltsley

  I shook them gently and pleaded, “Wake up please!”

  I felt a stirring and a cool, clammy hand grabbed my wrist. I screamed in surprise. I slid back on the floor to distance myself as I tried to calm my beating heart. The voice that came out of the figure was a small soft moan. Then I heard a gasp as they took in the surroundings. “Hello?” I ventured.

  “Cora is that you?” the voice asked.

  Relief flooded me as I realized it was Nessa. I hurled myself forward and pulled her up into an embrace. “Oh thank god you are okay. I was so scared when I woke up and couldn’t find anyone. Mia is the only other person awake, and we found a man’s body but they are still unconscious. Can you sit up?” I asked.

  “I think so, can you help me up? I still feel weak.”

  I brought Nessa to a sitting position and sat next to her, my arm around her. Then I called to Mia. “I found Nessa and she is awake. Did you have any luck?”

  “No, not so far, but I haven’t gotten too far. I am still a little disoriented.”

  “Nessa and I will come to you. Just keep talking like I did before so we can find you,” I said.

  “I am really scared Cora. This is creepy. I can’t believe any of this has happened to us. I hope we make it out of this alive. A week ago, I never even thought something this catastrophic could happen. Now I am trapped with all these people while everyone else burns to the ground in nothing but a pile of ash. It makes me shudder.”

  Nessa slowly got to her hands and knees and sidled up beside me. We touched and remained close as we followed Mia’s voice and finally reached her. She was sitting cross legged and I could tell she was shaking from fear.

  “Are you okay Mia?” I asked as I grasped for her hand.

  “I think so, I am just really freaked out and I can’t see anything. It is awful.”

  Once I pulled myself close to Mia, I slid Nessa up and to my side. We sat there side by side in the dark, scared to death. “What now?” Nessa asked.

  “We sit here and wait for someone, anyone to wake up. This place is big and we can’t split up now,” I replied.

  “What about the man you found? Let’s try to go together and find him again. At least when he wakes up there will be four of us,” Mia suggested.

  “Alright, that is a valid point. I want to crawl though so I don’t trip on anyone,” I said. “Let’s go then.”

  I took lead and Nessa crawled right beside me on the left, so close I could feel her hair swinging as it hung down just above her shoulders. Mia brought up the right and occasionally hit my foot as we made our way forward, hoping to reach the man I found earlier. Debris cluttered the concrete floor and it stuck to my fingers as I progressed.

  It was hard to navigate in the pitch blackness of the room we were in. I thought we had missed him completely and was about to turn around and move outward to widen my search. Then the tips of my fingers brush across a piece of fabric. I reach forward to inspect. Relief washes through me once we find the man’s body and I slow to a stop.

  I feel Nessa and Mia come to a stop a little too late and topple the man with a loud “oomph”. In return, a slow sound returns from the body. I find his shoulders and give them a shake. “Wake up, please wake up.”

  “Where am I?” escapes the sprawling man’s lips and I instantly knew it was in fact Noah.

  “It is so good to hear your voice Noah. It is Cora, Nessa and Mia. We were all drugged; you were still out when I woke up.”

  “Cora? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I am fine besides a gash on my leg from some crates I ran into,” I said.

  “My head is sore but I think I am alright. Where the in the hell are we?” he replied.

  “That is the million dollar question,” Mia piped in.

  Noah sat up and reached his hands out for me. I moved forward and sank into him. It felt so good to be in his arms, feeling the rapid beat of his chest. I was with Noah, it would be alright. He would keep me safe.

  “Sorry to break up the reunion, but we haven’t found the others and I want to get out of this creepy place,” Nessa said.

  “I miss Shane. I hope he is here somewhere,” Mia sulked.

  “Alright, point taken. Let’s all stand up and hold hands. Then we can take it one step at a time until we find a door or a light of some sort. Hopefully we will come across the others as well,” I said authoritatively.

  We all stood up hesitantly. I brushed the debris from the palms of my hands onto my jeans and took a deep breath. I was ready. I reached around and grasped Nessa’s hand from the right and found Noah’s at my left. I didn’t move forward until Noah squeezed my hand and let out a hushed, “ready.”

  I took one step forward in sync with the others. I got a “good” in response from everyone before we took another step forward. We ended up taking three steps before we encountered anything. Mia narrowly escaped the crates I had tripped on earlier and we navigated around them before taking a fourth step. Then we took a fifth and a sixth step. At the seventh step, we hit a wall.

  “It is a wall, look for anything to turn on a light or open a door,” I said.

  I felt around to discover that the walls were made of solid concrete. I slid my hands up and down my section only to come up with nothing buy cobwebs that stuck to the tips of my fingers. I stood there waiting for a positive response, but only got no’s in return.

  “Let’s all take four steps to the right, down the side of the wall. Maybe we will find something further down,” Nessa suggested.

