by C. S. Wilde
“This is going great,” I whisper to Chuck. “We’ll soon pass their territory without running into trouble.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Sol’ut-eh mutters.
Chuck keeps moving ahead, one step at a time, his back half arched. “They could pick up our scent,” he whispers. “But if they had, they’d be here by now.”
A soft breeze stirs the top of the grass, following east, the opposite direction of the huts. Perhaps this is why they haven’t noticed our scent. I’ve always thought of luck as a feeble, untamed thing, and yet, here it is.
Untamed… like the wind, which is always erratic, unpredictable, and so, with the speed of an infant who changes his mind, the wind starts flowing west, toward the huts.
“Run,” Chuck grumbles.
We rush toward the mountain, the muscles in my legs aching and sweat blooming on my forehead. Sol’ut-eh soon grabs both of us and races on her bulky hinged legs, grumbling a quiet curse as she goes. After a long while she stops, her chest heaving up and down as she leans her hands on her thighs.
Chuck grabs his pad. There’s no sound, and no movement apart from the wind blowing above.
“Are we out of their zone?” She wheezes in between gasps.
As if in reply, blue-scaled iguanas pop up around us like flowers in spring, even towering over massive Sol’ut-eh. The Do’yanians circle the three of us, their shiny yellow eyes blinking as they cock their heads to the side.
They close in, aiming arrows—more like big sharp batons—at our heads. They hiss through shark teeth, the spikes on their backs trembling in the way of a Reknar ready to attack.
Even if Chuck and Sol’ut-eh blasted a few of them, those arrows would still pierce through us. There are just too many.
My hands fist into balls. I’ll disintegrate their makeshift weapons. Particles, it’s all particles in the end... But the line between the fabric of the weapons and their bodies becomes blurry. I might disintegrate some of them in the process. The thought shoots a cold shiver down my spine and my legs weaken, but as humans say, desperate times demand desperate measures.
Chuck must’ve noticed my intentions, because he whispers, “If you do something, you might lose yourself.”
He drops his gun and raises his arms.
22
-Miriam-
Arrows prick my back as the Do’yanians rush us forward through their village. Their younglings watch with childlike wonder, but “youngling” is the incorrect word. They stand almost my size, with tiny snouts and sharp teeth that could tear me apart. There’s nothing harmless about them, apart from their bulging yellow eyes that burst with curiosity— and no inch of fear. No, that’s reserved for their mothers; gangly blue reptilians with bald heads covered in rough cloth, who pull their children aside as we pass.
Perhaps the mothers are wise. Perhaps, they should fear me... but I don’t want them to.
Thoughts are images and sensations, the meaning behind words. I try to tell them, “We come in peace,” but I can’t establish a link.
“I tried it back when they ambushed us,” Chuck says in my mind as the arrows push us forward. “The magnetic field interferes with telekinesis but not so much with telepathy. I’m guessing their scales are blocking our attempts.”
“Chuck, what are we going to do?” I ask.
Variables run behind his eyes as he observes our surroundings. “I don’t know yet.”
“Without our guns and with little telekinetic abilities, we don’t have many options,” Sol’ut-eh adds, glancing at the guns that hang from a Do’yanian’s shoulder. They have our backpacks too. “Why didn’t I bring a linguist with us?”
We know why. If we told her crew, word about Werhn-za’har would’ve spread, initiating a manhunt, and I’d likely be doomed. Which is ironic, considering our current situation.
An enormous hut soon towers ahead as the crowd makes way. Once we reach it, two Do’yanian females open the door made of dried straw the same way one would open a curtain, revealing a makeshift throne room.
The big empty space reminds me of a cavern, colder than the outside. Smoke dances through the air as the scent of cooked meat invades my nostrils, but I can’t find the source. When we move forward, my shoes sink slightly on the cracked, muddy floor.
A makeshift throne stands at the far end, atop a platform with wooden stairs. A Do’yanian sits on the throne, his blue body covered in black swirling tattoos, his face painted white. He stares at us with bulging, unblinking eyes as he leans his chin on his languid fingers.
