“Dax, this cell is full. What now?” So Vin was the strong one. His patience had reached its end, as well as his problem-solving skills. What he lacked in brain cells, he made up in muscles but those weren’t helping him right now.
“We should probably keep him separate. Something odd with this one.” Dax eased out the stiffness in his back then hunched back down. His face was lined, his brow furrowed. “Shasta will want him.”
Vin snorted, prodding Kai with a boot. “Can’t see much special here, myself.”
“You wouldn’t know special if it bit your nose off, now would you?”
Vin glared at him, but his fingers felt for the deep scar that crossed his face from left eyebrow to right ear. Right across his nose.
“Exactly.” Dax shook his head.
Vin missed the look Dax gave him. “Why don’t we throw him in with the prophet? He’ll be off our hands but easy to find if we need him.”
Dax frowned. “I don’t know. It’s risky.”
“He’s an old man. What’s he gonna do? Kill us with his false teeth? Seriously. I’m hungry, Dax.” Vin’s voice sounded hollow.
Dax sighed, then fell silent for a moment. “If he gets infected, you are responsible.” He poked a crooked finger at Vin’s belly. He couldn’t reach much higher, bowed over as he was.
Vin shrugged. “Either way, he’ll be dead soon. Check, he’s had a run in with some LightSuckers. Only a matter of time now.” Vin dodged Dax’s finger.
They dragged Kai further down the passage and unlocked a door that fit seamlessly into the rest of the wall. With his hands and feet tied, they threw him in a corner and left.
He curled up, trying to keep as much of his skin as possible from touching the cold floor. Everywhere skin touched the smooth surface, icy-numbness spread. Kai shoved the cold to the back of his mind, fighting panic. He needed to think, to figure out how to get out of here. His mind scurried, grasping for anything that would help him escape this tight place, help him find Runt, and get home.
~*~
The click of a key in the lock woke Evazee. She’d found a hanging basket chair and curled herself inside to wait for the gallery to open and spend the time praying. But once she’d set it swinging and put her head down, sleep had taken her. Waking up to the sight of a twirling basket overhead was enough to make her mind flip-flop. What? Oh yes, the letter. She remembered.
“Have you been waiting long?” The lady with the key swung her long plait over her left shoulder as she bent to pick up a basket, her face radiant. “Come inside! I’ll be in the back if you need me.” She disappeared down a tiled passage with a whisper of footfall.
Eva was supremely conscious of her own sandals clackety-clacking.
The weariness that clung to Eva’s limbs and mind dissolved as she stepped over the threshold. The inside was as fresh and clean as the outside. Framed photos covered the walls in an arrangement that appeared both random and logical. She turned right into a room labelled Macro.
Each wall followed a theme—the first, a colourful selection of close-ups of flowers. Raindrops on a petal, the spiky hairs normally too small to see on an African Violet, sunlight through the veins of a leaf.
The second focussed on people. A triptych of irises, one blue, one brown, one green, eyelashes carrying a single tear bearing the convex image of a daffodil. A long, thin image of seven different left feet all squashed together with toenails painted a different colour.
She let her feet take her. Beach shots. Most of these showed people, posed so naturally they might have been taken without the subjects being aware. A bronze three-year-old in her shorts and T-shirt, sun-streaked hair captured riding the breeze in a fan. A cheeky two-year-old boy stood glaring at the camera as if he’d been bribed. Image after image, more than photography—true art.
Eva walked the gallery, grateful to be alone. She was wooed by this photographer.
The final room was titled simply, What wasn’t. It didn’t matter to Eva if these weren’t great, she’d seen enough brilliance to be convinced of the extreme level of talent behind the lens. Just a quick breeze-through and then she’d see about tracking down the photographer. The first black and white display showed a baby room, cot bedding crumpled as if someone had just lifted out the tiny occupant. Bubbles swirling in the water in a baby bath. Nappy bin standing open, a small pile of clothes on the floor, on their way to being washed. No baby.