  Everyone said okay and we began to move off to the right. After four steps, the collective stopped. I repeated the process of searching up and down my section of concrete, hoping for something. This time, I found a box. I felt the plastic box and found it was cool metal steel on the inside of it, turning into a plastic switch. Excited, I flipped the switch.

  Chapter 28:

  I flipped the switch and the unexpected happened. The room did not light up in a bright glow as I hoped. Instead, a harsh red glow washed over us. It took a minute to adjust my eyes to the red tint filtering through the room but I was finally able to give Nessa a relieved look. We were going to be okay. We could find everyone else now.

  “Oh my god, we are in a killing room. They are going to murder us!” Mia exclaimed as she started to cry.

  Nessa wasted no time wrapping her arms around Mia to calm her down. “Shh, it is going to be okay. If they wanted to kill us, they would have done so already. Don’t worry, now we can at least find Shane and the others.”

  “This is strange, no matter what. I think I am going to be sick,” Mia said, panicking.

  “Calm down Mia, we are right here together and alive. Let’s concentrate on finding the rest of our group,” I said in a reassuring tone.

  Noah laces his fingers through mine and I step forward, ready to look around the room. There were crates in the corner stacked up and I maneuvered around them, remembering my earlier fall.

  A shoe poked out from behind the other side and I realized it was Liam once we made our way around to the body. I let go of Noah’s hand and checked Liam for a pulse. It was strong but he wasn’t conscious. Nessa saw us and rushed over to Liam’s side.

  “Is he okay?” she asked with concern in her voice.

  “He will be just fine. We just have to wait for the drug to wear off. Let’s pull him out of the corner and into the center of the room,” I suggested.

  Nessa and I bent over and grabbed his arms and Noah grasped Liam’s legs. We slowly lifted him off the ground and moved him into the middle, careful when setting him down. Nessa knelt down and ran a hand across his face. It was clear that she cared for him. The reunion was cut short by Mia’s voice from the other side of the room.

  “I found Shane; he is just starting to stir!” Mia exclaimed.

  Nessa hesitantly stepped away from Liam and we all made our way over to where Mia was. She was on the ground trying to wake him. We watched as she planted a kiss on his lips and held him closely.


  “Mia? Where are we?” Shane asked.

  “We were all drugged, now we are trapped in a basement of some sort. So far, everyone is okay. We just have to find Vienna.”

  At the mention of Vienna, my eyes swept the room. There was the table I ran into earlier and I barely saw Vienna underneath all the papers and stuff I knocked off the table.

  “Let’s bring her out to the center with Liam,” Noah said authoritatively. “Where do you think we are?”

  “I wish I knew. Nessa, why don’t you stay here with Vienna and Liam while we will look for clues as to why the hell we are in here. There is no telling with all this craziness going on out there,” I said pointing towards the ceiling.

  I broke away from everyone and returned to the table that I found earlier. I remembered the papers I ran across and it seemed imperative to find out what they said. Upon further examination, I realized the wall was covered too. There were pictures, so many pictures. Alongside the pictures were maps and a chill spread through me. “Um, guys, you better come here and take a look at this,” I announced.

  My words were interrupted by the sound of Nessa shouting. “Liam is okay, he is awake finally!”

  She put his head on her lap and began to toss a barrage of questions at him. “Liam, are you okay? We were drugged. Now we are trapped in this weird basement but Vienna is still out. Did you see your attacker? What are we going to do?”

  “I am okay I think. I just have a headache. I wish I saw who did this. I only felt the prick of the needle and the burning sensation as the drug took effect. I tried to see my attacker, but everything went black so fast.”

  “Guys, sorry to break up the reunion, but you have to see this,” I said more insistently.

  Noah was by my side in an instant, his breath on my neck as he leaned in to see what I was looking at. Caged butterflies flitted around in my stomach at his proximity, but they soon died when I came across a picture of Tom’s murder. Images flooded back to me and I lost control.

  Noah managed to catch me before I sunk to the ground, but I shook him off. Tears sprung and ran down my cheeks at a steady pace. I gripped the picture and shook. The pain of that night returned in full force and I could see it all over again. The blood was everywhere and I clung to him as if he would wake up. My silky negligée was soaking up the blood as I lay there, head on his chest, sobbing.

  It was like time was repeating and my panic rose. Before I could stop, I felt the seams of my skin coming undone and my particles sifting through my human body. I quickly dissolved in a rush into thin air once again. I floated through the stagnant basement, free of my chains and the pain I was gripped with. I vaguely heard my name being called, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to forget.

  I was harshly flung back as I hit the impenetrable walls and felt the sting of it. I bounced towards the ceiling and was quickly stopped. The room was sealed up tight, as if they expected me. I reluctantly swirled back to reform in front of Noah. I didn’t even care that I was naked. I tried to get dressed but it was work, so much work. Each article of clothing felt like a million tons and I struggled with each piece as I reassembled them on my person.

