Expanded Horizons
Apr. 19th, 2012 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
citrakayahExpanded Horizons (link: http://expandedhorizons.net/magazine/?page_id=5) is a webzine that I'm interested in possibly getting to buy the right to publish this (for $30, which is a ways towards that OLED I wanted to make). They state that they're specifically interested in speculative fiction as told from points of view similar to ine (and therians are mentioned by name), but I've never sold a story before, nor have I any idea if they can even purchase something from a 17 year old. My chances, I suppose, are better there than anywhere else, but.... any ideas on how to make this better so it will be more likely to be accepted, or analysis of my chances?
“William Corrick.”
Another day, another psychologist. This one’s rather pleasant. Female. Wearing jasmine-scented perfume.
I drape myself across the couch cushions in her office, not making eye contact and hanging one arm off the couch. Ears-that-are-not-there swivel, nervous, and a tail-that-is-not-there twitches slightly. No one sees them, of course. Not here, anyway.
They aren’t quite real. They should be, but they aren’t. I know the name for it. Phantom shifts. Therianthropy. Otherkin.
There’s awkward silence for a few minutes. Neither of us want this. It’s easy to say that someone needs a psychologist, but I live in shadows, not daring to fully emerge. I can’t let myself be what I am, not openly. And so I am shuffled from psychologist to psychologist. I hear whispers that I am not meant to sometimes. I have developed a reputation as being... odd.
They don’t have any idea how odd I really am.
***
Silence is broken by the psychologist. “My name is Jane Hunter.”
My response is a noncommittal grunt. It usually is to that sort of thing. This grunt says, I am aware of your name; it was on the door.
“So, what do you want to talk about?” She’s one of those psychologists, I think to myself. You know the kind. Well intentioned. Tries to make a connection with the patient, but all too often simply makes them shut down.
Maybe it would work on others. It doesn’t work on me. So I make another noncommittal grunt. My conscious mind becomes aware of an irritating ringing-slash-buzzing sound, and my ears-that-are-not-there swivel to track it. Softly, I snarl. In the reflection of a metal wall hanging, I see her nod sagely. “So. That.” She picks up a few papers. “Dissociation, severe species dysmorphia...” her voices gradually trails off as she reads my grocery list of mental weirdness. Most of it is just symptoms, of course. The real reasons for how I feel are hidden in the shadows, like myself.
***
Naturally, the session is useless to the both of us. I can’t help her figure me out--not won’t, can’t. I have lived in the shadows for so long that I cannot come out. The jeering, the talking behind my back... it is all I can do to stay sane. And it’s all due to my own stupidity; I dared to let the shadows veiling my true self slip.
I am not human. I have a human’s genetic coding, but I. Am. Not. Human. I am a cat. A cat equipped with a human’s body. They can sling all the different mental disorder names they want at me; I am perfectly sane and rational. I’m just different.
Finally, it ends. I have barely said a word. She is not frustrated, which makes me respect her. But whenever I try to be open with her... I shut down. Slink back into the shadows, a voice in my mind says. Hide.
No, I shoot back. I’m done letting myself rot from the inside out. I’m done letting the shadows make me fade.
***
‘Home’. I immediately pull my usual vanishing act after dinner, to the dismay of my parents, and walk downtown. I move like a predator, and so I am safe. The other predators--human ones--stay away from me. My body does not speak prey. Bite me and I bite back. Sometimes I bite even when I’m not the one bitten.
The night is dark, but my vision is keen and I can see easily by the little light coming from the stars and the artificial lights humans leave on, even if they’re often dim and flicker in the part of town I hang out in.
I walk through a door, a door that most humans avoid and most that don’t make a policy of avoiding afterwards, and I change. My perception of reality changes. I become more aware. Time seems to pass in less of a stream, and I feel more like I am swimming in the stream of time than watching it from outside.
This is my home. Xanadu.
***
I greet the guards--we aren’t exactly the most open folk--and continue down. Xanadu is mostly underground. Originally we had it in an old abandoned warehouse, I’m told, but after some incidents with the natural consequences of being an old abandoned warehouse, namely lack of space and an irritating tendency to be near homicides, Xanadu moved underground. Under Boston there are caverns in addition to the sewers and abandoned subways. Wasn’t much at first, but we spruced the place up. The underworld of Boston is in many respects better than the overworld.
Xanadu is paradise to me. I walk on a dirt path under a canopy of trees, grown with dim light powered by a cleverly hidden splice in the city’s power systems. Birds, mostly sparrows and such but with a few escaped exotics, rise into a twirling cloud as I pass, sensing that I am cat.
Behind me, a twig snaps, and before I can react Tara has leapt at me, slamming me to the ground. I roll with the impact and attempt to wriggle out from under her, but it’s no use. In seconds she has planted both her hands on my chest and is holding me down. I see them as forepaws, of course, and I see her eyes as yellow. “The cheetah was not fast enough today,” she remarks, letting me up after a few seconds. I brush myself off and wrap my arms around her in an embrace. “William, you’re squishing me. Loosen.” I do. It’s only been a few days, but I have missed her. My tongue-that-is-not-there rasps over her forehead affectionately.
