WARNING: some foul language ahead. Sorry. Sara swears when she's under pressure.
Majischul Book 4: On the Other Side
Chapter 4: Beyond the Mind's Gates
Created 2008/2009 by LinneaKou Studios LTD.
I woke up.
For a second, remnants of memory... a purpose... flitted through my mind.
Then... nothing.
I sat there in the dark, not even thinking.
"Uuuuuhhhhh..."
I jumped, feeling a spike of fear rushing through my chest. "H...hello?" I ventured, my tongue tripping over the word.
Was I speaking a real language?
Wait... was I...?
I? Who?
My brain fizzed, short circuiting.
Wait. What was a circuit?
"Uuuugh..."
There was that sound again!
"Um... is someone he-- tha-- um..."
Why weren't words coming to me?
"Someone else is around?" a slurred voice asked from the shadows to my left. "Someone who donna speak? Or do-- ah?"
"I dunno."
"I'm awake, I think?"
I swallowed. "You might be."
"And you?"
"I dunno."
"Well, thatta not good, eh?" The speaker finally came into view. My eyes grew accustomed to the dim surroundings, and I squinted at my companion. "Who're you then?" he... she... it? asked.
"I dunno."
"Well, I dunno who'm I either." He (I decided it was a man... thing) rubbed his head (or his hair... I really didn't know) and blinked glumly at me. "So where're me and you then?"
"I dunno."
"Dun' you say an'thing else?"
"I... dunno."
"You dun' r'member nuthin'?"
"No."
"Well that makes a-two u've us." He looked as if he was having as much trouble speaking as I was.
I shivered. "'s cold here, where'ver we are."
"Hm. You're right." He looked at me critically. "Why're you not wearing long sleeves?"
"I dunno." Sleeves. Cloths that went over your arms. Right?
While I mused over this, my companion got up and went away, walking in a haphazard path until he stopped. "'t goes one for'ver," he said, sounding surprised. "How did we get here?"
"Mebbe we was always here?" I suggested.
"No, I dun' think so." But he sounded unsure.
The magnitude of what we'd come to realize hit us with a cold dripping sensation in our stomachs.
We knew
nothing.
:Sara:
It had been a very hectic day. Personally, I couldn't see how it could be worse.
First Lee gets sick. Don't ask me why, she just does.
Then I go out with the Twinkie brigade and eat freaking SEAFOOD.
I. Hate. Seafood.
Then I come back to find that Lee, despite her fear of the walking dead, is conversing quite serenely with her DEAD COUSIN.
Walk into a brick wall a few hundred times and you'll feel a
fraction of what I was feeling.
But wait! -- it gets better. Or worse. Whatever floats your boat.
Suddenly, an epiphany! We realize why all the weird crap was being... well, weird crap.
The President was in danger.
And Lee was in danger.
And they were about to meet.
PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER, AND YOU GET FOUR. GREAT.
I angrily jabbed the elevator button and waited for the thing to ding up to our floor.
"Sara, please."
I looked back at Lee, who seemed a bit... sickly.
"Whaaaat?" I asked.
"Just... calm down, okay?"
I sighed and went through the motions of Grounding, and I willed the negative energies to flow out through the base of my spine.
It did little to alleviate the tension that I felt in my psychic chakras. I tasted something bitter near the back of my mouth, and my eyes seemed to be blurring.
Sure signs of my onset-anxiety. I was going to have to do a hell of a lot more than Grounding my bad energy out.
But the little that I had been able to do set Lee's nerves to ease. "You felt like you were full of static," she commented. "Not pleasant to be around, Stare-ah."
"Oh, please." But it made me feel a bit better to have helped settle her.
The Hover-powered elevator finally arrived at our floor, and we all trooped in.
"So we head to the Embassy and then what?" Lucia wanted to know.
Ah. Good point.
"We demand to see POTUS and... um..." I trailed off, unsure.
"Well, this is comforting. Rushing in without a plan of action." Rojye drawled.
I whacked him in the shoulder, sending him reeling back against the wall. "Ow," he said reproachfully, glaring at me.
"Shut up and take it, you sissy."
"Sara..."
I sighed and did the Grounding meditation again. Still wasn't working well.
"****," I muttered.
Lee rolled her eyes and focused on the shiny glass wall in front of her.
"Listen, Lee--" Shiia jumped in, trying to soothe her. "It'll all be fine. We'll prevent whatever's going to happen. We
have to think positively."
"I know. It's just..."
But she never got to elaborate. We reached ground floor and took off running.
??:
I got up and assessed my surroundings.
