I just unloaded on her. Everything that I had been holding in for the past week hit Cheza’s chest. I cried and cried while grabbing the back of her shirt tightly, as though my whole world would crumble away if I didn’t hold on.
“It’s my fault. I killed him… I killed him. It’s my fault that he’s dead. I’m sorry, Jason. I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, my voice muffled by Cheza’s shirt.
“Shhhhh. Shhhhh,” Cheza whispered as she stroked the back of my head while resting her cheek on top of it.
“Get in bed,” Cheza softly said.
I complied and swung my legs onto the bed, not bothering to scoot up despite the fact they were hanging off the foot of the bed. Cheza climbed in after me and snuggled up next to my side, her arms wrapped around my head as tears streamed down my face. Despite the fact that I was no longer crying, tears just continued to fall. Had I been thinking straight, I would have said something about how she was too old to be sleeping with me anymore, but honestly, I was just glad that she was there and not turning away from me in disgust from the fact that I had killed my best friend and the guy that was like a brother to her.
She stayed with me through the night.
****
Chapter 13: A Surprise Awakening
I awaken from my dream while lying on my right side, facing away from the door. I feel Cheza lift up the covers and crawl into my bed. My stomach hurts every time she moves the bed so the painkillers must have worn off.
“Cheza, you’re too old to sleep with me. You’re not a little girl anymore,” I mumble without turning over. There, I may be five months late, but I finally said it.
“Exactly. I’m not a little girl anymore, Cole,” Cheza responds.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I turn over to face her…and then I freeze like she is some sort of velociraptor that won’t see me if I don’t move. I don’t even dare to breathe while trying to process what my eyes are seeing. Cheza is wearing a hot pink babydoll that is see-through below the chest while hips and below are covered up by my bed sheets. I’m not entirely sure how babydolls are supposed to fit, but this one looks a little tight in the chest.
“Umm, Cheza? I don’t think I can handle any more pranks for today so if you want to give me a few weeks and try again –or better yet, not at all— that would be good!” I say to Cheza, my voice sounding increasingly nervous as I sit up in bed.
“This isn’t a joke Cole,” Cheza replies while sitting up and moving in to kiss me.
I put my right arm in front of me to block her, in much the same manner that someone would block a zombie that was about to tear their jugular out.
“Cheza… I… We, can’t do this! You’re my little sister!” I exclaim.
“But I’m not actually you’re sister, Cole,” Cheza reminds me as my resolve falters.
My arm weakens as my mind compartmentalizes all the memories of her from the past decade until I start failing to see my sister and instead start to see an incredibly attractive girl with long silver hair, which seems to sparkle in the moonlight that streams in through the window that faces the foot of my bed. My arm falls to my side as Cheza moves a little closer, stopping about six inches from my face as she closes her eyes.
I walk up to the ledge.
I look over the cliff.
I step one foot off the edge
…and then I stop. Over the sound of Cheza’s breathing and my heart beating in my ears, I hear “Yeah! Do it! You know you want to!” loudly whispered from the hall.
Cheza jumps, grabs the bed sheet, and rips it up to her neck. I’m glad to see that Cheza hasn’t changed too much and still has a sense of modesty. I look over at the door and what do I find? Tia, wearing yoga pants and a black tank top, doubled over in the door way with laughter and tears in her eyes while holding her stomach with one hand and her video camera in the other.
“DAMMIT TIA! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME!? YOU SET CHEZA UP IN SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR WHAT!? YOUR AMUSEMENT!?” I yell, gesturing to Cheza who’s glaring at Tia.
“You think this is easy? I was waiting in the guest bathroom for four hours after I overheard Chezarei asking Sara if she could borrow that babydoll!” Tia responds while laughing.
“Whatever… Just get out… both of you. My stomach hurts and I want to get some sleep,” I quietly tell them, reaching around Cheza to grab the bottle off my bedside table.
Tia stops laughing. The joke suddenly isn’t so funny for some reason. Cheza gets out of my bed with tears in her eyes and walks toward the door. Tia follows her out, closing the door behind her as I pop a pill into my mouth.