Tara lives here. She has for a year now, ever since her parents kicked her out when she came out as a therian and as bisexual. She’s happier here, really. At days she works at a local supermarket; at nineteen she’s just old enough to get employment without catching the attention of the government, given that her place of residence is not the same as her next of kin’s.
Runaways aren’t uncommon among our kind. We’re driven away from human society.
We’re still missing two, though. “Where’s Rixatl and Echo?” I ask. I haven’t seen the coatl-kin in a week, and Echo usually was here before any of the rest of us.
A wing-that-is-not-there curls around my body in a bat hug, and I find myself looking into greenish eyes as I spin around, my startle reflex acting without planning. Even though I move through the wing-that-is-not-there, it only wavers and feels truly strange as I pass through it. Echo shivers. Having that sort of thing happen is like having someone walk over your grave. It doesn’t, usually, because the way the body-that-is-not-there works usually doesn’t allow it. Sometimes, though... “Sorry,” I say quickly. The wings-that-are-not-there turn to a million motes of light and float way, fading rapidly. Not my fault, really. Echo could have kept them manifesting.
I manifest my own body-that-is-not-there. The idealized shape of a cheetah, composed of flowing colored light, surrounds me as I sink to all fours, my musculature changing. A deep purr rumbles from my chest.
I want so badly to pour my entire self into the process, making my body dissolve and turn into a beautiful creature of flowing light, the true expression of my soul. But it is impossible, and that knowledge pierces me like a spear. This place, Xanadu--it is unlikely enough. It took years, I have heard, to carefully make sure that parts of the subway and sewer system were decomissioned and renovate what have been converted into atriums.
We were lucky just to have a place where we could even begin to reflect our true selves.
***
Tara and I run through the forest, Echo trailing behind. Finally, we reach a cliff and stop, staring off into the black distance of the tunnel. Echo soon is hanging from a tree nearby.
“Rixatl’s been working on the Problem,” he says after a few minutes of all of us staring ahead. My ears-that-are-not-there prick up. I’m not sure whether to be in a panic or mildly interested. I’ve lost friends this way. They start working on the Problem and they can’t focus on anything else, the longing to find a solution driving them over the edge. Nothing else matters except to become what they are inside. Eating, sleeping, drinking... it all becomes irrelevant. But Rixatl’s always had a level head. There is a chance that she will not lose herself. “She’s still... there,” he confirms after a few moments. “And she might be onto something.”
We spend the rest of the night next to each other, catching up on each other’s lives and relaxing in each other’s warmth. Our selves-that-are-not-there blend together in a wild ecstatic dance of light, color, and pattern, playing in a shared mindscape. In our shared thoughts, we chase each other across endless fields of golden grass turned a shade of green by the canopy of the trees.
***
I become aware of Rixatl hovering in front of us. As we are not fully aware, it takes the rest of us a while to notice. Tara notices after me, and Echo after her.
Rixatl’s self-that-is-not-there is... beautiful. Sinuous. Her green scales glimmer in the light, and her red feathers look like fire. The colors match her personality; calm with flare-ups. After a moment she coils herself, resting in a ray of sunlight that appears, but seems to have always been there. Such is the way of dreams.
“We need to talk,” she says softly, her voice almost a hiss. I don’t question her. She’s absolutely right. I walk over to her and sniff her. She doesn’t smell of the Rot, or of death. It’s no guarantee that she’s safe, but it’s a good sign. A tiny spark of hope dances inside of me, and my self-that-is-not-there shimmers from within with spirit-light.
The scene vanishes as we all travel back to the real world.
***
On the other side, Rixatl’s standing in front of us, carrying one of those sun calender things in a bag slung over shoulder. “Come on,” she says impatiently. “Gotta show you something.”
“What? Echo asks after a few moments of walking.
“Be impatient and you’ll never see it,” Rixatl says testily. I’m confused, and a bit nervous. It’s a frequent tease directed at Echo, but in this case his question was pretty fair, and Rixatl hadn’t said it with an ounce of humor. This wasn’t one of her wry barbs.
“Seriously, though,” I say after another minute or so. “Echo’s right. You’ve been in Belize for a month or two, Echo’s the only one whose had any contact with you, and you come back apparently having figured out a way to fix the Problem. Please, tell us what’s up.” Rixatl stops. Turns around. Gives me a long, unblinking stare.
“Wait.” I decide that it would be best not to pursue the subject at the present point in time.
