Some Faraway Place

by Lauren Shippen

  “Oh, I’m, um…” I blushed under his suddenly SUPER intense stare.

  “I’m not hitting on you,” I blurted, blushing even deeper. The horrible anxiety in my gut was somewhat abated by the fact that my bluntness shocked a laugh out of him, short and harsh-sounding, but not mean.

  “God, I should hope not,” he said. “What are you, fifteen?”

  “I’m nineteen,” I said, annoyed. “Just because I’m short doesn’t mean I’m young.”

  “Didn’t say it did,” he said, putting up his hands. “You just look young, that’s all.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, Rose, why are we talking?” he asked casually, like the answer was not actually that important.

  “Right, sorry.” I winced. “You’re a patient here.”

  Something in his face twitched and he looked around, like he was worried someone would overhear us.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said. “Was, at least. I’ve sprung the coop.”

  “You’re leaving too?” I asked.

  “Mm-hm.”

  He didn’t give me any more info than that, narrowing his eyes at me like he was waiting for me to say some code word that would reveal to him that I was a safe person to give information to. That was when I started to feel watched too, like everything around us had become hushed and still while turning its focus onto us. I broke eye contact with him to look around, only to see the lobby exactly as it had been for the past five minutes—busy and bustling. I turned my focus back to the man, to find him still staring at me appraisingly, barely moving, like he was ready for me to either soothe or stab him.

  “I’m a dreamdiver,” I said, deciding that blunt and straightforward was going to be easiest with the man whose head was anything but. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve been in your dreams the past week.”

  I saw him clench his jaw, like he was getting ready to snap. I jumped back in before he could.

  “I think you know something about this place,” I said. “And I … I’d like to know what you know. If you’d be willing to tell me.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, tilting his head like if he got the right angle in staring at me, he’d be able to discern if I could be trusted. That was what it felt like—someone sizing up an enemy to figure out their potential usefulness.

  Then, suddenly, he turned to the desk, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling something down before handing it to me.

  “My phone number,” he said. “Now’s maybe not the best time and place to get into it. Text me.”

  And with that, he stalked off without another word.

  “Wait,” I called out, and he turned around, that eyebrow lifted again in a demand. There were a million questions running through my head—what happened to you? Why were you here? What was the dream about the old hallway about? What’s your ability? But I went with the simplest.

  “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  He was silent for a moment, like he was considering the question and the answer he would give.

  “Damien.”

  January 13th, 2017

  Dear Mark,

  I’m out and I’m …

  This isn’t what I wanted. None of this is what I wanted. And I always get what I want. That’s the bargain that was made with me and the universe—I get everything, get to do anything I want, and in return, I don’t get to keep anyone, don’t get to belong. And now I have none of it.

  Whatever that Caleb kid did to me wrecked something permanently. Maybe permanently. Probably.

  I can’t do it anymore. The thing that has made me me, has given me my life, and taken everything from me is gone.

  Looks like everyone else finally got what they wanted for once. I’m powerless.

  community/TheUnusuals post by n/thatsahumanperson

  A bit of a lighter question for folks today—do you have a lot of friends who are Unusual?

  Me … not so much. There’s my family, of course—growing up with Unusual parents was its own unique thing and, I guess, maybe why I haven’t sought out more people like me? Other than on here, of course. It’s been a comfort to get to come here, to talk about my ability with people who are going through the same thing, like an extension of all the group therapy and programs I’ve done. But I’ve never brought that feeling, that sense of community, into my real life.

  I totally could have. Anyone who’s done a program at That Place (regardless of what division you’re at) has probably met other people their age who are Unusual. After all, most of us get our abilities in our teens, and that’s when most of us go through all the “you’ve got a superpower” starter kit stuff, usually with other people who are in the same boat. Have any of you taken those relationships—people you meet in group, that you do exercises with, whatever—and brought them into the real world?

  I’m asking now because it never really occurred to me as a possibility when I was there. But my sister just came back from her second visit (thanks to all y’all who have been checking in—she’s only been back a minute but seems to be doing a lot better) and already has a coffee planned with someone she met there. She was light on the details, but basically, I think she went into this person’s dream and wanted to talk to them about it? Seems like kind of a strange basis for friendship, so I don’t know.