“Why!? What in the hell is wrong with you!?” I hear Cheza ask from the hallway, sounding as though she is crying.
“I’m sorry, Chezarei. I wasn’t—” Tia replies as Cheza slams her bedroom door shut. “—thinking.”
I can hear Cheza quietly crying through the wall that our rooms share as I cycle the recent events through my head. What had Tia said? That she overheard Cheza asking Sara for the babydoll? Does that mean that Cheza wasn’t a part of it? That this wasn’t a prank?
I feel like I have something stuck in my throat… it’s probably just the Vicodin I swallowed dry. I get up out of bed, open my door, turn left, and walk down the hallway, towards the kitchen. I reach the entrance of the living room and stop upon hearing voices.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” Sara asks in a loud whisper, her words sounding spiteful. “You know how important it is that they get along! Yet here you are, fucking up Rei’s apology when it’s almost time!”
How can I hear her whispering from more than fifty feet away? It’s like she is right next to me… And what the hell does she mean, ‘almost time’? Time for what?
“I know, I just—” Tia starts whispering, but stops.
“Come and get your drink, then go to bed, Cole,” Tia whispers in my direction.
“What? There’s no way he can hear you, Tia,” Sara whispers as I walk across the tile flooring, past the living room, past the kitchen table, and over to where Tia and Sara are standing, in the entrance of the hallway that leads toward their rooms.
“What did you mean, ‘It’s almost time’?” I ask confrontationally. Sara gives me a baffled look.
“Cole, how could you hear us from so far away?” Sara asks.
“I don’t know, but I want answers!” I demand as my eyelids become heavy. It’s probably just a side effect of the Vicodin.
“There will be time for that later. Now get some rest Cole, we have a big day tomorrow. A day that has been a long time coming,” Tia says as my eyes close and I start to feel like I’m falling.
…
Chapter 14: Rays of Sunshine
I wake up in my bed, lying on my back. The sunlight streaming through the window indicates that it is morning. My memories of last night are fuzzy. I stand up out of bed and start pacing. The harder I try to remember them, the more they slip away, as though they were from a dream. One thing does stick in my mind though: Cheza wearing a pink babydoll with her silver hair sparkling as her face moved closer to mine.
Now I’m really confused. Is that an actual memory? Did Cheza actually crawl into my bed last night in a pink babydoll? Or was that a dream? If it was a dream, then that means I’m having dreams about my little sister wearing lingerie which means I… I…
I proceed to the wall that my room shares with the hallway, and I start repeatedly slamming my forehead against it in a futile effort to drive thoughts of my little sister from my mind. Sara and Tia are suddenly standing in my doorway, watching me.
“What the hell did you do, Tia? Scramble his brains?” Sara whispers to Tia.
“What? No, I just purified his mind a little! He shouldn’t remember anything!” Tia whispers back. “It’s better this way, like hitting the reset button!”
“Cole? Cole! What’s wrong!?” Cheza asks with concern.
I stop beating my head against the wall when I hear her voice. I feel blood drip down my face as I slow
ly turn towards her.
All I see is that pink babydoll.
“AHHHH!” I scream at the sight of her and smash my head into the wall, really fucking hard, letting myself fall backwards to the floor on the recoil. I keep my eyes firmly shut as I lie there.
“YOU CALL THIS BETTER!?” Sara screams at Tia.
“Well…obviously not this,” Tia scoffs.
“CAN ONE OF YOU PLEASE DESCRIBE WHAT CHEZA IS WEARING FOR ME?” I scream from my position on the floor.
“She is wearing my pink babydoll that is see-through below the chest and is about three inches too long for her,” Sara calmly replies and I open my eyes.
“Yeah, but over an inch too small in the bust,” Tia mumbles right before Sara punches her in the arm.
I look at Cheza, who is staring at the ground away from me with a flushed face.
“So last night actually happened? It wasn’t a dream?” I ask, starting to feel relieved.
