by Jason Letts
“OK, I can’t wait anymore! Now! Let’s do it now!”
A sheepish grin dawned on his face as the lieutenant relayed the order to the nearby warehouse. Soon there was a loud crack and the sound of whinnying horses. The cart raced out of the warehouse and down the slope. As the cart shook, the massive octopus tried to hold down its precious cargo from atop the bolted pillar.
Archers fired at it as it rattled down the hill and onto the field. One arrow struck the octopus dead on, but the tip merely glanced away. It wasn’t until the horses had pulled the cart just behind the fray that an arrow pierced the smooth skin, causing the octopus to flail about violently.
Carmichael, his eyes glued to the scene, watched the sleek beast, injured and alarmed, lose hold of the Specials as it plucked out the arrows that pierced it and swatted at those flying by. Recognizing the nearby commotion, the animal went berserk, slipping over the side and joining the fight. It left behind its eight hostages, and now nothing stopped them from waking up.
“Any second now, and we’ll see it all!” he blustered.
For a moment the cart sat idle somewhere behind the chaotic fray. The horses had gotten free, and The Specials continued to stand, though one of them leaned against the center pillar. A few warriors had noticed its presence, and some had cried out in horror and tried to fight their way away, but most were too occupied to pay it any mind.
“Does anyone have any cold water to splash on them? This is taking forever!” Carmichael whined. Whether or not his suggestion was made in earnest, not one of the lieutenants moved.
Then a strange rippling swept over the field’s sandy surface. Spreading out in all directions from the cart, the barren ground seemed to turn over, darkening, softening, and moistening. It swept right under the fighters’ feet, squishing as they stepped on fertile soil.
Suddenly, the color flooded back into the world, allowing everyone to see the bloody gore, the brown dirt, and the blue sky. But just as that happened, everyone’s depth perception vanished as if they all covered an eye. Everything around them looked perfectly flat, making it so they couldn’t tell how far away things were.
The fighters noticed themselves grow lighter against the ground. Something seemed to tug them upward. Jumping ten feet seemed easy, making them wonder what caused it. But for Carmichael, who could not contain his excitement, the reason was all too clear.
The Specials were waking up.
One of the two hairless men opened his eyes first, and at that moment all of the oxygen disappeared from the air. Every fighter on the battlefield struggled for breath. Many collapsed on the ground, mouths gaping open, desperate for relief. Just as suddenly as it had vanished, it returned.
The others too started to muster, opening their eyes, taking deep breaths, and stretching their long-dormant bodies. The spry-looking woman dismounted from the cart first, flipping over the side and confidently darting into the storm of fighters.
Clouds rolled overhead, forming from nowhere. They battled against the glaring sun, which couldn’t burn them all away. The ones who created that effect, the twin hairless men, slipped over the railing. They snuck away, looping around to the base camp’s northern edge. Still holding hands, grass sprouted under their steps and spread.
The old bearded man hovered in the air, setting himself beside the cart. A handful of warriors raced at him, weapons raised. Just a simple wave of his hand brushed them into the air before they even got close. They spiraled and flew away before dropping amongst the clashing armies.
The apish looking man carefully climbed down, but he had barely set his feet on the ground when the chubby young boy waddled along the edge and flopped over onto him. He knocked the ape-man to the ground, holding his hands to the sides of his victim’s head. The pudgy boy had a mesmerized, hungry look on his face.
“You’ve wanted this for so long,” he whispered in his childish voice.
The human-like being he clutched shivered in fear before the boy touched a finger to his forehead and his body went limp. His life seemed to disappear like light after blowing out a candle, and the body disintegrated into dust before his very eyes. The boy dragged his finger through the dust, sighing before raising his head to the sky.
He tried to scamper back onto the cart. Struggling to hold the edge, he became distracted when his britches started to sag. He reached back to pull them up but fell on his bottom. Only on his second attempt could he squirm onto the platform.
