Unwound (7 page)

“It’s dark out.”

“It’s the best time for a walk, I can show you around town and

we can get out of this place for a while,” she said cheerfully

setting the mirror aside.

“Okay.”

I followed her as she led the way out of the factory and out

into the crisp night. The sky looked beautiful, a dark blue with

light gray clouds floating carelessly by. I could see small lights twinkling in the sky as the clouds passed lazily by them.

“You’ve never seen stars before?” she asked curiously as we

walked.

64

Unwound

I shook my head. There were a great many things I had never

seen from my prison. Sometimes I wonder if that was my own

doing. London had left just enough space for me to see the

sparrow when it had passed by the day I left, but I had never

really cared to look through the small slits until then.

“We can stop for a moment if you’d like,” Morrison said

gently.

I tore my gaze away from the stars and looked at her. “I’m not

finished. I’ll never be able to fully enjoy the beauty of the night sky until then, so let’s continue walking.”

“Can I … can I see?”

I stood there for a moment contemplating her request. She had

already seen my scar ravaged body, but this was going to be

different. The way London left my eye, the hole that wasn’t sewn

up, the small wheels ticking, the empty socket that she placed in

the middle of them; this might be too much for anyone to handle

who wasn’t a small child.

I turned my face away as her hand approached.

“Caelum, I’ve seen a great many horrifying things in my life,

I just want to see if there’s anything we can do to fix it,” she said quietly.

65

Unwound

“You won’t be afraid of me?” I asked.

“Did you hear what I just said? What you have peeking out

from under that patch can’t be worse than anything I’ve seen,”

she said with a chuckle.

I was still hesitant and eyed her for a moment.

She held up a hand, “You don’t have to if you don’t want too,

I was just curious and honestly wondering if I could mend you

somehow.”

I looked down.

How would I be able to have a true friendship if I had no trust

in her? Turning myself back to face her, I met her eyes and gave a nod. For some reason she hesitated at first, her hand hovering just a moment before my face. I took her hand and placed her

fingertips on the eye patch. Her hesitation was no more; gently

she pushed the patch off of my head and gasped slightly.

“Are you a machine?” she asked staring at me.

“No. Not everything inside me is the way you see it here,” I

explained quietly.

Nodding, she replaced the patch securely around my head

again, “Who ever made you must’ve loved you very much at one

point.”

66

Unwound

Love? What does London know of love? I had to keep myself

from screaming these thoughts in her face.

“You don’t think she did?” she asked softly. I could only

assume that my face had given away my thoughts.

I shook my head and looked away.

“Let’s not talk about that now. I’d like to continue with our

walk is that’s okay with you,” she said.

“Fine.”

I didn’t walk next to her anymore as I tried to collect my

thoughts as well as my borrowed thoughts because if I let either

run wild, I don’t know how she’d look at me after I unleashed my

anger in a flood of spiteful words about London.

“So tell me about yourself, Caelum,” she said as she glanced

back at me over her shoulder.

I scratched my head, hating the feeling of the hair that I knew

wasn’t mine. “There’s nothing to tell really. I was made, I

endured, I escaped, and here I am.”

“Do you ever plan on going back?” she asked.

The thought honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. I had no desire

to go back to London’s hell, but I remember the silent promise I

67

Unwound

had made to myself to go back for the Other. Still. I wasn’t going to trust Morrison with that; not yet anyway.

I shook my head.

She stopped walking and eyed me for a moment. For the first

time since I was constructed, I didn’t look away from a being that was trying to read me. I forced myself to stand up straight and not have the slight hunch that London had given me with her cruel

actions and malicious words.

“I have no need to go back,” I said in as steady as a voice as I

could manage.

“Not even for her to finish you?” she inquired.

“London will never finish me. She never finished any of us. I

say us because I’m sure I couldn’t be the only one she ever made.

Take care of the way you speak of London; kind words are

nothing if not wasted on describing someone as lost in lunacy and

delirium as her. Kind words wouldn’t save you from her if you

ever have the misfortune of meeting her,” I said quietly.

Morrison shrugged and pulled me along next to her, “She

seems interesting enough, though. I mean I can never understand

what you went through with her and I’m not saying this because I

think what she did was a good idea or anything, but looking at

you tells me what kind of genius she is. To make life out of

68

Unwound

nothing is not simple I would imagine and to be quite honest with

you if I had never heard you ticking in the factory and lifted your eye patch, I never would have expected you to be anything other

than a young man who had gone through a harrowing ordeal with

battle scars that prove his worth.”

My mind wandered off to Finnegan for a moment. She too

had battle scars only I didn’t know what kind of battle she had

been through. She didn’t hide her face from the world as I did.

When she approached me, she did so with an amazing confidence

for something that looked so young and fragile. I would be

haunted by her confidence and her face for the rest of my life, but I would also try to mimic her and try to build myself up to not be afraid of anything, and that included London.

Morrison and I walked through the streets until the sun started

to come up again. As she pointed out things here and there I kept

thinking of how I just might be able to muster up enough courage

to go back to London’s home.

Cars whirred past us and more than once she had to pull me

back from the crossroads onto the sidewalk so that I wouldn’t be

injured. I couldn’t help it though, my mind was elsewhere and it

showed.