***
Rixatl waves her hand in front of a large plastic pad, and a door covered in vines, moss, and mushrooms slides out of the wall. The room beyond looks like it would be equally at home in an Aztec temple and a mad scientist’s fortress. Rixatl might regard the beliefs of her spiritual ancestors with a faint quantity of distain, but she’s fanatic about making her aesthetic match them. This time, though, her attitude is... different. She doesn’t invite us to use the statue of Queztalcoatl in his feathered serpent form for a coatrack, for one, something that she’s made a point of doing before.
“Suddenly developed respect?” Tara asks sarcastically.
“Yes,” comes Rixatl’s answer as she picks up a roughly hewn Mesoamerican calender. I survey the room. It’s changed. The stone block that served as a workstation had been cleared off, and four giant things stand at each corner of it. “Tesla coils,” she says from behind me. “Necessary for what I’m going to be doing.” There’s a very, very faint quaver to her voice. I meet Tara’s eyes. She picked up on it too, from her expression of mild worriment, and we slightly shift posture, preparing for the worst.
“What’s that?” Echo asks, either clueless as always or brilliant social tactician as always; most of us can never tell which. Rixatl closes her eyes, then slowly opens them after a moment.
“We need to talk,” she says. “Sit down.” We do. Mostly it is on the ground because there are no chairs. Echo gets a nice stone block to lie on. “When I went to Belize I was intending it to be purely a pleasure trip. See a few jaguars, sneak into ruins and explore a few, that kind of stuff. But I found this.” She picks up the calender, having set it down again.
“In an ancient Mayan temple, no doubt,” Tara says.
“No. Actually, one of those road vendors. He handed it to me and then vanished while I was examining it. Some old guy.”
“And you don’t think he was a crazy old guy why?” Tara asks. I lean back against the nearest stone block.
“Pong paddles at the ready,” I say out of the corner of my mouth to Echo. Rixatl tosses the calender to Tara, who catches it easily despite being visibly surprised. It’s glowing green now.
“It was doing that when he handed it to me. Moment it touched me, actually. I think we can all agree that’s fairly odd, yes? In any event, I translated the carvings, and it is apparently ‘magic’.” She makes airquotes. “Given the glowing rock in front of me at the time, I was significantly more willing to believe it. The carvings say that you if you hold it and are struck by lightning through the rock, interesting stuff happens.” Tara raises an eyebrow.
“Rixatl? I told ya so.” Rixatl playfully tosses an orange at Tara, which she easily dodges. “So, what’s the ‘interesting stuff’?”
“Physical shifting.” Well, there it is, out in the open. I can hardly say I did not expect it, but getting out there in the open felt different than it being known but not said. There is a long silence.
“How?” I ask. Rixatl looks uncomfortable.
“I... I don’t actually know,” she says, but I can tell she’s hiding something. It’s like she reeks to high heaven of fear, guilt, and an overwhelming sadness. That sort of emotion--hell, almost any emotion at all--feels wrong coming from her. She’s always been... not cold, but distant. Hard to pin down emotionally. “I don’t know,” she says, more confidently this time. “But there are a few other things I have to get. Wait here, I’ll be right back.” She leaves.
“I don’t like these runes,” says Echo after a few moments. I walk over to him and look over his shoulder. The runes are disturbing; nasty looking things.
“Don’t tell me you read Mayan,” Tara says from her place on a stone workbench.
“I don’t, but I do know a few characters, and this refers to a sacrifice.” He squints at one of the ruins. “But this rune is abraded. I can barely read it.” After a few more moments, Echo’s head shoots up, sheer terror in his face. “The word is ‘spirit’. And it refers to the sacrifice.” Something in my instincts clicks, just as the sound of gas being released become audible.
***
“So, who are you going to sacrifice?” I ask as soon as I wake. “One of your friends?” I should have known, and the betrayal makes me furious. Rixatl looks at me guiltily, then, tearing her gaze away, goes back to setting up a few long rods of crystal.
“Got to do this,” she mutters to herself. I’m about to open my mouth when Tara leans over to me.
“It’s not any of us, you idiot.” Instantly I understand. I should have seen it before. It wasn’t scheming to sacrifice one of us that was making Rixatl so fearful and withdrawn.
She is going to tear part of herself away. She is going to leave herself nothing but an empty shell. And there is nothing we can do to stop her; Tara and Echo would have already tried.
No. The word echoes across my brain, and I set about removing my hands from my bonds.
Rixatl finishes installing the spires, and moves over to a control box and starts fiddling with it. There isn’t enough time. Abandoning getting my hands out of rope, I flex my body and break the stick holding me in place. In one fluid motion I move my wrists up and cut the ropes on a razor-sharp Aztec club Rixatl made last June.
My friend hears the crack of breaking wood and looks over at me. For an instant, her hand hovers over the control box, and that’s all I need, because I am cheetah and I am fast. Grabbing a knife and slashing the bonds of Tara and Echo, I dart over to Rixatl, trying to leap at her and pin her to the ground.