A second display in full colour; the same room, cot neatly made, empty bath, nappy bin closed. No used clothes, just neat piles clean and folded. Still no baby.
Third display in sepia…a boy’s bed in the shape of a Ferrari—neatly made, no sign of the boy who should have been sleeping there. A schoolbag packed in the cupboard, the same bag open in the middle of the bedroom. Empty. On and on, images of what wasn’t, each depicting the next stage in a life.
Hot tears stung at Eva’s eyes. By the time she’d circled the room, all the tissues in her bag were soggy and her heart was shattered. As much as she needed to speak to the photographer, she couldn’t. She left, walking faster than she needed to.
8
The darkness in the cell was deep and complete. With no help from his eyes, Kai’s other senses kicked into overdrive, scurrying for something to hook onto, something to give context to his plight. One image kept coming back. A coffin. Deep underground. No hope or help. No escape. His breathing quickened, stale air flooding his lungs. Panic was coming for him.
“Just breathe, it will settle.”
Kai froze.
“Don’t give in to fear.” Calm and reassuring, the voice washed over him.
“Who are you?” Kai’s voice came out like a squeak through fear-constricted vocal chords. He cleared his throat.
“I don’t normally do this, but here you go.” A dull glow flickered next to Kai. It flowered and grew and filled the shape of a man, wizened, with hair of fine white. He lit up, glowing inside, and his light filled up their cell, a box of a room no bigger than two metres square. His light was like that of Evazee, of Runt. Pure light, full of Life. The walls drank it all in, throwing it back in hundreds of refractions. “Welcome.”
The light drew Kai in, warm hope as real as a slice of steaming, buttered bread.
“You do it, too. How?” Kai whispered the question. A puzzle for his mind, rather than an enquiry wanting an answer.
“You will know soon enough. They got you tied up, I see.”
Kai frowned. Your skills of observation are extraordinary.
“Shake them off.”
Kai waved his bleeding wrists at the old man. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“They aren’t real you know. None of this is.”
“You’ve been down here way too long.” Kai let the sentence fade to silence. Telling someone to their face they’re crazy seemed rude. Especially given his age and white hair.
The old man moved with a dancer’s grace. He knelt down next to Kai and closed his eyes for a second. The light in him pulsed and flared. Reaching down, he took hold of the rope that bound Kai and spoke unfamiliar words. The rope melted away at his command, freeing Kai’s arms and legs.
How?
Relief washed through him and he nearly hugged the old guy. Nearly.
A grin touched the man’s lips as if he knew what Kai was thinking. “As I said,” he leaned forward, inches from Kai’s nose, “they’re not real.” He grinned at Kai like a kid who’d stolen a tin of condensed milk. Maybe he truly was a prophet.
Kai rubbed life back into his tingling hands. He winced as the blood began to flow. “I don’t know what I’m doing here or how to wake up. I have to go back. I’m stuck in this nightmare, and nobody can tell me what’s going on.”
The prophet settled down, leaning on the wall, legs drawn up in front of him, arms looped around his knees. “There are two things you need to know. Firstly, you’re not sleeping, this is not a dream. Secondly, everything happens for a reason.”
Kai’s mind flew, connecting
dots, coming up one short. “You said this isn’t a dream that I’m stuck in, right? But then you also said the ropes didn’t really exist. So if this place is real and not a dream, how can imaginary ropes make me bleed?”
“Your mind is conditioned to live in a body. So in your mind, when ropes are too tight, flesh bleeds. What your mind hasn’t realised yet is that here, the physical rules don’t apply. It takes time to adjust, to change your thinking.”
“So what you’re implying is that these walls aren’t real either?” He placed a palm on the surface and tried to push his hand through. Slick, cold hardness wouldn’t budge.
“They aren’t.”
“But surely that means…you could have left long ago. Why are you still here?”
“I didn’t understand it myself, Kai. But I do now. I’ve been waiting here for you. This cell cannot hold me, but it was His love that kept me here. His love for you.” His head tipped to the side and his eyes lost focus. He listened intently to the silence. “My work here is done. Open your heart, Kai. You will see so much more clearly.”
