Unreal City (26 page)

“I’m sorry, Stephen, I’m sorry that happened to you. I can feel why you’d want to see them pay for what they did to you. But you have to know that’s not what she would’ve wanted. That’s not what she wanted, was it? She—” I pressed gently, trying to jog his memory. From the look of despair that coursed through his expression I figured the memory of that night was starting to come back. He let me go, his anger deflating.

“No, she tried to stop him, she—she—and Aoife was yowling too and—”

“Who?”

“Lea’s familiar, she looks like a white cat with bright blue eyes. You must’ve seen her now if Lea told you…she must’ve brought you here, that’s why you’re here and Lea is—” Stephen was starting to sound frantic and I held up my hand to stop him.

“Lea’s dead, Stephen. She died trying to stop you,” I whispered, taking his hand as I saw his face go white. “That’s why you shut down. You’ve been down here, unable to accept that.”

“
No!
” His scream shook the very walls and it was like a tremor had moved the ground. I almost lost my balance and fell off the bed, but steadied myself, keeping my eyes fixed on him. I could tell by the tears sliding down his cheeks that he knew it was true; he just didn’t know what to say. “No, this…this can’t be…this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I—” He stopped, his eyes turning cold and severe. “I don’t believe you.”

“Stephen, please—”

“
ELK!”
he cried to the ceiling. He called the name of his familiar again and again, and for a moment I thought it was all in vain until I spotted a drip of viscous water coming from the top of the sphere we were trapped inside. I shrunk back from the pool the drips were forming on the floor, terrified to be trapped in this small space with the Antler-Man.

Stephen watched my aversion with intense, searching eyes. Bit by bit, drop by drop, Elk formed until he stood above us, tall and crooked with the tips of his antlers pushing up against the inner curves of the sphere. For the longest, tensest of moments, Stephen was at a loss for words.

“Elk. Elk what happened to you? You changed. You…you’re different. You look like you’re rotting. What’ve you done, Elk?” Stephen murmured.

“Your bidding. I’ve done your bidding. Purge the world of the undeserving. Find her. I’ve brought her to you. See? See? Won’t you feed me now? I’m dying master, I’m dying!”

“No, no!” Stephen cried, throwing the bed sheets off and standing. He was hardly half his familiar’s height. “You’ve ruined
everything
. You murdered her!”

“She decided her own fate. She stepped in the way. Suicide. There was nothing I could do to prevent it,” he breathed through his fetid hole of a throat. “It was you that brought about this undoing of lives. I was merely the tool in your hand.”

“You’ll pay for what you did! You’ll pay, you’ll pay!” he raged at the familiar and went to throw a punch. I cried out and tried to catch his arm, but was too late to stop him.

The familiar put up its tree branch hands and caught his fist before it could connect. Stephen yelped as his familiar’s hands curled around him, his finger-like appendages snaking around Stephen’s arms like roots, spreading over his entire body. He was screaming as the familiar leaned forward and lifted the boy into the air. The creature’s mouth opened wide and he tilted his head back as it stretched wider.

He swallowed his master. Elk’s skin bulged outward to fit Stephen’s body inside his emaciated form. I stumbled backward, stunned. Stephen’s wriggling form was melting bit by bit inside the familiar’s engorged belly as pools of water dripped from its mouth and out the hole of the vat.

As the creature digested Stephen and the thrashing within his belly stopped, Elk’s body began to transform. He sprouted several leg-like limbs from the top of his back and his hair grew like weeds. A snout formed, lined with fangs, and those little pinhole eyes became great, bulging spheres of dark yellow, red, and green. This was no longer Elk. The being roared at me and I shrunk back as its many legs curled around the sides of the room.

I was awed by the sight of it—so terrible and full of hatred and anger. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could run. My diamond knife had broken and disappeared. I was weak here, crushed by the pressure of being so deep under the ground. There was no exit this deep under the City. I couldn’t get out.

I can’t fight this. I can’t even fend it off. There’s no way around it.
Bolts of understanding shot through me and I stared at the revolting sight, but I already understood what I needed to do to get out of this.
There’s no way around it, and if I can’t run from it, and I can’t kill it, then I just have to go through it.

I knew analyzing it would stop me in my tracks, and without hesitation I leapt up, reaching for its jaws. It snarled at me, hooked its teeth into my arms, and—just as I suspected—began to suck me down its throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt myself slide down the stinking, slimy chute into its stomach. I became completely submerged in the fluid—I was drowning, disappearing, being assimilated.

I opened my eyes as I was tossed about inside the creature’s body, and was surprised to see a light floating in front of me. It was weak, bluish-purple in color, the color of lightning, coming from my necklace. From the light of this glow, I could see that Stephen was still there, floating beside me.

“I never meant for this to happen, Sarah. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything,” he said, though his mouth never moved.

“I know,” I spoke back in the same way. “None of this was supposed to happen the way it did. It wasn’t the life we were promised, the one we hoped would come true. But it’s the way things turned out. It happened.”

“Lea was everything to me. She was my light—she protected me from the ones who were against me—and from myself. She showed me how good the world could be. She gave me hope. I can’t—I can’t accept that I was the one that—”

“I know,” I repeated, feeling my heart ache because of him, and for him. “She was the same thing to me. She was to so many.”

“You must think I’m a monster. I took her from you. You must hate me.”