As the sky started to show that beautiful lavender and orange

serenade it had the previous morning, she guided me back to the

69

Unwound

factory. I didn’t say a word to her. Instead I left her pulling the wooden boards back over the opening so no one else would enter

and I made my way back up to the room I had taken for myself on

the third floor.

I dragged the bed from where it had sat by the window to a

darker corner near the mirror and laid down. As I stared into my

own face, my thoughts were erratic.

Maybe Morrison sees London as a genius because she’s had

the same tendencies.

Maybe she’s keeping me here to lure London out.

Maybe I should’ve followed Finnegan.

Maybe I should’ve set London’s home on fire.

Maybe I wasn’t real, but that didn’t mean I could be

programmed to feel could I?

Maybe I could teach myself new emotions.

Maybe I could make myself stronger.

My eyes had started to close as the thoughts raced through my

mind. With as erratic as they were I knew these were my own

thoughts and not borrowed.

I especially knew that I had finally gained some control over

70

Unwound

the brain and mind that was harvested for me when I had one last

thought before I finally stop fighting my resting state with a smile.

Maybe I was strong enough to kill London.

71

Unwound

Six

Morrison was gone when I came down the next evening. I

wasn’t sure if she told me she would be gone or if maybe she

decided to take a few days away from me. I didn’t care. Either

way it was nice to have this place to myself again for once.

I glanced at myself in the mirror before I made my way to the

window. I noticed that for some odd reason it looked like I had

slightly aged. There were small lines around my eyes and my lips

and I was beginning to look tired. My hair seemed to have grown

slightly and my skin looked slightly darker for some reason.

I dismissed my reflection and placing my hands on the

windowsills I leaned out and took a deep breath. My resting

schedule was so erratic lately that I was surprised I could still

function properly. I had to get on a normal schedule which was

something I promised myself to work on soon.

I took one more deep breath and noticed something was

different about the air, for some reason it seemed a little cooler and crisper.

I walked quickly down the stairs and made my way to the

back of the factory on the main floor. There had to be more than

just the door at the entrance and for now it would serve my

72

Unwound

purpose to find it. I walked along the wall running my hand

across it from one end as I made my way to the other. It was so

dark in this part that I knew I wouldn’t see a difference; I would have to feel it to find any hidden door.

Halfway down the wall I felt a small bump. I ran my hand up

and down the bump for a moment before I was sure that it was

what I was looking for. Leaning toward the wall, I pulled at the

bump as hard as I could. Slowly it started to come away from the

wall and I could feel the breeze from outside. This wasn’t like the wooden boards that were used to barricade the front. Grunting

with effort, I pulled harder until the secret door finally gave way causing me to fall backwards. Thankfully I had a good enough

grip on it that I was able to stop it before it landed on top of me and caused irreparable damage.

I shoved the door to the side and got to my feet. As I

suspected, it wasn’t as simple as wood and interestingly enough I

felt a small flicker of fear when I looked at it. It was made of

some kind of metal and had an odd design to it. In a way, it

reminded me of the doors that London used to lock herself into

her workstations.

I tore my eyes away from it and stepped out into the night air.

My feet touched the wild grass that was growing in the small lot.

I looked down and couldn’t help but think that freedom was a

73

Unwound

beautiful thing. There was nothing sharp or dangerous under me

like when I was kept prisoner. The grass was pleasantly caressing

my feet with each soft gust of wind.

I leaned down and picked a blade of grass and smiled. The

color was somewhat lighter than what I had seen in the woods

around London’s home, but as I looked up at the trees I noticed

that the leaves seemed to be slightly colored differently as well.

Almost as if overnight they had gone from a dark green to

yellows, reds, and oranges.

How long was I asleep?

I let the grass fall from my hands as I reached up and felt one

of the leaves from the nearest tree. It felt slightly weathered just as I had woke up feeling.

More time than one night had passed, that was sure but I just

didn’t know how much. I glanced up at the moon for a moment

before I went back into the sanctuary of the factory. There was

nothing in here that could tell time and if my body hadn’t woken

itself in what seemed to be a season, then I was running out of

time faster than I thought.

I walked from the back of the factory out the front door and

into the night. Something, somewhere would tell me how long I

was asleep.

74

Unwound

As I quickened my pace I glanced in store windows but it

seemed that anything that would be able to tell me what time I

was in right now was hidden from view or put away for the

evening. I was becoming frustrated which I knew would lead to

nothing good. I remembered seeing London frustrated one time

when she was making one of her creations. In a fury, she kicked

over her work table and pieces of material, tools, wheels, and

everything else she used had gone flying all over the room.

Thankfully she hadn’t known I had been watching her; that was

the only time she had ever left the door slightly ajar.

I chuckled to myself then thinking of what she would’ve

possibly done to me had she known I was standing there watching

her.

“Watch it,” some man barked at me as we bumped into each

other.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized I had just

walked into someone. I didn’t feel any need to reply to him

because I was on a more important mission; to find out how much

time had passed while I slept, so I kept my eyes forward and

glanced around for any tell-tale sign of how long it had been.

After another twenty minutes of walking I came across a

curious cube that held what looked like news stories folded neatly inside. I gave the small door a slight tug and accidentally wound

75

Unwound

up pulling the plastic door completely off the hinge. I looked