Gray. Gray, gray, gray, gray. All around me stretched flat gray planes, stretching off into misty horizons. The other person was right. It went on forever. Just an empty gray plane. Empty.
No wind. No sun. Even the dirt below my feet was gray.
I shuddered. All of a sudden, whatever this place was had become very cold.
"Find any'thin?" I called.
My companion shook his head. "Not a damn thing."
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. "I dunno why you even bother."
"Well, moving around seems to help with thinking straight... and talking normally." He looked at me oddly. "Why aren't you moving?"
"I'm ascared."
"Don't be. It's not that bad." The other person held out a hand to me, and suddenly the distance between us seemed shorter.
"I dunno."
"You've really got to stop thinking in such short bursts," he advised.
I shrugged my shoulders. It was kind of nice to not
know things. It was nice to be numb.
For once.
I shook my head.
"You really want to stay in the dark? You don't want to question anything?"
"It'll hurt."
"But wouldn't it be worth it?" his dark eyes probed me. I squirmed uncomfortably.
"It hurted so much before," I reasoned. "I'm sick of hurting."
The man looked shocked. "You were hurt before?"
"For askin' stuff. For pushin'." I didn't know where this was coming from, but I knew it was true. "Hurtin' sucks. I'm done with it."
"But you need a reason to keep going. If you don't ask things, you'll never grow."
"Growing hurts."
"Of course it does. But it's worth it. Good things come from trying hard."
"I tried hard to do something. But I didn' do it. I failed. I
failed. Someone got hurted."
"But he forgave you."
I looked up at my companion. Then, making a split decision, I stood up again and wobbled.
Then I took my first baby step.
:Sara:
We ran out the front door with nary a glance towards traffic. Our situation was hopelessly desparate. If anything, I didn't even want to bother with a taxi or anything. I felt it more pertinent to get where we were going as fast as possible.
Of course, that was probably a bad idea, so Lucia imperiously flagged down a taxi and we piled in.
We left Solana back at the hotel with Talika and Salima. The two of them seemed unwilling to get tangled up with a psychotic Earth government. With good reason, I guess.
Lee looked positively fit to be tied as our driver fought through traffic.
"You kids from Earth?" he asked in accented English.
"Yup." I said tersely.
"We need to get to the Embassy as quickly as possible, good driver," Lucia said.
"Of course, sir."
There was a tense silence.
"Traffic is
horrible," Lee whispered.
I patted her on the back.
"Sara, you're all staticky again."
"Sorry, Lee. This isn't something that normal Grounding can get rid of."
Lee looked less than pleased. She began to bite her nails.
I gave up trying to calm her and looked desperately to Shiia.
She wordlessly took over, rubbing the shoulder closest to her.
I looked out the window and cursed in Gaelic.
"Quit swearing, Sara," Lee muttered.
"I thought you didn't speak Gaelic."
"I don't. I just know you too well."
I rolled my eyes, but a gruff chuckle escaped everyone, including me.
And we continued our slow trek towards the Embassy... and pending disaster.
??:
"Nothing!" I threw my hands into the air and stomped on the ground. "Nothing but gray, gray, gray, GRAY!"
"But you're speaking in complex sentences. That's something."
"I guess so." I looked up into the empty "sky". "It still doesn't help with the real question: where ARE we?"
"We're not going to find out just hanging around, are we?" My companion looked at me pointedly.
"You're right. I'm still not remembering whatever memory I flashed on at first."
"Me either. But it stands to reason that we were somewhere else before. And we 'knew' other things before we were here."
"Yes, that is true. It also stands to reason that this could be--"
Then a horrible pain struck my head, right between my eyes.
"UGH!" I crumbled, clutching my temples.
"Are you all right?" my companion cried, freaking out.
"Yeah... just... oi."
"Oi? Oi what?
"Oi, that hurts." I rubbed my forehead and made a face.
"What were you about to say?" my companion asked.
I blinked and shook my head. "I don't remember."
"That... makes sense."
"What?"
But before he could elaborate, he too fell to the ground, yelling in pain.
I decided not to speculate any further. Someone was pulling the strings and didn't want me or the other person to be thinkin--
"OOOUUUUUCH!"
:Sara:
The crawling traffic slowed even further, and then we realized our efforts to ride to the Embassy were utterly futile.
How, you ask? Well, we passed the scene of a nasty accident.
Mouths open, we watched in horror as a Peacekeeping brigade, along with an Emergency Response Team, moved gawkers away as the PKB dragged the victims of the accident into the equivalent of police cruisers.
