Unwound (The Symphony of Brass and Bone)

by Yolanda Olson

  She sounded as if she herself had scars but from what I could see she didn’t. I wouldn’t ask to see them; that would not be kind. Instead I walked to where she had fallen after I attacked her and picked the shirt up from the floor. I removed the hooded jacket and placed it on the table top aware that her eyes were on me the whole time. I pulled the shirt over my head and pulled it down over my head and over my torso.

  “It fits perfectly!” she said with a hint of excitement.

  I turned toward her with a small smile; it was a bit snug but it was definitely lighter than what I had been wearing and would serve me well in the warmth of the sun.

  “Thank you for helping me,” I said to which she smiled and clasped her hands in front of her.

  “You should see yourself in it. I’ll be right back.”

  I watched her dash off. She was going to get a mirror and for the first time since I opened my eyes I was eagerly awaiting to see myself. Even yesterday morning when I had seen myself I wasn’ t pleased with my reflection, but this was something that I made with just a touch of someone else’s help and I felt a flicker of happiness because of it.

  “Take a look!”

  I turned and stared into the mirror. I saw her fingers wrapped around it but I could not see her. This wasn’t the same mirror from my room, but it was big enough to hide Morrison and expose my reflection to myself.

  At first I wasn’t sure to react. The stitching looked similar to the way my scars did only these were done with more finesse. I turned slightly to the side and looked at my profile. The shirt served its purpose in hiding my scars but I felt as if I wore them on the outside now. I wanted to feel defeated in that moment but Morrison’s words rang through my head again. Wear those scars proudly, Caelum. They mean you are strong and a survivor.

  “We should go for a walk,” she said breaking into my borrowed thoughts.

  “It’s dark out.”

  “It’s the best time for a walk, I can show you around town and we can get out of this place for a while,” she said cheerfully setting the mirror aside.

  “Okay.”

  I followed her as she led the way out of the factory and out into the crisp night. The sky looked beautiful, a dark blue with light gray clouds floating carelessly by. I could see small lights twinkling in the sky as the clouds passed lazily by them.

  “You’ve never seen stars before?” she asked curiously as we walked.

  I shook my head. There were a great many things I had never seen from my prison. Sometimes I wonder if that was my own doing. London had left just enough space for me to see the sparrow when it had passed by the day I left, but I had never really cared to look through the small slits until then.

  “We can stop for a moment if you’ d like,” Morrison said gently.

  I tore my gaze away from the stars and looked at her. “I ’m not finished. I’ ll never be able to fully enjoy the beauty of the night sky until then, so let’s continue walking.”

  “Can I ... can I see?”

  I stood there for a moment contemplating her request. She had already seen my scar ravaged body, but this was going to be different. The way London left my eye, the hole that wasn’t sewn up, the small wheels ticking, the empty socket that she placed in the middle of them; this might be too much for anyone to handle who wasn’ t a small child.

  I turned my face away as her hand approached.

  “Caelum, I’ve seen a great many horrifying things in my life, I just want to see if there’ s anything we can do to fix it,” she said quietly.

  “You won’t be afraid of me?” I asked.

  “Did you hear what I just said? What you have peeking out from under that patch can’t be worse than anything I’ve seen,” she said with a chuckle.

  I was still hesitant and eyed her for a moment.

  She held up a hand, “You don’ t have to if you don’t want too, I was just curious and honestly wondering if I could mend you somehow.”

  I looked down.

  How would I be able to have a true friendship if I had no trust in her? Turning myself back to face her, I met her eyes and gave a nod. For some reason she hesitated at first, her hand hovering just a moment before my face. I took her hand and placed her fingertips on the eye patch. Her hesitation was no more; gently she pushed the patch off of my head and gasped slightly.

  “Are you a machine?” she asked staring at me.

  “No. Not everything inside me is the way you see it here,” I explained quietly.

  Nodding, she replaced the patch securely around my head again, “Whoever made you must’ve loved you very much at one point.”

  Love? What does London know of love? I had to keep myself from screaming these thoughts in her face.

  “You don’ t think she did?” she asked softly. I could only assume that my face had given away my thoughts.

  I shook my head and looked away.

  “Let’ s not talk about that now. I’d like to continue with our walk is that’s okay with you,” she said.

  “Fine.”

  I didn’t walk next to her anymore as I tried to collect my thoughts as well as my borrowed thoughts because if I let either run wild, I don’t know how she’d look at me after I unleashed my anger in a flood of spiteful words about London.

  “So tell me about yourself, Caelum,” she said as she glanced back at me over her shoulder.

  I scratched my head, hating the feeling of the hair that I knew wasn’ t mine. “ There’s nothing to tell really. I was made, I endured, I escaped, and here I am.”

  “Do you ever plan on going back?” she asked.

  The thought honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. I had no desire to go back to London’s hell, but I remember the silent promise I had made to myself to go back for the Other. Still. I wasn’t going to trust Morrison with that; not yet anyway.

  I shook my head.