She dodges, though, and instead I hit the switch she was about to turn. Half a dozen pieces of glassware fall to the ground and shatter. She grabs a shard and nearly buries it in my side before she realizes what she’s doing and lets it drop out of her suddenly limp hand. I leap at Rixatl, knocking her to the ground and managing to pin her. “Get rope!” I yell to Echo just before Rixatl drives fangs-that-are-not-there into my shoulder. Emotional agony floods through my mind, and I yowl in agony. Finally, my yowl spent, I fall to the floor, exhausted. Rixatl turns to the platform, tensing.
And rope snakes across the room, wrapping around her legs and pulling them out from under her. Echo starts pulling in his lasso, but she grabs onto a protrustion and flexes her powerful stomach muscles, augmented by her self-that-is-not-there. The rope snaps, and Echo falls backwards. As he tries to regain balance, he falls into Tara, knocking them both down.
Rixatl leaps over to the work station, where arcs of lightning have already met in the center to form a web.
Rixatl never gets there. I intercept her halfway, knocking her out of her arc and flying into the web myself. Energy courses through me, warping my body. I can feel it reaching into my soul, can feel my self-that-is-not-there being infused with this mind-lightning. I scream, yowl. The mind-lightning is maddening, and my self-that-is-not-there thrashes, manifesting and disappearing again in brilliant flashes of light.
Finally, it ceases. My soul feels burnt, almost hollow. I can’t feel my self-that-is-not-there. I lift my hand up into my field of vision. It’s nearly gone. I can see through it.
“No,” whispers Rixatl. She’s held back by both Tara and Echo. “It should have been me.” Bits of light, tiny motes, start coming off of my hand.
There is... nothing. Only the emptiness, like a void threatening to swallow me. I would look at Rixatl accusingly, but I can’t. I can’t feel the necessary emotion. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” I finally ask. “Just... for yourself.” I turn my hand over. Bits of light flake off again, faster this time. She shakes her head.
“I never...” A drop of water moves down her cheek. “I never wanted this, William. But I felt...” She doesn’t need to finish the rest of the sentence. But I felt I had to do it. The world seems to stretch, my perception expanding. Awareness begins to flood in. I can see everything, like I’m stretching into the atmosphere and becoming one with the world.
I’m still fading. There’s a breeze, and my form wavers, even more pieces of my self flaking off. It’s not matter, not quite. Almost, though... “Tell my parents... tell them I was mugged. Knifed. Killed. Dropped into the Bay and weighed down. Don’t let anybody find this place.” Rixatl blinks suddenly.
“NO!” she yells fiercely, manifesting wings and sweeping Tara and Echo aside. Tara tries to catch her, but she slips out of her grasp. Sprinting over to her bench, she grabs a metal lead and clamps it around her arm, then claimps the other end around mine. “Never,” she says fiercely. “Never will you sacrifice yourself for me, William.” Her eyes roll up in her head. “I draw the power of those-who-have-come-before, those who were One with Life.” Mist pours out of her eyes and mouth, swirling into a cloud that surrounds her as if she is the center of a hurricane. “I call upon your legacy, and offer my own self-that-is-not-there up as sacrifice!” Tara tries to come and drag Rixatl away, but the mist flashes, and she goes flying. From across the room, Rixatl’s calender flies into her waiting hand, and she connects the leads coming off it to herself. The cracks in the surface glow a brilliant red, then shift to green.
And Rixatl’s self-that-is-not-there flares into light as well, layering itself over her body, powered by the sacrifice that she had intended to be herself. My perception begins to retract, and I can feel my form pulling back together. “I-” Echo cuts her off, wrapping his arms around her wings and pulling her down.
“I’m not going to let you kill yourself for nothing,” he says, softly.
“Not for nothing!”
“Yes for nothing! William is dead!” Rixatl suddenly slithers out of his grasp, furious, and bares her fangs, lunging forward--
And I am there to stop her, holding her fang in place.
“I don’t feel very dead,” I remark mildly. “Just a bit empty.”
***
Rixatl wraps her right wing around me as we stare off into the depths of Xanadu. “How long do I have?” I ask. She blinks, surprised.
“I was wrong, William. Your soul isn’t burned away. It’s not healing, and there’s a tiny amount of leakage, but it’s not going away.” Bits of Rixatl’s wing, matter turning to tiny motes of light, float into my own body, and I feel my soul be raised up. “Not while I’m around. You’re tied to this place, and you won’t be able to go too far, though. I’m sorry.” The lights of Xanadu glimmer, dozens of glowworms lining the tunnels. Rixatl loves the A Tunnel. I took her here for that reason.
I can still feel Xanadu, like its essence is coursing through me. I know exactly where we are, and know exactly where Tara and Echo are, as well as what the guards are doing, and how many glowworms there are. This must be what Rixatl mean when she said I was tied here. It seems like a lonely existance, bound forever to a place, but I won’t be alone. “So, now what?” I ask, still staring off into the depths of the A Tunnel.
“Don’t know. Live?” I wrap my arm around her in turn, and we stare off into Tunnel A together.
