by B. C. Harris
As my index finger touches the bush, a brittle branch breaks into hundreds of little pieces. With a small burst of smoke, the tiny fragments crumble into dust as they hit the ground.
An eerie silence fills the warm air.
“Is anyone there?” I whisper, frightened by my own voice.
There’s no answer.
I gaze around at the emptiness. I glance at the dark sky, a few stars already beginning to dot the branches in between a growing blanket of what might be storm clouds.
I cry out for help but there’s no response. Where’s my mother? I start to get out of bed, but I realize that I’m no longer in my bed. In fact, I’m no longer in my bedroom or my house.
I’m growing more frightened by the second, wondering how I will ever get home. What if I never see my mother again? What if someone attacks me in the dark? What if I’m caught in a horrible nightmare?
I start to run when I remember something from a book I once read that said if you’re ever lost, don’t move unless you know exactly where you’re going. I recall something about becoming even more lost in such a situation, regardless of how fast you run.
I pause to consider my dilemma. It’s growing darker and darker every second.
In the distant sky I see a bolt of lightning streak through the blackness. As I watch the bright flash disappear, I see a light blink nearby like a flashlight being turned on and off. Then another light blinks to my right and then another to my left.
It’s as though someone is playing a game, turning a flashlight on and off around me. As quickly as I turn to face the rapid flashes in one direction, they appear somewhere else.
Is someone stalking me?
- 2 -
THE DOADLING
In the inky darkness, something brushes against my side. I tremble. Then I see it, although I have to shake my head to believe what I’m seeing. This can’t be happening.
A short distance away is what appears to be a brilliant yellow fish except that it isn’t swimming in water; it’s flying. What’s happening to me? How did I end up in such a bizarre world?
The fish is quickly darting back and forth although it’s coming closer and closer to me. How can a fish fly like a bird? It abruptly stops and hovers like a helicopter in front of me. It smiles at me. It has two smiles because it has two heads, one at each end of its body.
“What in the world are you?” I say anxiously.
“Are you talking to me?” it says in a deep, gruff voice that doesn’t suit what appears to be a cute two-headed fish.
This must be a joke, I think. Fish can’t talk.
“Yes you. Were you talking to me? I am sure I heard someone ask me a question.”
“Well, yes…, that was me,” I reply, certain that I’m trapped in a dream. “Are you really a fish?”
I have now adjusted a little better to the darkness. I can see the strange creature much clearer. It’s long, maybe about the length of my arm. It has wings on its side where there should be fins, and small arms and paws beside its wings, but the most unusual thing is that it has a head at each end of its body. The heads glow like light bulbs, and unless I am going crazy I’m sure that each head takes a turn speaking.
“Fish? What’s a fish? And what are you? I don’t ever remember seeing your kind before,” the deep throaty voice responds.
The light at one end of the fish goes out. There’s a violent whoosh in the air. It’s as though some mysterious evil force came out of nowhere. The slender yellow fish-like animal darts right, then left. Its lights blink on and off. I lose sight of it. What is it doing? I’m beginning to feel frantic. Moments ago, I was resting safely in my bed and now…? And now, I don’t know what’s happening anymore.
“What was that?” I gasp as I catch a glimpse of the weird flying yellow fish again.
“That,” the creature says, it lights once again flashing on and off, “was a sethaurus.”
“What?” I reply.
Without warning, the two-headed fish disappears again.
“Fish. Fish. Where are you?”
A light blinks to my left.
“Fish? Fish? My name is Radwin. You can call me Rad for short. And I’m not a fish, whatever that is. I am a doadling. What are you? You have got to be the strangest looking creature I have ever seen on Tamor.”
“Tamor? What’s that?” I ask.
“Tamor,” replies the yellow fish as it continues to dart here and there, its lights flashing like an out-of-control stoplight, “is the planet where I live. What world are you from? And you still haven’t told me what you are.”
“I’m from the planet Earth,” I say proudly. “And I’m a girl,” I add with some defiance.
“The world of Earth? I have never met anyone from the planet Earth before. And you are a girl what?”
I pause to think about the question. I have never had to explain what I am before. What am I? What a stupid question.
“A girl person,” I finally reply, trying to demonstrate some confidence in my voice to cover my uncertainty.
“But I am a person too,” the blinking fish replies, its deep voice filling the darkness, “and anyone can see that you and me certainly don’t look alike.”
Well, that’s for sure,” I say. “How can you be a person? You’re just a two-headed yellow fish.”
“And you’re a one-headed whatever,” the yellow creature replies back, “and for the last time, I’m not a fish, I’m a doadling. My name is Radwin.”
I ponder the creature’s words. How can this fish possibly say that it’s a person? If an animal can talk, does that make it a person? I’m growing more bewildered the more I think about this problem. What I really want to do is go back home, but I don’t know how to begin to do this. Where is my mother when I really need her?
“Well, first of all, my name is Emily. I’m a girl…, a girl human…, a girl human being,” I say, feeling proud of my answer.
“A human bean,” the doadling replies. “I have never met a human bean before.”
