Otherland

by Almondie Shampine

  They rushed up the stairs, and there was a loud thump, and a cry, when Dwayne had tried to go through the door as his spirit form allowed him. He left the body in a fury and watched as it tumbled unconsciously down the stairs.

  ***

  Aliyah and the Light knight were on an island, surrounded by water, with a single tree in its center. “Do you remember this place, Aliyah?” he said gently.

  “I remember coming here as a child. I was safe here,” she sighed. “Though I recall it being much bigger than this, but perhaps that was only because my body was smaller.”

  “No, your recollections are correct. It used to be as big as far as the eye could see, but this is all that remains. The Nothingness has grown too large, swallowing everything in its path. We’re doing everything we can to contain it.”

  “Then why waste so many forces on me? I’m certainly not as much a threat as this Nothingness. I certainly haven’t been doing it on purpose in an attempt to harm Otherland. Why can’t they see that? I’m a good person. I can’t even kill a bug. Perhaps if my life had been better, I wouldn’t have had to escape here at all. That’s all I was trying to do. Escape.”

  “From what?”

  “I don’t … remember,” she said painfully. “All I remember is that here I felt safe. Out there, I don’t remember being here. In here, I don’t remember being out there. I remember you. I remember how much I loved you and wanted you to take me with you, or come back with me. More than anything, I remember our fights, because you would do neither.

  “You would not stand up to the High master to allow me to be with you, nor would you defy him to come with me, as the human that you are, to your actual place in my world. You wouldn’t deny our love, but neither would you find a way to keep it.

  “You just left me alone, time and time again, not allowing me to escape what I was running from by taking me with you, nor protecting me from the very thing that I was escaping. What kind of Light knight are you, after all, if you can’t protect the ones that need it,” she said bitterly. “No wonder the Nothingness is taking over. Your Father’s ruling is making it hopeless for everyone.”

  “So you do remember. You once believed in him, Aliyah,” the Light knight said quietly.

  “Yeah, and I once believed in hope and good things and love, and how well did that work out for me? The only time you ever show up is when I’m on the run and trying to escape all those things I can’t understand. What did I ever do to deserve any of this?”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Yeah, I did. I chose to be a good person, and because of that, I have to spend my life suffering. Your High master certainly asks a lot of people. How much have you had to suffer and how many losses have you had to face for his endeavors?”

  “It’s not him doing these things. Balancing the good and the evil requires constant maintenance.”

  “Why balance it at all? Why not just get rid of the evil and give all of us a fighting chance to be able to live a life without all that?”

  “It’s free will, Aliyah. It’s choice.”

  “Choice?” her voice piqued. “I didn’t choose to spend my life paying for the choices of others, and that’s all it has ever been. You’ve seen the city.” She began to cry, “Every one lives their life in fear, that at any moment, at any time, someone else might choose to kidnap them and torture them for years on end with no choice to escape, except on the inside, until the person is finally old enough and strong enough to finally escape, then from there on out, have to spend their entire life running.”

  He attempted to soothe her with touch, but she pulled away from him. “Is that what happened to you, Aliyah?” he whispered.

  Suddenly, the island quaked and rumbled.

  “Something’s happening. We must return,” he stood, his sword at ready.

  “And I make my point,” she said dryly, harshly wiping at the tears on her face.

  He went to grip her hand, “We have to hurry.”

  “I can find my own way back, thanks. I’ve done it plenty of times without you,” she said, running on ahead of him.

  ***

  Aliyah woke up first, attempting to sit up rapidly in bed, but Jacob’s arm was crushing her body. “Get off of me,” she mumbled, shoving at his arm. Then he woke and sat up before her. They both jumped out of bed, peering around them quickly to try to determine the threat.

  “The door,” she said.

  Slowly, he walked toward it, she behind him. He opened it fast, maintaining a defensive stance, but there was nothing there. He flicked on the stairwell light, and there he found a sprawled body at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you know this person?” he asked her while checking the male’s pulse to see if he was still alive.

  She gradually descended the stairs, after finding her glasses, then looked at his face, studying it.

  For a moment, the Light knight thought she didn’t recognize the man, but then she began to panic, “No, no, no, not again. Not again,” sounding like everything that was about to have a complete emotional meltdown as she ran up the stairs in tears and terror.

  Instead, she returned moments later with her car keys. “Time to go,” she said. She already had the car in reverse by the time he opened the passenger door and jumped in.

  CHAPTER 16

  “You’re an idiot,” Dwayne said when Danny started coming through. “Now she’s escaped.”

  Danny moaned, touching the gash and lump on his head from having been slammed against the wooden hatchback door, and touching the back of his head from having landed on it during the fall. Carefully, he checked all his limbs to ensure nothing was broken. He’d gotten lucky, but his body still hurt all over.