“William Corrick.”
Another day, another psychologist. This one’s rather pleasant. Female. Wearing jasmine-scented perfume.
I drape myself across the couch cushions in her office, not making eye contact and hanging one arm off the couch. Ears-that-are-not-there swivel, nervous, and a tail-that-is-not-there twitches slightly. No one sees them, of course. Not here, anyway.
They aren’t quite real. They should be, but they aren’t. I know the name for it. Phantom shifts. Therianthropy. Otherkin.
There’s awkward silence for a few minutes. Neither of us want this. It’s easy to say that someone needs a psychologist, but I live in shadows, not daring to fully emerge. I can’t let myself be what I am, not openly. And so I am shuffled from psychologist to psychologist. I hear whispers that I am not meant to sometimes. I have developed a reputation as being... odd.
They don’t have any idea how odd I really am.
Silence is broken by the psychologist. “My name is Jane Hunter.”
My response is a noncommittal grunt. It usually is to that sort of thing. This grunt says, I am aware of your name; it was on the door.
“So, what do you want to talk about?” She’s one of those psychologists, I think to myself. You know the kind. Well intentioned. Tries to make a connection with the patient, but all too often simply makes them shut down.
Maybe it would work on others. It doesn’t work on me. So I make another noncommittal grunt. My conscious mind becomes aware of an irritating ringing-slash-buzzing sound, and my ears-that-are-not-there swivel to track it. Softly, I snarl. In the reflection of a metal wall hanging, I see her nod sagely. “So. That.” She picks up a few papers. “Dissociation, severe species dysmorphia...” her voices gradually trails off as she reads my grocery list of mental weirdness. Most of it is just symptoms, of course. The real reasons for how I feel are hidden in the shadows, like myself.
Naturally, the session is useless to the both of us. I can’t help her figure me out--not won’t, can’t. I have lived in the shadows for so long that I cannot come out. The jeering, the talking behind my back... it is all I can do to stay sane. And it’s all due to my own stupidity; I dared to let the shadows veiling my true self slip.
I am not human. I have a human’s genetic coding, but I. Am. Not. Human. I am a cat. A cat equipped with a human’s body. They can sling all the different mental disorder names they want at me; I am perfectly sane and rational. I’m just different.
Finally, it ends. I have barely said a word. She is not frustrated, which makes me respect her. But whenever I try to be open with her... I shut down. Slink back into the shadows, a voice in my mind says. Hide.
No, I shoot back. I’m done letting myself rot from the inside out. I’m done letting the shadows make me fade.
‘Home’. I immediately pull my usual vanishing act after dinner, to the dismay of my parents, and walk downtown. I move like a predator, and so I am safe. The other predators--human ones--stay away from me. My body does not speak prey. Bite me and I bite back. Sometimes I bite even when I’m not the one bitten.
The night is dark, but my vision is keen and I can see easily by the little light coming from the stars and the artificial lights humans leave on, even if they’re often dim and flicker in the part of town I hang out in.
I walk through a door, a door that most humans avoid and most that don’t make a policy of avoiding afterwards, and I change. My perception of reality changes. I become more aware. Time seems to pass in less of a stream, and I feel more like I am swimming in the stream of time than watching it from outside.
This is my home. Xanadu.
I greet the guards--we aren’t exactly the most open folk--and continue down. Xanadu is mostly underground. Originally we had it in an old abandoned warehouse, I’m told, but after some incidents with the natural consequences of being an old abandoned warehouse, namely lack of space and an irritating tendency to be near homicides, Xanadu moved underground. Under Boston there are caverns in addition to the sewers and abandoned subways. Wasn’t much at first, but we spruced the place up. The underworld of Boston is in many respects better than the overworld.
Xanadu is paradise to me. I walk on a dirt path under a canopy of trees, grown with dim light powered by a cleverly hidden splice in the city’s power systems. Birds, mostly sparrows and such but with a few escaped exotics, rise into a twirling cloud as I pass, sensing that I am cat.
Behind me, a twig snaps, and before I can react Tara has leapt at me, slamming me to the ground. I roll with the impact and attempt to wriggle out from under her, but it’s no use. In seconds she has planted both her hands on my chest and is holding me down. I see them as forepaws, of course, and I see her eyes as yellow. “The cheetah was not fast enough today,” she remarks, letting me up after a few seconds. I brush myself off and wrap my arms around her in an embrace. “William, you’re squishing me. Loosen.” I do. It’s only been a few days, but I have missed her. My tongue-that-is-not-there rasps over her forehead affectionately.
Tara lives here. She has for a year now, ever since her parents kicked her out when she came out as a therian and as bisexual. She’s happier here, really. At days she works at a local supermarket; at nineteen she’s just old enough to get employment without catching the attention of the government, given that her place of residence is not the same as her next of kin’s.
Runaways aren’t uncommon among our kind. We’re driven away from human society.
