She slowly began to realize just how silly this whole thing was. She’d been competing against a bunch of people who didn’t love this sport like she did. For her, it was more than a sport—it was a way of life.
Her Grandpa Lin, who’d emigrated from Korea in the 1950s, was a grandmaster of taekwondo. His words now echoed in her head. “Always be flexible and adjust to your environment. Remember, the stiff tree will break, while a flexible one like the willow will last through the storm.”
Grandpa Lin had died last year, leaving behind only his stories about the Korean War and his difficulties in leaving his homeland and coming to the United States.
Willow let out a shuddering breath. She was being ridiculous, getting so upset over something so meaningless.
Stepping out of Brad’s hug, she wiped her eyes and gave her brothers a weak smile. “I just wish Grandpa Lin could have seen me fight.”
Brad looked up at the sky and smiled. “I’m sure he did, and I’m sure he’s proud of you.”
Together they walked down Truman Road. A warm June breeze blew along the street, but the humidity gave the air a sticky feeling. Car exhaust and hints of smoke from a barbecue wafted past.
“Where are we going?” Willow asked. “Where’d you guys park the car?”
“We figured you’d be hungry,” John said. “Brad and I wanted to treat you to Arthur Bryant’s.”
Brad poked Willow playfully on her shoulder. “You need to put some meat on those bones of yours. What better way than some of KC’s best barbecue?”
Willow looked down at her taekwondo outfit and tightened the black belt. At least her pink toenail polish matched her pink flip-flops. “I guess they won’t kick me out of a barbecue joint dressed like this.”
A grungy teenage kid stepped out of the shadows, a rusty revolver aimed directly at John. “Give me your wallet or I’ll plug you with—”
John sent a lightning-quick kick to the kid’s extended arm. Willow heard the unnerving sound of bone snapping, and the gun went flying. The kid ran, wailing in pain and cupping his broken arm. John chased after him.
Suddenly a gunshot rang out. A burning sensation bloomed in Willow’s chest, and she felt as though she was going to puke.
Brad’s eyes widened. “John! Come back!”
Willow looked down and saw blood seeping through the thick cotton of her sparring outfit.
Did the gun accidentally discharge when it hit the ground?
The world tilted, and Willow’s knees buckled, but Brad caught her. The fire in her chest began spreading through her arms and legs as Brad laid her on the ground. The heat of the pavement made the burning even worse.
She tried to move, but her body didn’t respond. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Yet Willow couldn’t bring herself to care.
Her vision blurred. She tried to focus on Brad’s face above her. He had tears in his eyes and his chin quivered. He’d always been the more emotional of her two brothers, yet Willow couldn’t quite figure out why he was sad.
Suddenly John’s face was hovering over her instead. His eyes were wide with fear. In the distance, Willow heard Brad’s voice.
“We’re on the southeast corner of Truman Road and Troost Avenue. Please hurry! My sister’s been shot in the chest.”
Willow felt unaffected by what he’d said. She’d have thought it would have upset her, but all she could focus on was that damned burning sensation racing through her body.
And then suddenly it disappeared.
She felt nothing at all.
And Willow’s world turned dark.
Even as she watched the paramedics take her in the ambulance, stick tubes in her arms, and place an oxygen mask over her face, Willow felt nothing. Her body was still breathing, but she was hovering above it, a silent witness to a crime that felt as if it had happened to someone else.
Was this what being dead was like?
She could still see, even though her body’s eyes were closed. And she could will herself to float in any direction she wanted.
At the hospital, Willow absorbed the antiseptic smells and sterile white hallways as they wheeled her into an operating room. Yet even when they removed the bullet from her chest and sewed her wounds closed, she didn’t feel a thing.
“Poor girl,” the surgeon remarked as he tied off the last stitch. “She doesn’t look the part of a gangbanger.”
A nurse wiped the wound with antiseptic. “Paramedic said she got attacked by a gangbanger after leaving some martial arts tournament.”
The surgeon placed a sterile dressing over the wound. “She’s not going to be feeling like punching or kicking anything anytime soon.”
Willow thought about willing herself back into her body, but she worried what that would mean. Would she feel all the pain that she knew she should be feeling? Would she be able to get out again?
She followed her body as it was wheeled into the recovery room and then to an intensive care unit. She watched her parents and brothers linger over her body, crying. And Dad and John never cried. Still she felt nothing. She’d never been one to let her emotions take over, but her complete emotionlessness under these circumstances was disturbing.
But she did want to comfort John. It wasn’t his fault. He had kicked the gun out of the attacker’s hand; it was just a freak accident that it went off and shot her when it hit the pavement. She would have reached for him, but she couldn’t control her body, beyond gliding to different corners of the hospital room.
So she willed herself closer to John and whispered in his ear. “I love you, always and forever. It isn’t your fault.”
Willow wasn’t sure if he heard, but he seemed to calm a bit, and he laid his forehead on her hand.