The tallest man stepped away from the cart. Nearly ten-feet tall, he gripped the railing and snapped it off. Taking the long wooden board between his forearms, he applied such pressure that it transformed into a diamond. Wielding his shiny diamond stick, he stalked out into the fray, clubbing anyone who came near him.
Approaching a brutal skirmish, the giant lunged forward and slapped an open palm at the ground, shaking the earth enough to knock every fighter in the area over. Dazed, soldiers turned in horror to see the towering figure coming closer. One brave soul rushed at him only to be pulverized by the shiny weapon.
On the cart, the pudgy boy scanned the surrounding fray and waved his arms as though he orchestrated a symphony. As soldiers rushed about, fleeing from any of the deadly, powerful forces that assailed them, the young boy singled them out for their end. Pointing in one direction, a running soldier received a flying javelin. Pointing somewhere else, a fireball immolated another. He pointed his fingers at one soldier who immediately felt the mortal blow of the tallest Special.
“What is that kid doing? He’s killing all our own men. Somebody stop him!” Commander Carmichael shouted, stomping around the veranda.
“What do we do?” a shaky lieutenant asked.
“Get him over to the other side. Let him mark the enemy for death!”
The lieutenant, unsure of how to comply, started to run to the archers, ordering them to fire upon him. The boy had turned back to the hill, pointing. In a freak accident, one of the archers misfired an arrow, killing the lieutenant after receiving a tap on the shoulder. Brushing off his hands, the boy trotted to the side of the cart. He hopped off, landing funny and falling onto his side, then waddled away.
The Shade army had thus far succeeded in repelling the enemy forces, but now all fighting had devolved into chaos. Those occupying whole sections of the battlefield floated helplessly through the air. Others had lost control of their bodies. Some experienced the cruel fate of death at the hands of pure, unlucky chance. The clouds fighting against the sun above showered droplets, each one sprouting a green plant as soon as it landed, whether it hit ground or flesh.
The battle of tan-suited soldiers versus black-suited warriors ended as each and every participant turned their attention to the five roaming Specials. Hopeless in comparison, warriors formed dense rings, attacking them from every direction like ants trying to take down a praying mantis.
Vern, Aoi, Chucky, Will, and Rowland found themselves caught in a confused jumble of fighters. Glancing around, none of them could even tell who they were fighting against. They tried to stick together, looking for some safe place amongst the rabble of troops running in every direction.
Seeing Chucky veer off in a different direction, Vern extended his arm to tug him back. It startled him when nothing happened, and he repeated the motion again. Choosing a target just a few feet away, he motioned to exert his gravitational force, but it had no effect. Shocked at the loss of his power, he started to breath heavily. Why wasn’t it working?
Hyperventilating, he felt a cold sweat seep over his skin. The others, concerned he had become injured, asked him if he was OK. Doubling over, he set his hands on his knees and stared at the topsoil now covering the ground. Little sprouts poked through, and they flapped every which way at his breath. Confused, Vern put his hand to his mouth and felt his exhaling produce a gust more severe than he had ever known.
“Will, I’m you,” he said.
“No way!” Will denied, opening his mouth to take a deep breath. As he did so, he vanis
hed, and a shadowy replica appeared a few feet away. “I’m Neeko? This is terrible!”
Rowland tried to peel away his armor and found he was trapped within it. He struggled, stomping around but unable to free himself. Aoi’s hair hardened and sharpened into needles, making her put her hand to her heart and sniffle. She snapped one of the needles off and peered at it.
“Now who am I?” she quivered.
Only Chucky had the same gift he was born with.
“Figures,” he moaned, wiping the goopy sweat from his arm and slinging it at the ground.
But they had no time to rest and get acclimated to their new condition. Vern happened to see a pair walking in rags out of the corner of his eye. He recognized the two girls from the cart, a feisty one just a little younger and an athletic-looking one just their senior, weaving through the crowd killing indiscriminately. If one changed their powers, what did the other do? He racked his brain but couldn’t remember what Carmichael told him.
