Black Rainbow

by Scott Savino

  “Now,” Adé said, gesturing to the slab before him.

  Hi’iaka withdrew her embrace as the tribe’s low hum shifted, different voices rising and falling, sighing and moaning, tumbling and churning in an ocean of sound. A chill pressed against her where Hi’iaka’s warmth had been.

  “Go to the altar and lay down,” she said. It wasn’t a forceful command, but it was a command nonetheless, and to Shayna’s surprise, she followed it.

  Adé grinned, helping her onto the cold stone with strong hands she once would have liked to have known better. He brushed his fingers through her dark hair as she lay down, and placed an intimate kiss upon her lips. Then he stood, framed by flames high above, and held the silver blade over her belly.

  A droning chant undulated over the tribal hum, words she didn’t know and couldn’t make out weaving together in a spell she couldn’t fathom. Above her, clouds swirled and churned. Lightning crackled without sound. A colossal shadow writhed behind the chaos.

  Visions of a cyclopean serpent vast enough to devour worlds dominated her mind, unbidden. It moved in ways she couldn’t define, existed in planes that had no name and no boundaries. She felt its infinite weight, knew her own insignificance in the universe, and learned of her singular importance in all of creation.

  She belonged to him, now. To her. To it. To all of them.

  Osumare.

  Rainbow.

  A name. A glimpse. A hint of something greater. One given as a gift. To describe, not to chain. Safe for use in mortal planes.

  It consumed her.

  It devoured and gave birth to her in infinite configurations, ripping her apart atom by atom only to endlessly reassemble her in new and interesting patterns. The pain was absolute; her suffering divine. Only when the space between each atom was filled with the truth of Osumare, when she knew without the need to understand, was she returned to her plane, to her waiting body.

  There, the sun warmed her skin, warmed the stone beneath her. She felt each bone and muscle as if learning of them for the first time. Power coursed through her veins, mingling with her blood, setting her skin on fire as she sat up.

  Something shifted inside her, prompting her to look down. Dry blood stained her body and the altar. A thin red line ran from between her breasts to just above her pelvic bone where flesh had knit but was not done healing. She pressed her hand against her lower abdomen and something sinuous pressed back, slithering beneath her touch.

  Someone sighed.

  She lifted her gaze. The tribe slept around her in pockets of shade, tangled around each other in the aftermath of orgiastic bliss. The static charge of their energy vibrated through the air. She could practically see it.

  Her gaze shifted from one tribe member to the next. She knew each of them on sight. Knew their minds, their secrets and desires. She knew Hi’iaka did not sleep, and found her mind before seeking her form.

  Her priestess stood behind the altar, draped in floral silk, as stunning now as the moment they’d met.

  “You, more than anyone,” Hi’iaka said, moving to her side with hand outstretched. “You are our unicorn and our salvation. Have you thought of a new name for yourself?”

  She tilted her head in thought for a moment. Knowledge came as she needed it: all within the tribe had chosen their names upon rebirth. “Shayna” was dead. She had died a billion deaths and not emerged on the other side intact.

  “Kali,” she said after a time. “I follow your example, priestess.”

  Hi’iaka smiled and bowed before her. “It is as you say, Divine Mother.”

  Mother. Kali liked the sound of that. Her hand found her belly again and gently pressed against the new life swirling within.

  Osumare’s gift pressed back.

  Iceolation

  N.M. BROWN

  DARREN SANDERSON WAS A DREAM come true, at six-foot-two with perfect abs and the deepest brown eyes I’d ever seen. We’d met on Grindr about two months back and really hit it off. Our only obstacle was distance. He was in Colorado and I wasn’t. I’d always wanted to go but I could never justify the trip—I didn’t like being alone—but when he invited me out to visit, I jumped at the opportunity.

  My motives weren’t all innocent, though. I knew Colorado had some of the finest “recreational activities” that aren’t what you’d call “legal” where I’m from. My friend Colleen recently moved there and said there was everything you could imagine—cannabis popcorn, gummies, brownies, basically, anything and everything you could ever want to put pot in had pot in it.

  After a lot of research, saving up, and planning with Darren, my room was booked and my itinerary planned.

  It was about an eight-hour drive, and though I disliked solitude, I could handle road trips or a weekend by myself if I knew there was company at the other end. Even so, I was anxious about the solitary venture until I crossed the border into Colorado and the landscape changed. Then I was thankful for my decision.

  It was utterly breathtaking and the time spent alone in the open air on I-70 was just what I needed. The windows were as far down as I could stand, the air freezing on a level I simply wasn’t used to, but the cold made me feel alive.

