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Part 1-25: Feelings
I was flung backwards like I’d kicked an electric fence, leg frozen numb. I hit the ground on my back and slid. At the same time, I saw the black melt away from the support pipes. They regained a blueish hue.
“What. This?” said Eden.
It turned on me, smoky curls trailing off both its shoulders now. I sat up and scuttled backwards, pushing with my good leg.
“Deluxe? Deluxe?!” No answer. I couldn’t feel the steel.
“Alena. How?” It stalked toward me, leaving the Willy body behind.
I heard Deluxe: “It’s messing with the drivers in both routers! I think I can get this one here, but…”
I pushed and scooted, feeling the chilling kiss of the pearls as I passed through them. If my incorporeal body had had a bladder, it would have emptied itself right there.
Eden flashed and appeared over me, its feet astride my hips. I froze and the empty blue face bent down to me.
“How.”
I made a tiny sound and tried to find the steel. If I could find that I could maybe pull myself out. It was then I realized I never thought about how to get out. I made another sound and tried to flatten myself into the ground. Sinking into it didn’t seem like such a bad idea now.
Its hunting head twitched, snapping to and fro over my prone body, sniffing or seeking, as I breathed in sharp little gasps. Long breathing forgotten. Everything forgotten. Steel gone. When I died, would I stay here?
Its head stopped over my right hand, and then it stood.
“Almost there! Dack, see this USB port?”
“Book,” said Eden.
I thought the book might be there, that I might use it to get me out, but it was only my right hand. It still tingled.
“You say, you help. I feel wifi. You… lie.”
One of its arms melted into a sharp, thin blade. Crackles of static sizzled on it as Eden floated the point towards my head.
I felt for the book, felt for those tingles. They were all I had. I could hear Deluxe and Dack saying things too, but I let them go. I would soon be like the pigeons. A dead little lump. I let the tingles soothe me and thought of home, being warm in bed, with the fuzz of a good sleep coursing through my muscles, eggs cooking—
There was pressure in my ears and everything went white again. I shook and tensed, but there was no jabbing death pain. Only that uncomfortable burning glow. My numb leg regained feeling.
“Mroww?”
I rolled over and squinted. “What the… Lobster?”
There was a soft thump and the patter of paws. It was quiet. Then something croaked, and something squawked back.
The afterlife’s atmosphere had a striking resemblance to my room. Had I wished myself home?
I pushed my face to the ground and squinted through the wobbly fuzz. It didn’t feel like it, but I thought I saw bedsheets. I thought back to Persi’s bed. She had said, When I need to make it work for me, I picture the way it feels.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. I was actually home. In my room.
I needed to get back to the park. There might still be time. What did the park feel like? Especially the part near the grandstands?
Something chirped, and I heard some fluttering out in the hall, and I had it. I clenched my right fist, felt the tingles build and made myself remember that poor, dying pigeon. My guilt, and sadness.
My ears popped and I was there. I was by the bench. The clock tower loomed, its second hand racing fast. The giant pearl monster was right beside the stands, now craning over it, tall and misshapen on its stilting, crooked legs. Eden was back in place, and the stands were nearly black.
“Eden!” I screamed, and ran toward it again. I put my fist out, and thought about punching it in the back of the head, trying to imagine what it would feel like if it happened to me.
Something recoiled out of me, kicking my fist up like a gun. I saw a puff of blue smoke come out of its head, and it stumbled. The blackness on the poles paused, and the whiteness started to come back.
“No. No!” it said.
“Got it, got one, got it! Two’s coming” said Deluxe.
A great white cloud rose out of the horizon and rushed towards us. It billowed out of the forest, racing through the ballgame and slamming through the grandstands, through the monster, through Eden, through me. It was hot, but not scorching. Things got blurry, but not indistinguishable—the signal wasn’t super strong this far from the hut.
But it was strong enough. Eden backed away, its arms pinwheeling, screaming in rage. The pearl monster began to convulse, flailing and shivering, its little worms standing straight as spikes. The other pearls scattered like cockroaches. I saw a medium sized one try to get away, but it slowed, then popped with a sharp crack. A beam of white light lanced up and away, right into the face of the monolithic clock above. It shook on impact.
“No! Nooo!” Eden cried. I saw its blue form fleeing, the Willy body running too. They were not coming right at me, but I wanted to get some serious distance from them regardless. And from the pearl beast. I began to jog backwards, as fast as I could without taking my eyes off the insane scene.
The crowd cheered about something, and let myself believe they realized they’d be saved. The blue drained away from the poles below.
Then the big monster exploded, in a series of snaps and firework pops that grew and grew in intensity. Small white beams shot out in wild directions, only to curve with magnetic attraction to the massive clock face in the sky. They battered it and shook it, and I watched as the minute hand retreated in short but sure jerks. The last beam slammed it home: three to midnight, then the whole tower fell to dust.
“Yes! Deluxe! Dack! Yes!” I stopped and shouted, jumping and laughing.
A blue arm swung into my face and I hit the ground, gasping. I felt for my tingles and conjured up images of home again, but before I could, a wracking pain bloomed in my hands.
Eden was upon me. It kicked at me and caught me in the thigh as I scrambled to get up. I screamed and went sprawling. The kick had hurt. It could cause pain in here.
I started to run, fear and animal instinct carrying me toward the pools and the buildings there, instead of into the possible safety of the wifi cloud. I got close, maybe halfway to the little info kiosk, when my feet caught fire and I fell.
I couldn’t get up. I rolled over, and saw with horror that my feet were glowing a different kind of blue. Blue like the stands. Blue like the rock.
Eden lurched over, clouds of smoke rushing off of it like an oil fire.
“Very. Hard. To.” It made the flinging gesture with its arms. “But. You, Alena. Suffer.”
I saw the Willy body standing behind Eden. It was heaving and barking with rage, gibbering in an alien language. Park goers were approaching with caution, wondering what was wrong with him.
The glowing pain slithered up my legs, into my chest, up to my neck. No tingles now.
“Alena? Are you there? Alena?” I heard Deluxe’s voice, faint, somewhere.
I couldn’t find the steel door. Only the pain.
“You say help. Lie. Lie!”
Something blurred by, and someone shouted. It didn’t matter. I heard a hyena-like laugh from Willy. Then it choked off. Someone gasped. The pain dulled.
I sat up on my elbows, and saw that Fergus had Willy in a stranglehold. Eden’s swaying form was limping back towards them. The glow and pain crept down, leaving my chest. I sought the steel door. I tried and tried.
Eden seeped back into Willy, and I saw him squirm away from Fergus. Glow gone from my torso, only in the legs. Where were you, door?
They were fighting. People were yelling.
There! A glimmer of coolness on my back. Willy cracked Fergus in the face, and a cloud of blue billowed out again and raced at me.
I squeezed my fist and wished for the door as the world went white one more time.
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