The Rift

by Skn Hammerstone

  12

  My tears continued to fall even though I was no longer in a world where Avery existed.

  “Why are you crying?” Joshua asked.

  “I let my brother die,” I whispered, “I let him die and then I forgot him.” I didn’t expect him to understand and I didn’t expect him to care.

  “You didn’t let him die, Rachael,” he told me.

  “I shouldn’t have let him leave. I should have stopped him.”

  “He didn’t die in vain. He was a hero. But that is not the reason you tried to kill yourself. You are still missing part of the story,” Was that sympathy?

  “But you told me that I wasn’t dreaming,” I was confused. Why wasn’t he denying the existence of the other world that I seemed to live in?

  “Just because this isn’t a dream, it doesn’t mean the other things you know aren’t real,” he explained.

  “He’s dead. He’s gone just like Dad,” I dropped my head into my hands.

  “Death is such a terrible thing,” I felt Joshua’s hand stroking my hair and for once it didn’t burn me. “I’m sorry that this happened to you. No one deserves to see the people they love die, especially you.” He knelt in front of me, staring in fascination at my tears, “I remember death. It’s so unpleasant to anyone it affects and you can never forget.”

  13

  I faced yet another day without the routine I was used to but it didn’t matter anymore. I knew what I had been trying so hard to remember. My brother. Maybe I didn’t remember everything but I remembered enough. Now that I knew one thing, I needed to find out the other. Where was this City of Chaos and was it a real place? I got back on my laptop and went to the internet. It went to my homepage once again.

  The picture of Jesse and me. I knew why I had put it there now. To remind myself that I wasn’t alone and that someone cared. But I didn’t have time to think about that now. I typed into the search engine and numerous sites came up. Not knowing where to begin, I clicked on the first link. What I read there was worse than anything I could possibly have imagined. I clicked on site after site but they all said exactly the same thing.

  Over and over again the chilling truth was pounded into my head and into my heart. A tingling cold came over me along with a sickening feeling. It seemed so wrong but it made perfect sense. Everything fit exactly as it should. Every terrible piece had fallen into place.

  14

  “I know where I am and I know why this isn’t a dream,” I stated.

  “Explain to me what you believe,” Joshua told me.

  “The City of Chaos is the afterlife. Heaven and Hell are one miserable place that every soul goes to,” I began to explain.

  “You are right so far,” he agreed.

  “Both worlds I am experiencing are real but one of them is only a memory,” I continued. “I’m dead. What I think is another real place is truly just the memory of the life that I lived before. A life that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “There you are wrong. You are not dead and the reason you are not dead is me. But, then again, you are dead and the reason for that is also me,” he said.

  “I don’t understand,” I admitted. I had been completely sure that I was right.

  “You aren’t supposed to understand. Tell me, did you find out the real reason you tried to kill yourself?”

  “No,” I hadn’t really wanted to. Believing that it was Avery’s death was good enough for me. The last thing I needed was to feel like killing myself again.

  “You need to find out. It is important that you know what has been done for you,” Joshua said.

  “Can you tell me?”

  “Only you know what really happened so only you can tell yourself,” He answered.

  “If it is so important, why can’t you tell me what you know?”

  “Because it doesn’t work that way,” he told me. “You need to find out on your own.”

  “If everything I think exists is real, what was wrong with the guy that bit me?” Joshua seemed to be willing to help me more than Jesse.

  “What guy?” he asked in genuine confusion, “No one ever bit you.”

  15

  They say that rain makes old injuries ache and itch and occasionally burn. I would never have believed it before. Why would it do that? It didn’t make any sense. But as I woke up the following morning, I felt numerous lines of fire racing across my back. Correct me if I am wrong, but most people don’t look at their own back all of the time so it was natural that I hadn’t noticed this before.

  I quickly got up and moved to a mirror, twisting my neck to see. I was hesitant to look but I couldn’t ignore it. Underneath the thin cotton of my shirt were at least 20 scars, each several inches long. Line after line on my back. Every single one of them was identical in size and shape and every single one of them burned.

  16

  “Jesse,” I saw him immediately at his locker. He looked up quickly.

  “It’s in the inside pocket of your jacket, I believe,” he answered. What did he think I was going to say?

  “What is in the inside pocket of my jacket?” I asked.

  “Your pain medication,” he shut his own locker and opened mine.

  “How did you know?” that was weird. He seemed to view the world one step ahead of everyone else.

  “You always need it when it’s raining,” he pulled a prescription out of the jacket hanging in my locker and tossed it to me.

  “What are the scars from?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you,” he answered quickly, like he had rehearsed his answer.

  “Why?” I was sick of people not telling me things about myself. They didn’t have any right to keep it away from me.

  “Your mom and your doctor think it would be better if you found out these things on your own.”

  “Just like I was supposed to find out about Avery on my own? But I guess everyone knows better than me about what I can handle. I guess trying to commit suicide does that to a person,” I had thought he would help me but I was wrong.

