She loved Halloween.
A time she could truly be herself.
Her wings didn’t have to be cramped inside her jacket, her antennas under her damp hat.
The fairy could be one of many, enjoying decorations reminiscent of her old land. With glaring errors, but nonetheless, she feels a bit more at home. In October.
The explosion would have been heard miles away, if the laboratory facility wasn’t hidden in remote woods somewhere in this earth. Trees burned bright as the metal-enforced concrete shattered extending beyond the dark forest to the mountains surrounding the laboratory. Ashes filled the night sky as we rushed out of our cells. Might have been thousands of us in that vast pale-yellow building, but I only saw few of us run outward. The rush of the escape left us no time to look for our mates nor count how many of us survived the explosion. I ran fast, forgetting that I can teleport. And as more and more of us escaped we joined in a group. We don’t know our birth dates but Four was our leader at the moment. He was pointing us to a safe cave miles from the explosion. We had been running for 10 miles, at least, but I didn’t feel tired at all. I wanted to keep running. Four grabbed my thin left arm firmly and pushed me inside the cave.
“We must rest and gather our thoughts.” he said.
“But they might come after us!” I yelled jerking my arm away.
“Where’s 21, your mate?” Four asked me.
I looked around at the dark cave, only few of us made it here few identical uniforms. Pale-yellow loose pants and baggy shirts, some uniforms were stained with blood, others stained with a mixture of black and red. Making the numbers on their backs impossible to read. I finally said:
“I don’t know. He… he wasn’t in his cell tonight.”
“Let’s rest, take a head count. OK?” He said as he looked down to me.
He was, maybe 6 feet and 3 inches tall. That is a foot taller than I am. Also he was a much stronger man, physically, than anyone I have ever met. I nodded agreeing with his remark. I walked among the pale yellow uniforms, trying to find my mate, 21. But he was nowhere to be found. The darkness of the cave didn’t help my search, but I already knew he wasn’t there. The magnetic pull I feel when he’s around is no more. He must be very far away, extremely far. I thought.
I sat in a corner of the cave holding my knees to my forehead, trying to silence the chaos around me, trying to connect with 21. If 9 was here, she’d help me find him. She’s a stronger telepath than any of us but I see no odds, only even numbers are here. I make out 4, 8, 10 and me, 22. All others seem to blend together, injured or bruised. 8 sat next to me and whispered: “Did you notice that you’re the only one without a cut or a bruise?” he paused expecting an answer. I picked up my head that was resting on my knees and said nothing.
“People will start to talk.” 8 added.
“I don’t care, go away.” I replied with a muffled voice as I rested my head on my knees.
“I don’t mind cutting you, if you’re into that?” said 8 flirtatiously.
I didn’t move my head to acknowledge his stupid suggestion. Then 4 approached us, standing tall he said: “There are far fewer of us than I thought.”
I said: “All evens, right?”
He looked at me with shock “yes, you’re right. All evens.”
“well, the odds house sucks anyways. Who needs them?” 8 said.
“our mates are odds. All of us need our mates.” I said.
“I don’t! I haven’t seen 7 since they…” said 8 as he was interrupted by 4.
“8 we don’t need your life story right now.”
“I’m just saying, I’m single and now free. And little 22 finds herself single finally.”
I yelled “I’m not single, my mate is on the other side of the freaking mountain. I will find him!”
I got up and dusted off my pants angrily. I walked out of the cave looking down on the tops of pine trees as the sun started to rise, slowly. I took a deep breath and smiled. I am free, I realized. Sure, 21 is not here and most of my friends aren’t either but at least 4 was there. I can always count on 4, I thought. Then I was startled by 4 putting his hand on my shoulder. I looked up and patted the earth next to me motioning him to sit down. He sat next to me and rested his head on mine “what are we going to do now?” he said. I put my hand on his knee and smiled “We’ll live! Do things people do.” “We’re not meant for living, 22. We’re meant for…” I interrupted turning my body to face his, biting my lips I said: “No one can tell us what we are made to do anymore! No one but us. So don’t justify our existence based on what experiments we were meant to be.” I leaned over and hugged him, and he hugged me back. The sunrise added warmth to our embrace. I fell asleep in his arms and he dared not move, so he watched the rays of the sun multiplying through the tops of the trees until we were consumed by light.
