22
Daediem
When I awoke again, the lights were back on. The room was bright and shadow free. I had rolled over in the night, now facing the wall, and could see my reflection in the glossy black rectangular tiles that made up the walls.
I pushed up on my elbows, finding my strength was returning. The tingling in my upper body was gone, but I could still feel the prickly needle-work in my legs. My right arm throbbed, where I had received the shot, all the way down to my fully bandaged hand. I looked down at myself, and found I was now in a seaweed-green, loose-fitting jumpsuit, with my right leg looking extra bulky because of the metal contraption under my loose pant leg.
The room was cold and relatively bare. A chipped wooden desk with three drawers lining one side was positioned next to the door against the wall, with steel clips and bolts fastening it to the floor. The wooden chair was also bolted to the floor, set back just far enough so that someone of about my size could slip in and sit at the desk. A plastic lamp was secured to the top of the desk, so the only items in the room not bolted down were a yellow pad of lined paper and a pencil. A stainless steel toilet and sink combination unit was built into the back wall. And there was another twin-size bed on the opposite wall to mine—with someone lying on it—
Staring at me.
“What have you done?” the boy asked. He peeled back his covers and sat up on his elbows. With his bed, the wall, how he was dressed, his inquisitive expression, and the way he propped himself up on his elbows, his side of the room looked like a mirror image to mine. He looked like a mirror image of me.
He was almost me—a version of myself I would have loved to see in the mirror every morning. He looked better than me in almost every way, from his symmetrical facial features, the shine and fall of his hair, to his toned physique visible through his seaweed-green scrubs.
“Nero?” I asked.
“In the flesh.” He smiled.
“When did you get here?” I asked.
“While you were in surgery. They’ve perfected a procedure that extracts us from our realm, so they don’t have to actually go in and find us. That way, we can’t put up a fight. Real sportsman-like.” Nero paused and stared at me. He looked like he wanted to get up and walk over to my side of the room, but he remained on his bed. It was a long while before either one of us spoke again. “I’ve waited a long time to officially meet you, Oliver Lorne. My full name is Nero Orville.”
I still couldn’t speak. There were no words when brought face-to-face with your mirror. It felt so recent that I had learned about his existence. The voice I heard made me feel crazy at times, but when I ignored him and he quieted, he didn’t seem real. But there was no denying the existence of the figure across the room from me.
“What’s happening?” I finally said. Nero had to have more answers than I did, so I bombarded him with questions uncontrollably. “How are you here now when you were only a voice before? How are they holding us in here? And where are we exactly?”
“You remember me mentioning The Line?” Nero asked, sitting upright on the bed. “Well, I think that’s where we are, which would explain how we are both in the same room together.”
“What is The Line?”
“It’s a neutral space between your realm and mine where we can stand in the same physical plane, but a space that neither of us can cross without a sacrifice. It’s a slight overlap between the realms where nothing really exists except for a man and his mirror to meet.”
“If that’s true, then how does this place exist?”
“I don’t know.”
Nero and I sat and stared at each other for a long while. I guess we’d have to get used to each other. There was no place to hide here. No privacy. No personal space except for our separate beds.
“So what do we do now?” I finally said.
“We get you well,” Nero said. “We get you well so we can walk out of here together. The same way you came in.”
“And you don’t think there’s something greater holding us in? What about this thing on my leg?” I lifted my pant leg to show Nero the metal contraption with the four needles dug deep into my flesh. Nero didn’t seem to have one attached to his leg.
“When you feel well enough to stand, we will find out.”
I looked at the tiny window in the door, only big enough to stick an arm through if breaking the glass were possible. But it was probably over an inch thick, maybe Plexiglass, and maybe bulletproof. That little window would not be our way out of here. The only way was through the walls, but Alexandria Lorne had seen what I was capable of doing, so there had to be preventive measures of escape.
“So I’ve been told that we are like two parts of the same person. Where have you been all these years? I only hear you when I come to Provex City—”
“Which is where we separate.”
“Separate?”
“Where you call home, we are the same. I go where you go and know what you know. There is no difference between you and me. There is no separation of thought. There is no separation of consciousness. And in Greater Meric, we are on the same level, but separated by a lateral plane. Separation of thought and consciousness. It’s a strange feeling to go from adjoining to separate. I’ve been told you don’t even feel it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re lucky. It feels like half of my life force is being ripped out of my chest. I feel drained and incomplete. But then I find you, so close on the other side and feel your warmth and life that I so desperately want back. Mirrors, shadows, daediems…there are probably more names for what we are—each plane being separate in and of itself, but we really are the same. Most of us don’t have the experience that I have.”
“And what’s that?”
“Of being a traveler,” Nero said and scooted back on his bed until his back hit the wall, knees pulled to his chest.
We had an undetermined amount of time to kill. There was no window or clock to let us know what time it was or how much time was passing.
Two plates of food materialized at the foot of the door without it ever opening.
“Well, will you look at that? They’ve retained the power to pass through the doors and walls, which can only mean it’s possible for us.”
