Kind of Like Life

by McMullen, Christina

  “This isn’t your world,” Blake grunted as he pulled himself up into the branches and aimed a kick to his stepfather’s head. The kick landed, sending Randy sprawling backwards. This gave Blake the opportunity to run back toward the beach where he would have more room to maneuver. He was glad he sent Renee away. She was probably mad at him, but it was for her own good. Blake was looking forward to repaying the monster for a lifetime of abuse and Renee didn’t need to be a witness to this.

  Blake made it to the tree line before Randy caught up and plowed into him, sending him sprawling onto the beach.

  “You still can’t outrun me, boy.”

  Blake’s vision exploded with flashes of bright light as Randy’s fist connected with the side of his head. Half blinded, Blake groped for the knife at his side as Randy’s hands went around his neck in a chokehold. At last, his hand found the hilt and Blake swung his arm wildly, slashing at Randy’s face until the grip on his neck loosened and he fell back with an anguished cry. Scrambling to his hands and knees, Blake crawled to the water’s edge to rinse the blood and sand from his face. The salty seawater stung his wounds, but Blake barely noticed.

  As he pulled himself up, he heard a soft click and turned around to find himself staring into the muzzle of a small, semi-automatic nine millimeter. It wasn’t the first time Randy threatened him by shoving the gun in his face. As a small time drug dealer, Randy often had weapons lying around within reach and had no moral issue with pointing them at Blake whenever he wanted. But this time, the reaction he got was not the one he expected. Blake took a step back, threw out his hands, and laughed maniacally.

  “Well, go ahead, scumbag. Pull the trigger, you pathetic coward!”

  Without hesitation, Randy did just that. But instead of shooting Blake in the face, nothing happened. He checked the safety and tried again with the same results. After the third time, he began to panic.

  “Keep trying, idiot,” Blake said with an insulting laugh as he raised his own flintlock pistol. “Automatics weren’t invented until the eighteen nineties.” Taking aim, he squeezed the trigger and stood silently as Randy fell to the ground, clutching his now shattered kneecap.

  Blake! Wait!

  Blake spun around, his heart pounded in his chest. He could have sworn he heard Renee yell his name, but she was in her own world. The door had disappeared right after he sent her through. Honestly, he worried that he would never see her again, but he had other problems to worry about first.

  “You have to aim higher if you want to kill me,” Randy hissed, biting back the pain.

  “I intend to… eventually,” Blake informed him in a deadly whisper as his lips twisted into a cruel smile. He took aim again, this time, hitting Randy in his right shoulder.

  “You are a very lucky son of a bitch, Randall J. Lawson.”

  Using the sole of his boot, Blake pushed Randy onto his back and put just enough pressure on his chest to make it difficult to breath. “Yes,” he said, spitting in the man’s face before putting the barrel of the gun between his eyes. “You are very lucky that I’m not patient enough to drag this out over sixteen years.” Blake’s voice was low, quiet, and disturbingly calm, given that inside, he was seething with hatred and anger. “Killing you is going to be downright saintly compared to what I think you deserve.”

  Blake! Don’t kill him!

  Blake hesitated and looked over his shoulder, but neither Renee nor the door were anywhere to be found. He shrugged it off, thinking that the adrenaline rush he was experiencing was doing strange things to his head. Unfortunately, his hesitation allowed Randy the opportunity to yank the gun out of Blake’s grasp, turn it around, and get off a single shot. His aim was wild, but it still caught Blake in the shoulder, throwing him back and into the surf.

  “You were saying?” Randy gasped as he pulled himself up onto his one good leg, using the gun as leverage.

  Blake conjured another pistol and pushed himself up, but as he did, the air around him began to shift. Thick grass sprang up from the sand and the ocean shrank until it was nothing more than a serene pool of clear water. Trees of brilliant and vibrant shades sprang up out of nowhere and a thunderous boom echoed as a cloud of red and gold birds swarmed from a fissure that appeared in the sky.

