She curled into a trembling ball on the floor of her mother’s closet.
“Hello?” said the whisper of a child.
What the hell? This doesn’t feel like a dream. I’m not just remembering, I’m really here.
Minutes passed in silence. When she stood, the sight of the knob at eye level sent a pall of dread through her. She grasped it with her left hand, but it would not turn, rattling back and forth, locked. Mother had swapped it with one from the bathroom, installing it backwards with the release on the outside. She made a cell to imprison her little satanic daughter.
Claustrophobia fell on her like a blanket as her eight-year-old psyche flooded in. It threatened to overwhelm her adult thoughts with the urge to bawl. Warm tears fell down her cheeks as she steadied her breathing, clinging to the truth that she was no longer a child. She grabbed the doorknob with both hands, pain lancing through her right palm when she strained to turn it. A cry of agony came as her burned skin rubbed against the unmoving brass. Kirsten fell to her knees, cradling her wounded hand to her chest, unable to stop shaking.
Who is doing this to me, am I inside the nightmare? No, the pain is too sharp.
Thuds came through the floor, drawing closer and louder with each successive step. She scurried back against the wall, trying to hide within the coats like she used to. The footsteps ceased.
Stay quiet, maybe she’ll go away. Mother wants quiet.
After two breaths, her mother’s voice bellowed through the door, deeper than she remembered. Words tainted with a demonic overdub invoked scripture passages, pleas to God, and lamented why she deserved such a beast for a child. The door shuddered under the weight of the voice, bathing her in scorn. If only she could remain silent.
Kirsten could not stop sobbing.
As though she watched a movie from inside it, her sniveling tiny voice murmured apologies on its own. The pop of the latch reverberated through the closet. The knob turned, grinding.
“Mommy, no!” The hallucination took hold and adult Kirsten fell away.
The voice came without prompting. This nightmare got it wrong. Kirsten stayed quiet, never talking back. She always just huddled there, cowering in the dark corner. As the wave of terror ebbed, her grown personality came forward, prepared to do something different this time. Alas, the idea screeched to a halt as soon as the closet flooded with light.
Her mother towered above her; a nightmarish visage ripped from a child’s dreams. Once more, the looming manifestation of her deepest fear and greatest betrayal stared derisively at her. A titanic hand entered, reaching between the coats. She scrabbled at the rug, trying to push her body farther into the wall, away from the monster. Kirsten tucked her knees to her chest, keeping her legs out of grabbing range. Arms crossed over her face, she begged and apologized for making noise. Evan appeared, striding through her mother as if the demonic visage was not solid, and tilted his head.
“What are you waiting for? Come on out,” he said, offering a hand. “Your head is telling you that you can’t get out. You can.”
Kirsten pushed against the back of the closet, digging her toes into the rug and sliding along the wall until she was standing. Her trembling hands clutched at the drywall, searching for some magic button to push to let her escape her mother’s glower. The oddity of finding herself looking up at the boy reminded her she was no longer a little girl. Kirsten swallowed, and faced the ogre. Evan couldn’t know about this closet, could he? He’s talking about projecting. She stared at his imploring face, wanting to protect him, but feeling too tiny and weak. How could she protect anyone if she was stuck being so helpless? He faded away to a faint voice in the side of her ear, whispering.
“You can get out; you just have to want to.”
She found the courage to defy.
Lunging forward, she evaded grabbing fingers that claimed a few strands of hair. When her eyes opened, little feet darted into view against a dark green rug.
She weaved through hallways, following the mind map of the old house that came back to her as if she never left. Almost tripping over a standing plant, she ducked under a table away from a crashing bellow echoing from behind. The little girl skidded around a corner and caught herself against the wall, leaving a bloody handprint, before scurrying into the bathroom.