I finally had something to smile about, a fortunate realization, a small ray of hope.
Kicking my legs carefully over the side of my bed, I attempted to stand, anticipating a horrific pain shooting up my leg from my sprained, or possibly broken, ankle. And the metal cage connected to just above my ankle couldn’t help matters. I laid my feet gently on the floor and shifted my weight slowly onto them. To my wonderment and relief, the pain in my ankle had lessened significantly. I was standing without major discomfort. Taking a few steps, my condition remained the same. Moments later, I was pacing confidently around the room.
“I take it you’re feeling pretty good,” Nero said. “How about we grab a bite to eat and get out of here.”
I couldn’t agree more, my stomach suddenly convulsing with hunger. I passed him a tray and took the other for myself, plopping back down on my bed with the tray in my lap. Unable to sit cross-legged with the cage on my leg, I let it dangle over the edge of the bed. It felt better not to have it leaning against something, pushing half of the needles deeper into me. But it was a dull, pressure-like pain, not the sharp feeling I would have expected.
On the tray, there was a bowl of plain oatmeal, two slices of dry toast, and a plastic child’s sippy cup of orange juice. I devoured it like it actually tasted good. I felt like I hadn’t eaten in days, and with the slipping in and out of consciousness, for all I knew, it had been.
After licking the spoon clean and pinching every last crumb from the tray, I got up and placed it on the desk. I could feel the pain in my ankle slowly returning and my bandaged hand beginning to burn where they’d most likely carved away layer upon layer of skin, maybe even down to the muscle. I must have been on heavy medication not to feel the effect
s of what was done to me…and it was beginning to wear off.
“You don’t seem so bad,” I said to Nero, taking his tray from him as well, and stacking it on top of my own.
“As compared to what?”
“Darius painted this horrific picture of mirrors. Mr. Gordon and Jeremy warned me to beware, like you were a monster or bogeyman.” This made me immediately think of Kafka. “Now that you’re not yelling at me all the time, you seem rather nice and normal—though you look, I mean, it’s just not fair.”
“I can’t help that. None of us can,” Nero said, shifting his weight on the bed.
“What, are you all like supermodels over there?”
“Everyone looks pretty good, I do admit. It’s a sight like you’ve never seen.” Nero couldn’t contain a smile, though it looked like he was trying to.
“That’s just a very different picture.”
“People from your realm don’t understand much about my realm, and what’s not understood is usually feared.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” I walked over to the door and peered out the small rectangular window. Doctors, nurses, and orderlies walked by in casual conversation like they were in a regular hospital, getting through just another workday. “So we’re actually on the same team?”
“We are the same, it would be impossible to be opposing.”
I placed my hands on the cold metal door. If I actually went through the door at this seemingly busy time of day, I’d be caught instantly. But I could test my options for later. I pushed against the door, willing my hands through the metal.
But it wasn’t working.
“What’s wrong?” Nero asked.
I pushed harder, but I knew that wasn’t the right method and mind frame to get through. Easing the pressure, I closed my eyes and created a mental picture of the door disappearing.
The three beeps sounded again and broke my concentration.
“What’s that?” Nero asked, jumping up from the bed.
The beeps sounded like they were coming from me. I glanced down as I felt something within the metal contraption on my leg move. Hurrying to pull up my pant leg, I uncovered the cage just in time to see a few metal pieces rearranging and one of the needles shift slightly in my leg. It sent a lightning bolt up my leg to where I almost collapsed immediately. Then I felt something being injected into my system. It was like before. The beeps were a warning that something within the contraption was being triggered.
Nausea crept back up into my throat. My leg was cold, and the icy sensation was spreading throughout my body. The room began to spin. But the pain I had been starting to feel quickly vanished—or maybe it was my fading consciousness turning off the pain sensors to my swimming brain.
Nero rushed toward me as I collapsed in front of the door. The last thing I saw was his bare feet as my head hit the—
I awoke again on my bed with the feeling that my night in the asylum had all been a dream, but a sneaking suspicion that the dream was my living nightmare.
As my senses regained their acuity, a wall of deafening noise and flashing lights hit me with an intensity I’d never before experienced—cutting through my groggy state like a guillotine. The room lights on the ceiling were out, but what now lit the room were the walls. Each glossy black tile was some kind of built-in LCD screen, all flashing different videos and images in a demented concoction of visual art. The sounds blasting from overhead were just as jumbled, inescapable noise seeming to come from everywhere at once.
Nero was kneeling on his bed, leaning forward with his head against the mattress. His hands were clamped tightly over his ears and his face buried in a pillow so forcefully I was afraid he might suffocate.
“Make it stop!” he screamed. “Make it stop!”
His screaming could barely be heard above the onslaught of auditory vomit.
I placed my own pillow over my head, attempting to have it reach both ears. It wouldn’t. I closed my eyes, but it still felt like I was looking straight into the sun. There was no escaping what flooded into the room. I pulled what thin blanket I had free from the bed and buried myself as best I could. But it was still no use. The noise would make my ears bleed at any moment. My head felt like it was on the verge of exploding.