  “What the…?”

  Question nothing! Keep your mind clear! Please, Blake, trust me!

  This time, Blake was sure that it was Renee’s voice he was hearing, but it was definitely coming from inside of his own head.

  Renee? He thought the name instead of saying it out loud.

  I’m here, Renee responded inside his head. Don’t be afraid, Blake.

  I don’t understand. How are you in my head?

  You ask that now? He heard her laugh softly. I’ll explain in a minute. Right now, I’ve got other things to worry about.

  Blake watched in disbelief and fascination as the glowing birds swarmed his stepfather, melding together to form a glowing, golden cage. He flinched as Randy threw himself at the side of the cage, but instead of breaking through, he let out a tortured scream and clutched his now smoking shoulder where it had met the bars.

  “Go! Find the source!”

  He heard Renee give the command, not from within his head, but behind him and he turned to see her, dressed head to toe in golden armor that pulsed with the same electric energy as the cage, speaking to a brightly colored tropical bird. When she saw him, her eyes went wide.

  “You’re wounded!” she gasped.

  “It’s not that bad,” he said, but winced when he tried to shrug.

  “Shush! Close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “Blake,” she said in exasperation, “I said no questions! Please, I have to do this quickly. You’ll understand in a second, but it will be much worse if you’re wounded.”

  Blake felt like he had at least a million questions, but he did as Renee asked and closed his eyes. A warm, almost tingling feeling spread over his shoulder and the pain from the wound began to fade. He was tempted to open his eyes to see what Renee was doing to him, but considering that he wasn’t even in control of his own mind at the moment, he had to trust her.

  “Done,” he heard her say and opened his eyes. “Just in time too.”

  “Why?” he asked, but Renee didn’t answer. Instead, she looked past him to where the tropical bird was flying back with something in its beak. Blake couldn’t see what it was, but suddenly, he was struck with inexplicable dread and didn’t want the bird anywhere near him.

  “It’s okay,” Renee said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It will be over quickly.”

  “What will be- Argh!”

  Suddenly, the world around him seemed to implode. Images of his life, terrible images, the worst moments, flashed before his eyes. Every fear, every horrible, dark, or disturbing thought, every awful moment bombarded his mind at once. But as quickly as it came, the images faded, leaving behind knowledge and a feeling that was beyond description. Blake opened his eyes once more. Where the tropical bird had been, now stood a majestic phoenix with flaming feathers of gold, red, and deep maroon. But Blake knew, not just from the creature’s beautiful, yet familiar green and gold eyes, that this was no ordinary bird at all.

  Chapter 18

  A soft, pleasurable sensation, like phantom fingertips, swept from the top of Blake’s head, down to the small of his back, causing him to shiver involuntarily. He turned away from the phoenix and saw Renee kneeling next to yet another majestic firebird. As she gently stroked the feathers of its head and back, the sensation returned, mimicking her movements on Blake’s body. Though it had a calming effect, it was still a bit too strange for him to comprehend.

  “How?” Blake asked in an awed whisper.

  “When you pushed me back into my mind, you sent a part of your own consciousness with you,” Renee explained with a shy smile, tilting her eyes toward the phoenix. As if sensing that she was being talked about, the bird looked up, piercing Blake with the same too
big eyes that he had seen every time he looked in the mirror.

  He recalled briefly noticing the parrot on Renee’s shoulder, as well as his last thought as he pushed her through the door. Keep her safe. At the time, it was a silent plea to whoever or whatever was in control of their lives. What Renee was implying seemed impossible, yet he could deny neither what he saw nor what he had experienced himself. But there were still many questions, like how Renee managed to manipulate the world in his head and what she had done to Randy, who now appeared to be sleeping peacefully within the golden cage.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Renee said with a glance at Randy, giggling as Blake’s eyes went wide.

  Your thoughts are rather loud at the moment.

  Though her voice echoed in his head, Renee’s lips hadn’t moved.