  “Rachael it’s not what you think,” he started, attempting to stop me by grabbing my arm, but I was done.

  “Just forget it,” I pushed past him, leaving him by my locker. I was sick of these games that people were playing. I just wanted to remember in whatever way possible.

  17

  I walked into the house after school, fully intending to ignore my mother. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, especially not her.

  “Rachael.” She tried to stop me but I kept going. “I know why you’re having these dreams.” So I stopped. She was actually going to tell me something now.

  “You said the name of the person in your dreams was Joshua. Before Avery died you knew someone named Joshua,” I turned around to face her.

  “Well, we all called him Josh,” I could see that she held a framed picture in her hands.

  “Who was he?” I asked. The name wasn’t sparking any memories for me yet.

  “He was your brother’s best friend. They went to high school together and they were both seniors when you were a freshman. Josh was in the marines too. He was the one who told us Avery didn’t make it. I haven’t seen him since. He was your first boyfriend and as far as I know he still was up until then,” she nervously tapped her fingers on the picture frame.

  “I tried to contact him when you were in the hospital but all of his numbers were disconnected,” she looked down to the picture. “Here,” she handed it to me. “This was taken right before they left for training.” I slowly took the picture from her. It was taken outside. I stood in-between Avery and a tall guy with curly, dark blonde hair and blue eyes. The picture was enough. I knew who he was.

  “You’re a nobody!” the cheerleader taunted me.

  “I don’t care what you have to say,” I ignored her and kept walking.

  “Why? Because your big brother always comes to your rescue with his big bad friends?” she laughed.

  “No. Because everythin
g you say is incredibly stupid and completely wrong,” I answered.

  “You only have one friend in this entire school. I don’t think I’m wrong,” she just wouldn’t stop.

  “Maybe that’s all I need,” I was tired of talking to her and I didn’t really care what it was that she had to say.

  “Well that’s just pathetic. If any of my friends were like Jesse, I would drop them immediately,” That was it.

  “You can say whatever you want to about me, but there is nothing wrong with Jesse,” I turned to face her.

  “No, there’s nothing right about Jesse. He’s a nerdy, spineless, pushover not to mention short,” she was really getting into it now. Her insults wouldn’t have meant anything to me if they hadn’t been directed at Jesse.

  “Do you really want to test me?” I could feel my anger swiftly rising, boiling in my blood.

  “And come on, who actually cares about him? It’s his fault his mother can’t find a new husband. No man wants a son they can’t be proud of,” she was obviously proud of herself but she wouldn’t be for long.

  “I’m going to give you one chance to take that back,” I warned.

  “Why would I take back the truth?” she asked. My hand was already in a fist before I swung. The satisfactory snap of her nose followed. She shrieked, drawing the attention of Nicholas as well as many other students.

  “You broke my nose!” She screamed.

  “I know. Did you think that was an accident?” I retorted. She wasn’t a wimp though. She lunged towards me and we both went down on the pavement. I gained the upper hand almost immediately, twisting so that I was on top of her in order to punch her again, this time in the jaw. She pushed me off and stood up. I quickly got to my feet and kneed her in the stomach. She groaned in pain but swung her hand to slap me in the face.

  I stumbled back a few steps but recovered enough to drive the heel of my combat boot into her shin. She fell backwards onto the ground but stood again. By this time my face was throbbing and her nose was bleeding and we had attracted the attention of a teacher.

  “Girls that’s enough!” she ordered. That didn’t mean I was going to listen. I backhanded the cheerleader and she returned the favor.

  “I said enough! Someone go get her brother!” The teacher shouted. I slammed into the cheerleader and we ran into a brick wall on the outside of the school.

  “Stop or you’re both suspended!” the teacher obviously didn’t want to get her hands dirty by actually breaking up the fight. The cheerleader drover her fist into my stomach and tears sprang into my eyes at the dull, breath-taking blow. I leaned over slightly to stop the pain and elbowed her in the face. Her head snapped back and hit the wall hard.

  “Where is Avery Taylor? Did anyone do as I asked?” I stomped on her foot and, when her head bent down, slammed my knee into her jaw. She screamed in pain and pushed me onto the ground again. I grabbed her as I fell, pulling her down with me. We rolled several times, fighting to gain the advantage.

  “Do you see what your sister is doing?” Now I was in trouble. I was going to get at least one more good hit in before this was over. I stopped the rolling but I should have gotten my punch in sooner. Someone wrapped their arms around my waist from behind and drug me off her and completely off of the ground. It wasn’t Avery as he was talking to the teacher. That meant it was Josh.

  I struggled to get away from him as he half drug, half carried me away from the fight.

  “Let me go!” I ordered.

  “Stop fighting me!” He countered as he put me back on my feet. The instant I touched the ground I tried to run back over to the fight but he tightened his grip on me.

  “Let me go!” I wasn’t going to be able to escape him. He was over a foot taller than me and probably weighed twice as much.

