by Elsy Green
“We did what we had to, to survive. And we have. Look what we’ve done. We’ve saved the world. We’ve brought them out of what would have been the end. We gave them hope, helped them start their own process of original thought. I mean I know we’ve messed with some balances, but we’ve done good by these people and we will continue to do good by these people by keeping this to ourselves. If she finds out she doesn’t have a real hold to humanity, she may become unpredictable.”
“She’s going to figure it out Theo, she’s too smart.”
“She is brilliant just as we thought she would be, but she still holds herself back. Giving her a home has helped her find humanity. We’ve done all we can, the rest is up to her.”
Nadia covers her face with her hands and shakes her head. “Oh, Theo, what have we done?”
Theo gathers her in his arms and holds her tightly to him. “We did what was necessary to save the world. Now it is up to them.”
I tip toe back to my room, being sure to not wake Ryss as I creep past her room. We don’t need her blowing up at me again for something as innocent as waking her up from her beauty sleep.
Once I’m safe in my room, I slid to the ground and let the tears I’ve been holding in escape. They’ll never see me as their daughter. They will never see me as a person. To them I’ll always be their perfect creation.
I wipe the tears from my face and shake away the emotions that try to overcome me. I’m better than that, I’m more mature than those weaknesses. I’m no one’s charity case. I won’t hold myself back any longer. I’ll show them what I’m capable of and then they’ll know their efforts weren’t for nothing.
I startle awake as someone shakes me. “What? What is it?” I grasp onto Sophie’s forearms tightly, scared we’ve been found out. She gives me a sad frown and calmingly rubs my arms.
“It’s okay. You slept in, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” I look around at the dusty mill-barn noticing the entire place is illuminated. The sun is high in the sky shining down on us in our humble abode.
“Why didn’t you guys wake me? I could have taken a turn with Ethan.”
“We figured you needed the sleep. Daniel and I took care of it; besides it was fun.” She gives me a giddy smile. I try to smile at her new-found happiness, but I must fail miserably because her giddy grin falls to a somber frown as she rubs my arms again.
“The dreams again?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you see?”
“I was young, my parent figures were arguing about me. Nadia thought they had made a mistake with me and Theo was protecting me.” I shake my head dislodging the residual fog from my brain. “It was nothing.”
“No, don’t think that. It is something. I’ll add it to the board.”
I sigh and sit up. “It’s not really important now, how’s Ethan?”
“He’s fine, still unconscious. His rapid eye movement isn’t improving though. Daniel thinks he needs some medicine. He said he’s seen this at the facility before, patients not waking up and staying in this weird unconscious state. Nora usually gives them some sort of drug to get them talking again. He doesn’t know what it’s called but he thinks he’ll recognize it when he sees it.”
“Great, do we have any? Maybe in your magical trunk.” Sophie snorts at my joke and shakes her head.
“No. Daniel thinks we should make a supply run into town. We aren’t far from a gas station. He thinks it would be safer for us to go there opposed to going back to Greenville.”
“Okay, I’ll get my shoes.”
“Actually, we were thinking just Daniel and I would go and maybe you could stay here with Ethan?” She winces apologetically not sure how I’ll take that news. I’m fine actually, I’d prefer to stay with Ethan, but it does sting a little that I’m being replaced by Daniel so quickly.
“Oh, okay.”
“It’s just less suspicious if we aren’t hauling around an unconscious man and since Ethan knows you the best, we figured it would be better if you were here in case he wakes up.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I push down the tinge of rejection. I’m not mad, I’m just a little…jealous, I guess. I’ve kind of been Sophie’s right hand man since well…forever.
“Hey, we will be back in a jiff, with lots of food. And new clothes. You think you’ll be okay?” She juts out her lip in a pouty face. I scoff and nudge her playfully.
“I’ll be fine, go and have fun with your new beau.”
“Thanks.” She pulls me in for a bear hug. “Oh, and we left you a weapon.” She pulls out a crowbar from behind her. “Just in case.”