  “Okay, that’s just freaky,” Blake said out loud.

  “Sorry,” she said bashfully. “I’m not sure, but I think they control the link as well.”

  The bird with Renee’s eyes stepped closer and rested its head on Blake’s knee. Hesitantly, he reached out with a trembling hand, running the back of his fingers against the soft, silken feathers on the bird’s neck. He heard a small sigh and turned to see Renee flush to a deep red as she realized her reaction was audible, and what had caused it.

  “Okay, start from the beginning. What exactly happened after I sent you away?” Blake asked, not just to distract Renee from her embarrassment, but also to distract himself from the sudden desire to elicit the same response from her, but directly this time.

  “After you pushed me through, I could still hear you,” Renee explained. “When I heard you address your stepfather, I tried to come back, but she wouldn’t let me.” She nodded toward the phoenix. “Of course, she was still a parrot then, but she sort of pushed me back into the woods. I don’t know how, but she managed to find my mind, the real me that you could only see when you were in my mind alone, and she… kind of went into it.”

  “What do you mean, went into it?” Blake asked.

  “It’s hard to explain,” Renee said with a frown. “She flew into the center and when she came out, she had this glowing ball in her mouth. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but it scared the crap out of me and I didn’t want to be near it. I kept thinking these awful thoughts…” Renee shuddered.

  “I know what you’re talking about,” Blake said quietly. “It was the same for me when you sent this one in. Is that where it went, into my mind?”

  Renee nodded. “We were experiencing every thought from our subconscious all at once,” she explained. “I’m pretty sure that’s what they were using against us. The doctors, that is. They manipulated our fears in order to try and kill us. But… they can’t anymore.” She looked up at Blake with a nervous smile. “Thanks to you.”

  “Me?”

  “You sent a part of yourself into my mind to protect me and… well, something happened and now we’re connected. You’re the guardian of my subconscious and in return, I’m the guardian of yours. As long as we have this, they can’t use our minds to kill us. I don’t think they ever expected that this could happen.”

  “But that doesn’t mean they can’t just kill us for real,” Blake reasoned. “Or send someone else,” he added with a glance at the cage.

  “No,” Renee acknowledged, “but that does mean we don’t have to worry about our own minds trying to kill us while we look for a way out.”

  “This connection,” said Blake, looking around at the fantastic world he would never have dreamed up in a million years. “Is that how you were able to do all of this?”

  “I took a chance on your stepfather knowing nothing about magic,” she said sheepishly. “Looks like I was right.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think he has enough brains for an imagination,” Blake said bitterly. “But why didn’t you let me finish him off?”

  “Number one, you are not a murderer,” Renee said, giving him a meaningful look. “And number two, we need to know why he’s here.”

  “I doubt he’s going to tell us anything,” Blake snorted.

  “He doesn’t have to. I’m going into his mind.”

  “What?” Blake stared at Renee in horror. “Renee, no. You do not want to go into Randy’s head!”

  “I have to-” she started, but Blake cut her off.

  “No, just…” Blake shook his head and gave her a pleading look. “Remember what it was like coming into my head? Do you remember how sick you got when you acquired all of my memories? That was nothing. Do you really want all of his memories as well?”

  “I get what you’re saying, Blake,” she said, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder, “which is why I’m going and not you. I know I’m going to see things I’ll never be able to forget, but we have to do this and you’ve already suffered so much.” As she spoke, her eyes drifted down to the scars on his torso.

  Blake stiffened. He had forgotten that in his anger, he had removed his shirt. Renee’s hand on his bare shoulder stirred up a myriad of conflicted emotions and he felt too exposed and vulnerable. He never wanted her to see him like this. He had grown only comfortable enough to show her the scars on his forearms, but compared to the rest of his body, they weren’t that bad. It hadn’t taken Randy long to realize that he could only mark Blake in places his clothing would cover.