  “It’s not my fault. I’m the one that knows that to go through a door, you have to open it first. I’m too old for this crap, Dwayne,” Danny whined. “My life has been good the past few years. Five more years and I can retire and rest this old body. I have a wife, a home. I have a life now. We had fun. We had a lot of good times when we were younger, but I’m paying for it now. All I want to do is live out the rest of my days in peace.

  “You’re dead, Dwayne. You have to accept that. You don’t belong here, anymore. I don’t want to wind up like you. You scare the hell out of me, Dwayne, you always have. Find someone else. Someone younger. Or just let it go. She’s suffered enough.”

  “After all our history, now you want to redeem yourself, Danny? Is that what this is about?” Dwayne howled. “You want to start going to church and praying to God to forgive you for the crimes you committed? You want to kneel and cry and beg for redemption for what you did? It don’t work like that, Danny. You can’t just do the evil things you did, then turn around in the end and attempt to redeem yourself because you’ve suddenly become afraid of the consequences.

  “You’ll still be made to pay, as I have, but it’s not 40-years-to-life until you die, like this world. It’s eternity. In eternity, in the Darkness, the only thing you got are your memories from the human life, reminding you why your fate’s been sealed. You can say everything you think the High master wants to hear. You can cry, beg, plead, act so sorry for the things you did, but he sees right through you, right through your words, right through your tears, and there is no mercy. You can’t take back the things you did, Danny. You can’t take back your choices and the consequences of those choices, no matter how much you want to.”

  “Then I’ll turn myself in while I’m still alive and live out the consequences here. We did terrible things, Dwayne. Terrible, terrible things. We abducted an innocent child. Took her from those that loved her. Stole her life. We - ,” Danny choked up. “At the time we were just having fun, but maintain-ing it, her silence, not getting caught – that was the majority of our time, and was it really worth it?”

  “She had every reason to kill you, Dwayne, just as she has every reason to kill me.”

  “Going soft in your old age, aren’t you, Danny,” Dwayne said disgustedly. “Well this is how thi
s works in my world. You’re either going to help me or your time as human ends today. While your body was unconscious, I followed her. I know where she is. All we have to do is find her, destroy her and the Light knight, and then you can live the rest of your human life in peace.”

  “Why is this so important? Why can’t she just be left alone?”

  “Because you’re the one that messed everything up to begin with. The child still lives.”

  “What child?”

  “The child you stupidly got her pregnant with. The proof that would have locked you up for life. The mess you made that I cleaned up. You remember that, Danny?”

  “You said you forced her to get rid of it.”

  “I did. She took it to the world I now come from. She figured out some how to navigate both worlds, before I even knew the existence of this place. It still lives. I was right above them in the chambers of imprisonment. She promised the boy she’d be back for him. If she can remember the child, what else do you think she’ll remember? So unless you’re really serious about turning yourself in and spending the rest of your days rotting in a cell, we need to work together to be rid of her.”

  “How far is she?”

  “About four hours away driving.”

  Danny groaned, “How much of our life have we spent chasing her?”

  “Wait a second, there might be an easier way. Why chase after her if we can make her come to us?” the Dark soul cackled, as Cherise pulled into the driveway, music blaring.

  Dwayne re-possessed Danny’s body and waited.

  ***

  “Did you remember something, Aliyah?”

  “Everything,” she said, overly-fixated on what she was doing.

  “Talk to me.”

  She stopped what she was doing and looked at the Light knight with eyes of pure agony. “Why? There’s nothing you could do before and there’s nothing you can do about it now. You’ve made it very clear where your duty lies. You might as well just take me back there and have me face the consequences of a life of consequences.”

  “I’m trying to help you,” he said offended.

  “By following orders? Do you know how long it took me to be rid of him for once and for all? How much I suffered at his hands? And your world just sends him right back here. It’s like it never ended. It’s the two of them, together again. Terrorizing my life. So, please, I beg of you, I’d be safer in your world. Take me back there.”

  “They don’t know you like I know you, Aliyah. They look at you as a threat. I know better. That’s why I’m – .”

  “It doesn’t matter. You continue to work for them, for him, or whatever he is, so let’s skip an entire lifetime of running. I give up. I can’t keep running. Take me back there to face what I have to face.”

  He hesitated.

  “If you have any love for me at all in your heart, you will end this for me,” she said desperately, tears in her eyes. “You don’t have to restrain me. I come willingly. All I ask is that I be able to see the child one last time.”

  “It’s too dangerous right now. If you and I go back there, our bodies will be exposed. If he did possess a physical body, then he is capable of killing us.”

  “Does it look like I care? Perhaps I will have a better life in death than I have ever had here.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Get in the closet.”

  Within ten minutes, they were walking the path of dolls with no eyes, dead babies with screams on their faces, the screams of women being tortured, the narrow tunnel that suffocated, until they were falling.

  She’d been here many times before and could now remember, but it still amazed her the fluffiness of the ground, the immaculate sunrise, the dark-hued colored sky with the globed sun. The absolute peace and silence. She followed him, and abruptly the scenery changed to a log-home set upon miles of untainted ground, covered in wild flowers.