We were all more exhausted than we thought, as the adrenaline wore off we all fell asleep soaked by day light.
Tee drove and we didn’t talk for most of the drive. He didn’t even ask for my name, and I’m sure he didn’t give me his real name. Why wouldn’t he? I looked at him: “Tee?”
He turned his head at me and raised a brow: “Yeah?”
“I’m hungry and I really need to pee. We passed a lot of gas stations already.” I said.
“I guess we could stop, I just don’t know where these creatures hide.” He said.
“Well, they didn’t follow us out of the building and we didn’t see any of them all day.” I said as I was jerked by his expert car race driving, apparently.
He made a violent U-turn and parked by a gas station. He got out of the car, leaned down to the car window and said: “Are you just gonna stay there?”
I wrinkled my forehead and said a hesitant: “n…o.”
I got out of the car, as he walked into the gas station I said: “I’ll be right in.”
I saw the store next door, it had a faded maroon sign with white letters saying ‘GUNZ AND AMMO’ I decided to use a brick to break the glass on the door and unlock the door (I’ve seen it done in so many movies, couldn’t help myself. And yes, the door turned out to be unlocked). I loaded the car with ammo for two shot guns and as I was bringing a second load of guns, pistols this time, to the car Tee walks out of the store with cookies and expired milk.
He raised an eyebrow and with a cookie hanging out of his mouth he said: “what are you carrying?”
I gestured to the gun store with my head and put the guns in the back seat.
“Have you ever shot a gun?” I asked him.
“I’ve taken a safety class…have you?”
I replied: “Yeah of course I have. Not proud to say it, but my uncles go hunting and we used real guns in their farm. It’s their property OK!” I said defensively.
Tee shook his head: “I don’t care…I’m… I’m glad!”
“I’m competitive so I did pretty well at target practice.” I said proudly.
“Oh, you had target practice?” He asked.
“Yeah, every Sunday!” I said.
“Well, look at these newspapers.” He handed me a page and dropped few cookies that he picked up quickly.
“5 second rule.” He said as he put a cookie in his mouth.
I looked at the page that had BOLD CAPITALIZED HEAD LINE SAYING “EVACUATE! NOW!”
“I see how you’d miss such a vague problem in your city.”
I looked at him angrily: “what about you, Mr. ‘T’ why are you still here… missed the signs too?”
“NO. I told you! I came to find my girlfriend. But clearly, she listens to the news. My phone died on my way here and I lost it while I was running away from those creatures. She hasn’t been answering her phone anyways. I think we broke up last month when she came over.”
“you think?”
“well…I’m not sure. She said we should see other people and she said she loves me and the past two years have been great. We had sex. Next morning, she left before I woke up. Came back here and I never heard from her again!”
“Well you guys did break up. Break up sex is almost as good as make up sex huh?”
“Ye..ah.” he said. Short pause then he continued “Let’s get going, I got us canned food and blankets AND (he emphasized) a can opener!”
“Great, I said, as I got into the car. Where to now?” I asked as I looked at him.
He handed me a protein bar: “well, lady, we can keep driving till we run into someone. Or spend the night at the gun store. The sun is setting, we—I—have been driving for six hours.”
“Well, I said, the gun store’s door is broken. Not the safest place, the gas station has too many windows. Let’s look for a more secured place, less windows maybe.”
“Like a prison, maybe?”
I replied: “Well the police station is back where we came from. This town we’re in is pretty small and they don’t have a police station that I know of.”
He looked at me, opened his mouth as if to say something important than said with a high-pitched voice: “What’s your name again?”
“Lana, I’m Lana…I haven’t said that before.”
“said what?”
“My name.”
“So?”
“you asked what’s my name “again”. But I haven’t told you my name!” I said loudly.
“Oh, OK…cool.” He started driving ignoring my remakes. “I guess keep an eye on the buildings around us. These newspapers say that these creatures seem to fear light.”