On her tiptoes, she locked the deadbolt before the ogre reached the door. Stark white tiles blinded her and sent a numbing chill into her feet. At the far end, powder blue curtains framed a square of infinite black. She remembered simulated trees in the window, but the void of this terrible dream devoured them. Her dingy dress, the same color as the curtains, turned dark along the side where her hand bled on it. Crimson trails streaked down the pale skin of her leg; fear kicked her in the stomach. She picked at the fabric, horrified by the discoloration.
She would be punished for staining it.
The reflection in the shower glass moved apart from her. Her adult consciousness looked with a wounded heart upon the gaunt, battered, and trembling little girl she used to be. She had forgotten the bruises that so often framed her eyes. The image reached toward her, placing little hands on the inside the glass, pleading with a stare.
Recoiling, she darted behind the toilet in the smallest space she could find. How long would it take for this hallucination to end? She closed her eyes, but no amount of concentration could take her mind off the thunderous pounding. Each hit echoed beyond reality, a battering ram shaking the entire castle into which it crashed. Her adult mind pondered the window, but her child’s body refused to move.
Oh, she would get it now.
Kirsten shuddered with each splintering impact upon the door. She dared not defy Mother, she never had. The waif on the shower glass cried at her, imploring her to do something. Dread gripped her to the point of nausea. Dribbles of bile ran down her chin as she folded her arms into her gut, for once thankful Mother gave her so little food.
Splinters exploded into the bathroom as the door at last succumbed to the giant shoe. The creature came for her and she screamed the piercing wail of a terrified child. Fingers laced into her hair, dragging her from her hiding place and slamming her off the side of the autoshower on the way to the door. She pleaded and begged until her voice was reduced to a rasp. Mother hauled her along, not allowing her feet to gain purchase on the ground as she tromped through the hall.
Dire crimson light flooded the kitchen, the glowing fires of hell lapping at the windows. Her scalp felt ready to peel off as Mother lifted little Kirsten with a fistful of hair before throwing her to the floor. The tiles slapped her in the face, smeared with blood where her hand touched. Pain cascaded through her and she shifted to cradle her knee where it had struck the shower. A hand seized and crushed her chest to the ground.
The grip on her shoulder shook with each word, drilling her ribs into the floor for emphasis. “Don’t you dare move, you horrible little imp!” The bellowing fell on her like the wrath of Heaven. “I told you to be quiet in there and wait for Him, but He doesn’t talk to disobedient little servants of the Devil!”
Sobs belted out of her; she cried so hard she struggled to breathe. Droplets of snot, tears and blood spattered one by one on the dirty white floor before her eyes. She had given up on begging and no longer tried to form words out of the endless noise leaking from her. Rough hands tugged at her clothes, cold air found her bare bottom.
“I’ll beat the evil out of you. Satan, be gone!”
Kirsten’s face scuffed along the tile with each impact, shrieking louder and louder. She could not count the strikes, but when the onslaught paused, Mother wanted more. Defiance of that magnitude would not be punished with an open hand alone. Mother stepped over her, leaving her displayed to the world, reaching for the wooden paddle kept between the stove and the counter. Kirsten whimpered at the sinister device. Mother turned it over in her grip, sending a gleam over bloodstained varnish.
The giant woman faced away from her, stroking the paddle as if to prepare it as an inst
rument of God’s will. She met the stare of her pitiful reflection in the oven glass; the horror upon the face of the waif tugged at her soul.
The sight of such a damaged child shocked Kirsten’s mind back to adulthood.
She propped herself up on her right elbow as her unhurt hand tugged her clothes back into place. The reflection gave her a horrified look and banged on the window.
“No. Don’t disobey, she’ll kill me,” said the tiny voice, muted as if inside the oven. “I deserve it.”
Kirsten stood. She would not allow this to happen again―not to her, not to any defenseless child.
“No, I don’t.”
Her mother spun at the sound, paddle raised, expecting a small exposed target. Instead, she came eye to eye with an adult daughter, once more in her Division 0 blacks. Kirsten chased the feeling of the burn away, clenching and relaxing her right hand as the skin healed. The little girl reflected upon the glass door gaped in hopeful shock, and then faded backwards into the shadowy darkness within the oven.