One of the Do’yanian warriors runs to him and bows. He shrieks piercing sounds that remind me of dinosaurs from a movie—Jurassic Park, one of James’ favorites.
The leader cackles replies to the warrior that echo through the hut, but this doesn’t stop the warrior’s rant. He keeps shrieking and moving his hands from us to his heart and then his head. So the leader leans forward and shows him his teeth, shaking his wattle, the spines on his back trembling like grass against the wind. Only now I note the huge scar marring his face from his forehead to his wattle.
The warrior steps back and whines before running past us, his steps leaving heavy footprints on the floor. The prickly arrows retreat with the group of guards, who have now returned to the entrance.
“I don’t like this,” Sol’ut-eh says in our minds. “It seems they’re preparing to watch a spectacle.”
If only we could communicate with these creatures. Perhaps… I bow down in the same manner the warrior did. Chuck and Sol’ut-eh grumble something like “won’t work,” but they follow my lead anyway, Chuck to my left and Sol’ut-eh to my right.
Body language. It has to work.
The leader steps down the stairs, moving fluidly like a silk curtain against a soft breeze. He looks down at us with slit eyes before his gaze locks on mine. A hint of a smile creeps up his cracked snout just before he kicks Sol’ut-eh in her stomach, a rough thump that sends her flying to the left end of the room.
“Sister!” Chuck runs to her as her body drags over the muddy ground.
I motion to follow Chuck, but the leader’s attention remains on me. Eyes can speak a world of things, and I know that if I move, he’ll attack. So I stay in place to avoid turning a bad situation into a disaster.
If the leader had attacked me or Chuck, we’d likely be dead from the injuries. He’s simply too massive. He must’ve attacked Sol’ut-eh first to disable the strongest of us—and the biggest threat to him.
“Bastard,” Sol’ut-eh grunts, slamming her hands over the purple on her stomach. She must’ve scraped her arm badly on the floor, it’s almost entirely covered in blue blood.
The smoky scent invades my nostrils again. From this angle, I can see what’s behind the throne: a Do’yanian torso roasting over a dead fire. A gag surges at the back of my throat.
The leader grins at me as if he knows what I’m thinking... but he can’t. I must’ve imagined it.
“We come in peace!” I bark, forcing the link.
“Even if he understood you, it wouldn’t change a thing,” Chuck grumbles as he helps Sol’ut-eh to her feet, blue blood smudging his shirt. “He’s playing with his food.”
The leader licks his lips with a forked tongue and then gurgles a loud cry. Fifteen warriors rush toward him, their spears in hand. Two of them pick up Chuck and Sol’ut-eh, then push them back to where I stand.
The warriors turn to us and start closing in, a wall of spears craving for our flesh.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” I say.
They keep coming.
Fabric. The living fabric of the universe pulses within me, urging to be woven.
This world vibrates, moves, breathes, shifts, all under my flesh. The particles of the arrows mingle with my particles. A simple thought, the kind someone has when remembering what they had for lunch an hour ago, and the spears disintegrate into the air.
“Miriam, no!” Chuck shouts, but his voice comes out muffled, like there’s
this thick glass wall between us.
I’m a painter and the universe is my canvas. I have to paint, otherwise, what’s the purpose of everything that is, was and ever will be?
The ground shakes as I merge with Do’yan, a tremor so great that it slams the locals to the floor. Two other life forms also fall down, a red-haired boy and a creature with pearly white skin covered in blue. Their names… I forget.
A commotion surges from outside, screams that sound like the cackling of chickens. In the hut, the natives watch me as if I’m some sort of deity; three of them even bow in my direction. One of them, the one with a big scar across his face, glares with absolute fury. His thoughts are energy, everything is; electrons, impulses, matter. His particles tell me he hates me, that he thinks I’m here to take his throne, but such thoughts are a speck of dust in the infinite glory of this universe. We’re all nothing and everything.