“Uh…thanks, I think.” She gives me a shrug and then stands to leave.
“Don’t go wandering, we’ll be back soon.” She warns me as she and Daniel undo her handy knot work on the doors and leave me alone in the barn. I listen to their feet crunch on the gravel, then the car start and drive away before I finally get up and go check on Ethan. I sigh and crouch down beside him checking his forehead to make sure he isn’t feverish, surprisingly he’s the perfect temperature, not too cold and not too hot.
“Ethan?” I nudge him gently, hoping that’s all it will take. He doesn’t even move a muscle in recognition. I blow out a breath and lie down beside him wrapping his arm around me.
“I’m sorry I got you into this mess. I didn’t mean to, I shouldn’t have told Nora anything, you didn’t deserve any of this.” I look over at him reflexively like I’m going to get a response, only I don’t.
“Oh, right. Sorry, it’s just you look so peaceful, like you’re sleeping. I keep forgetting you are unconscious or whatever.” I purse my lips together and blow a frustrated raspberry. “I wish I knew what was wrong. I wish I knew how to help you. Because I would do anything to see those turquoise eyes of yours again, anything at all.”
I sit up when he doesn’t move a muscle and stare down at his handsome face. My eyes narrow on his as I watch them move back and forth rapidly, his lips pulling into a slight frown. I cock my head to the side watching as his face is continuously changing, from a frown to a wince to a furrow in his brow.
It dawns on me in that moment that Ethan might not be unconscious, he might be dreaming. What if he’s stuck in the dream world just like I was? What if he’s trying to escape?
I jump up from my spot and search the barn for anything useful, anything to help him wake up. Some water, something cold, or hot, anything that can make his subconscious realize he’s not sleeping. I let out a moan when I find nothing of use and get back on my knees next to him grabbing him by his shoulders. I shake him gently as I say his name loudly so he’ll hear me in there.
“Ethan! Ethan! Ethan you have to wake up! Wake up, you’re sleeping, come on wake up!” His face contorts into one of pain, his brows and nose scrunched and his jaw clenched as if he’s trying to endure something.
“Ethan!” I shake him again, still nothing. “Uh!!!!” I drop him back on the sack of flour and push my fingers to my temple. “Think! How did I do it? How did I wake myself up?” My eyes shoot open as I realize I’ve never been able to wake myself up before the dream is over. But Sophie has. She didn’t use any tricks or gimmicks, she called me by my name. My dream name. Grabbing his shoulders again, I place my lips to his ear and whisper his name, or at least the one I know in my dreams. Hoping it’s the same.
“Jaxon, Jaxon, you have to wake up now.” His entire body tenses and his eyes fly open as he takes in gulps of air looking around the room frantically.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay. You’re okay. It’s just me. I’m here.”
His head whips in my direction, his breathing erratic as he grabs my face in between his sweaty palms.
“Ri, we have to get out. We have to get out now!”
“What are you talking about?” I clutch onto his forearms.
“Open your eyes! Open them Ri, open them!” His eyes roll to the back of his head and his body convulses as he slum
ps back onto the floor and goes limp once again.
C.20
Sophie and Daniel don’t return until later that night. I don’t know how many times I’ve paced back and forth over this floor, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already worn a groove into the old, tattered wood floor. It’s probably not safe anymore to walk on, it’s probably so worn out by my hours of pacing that it’s basically gone.
I look down at the ground under my feet surprised to see that’s not even close. The floor looks perfectly normal, like I haven’t even walked on it at all, in fact it looks like no one has. Which is odd because we’ve been walking on it all day. The dust it’s even disturbed, not a single speck, it looks eerily perfect as it lay over the floor like a blanket of snow.
I stare at it in disbelief, my mouth gaping open as I try to make sense of it. I shake my head and close my eyes. I’m just exhausted. I’ve been pacing the floor the entire day, forcing small droplets of water into Ethan’s mouth and checking his pulse every five minutes. My mind has been going non-stop, my anxiety through the roof worrying about the unconscious man in front of me. The good news is his rapid eye movement has slowed and he’s breathing normally again. It gives me hope that he’ll wake up soon and get out of whatever weird fog he’s in, so I can get out of mine.