“Not a human bean,” I say. “A human being,” I continue with emphasis on the word being.
“Well, Emily the human beaning,” the doadling begins.
“Not beaning,” I say loudly. “It’s be-ing!”
Suddenly a mysterious blast of wind shakes me. Radwin vanishes again. I shudder with fear. Is my life in danger? How can I escape this troubling place?
The lights begin to flash in front of me again.
“Be-ing,” Radwin says. “That was close.”
“What was close? What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you see that?”
“See what?”
“There was a small sethaurus. Didn’t you see it? It could have eaten me up. For that matter, it could have eaten you up too.”
“Sethaurus? What are you talking about? I didn’t see anything.”
Eat me up? I don’t want to be dinner for some hungry creature. Somehow I’ve got to find a way to get out of here. Somehow I’ve got to get back home.
“That’s because you aren’t trained to look for danger. How will you ever survive if you can’t see in the dark? Are you a baby?
“No, I’m not a baby. I’m a teenager.”
“A teenager? Can’t be. You must be a baby.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a girl who is a teenager,” I counter.
“And I’m a boy, but I’ve never seen a girl like you before. You only have one head.”
The doadling dives to my feet as though he’s inspecting them. Then he continues to speak as he examines my feet. “I can’t see any evidence of another head beginning to grow. You are very strange. You must be a baby. After all, how can you have only one head?” As Radwin touches one of my feet, he says, “Maybe one of these things will turn into another head.”
“Another head? Are you crazy? You’re touching my feet. Everyone knows that your feet can’t turn into a head, Mr. Toad, or Doad, or whatever it is.”
For the first time since arr
iving in this mysterious world, I realize that I don’t have any shoes on, and then I also realize that I’m still in my pajamas. Something is terribly wrong. Am I trapped in a nightmare?
“The name is Radwin. Actually, it’s Radwin the 53rd. And I’m a doadling, not a toadling.”
“Well Radwin the 53rd, I’ve never met a two-headed fish before, and I’ve certainly never met a fish that can talk.”
“And Emily human bean, for the ten-millionth time I’m not a fish. I’m a doadling.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” I reply with annoyance.
“Well then Emily human bean, you have a lot to learn.”
“I’m not a human bean. I’m a human being. I’m a person. And I think that you’re a two-headed fish,” I say angrily as I look around. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that those bushes are persons, or should I say people, as well?”
“Of course,” Radwin replies. “Didn’t you hear them speaking to you a few minutes ago?”
I hesitate. I’m becoming more and more confused. Although I’m not a praying kind of person, my thoughts begin to beg for help. Surely, someone can save me. My mind is spinning like a top. What’s happening to me? I brush my dirty-blonde hair away from my forehead with my hand. I begin to tangle the ends of my shoulder-length hair with my fingers.
“Just because someone speaks to you, does that make them a person?” I finally ask.
“What would you say a person is?” Radwin says, his gruff voice beginning to show frustration with me.
“A person is…, well a person is a person,” I answer as the doadling starts to laugh. It isn’t a normal laugh. It’s an intense throaty laugh that seems to shake the whole earth around us.
“A person is a person,” Radwin mocks me, his laughter increasing in volume.
While at first I’m furious at the yellow doadling for making fun of me, his laugher is so deep, so loud, and so funny that soon I begin to smile. In fact, his laughter is so captivating that momentarily I forget about being lost in a strange world. I forget about feeling so awkward, so out-of-place.
After a minute or two, when Radwin’s laughter subsides a little, I ask, “How can bushes talk? And besides, how did they know my name?”
“First of all, they are not bushes. They are morphadels.”
“What?” I say.
“Mor-phra-dels,” the hovering doadling states much slower.
“Morphradels,” I repeat.
“That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“Morphradels. You pronounced their name correctly.”
“But what are morphradels? How can they speak?”
Before Radwin answers, he starts to dart here and there once again, his lights blinking first at one end of his body and then shifting to the other end. At times, the lights are almost blinding. His movements are random so I have trouble following where he goes.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Why are you always flying all over the place and switching your lights on and off?”
Radwin continues to fly in small jerky movements around me.
“I sense another sethaurus,” he says nervously. “My bright lights will confuse it if it tries to attack me.”
“Attack you? Why would this thing attack you?” I ask. This is confusing to me.
“Because I’m extremely tasty,” he jokes
I try to make sense of what’s happening around me. I watch Radwin buzzing quickly in every possible direction. Above me is a dark sky like any night sky I might experience back home. Other than the sky, the rest of this place is nothing like where I live.
Looking at the darkened bushes that surround us, I begin again, “Radwin, those bushes, those morphradels look like they’re dead. When I first saw them before I met you, their branches were a vibrant blue and they were waving in the air. Then they all seemed to die. What happened to them?
Those things that you call branches are their arms. They stopped moving because they are sleeping.
I step tentatively towards the morphradels for a closer look.
“How did they know my name?” I ask again.
“Some people in Tamor can communicate without having to talk. Sometimes we know things about others before they even speak because we hear their thoughts first.”