  As soon as I pulled my final piece of clothing on, Noah was there, his arms moving to embrace me. This time I let him and I just sobbed until there were no more tears to cry.

  “I’m so sorry Cora. I love you,” Nessa said as she wiped at my tear stained cheeks.

  “I know, I love you too,” I replied, still sniffling.

  “Not to break up the party, but we have some serious problems. There are pictures of the seven of us. We all have chemical formulas on the back of these pictures, but it is too dark to read them very well,” Shane said.

  “What does that mean?” Mia said.

  I am guessing it is the formula of the gene they bound to our DNA and some sort of equation as to how we would respond. That seems suspicious to me,” Noah said.

  “There is also a map on the wall. According to the stars, half of the US is scheduled to be demolished. The other half has two stars, each in a different color so I am not sure what that means,” Shane added.

  “What else is up there?” I asked.

  “There is also a concentration of dots assembled around the string of islands in North Carolina as well as Minneapolis, Minnesota. I wish I knew what all of this means, but I don’t.” Shane said.

  Nessa moved in closer and shuffled through the pile of pictures until Shane tried to restrain her. She just pushed him off and continued through them. A look of horror crossed her face and she raised her hand to her mouth as if she was going to be sick.

  Noah was about to speak up, but I stopped him. I knew what she found and now she understood my sadness at losing Tom. I didn’t think we needed to see anymore murder scenes right now.

  Nobody needed to relive Stephan’s death again; it was awful the first time. I gently tugged at her and she pulled into my arms in tears. I wanted to make the vision go away, but I knew she could read it on everyone’s minds.

  “Even the murders were photographed and in the stack. It all just doesn’t make sense,” Mia said.

  Finally Vienna started to stir and Mia was there to give her a hug and assure her things would be okay. Then we returned to the conversation at hand.

  “Don’t forget the million dollar question. Where the hell are we?” I asked. “When I dissolved, I tried to get out of the room but with no luck. My particles bounced off the ceiling and walls like ping pong balls. That is what snapped me back to reform again.”

  “I can mind read, but that isn’t much help here in this situation. In addition, Noah’s shape shifting abilities would be useless as well as Mia’s catlike reflexes. Shane can heal us but can’t get us out. Vienna is smart, but I don’t think any amount of smart could help here. That just leaves Liam, and there are no guarantees that he can get out of here either,” Nessa said.

  “Maybe if I can get out of here, I can possess someone long enough to let us out. It is worth a try,” Liam suggested.

  “What if there is no one around for miles? You can’t possess anyone long enough to get back here. Not to mention that you don’t have a key or anything to get us out,” Noah responded.

  “Thanks for that, the glass is half empty way of thinking. We have to try, it could be our only option, and I don’t want to die in here. No offense, but I don’t want to die in here without ever feeling the sun on me again,” Liam said.

  “Look, there is a radio,” I said pointing towards the corner of the table. I turned on the radio, but it was nothing but fuzz. I was about to turn away in dismay, when I popped open the CD player. Inside, the player was a blank CD. I shut the lid and pressed play. “Thirty seconds to Mars This is War” spilled out the speakers. I pressed advance and just got the same song over and over.

  “I guess this really is war,” Noah said.

  “Speaking of that, what is in those crates?” I asked curiously.

  We all made our way over to the crates. Noah and Shane carefully lifted one of them and placed it on the floor in front of us. We looked at one another in part worry, part anticipation. Fear of the unknown crept through me and I shuddered. I just hoped it wasn’t something awful.

  I didn’t have to ponder things for long, because Noah and Shane pried at it with their hands until they pulled the lid off. We all looked down to see the contents. Mia gasped as she recognized what was inside. Shakily, I reached down to find a note. There wasn’t just one note; there was a box full of them. I felt chilled suddenly as I opened the letter on top to read aloud.

  Who can you trust? Life is changing all around you-

  I turned the note over to find the raised emblem with the words Ashes to Ashes Life Evolves. I cracked the emblem to find a tracking chip in it just like the others. I peeled it out and dropped it to the ground before stomping on it with force to break it. Then I looked up to see everyone’s solemn expressions. The worst part was that the box was packed full of notes.

  I pulled
another one out and opened it gently. The next note read the same as the first one. They were all identical. If that was true, there were tracking chips in each and every one. That was too many to destroy.

  “Anyone have any comments? What do you think this means?” I asked.

  “We are in way over our heads. There could be many more of us. What if there are groups of us, going through the same thing? It is chilling to think about that. Clearly these people are powerful. They don’t mess around, if this is any indication,” Noah said.

  “It also means we might be in here to keep us from stopping them,” Nessa commented.