Vern saw someone charging at him, oblivious that he stood in the way. At such a short distance, there seemed little time to avoid getting hit, and Vern thought to raise his hands to block. But his hands didn’t move, and the charging man seemed to move much slower than it first appeared. His tan uniform twisted and folded as a leg rose for another step in slow motion. A drop of sweat fell from his hair and hung in the air on its way to his shoulder for what seemed like minutes.
Shouting in his mind to put his hands up, Vern couldn’t understand why he was just standing still. Frustrated, he thought to look to the right, where Aoi was, to see if she experienced a similar effect. But his eyes didn’t move right away, and he could do nothing but watch the man rushing at him, a terrified look on his face. That’s when Vern remembered. The girl was affecting the brain’s signals to the body, speeding them up so everything seemed slow. Her counterpart changing everyone’s powers must have left her alone because they were working together.
Vern had time to formulate all kinds of theories before his eyes finally shifted to the right. Everything moved so slowly, and all of the chaos almost seemed peaceful. Each movement looked graceful and poetic.
But the spot where he looked did not contain Aoi. Instead, a few fighters clashed against the young girl controlling their minds. A grizzly fighter attempted to punch her, but she drifted out of the way just in time and then brought a stone she held against his head. Unlike the rest of them, she had perfect control over herself, and the effect seemed breathtaking.
Feeling his arms start to rise, Vern issued the command in his mind to turn his eyes back to where he was facing. Waiting for minutes, Vern thought he saw part of Chucky’s mace come into his field of vision, and he wanted to stop himself from looking away so he could see what happened, but it was too late.
The man running at him looked dead on at Vern, fear gripping him. He couldn’t stop himself, and he started to twist his head away like it was all happening too fast. Vern watched his own arms slowly rise. They wouldn’t make it in time, and they would be sticking straight out when they collided. It would hurt, and he would be knocked over. This was unavoidable.
It felt like an hour passed until the man finally hit him. He stayed so close for so long, even when Vern had been pushed off the ground, that it made him uncomfortable. But then in an instant he fell onto his back and felt the sting of the ground’s impact. Suddenly, things seemed to be moving too fast around him. It was a blur, and he could process only very little of it. He instantly got to his feet, but he had been standing there for minutes before his mind could process what to do next. Someone else collided into him, knocking him flat on his back.
Nearby, the taller of the female Specials thrashed her way toward Vern’s friends. Aoi caught a blurry glimpse of her approach. She motioned to punch at her, but the lanky girl had already kicked her in the stomach, elbowed her on the back, and kneed her in the face by the time she did it. Aoi lay on her back, blood seeping out of her face when her arm finally made the punch.
From the outside, it looked like they were just standing there, letting this one angry girl thrash them mercilessly, but it was just because their minds had become so slow. She ripped the mace out of Chucky’s hand, and used it to bludgeon Rowland repeatedly in his metal suit of armor. Fortunately, she didn’t know how to operate its electric function. She whacked him so hard in the head that it doubled him over, and she sent him falling face first into the grass.
She then returned the mace to Chucky’s hand, which had not yet closed or moved. She kicked him in the groin and clawed at his face before pushing him onto his back. By the time Chucky fell, a look of surprise came to him that the mace had left his hand.
Despite the gross distortion in their perception of time, the ground began to crack and lava poured through. A plume of molten rock showered the younger female Special, covering her completely. As soon as she died, everyone’s powers returned to the way they always had been.
Before the ragged-looking, older female Special could continue beating Vern or any of the other nearby soldiers, they all lifted into the air, rising higher and higher at the will of the old bearded Special. Everything swirled for Vern and his friends, who could hardly keep track of what was going on. A dazzling burst of colors seemed to flow through everything, and they twirled around in a psychedelic maze of movement and thought. Grass covered the ground and cooled streaks of lava, and radiant flowers started to bloom.
