by E. J. Mellow
Becca chuckles. “Well, you’re certainly my favorite. I’m Becca.”
“Raymond.” The small Vigil enthusiastically takes her hand in his. “Rae has informed us about your recent…access into our world.”
“He’s also ensured your trust in staying quiet about it,” Sonja adds with an assessing gaze. Her gray hair is swept up into her normal tight bun, her angular features made sharper, while a lab coat fits to her slim figure of black slacks and sweater. She definitely looks like the intelligent, otherworldly creature she is.
“And I have no intentions of breaking that trust,” Becca says, looking Sonja straight in the eye. Whatever the Vigil scientist sees must convince her, for she gives Becca a respectful nod.
“I’m Sonja,” she says.
“Pleasure.” Becca shakes her hand.
A shadow in the corner has me stepping back to find an additional member of our group. His tall and thin black-clad frame stands rigid as I take him in, and from the pale hair tied in a low bun, to his razor-sharp green gaze, one eye made slightly disfigured by a ragged scar sliced over it, he looks every bit the villain from a nineties movie.
“Hector?” I ask, shocked. “What are you doing here?”
He frowns while glancing to Rae. “You haven’t told her?”
“I thought it would be best to do it together,” Rae says.
“Do what?” I ask. “What’s going on? And Rae, why do you have the habit of telling me things at the last minute?” I huff.
“Molly, who is this guy?” Becca chimes in, studying our new companion with unease.
“Remember how I said you’d be having a new Vigil guard when you get to Terra…” Rae starts to explain.
“Please”—I close my eyes briefly—“don’t say what I think you’re about to—”
“Hector is your new guard.”
I let out a deep sigh. “Of course he is.”
“Is this a bad guy?” Becca asks in a failed whisper. “’Cause he looks like a bad guy.”
“Hector was my grandfather’s Vigil guard,” I explain, her now knowing my ancestral secret too. “Like how Rae is to me, Hector was to him.”
“Okay.” Becca blinks. “So what’s the problem?”
“It’s a long story.” I turn to Rae. “Why was he chosen and not the handful of others you said were being trained for this?”
“I have an idea,” Hector chimes in. “Why don’t you ask your new guard, who’s standing right in front of you?”
“Oh.” Becca nods. “I get it now.”
“By all means.” I gesture for Hector to explain.
He tips his chin up. “None were deemed ready for this mission, and no other living Vigil has the years of experience that I do with guarding a chosen Dreamer.”
“Fine,” I say. “But I have to ask—didn’t you end up abandoning my grandfather? How can I trust you to protect me in Terra?”
“He did what now?” Becca whips a glare at Hector.
His jaw tightens. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was much younger then, and my actions that day…what I did to Robert, well, mistakes won’t be repeated,” he says with conviction that I’m unsure is for my benefit or for his.
I narrow my gaze. “What exactly did you do to him?”
“We’ll have plenty of time to learn all each other’s secrets soon enough,” he says tightly, “but for now, I think it’s time we begin.” He nods at Sonja and Raymond. “Shall we? Elena wouldn’t want us to get off schedule.”
“Yes, please let’s all make sure to remain punctual when we’re about to completely alter two people’s lives,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Wouldn’t want to keep Elena waiting.”
Rae places a gentle touch to my shoulder, a silent gesture to say breathe, which I do.
But come on—is it really my fault I’m a bit testy today?
Guiding us toward the back of the room, Sonja pairs off with me, while Rae and Raymond group together, each giving us an extremely detailed examination. Urine samples, blood work, weight, height—all things they’ve taken before but need again. And lastly, making sure I haven’t eaten in the last twelve hours, which I assure her, even if I was allowed, I wouldn’t have had the stomach to ingest anything, my nerves being what they are. After what feels like forever and at the same time like a blink, we’re ready to be led into the Molecular Chambers.
Food or not, I think I’m going to be sick.