“That makes no sense. What do you mean?”
The prophet patted his shoulder with a wink and a smile, turned, and walked through the wall, taking his light with him. His exit was so swift and unexpected that Kai didn’t even have a chance to call out and ask him to stay. Darkness rolled over him. Hours passed, or days. He couldn’t tell. His mind churned, an ice block in a blender.
What if it was true? What if he could follow the prophet and walk out of here? Was it really as simple as mind over matter? But what if he couldn’t? The thought paralysed him. Avoiding the walls, he sank to the floor in the middle of the room, arms around his knees. Weary to the marrow of his bones, he toppled sideways, no longer feeling the cold. Fever spiked through his body, growing and spreading.
He slept in ragged fits, slipping in and out of techni-color dreams and the unbroken blackness of his prison, shivering so hard his teeth clacked. Runt danced through his mind in a dress of fine lace, hair sparkling in the sun, all traces of fear washed from her features.
Just as suddenly, she vanished, and all light left his world. He wept for leaving her behind, yet he laughed that they could never truly capture her. One thought lurked continually at the edges of his consciousness, hanging back like an outcast. The wrong ends of two magnets, repelling not attracting...His love for you.
It just didn’t fit.
Love didn’t fit the unlovable.
Green torchlight woke Kai. And Vin’s boot in his ribs.
“Get moving.”
In his mind, Kai saw himself pushing up to a kneel, standing, and following Vin. Reality had him doubled over, drenched in his own sweat—not caring if those boots broke every rib. Vin’s hand on his forehead felt cool and he wished the man would stay right there. It would help him. Yet the thought repulsed him and he fought back the bile that rose.
Vin swore and left, not even closing the door.
Kai stared at the opening, uncomprehending. Thinking was like fighting his way through a desert sandstorm with his eyes open. Painful and stupid. The open door appealed to him, though he couldn’t quite think why. The opening filled with bright light and the black-haired woman appeared as a shimmery vision, hazy and translucent. As before, her head was bowed, eyes shut tight, lips moving in passionate entreaty.
Kai tried to call. More than drawing another breath, he longed to see her eyes. His strength failed, the cold floor kept him. Numbness crept from the edges of his vision, the tips of his fingers. A delicious sense of floating started in his belly and he began to lift his grip off life, one shaking finger at a time.
~*~
Carla threw the door open for Evazee. “It’s not good.”
Evazee wiped sleep from her eyes, squinting to focus. Her brain had snapped awake from the moment Carla had fetched her from Gran’s room where she’d fallen asleep with her head on her arms. Adrenalin coursed through her veins.
“I’m sorry for calling you in after chasing you the other night. There’s been no one else visiting him. We’ve done everything we can.” Carla shrugged, doubts creasing her forehead, “He might not make it, it just seems wrong for him to be alone.”
“It’s OK.” Eva’s words came out croaky.
Carla felt his forehead. “He’s burning up. There’s no obvious cause, though. It’s as if he has some invisible infection that his body can’t fight. We sent blood to the lab earlier.” She regarded the young girl before her, “I probably shouldn’t have called across. I just thought you’d…he…”
Evazee waved her to silence, nodding, eyes fixed on the patient. “I need to be here.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she took his hand. Fiercely hot, a jolt shot through her, images flashed in her mind. Trapped in a dark box. Strange green fire. Painful ribs.
Dear Jesus—
~*~
The floating got bumpy. From the edges of consciousness, Kai became aware of hands, voices. He was being carried, he could tell by the overhead globes that smeared to green stripes and the pain in his armpits and ankles.
“Infirmary or dead pile?”
“He’s not gone yet. Shasta will want to have a go at him. Though, if we don’t move it, the dead pile it will be.”
Kai shut his eyes and let them carry him. His head swam, his armpits stung. None of what they said made sense. He wanted the floating back, but instead they laid him down on a slab as cold as the floor of his cell. Chills ran through him, making his teeth rattle.