Explosions burst through the air. Raindrops battled the fires that attacked the growing plants. The legions of soldiers that hovered helplessly suddenly dropped twenty feet to the ground. Even Carmichael had been lifted into the air, along with most of the nearby buildings that had been ripped from their foundations. Now they all came crashing down in a wrecked heap of metal, wood, and cement.
Along the hillside, Roselyn finished checking Mira after the fall. She set her in the crevasse, adjusting her bandages and straightening her head. Tucked in this little corner, nothing from the battlefield should be able to get to her. But a strange wheezing came to Roselyn’s ear, and she couldn’t fathom what she might find when she looked over the bank.
Poking her head back, she heard the rumbling of a few loose rocks. A rotund little boy appeared over the edge, tripped, and skidded onto the ledge. A strange fascination accompanied the wheezing, and Roselyn didn’t have any trouble figuring out what drew him.
“Don’t you come any closer to her!” she yelled as he got up and shuffled nearer. He looked hungrily at Mira’s body, shuddering at the sight of her unconscious, injured frame, already so much like those lying dead on the battlefield.
“It would be so easy, just one touch, to send her home. She’s so close,” he drooled, his greedy fingers drifting out in front of him.
Swallowing hard, Roselyn knew he would not go away willingly. She opened her mouth and let her song ring deeply within his ears. A puzzled snort wrinkled his face.
“Even your pretty notes can’t make me forget what awaits us,” he mumbled.
He waddled a bit closer, and Roselyn seemed loath to touch him, but she had no other way of stopping his advance. Mira’s fragile figure entranced the boy, whose wiggling fingers inched closer to her. Just as Roselyn felt like she would have no choice but to fight him head on, Mary burst from behind the rocky embankment, diving on top of him.
The boy flopped over, and Mary fell alongside him, landing hard on her knee. He tried to crawl toward Mira, while Mary clung to his rags. His ratty shirt started to tear away, making Mary lose her grip. Roselyn, summoning her courage, stomped forward to intervene, but she slipped on a wobbly, round stone and fell against the slope.
When Roselyn scratched the boy’s leg to make him look back, Mary used her mirror to shine sunlight in his eyes. He wobbled and rolled, falling back against the girls.
Straining to get to their feet, Roselyn and Mary watched their adversary entangle himself within his shredded clothing. As if stepping on his shoelace, he couldn’t stop himself from tumbling agains
t a pile of rocks. One of those rocks rolled down and crushed Mary’s hand as she tried to climb onto the ledge. Because of Mary’s shrieks, Roselyn thoughtlessly went to plug her ears as her feet slipped and she needed her hands to prevent her from falling onto her face.
From her corner in the crevasse, Mira sat passively as the clumsy, disturbing altercation took place in front of her. While her friends struggled against daunting foes and their own bodies, and while she sat as still as a statue, the torment and anguish within her mind raged just as fiercely.
Chapter 12: Dreamscape III
“No, no please! I didn’t mean it!” Mira cried, her arms hanging over the younger version of herself.
“We know well enough what you mean,” Kevin said, taking strong steps toward her.
Roughly, he pulled her, finally lifting her by the waist to eliminate any resistance. Mira felt her fingers slip away from the girl’s cut cheek, but as they let go she realized the wound had healed greatly. The swelling had gone down and the cut had started to close.
“What?” she asked aloud, puzzled by this strange healing effect, even as angry hands carried her down the stairs.
“I’ve had my doubts about you from the beginning, but terrorizing my kids seals it. I have to send you out,” he said.
His arm guided her to the door as she hobbled off the stairs. Coming through the living room, she looked at her hands and saw that much of the blue mold still blotted her fingertips. Is this what caused her wound to heal? The rush of understanding at the connection made her gasp, but Kevin only took this as a pleading performance to stay.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, the way you treat people. If only your parents had taught you better. That’s not what my kids will grow up to be.”
Kevin jerked open the front door and prepared to cast Mira out. Before he gave her a final shove to send her into the dark wilderness, she gave him one last look in the eyes.