  She stopped walking and eyed me for a moment. For the first time since I was constructed, I didn’t look away from a being that was trying to read me. I forced myself to stand up straight and not have the slight hunch that London had given me with her cruel actions and malicious words.

  “I have no need to go back,” I said in as steady as a voice as I could manage.

  “Not even for her to finish you?” she inquired.

  “London will never finish me. She never finished any of us. I say us because I ’m sure I couldn’t be the only one she ever made. Take care of the way you speak of London; kind words are nothing if not wasted on describing someone as lost in lunacy and delirium as her. Kind words wouldn’t save you from her if you ever have the misfortune of meeting her,” I said quietly.

  Morrison shrugged and pulled me along next to her, “She seems interesting enough, though. I mean I can never understand what you went through with her and I ’m not saying this because I think what she did was a good idea or anything, but looking at you tells me what kind of genius she is. To make life out of nothing is not simple I would imagine and to be quite honest with you if I had never heard you ticking in the factory and lifted your eye patch, I never would have expected you to be anything other than a young man who had gone through a harrowing ordeal with battle scars that prove his worth.”

  My mind wandered off to Finnegan for a moment. She too had battle scars only I didn’t know what kind of battle she had been through. She didn’ t hide her face from the world as I did.

  When she approached me, she did so with an amazing confidence for something that looked so young and fragile. I would be haunted by her confidence and her face for the rest of my life, but I would also try to mimic her and try to build myself up to not be afraid of anything, and that included London.

  Morrison and I walked through the streets until the sun started to come up again. As she pointed out things here and there I kept thinking of how I just might be able to muster up enough courage to go back to London’s home.

  Cars whirred past us and more than once she had to pull me back from the crossroads onto the sid
ewalk so that I wouldn’t be injured. I couldn’ t help it though, my mind was elsewhere and it showed.

  As the sky started to show that beautiful lavender and orange serenade it had the previous morning, she guided me back to the factory. I didn’t say a word to her. Instead I left her pulling the wooden boards back over the opening so no one else would enter and I made my way back up to the room I had taken for myself on the third floor.

  I dragged the bed from where it had sat by the window to a darker corner near the mirror and laid down. As I stared into my own face, my thoughts were erratic.

  Maybe Morrison sees London as a genius because she’s had the same tendencies.

  Maybe she’s keeping me here to lure London out.

  Maybe I should’ve followed Finnegan.

  Maybe I should’ve set London’ s home on fire.

  Maybe I wasn’t real, but that didn’t mean I could be programmed to feel could I?

  Maybe I could teach myself new emotions.

  Maybe I could make myself stronger.

  My eyes had started to close as the thoughts raced through my mind. With as erratic as they were I knew these were my own thoughts and not borrowed.

  I especially knew that I had finally gained some control over the brain and mind that was harvested for me when I had one last thought before I finally stop fighting my resting state with a smile.

  Maybe I was strong enough to kill London.

  Six

  Morrison was gone when I came down the next evening. I wasn’ t sure if she told me she would be gone or if maybe she decided to take a few days away from me. I didn’ t care. Either way it was nice to have this place to myself again for once.

  I glanced at myself in the mirror before I made my way to the window. I noticed that for some odd reason it looked like I had slightly aged. There were small lines around my eyes and my lips and I was beginning to look tired. My hair seemed to have grown slightly and my skin looked slightly darker for some reason.

  I dismissed my reflection and placing my hands on the windowsills I leaned out and took a deep breath. My resting schedule was so erratic lately that I was surprised I could still function properly. I had to get on a normal schedule which was something I promised myself to work on soon.

  I took one more deep breath and noticed something was different about the air, for some reason it seemed a little cooler and crisper.

  I walked quickly down the stairs and made my way to the back of the factory on the main floor. There had to be more than just the door at the entrance and for now it would serve my purpose to find it. I walked along the wall running my hand across it from one end as I made my way to the other. It was so dark in this part that I knew I wouldn’ t see a difference; I would have to feel it to find any hidden door.

  Halfway down the wall I felt a small bump. I ran my hand up and down the bump for a moment before I was sure that it was what I was looking for. Leaning toward the wall, I pulled at the bump as hard as I could. Slowly it started to come away from the wall and I could feel the breeze from outside. This wasn’ t like the wooden boards that were used to barricade the front. Grunting with effort, I pulled harder until the secret door finally gave way causing me to fall backwards. Thankfully I had a good enough grip on it that I was able to stop it before it landed on top of me and caused irreparable damage.

  I shoved the door to the side and got to my feet. As I suspected, it wasn’t as simple as wood and interestingly enough I felt a small flicker of fear when I looked at it. It was made of some kind of metal and had an odd design to it. In a way, it reminded me of the doors that London used to lock herself into her workstations.

  I tore my eyes away from it and stepped out into the night air. My feet touched the wild grass that was growing in the small lot. I looked down and couldn’t help but think that freedom was a beautiful thing. There was nothing sharp or dangerous under me like when I was kept prisoner. The grass was pleasantly caressing my feet with each soft gust of wind.