The two white pods rest on the floor, their glass tops open, waiting for us to get in, and the multitude of clear wires run from one machine to the other, looking like a tapestry in the midst of being woven. Other than one monitor beside the Molecular Chambers, the rest of the room is empty. Sonja and Raymond will conduct the transfer from outside the room.
“We’ll need you to take your clothes off,” Sonja says while typing something into the computer near the two pods.
“Um, what now?” I ask.
“Your clothes,” she repeats, gesturing to my body. “We can’t have any foreign cells interfering with the transfer.”
Rae starts to strip beside me, and as I catch a peek of his ridiculously defined abs, I swivel away at the same time Becca jumps in front of him. “Whoa there, big guy! I’m all for showing you off, but there are some things I’d like to keep for my eyes only.”
“And I’d rather not be the star of a peep show,” I add.
“Once you’re in your Molecular Chamber, you’ll be covered with the amniotic fluid we discussed,” Sonja explains. “It’s opaque in color, so no one will be able to see anything.”
“We’ll leave the room in the meantime.” Raymond nods for everyone to exit.
Swallowing, I turn to Rae, his honey gaze still on Becca’s retreating form before it collides with mine.
We both stand in a trance, the reality of what’s about to go down almost paralyzing me to the spot now. “Before we do this,” I say, “I want to let you know, what you’re giving up…for me…I—”
Rae taking quick strides toward me, bringing me in for a hug, cuts me off, and I cling to him, breathing in his unique fragrance of summer and mint.
“I know, Mols,” he says into my hair. “We’ve had some crazy adventures, you and I. This is just another.”
I step back and peer into his handsome face, take in his full lips that always seem on the edge of a grin and the way his golden curls fall in contrast to his dark skin. “I love you,” I say. “We might not share blood, but you will always be my family.”
His eyes shimmer. “I love you too,” he says gruffly. “Little sis.”
With my heart full, I hug him one last time. Then, with him turned around and eyes closed, I get into my birthday suit and slide into the plush material of my pod. It feels very similar to my white coffin in the Village Portal Bookstore, the texture’s temperature slightly warmer than my body, and it molds to every curve, keeping me from feeling as exposed as I am. Still, none of it is enough to keep me from shaking with nerves. I have absolutely no idea what I’m about to experience or how I’ll feel after.
If we make it through, how much of us will still be us?
No one, not even the Vigil scientists, know exactly what to expect. All of which is super reassuring.
Sonja’s voice comes through the room’s intercom, meaning Rae must be in his pod as well. “We’re going to activate the amniotic simulation now, so try to relax. All of this is what we’ve already gone over,” she says as a foggy gel seeps into my pod. My muscles completely relax as I float up and then become stationary as the liquid stops filling right as it outlines my face. Besides my eyes, nose, and mouth, everything else is completely submerged in the gray fluid. The sensation is strange. I can barely feel any part of my body, as if I only have my face that’s exposed to the air and nothing else.
“Rae?” I call out, my voice sounding small.
“Yes?” Comes his deep reply, which is slightly muffled from the liquid filling my ears.
I swallow, hating what I’m about
to admit, but needing to. “I’m scared.”
There’s a beat of silence.
“Wherever we’re about to go, we’re going there together,” he says, and it’s like a phantom sensation of his hand grasping mine.
“Together,” I whisper right before the buzz of people enters the room.
I hear Becca’s muffled voice close by, saying soothing words to Rae before her freckled face is hovering above me. “You look ridiculous,” she says, and I attempt a chuckle, but the fluid surrounding me makes it difficult.
“Famous last words,” I say.
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. You’re just altering your DNA. It’s an in-and-out procedure these days.”
“Evidently.”
She grins before her green gaze becomes serious. “I’ll be right outside,” she says. “This is going to work.”
I stare up at her, a tightness forming in my throat. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For believing me.”
Her eyes hold mine before she slips a silver chain forward from around her neck, showcasing the scripted word Dove. It’s the necklace I gave her for her birthday. “You’re my turtle,” she says, referencing my own piece of jewelry that goes with hers. “Turtledoves stick together.”