  Sensing his discomfort, Renee pulled away. It had been shocking to see the extent of the physical abuse that Blake had endured for nearly his whole life, but she had to let him know that his scars didn’t change her perception of him. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the accident that brought her to where she now was. Though the details were vague, she remembered the pain in her legs as the front of the car crumpled in on her, the pain in her head as it hit the window, and the sting of the shattered glass as it hit her face.

  Her golden armor faded away, replaced by a simple tank top and shorts combination. A twisted map of scars appeared on her arms and legs. An angry red bump swelled near her hairline. Across her chest, an ugly purple and green bruise fanned out from her sternum, where she would have been slammed into the steering column. She opened her eyes and held out her arms presenting the entirety of the damage to Blake.

  “I’m guessing, of course,” she explained, “but I imagine this is probably a lot closer to what I look like right now. Do I repulse you?”

  “Of course not,” Blake stammered. While he wasn’t lying, it was jarring to realize that she was probably right. From what he saw in her memories, the accident had been awful and Renee had borne the brunt of it. It really wasn’t any wonder that her parents had accepted the doctor’s lies.

  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he told her, “but you don’t have to. You were in a bad accident. If you do manage to escape, people will understand that.”

  “If we manage to escape,” she corrected him fiercely. “I’m not leaving you here, you got that? But Blake,” she put her hand out again, not quite touching him, but hovering close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her skin. “After everything we’ve been through, did you really think that seeing the scars, the scars that I already knew you had, would change anything? They are no more your fault than these are mine.”

  Blake looked down at Renee’s hand and then glanced over at the cage. “I can still end this right now,” he said in a quiet, dangerous voice.

  “Blake, no,” she said, drawing away. “Aren’t you at least a little curious as to how he ended up here? He could know something that would help us.”

  “That would be a first.” Blake’s voice dripped with sarcasm, but his tone softened as he turned back to Renee. “Let me do it.”

  “Blake, no,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not afraid of what I’ll find in there.”

  “But I am,” he said quietly, taking a step closer to Renee so that he could circle her waist with his arms and leaned his head in close to hers. “We’re supposed to protect each other now, aren’t we?”

  Renee’s hear
t seemed to catch in her throat as Blake’s forehead rested against hers. “I… I’m trying to protect you,” she managed to squeak out while trying to look anywhere but into the intense stare Blake was giving her. Her eyes settled on his lips instead, noting how very close they were to hers. All she had to do was tilt her head just an inch…

  No, not like this, she thought, ignoring the ache in her heart as she slipped out of Blake’s arms.

  She wanted to kiss him. She had for quite some time, but she wanted to know for sure that her feelings, and his, were real and not just symptoms of the situation they had been thrown into. She looked away as Blake questioned her with his eyes, knowing that if she tried to explain, she would just make the situation worse. Besides, for all she knew, he was just trying to distract her from going ahead with her plan. With an unspoken command, she called the phoenix to her side and slipped through the door into Randy’s mind.

  I’m sorry.

  Blake stood paralyzed, unable to stop Renee from going through the door as her last thought echoed in his head. She had no reason to be sorry for anything. He had made a mistake. He misjudged her feelings and in addition to the utter humiliation of rejection, Blake now had to deal with the fact that his actions may have compromised Renee’s safety. At least she took the phoenix, the part of him that was supposed to protect her, with her.

  He only hoped that whatever protection that part of him gave her extended into the minds of others as well. For a moment, he considered following her, but he quickly realized that doing so would leave Randy alone in his mind. He didn’t think the cage that Renee had built would exist without one of them there to maintain it.

  At least their prisoner remained unconscious. The last thing Blake wanted was to spend any more time dealing with the monster than he absolutely had to. Instead, he turned to the phoenix, who had settled herself on his shoulder and curled her fiery tail around his neck in a gesture that gave him a small amount of comfort. He took this as a hopeful sign that he hadn’t completely destroyed the friendship they had built and smiled. But as he reached up to put a reassuring hand on the bird’s wing, she let out a terrible cry and Renee’s terrified voice echoed in his head.