We’re still missing two, though. “Where’s Rixatl and Echo?” I ask. I haven’t seen the coatl-kin in a week, and Echo usually was here before any of the rest of us.
A wing-that-is-not-there curls around my body in a bat hug, and I find myself looking into greenish eyes as I spin around, my startle reflex acting without planning. Even though I move through the wing-that-is-not-there, it only wavers and feels truly strange as I pass through it. Echo shivers. Having that sort of thing happen is like having someone walk over your grave. It doesn’t, usually, because the way the body-that-is-not-there works usually doesn’t allow it. Sometimes, though... “Sorry,” I say quickly. The wings-that-are-not-there turn to a million motes of light and float way, fading rapidly. Not my fault, really. Echo could have kept them manifesting.
I manifest my own body-that-is-not-there. The idealized shape of a cheetah, composed of flowing colored light, surrounds me as I sink to all fours, my musculature changing. A deep purr rumbles from my chest.
I want so badly to pour my entire self into the process, making my body dissolve and turn into a beautiful creature of flowing light, the true expression of my soul. But it is impossible, and that knowledge pierces me like a spear. This place, Xanadu--it is unlikely enough. It took years, I have heard, to carefully make sure that parts of the subway and sewer system were decomissioned and renovate what have been converted into atriums.
We were lucky just to have a place where we could even begin to reflect our true selves.
Tara and I run through the forest, Echo trailing behind. Finally, we reach a cliff and stop, staring off into the black distance of the tunnel. Echo soon is hanging from a tree nearby.
“Rixatl’s been working on the Problem,” he says after a few minutes of all of us staring ahead. My ears-that-are-not-there prick up. I’m not sure whether to be in a panic or mildly interested. I’ve lost friends this way. They start working on the Problem and they can’t focus on anything else, the longing to find a solution driving them over the edge. Nothing else matters except to become what they are inside. Eating, sleeping, drinking... it all becomes irrelevant. But Rixatl’s always had a level head. There is a chance that she will not lose herself. “She’s still... there,” he confirms after a few moments. “And she might be onto something.”
We spend the rest of the night next to each other, catching up on each other’s lives and relaxing in each other’s warmth. Our selves-that-are-not-there blend together in a wild ecstatic dance of light, color, and pattern, playing in a shared mindscape. In our shared thoughts, we chase each other across endless fields of golden grass turned a shade of green by the canopy of the trees.
I become aware of Rixatl hovering in front of us. As we are not fully aware, it takes the rest of us a while to notice. Tara notices after me, and Echo after her.
Rixatl’s self-that-is-not-there is... beautiful. Sinuous. Her green scales glimmer in the light, and her red feathers look like fire. The colors match her personality; calm with flare-ups. After a moment she coils herself, resting in a ray of sunlight that appears, but seems to have always been there. Such is the way of dreams.
“We need to talk,” she says softly, her voice almost a hiss. I don’t question her. She’s absolutely right. I walk over to her and sniff her. She doesn’t smell of the Rot, or of death. It’s no guarantee that she’s safe, but it’s a good sign. A tiny spark of hope dances inside of me, and my self-that-is-not-there shimmers from within with spirit-light.
The scene vanishes as we all travel back to the real world.
On the other side, Rixatl’s standing in front of us, carrying one of those sun calender things in a bag slung over shoulder. “Come on,” she says impatiently. “Gotta show you something.”
“What? Echo asks after a few moments of walking.
“Be impatient and you’ll never see it,” Rixatl says testily. I’m confused, and a bit nervous. It’s a frequent tease directed at Echo, but in this case his question was pretty fair, and Rixatl hadn’t said it with an ounce of humor. This wasn’t one of her wry barbs.
“Seriously, though,” I say after another minute or so. “Echo’s right. You’ve been in Belize for a month or two, Echo’s the only one whose had any contact with you, and you come back apparently having figured out a way to fix the Problem. Please, tell us what’s up.” Rixatl stops. Turns around. Gives me a long, unblinking stare.
“Wait.” I decide that it would be best not to pursue the subject at the present point in time.
Rixatl waves her hand in front of a large plastic pad, and a door covered in vines, moss, and mushrooms slides out of the wall. The room beyond looks like it would be equally at home in an Aztec temple and a mad scientist’s fortress. Rixatl might regard the beliefs of her spiritual ancestors with a faint quantity of distain, but she’s fanatic about making her aesthetic match them. This time, though, her attitude is... different. She doesn’t invite us to use the statue of Queztalcoatl in his feathered serpent form for a coatrack, for one, something that she’s made a point of doing before.
“Suddenly developed respect?” Tara asks sarcastically.
“Yes,” comes Rixatl’s answer as she picks up a roughly hewn Mesoamerican calender. I survey the room. It’s changed. The stone block that served as a workstation had been cleared off, and four giant things stand at each corner of it. “Tesla coils,” she says from behind me. “Necessary for what I’m going to be doing.” There’s a very, very faint quaver to her voice. I meet Tara’s eyes. She picked up on it too, from her expression of mild worriment, and we slightly shift posture, preparing for the worst.
