by Tee, Marian
Chapter Twenty-Two
Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down.
The world is bouncing again, and my heart shoots up to my throat even though I know this isn't really happening.
The real me is back in the professor's office, hopefully without any drool on my face even though I've been magicked into a trance that would help me retrieve my memories.
Because all of this is just that.
Memories.
And so even though the world continues to bounce and everything looks the same—-
Even though everything feels terrifyingly accurate—-
None of this real, I whisper fiercely to myself. None of it is real. None of it!
I say the words over and over until I lose track of time, and I would've gone on saying it endlessly except...
The professor told me that I'd feel it when it happens. Know it when happens.
And I think he's right.
Because I think it is already happening, and when I slowly open my eyes, it's all I can do not to cry in sheer relief...because it's just like the professor said.
Exactly like the professor said.
The world is still bouncing. But I no longer feel myself bouncing with it.
A man still has me in his arms, but this time my perspective has changed, and it now feels like I'm merely watching myself.
My consciousness has started to separate itself from my subconscious, and so the only thing left for me to do is—-
PUSH.
My eyes squeeze back shut involuntarily as I strain myself.
Push, push, push!
I strain as hard as I can, but it's my own brain that's resisting me, my own brain insisting that it's impossible to push when your own body isn't corporeal, and the whole world you're in isn't real. My brain insists that I should give up, but I can't. I mustn't. This is my only chance, so...
Push harder, Halyna! PUSH!
To counter the logical approach of my brain, I make myself imagine I'm trapped inside a spider's web. Envision the air around me thinning until I'm gasping for breath. I need to think, I need to feel this is my last chance at living. I need to believe I'm about to die so I can—
PUUUUUUUUUUSH.
My consciousness finally destroys the last tendril that chains it to this world of memories, and just like the professor also said it would—-
Time grinds into a standstill, and the man holding me freezes mid-motion just as I feel myself bursting out of an unseen cocoon.
I can almost feel my body physically manifesting itself, one cell after another. This world might still not be real, but I am, and it's because I'm finally real...
"Professor?"
My voice comes out in an awkward croak. It just feels so suicidal to call out loud when the man with red eyes is right here next to me, but barely a moment passes when I hear the professor speak.
I can hear you.
It's almost similar to how my god communicates with me. Just louder and less private, with his words echoing around me like there are invisible speakers transmitting his voice.
"Am I drooling out there?" Since I hate making small talk, hearing myself doing it tells me I'm more anxious than I thought, and when I hear the professor chuckle, my body sags as air actually whooshes out of my lungs, and it's only then I realize I've been tense and holding my breath this entire time.
Are you alright there?
Is he kidding me? How can I be alright when the man with red eyes is frozen right next to me? How can I feel alright when he's still holding another version of myself captive? The look of desperation and fear on Memory Me is painful to see, and even though my brain knows what I'm seeing here is the past - it isn't even real, for heaven's sake -
Facts mean shit at this moment, and my heart feels like it's about to explode out of my chest.
I can't be alright with everything here feeling so damnably real, I can't possibly be alright with my knees already shamefully quaking under me as more insidious thoughts start poisoning my mind.
The professor may hear me, but that's all he can do right now. He isn't really seeing what I'm seeing, won't be able to warn me ahead of time if an attacker comes up behind me. He won't even see me fighting for my life if it somehow comes down to that.
All he can do is hear me, but what if I don't even have time to scream?
Terror curdles in my stomach, but because it's simply not my style to act like a baby, I force myself to directly confront my fears and just be done with it.
Ever so slowly, I turn my gaze to the man with red eyes, and my skin crawls even as he remains unmoving in front of me. His head is slightly lowered, his left foot frozen mid-air above the next step. I look around, and it eventually dawns on me at what exact point of my memory I've revisited.
Shit, shit, shit.
In a little while, Memory Me will make a futile attempt to escape him, and the knowledge that I'll have to relive that moment makes me feel like throwing up. The trauma of that night hasn't really ever left me. It's been a constant shadow in the back of my mind, and I doubt it would ever go away, even if I were to succeed in unmasking this man and make him pay for his sins.
If it were just me, I'd rather forget everything. Pretend it never happened. But that choice has been taken away from me. That choice stopped being a choice the moment I found out he's started killing again, and I just know...
Deep in my guts, I know.
Whatever that man's fucked-up reason is for killing Myrrha—-
I know it has something to do with me, and I know the man with red eyes can use the exact same reason to kill my parents next.
The thought is unbearable, and it's enough to make me grit my teeth as I shove all of my fears aside.
Get! A! Grip!
I even give my cheeks a couple little slaps for added effect, and it's when I'm doing this that the professor's voice suddenly intrudes in my mind—-
Are you still there?
The sound makes me jump, and I bite back an expletive.
Halyna!