Kirsten’s eyes glowed as she summoned the astral lash. “Not again, you wretch.”
The ogrish visage deflated into a withered and forgotten woman as the gleaming white whip splintered the paddle into toothpicks. The force of the strike bounced Mother off the kitchen table and into a chair. Kirsten glared, searching for any trace of familial love to temper her hatred
She found none.
The woman’s hand came up, clutching a bottle of off-brand whisky. She held it toward her daughter like a cross to ward off a vampire, pausing to take a long pull from it.
“Well I can guess what killed you,” Kirsten seethed; taking a step toward her. “Tell me, did they come for you right away or did they give you time to wallow in your lies?”
Something brushed against her leg, drawing Kirsten’s glance to where her eight-year-old self wept on the floor with her face down, kneeling in wait for the paddle. The sight of the bruised, emaciated body changed her anger to sorrow. Once the initial surprise of seeing her younger self faded, grown Kirsten covered the girl before gathering the child into her arms.
When she stood, Mother was gone.
She wiped the blood from her doppelganger’s nose. The trembling girl looked up with eyes that begged anyone at all for love.
So thin… so fragile.
Kirsten lapsed into uncontrolled sobs as she cradled her child self to her chest. The apparition thanked her.
Never again.
he nightmarish kitchen faded to a field of blinding light. A throbbing pain settled into her hand as a light pressure forced the air out of her chest from the child that had wrapped her arms around her.
“It’s okay, sweetie, I won’t let her hurt you ever again. I’m here.” Kirsten patted her on the back. “I’ll take care of you.”
Little Kirsten looked up. “Are you okay?”
She clung to her little self, kissing the top of her head and muttering through hair. “You’re safe now; Mother will never hurt you again.”
“Who’s gonna hurt me?” The voice changed, different but familiar. “Are you gonna be my new mom?”
What the hell is going on? The child she held grew a little larger and a little heavier.
“You hit your hand on the bed,” said Evan.
She opened her eyes and gasped at the form that extended into her field of view, startlingly close to naked and quite adult in appearance. While it lacked explicit detail, the lines curved with enough accuracy to be embarrassing. Evan also embodied a shape of glowing energy to which she clung like a beloved doll. Thin silver strands of light ran to their sleeping bodies.
What just happened to me?
The realization came as she searched the blank wall for an answer. She had stood up to her mother; the last of the hold the evil woman had on her every bit as dead as the bitch herself.
He hugged her, squealing. “You did it, you’re projecting.”
Evan looked up with adoration and his question repeated through her thoughts in his voice. Are you gonna be my new mom?
“Is… Is that what you want? I could talk―” Doubt filled her mind about being a mother, could she do it?
His astral hug squished tighter.
A weak smile spread over her face as she tried to change what she looked like. “Do we have to look like we’re naked?”
He slipped out of her grip and circled her. “So? It’s not like anyone can see us.”
“Yeah, but it’s still embarrassing.”
“Souls don’t wear clothes,” he teased. “They wear bodies. This is our magic self, an’ we took our bodies off.”
She giggled, despite her discomfort, at his innocent explanation. “The appearance of a ghost is formed by latent self―” What am I doing? He’s nine. “Whatever a ghost thinks they look like is what they look like. That’s why most of them appear in whatever they were wearing when they died.” She concentrated, trying to imagine her astral self in uniform―but nothing happened.
He tilted his head. “What if someone dies with no clothes on?”
“You get to spend a real long time being ashamed to be seen.” An awkward warble ran through her voice. “Another reason to regret bathtub suici―”
Damn.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
He cheered and spun in a circle. “We’re not ghosts, just magic people!”
Resigning herself to a cartoonish nude apparition, she studied the silver thread descending into her body. For poking around Intera, this would have to do.