When visiting hours ended, she was left alone. Just Willow’s disembodied thoughts, her unmoving body, the darkness of the night, and the TV.
Sometime during the night, a breaking news report came on. A pale-faced reporter appeared, her blond hair disheveled, the bags under her eyes poorly concealed, as if she’d been rushed in front of the camera. Her voice trembled as she spoke.
“The German-Russian coalition states, led by Bedsem Vanden-Plas, have mobilized their missile launchers as they move to fulfill their threat of unleashing a devastating assault on the European NATO members, and all others that threaten their rights, if sanctions and blockades are not lifted immediately. NATO forces are reinforcing the blockades of the Bosporus Strait, English Channel, and the North Sea, while the Asian coalition forces are blocking all traffic toward the Russian state…”
The next morning, Willow was still watching the television with detachment. There was chaos all around the world. The national news reports were telling everyone that there was nothing to worry about, but the local reporters were frantically announcing that bomb shelters in the major cities on the East and West Coasts of America were full. They were advising citizens to take shelter in basements and storm shelters.
Brad and John arrived, and Brad kissed Willow on the forehead before they sat down on either side of her, holding her unmoving hands.
Willow wished she could give them the hugs she knew they needed.
Suddenly, she felt something inside her begin to tingle.
“Who would have believed the world could have gone to the crapper in just a couple days?” Brad said. “The governor has declared a state of emergency, and after one o’clock today, nobody’s allowed on the streets. Mom and Dad took our cousins, the farmworkers, and their families, to Atchison. If the worst happens, they’ll be safe in the underground mines over there. But John and I couldn’t let you stay here by yourself.”
She saw him squeeze her hand, But sadly, she couldn’t feel it. Her body was still there, and the respirator kept it breathing, but it was as if… as if it didn’t really belong to her anymore.
What was she?
A ghost?
That tingling grew stronger, and a glowing pinprick of light began shimmering on the wall in front of her. It swelled an
d stretched until it was a disc of white light. It emitted a low hum, like static from a bad phone connection.
Willow glanced at her brothers. John was facing the strange light, but he clearly didn’t see it. He had no reaction to it.
The tingles were becoming stronger. Like thousands of tiny needles were pricking her all over.
And then it dawned on her.
Was this the same light she’d read about in magazine articles? The one that people talked about when they were near death.
Am I dying? Am I dead?
She turned her attention to the monitors. They indicated that her heart was still beating. She was still breathing. And when John bowed his forehead against her arm and quietly mumbled a prayer, she could hear him.
So she couldn’t be dead. Could she?
“The fever is starting to subside.”
The voice sounded like John’s, but it didn’t come from him. Willow scanned the room, looking for the speaker.
And then she heard Brad and John pleading. “Willow, come back to us…”
She was sure it was their voices, but they hadn’t spoken. Both had their heads bowed, holding her hands.
The voices were coming from the glowing disc.
And then another sound increased in volume. A wailing siren.
Brad and John raised their heads and looked toward the window.
“It’s begun,” John said.
“Willow, we need you with us. Come back to us.”
She turned toward the shimmering disc broadcasting the voices of her brothers. She willed herself closer to it. It was as if the disc was some kind of portal, and Brad and John were just on the other side.
A voice shouted outside her hospital room. “They’ve launched missiles! Everyone get to the basement!”
Brad and John remained huddled over her unmoving body. Brad whispered, “Baby sister, we were with you when you came into this world. We’re not ever leaving you.”
But the other Brad and John, the ones inside the light, continued to cry for her attention.
Suddenly, the world paused.
A blinding light from outside filled the hospital room. The screams and chaos in the hallway were silenced as the world turned white.
Then the light began to fade and the details of the world came into focus once again. Out the window, a tiny orange ball of flame rose into the sky near the horizon.
Brad and John both leaned over Willow’s body even as their voices called for her through the glowing portal—for she was certain now that was what it was.
She turned to face the shimmering white doorway—and took her first step toward whatever awaited her on the other side.
A Different Me
Willow lurched into a sitting position, gasping for breath. A chill spread through her as everything that had just happened replayed in her head. She had found herself inside someone else’s mind. She had been shot. And then the world had ended in a fiery ball of destruction.
But none of that was real. Was it?
She’d died in the woods. A wildling—
“You’re awake!” Brad yelled, his eyes glistening. He grabbed her hand and kissed it. “We thought…”
“Oh, Willow,” John said. “So much has happened while you’ve been unconscious.”
Willow was in her bedroom. It was familiar, and the smell of the cedar walls was like a comforting hug. Yet in her mind Willow remembered another bedroom, in a farmhouse, in that other world. She’d never lived there, yet she could mentally walk through it, could describe every nook and cranny. Her head throbbed as the memories of that doomed world mixed with those of her real life here in New Memphis.
No dream had ever seemed so real. She recalled the school she’d attended. Her friends. Her life. She even understood things that didn’t even exist in the real world, like cars and skyscrapers.
She’d never experienced anything like it.