  “This is your home here?” she said in surprise.

  You’d think a spiritual world would be less … physical, but it mimicked the dream of what he may have wanted in the human world. It was perfection, and that’s why she felt really sorry about what she was about to do.

  The boy was the first to appear, a large smile on his face, running toward the Light knight. He stopped abruptly once seeing her.

  “You – you brought her? But I thought – you said …?”

  The Light knight kept his head bowed. The elders would soon come. He’d be congratulated, and she’d be … at the mercy of the Trial ceremony and the unanimous decision of the elders.

  She kneeled before the boy and smiled at him, “I told you I’d come back. Do you remember the rest?” she asked.

  He looked at the Light knight, then back to her, and he nodded. They ran.

  Just as the elders were arriving, they disappeared beyond the blanket of his home.

  “You said you had her,” a Dark elder said furiously.

  “I did. She’s escaped again,” the Light knight said simply. “As she always has.” And his voice was filled with admiration and respect.

  “Well then, what are you doing just standing there? Go get her!”

  “Yes, elder,” he bowed. And took off after her.

  CHAPTER 17

  “You came back for me,” the boy said as they ran.

  “I told you I would, sorry it took so long. It took some time for me to remember,” she said, as she sliced her sword against the Boundary hunters, and talked over their pitiful moans. “Things … still aren’t … safe, but … apparently … neither world is. A merciful … all-knowing … forgiving High master … ha,” she said. “How many innocents … must pay? I’m tired … of choosing good … Tired … of being good. I want only … to care about ... what is mine. … I want to love … and no longer … have to sacrifice what … I love … because of all the things … these worlds … demand. Come on.”

  She followed the path she’d come, but whereas she could get through, he could not. “There has to be a way,” she cried, as she tried again and again to bring both of them to the human world, but he was blocked from it and could not come through with her.

  “If I’m still human, then that must mean my body is still alive. Maybe that’s the only way I can come through, to a body, like you,” Jasper suggested.

  Aliyah continued to try breaking him through. “Can you feel it? Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes. Do you? Do you know where to find me?”

  She cried, “I – I don’t remember.”

  And just like that, Lydia woke up, Jacob’s body sleeping beside her. She knew that she’d gone in to get her son, but couldn’t remember if she’d found him. Found him. She had to find him.

  She closed her eyes, trying to remember. A hospital, in labor, the pain extraordinary, but her heart pumping with love, willing to do whatever it took to finally look upon her son.

  Dwayne standing at the doorway, his guardianship papers in hand, sneering at her, “I told you I’d always find you. You can’t run from me Aliyah. You’d go through all of this, escape me, just to have this child? Betray me and everything I’ve done for you, for a child? Well, you’ve gone this far, and instead of ridding of it, you’ve brought it into this world, but not for long. Get rid of the child and come back to me, Aliyah, or I will raise the child in the way that you were raised.

  “Is that what you want? Your own innocent child? Is that the kind of suffering you’d choose for it? Do you know easy it was to take you away from your home, your parents, the people that loved and wanted to protect you, and have them not be able to do a thing about it? To never be caught. Do you really want that same life for your child?

  “We could raise him as our own, show him his place in the world, and there wouldn’t be a thing you could do about it, just like your parents, and not a thing he could do about it, a helpless innocent child, just like you were all those years. Is that what you want?”

  “No,” she’d covered the baby child in her arms.

  “Then you best be
rid of it. You’re now a mother, you should know these things. The only way to protect your child from suffering is by keeping it from being in this world to begin with. Other than that, it’ll just spend its life being a victim to all the bad things out there.” He’d laughed cruelly.

  So she’d taken the child in sleep one night to Otherland, and presented his seeming lifeless body to Dwayne and Danny, satisfying them, but it wasn’t enough. They’d wanted to watch her bury it before she humbly returned to them.

  Woodrow Cemetery. Ohio.

  With only slight guilt, Lydia locked the closet door with Jacob still inside. She raced toward her vehicle and pulled up the directions on her phone. That’s when she noticed that Cherise had attempted to call her almost a dozen times without leaving a voicemail. Alarmed, she called her.

  CHAPTER 18

  “It’s her. Answer it,” they demanded of Cherise. As of yet, she had not cooperated with anything they’d demanded of her. She had one job to do, which was to tell Aliyah that they had her, but she refused to comply. Every time they’d called, she’d remained silent. No matter how much they hurt her, she wouldn’t do as told.

  “She really means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”

  “She my girl. I’ll protect her with my life. You wastin’ yo’ time with me. Obviously you ain’t know black.”

  “And what of your precious kids? You willing to sacrifice them for her?” Dwayne threatened.

  “Jerome pop a cap in yo’ ass you go after my kids. That how we work. You messin’ with the wrong color, fool. Aiight, give me the phone.”