I think it's the first time I've ever heard the professor call me by my name, but any forbidden pleasure that I could've derived from it is completely ruined by the way he's almost given me a heart attack.
"Don't scare me like that!"
Then keep talking so I don't start thinking something happened to you!
The professor's caustic tone grates a little, but since I can't deny he has a really valid point, I'm about to apologize grudgingly when I notice something considerably odd about my surroundings. "Professor?"
What is it?
I gulp hard and whisper, "I've just noticed something weird..."
Describe it to me.
Although I know I'm being stupid again, the thought of taking my eyes off the man with red eyes frightens me to the core. A part of me is horribly convinced that he's just playacting, and it's that part of me which makes me keep him in my peripheral vision while I struggle to find the words to describe how random fragments of the ceiling and walls have disappeared behind greyish masses that almost look like ghosts struggling to come into life.
"I don't know how to explain it. There are patches on this world. Like this world is sick, and they're covered by...blurs."
What kind of blurs?
"They're almost the color of smoke, but darker. And they're moving, like...an infection that eats up little chunks of...things...while it spreads."
Several moments pass before the professor speaks again.
Can you do me a favor?
Can you go around and describe to me how your captor looks from behind?
What he's asking makes no apparent sense to me, but what's even worse is that doing so would mean having to take my gaze off the man with red eyes.
And I don't want to do that.
The thought alone already has a shiver running down my spine.
But because I also know the professor isn't the kind of idiot who'd ask me to do something pointless, I just grit my teeth and force my st
ill-trembling limbs to move.
Remember what the professor told you, I urge myself. Now that my consciousness is separate from Memory Me, I'm the one who's calling all the shots. Nothing in this world has the power to hurt me, and-—"Holy Greek shit!"
Chapter Twenty-Three
What is it?
"His back..." My stomach turns upside down, and I have to swallow several times before I can finally speak again. "His entire back is gone, it's the same fucking blur—-"
Then it's what I suspect it is.
"A monster?" I know it's not the time to be sarcastic, but I just can't help it.
You have nothing to worry about.
Writhing, grayish wraith-like things are seemingly feasting my captor's back, and he's telling me there's nothing to worry about?
What if I'm next, dammit?
Panic shoots up inside of me at the thought, and I stumble a step back just as my chest starts to tighten, and I find myself starting to wheeze.
Snap out of it, Halyna!
The professor's harsh voice is like a slap to my face, but it also works like magic, and I slowly regain a grip of myself.
I mean it.
There's NOTHING to be worried about.
All those fucking blurs you're seeing are simply the things you didn't actually lay your eyes on.
"B-But—-"
You can't remember what you never saw.
I stare blankly at the writhing, ghoul-like blurs as my mind struggles to grasp what the professor's telling me. "Are you saying...these...things...are basically...memory gaps?"
Exactly.
"So they can't be...alive, can they? Even if they're moving "
Most likely.
"Most likely?" I barely manage not to yell at him. "You're supposed to know everything about this world—-"
Our god bid me to help you because I'm the only one with the necessary skills to help you retrieve your memories. Not once, however, have I said that I know everything about it.
"But surely in your previous experience—-"
I have never had a reason to revisit my past through memory worlds.
I think the professor just low-key insulted me, but whatever. "You should have just lied to me," I grumble.
Lying might make you feel complacent, and you need to be on your toes over there to keep yourself safe.
When he puts it like that, I guess he is doing me a favor, but...it doesn't make me feel any less anxious. More and more, I'm starting to think I've bitten off more than I can chew by coming here, but because I also don't want to risk giving myself a chance to chicken out—-
To hell with it.
The professor told me earlier I simply need to make any symbolic gesture in order to will this entire world to restart, and so I do the first thing that comes to mind, which is to snap my fingers like Thanos—-
Did you just snap your fingers like Thanos?
The professor's groan makes me feel defensive, but I'm saved from having to answer since the gesture, in spite of being a spur-of-the-moment choice, actually works.
The memory world around me instantly comes back to life, and everything around me that can move...does start moving again - man with red eyes included, and now it's my worst memory playing out right in front of me.
Memory Me's knee hits the edge of one of the stairsteps, and I can only flinch as her face contorts with pain. She tries her best to get away, but she can't, and I find myself fighting back tears alongside her when the man comes to pick her up.
Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK you.
I'm so tempted to snap my fingers and freeze time again so I can save Memory Me.
But I can't.
The professor was explicitly clear before agreeing to help me explore my memories for clues. This world is fragile, and he's estimating it can only tolerate two attempts of time-freezing before it disintegrates...and possibly take my soul along with it.
Remember your promise, Halyna. Don't interfere.
"I know. I get it."