She looked once more at her bedroom. Half of her felt strongly that this was right, all as it should be. But the other half of her—the version of herself from the dream—expected to see painted walls and flowery wallpaper trim. In that other world, those had been part of her farmhouse bedroom.
And in that world, her mother was still alive.
“What happened?” she asked.
Brad wrapped her in a hug. “The wildlings tried to take you. Dad shot every arrow he had into them before we could even get our bows strung.”
Willow pushed herself out of Brad’s embrace, her throat tightening with panic. “Where’s Dad? Is he okay?”
The look on John’s face gave her the answer even before he spoke. Ice filled her veins.
“Dad got hit hard before we could get there. He…”
Brad put his hand on Willow’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “We buried him next to Mom yesterday morning.”
A steel band tightened around Willow’s chest. She couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
Brad was saying something, but she didn’t hear. It didn’t matter anyway. Mom and Dad were gone. Both of them.
“Take this,” John said. “It’ll help.”
She looked up and saw John offering her a steaming mug. The smell of the mulling spices told her he’d prepared the same cure her father would make any time they got sick. She took the mug and sipped at the hot wine, letting the warmth spread through her.
She looked at her brothers’ appearance, and couldn’t help but note the contrast with the alternate vision she carried of them. Gone was their muscular build, developed working the fields of their parents’ farm. Gone were their factory-made clothes.
Willow had to remind herself that such things existed only in her dream world. The dream world that had exploded in a flash of terrible white light. Yet the memories of that dream kept pushing their way into her consciousness, leaving her nauseated.
John sandwiched her hand between his and stared at her grimly. “Willow, you’ve been out for three days. Nothing we did would wake you.”
Willow felt a queasy uncertainty. Could she have really been dreaming for that long? She rubbed her hands along her bare legs, trying to remove a chill, and suddenly felt self-conscious. She reached to the end of her bed, covered herself with a woolen blanket, and motioned her brothers away. “Let me get dressed.”
John patted her knee and stood, while Brad gave her a warm smile. “I’ll make lunch.”
As her brothers left her bedroom, Willow drained the mulled wine and set the mug on her nightstand. Then she stood. She was a bit unsteady on her feet, and had to pause to let a bout of dizziness pass.
She walked to the dresser her parents had made for her and opened the top drawer. Everything was a boring colorless grey or an uneven dirty color. And everything was roughly weaved from light and dark strands of wool. No sight of any pink, or blue, or anything bright or attractive. She sighed.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” Willow wondered aloud. Only the Dominion leaders wore anything with colors.
She looked around for some makeup—then suddenly shook her head with disgust. Makeup? That was what that farmhouse version of her would have done, not a thing a merchant would ever think to do. She didn’t even know anyone who owned makeup.
Next to the carved wooden doll that John had made for her on her seventh birthday was a small hand mirror. She picked it up and examined her face.
It was definitely her, but the thin face with prominent cheekbones that she’d been somewhat proud of had now become plump and filled-in. “I’ve got chipmunk cheeks,” she groaned.
She groaned again as it dawned on her that the thin face she was remembering had come from her fevered dreams. She’d always had a stout build. So why was she surprised at seeing her normal face?
Her memories were swirling and confused. She’d thoroughly mixed together elements of her dream with elements of her real life. She’d always been chubby. And she’d been proud of her curves. But now, for the first time in her lif
e, she considered whether she had too many.
She brusquely wiped the tears from her cheeks and put on some clothes—a finely woven woolen undershirt, a heavy tunic, and a pair of pants with an unstylish drawstring waistband. At least they were roomy and comfortable. She completed the outfit with a pair of half-height boots—probably the only thing she liked about this otherwise bland outfit.
After lacing them up, she spied a bristly wooden hairbrush that had fallen behind the dresser. She struggled to run the brush through her thick black hair, and had to wrestle with a knot or two, but soon her hair fell to her mid-back. At least that felt familiar.
Her mind drifted to a memory of Mom brushing her hair. Her throat tightened as she remembered how much they enjoyed brushing each other’s hair. After Mom died, Dad had offered to brush her hair for her, but she told him it wasn’t the same.
Willow now regretted not taking him up on the offer.
She pulled in a deep, shuddering breath and swallowed her sorrow. It wasn’t going to change anything.
And then a new memory came to mind unbidden. She remembered hiding something in the wall of her room long ago—a torn parchment she’d found under the floorboards in the supply shed. That must have been… ten years ago. She had shown it to her father, but he’d merely shaken his head, telling her it was junk and to burn it. For some reason she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that.
And now she could almost swear it had said something about dreams.
Her heart thudded as she searched her wall, trying to remember where she hid it. She pressed her fingers along the seams of the cedar slats, feeling for the loose spot. Finally one of the slats tilted slightly, and a couple yellowed scraps of something fell to the floor.
She unfolded the first scrap, a piece of parchment. The words were written in a very shaky handwriting.
Dispocalypse Page 3