We both said at the same time: “explains why they didn’t follow us outside the dorms!”
We chuckled and looked at each other with a smile that soon faded away. We realized that the sun is setting in few hours and we needed to find a hiding place SOON.
…
In case you haven’t read episode 1. Here it is below!
I was determined that it was O.K. that the government was making a big deal out of nothing. Like the tornado sirens that were never followed by a tornado, flood warnings, and ‘terrorist attacks’ that never manifested. I had a test the next week. It was finals week. I went to the corner store and bought as much dry food as I could fit in my dorm room. My room had the prefect set up, a microwave sitting on top of a yellowish mini-fridge. The brown counter top was bursting with ramen noodle packages and the fridge was stuffed with energy drinks and vitamin water. I felt prepared for the next few final weeks. I studied most of my days and avoided classmates as much as I could. That day, I decided to take a nap at three in the afternoon. As I laid on my mattress that lacked sheets I noticed the tears on its light-blue box spring. Then I noticed that the clouds seem to find a permanent home here, lingering above campus. I thought; haven’t heard the cheerful bird songs in days. Come to think of it… I haven’t heard much lately. The parties that never stopped across the hall seem to have ended—finally!
I changed my voice mail message to “I’ll talk to you when finals are over.” I must have a had hundreds of messages by now. 70% of them were from my boyfriend JAMES. We had been together (on and off) as-long-as I could remember. We’d met when we were 15 years old, and well, we’ve been together ever since. He’s not into change and I’m not into confrontation so we went to different schools. He stayed in Michigan and I moved down to Florida, it’s nicer here. I would have a tan on those skinny pale bones if I didn’t have so much studying to do. The goal is to get into the medical school down here. James wanted to be a wildlife biologist, somewhere up north was his plan. We were two busy individuals, so it’s a perfect situation. When someone asked me if I was single, I don’t have to lie and say that I’m not! James called me a lot, but my parents usually understood that I needed to study. This time they had left 55 messages on my phone. I didn’t get why they keep calling me. “IT’S FINALS WEEK PEOPLE.” I thought.
Now it’s been a few days of quietness. “It’s too quiet here. It’s like everybody has left. The reconstruction on this third floor has stopped for no good reason. Maybe I should go to the store and watch the news or something, a break from microbiology is not such a bad thing.” I thought to myself.
I decided finally open my dorm room door. As the door creaked open, a loud howl came from down the hall and a white animal rushed toward my door. I closed the door fast and ran toward the fire exit through my window. I rushed down the stairs thinking that the large dog-ish creature was following me. I stumbled and ran into a person—a guy on the fire escape. We didn’t talk or pause we just ran down the stairs, seemed like we were running for similar reasons. After going down the three floors we realized that nothing is following us.
I thought we needed to get out of this place then I asked: “Do you have a car?”
He said: “yeah! I don’t have much gas though I’ve been driving for few days to come here and see my girlfriend. She hasn’t answered my calls. You think she would after the horrifying news.”
“What news?” I asked confused.
“The…the ‘outbreak of the creatures’ the white hounds.” He replied with a sarcastic voice.
“So I wasn’t imagining? The… the…”
“It looks like they’ve evacuated the campus, didn’t you notice?” He asked.
“Well I have a bathroom and a microwave in my dorm room. It’s still being renovated, my floor that is, so no one wanted to live up here but me and those partiers across the hall. We get to do whatever we want since we are more isolated from the other floors of the building.”
He scratched the back of his head and nodded then said while looking distracted: “Well, I’m ahhh… call me ‘T’.” After a brief pause he continued: “So let’s find a car with good mileage per gallon and lots of gas, shall we?” I nodded. We walked around the campus’s parking lot till we found a hybrid car with over half a tank of gas. He said: “Well these are hard to hot-wire.” I looked under the car and found a spare key under a hidden spot.
I smiled saying: “My boyfriend has this model, he’s always said that it’s stupid to leave your keys there because it’s a known ‘secret spot’ in these models for keys”.