  “No!” he wrenched me around to face him. “Your brother is trying to keep you from getting suspended again!”

  “I don’t care! She isn’t going to get away with what she said!” I tried to escape again but I couldn’t.

  “Rachael you broke her nose and it looks like you dislocated her jaw. You got her,” Josh insisted.

  “Not good enough!” Why wouldn’t he just let me go?

  “Trust me, Karma will get her. Now let’s get you out of here,” He kept a tight grip on my arm as he led me back to the school.

  “You’re going to pay for this!” she shrieked after me as Avery ran to catch up to us.

  “I seriously doubt it, bitch!” I shouted back.

  “Avery!” the teacher hinted in irritation.

  “Sorry! No swearing on school grounds sis,” he gave a fake admonishing tone and a wink, “Nice job!” he stated once we were out of earshot.

  “You were great out there, love” Josh added, putting his arm around me and kissing my forehead.

  “I was, wasn’t I?” I agreed.

  18

  “You won’t be satisfied until you know everything,” Joshua stated. It had taken him long enough.

  “No, I won’t,” I answered, not that an answer was necessary.

  “Why do you have to know?” he asked. Hadn’t he been the one to say that I needed to know these things?

  “Because it’s my life and I have a right to know!” I had thought that much at least would be obvious.

  “You’re the one who took away your memories. It’s your fault that you don’t know,” he said. I hadn’t thought of it that way before but now that I did it didn’t mean I didn’t want to know anymore.

  “Just tell me one thing. Why did I do it?” No one else was going to tell me and of all the things that I wanted to know, this was the most important.

  “Do you honestly think that I want to talk about this?” he shouted in anger, like it was something personal to him.

  “It’s my life and I have a right to know!” I shouted right back. He didn’t say anything for the longest time, a strange fire burning inside of his eyes.

  “Fine,” he was quiet in a way that wasn’t good. “But this is going to hurt worse than anything else I or anyone else has done to you.”

  “I still want to know,” I didn’t care how much it hurt, although I didn’t see how it could.

  “You don’t have a choice anymore,” I knew I should be afraid now but I wasn’t. He moved to stand behind me, resting his hands on my temples. The burning of his skin was almost immediate, “this isn’t even the worst of it.” An agony like a thousand knives being buried in my mind quickly followed and the City of Chaos faded. In its place was the outside of a car in the middle of nowhere.

  “It’s not going to start,” Josh sighed, closing the hood.

  “Should we stay here and call someone?” I found myself asking. He glanced around the empty road.

  “No. We’re less than a mile away from your house. We can walk and I’ll call a tow truck for my car in the morning. After all, I haven’t seen your mom since I told her about Avery.” So this was after Avery died which meant it was very recent. He began to walk and, without deciding to, I began to follow him. I guess I didn’t have a choice as to what I did or said. It was just a memory. We walked down the dark street, approaching a small alley off to one side.

  “There,” I pointed, “That way is faster.”

  “I don’t know,” he answered uncertainly.

  “Come one Josh. Nothing has happened in this town in years. What harm could there possibly be in going down an alley?” Somehow in my mind I knew that was the wrong choice but the me in this memory didn’t.

  “Alright,” he sighed. We got about halfway down the alley when seven guys with strange looking eyes came out of the shadows, four in front and three behind.

  “Isn’t this a pleasant surprise,” one of the stated.

  “Please just let us pass,” Josh said.

  “Not so fast Josh,” he stopped him.

  “You know them?” I asked, but he didn’t answer me.

  “That’s quite a pretty girl you have there.”

  “Don’t touch he
r!” Josh snapped.

  “Why ever not?” he stroked my arm and I shuddered, moving away quickly and standing closer to Josh.

  “I said don’t touch her!” Josh shoved him.

  “You just messed with someone you should not have messed with,” he sounded angry now. Two of them grabbed Josh, slamming him against the brick wall of the alley. He didn’t give up though. He kicked another one as they came towards him, knocking them onto the ground. All of them began to close in on him now.

  “Run Rachael!” he shouted. “Run!” I started to back up but I couldn’t leave him here alone.

  “Let’s have some fun, shall we?” the first guy took out a switch blade as he approached Josh. The other six held him, immobilized, against the wall. Instead of answering him, Josh spit in his face.

  “Bad move,” the first guy told him. He drew back the knife and stabbed it deep into Josh’s stomach.

  “No!” I screamed but I knew it was too late.

  “You’ll never win,” Josh managed to say.

  “I already have,” he began to stab Josh over and over again, all over his body. I ran then, but not to escape. I took out my cellphone and speed dialed on the second button.

  “What’s up Rachael?” Jesse asked.

  “They’re killing him!” I screamed as I glanced back at the gruesome scene behind me.

  “Who’s killing who?” he questioned.

  “I think he’s dead,” I whispered in disbelief as Josh’s body fell onto the ground. My heart was pounding, the rapid beat echoing in my ears.

  “Who is dead? What’s going on?” Jesse tried to calm me down but it wasn’t working.