That’s twice he’s called me Ri, which I assume is short for Riella. I mean I could be hearing him wrong, maybe he’s saying something else, or just using a slang term I don’t understand. That’s the story I try to convince myself of, but in the end, I always come back to Riella. It’s like something deep down inside of me knows the truth, something deep down inside of me knows what he’s trying to say, but I can’t figure it out. It’s like I have the pieces of the puzzle, but they are turned upside down and I can’t seem to flip them right side up.
“Allie?” Sophie’s soft voice makes me jump. She comes to stand in front of me with a confused look. “What is it?”
“Nothing, what took you guys so long? I was worried.”
“We found an outlet mall a little while away and decided to stock up. We don’t know how long we’ll be here. We also got a few maps to figure out our next moves.”
“Our next moves?”
“We can’t stay here forever.” Sophie shrugs. “We figured we needed a plan. How is he?” She motions to Ethan.
“He’s fine. He woke up a little while after you left going on about opening my eyes. Then he passed out again and has been that way ever since.”
Daniel cocks his head at my revelation, walking to Ethan’s side with a furrowed brow. He crouches down in front of him examining him like some sort of professional.
“His eye movement has slowed.”
“Yeah I think waking him up helped.”
“Waking him up? You were able to wake him? He didn’t just do it on his own?”
“I think so…I uh…I called him Jaxon and he woke up.”
“Like when I called you Riella?” Sophie stares wide eyed at me.
“Exactly.” Daniel looks back and forth between the two of us with a perplexed frown. I shrug and let out a long exhale. “I can’t explain it, once when I was stuck in a dream, Sophie called me by my dream name and I woke up. I tried it with Ethan and it worked, only he didn’t stay awake.”
“That’s…” he scoffs and shakes his head. “That’s amazing. I mean if that’s true than there is a bigger connection to the dreams then I originally thought. You dreaming of Annia, that was just a coincidence, but Ethan responding to Jaxon, a boy from your dream. It’s incredible. Like we are stuck on the same dream sphere.”
“It’s freaky, I know.”
“Freaky? No. This is something else entirely. I mean it’s like our minds are somehow locked in the same dreamland. And we are unconsciously responding to the person we think we are in the dream. It’s like our minds are temporary tricked.” He shakes his head and scoffs as he stares off into the distance like he’s concentrating.
“Have you tried it again?”
“Tried what?”
“Calling him Jaxon?”
“Like a million times,” I sigh. “He doesn’t even respond now. He must not be in his dreamland anymore. He might just be unconscious from the trauma.”
“Perhaps.” Daniel reaches into his bag. “I couldn’t find anything that Nora used, but I found some stuff that’s similar maybe we should try it. Calm his heartrate? Try and wake him up?”
I take the bottle from Daniel’s hand and stare down at the unfamiliar name. “I don’t know. Something feels off. I feel like we are missing something. He kept telling me to get out, to open my eyes. I just don’t know what that means.”
“Maybe he thinks we are still in the center,” Sophie chimes in.
“Maybe.” Daniel and I say at the same time, totally unconvinced.
“Show me what else you have.” I open my palm to Daniel and he gives me the bag.
“I’m not sure if any of this will work…it’s tricky messing with the unconscious mind.”
“Where in the world did you find all this?” I stare into the bag of off brand liquid medications.
“Weirdly enough at the gas station.”
“The gas station? I don’t know, this seems risky. Maybe I should just keep trying to say his name.”
“Yeah, maybe. We don’t have a plan yet; we can wait but eventually we will need to try something. We can’t have him slowing us down.”
“He won’t!” I cut my gaze to Daniel finding myself suddenly offended by his remark. “He’ll be just fine!” I say through gritted teeth. Sophie shoots me an arched brow sensing my sudden defensiveness. I sigh and blow out a breath. It’s been a long day; Daniel is just trying to help and I’m overreacting. “I think I need some fresh air. Can you guys watch him?”
