The elevator began to descend. I couldn’t stop shaking on the floor; my body convulsing in vicious spasms. Nero knelt beside me with his hands out like he wanted to place them on me out of compassion, but he for some reason didn’t dare touch me.
A sharp pain sliced through my back where the lightning bolt had struck. The electric current surging through my body vanished. A wire, frayed on one end and two small barbs on the other, fell to the floor beside me.
“We made it!” Nero exclaimed. He sounded closer again, right beside me, as my awareness of my surroundings faintly returned. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I said hoarsely. “What happened?”
“They shot you with a Taser, but we were able to break away just in time.”
“I would say breaking away just in time would be an understatement,” I said, attempting to push myself to a seated position.
The elevator continued to rocket down. The air outside was dark like when we had arrived—I had arrived, with the orderlies. I looked out at the lights from small towns, again noticing the missing marvel of a backdrop that was Provex City. There were only small lights for as far as the eye could see in all directions.
The electricity coursing through me had counteracted the drugs for a few seconds, but the haze was returning. The nausea crept higher in my chest, nearing my throat. I wavered in my seated position and found my balance against the glass wall of the elevator. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand—at least not without help—so I didn’t even try.
“I need to get home. I can’t do this on my own,” I said to Nero, and when I actually looked for him, I noticed he was no longer in the elevator with me.
“You’re not alone. We are a team,” I heard Nero say in my ear. He was back to the phantom voice from before. He was back in his realm, and me in mine, separated by an invisible line on which SUSY Asylum seemed to sit. “You’re not out of the woods yet. When you reach the ground floor, you’ll need to run, escape the hospital. Then we can find Desiree together.”
“No,” I said, sharply. “I don’t think I can. I can’t even stand. I need to go home.”
“You need to find your girl. You can’t just go home and leave her. I have a safe place where you can rest and get well before the search begins. We are a team, you and I. Are you going to let what happened to Anna happen to Desiree?”
My heart sank. I couldn’t bear the thought, but I knew I was useless now.
The elevator came to a stop and I saw the familiar light and white walls of the O.P.C. Medical Center, but they didn’t feel as welcoming as before. No one was waiting for me in the elevator bank. A doctor strode by without even a glance over.
“You need to go,” Nero demanded.
I pushed against the wall to climb feebly to my feet. The world through my eyes staggered in jagged movements with each move of my head. My ankle throbbed once again, radiating up to my knee.
“Hurry!”
Looking down, I saw where Frolics had fallen and reached down to pick him up. I stumbled out of the elevator, gripping the toy tightly, and turned down the hallway. I didn’t check to see if anyone was chasing me. I wouldn’t be able to get away if there was. I couldn’t run; I could barely walk or see straight or keep myself from vomiting. My feet were like anvils. I felt like I was walking through thigh-high water, fighting against the current.
I reached out my hand to the wall to keep myself upright, probably looking like death to someone walking by—someone coming into the hospital, not someone trying to leave.
“Visiting hours are—”
“Over, I know,” I said to an approaching doctor. She seemed to be the only one around, and she’d found me.
The doctor stopped in front of me, blocking my path. She looked at me inquisitively. “Are you all right? Are you a patient? Let me help you back to your room.”
“No!” I exclaimed, not realizing how loud my voice was. “I’m fine…I just need to go.”
“You need to go—now!” Nero yelled in my ear.
“Stop him!” a voice called from behind.
The doctor looked up to see who it was and the expression on her face quickly changed, like it was her they were after.
She reached out to me and I immediately batted her hand away. I pushed past her and made a run for it. There was no time to wonder or worry if I could or not. I sprinted down the hallway, pushing off from the wall when my stride coasted too close.
“Quickly!” Nero said. After a few seconds he added, “You’re doing so well!”
There were so many hallways, but they had to lead somewhere besides escapeless circles. I heard the pounding of running footsteps behind me, wondering if the doctor who’d talked to me had joined the pursuit.
I was still standing. I was still running. Trying not to think about how fast my pursuers were gaining on me, I remained focused on the hallway ahead.
The double doors.
The lobby.