“What’s that?” Echo asks, either clueless as always or brilliant social tactician as always; most of us can never tell which. Rixatl closes her eyes, then slowly opens them after a moment.
“We need to talk,” she says. “Sit down.” We do. Mostly it is on the ground because there are no chairs. Echo gets a nice stone block to lie on. “When I went to Belize I was intending it to be purely a pleasure trip. See a few jaguars, sneak into ruins and explore a few, that kind of stuff. But I found this.” She picks up the calender, having set it down again.
“In an ancient Mayan temple, no doubt,” Tara says.
“No. Actually, one of those road vendors. He handed it to me and then vanished while I was examining it. Some old guy.”
“And you don’t think he was a crazy old guy why?” Tara asks. I lean back against the nearest stone block.
“Pong paddles at the ready,” I say out of the corner of my mouth to Echo. Rixatl tosses the calender to Tara, who catches it easily despite being visibly surprised. It’s glowing green now.
“It was doing that when he handed it to me. Moment it touched me, actually. I think we can all agree that’s fairly odd, yes? In any event, I translated the carvings, and it is apparently ‘magic’.” She makes airquotes. “Given the glowing rock in front of me at the time, I was significantly more willing to believe it. The carvings say that you if you hold it and are struck by lightning through the rock, interesting stuff happens.” Tara raises an eyebrow.
“Rixatl? I told ya so.” Rixatl playfully tosses an orange at Tara, which she easily dodges. “So, what’s the ‘interesting stuff’?”
“Physical shifting.” Well, there it is, out in the open. I can hardly say I did not expect it, but getting out there in the open felt different than it being known but not said. There is a long silence.
“How?” I ask. Rixatl looks uncomfortable.
“I... I don’t actually know,” she says, but I can tell she’s hiding something. It’s like she reeks to high heaven of fear, guilt, and an overwhelming sadness. That sort of emotion--hell, almost any emotion at all--feels wrong coming from her. She’s always been... not cold, but distant. Hard to pin down emotionally. “I don’t know,” she says, more confidently this time. “But there are a few other things I have to get. Wait here, I’ll be right back.” She leaves.
“I don’t like these runes,” says Echo after a few moments. I walk over to him and look over his shoulder. The runes are disturbing; nasty looking things.
“Don’t tell me you read Mayan,” Tara says from her place on a stone workbench.
“I don’t, but I do know a few characters, and this refers to a sacrifice.” He squints at one of the ruins. “But this rune is abraded. I can barely read it.” After a few more moments, Echo’s head shoots up, sheer terror in his face. “The word is ‘spirit’. And it refers to the sacrifice.” Something in my instincts clicks, just as the sound of gas being released become audible.
“So, who are you going to sacrifice?” I ask as soon as I wake. “One of your friends?” I should have known, and the betrayal makes me furious. Rixatl looks at me guiltily, then, tearing her gaze away, goes back to setting up a few long rods of crystal.
“Got to do this,” she mutters to herself. I’m about to open my mouth when Tara leans over to me.
“It’s not any of us, you idiot.” Instantly I understand. I should have seen it before. It wasn’t scheming to sacrifice one of us that was making Rixatl so fearful and withdrawn.
She is going to tear part of herself away. She is going to leave herself nothing but an empty shell. And there is nothing we can do to stop her; Tara and Echo would have already tried.
No. The word echoes across my brain, and I set about removing my hands from my bonds.
Rixatl finishes installing the spires, and moves over to a control box and starts fiddling with it. There isn’t enough time. Abandoning getting my hands out of rope, I flex my body and break the stick holding me in place. In one fluid motion I move my wrists up and cut the ropes on a razor-sharp Aztec club Rixatl made last June.
My friend hears the crack of breaking wood and looks over at me. For an instant, her hand hovers over the control box, and that’s all I need, because I am cheetah and I am fast. Grabbing a knife and slashing the bonds of Tara and Echo, I dart over to Rixatl, trying to leap at her and pin her to the ground.
She dodges, though, and instead I hit the switch she was about to turn. Half a dozen pieces of glassware fall to the ground and shatter. She grabs a shard and nearly buries it in my side before she realizes what she’s doing and lets it drop out of her suddenly limp hand. I leap at Rixatl, knocking her to the ground and managing to pin her. “Get rope!” I yell to Echo just before Rixatl drives fangs-that-are-not-there into my shoulder. Emotional agony floods through my mind, and I yowl in agony. Finally, my yowl spent, I fall to the floor, exhausted. Rixatl turns to the platform, tensing.
And rope snakes across the room, wrapping around her legs and pulling them out from under her. Echo starts pulling in his lasso, but she grabs onto a protrustion and flexes her powerful stomach muscles, augmented by her self-that-is-not-there. The rope snaps, and Echo falls backwards. As he tries to regain balance, he falls into Tara, knocking them both down.