My feet sink into the ground as I connect further with this planet, one world out of an uncountable number. Will I visit them all?
The thick skinned worms that sail kilometers below, the underground rivers, the creatures buried, all the way to the core, they’re all in me. The footprints on the ground, the trees that sprout from it, the air, the rivers, the seas, even the walls of this hut. With a twist of my fingers, the walls of the hut crumble down, closing us in a circle of twigs and bark, shaping the construction that’s no longer there.
I am this planet, and this planet is me.
Delicate flowers with a citric fragrance bloom from the ground: purple swatinas, my favorites. The atmosphere of the planet fights them, but when I push, my purple swatinas burst throughout the village. They won’t last long after I leave, but I could change the atmosphere, the pressure, the composition of the air…I could change the locals too. I could change everything, shape this planet as I see fit. And then I’ll swim across rainbow colored nebulae, ride endless comets, or even enter the core of a star.
I am the reality of this universe.
I needed to go back once, back to someone, can’t remember why, or who. Thoughts lost in the cosmos.
A hand rests on my shoulder. I know these particles, but they can’t be here. I left them on Earth.
I turn around, the air in me and me in the air.
There he is. I remember him, curly brown hair, clear-blue eyes, his name… All I know is that he shouldn’t be here.
Tears fall down his cheeks as he tries to grab my hand, but his fingers pass through mine. I’m the air, the air is me.
His breath hitches. “Come back to me, please.”
“How are you here?” I mumble.
“I’ll always find you.” He caresses my cheeks but his hands pass through my skin. “I’m your anchor, remember?”
Why is he sad? Doesn’t he see, doesn’t he understand?
His body pulses with energy that reverberates into me, this beautiful, shiny force swirling inside, bright like a tiny sun.
I understand now.
23
-James-
Miriam touches my cheeks with blurry hands and it’s like a summer breeze caressing my skin. A knot ties around my heart, but I remain strong. I’m her anchor and I will bring her back.
“Mir, you need to fight this,” I say.
“It’s wonderful, can’t you see?” she whispers, her voice cotton and clouds. Her eyes dart toward the sky as if she’s witnessing something wondrous.
“No, baby,” I clear my throat. “But you can show me if you come back, okay?”
She shakes her head. “Not now.”
A tight pressure squeezes my chest, my entire body trembles. “Do you remember me? What’s my name?”
Her smile widens. “James. You’re my husband.”
I exhale a relieved breath, but it doesn’t last long. Miriam is still faded, like a watercolor painting soaked in hot water.
No, no, no. I’m her anchor, she should be normal by now.
“Tell me what’s going on, Mir.” Tears swell at the back of my throat and despair takes over. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you. I never will.” She pats my head as if she were soothing a small child. “But your body craves for the power.”
What is she talking about?
“You don’t realize it, James, but that’s why you stole my telepathy when it all started.” She giggles. “It wasn’t me who did that, it was you. I merely helped you.”
“Mir, you’re not making any sense.” I put a hand over hers and it’s the same as if I were touching a fog. My forehead strains and I can’t hold back a sob. “Just, please…” Tears start flowing down my cheeks again, because I’m losing my wife. “Stay.”
I didn’t come all this way… no, it won’t—it can’t—end like this.
“You craved the power because you’ll need it to...” Her smile vanishes and her milky eyes fill with worry. “I’m so very sorry, James.”
Before I can try to understand what she means, a piercing migraine explodes inside my brain, a throbbing pain that brings me to my knees, and I can’t speak, or breathe, just scream, cries ripping my throat as they come out. My brain is exploding, pressure pulsing, pushing, and everything darkens.
The pain suddenly stops, and I inhale sharply, like I’ve been underwater for a really long time. I’m crouching on the ground like a child. The memory of pain still pulses beneath my skull.
“M-mir?” I glance up. She’s not here.
With shaky legs, I stand up and wobble around in circles. “Mir!”