Interfering can lead to unnecessary freezing of time, but it won't change the past. So it's pointless. I get that. I know that. But just because I know doesn't make it any easier, and I find myself clenching my fists as I follow my then-captor carry Memory Me inside the memory room.
I'm not sure if it's trauma or magic, but I've never been able to remember anything that happened inside this room. My parents even had me work with different therapists, but because none of their treatments ever worked, the things I'm seeing now are all new to me.
It's almost like I'm watching a horror movie unfold...except it isn't.
Because this was real.
Everything I'm seeing now did happen, and right now Memory Me is sobbing...as she should.
I had hoped that by the time Memory Me comes into this room, it would've all been over.
But it isn't.
It isn't, dammit, and the professor swears as he hears me choke back a sob.
What's wrong?
"They're all alive," I cry out. "They're all still alive! I saw...I saw them when they were still alive, and I wasn't able to s-save them."
My chest starts to heave, and when Memory Me starts to scream, I want to scream with her.
Why, Memory Me is asking and choking.
But the man doesn't speak. He simply lays Memory Me on the floor, and even though she does her best to struggle and escape him, it's no use. There's a length of rope next to them, prepared in advance just as one would expect from someone so efficiently psychotic. `
Why? Why? WHY?
Memory Me screams it over and over as he ties her up.
The fear in her eyes is gone. All I see is despair, and it's exactly how I'm feeling now.
Why would anyone hurt another person like this?
He has one man chained with his guts slit open while another one has his intestines braided with a fucking ribbon. A woman has her tongue cut out and eye sockets empty while the younger girl next to her has all of her nails ripped off.
Every one of them is gruesomely unique, and when I look back at Memory Me, I find her trembling and pale, her despair turning into anger as she watches our captor acting calm as you please. He's chewing on something while tightening the ropes around her wrists. He's acting like everything's normal. Like there aren't people he tortured around them, and when I glance back at Memory Me, I can see she feels the way I do.
It's just too damn much.
Just too, too much—-
That even though I'm only seeing this for the first time, I understand exactly why Memory Me snaps and kicks her captor in the face—-
But it's a short-lived victory, with the man spitting at her face and chopping his hand down on her injured knee in vicious retaliation.
Memory Me crumples with a cry, and this time I can't help but cry out alongside her.
Halyna!
It's only when I hear the professor say my name in my mind that I remember we're still connected, but before I can find the words to explain what I just saw—-
It's at that moment I realize this nightmare is far from over.
Because Memory Me is sobbing now.
Please stop! Please! Please! Stop it! Stop!
Because the man with red eyes is hopping from one body to another now, and with every person he "visits", he would wrap his fingers around their neck and break it.
Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap.
He does it the way he does everything.
Chewing and hopping and neck-snapping as calm as you please, and he doesn't even seem to hear Memory Me sobbing and crying out for him to stop—-
Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap.
And I just can't take it anymore.
I'm already moving before I know what I'm doing, and my knee - the same knee he nearly destroyed - my knee is already lifting up, and even though I know it's pointless just like the professor said, I can't help it—-
I knee the man in the groin as hard as I can, and electricity crackles in the air.
>
What have you done?
A part of me was expecting my knee to simply pass through the man's body, but instead I feel and hear the sound of my knee crushing his balls, and I stagger back in shock just as the man falls to the floor, writhing and screaming in pain.
His red eyes fly up, and when I see myself reflected in his gaze, fear turns into panic and I unthinkingly snap my fingers—-
DID YOU JUST FREEZE TIME AGAIN?
The fury in the professor's voice is unmistakable, and it has me mentally running around like a headless chicken in search for an excuse.
Don't even think of lying.
Shit.
Did you or did you not freeze time back there?
I give up trying to think of another lie. "Yes, I did, and I know it's stupid—-"
Fuck!
The cuss word makes me grit my teeth, but I tell myself it's something I deserve to hear because I did give him my word...and ended up breaking it.
"I'm sorry," I say stiffly.
Since you've already frozen time, you might as well take advantage of it and search for more clues.
The professor's words make me feel terrified for a moment, but then I remember what he's done, and anger starts to grow. I remember how he's cold-bloodedly killed all of those people, and my anger keeps building.
None of them had to die.
None of them!
And it's this thought that ultimately kills my fears, it's this thought that keeps me from shaking as I slowly crouch down to study him.
A man with red eyes.
A killer without a soul.
And one day, I promise him silently, one day I'll make you pay.
Starting now.
I study his inert form as thoroughly as I can. With his features contorted in pain, it's hard to distinguish anything remarkable about his face, and it takes me a while to notice what looks like dried flakes around his skin.
My gaze moves down to the rest of his body, and it's then I notice something odd.
"Professor?"
What?
"He's molting."
A few moments pass before the professor speaks again.
You're sure of this?
I peer closer, and I'm absolutely sure I'm not mistaken now. "I'm sure. And..."