“Well I’m glad this person didn’t think so.” Said Tee. We got in the car and as Tee started driving we wondered about our destination. Where will we go? We weren’t sure. As far as this car can take us, that seemed to be the plan for now.
The Other was not really a brother, well they refused to think of him as so. He always put them against each other until their person couldn’t take it any more. Soul took charge at night when she lulled Other to sleep. Ghost on the other hand, couldn’t do much day or night to quiet Other. Other’s now happily wearing a crown, living all the lives he wanted to have. With Soul gone, he could dive deep into filth, no urges held back, not a drink not a snack. He will not stop until he’s consumed it all!
Ghost hated following Other to the depths of realms. Ghost felt at home reliving his favorite moments. Ghost’s ideal day would be a couch of clouds with a huge T.V. screen watching movies that he, himself dreamed and made reality. “Oh, look here Soul.” He said to the void before he remembered her departure.
Other’s perfect day would be an open buffet, all you can eat. Plus, women, weapons and hell… maybe some dragons to fight. Other, now can win any fight he wished. Other had never won a fight because of Soul. She always stopped him before he wished a fight to existence. Oh, how annoying Soul can be.
Finally, detached from that limited functional body, Other feels “powerful, unstoppable, un… wait” Other thought. He felt a thread that linked him to… he wondered “to what?” It was not golden nor silver thread but a non-visible thread. Totally ‘feel-able’ thread. Other cursed out loud hoping it didn’t connect him to his person, or worse, to Soul!
…
…
Image credit HERE!
Ghost floated away from the body, but Soul decided to go the other way. As their person had his fill of oxygen and experiences on this realm. Ghost wandered seeing this old town a new. “I’ve never seen this mountain or those trees before.” Thought Ghost to himself. Colors were brighter and smells were stronger. Time seemed like an ocean with many rivers attached. Ghost’s person was a child… no a man… no no he was a fetus with a plan! Ghost saw the life he’d been through and many others plain and clear, he thought it was his overactive imagination… could this be a memory of what he’s never dared to dream?
Soul however, she was not so attached to this realm, actually…she wasn’t attached to any realm. She swept between screen after screen of what life could have been. She was heading upwards with purpose and she was not to be stopped. Soul was so light, much lighter than her other… her what you can call “brother” … what you can call Ghost.
Soul always hated that they were mistaken for each other, her and her “brother”. Their person never knew them fully, sure he stared at the mirror many times, before dates, after long days and sometimes just to appreciate his body. He saw Ghost more than he saw her… and she felt left out most of the time. Although; come night time she journeyed as far as she could without breaking the golden thread. Oh, how she hated that golden thread. The big voice always reminded her of the golden thread. “200,000 miles left on your thread.” It would say. “You must slow down or you’ll stray.” It reminded Soul.
Soul was respecting the golden thread as much as she could, but today she’s finally free. No more threads holding her back, she flew as fast as she could. Oh, how good it feels to not worry about that golden thread. Even though she’s sure of her person’s departure, she hesitates sometimes while flying. A memory of that thread haunts her head until the Voice says loudly: “You are free, come back to me and tell me all you have learned.”
Ghost was there for the funeral, he was confused of why the adults cried like children. He flinched before going through a wall, then he made it a point to go through every wall in the funeral home. He scared a few cats for laughs then he respectfully stood by his person. Ghost wondered who that person is now, now that his sister, soul, is gone. Who is this person laying in that coffin? People came close, “too close” thought ghost. They told stories that Ghost remembered fondly. At that moment Ghost insisted on going back to the body but soul had left… no strings attached, he remembered.
Ghost thought, I need to find the other… our third maybe then I can convince Soul to come back. Ghost thought he needed a tailor with golden threads!
…
….
Image credit HERE!
A memory that’s not yet old
Her, laying on my dorm room bed
Fever filling her head
Gun shots sounding closer and closer
Baghdad, what have we done?
I kiss her forehead, cover her with my blankets
Sister, what have we done?