Nothing.
Her name blasts through my trembling lips one last time before I realize that she’s gone, that she became an interdimensional being, and that I’ll never see my wife again.
Despair swirls in my chest, eating me from inside, taking pleasure in tearing me apart.
Zed approaches, wearing sneakers and his typical suit. His black skirt is brushed with dry dirt, his perky nose and high cheekbones too. It’s been a long way from our pod to here.
And it was all for nothing.
“James, are you all right?” Pity coats his tone. His dark brown eyes with bushy eyelashes are filled with sorrow.
“This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening,” I mutter.
Chuck comes from behind Zed, his tone somber and his eyes glistening. “I… I’m sorry, James.”
The words tear Chuck apart, I can tell by the way his voice cracks and how he can’t look at me. Miriam was like a daughter to him, no, she still is, she’s not gone, she’s somewhere else and I need to find her.
“James, don’t do this to yourself,” Chuck says, having clearly read my mind.
“Where is she!” I boom, and an invisible force flings Zed toward the sky. He lets out a high-pitched scream as sunlight engulfs him. His cries dim until it’s gut-wrenching silent.
“What the hell?” I say, but Zed’s nowhere to be seen.
His screams return slowly, a continuous flatline at first that grows into full-on horror as he keeps falling, hard, fast, and I can’t stop it. I have no idea how I sent him flying in the first place!
“Sol’ut-eh!” Chuck roars and a female whisar runs to him, her steps heavy on the dry cracked floor. She wears a purple tunic with golden embellishments, which means she’s high in whisarn hierarchy.
Chuck and the whisar stretch their arms to the sky, their faces strained, but Zed keeps falling, falling until… he stops midair, a few inches above the female whisar’s fingers. Slowly, they lower him to the ground.
“By the dimensions,” Chuck glares at me, his brow creased in folds.
“Miriam changed the planet’s magnetic field,” the whisar female speaks in our minds. I suppose she knows that if I heard her voice, my head would turn into a mushy pile of goo. “Our telekinesis is still rather weak, though.”
“You miss the point,” Chuck says, nostrils flared and bewilderment all over. He points at me. “He’s human. He shouldn’t have telekinetic abilities, especially not here.”
The fe
male blinks in a way that says she just had a mind glitch, which means she understands English just fine—or perhaps she’s simply connected with Chuck’s thoughts. Her eyes widen and she stares at me with her snout half open. “Impossible.”
Zed’s trembling beside her, perhaps from shock or fear, maybe both.
“I-I’m sorry,” I mutter, glaring at my own hands.
I can’t grasp what’s going on. My heart thumps against my chest, breathing shortens, and sweat blooms everywhere in my body. Can’t breathe, I inhale but the air isn’t enough, I need more… I’m having an asthma attack.
My knees weaken and I fall to the floor, crouching into a ball. With the little breath I have left I bellow my wife’s name. An impulse births within my scream, a swirling mass of pain and sorrow, ripping through my chest, invisible and powerful like a hurricane, and then it’s too much, it wants out, it needs out. So I let it free just before the floor cracks beneath me and everything darkens.
24
-James-
“Are you all right?” a distant, feminine voice calls my name.
Miriam! She’s come back!
I pry my eyes open to see a blurry woman looking down at me. She has blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, and her features are wrinkled with worry.
Zed.
“W-what happened?” I ask, pushing myself up, but he presses me to the ground.
“You mustn’t panic.” He shakes his head. “Bad things happen when you panic.”
I frown at him and realize his entire face is covered in soot. In fact, Zed’s completely coated in dirt. Random strings of hair dangle free from his ponytail and fall over his face.
“Zed, what’s going on?”
“Take a deep breath,” he says with a smooth, calm tone.
“Zed, I swear—”
“Now, James.” His voice cracks. “Please.”
This is bullshit. I push him back, but he’s remarkably strong for a petite woman. I’m guessing he’s using his telekinesis, but I thought it didn’t work down here?