Rixatl leaps over to the work station, where arcs of lightning have already met in the center to form a web.
Rixatl never gets there. I intercept her halfway, knocking her out of her arc and flying into the web myself. Energy courses through me, warping my body. I can feel it reaching into my soul, can feel my self-that-is-not-there being infused with this mind-lightning. I scream, yowl. The mind-lightning is maddening, and my self-that-is-not-there thrashes, manifesting and disappearing again in brilliant flashes of light.
Finally, it ceases. My soul feels burnt, almost hollow. I can’t feel my self-that-is-not-there. I lift my hand up into my field of vision. It’s nearly gone. I can see through it.
“No,” whispers Rixatl. She’s held back by both Tara and Echo. “It should have been me.” Bits of light, tiny motes, start coming off of my hand.
There is... nothing. Only the emptiness, like a void threatening to swallow me. I would look at Rixatl accusingly, but I can’t. I can’t feel the necessary emotion. “Isn’t this what you wanted?” I finally ask. “Just... for yourself.” I turn my hand over. Bits of light flake off again, faster this time. She shakes her head.
“I never...” A drop of water moves down her cheek. “I never wanted this, William. But I felt...” She doesn’t need to finish the rest of the sentence. But I felt I had to do it. The world seems to stretch, my perception expanding. Awareness begins to flood in. I can see everything, like I’m stretching into the atmosphere and becoming one with the world.
I’m still fading. There’s a breeze, and my form wavers, even more pieces of my self flaking off. It’s not matter, not quite. Almost, though... “Tell my parents... tell them I was mugged. Knifed. Killed. Dropped into the Bay and weighed down. Don’t let anybody find this place.” Rixatl blinks suddenly.
“NO!” she yells fiercely, manifesting wings and sweeping Tara and Echo aside. Tara tries to catch her, but she slips out of her grasp. Sprinting over to her bench, she grabs a metal lead and clamps it around her arm, then claimps the other end around mine. “Never,” she says fiercely. “Never will you sacrifice yourself for me, William.” Her eyes roll up in her head. “I draw the power of those-who-have-come-before, those who were One with Life.” Mist pours out of her eyes and mouth, swirling into a cloud that surrounds her as if she is the center of a hurricane. “I call upon your legacy, and offer my own self-that-is-not-there up as sacrifice!” Tara tries to come and drag Rixatl away, but the mist flashes, and she goes flying. From across the room, Rixatl’s calender flies into her waiting hand, and she connects the leads coming off it to herself. The cracks in the surface glow a brilliant red, then shift to green.
And Rixatl’s self-that-is-not-there flares into light as well, layering itself over her body, powered by the sacrifice that she had intended to be herself. My perception begins to retract, and I can feel my form pulling back together. “I-” Echo cuts her off, wrapping his arms around her wings and pulling her down.
“I’m not going to let you kill yourself for nothing,” he says, softly.
“Not for nothing!”
“Yes for nothing! William is dead!” Rixatl suddenly slithers out of his grasp, furious, and bares her fangs, lunging forward--
And I am there to stop her, holding her fang in place.
“I don’t feel very dead,” I remark mildly. “Just a bit empty.”
Rixatl wraps her right wing around me as we stare off into the depths of Xanadu. “How long do I have?” I ask. She blinks, surprised.
“I was wrong, William. Your soul isn’t burned away. It’s not healing, and there’s a tiny amount of leakage, but it’s not going away.” Bits of Rixatl’s wing, matter turning to tiny motes of light, float into my own body, and I feel my soul be raised up. “Not while I’m around. You’re tied to this place, and you won’t be able to go too far, though. I’m sorry.” The lights of Xanadu glimmer, dozens of glowworms lining the tunnels. Rixatl loves the A Tunnel. I took her here for that reason.
I can still feel Xanadu, like its essence is coursing through me. I know exactly where we are, and know exactly where Tara and Echo are, as well as what the guards are doing, and how many glowworms there are. This must be what Rixatl mean when she said I was tied here. It seems like a lonely existance, bound forever to a place, but I won’t be alone. “So, now what?” I ask, still staring off into the depths of the A Tunnel.
“Don’t know. Live?” I wrap my arm around her in turn, and we stare off into Tunnel A together.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-21 09:34 am (UTC)<center>* * *</center>
to break up each section.
All that said, the biggest thing that stands out to me is the character named Tara whose parents kicked her out for being bisexual and trans*. >.>;
no subject
Date: 2012-04-21 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-24 03:20 am (UTC)I'm not sure why I say that, but I think it's because I feel like you may have gone this route because of an idea you had where you were planning for this from the get-go, instead of letting the story take its own course. I could be totally wrong, and need to look much more closely to get a better idea, and if so I apologize.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-24 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 10:16 pm (UTC)