The sight of her own apparently dead body caused such a start she lurched forward in a blinding flash and sat up with a gasp. It felt like falling from a height into a hard floor. Evan’s astral projection laughed and pointed at her.
“It scared me the first time, too.”
Having expected juvenile mockery, his honest admission surprised her. After gathering her calm, she again floated out of her body and attempted to walk around. She succeeded only in waving her legs back and forth. He glided closer and explained how to move. While attempting to help, he grabbed her hips, trying to push her through the air, and things quickly degenerated into a tickle fight. He felt like gelatin and zipped around taking advantage of her helplessness. After she cried out in surrender, he relented and explained further.
“You can’t just walk or swim around. Just think about going, and you go.” He giggled, still orbiting. “If you wanna go back inside your body real fast, grab the thread comin’ out of your face. If you think about your body you get slurped back up your nose.”
“Sounds great.” She gagged.
For several minutes, she experimented and the two of them wound up gliding hand-in-hand through the dorm. She got up to a decent clip, faster than she could run.
He glanced at her as they sailed along. “Look out. Some walls here hurt.” He rubbed his nose.
“I know.” She ruffled his shimmering hair. “A few special rooms are solid to ghosts.”
“Oh.” He shrugged, too young to care about the reason.
They played astral tag until true fatigue overpowered his attempt to act wide awake. She followed him back to his room, where he came to a halt hanging in space over his body. He did not want to stop playing with her, but could not protest.
“Are you gonna wake up yet?”
“No, I have something to do; something important that you just helped with.”
He beamed with pride and the apparition of boy-shaped light dissolved into a smear of energy that rushed back into his body, inflating his chest with a breath. He stumbled out of bed and fetched a spare blanket from the dresser. After tucking it around her, he gave her a smooch on the cheek and crawled back into bed.
Her heart melted.
She stayed with him until she thought he had fallen asleep. Seeing him safe gave her a kind of satisfaction she had never thought possible.
If I never accomplish anything else in my life, I can die happy.
irsten’s astral form streak
ed through the crowd, staring up at an ebon sky hidden behind the punishing glare of street-level lights. Color appeared in muted tones; her form radiated a soft amber glow upon a world existing in black and white. She wondered if the stars still shone, somewhere deep within the black in a place above the smog. Mesmerized by the sky, her glide came to a halt as she tried to imagine what real stars looked like.
Oblivious, people walked through her hovering form.
Her body felt no sense of temperature, but the sight of hundreds of faces shimmering in her castoff light brought back her embarrassment. Flying, on the other hand, took her mind off her exposure and she lost herself in the newness of it. She left the crowd behind, going straight up and sailing around in circles for more time than she had intended.
I have to take Evan flying up here, he would love this.
In midair a quarter mile up, she stopped and tried to figure out which way to go. Her amusement was suddenly tempered by the worry of paranoia. If the population at large became aware of astral travel, there could be riots about privacy.
Kirsten willed herself faster into the air. Away from the sea of blinking lights and smears of color below, the smog surrounded her with the violet of reflected twilight. Every so often, a patch of city languished in shadow. In places where violent death scored a mark upon reality, the other side leaked through. Along with the sight of the breaches came the sensation of being watched―the presence of Harbingers.
Without a NavMap console, she wandered in circles trying to navigate by landmarks in a city of identical construction. Hours passed until the silhouette of the Intera Tower emerged from the haze. She managed to get her flight speed up to something akin to fifty miles an hour, but it seemed plodding compared to her car. She glided in an upward arc toward the pyramid at the top of the central building.
At least I can skip that wretched elevator tour.
Past an outdoor balcony, she glided toward dim light and phased through angled glass into a lavish inner sanctum awash with shadows. Scant light leaked through an open door from a room deeper in. A massive desk dominated the center of an office that held an impressive collection of art. Wooden statues, paintings, a bronze globe, and a stuffed polar bear tangled in an anachronistic clash with modern electronics.
Division Zero Page 23