My stomach flutters with adrenaline and emotion. “I love you, Bec.”
“I love you too,” she says and then bops me on the nose, breaking the intimate moment. “I’ll see you soon.”
As Becca ducks away, Sonja replaces her image, her Vigil features pinched in concentration. “I’m hooking in your oxygen now before we finish filling the pod. You’ll also feel a pinch at the base of your neck. Raymond is going to give you a light sedative. We can’t have you fully out, but we can help to dull any potential discomfort. The amniotic simulation is to aid with the electric current, but hopefully not make it as acute.”
I swallow. “Do you think…will there will be much…discomfort?”
“I won’t sugarcoat it. This won’t be pleasant, but it shouldn’t be as bad as getting hit by lightning.”
“How reassuring,” I say, having the urge to shift my body, but it’s like I’m a toy stuck in a Jell-O mold.
“Are you ready, Molly?” Sonja asks, her gray eyes searching, and it’s like the world stops spinning, waiting for my answer.
“Yes,” I eventually say. “I’m ready.”
She nods once and then inserts a breathing tube into my nose and over my mouth. It’s only a little uncomfortable. “Take deep breaths in,” she says. “Yes, just like that. You’re doing great.” Glancing forward, she gives a thumbs-up to someone before returning her attention to me. “You’re going to feel that pinch now.”
I scrunch my face as two small needles hook into the back of my neck, and then, like a veil, any worry I had slips away as everything falls out of focus, a blurred image beyond a rain-covered glass.
“Good, Molly. Good,” comes Sonja’s silky voice through the haze. “Close your eyes now. We’re filling the rest of the pod.”
Her smooth features are the last things I see before the room blinks to blackness, and I’m barely aware of a cool gel flowing over me until I become nothing. I’m just a brain floating in liquid, my body detached. A strange hum fills my ears, the pod lifting off the ground, and then everything returns to quiet, my breathing the only thing in existence.
In. Out. In. Out.
A part of me knows I should be worried, freaking out, screaming that this is all wrong, but I can’t seem to do any of that. I’m merely a vessel experiencing my existence pass by. And the longer I lie docile, uncaring, the longer the concept of time dissolves along with everything else. My thoughts drift, wander, float until those break apart as well, transferring my state of existence back into particles, into atoms of barely there consciousness.
But then, just as my mind expands further into thoughtlessness, it’s violently jolted back together, a kettle’s whistle going off, and like a boiling pot of water, my skin begins to tingle until it starts to burn, and I want to thrash and move away. But I can do nothing except be still and let the thousands of needles prick me in waves.
Again.
And again.
And again.
No part of me safe from the onslaught.
My body is fire, smoke, and my cells are suffocating, screaming for it to stop. But it doesn’t. My skin keeps twisting and tearing as though it’s being raked inside out, and a metallic tang grasps to every one of my taste buds. Yet I still lie motionless, a prisoner within my own body, no sense of escape.
And so it goes on, for days, weeks, millennia, my mind stretching out infinitely as whatever is changing me, becoming me, snapping me apart, only to put me back together, overtakes everything.
I am no longer Molly.
No longer human.
I. Just. Am.
Colors flash behind my eyelids, galaxies spinning, and I fly through them, racing toward an unknown destination. And at the moment the conscious part of me accepts this new existence of pain as my forever—my normal—the world explodes in a kaleidoscope of sensations until it gets vacuumed into white, into nothing. This is where I stay, floating in some In Between, a disembodied energy. But then a light materializes in the distance, and I push my mind toward it, gradually become aware of a coolness flowing over me. Whatever held me trapped, paralyzed, begins to recede, and suddenly, like a punch to my gut, my chest jerks forward, and I blink my eyes open on a gasp.
Reborn.
— 15 —
Soon I’ll be standing in front of you,
where I always should have been.