I decided that I didn't want to know.
Then traffic utterly stopped.
We exchanged meaningful glances and Lucia spoke up. "Good driver, we regret to say, but your assistance may not be necessary anymore. We'll pay you for your troubles."
"I regret that I was unable to assist you, noble sirs and ladies." Even so, the driver accepted Lucia's proffered money without much of a qualm.
We jumped out of the useless taxi and hotfooted it to the sidewalk.
"Well?" Rojye yelled to me as we motored through slow-moving pedestrians.
"Well what?" I roared back, thoroughly annoyed.
"Come up with a good plan yet?"
"NO!" I snapped.
"Okay then." Rojye wisely chose not to continue with his questions.
We ran some more.
"Where--the hell--is this Goddamn--Embassy?!" I demanded, fed up with the world in general.
"Just another block away," Shiia panted.
"GREAT!"
They chose not to engage me in further conversation.
Finally, when I felt ready to explode, the white-marble building came into view.
"FINA-FRICKIN'-LY!" I puffed, falling to my knees.
The others skidded to a halt, catching their breath.
"Let's do this," Lee said quietly.
We all straightened and walked purposefully in.
??:
We kept walking. I felt as if I'd done too much of that today. Like I'd been walking a long time and not getting anywhere at all.
Strangely, while this knowledge was like common sense, I was not at all tired. And it made absolutely NO SENSE.
I rubbed my forehead. Whatever our situation was, my companion and I were not supposed to think about it or rationalize anything.
Someone had to be pulling our str--
No. Stop it. Avoid another headache.
I kept walking.
:Sara:
"GET THE PRESIDENT OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"
The receptionist jumped in surprise and stuttered something Uthra.
Lucia answered calmly and threw me a
look. I glared back at him, past being civil.
"He says the President is in a meeting right now and we ought to wait for our appointed time.
Lee's appointed time."
"We can't wait! What if it's an assassin?"
"Working ourselves into fits will do us no good," Shiia said reasonably.
"But--"
"Sara, calm down!" Lee ordered.
I stopped short at the crack in her voice.
Lee was terrified. Something was clearly scaring her badly.
"Lee...?"
"Someone's watching me. I can feel it."
"No surprise there," I heard a quiet whisper.
I looked up and saw Kari floating above Lee. "Someone has followed you," she said in a cautioning tone.
"I know." Lee whispered.
"Lee--"
"Wait a minute. I know who you are--"
We turned around at the sound of a familiar voice.
The President of the United States was walking towards us, a big smile on his face.
"The prodigies from Majischul! It's an honor--"
"Mr. President!" Lee shrieked, her eyes widening in horror. "Look out!!"
With that, she dove in front of him before his Secret Service men even registered the threat.
A bright light expanded from her chest and blanketed her and the President as the assassin's curse roared out from behind us.
The receptionist shot us a nasty grin as his eyes turned black as night. He bared fangs as his form faded away.
And we all stared in numb horror and shock at the crumpled figures of the Most Powerful Man on Earth...
and Lee...
...and they weren't moving.
??:
"What's that?"
I looked up. "What's what?"
"That, up there. Is that what I think it is?"
It was a bench.
We stared at it.
"I'm not touching it," I said, my tone conveying my suspicion.
"I won't, either."
We both sat down on the ground in front of the bench and stared at it some more.
"I don't like this."
"Same here."
I tried to reason some more, but the pain in my head began to grow.
Finally, I got sick of it.
"That's it! Whoever's toying with me is going to be sorely disappointed! I have been hurt WAY too much in the past, whatever happened then, and I made it through! I WILL FIGURE THIS OUT!"
A bolt of lightning roared out of the sky and struck the empty ground in front of me as a omnipresent voice said in a monotone:
"Oh? And what if there's nothing to figure out at all?"
*****************************************
Not much to say. I want to leave you all with a sense of confusion. ^-^
Meanwhile, I'm hard at work getting ready to graduate and do some finals. *cracks knuckles* Plus some Winx!self projects that I stupidly took on at the wrong time.
Anyway, I'm glad that philosophy class will finally be useful in this story. Which will continue more regularly once I get out of school. Graduation's next week. WOOHOO!
Anyway, I've got so many other projects that it became hard to draw the line between this one and another. A lot of story bleeding has been going on. So pieces of Alice's story, an ATLA-universe story, and a random fantasy story might appear in this one... not that anyone will recognize it.
Meh. I'm all writed out.
Majischule, A world will open up to you if you're right for it...
Apr 11 2009, 4:41 AM