I burst into the lobby like a bank robber suffering from a messy getaway. A nurse behind the admissions counter stood, staring at me. I glanced over at her apologetically and continued straight into the nighttime air.
The lit pathways were as labyrinth-like as the hallways, but I wasn’t forced to follow them. I cut across the lit pathways, through the grass, and around the side of another building in the medical complex.
Had I made it? Were they still after me? I slowed, but didn’t stop, as I staggered around another building. My breathing was heavy and I coughed and gagged from the run and fight to stay conscious. As I slowed to a hopping power walk, my ankle hurt worse, or maybe I was just feeling it more as the adrenaline in my body lessened. The lights lining the pathways had large halos like tiny suns. My vision blurred. I was about ready to collapse—but not yet. I couldn’t be found here!
“You can’t make it home in the state you’re in,” Nero said. “It’s best you stay with me. I’ll take care of you until you’re well, and then we can find Desiree—together.”
I continued my stagger around the building and saw the field ahead that would lead me home. I heard no other voices besides Nero’s. It felt like we were the only people in the world, passing bright, vacant buildings.
The medical complex fell away behind me as I stumbled into the grass of the field. Provex City loomed ahead in all its epic, Oz-like glory—the buildings of red and blue light towering into the heavens.
I fell forward, catching myself on one raw palm and one Frolics cushion. Pebbles, twigs, and dirt dug into my skin, but it barely hurt compared to all the other pain surging through my body. It was just one more thing. I tried to get a footing, but I quickly ended up on my hands again. Rolling over in the grass, I looked up at the stars, which were oddly bright with all the lights around me. I could have been lying in a meadow in the middle of the country somewhere, stargazing with all possibilities above me, all my dreams possible, with nothing but a bright future ahead.
I gazed upon the dirtied stuffed animal in my hand and thought of everything he represented—my past, my family, my father, my future, my destiny…
“You can’t stay here. It’s not safe,” Nero said. “It won’t be long before you are found.”
“I know, but I can’t go on. I can’t move.”
“It’s just a little farther—then I can help you the rest of the way.” There was a moment of silence. “Get up, Oliver! Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then get up. You are almost there. Think of your father.”
“I can’t get home. I’m too weak…too much pain…too…”
“I know,” Nero said with a softening tone. “That is why you need to come to me. I can help you and take care of you until you are well. Come back to The Line. Think of Desiree. How scared and alone she is. Don’t abandon her. You don’t want what happened to Anna to happen to her. We will find her and you both can return home together.”
“I won’t abandon her,” I whispered. Even my voice was leaving me. My c
onsciousness slipping. The light from the buildings in the complex nearby was dimming.
“Get up, Oliver! Get up!”
I rolled over to my stomach and pushed up to my knees. That was as high as I could get. I crawled forward, unintentionally punishing Frolics with each step.
“That’s good,” Nero said, soft again. “You’re almost there.”
I saw a break in the grass ahead of me, getting closer. The sound of rushing water. My heart sank once more. I slowly reached the bank of the river and collapsed again into the grass.
“I’m blocked,” I said exasperated. “There’s nothing more I can do.”
“No,” Nero answered. “You reached me. Climb into the river and go under the water. I’m waiting for you there. I’ll pull you out.”
“What?”
“I’m waiting for you in the water. I’ll pull you out,” Nero repeated.
“No…no…no…I can’t get in the water,” I cried. “I can’t—why can’t you come get me here?”
“It doesn’t work like that. The river is your Line.”
“I’m afraid of the water.”
“I know,” Nero said. “That’s why it’s your entrance. Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I whispered. But I couldn’t move. “What about Frolics?”
“He’s a stuffed animal. He’ll survive.”
“What about me? I’ll drown.”
“No you won’t. You’ll survive, too.”
“I can’t—”
“Oliver, I don’t want you dead. I don’t want to die! I will pull you out!”
I pulled my body closer to the edge. The water roared with the force of an angry stampede and I’d be throwing my helpless body into it to be trampled and mangled and left for dead.
“I will pull you out safely,” Nero whispered.
I heaved the top half of my body over the edge and my first hand reached the icy water, freezing my entire body instantly.
“I can’t!” I cried.
“When you can’t, you must!”