  I listened to my Best of the Oldies playlist on the drive, and as the last notes of “Good Vibrations” faded out, I’d reached my destination. The timing was perfect, as if the Beach Boys were foreshadowing a life changing experience.

  But the Beach Boys hadn’t met Darren.

  Despite packing the abs of Adonis and eyes like midnight, Darren ended up being a total dud. He gave me a “what’s up bro” in front of his neighbors, his house was an ungodly mess, and he actually jumped the first time I put my hand on his leg. Around the time I started wondering if maybe he’d suffered a traumatic brain injury before I arrived, I also realized there was no chance we would ever work out. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have some fun before I left.

  So many edibles were sampled, new sights explored, and several deep mind trips were had before I finally cut my losses and ran. Darren was nice and all when we were tripping balls, but I couldn’t stand him sober. So, once I’d packed my trunk and purchased a few new strains to try later, I was ready to go. I’d done all I had come here to do. I’d visited the dispensaries and conquered all the restaurants with the best reviews. There was nothing left for me in Colorado now that I was done with Darren.

  There was only one more thing I had to do before I left for good.

  It was early morning, the first blush of sunlight just yawning in the sky, and Copper Mountain towered over the horizon. As soon as I saw it I was instantly in love.

  Deep in the mountain’s shadow, I pulled over, turned the car off, and opened the music app on my phone. I wanted to remember this vision till the day I died.

  I queued up my Mountainside Playlist and spaced out, floating on the lingering waves of my last high. I leaned back in my seat and stared at the mountain as the vibrations of the music carried me away to the beat of my own heart.

  About an hour later, a sudden shockwave jolted me out of my trance. The percussion of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine” flooded from my phone’s speakers, warping the beat of my heart until my pulse throbbed out anxious and erratic. To my right, the mountain had disappeared beneath a growing cloud of thick white flurries and an alarming amount of snow was invading the road faster than I could process.

  I fumbled with my keys and attempted to reverse my car out of danger. I was pretty sure the avalanche wouldn’t reach me, but I wanted to be safe.

  The engine responded with a string of disheartening clicks.

  I’d only been sitting for a little over an hour, but in the Colorado cold that’s all it took.

  The siren at the end of the song reached its crescendo right as the avalanche caught up with me, slamming into the car like a wall of pristine, white cement. My head bounced off the driver’s side window and then there was nothing. No sound. No light. Only the thick, black emptiness of my unconscious mind. />
  I awoke some time later to a plaintive beeping sound in the darkness of my entombed car.

  My phone.

  Low battery it said at an unhealthy three percent.

  I didn’t care. My head hurt too much. I pressed a hand against the throbbing pain and my fingers came back red.

  Fumbling with my keys, I attempted to restart the vehicle, but was met with the same result as before. Each empty click of the engine inched me closer to a panic that cut through the fog of my injury.

  I frantically pulled at the door handle, beating the paneling with frustration until my hands were numb. Absolutely nothing happened. It felt like the car door was locked in place.

  There was no way out.

  I was alone. I was trapped in a dead car and no one knew where I was, but I had hope. I wasn’t the only one to have traveled that road. I just prayed the county would come out soon to close the road and clear it, digging me out in the process.

  Hours passed. Silence pressed against me, as physical a presence as the cold. The air only grew colder the longer I sat there. Before I knew it my breath was visible to the eye, even in the dark, and I’d started to shiver uncontrollably. The snow must have buried me deep to have turned my car into this sensory deprivation chamber from Hell. With no external stimulation but the cold, it didn’t take long before my heart was racing and my thoughts were spiraling into a pit of negativity and death. The frozen sweat of an anxiety attack was approaching fast, so I did the only thing that made sense at the time.

  I packed a bowl.

  Upon meeting flame to glass, the red hairs of the nugget danced in anticipation. I inhaled in an attempt to push away my rising panic.

  At first, it worked. The smoke was warm, and it didn’t take long before I found myself caught up in the flowing upholstery on the ceiling, my trembling worries replaced with a newfound confidence of a rescue assured; the snow couldn’t be this thick forever, I thought. Eventually it would thin out enough for my car to be visible and then I’d be saved!

  But then it started to wear off and paranoia set in. I was too keenly aware of my solitude. It was just me, my breathing, and the silence. The isolation tested my sanity, gripping my heart with a sudden terror I didn’t know could exist, and a familiar discomfort churned in my stomach.

  Dread.

