I feel it in my bones,
In my bones,
In my hollow reed bones.
He grabs my hand and we walk…through a tunnel…through a hall… through the dark.
“It’ll be ok,” he whispers.
Will it?
“We have to do this,” he says. “But I’m with you. I won’t leave you.”
I nod because I believe him, because no matter what else, I know that much is true. He won’t leave me.
The room is shrouded in shadows, in flame, in secrets. I step inside, and peer around, and the heat from the fire warms me, warms my blood, and the blood pumps through my heart.
I sing a song of nonsense, and it sings back. The notes echo and twist in the air, and I swallow them whole.
“Come out,” I call behind me, because I know they’re there.
I can’t see them, but they’re always watching.
The eyes appear, inky black, and glistening, and they blink once, twice, three times.
“I can see you,” I announce and it growls and then I’m crushed beneath the dark, beneath the weight, beneath the oppression.
“You don’t scare me,” I lie.
Because it does scare me. It’s followed me my whole life, and finally, finally, I’ll find out what it is.
Why it’s here.
Why it wants me.
Because above all, I know it’s here for me.
I know it
I know it.
The walls around me pulse and hum and growl,
There’s savagery here, there’s grace.
But above all, there’s oblivion and no matter what I do, I will be sucked into it.
I know it.
I feel it.
I’m crazy.
“Are you ready? she asks and we nod, because we aren’t but it doesn’t matter.
She nods and the flames lap, and the words start, One for one for one.
I fall backwards from the precipice
into oblivion.
The endless
Endless oblivion.
* * *
Chapter ONE
The room swirls white and medicinal, filled with beeps and blank walls and cold skin. Goosebumps chase each other in confusion up my arm, and I gulp hard.
I’m in a hospital.
I’m cold.
I’m afraid.
My dead brother stares at me, his pale blue eyes evasive as he skirts my question. I ask it again.
“Finn, where’s Dare?”
I ask him stiltedly, each word a sword that stabs my heart, because doom invades this room, in every inch, every breath, every moment.
Finn looks away, at the wall, at the floor, at anything but me.
“Dare is….you know where he is, Calla.”
I don’t, though, and that’s the unbearable thing.
My eyes flutter closed and the last thing I see is the white hospital blanket that covers me. I close my eyes against reality, and Finn picks up my hand.
“Cal, you’ve twisted everything around in your head until you don’t know what is real, and what is not. You know where Dare is. You know what is real. You’ve just got to think. You’ve got to face it.”
This hurts, and I hate it.
“I…can’t.” My words are limp, falling onto the bed, tumbling to the floor.
Finn stares at me, into my eyes, into my heart. It pierces me, it grabs me with both hands and doesn’t let go.
“Calla, you can. You’re not me, you’re you. And that’s ok. That’s who you need to be. Please, for the love of God, come back. Just come back.”
My eyes open because his words are confusing.
“Come back from where?”
I’m clearly here in the hospital with him, with my dead brother. I’m already here. He’s the one who’s not, because he’s dead. He’s not making any sense.
He sighs, a soft sound in a silent room.
“Come back from where you are. You’re needed here, Calla.”
“But I am here,” I say hesitantly, because Finn is already shaking his head.
“No,” he says. “You’re not, Calla.”
Clouds surround me and lift me up and carry me away from logic, from reason, from reality. I fight to keep my feet down, to keep from being lifted away, into the sky, across the ocean.
“How do I come back?” I ask, and my voice is like a child’s.