I told her I have to step outside
But she couldn’t hear me
The small glass window was near me
And it was threatening to break
And everyone was screaming
I wished I’d been dreaming
But I thought I had to say my goodbyes
…
Sister we’ve come so far
This truth had to be told
Before our story got too old
And everyone forgot we existed
I was determined that it was O.K. that the government was making a big deal out of nothing. Like the tornado sirens that were never followed by a tornado, flood warnings, and ‘terrorist attacks’ that never manifested. I had a test the next week. It was finals week. I went to the corner store and bought as much dry food as I could fit in my dorm room. My room had the prefect set up, a microwave sitting on top of a yellowish mini-fridge. The brown counter top was bursting with ramen noodle packages and the fridge was stuffed with energy drinks and vitamin water. I felt prepared for the next few final weeks. I studied most of my days and avoided classmates as much as I could. That day, I decided to take a nap at three in the afternoon. As I laid on my mattress that lacked sheets I noticed the tears on its light-blue box spring. Then I noticed that the clouds seem to find a permanent home here, lingering above campus. I thought; haven’t heard the cheerful bird songs in days. Come to think of it… I haven’t heard much lately. The parties that never stopped across the hall seem to have ended—finally!
I changed my voice mail message to “I’ll talk to you when finals are over.” I must have a had hundreds of messages by now. 70% of them were from my boyfriend JAMES. We had been together (on and off) as-long-as I could remember. We’d met when we were 15 years old, and well, we’ve been together ever since. He’s not into change and I’m not into confrontation so we went to different schools. He stayed in Michigan and I moved down to Florida, it’s nicer here. I would have a tan on those skinny pale bones if I didn’t have so much studying to do. The goal is to get into the medical school down here. James wanted to be a wildlife biologist, somewhere up north was his plan. We were two busy individuals, so it’s a perfect situation. When someone asked me if I was single, I don’t have to lie and say that I’m not! James called me a lot, but my parents usually understood that I needed to study. This time they had left 55 messages on my phone. I didn’t get why they keep calling me. “IT’S FINALS WEEK PEOPLE.” I thought.
Now it’s been a few days of quietness. “It’s too quiet here. It’s like everybody has left. The reconstruction on this third floor has stopped for no good reason. Maybe I should go to the store and watch the news or something, a break from microbiology is not such a bad thing.” I thought to myself.
I decided finally open my dorm room door. As the door creaked open, a loud howl came from down the hall and a white animal rushed toward my door. I closed the door fast and ran toward the fire exit through my window. I rushed down the stairs thinking that the large dog-ish creature was following me. I stumbled and ran into a person—a guy on the fire escape. We didn’t talk or pause we just ran down the stairs, seemed like we were running for similar reasons. After going down the three floors we realized that nothing is following us.
I thought we needed to get out of this place then I asked: “Do you have a car?”
He said: “yeah! I don’t have much gas though I’ve been driving for few days to come here and see my girlfriend. She hasn’t answered my calls. You think she would after the horrifying news.”
“What news?” I asked confused.
“The…the ‘outbreak of the creatures’ the white hounds.” He replied with a sarcastic voice.
“So I wasn’t imagining? The… the…”
“It looks like they’ve evacuated the campus, didn’t you notice?” He asked.
“Well I have a bathroom and a microwave in my dorm room. It’s still being renovated, my floor that is, so no one wanted to live up here but me and those partiers across the hall. We get to do whatever we want since we are more isolated from the other floors of the building.”
He scratched the back of his head and nodded then said while looking distracted: “Well, I’m ahhh… call me ‘T’.” After a brief pause he continued: “So let’s find a car with good mileage per gallon and lots of gas, shall we?” I nodded. We walked around the campus’s parking lot till we found a hybrid car with over half a tank of gas. He said: “Well these are hard to hot-wire.” I looked under the car and found a spare key under a hidden spot.
I smiled saying: “My boyfriend has this model, he’s always said that it’s stupid to leave your keys there because it’s a known ‘secret spot’ in these models for keys”.
“Well I’m glad this person didn’t think so.” Said Tee. We got in the car and as Tee started driving we wondered about our destination. Where will we go? We weren’t sure. As far as this car can take us, that seemed to be the plan for now.
Stranger Paths 