  I realized wasn’t cold anymore.

  There, in the depths of my icy coffin, a surge of warmth had enveloped me. It started at my toes and steadily made its way up through my body. Before long, I was burning up, and the urge to take my clothes off was irresistible.

  My mind quickly lost all semblance of rationality after that as song lyrics echoed through its recesses:

  One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do

  Two can be as bad as one

  It’s the loneliest number since the number one

  oOo

  It had to have been at least twenty-four hours since I’d been trapped in the car. Not that there was any way to tell. My car was dead. My phone was dead. The only thing left with any life in it was me, and that wouldn’t be true for much longer if no one found me. I was trying my damnedest to keep it together while the claustrophobic confines of my prison ground away my sanity.

  And my feet were on fire.

  I couldn’t feel my toes. My fingers were past the point of cooperation, but I couldn’t tolerate the heat. It was a struggle, but I removed my shoes and wrestled off my socks.

  Then, just on the edge of my perception, I heard something.

  Tires on pavement. Hope filled my heart with each car’s passing.

  The road must have been cleared! I thought, and leaned closer to the window to listen.

  Instantly, I recognized the telltale scraping of a snow plow in the distance and realized it was closing in on me.

  I held my breath and braced myself for an impact of salvation that never came.

  Instead, multiple thuds pounded the snow a few feet outside my window and the sounds grew distant again. I must have been pushed off of the road in the avalanche and was probably buried even deeper with the snow piled up by the plow. If so, then this would most definitely be the last thing my eyes saw before I died.

  This was it, then. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but sit and hope the snow would melt enough for my car to be visible before I froze.

  No. No, that couldn’t be how this ended. I needed to think. This car was not going to be the last thing I saw in life. I looked around, desperate for an answer, but between the constant throbbing and the rising panic, thinking was hard. So I reached for some comfort to make it easier to focus.

  The zipper of my backpack filled the silence of my would-be-tomb with a thunderous growl. No matter how slowly I pulled it jarred my senses. I stopped as soon as the opening was wide enough to slip my hand inside. Careful not to make too much noise, I swirled my hand around until I found the container I sought.

  The label read “Jedi Haze”.

  This oughta be good, I thought.

  Despite the warmth I felt, my hands shook from the cold, spilling some herb as I tried to pack a bowl.

  Lighting it was agony.

  However, the more I smoked, the more scenarios leading to my death faded from my mind. It took a few minutes, but eventually my mind cleared and I knew I needed to get it together and come up with a plan.

  If I was going down, I was going to go down swinging.

  But my lungs burned as they filled with smoke and soon, I was hacking up a storm; Jedi Haze wasn’t very smooth for something so expensive.

  I needed a drink. When was the last time I’d had something to drink?

  I did a quick mental search of the contents of the car. Why didn’t I keep bottles of water with me? Then I remembered Darren always had a bottle on him, which meant there should have been a bottle hiding in my trunk.

  I carefully crawled into my backseat, releasing the seat backs slowly to avoid making any unnecessary sound as I accessed the trunk. I searched briefly, sliding my hand under and between the contents, and was relieved to find one glorious bottle. Trapped under the stiff, insulating mass atop it, it was still unfrozen. I pried it free without making too much noise and held it close as I returned to the front seat. It was the most beautiful bottle of water I had ever seen in my life.

  I downed the water way faster than I’d meant to, my cracked lips and heavy tongue yearning for relief, and it hit the bottom of my stomach like hot grease in a cold pan. I doubled over, my stomach cramping and threatening to empty itself in retaliation to the frigid invasion. I took slow deep breaths—as deep as I could—until the cramps released me, but the air seemed to be getting thicker inside my car, my breath coming shallower by the minute.

  I looked to the air vents and could have sworn I saw a luminescent mist coming through. My eyes followed as it danced peacefully in the front seat. I ran my fingers through it, giggling silently as it swirled around them.

  Then it occurred to me this playful, pearly mist might have been toxic. I yanked the collar of my shirt up over my nose in a panic, my giggles quickly giving way to terrified, whispering sobs. God knows how much of it I’d already inhaled.

  I wondered if it was maybe a lingering cloud of Jedi Haze, but the color and texture were wrong. I closed my eyes, trying to remember any reference to glowing avalanche mist I might have read about, and when I opened them, the mist had disappeared.

  That’s when I knew I was delirious. I was hallucinating. I hadn’t eaten in more than a day, I’d barely had water, I was freezing, and I was breathing less oxygen than I needed. I had to get out of there.