—A letter from Molly to Dev
The room was a buzz of barely contained nerves, Dev not the only one waiting in anticipation. His skin felt like it was on fire, his heart threatening to kick through his chest as he stood in the back of the room. The wait was like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt frozen in time, screaming on deaf ears for the universe to start spinning again, to do something. But it all remained still, a held breath unable to sigh.
Cracking his knuckles, he took in the two layers of guards separating him from the portal that lay dormant in the center of the space, their presence more amusing than annoying. Try to keep me from her, he thought. The elders stood off to one side, their six white-robed figures statues of feigned boredom. Elena was the only one making conversation with a Vigil next to her, a stout woman with copper hair. She was one of the lead scientists in the Dreamer Containment Center, and Dev tried to recall her name, only being introduced moments ago, but it proved useless, his mind too preoccupied to retain much of anything.
His roommates stood beside him, having been granted access to the facility after Dev’s relentless and rather threatening insistence. He knew they would be a comforting sight to her, something familiar after all the unknown. Tim was to his left, hands clasped in front of him, perfectly at ease, while Aveline was to his right, leaning against the wall. She blew a lock of blonde hair from her face as she played with the transmitter wrapping her wrist, no doubt sending a message to one of her many friends. The thought of Dev’s own recent loss of a companion hit him low in the gut, and he rolled his shoulders back, keeping them from hunching forward from the pain. What was done was done, and he knew Rae wouldn’t want any of them to wallow. His choice was made as much for himself as for everyone else. Even so, the sting of never being able to see him again would take a lot longer than a few days to fade.
A high-pitched whir sounding throughout the room interrupted Dev’s melancholy thoughts, and he looked up. The portal in the center was turning on, and in an instant everyone fell silent, their attention turning toward the slowly brightening light. Dev watched, mesmerized, a swallow stuck in his throat as he took a step forward, his heart a race of beats. He tried to peer over the Vigil guards’ shoulders, take in what was happening, but they were pinched too closely together, blocking any visibility. Grinding his teeth, he was about to start knocking them back when a burst
of white shot out from the portal, followed by a gust of wind.
Dev shielded his eyes before glancing around frantically.
Was she here? Was that it?
Elena made her way forward, a small gap opening in the circle, and Dev stepped behind her. Breathe, he told himself. Remember to breathe. Beyond all the bodies, he thought he glimpsed a shoulder and a bit of dark hair, which sent his mind tumbling, desperate, before guards stood in his way again, blocking and keeping him back. Dev barely contained a growl as his muscles coiled, hands balled into fists, and he pinned each Vigil with a stare that spoke of quick deaths if they didn’t move. With meek expressions, they hesitantly stepped aside, allowing him to march forward, ready to end any threat that tried to get in his way again. But even in his haste, as he walked past the last row of soldiers, he stopped, his body seizing on a vision, one made of familiar curves and deep-brown eyes set in midnight.
He drank in Molly just as she drank in him, and that’s when everything disappeared
as
Dev
fell,
swimming in starlight.
Each will come to us,
the brightest among the stars.
It will be for us to guide
and for them to lead.
—Tome of the Elders, Vol. II;
The Dreamers, Article 328
— 16 —
It’s too bright and loud. Black-clad bodies encircle me, a line of austere expressions trapping me into the center of some room. I blink, trying to focus my new vision that seems to want to pick up every detail—an errant lock of hair on the shoulder of one of the guards, a faded scar on the neck of another. Retaining Vigil DNA ended up giving me more than just access to Terra’s portals, but also new senses, or more accurately— heightened ones. How Rae functioned like this, I have no idea. Everything is so acute, sharpened to the point that it almost hurts to open my eyes. Sonja and Rae seemed to think I’d soon get used to it, but even with spending a few hours after the transfer with them, things have remained extra sensitive. Rae said I shouldn’t complain, considering he feels like he’s now deaf and blind with how dull humans experience things. This of course elicited Becca to punch him in the arm and ask if that felt dull.