“Of course.” Sophie smiles. “We’ll find a spot to put the food first and then be right back down.” They head upstairs and out of sight. I hear them giggling and banging things around as they find somewhere to keep all our food.
Sighing, I brush some hair from Ethan’s face and lean over and kiss his soft cheek. My lips tingle at the connection and I watch as Ethan twitches. Surprised, I take in a deep breath and try again. This time on his lips. Everything inside of me is set on fire as our lips touch and I feel like as if I’m floating, being carried to another time.
“You can’t do this!” Jaxon yells as he struggles against the men in black masks holding him. Tears stream down my face as they jab the taser into his side and shock him again.
“Oh, but I can.” Ryss saunters over to him picking up his heavy head with her long witch like fingers. “I can do whatever I want. Now, tell your little girlfriend good-bye, because where you are going, you’ll never see each other again.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Oh, Jaxon you aren’t the comply sort of guy, you’ll be dead within the hour.” She drops his head and wipes her hands off on her pants. “Get rid of him.”
“NO!!” I scream as I struggle against my captures. “No please don’t! Please I’ll do anything!”
Ryss turns to me with an amused smile. “Sweetie, you’re going to do anything I want anyways. All of you are.” Her smile turns diabolical as she looks down the line at the rest of us she’s rounded up. Ceres, Lyra, me, and Annia. I don’t even have to time to realize that Ceres is the boy I’ve been seeing, the one that reminds me of Daniel or how much Annia really does look like Sophie.
“Please!” I beg through my tears. “Please don’t hurt them. This was my fault. I convinced them all to do it. It was my fault.”
Ryss throws her head back and lets out a hearty, bone-chilling laugh. “Riella did you really think there was any other way this would end?”
“I…I didn’t mean to involve them.”
She rolls her eyes impatiently. “It doesn’t matter. You tried to break into Phantom’s system, boo hoo. You were already chosen for the program. Why do you think you are here? This was alw
ays the plan. You just moved up the timeline.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this was what was going to happen from the beginning. You help me build this after I blackmail you into doing it and then I put you in it so you can do my bidding and help me get the rest of the pesky originals on board. You are our future Riella, either you comply to my program and save the world. Or you die. Either outcome is a win for me.”
I swallow back the vomit that pools in my esophagus. “That’s not true. We’re…you’re…”
“Oh…so the robot does have feelings. What you thought we would kiss and make up? Ha! Hardly. Even if it wasn’t really your fault Nadia and Theo died. It’s just so easy to blackmail you, make you think you did it when really all I had to do was change one stupid setting and poof they were gone. I mean you were so pathetic, willing to do anything to make up for it.” She lets out a wicked chuckle. “I couldn’t help it. I’ve never liked you. Call it irreconcilable differences.”
She shrugs like her revelation means nothing. Like she just didn’t admit to killing Nadia and Theo. I thought I did. I thought I did this entire time! I did everything for her. I lived with that guilt for years trying to make it right, trying to build our family back up! Trying to find peace with my mistake!
“You bi—” She flicks her wrist and a man in a black mask cuts me off by jabbing his baton deep into my ribs. I double over in pain, crumbling to the ground.
“No need for name calling Riella, you are better than that, remember? Besides, we are going to be working very closely together, best to not have bad vibes lingering.” She smiles diabolically at me and waves away her guard dog as he hovers over me.
“It’s nothing more than logic, my dear. With you and your friends complying under my thumb, we can build masterpieces, we can start over, we can rule the world. I did what I had to, to win. I always win.”
Tears flood down my face as her image blurs out. Anger and rage filling every limb in my body, fueling me to show her she won’t win that easily. I won’t go down without a fight. I grunt as I get on shaky legs, steading myself as I seethe through gritted teeth. “I promise you, Ryss, I’ll never do anything for you ever again.”