  So. Thoughts? Success stories, failures, horrible one-night stands with other Unusuals? I want to hear it all.

  chuckxavier

  When you say she was light on the details but you “think” she went into this person’s dream … were you listening in on her thoughts?

  thatsahumanperson

  Not intentionally. She was telling me about it, that she was going to get coffee with them today because she met them at That Place and they seemed interesting? But—and I don’t know how it works for you, Chuck—sometimes when someone is lying or being cagey about something, you don’t need to actively read their thoughts to know.

  chuckxavier

  Okay, yeah, I know what you mean. Hence the no details.

  thatsahumanperson

  Right. If I had been listening I’d at least know what this person’s deal is.

  lokilover

  unless your sister also doesn’t know. she’s taking on a pretty big risk meeting someone from That Place.

  thatsahumanperson

  She’s spent four weeks there now, I don’t think getting coffee with someone is going to put her in danger.

  franklinsteinsmonster

  I’m still pretty new to the whole … having a superpower thing, but y’all are the only other people like me I know. I don’t know what That Place even is, but given that I live in bumfuck nowhere, I doubt that there’s one near me. god, I can’t wait to go to college.

  tacotacotaco

  Are you going in the fall?

  franklinsteinsmonster

  lol I WISH. I’ve still got another year and a half:(

  theneonthorn

  I’ve known a lot of Unusuals in my time, even though I’ve never found someone else with my specific ability. those communities have been really helpful at times but, in my experience, the more Unusuals thrown together, the more room for chaos and destruction.

  franklinsteinsmonster

  is that common? having an ability no one else has?

  theneonthorn

  not really.

  onmyown

  n/theneonthorn Holy shit dude, where have you been?? You haven’t posted in here in like, three months, I thought you’d died.

  theneonthorn

  aw, come on, I’d never abandon my beautiful creation. I just took some unexpected breaks from normal life.

  onmyown

  I gotcha. Everything good in your world?

  theneonthorn

  not exactly. it almost never is. but, funnily enough, I actually have a coffee date myself, so things are looking up.

  JANUARY 15TH, 2017

  My sneaking suspicion that everything at the AM wasn’t on the up-and-up has only gro
wn since being there, so I probably should have been more hesitant to spend solo time with someone I met there, but I guess all my instincts were right: Damien had a lot to say about the AM and none of it was good.

  “You were there for two months?” I asked, holding my coffee cup close to my face so the steam would warm my icy nose. After we’d gotten our coffee, Damien insisted on going to a park so we could “talk freely.” I thought that was really weird at the time but by the end of the conversation, I understood why he was insistent about it.

  Things are a lot worse than I thought.

  “Yeah,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “And I know that people spend that much time there voluntarily—”

  “Wait, what do you mean?” I jumped in. “You weren’t there voluntarily?”

  “No” he said through his teeth, picking at the edge of his coffee cup with his bony fingers.

  “Then how…” I started, not sure how to ask or even if I should ask. But Damien had said he wanted to talk freely, which to me meant that I could ask questions freely too.

  Thankfully, Damien seemed to know what I was trying to get out and heaved a great sigh before telling me his whole story. His whole, COMPLETELY BUCKWILD story.

  “I was attacked,” he said.

  “What?” Lemme tell you, I had NOT expected that particular hard turn in the conversation.

  “By another Atypical.”

  “What?” I was louder this time, unable to keep my shock in, and Damien looked around like we were being watched and leaned in close to me, lowering his voice. At such a short distance, it was easy to see the deep bags under his eyes, his chapped lips, greasy hair—like he hadn’t been caring for himself for weeks. Or, as I now suspect, no one had been caring for him at the AM.

  “I … I got mixed up in some stuff,” he said in a low voice. “A bunch of Atypicals who—things went sideways, that’s the important bit. And it got out of hand, I got pummeled into the ground and the AM scooped me up.”

  “Wait, so”—I started trying to piece it together—“you didn’t go to them yourself after you got hurt? I mean, isn’t that what they’re for?”

  “I knew I couldn’t trust them.” He sneered. “I would never have gone to them for help. But I ended up there anyway.”

  “So, they just … took you? Like, grabbed you off the street?”

  “I guess,” he said. “All I know is, I was just going about my life, then I get assaulted out of the blue, then I woke up and it was two weeks later and I was handcuffed to a hospital bed in their basement.”

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  “And that was just the start,” he said darkly. “Once I was awake again, they started doing experiments on me, testing my ability.”

  “What kind of experiments?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach. “I mean, when I was there, they tested the limits of my ability too, but they never … I mean … did they hurt you?”

  “Not…” I could see him searching around for the words and I wonder if he was looking at me—a nineteen-year-old stranger—and thinking that he should censor himself.

  “They didn’t physically hurt me,” he said eventually. “But I don’t know what would have happened if they had kept me longer, which I’m sure they would have if…”

  He trailed off, his jaw clenching as he took another aggressive sip of his coffee.

  “If what?”

  “It’s gone.” He sighed and I stared at him until he continued. “My ability. It’s gone.”

  It was cold, sitting out on a park bench in the middle of January, with nothing but a crooked wool hat my dad had knit with his telekinesis and a cup of rapidly cooling coffee to keep me warm, but in that moment, an even deeper chill ran through my body.

  “What?”

  “I used to have an Atypical ability and I don’t anymore,” he snarled. “I don’t know if it’s ever coming back.”