“I feel for you. Anyone who lives through the same pain that I do—I couldn’t possibly hate. There’s already enough pain, as it is,” I told him tenderly. “I forgive you.”

He groaned, his grief causing him to shrivel up. I reached through the darkness and murky water until I caught hold of his hand. Instantly the little light from my necklace faded and we were left there, drowning but undying in the dark. It seemed to last forever, but then I felt his hand squeeze mine.

“I think…I think I can still set this right. Or at least try to undo some of the damage,” he murmured. He was quiet for a moment, and I waited to see what he would do. “Elk, if you’re still there, if some part of you can still hear me, I need you to do something for me. Set me free. Let this all end. If I’m gone, the part that’s making you want to hurt others might be gone, too. Go on and set me free.”

“Stephen, no, there’s got to be another way.”

Just then the body that entrapped us both shuddered a great sigh. We were shaken about as the shiver grew more violent, and then everything was heating up around us, boiling us. The heat seemed to be erasing everything from below us, and it was rising, reverting everything back to the way it had once been. I called over and over for Stephen and clawed around in the pitch black water all around me, but he was gone. As the temperature reached an intensity that was sure to melt away my body, things again became still, and the heat dissipated. My sense of the spirit enclosing me vanished, as did any notion that Stephen was near me. This garden was empty.

I TRIED TO
howl out my frustration and terror, but only a jet of water issued from my mouth. I was trapped here now. Stephen’s wish had been granted. The familiar had probably gone back to the other side of reality and taken the life of his master. The poison had been drawn from the wound—the toxic earth had been made clean again. The familiar was probably free too, roaming the Earth again in the shadowy places and looking for a new master. I could feel it because the substance I was floating in now wasn’t the filthy, acidic mixture of its stomach, but clear and clean water. But if this garden belonged to no one, now, what was to become of me?

Keeping my panic at bay, I waited. I waited for hours in silence, hoping against all hope that I would wake from this dream as I always did and drift back to my body. But I did not. I stayed suspended in my watery prison. I tried to find the perimeter, and could find neither top nor bottom nor sides. It went on forever. Gripped by despair, I pulled my knees to my chest and began to sob. This was it. I was in too deep to escape. There wasn’t any way out. Even if another master came to this garden and brought it back into life, how could they know where I was? How could they dig me out of here, even if they did? I thought of Felix, starving as my body would sleep endlessly. I wondered if he could even feel me down here.

Desperation spiked in my heart, and I tried calling to him. I screamed with whatever voice I could muster, but the longer I called, the deeper my despair grew. With a darkening heart, I realized that I couldn’t even take the easy way out as Stephen had. I would have to wait until some natural death came to my body on Earth before I was able to escape. I hugged my knees tighter to my chest, wracked with anguish. They would probably think I collapsed from alcohol poisoning when they found me. I would be put into the hospital just as Stephen had, kept alive by machines and intravenous fluid. Would Felix stay by my side, poised in wait to see if I ever awoke, or perhaps creep between the gardens of the Unreal City in search of my lost spirit? Would Joy weep for me? Would my parents have any strength left to go on after losing another daughter?

I don’t know how long I stayed down there; time seemed to evaporate. What I wanted more than anything was to fall asleep as Stephen had done, but this also seemed impossible. Instead, I fell into a hypnotic state that seemed to pacify my turmoil somewhat. It was calming, floating through nothingness and listening to my own heartbeat. It seemed to get louder and louder, and pulse through the water after so many hours—days? weeks?—in that suspended state.

I put my hand to my chest, noticing a peculiar rhythm in the pulsing sound. There was another little bump in the middle of the beats, almost imperceptible at first. It was like another heart was beating near me. Experimentally, I reached out and felt warmth.

Someone was here with me. My hand searched around and connected with another set of fingers. It sent a wave of comfort through me, and my fingers closed around the hand of whoever was with me in the dark. The hand grasped me back. My heart started to flutter—I already knew who it was. After all, we’d been here together before….

“Lea,” I stammered. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

My eyes ached with the threat of oncoming tears. My other hand searched for hers, and I found it. We held to each other. She was the only thing that I had in this world.

“God, Lea, why did you have to go?” I moaned, yet happier than I’d ever been. I didn’t know how long I’d have with her, or if she was even real, but I felt peaceful. “You’re half of me. We’ve been together since the beginning. I can’t do this without you. I’m not strong enough.”

“That’s not true at all,” her voice said. “We were each other’s strength, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t stand by ourselves.”

“But everything’s broken now. I’m not the same. Nothing’s the same. I’m scared of everyone and everything. I’m scared to love anything. You have no idea what you did to me, what I’ve been through. I’m ruined.”

“Sarah,” she said and pulled me closer, holding tight.

“Lea, I need you. We’re two parts of a whole, and you were always the better part of that. You were born first. I followed. Somehow in those few extra minutes, you gained all the wisdom I could never understand. You always had it and now I’m lost. I have no one to follow,” I murmured, and felt her forehead press against mine.

“We were born together for a reason,” she told me. “Our lives were beautiful, weren’t they? But we were never half of a whole. No one is completed by another person. No one becomes happy that way. Happiness is something you have to chase after, and you have to have the courage to hold onto it, and the strength to weather the storm when it goes away for a while. But it’ll always come back. It will always come. That part of your life is over, and my life is over for good. You can’t hold on to an instant for the rest of your life. You can’t stop halfway through. You’ve got to keep going.”