“Leave him and go.”
Kai knew that voice. Pale man. Kai thought he’d like to leave too, but it took all he had just to open one eye, and then the other. He lay on his side in a room of slabs fashioned from the same stuff as the walls, the floor.
Pale man—Shasta—had his back to Kai. He was dressed like the wolfmen, but in a shifting grey-green that made Kai’s eyes swim. He turned to the next patient. A boy about Kai’s age, with an arm twisted at an unnatural angle, white bone poking through the skin. Kai’s vision blurred and for a moment the boy was all hollow, filled with black, then back to blood and bones.
Shasta’s hands hovered above the boy, not touching, but gliding over the entire length of his body. Sparks flew from the dancing serpents on his palms, landing on flesh with a dull sizzle. The boy’s broken arm snapped straight as sparks zapped through the damage, re-knitting bone to bone, sinew to sinew and flesh to flesh.
The marks on Kai’s wrist and temple throbbed.
Even though the arm was whole again, Shasta continued. The current from his palms left a trail of smoking darkness that wrapped around the boy on the slab. He moaned and writhed, then pulled rigid as if someone had dry-iced his spine. His blackened eyes shot open and he slid off the slab onto his feet. He tested his arm mechanically. Each finger and joint had been restored as if it had never been broken. Turning to Shasta, he bowed low.
Shasta dismissed him with a wave and the boy shuffled off.
Dying would have been better for him.
~*~
Sunlight glowed warm on his face. Kai felt the tension, the pain, melt away, flow out of him like a trickle of molten wax, slowly swelling to a stream. He drifted on the current, following the peaceful dips and eddies. A voice came to him from far away, demanding, incessant. The sound drew him like water down a plug hole, dividing and splitting, jarring, reuniting him with the agony that was his body. One by one, his ribs came back, bringing pain with them.
“Nooo, I don’t wanna…”
Zee shook him hard, her brightness stinging his eyes. “Boy! Come back!”
Something in her voice hooked him, a barbed emotion he couldn’t shake off. Stubborn girl. Concentrating all his energy into his left eyelid, it crept open enough to see her through the crack. Then she was dragging his arm around her shoulders, hauling him to his feet, which hung like soggy socks at the end of rubber legs.
“Help me, Boy. C’mon. Gotta get you to the stream.”
He tippe
d forward, a silent laugh choked from him, “Won’t work. Nope.”
“You’re…delirious…please—” She was straining under his weight, trying to keep her balance as he swung wildly forward and back. “Help.”
Cold radiated from each LightSucker wound, creeping over him in flashes of chill, burning a fire inside in a contradiction that seemed intent on ripping him in two. “Let me die, Zee.”
“Stop it! Get on your feet!”
Kai found his feet and planted them. Zee’s light dissolved the river out from beneath him and he came to in a full, fiery blaze of pain. He really wanted to make her happy. Zee was all who mattered. He saw Runt’s face, memory shaken loose. She mattered, too. Gotta get out. Kai stumbled towards the door, but she pulled him back.
“Wait, big boy. We won’t make it that way.” She swung him around through sheer force of her will back into the cell, the box, his coffin.
He didn’t remember being carried back from the Infirmary, but he knew he didn’t want to live with what he’d seen Shasta do to the boy with the broken arm to heal him. But moving brought the sting of LightSucker bites and for once, he was happy to have them.
Zee’s light cast strange shadows on the walls. They became diaphanous, indistinct. Made from glass?
“It’s obsidian. Lava glass. Watch this.” With her free hand, she touched the wall. It melted like wax, her fingers the flame. Her arm slipped around his waist, she dragged at his deadweight, bullying him through the hole.
Outside was as grey and dull as it had been when he first arrived at the OS, untouched by Zee’s light. If he had the strength, he’d ask her why not, but he didn’t. It took every scrap of focus to keep putting one foot in front of the other. His mind balked at the thought of getting back to the stream. So far. “Zee, can’t...”
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