  I leaned down and picked a blade of grass and smiled. The color was somewhat lighter than what I had seen in the woods around London’s home, but as I looked up at the trees I noticed that the leaves seemed to be slightly colored differently as well. Almost as if overnight they had gone from a dark green to yellows, reds, and oranges.

  How long was I asleep?

  I let the grass fall from my hands as I reached up and felt one of the leaves from the nearest tree. It felt slightly weathered just as I had woke up feeling.

  More time than one night had passed, that was sure but I just didn’ t know how much. I glanced up at the moon for a moment before I went back into the sanctuary of the factory. There was nothing in here that could tell time and if my body hadn’ t woken itself in what seemed to be a season, then I was running out of time faster than I thought.

  I walked from the back of the factory out the front door and into the night. Something, somewhere would tell me how long I was asleep.

  As I quickened my pace I glanced in store windows but it seemed that anything that would be able to tell me what time I was in right now was hidden from view or put away for the evening. I was becoming frustrated which I knew would lead to nothing good. I remembered seeing London frustrated one time when she was making one of her creations. In a fury, she kicked over her work table and pieces of material, tools, wheels, and everything else she used had gone flying all over the room. Thankfully she hadn’t known I had been watching her; that was the only time she had ever left the door slightly ajar.

  I chuckled to myself then thinking of what she would’ ve possibly done to me had she known I was standing there watching her.

  “Watch it,” some man barked at me as we bumped into each other.

  I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized I had just walked into someone. I didn’t feel any need to reply to him because I was on a more important mission; to find out how much time had passed while I slept, so I kept my eyes forward and glanced around for any tell-tale sign of how long it had been.

  After another twenty minutes of walking I came across a curious cube that held what looked like news stories folded neatly inside. I gave the small door a slight tug and accidentally wound up pulling the plastic door completely off the hinge. I looked around frantically to make sure no one had seen me. It seemed like beside the one man I had run into I was alone in the street. Letting out a sigh, I placed the door next to the cube and pulled out a paper. October 2nd it said.

  Closing my eyes, I recited the months to myself trying to remember the month I had left London in. April. It was April. So then how long had I been asleep?

  April, May, June, July, August, September, October.

  There was no way.

  I couldn’ t have slept for six months.

  That left me with less time than I had imagined.

  Why hadn’t Morrison thought to wake me up? I couldn’ t have alienated her in the span of a couple of nights, could I?

  I felt a surge of what I assumed to be anger. I would never have left her vulnerable and sleeping for as long as she left me, alienated or not. In that moment I decided that I could no longer trust her.

  Placing the newspaper back in its little box, I started to walk toward the center of town. I had no desire to go back to the factory tonight and I had never been to the center of town.

  It didn’t take me long to reach my destination though I had no idea what my intentions were of being there. The deeper into the heart of the town that I walked, the more I noticed droves of people huddled outside of doors, talking loudly amongst each other or smoking by themselves.

  I was continuing on my way when I noticed one of the females staring intently at me in the middle of her group of friends. She had long light pink hair, reminiscent of cotton candy. Her bangs were cut right above her steel blue-gray eyes and her oval face held the innocence of a newborn angel. Little golden key earrings, swayed gently beneath her hair as she swiveled her head to get a better look at me.

  I
stopped for just a moment to take her in. She looked almost radiant in her white dress with a pink floral design generously smattered about. Her legs seemed to be impossibly long for someone as small as she was. I noticed her trick when I looked down at her feet and saw that she was wearing some type of shoes with a large, curved heel on them.

  I had never seen her before but she obviously seemed to have a very stark interest in me. If she knew what I was I was almost certain she and her friends would go back inside of their music and drink filled building and continue their night.

  Out of curiosity I decided to head into the building she stood in front of staring at me so intently to see if maybe I could find out what she wanted from me.

  As I disappeared into the dimly lit building, I was overwhelmed by all the sensations that came over me. The music was so loud that it seemed to shake me from the inside out. There were lights that flashed colors that I didn’ t know where possible. It smelled of sweat and passion as couples danced together; their bodies pressed tightly against one another. I pushed my way past them as I tried to make it to the long table that seemed to wrap around part of the room with small stools in front of it. I noticed that here it smelled of sweat and desolation. Some people were sitting together in small groups laughing and talking, while others were sitting alone, hunched over their small glasses of dark liquids.

  This was too much for me to take in all at once.

  I made my way back out into the night air and past the cluster of people that seemed to be making their way in.

  She was still there, small and devious as ever.

  She kept her hands in her pockets and her face was as hard as stone as we locked eyes. Nodding at her, I made my way past her and her group of friends, feeling her eyes boring holes through me the entire time.

  The more I thought of it as I walked the more my instinct was to get as far away from her as possible and I had every intention of doing so. As I turned the next corner I heard footsteps behind me. One hindrance of having being made and not born, was that at times like this I wasn’t able to distinguish if the footsteps were closer or further than I thought.