  “But that’s not … that’s not possible,” I said. “Right? I mean, our abilities are part of us, they can’t just be taken away.”

  “Sure they can,” he said. “It’s not easy, but it’s happened before.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “You pick up more than a few things when you’re trapped in a basement with very little to entertain you for two months,” he said. “Especially if that basement is occupied by a bunch of people who run a scientific research organization dedicated to this kind of stuff and they’re not particularly careful about talking about said research around you.”

  “And they talked about how this has happened before?” I asked. “People losing their abilities?”

  “Yep,” he said. “I don’t know about physical abilities, but anything based in the brain—abilities like yours or mine—can be affected by head trauma or neurological issues.”

  I thought about how I haven’t seen my dad using his telekinesis very much since I’d been back and wondered if it was because it wasn’t working that well anymore, somehow affected by the disease, or if he was forgetting he had it in the first place.

  “… and they say they don’t know how to fix it, how to cure me, but I think that’s a bunch of bull.” I focused back in on Damien, who was in the middle of his story, speaking more and more bitterly.

  “But why would they do that?” I asked. “I mean, if they had a way to help you, they’d use it, right? Isn’t that the whole purpose of the AM?”

  “You’d think, right?” he said. “That might be what’s on the brochures but trust me, they do not have our best interests at heart.”

  “You say that like this isn’t your first run-in with them,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, it isn’t.” But he didn’t elaborate, instead looking back out over the park, stretching out his legs while he took another long sip of his coffee.

  So I decided to take the reins and discovered that, incredibly enough, that wasn’t the wildest part of Damien’s story.

  “Okay, so I feel like I should probably tell you about this dream that I saw,” I said, hoping a change of conversation would help him open up. I was surprised at myself in the moment, that I just came right out with it like that, but there was something about talking to Damien that made being blunt feel easy. Maybe it was the fact that I’d been inside his head, that we had this shared experience, or maybe it was just that he had told me his whole situation at the AM without sugarcoating or beating around the bush.

  “I assume it was of the nightmare variety?” he asked casually, stretching out even farther like he was trying to melt into the bench.

  “Um, yeah.” I winced. “Most of them were.”

  “Most of them?” His languid lounging position immediately tensed as he turned to me, throwing his arm over the back of the bench so he could face me head-on. “You went into multiple dreams?”

  “I … I think so?” I said, a little surprised that he seemed bothered by this. It’s not like he had been dreaming about anything really embarrassing.

  “What do you mean you ‘think’?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m still not one hundred percent certain they were yours,” I said. “You were only physically in the last dream—or at least, physically there in a way that I could see you. The rest of them … well, I think they were yours because they had the same … quality to them.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Dreams are like signatures, or someone’s particular smell, or the way they walk,” I explained. “Most people have unique ones but all the differences are really subtle.”

  “So how can you be sure that the ‘quality’ you were feeling was mine?” he asked.

  “Well, your dreams felt different,” I explained. “Usually when I go dreamdiving, I’m myself in other people’s dreams, sometimes interacting with them, sometimes just standing off to the side and observing. But being in your dreams was like how it was when my ability first started.”

  “What was it like then?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious. It felt good—and weird—to talk
to another Atypical about my ability, instead of a doctor who was writing everything down. With Damien, it just felt like sharing, without every single word being loaded with meaning that the other person is interpreting. Sharing in the way that I wanted to be sharing myself with Aaron—bonding over our abilities, something we haven’t been able to achieve, too ready to go at each other’s throats.

  “It was like the dreams were happening to me,” I said. “Like I was just inside the dream, experiencing it in the same way the dreamer was.”

  “So you were experiencing my dreams the way I was?”

  “I think so. That’s why it was so hard to tell whose dream it was—I only figured it out because the night before we met, you saw your reflection in the dream and then—”

  “You recognized me the next day,” he finished for me.

  “Yeah.”

  “I was in the basement. Running.” He turned his body back to face the park, his jaw tensing with each word. “That’s the dream you’re talking about right? I’m running through the AM to—to—”

  His jaw tensed once more, like he was clamping down on whatever words he was trying to avoid saying out loud.

  “To save someone,” I finished, unaware up until that moment that that’s what he was trying to do. “You were trying to rescue someone. That really was the AM’s basement. That’s why the hallway looked the same.”

  “What hallway?”

  I explained about my exploring and finding a hallway I recognized from his dream, but without all the doors.

  “Oh yeah.” He nodded. “That must have been right above me.”

  “So, in the basement, they…” I wasn’t even sure how to complete that sentence.

  “They keep people prisoner.”

  “And you…”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “That nightmare you saw … that was from the last time I was in that building. It was last summer. I broke in to save someone. Someone who had been trapped in there for a very long time.”

  “Where are they now?” I asked, imagining that poor man still trapped in the basement, looking hopeless and half-dead.