“How’s that possible? Do you have extra-sensory perception or something like that?”
“Actually what we have,” Radwin replies as he continues to fly in a haphazard pattern, “is something called sensergy.”
“Sensergy? What in the world is sensergy?”
Radwin shrugs as though he’s losing patience with me.
I’m confused. Here I am in a strange place talking to a two-headed fish that thinks he’s a person and now I’m hearing something about a new way of communicating called sensergy.
“Why do you have two heads?” I ask.
“What a ridiculous question. I have two heads so that if one gets eaten, I will still have another one left. Ha, I’d like to see what would happen to you if a sethaurus ate your head. You’d be in big trouble.”
“I never thought of that before. But then again, we don’t have sethauruses where I live.”
“Not sethauruses,” Radwin says. “More than one sethaurus are called sethauri.”
I pause as I gaze at the yellow doadling. “Can you speak out of both your mouths at the same time?” I ask.
“Of course. My mouths can speak at the same time,” both mouths are saying, “or,” says the mouth to the left, “separately,” offers the mouth to the right.
“And can you turn your lights off at each end of your body?”
Radwin blinks his lights. First, one head is shining brightly, and then the other. Then, he glows a brilliant yellow over his complete body.
“Absolutely. That’s how I escape danger. Keep blinking. It confuses my enemies. They don’t know where I am. When they open their mouths to attack, I’m already somewhere else. Don’t want to be transvolving yet.”
“Transvolving? What’s that?”
There is no reply. Radwin vanishes.
Then, just as quickly, he reappears.
The doadling continues to dart back and forth in the air in front of me. His lights blink on and off making it difficult for me to follow where he’s going, or where he has been. Unexpectedly, he disappears once again.
“Radwin, where are you? Please stay. I need your help,” I say frantically as I look for him.
“What kind of help?” Radwin replies, suddenly reappearing, his lights flashing on and off creating the illusion that there are many doadlings in front of me.
“I think I’m lost,” I say weakly. Then with a little more determination, “Yes, I must be lost, otherwise I would know where I am.”
An unusual dark presence fills the air.
Radwin’s lights disappear.
A large black object strikes my side. I fall heavily to the ground. Quickly looking upwards, I catch a glimpse of a huge menacing creature twisting through the air.
“Radwin, where are you? Was that a sethaurus?”
There’s no reply. I dare not move. I strain to find my new friend. What has happened? If the sethaurus ate the doadling, what will I do? I need someone to help me get back home again. In the stillness I become aware that my knees are knocking together in fear.
“Radwin? Rad?” I whisper anxiously.
There’s no reply.
I search the darkness around me as I consider what I should do next. My stomach is churning with terror.
“Rad?” I anxiously whisper again.
A faint light blinks on the ground not too far away.
I begin to crawl slowly towards the dim light.
“Radwin? Is that you?”
The light momentarily disappears and then blinks again ever so slightly.
I know it’s Radwin. Something tells me that he’s been hurt. As I tentatively approach, I shudder. I’m not very good at dealing with surprises, especially if they’r
e negative.
When I’m able to get a better look at my new friend, my fears are confirmed. He has lost his head; well at least one them.
“Rad, are you okay?”
“I was careless,” his faint voice struggles to reply. “A small sethaurus got me.”
“Oh no,” I respond frantically. “What will happen to you now? What am I going to do? How will I ever get home if there’s no one who can help me?”
“I’ll be okay,” Radwin says feebly. “Let me rest. In the morning the morphradels will help me.”
“Morphradels? How can they help you?” I ask. “What about me? Who’s going to help me?”
There’s no reply.
As I look closer, I see a purple fluid ebbing from where Radwin’s head once was. It looks like blood is starting to form around his wound, almost like it’s a bandage wrapping itself around the injury.
“You’re bleeding,” I say softly.
“I am healing. Please leave me alone. I need to rest.”
“What about your head?” I ask with concern.
“My head will grow back. Please stop talking. You must hide; otherwise a sethaurus might attack you.”
“Attack me? What are you talking about?” I shiver with fear.
“I need to rest. I am injured.”
All I want to do is go back home. I’m about to start crying, but I fight the tears, something that I’m very good at doing. I never want anyone to see me cry.
Radwin looks like he’s trying to find enough energy to speak, but no words emerge.
“Please help me,” I beg, but I stop short of allowing any tears to fall. “All I want to do is go home.”
A ragged burst of lightning fills the night sky followed a few seconds later by the roar of thunder. The first drops of rain begin to fall.
Another bolt of lightning shakes the earth nearby.
Radwin glances sympathetically at me, his eyes beginning to close.
“Please stay awake. I need your help to get home again.”
There’s no response from the hurt doadling.
“I want to go home. You’ve got to help me,” I say frantically, but it’s too late. His eyes are now completely closed. “Is he dead?” I wonder aloud.
Another flash of lightning, immediately followed by the crash of thunder, shakes me as the downpour soaks me. I know that I have to get away, or hide, or do something.