“What wasn’t a dream?” Cheza questions, making me realize that I had felt relief prematurely.
“After we got home, we all just went to bed, Cole,” Tia replies, causing my stomach bottom out.
“So… what was this dream about?” Tia asks with her ‘signature’ smile.
I start to panic, trying to think of any dream that I would be worried about and included my little sister in lingerie, but didn’t involve incest. I’ll just say I don’t remember! No, that won’t work because even if I don’t remember, incest will be implied! Then it hit me.
“I had a—”
“Anyway we don’t have time for this so Cole, Cheza, get dressed and meet me in the hall,” Tia interrupts.
I almost continue, just because I had put so much work into coming up with a lie, but I do the intelligent thing instead: I shut up and grab some clothes from my dresser as the girls leave. I walk through the door to the right of my dresser and into my bathroom for a rushed shower, thinking that I kind of need one to help clear my mind after everything. After stepping out of the shower, I towel off, and put my boxers on, quickly followed by my jeans. I’m about to put on a white t-shirt when I stop, remembering my head wound.
I look at my reflection in the half fogged mirror and see no head wound. Out of curiosity, I rip the waterproof foam-rubber bandage off my chest only to find that the wound is completely closed. In fact, I can barely even see a scar, just the stitches. I cut the stitches using my trimming scissors and remove the sutures using a pair of tweezers. I throw the t-shirt over my head, thinking that I can work out this mystery later. I walk out my door and see Tia waiting for Cheza and me. I lean against the wall and wait with her.
“So, where are we going?” I ask.
“You will find out soon enough,” Tia replies and ends our conversation as I hear Cheza’s shower turn off.
The next thirty minutes go by in silence before Cheza comes out in jeans and a light blue t-shirt. I look at her as she looks down and to her left to avoid my gaze.
“Let’s go,” Tia says.
Cheza and I follow Tia to the end of the hallway, past the master bedroom on the right, and into Uncle Eric’s office. At a young age Uncle Eric made it apparent that his office wasn’t some place to play. As such, I have only ever been in Uncle Eric’s office twice and both times were because Sara or Tia told me to fetch him for dinner, so this was really my first time getting a good look at his office. In front of the window on the back wall is a bare Victorian style desk and a matching Victorian chair behind it. There are four full bookcases that cover the right and left walls, with nothing else in the room.
Tia walks over to the left bookcase closest to the door, pulls out the book farthest to the right on the bottom shelf, and reaches up underneath the shelf above it. There is a loud click and then Tia stands up, grabs the inner edge of the bookcase, and pulls it out, revealing a winding stone staircase leading down.
Really Uncle Eric? Really? A secret room hidden by a book case? What is this, fucking Scooby Doo? A Bat Cave is next right?
We follow Tia down the unlit staircase.
Again, really Uncle Eric? You spring for a secret room and elaborate lock, but you don’t install lighting?
I start to stumble, but I catch myself on Tia’s shoulder. We continue down the staircase and I feel Cheza grab my hand for support. After what seems like an unusually long time, we reach the bottom of the stairs. We stop for a moment, and suddenly everything is blindingly bright.
When my eyes finally readjust, I see that we are standing on a raised, yellow, sandstone-brick platform that is roughly a hundred yards long and fifty yards wide, bordered by six sandstone pillars on each side. Over each side and hundreds of feet below, there is a tropical jungle that stretches to the horizon. Cheza squeezes my hand and I go into protective brother mode to become the rock she needs me to be. I look back at her and smile before seeing what’s behind her, facing forward again, and letting my face fall.
The staircase that we just came down is gone.
My inner voice starts screaming “IT’S A TRAP! EVERYBODY PANIC!” but I keep my head, knowing that any indication of me freaking out would scare Cheza. Tia starts walking towards the opposite edge of the platform so I follow with Cheza attached. We are about twenty yards from the opposite edge when I start to question our direction. In the time that it takes for me to blink, a step pyramid is erected at the edge of the platform.