Dizzy and nauseous from the sensory overload, I shook and swayed on the bed, and then vibrated onto the floor with a sharp thud. The needles in my leg dug and tore at my flesh as the metal banged against the floor and rolled with me from being entangled in the bed sheet. I was now huddled on the floor in the fetal position. This torture was worse than anything the doctors performed on me. I wouldn’t have ever imagined wanting to gouge out my own eyes and stab through my eardrums, but I would do anything to make the screens stop.
Nero was still screaming, and then I noticed that I was doing the same—uncontrollably.
How much longer could this last? How much longer could we endure? How much longer were they planning to subject us to this torturous experiment? It killed me to think of Desiree and Anna going through the same thing. It killed me. It killed me. It was killing me…
Then everything went dark and quiet. Had I suddenly lost my senses and become locked inside my own head? Even though my over-stimulated senses still screamed, I knew relief was coming as soon as they caught up to the current, calm environment.
I unraveled myself from the blanket and opened my eyes. Nothing happened. The room was just as dark as inside my head. But after the floating spots and ghosting images left on my retinas lessened and finally vanished, I began to make out the tiny window in the door and the beam of light that shone through onto a spot on the floor, illuminating a faint shape drawn into the concrete.
Nero emerged from his makeshift hiding spot on his bed, appearing as a black lump in the darkness.
“When did you wake up?” he asked, his voice hoarse from yelling.
“I don’t know.” And it was the truth. The torture had warped my sense of time. I could have been awake for a minute or an hour. I had no way of knowing. “What happened?”
“The lights went out for a few minutes, and then it started. I thought it would never end.” Nero took a few gasping breaths. “The worst part is no one seemed to notice. I banged on the door and watched people walking by our room like they weren’t hearing a thing. Then I banged on the screens, but it did no good. I couldn’t even scratch one, let alone break one.”
I shook my head and crawled toward the lit spot on the floor, careful to hold the contraption up so it wouldn’t drag and rip my skin to shreds. But my leg and hand were feeling better. The throbbing and burning were gone for now.
When I got close enough to make out what had been drawn into the floor, I stopped and looked up at Nero. He dropped from his bed and joined me on the opposite side of the spotlight beam. In needle-thin lines, a familiar design was etched into the concrete flooring.
“I’ve seen this before,” I said.
“We have,” Nero answered, like he had always been by my side—which in a way, he had.
It was the broken anarchy symbol of Commodore Chaos. A message. A warning. Either he had been here, or someone following his writing wanted to pay him homage.
“What does it mean?” Nero asked.
I stared at the shining symbol, trying to get it to speak to me. It was a clue, somehow, and I needed it to give me a direction.
“He knew an awful lot about this place,” I said, looking up to Nero. “He had to have been here—here in this cell or at least in a nearby cell. And he made a friend here somehow. He was locked away in here and escaped. Or was let go. But with what I’ve seen with this place, I don’t think people are just released. He must have escaped.”
“Which is great news,” Nero exclaimed. “Now the question remaining is how?”
The lights in the room came back on. I flinched and immediately shielded my eyes as a reflex from the torturous screens. But it wasn’t the screens; only the lights. After my eyes adjusted to my newly illumi
nated surroundings, I looked back down to the etching, and it was gone. It fully disappeared in the light. I felt along the tile where it had shown, and the cuts were so thin that it felt and appeared smooth.
“With all the setbacks, we’ve found our light—our tiny ray of hope.” Nero stood up and took a seat on the side of his bed. “Now we just need something concrete.”
“And some time to think without the insanity of this room turning back on.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
I looked at him blankly. It was hard to believe he was a part of me when we had completely different perspectives and ideas, when he picked up on things I either didn’t notice or didn’t understand. And I couldn’t get over how he looked—how I could look with a few alterations.
“Maybe they aren’t using any special powers after all. Maybe all they have are distractions, and all we have to do is focus through them.”
If that was true, then we could walk out of here at any moment. It seemed so simple, yet the door was still one hundred percent solid.
The lights turned on and off at what seemed like every couple of hours to give the effect that days were going by more rapidly than they should. Or so it appeared. For all we knew, the days were really going by that swiftly. If that was true, then we had been in here for weeks or months. Judging by the automatic lights, we were separately let out of our room once a week for a shower and social time in a multifunction room. I was also escorted regularly to similar operating rooms to get my bandages replaced.
During those times, I learned of another purpose for the metal contraption on my leg. It acted as a lockdown device.
An orderly’s face appeared in the door window. He tapped on the glass three times and my leg instantly became frozen in place where I stood. There must have been some type of powerful electromagnets, unlike any I’d ever heard of, in the floor. When the electromagnets were turned on, a low hum emanated from the floor. And I became stuck wherever I was in that moment. I could move everything else, but it was like that contraption became fixed to the floor in some strange way, not ripping through my leg and rocketing to the floor, but fixed in a permanent spot in midair until the humming ceased.
SUSY Asylum Page 26