I just keep an “Ah yes, I deal with magically camouflaged stone pyramids on a daily basis too!” expression on my face and follow Tia up the steps. Thankfully, Tia keeps a slow, steady pace going up the 137 steps. The pyramid levels off… into another platform just like the one before and in the distance, there is another pyramid. Oh don’t tell me. I look behind us… and see that the stairs and platform from before are still there. Well that was anticlimactic.
Tia keeps walking until we are exactly half way in between pillars four and five. Tia turns ninety degrees, walks to the left edge, bends down and then something that I can only describe as the smell of ozone fills the air. I hear Cheza giggle behind me. I look back and see the tips of her hair floating upward and assume that mine have done the same as my skin starts to feel tingly.
“What is this?” I ask Tia.
“Oh, that’s just a security mechanism,” Tia stands up and walks over to the fifth sandstone pillar, keeping her balance along the edge the whole time, and presses her thumb against it.
“A security mechanism against what?” I ask with a pit growing in my stomach.
“A security mechanism against you, Cole,” Tia says without turning back to look at me.
Cheza grips my hand tighter. Why would anyone need a security mechanism against me? I don’t even understand how this is a security mechanism to begin with. It isn’t restricting my movement or anything; it just makes my skin tingle.
The pillar begins pulsing red from the top downward, in increasingly short intervals. Now, having grown up playing video games regularly, I know that when something starts flashing red, there is a decent chance that you are about to die. I feel relieved when the pillar starts flashing green and makes the same noise that a correct answer receives on Jeopardy.
“So what would have happened had we gotten the Double Jeopardy question wrong?” I ask Tia.
“Firebomb? Depending on the threat, the place we are going to might have just ejected while sealing the exits behind it as this place imploded,” Tia replies. Brings a whole new meaning to the word Jeopardy…no wait, actually that was the original meaning.
Tia walks back to where she started and then jumps off the cliff, or at least that is what should have happened, but she just stands there in midair. I look closely and see that she is standing on some kind of bridge that I can only describe as what a ray of sunshine looks when it is shown through a really dusty room. It is about six feet wide and three hundred feet long, but it might be longer.
Tia keeps walking so I pick up the pace, Cheza in hand until we are ten feet from the edge. I drop her hand
as I jog towards the edge to jump to the sunshine-ray-bridge-thingy™.
When I’m about three feet from the edge, Tia stops walking and says “I forgot to mention the gap,” while turning around and screams, “COLE!” when she sees my body leave the main platform. She looks surprised when she sees me clear the gap, as if she had been expecting me not to.
“You can see the bridge?” Tia asks incredulously.
“Umm… yeah? Cant everyone?” I reply.
I hear the slapping sound of shoes on stone as Cheza runs towards the edge. I turn around and see that something is holding her back. She won’t make the jump that she starts two feet before the edge. The instinct to not jump into thin air and onto something that she can’t see must be what is keeping her from reaching full speed. She screams as she jumps with her right arm outstretched (doing a great impersonation of the Air Jordan logo) and looks at me with fear in her eyes while I watch as her feet pass under the bridge.
Something inside me snaps and pain explodes in my head as I’m launched from the driver’s seat of my body. My perceptions speed up as the pain fades. The outline of Cheza’s body starts to glow silver as an orb on the inside of Cheza, over her navel, starts to glow light blue with a frosty white encroaching from the outside. Cheza’s body starts to slow down while my body remains at normal speed. I sprint to the edge of the bridge, ten feet away, and see that Cheza has only fallen to knee level. I lean forward while I throw my left arm under her right, and wrap it around her back as my right hand extends further forward to reach under her left arm. When I have a good grasp on her, I quickly pull her into me.
“AHH-oomf!” Cheza screams as she hits my chest.
She looks up at me, her eyes looking slightly startled when she sees my face. I hold her close to my chest and move back until we’re six feet from the edge of the bridge.
“Cole. Shut it down, Cole. Cheza is safe so it isn’t needed anymore,” Tia urgently says before her face takes on a perplexed expression.
That Which is Unexpected Page 6