With the emergence of tears and the spray of breaking water upon my face, I pushed off the edge with my last remaining strength. The water—not Nero—caught me and welcomed me into its icy embrace as it tugged me along and below its violent surface. I was sinking, pulled down by unseen hands. My grip on Frolics loosened. I had to breathe and the unrelenting water forced its way into my mouth. There was nothing I could do to fight it off.
Desiree…I’m so sorry…I failed…
25
The Symmetric Plane
The icy hands holding me under the water felt so real, not metaphorical hands, but real hands. And then they were pulling me up.
My head crashed through the surface of the river. My lungs and throat burned as I expelled the alien water from my system.
Someone dragged my useless body onto the bank of the river and turned my head to one side. I couldn’t stop coughing and wheezing, and water wouldn’t stop coming out. Then the shivering started.
Another body dropped beside me with heavy breaths, almost as spastic as mine, like there was more than one person pulled from the river.
My vision was blurred and everything hurt. When my coughing began to settle, I felt the air coming back into my lungs. I was somehow alive. Had I gone back in time? Was I a young boy again, with Mom dragging me from the water in Lake Arrowhead? If I was, then I guess I wouldn’t be remembering it as a flashback. Suddenly, I remembered opening my eyes, lying on a neighbor’s dock, and it not being my mother leaning over me, but a man. My mother hadn’t saved me that day, but a man—a man with a familiar face. Mr. Gordon? Had he really saved me from the swells and swam me back to the dock? He had been saving me far before the school fights of this year?
I tried to heave more water, but I was down to dry heaving. It had all been expelled. My muscles tensed and my teeth chattered so much I was afraid they’d shatter. Positioned with my head to the side, I saw who was lying a few feet away, far enough to be beyond my line of fire. Nero was lying in the grass, coughing and gasping for air. He looked almost in as bad shape as me. But I could see him. He was really here—or I was there. Was I in the dreaded symmetric plane?
“Nero, are you all right?” I asked, which I could only get to come out in broken syllables and a hoarse whisper. He probably couldn’t even hear me.
“I pulled you out,” he said and rolled to his side to face me. “The drugs in your system hit me when I did. I just need a moment.”
I hadn’t realized how much they had affected him, too. My consciousness always faded to a thick haze, and then I was out altogether, so I never saw how he was being affected from my injections.
“I know you still feel pretty bad, but we need to push on,” Nero said. “It’s not safe for you to be out here.”
“Where is here?”
“We are in the shell of your realm.”
“The symmetric plane?”
“That’s what the folks of Greater Meric call it.” Nero pushed slowly to his feet and offered me a hand.
I was scared of what I would see when I got a good look around. My thoughts went back to the House of Mirrors Darius had taken me through. Nero didn’t look like the creatures in the mirrors—the creatures dragging their other halves in chains. The buildings crumbling. Lights flickering. A true nightmare of a place.
I let him pull me to a seated position, but I was too weak to stand. A few heaving coughs escaped my throat. My abdominal muscles were tight and aching from expelling so much water. The pounding in my head was heavy and constant. I felt like I was locked within a block of ice.
The sky was beginning to gather an orangey hue as the sun slowly climbed to the horizon.
“We have to get moving,” Nero said with greater urgency in his voice.
“Are you gonna help me? I don’t think I can walk.”
“Of course,” he said in a softer tone. “I said I would and I will.” He offered me his hand again. “There is nothing to fear as long as we keep moving.”
I looked up at him before taking his hand, noticing how pale and yellow his skin looked. He still looked incredible all things considered, but his typical fair and flawless skin looked sickly.
Nero pulled me to my feet with unexpected strength. If we were supposed to be mirror images of each other, then he wasn’t getting his strength from me.
With the weight of my body coming down on my right ankle, I stumbled and lurched forward. Nero caught me with one arm and propped me upright. I threw an arm over his shoulder to keep from falling again, but my arm strength was also weak from everything I’d been through. I could barely hold myself up.
“We just need to make it to the monorail elevator and then you can sit and rest while we wait to be taken into the city.”
I looked ahead and saw a familiar backdrop. The highway was abuzz with hovering cars. Glass boxes lined the edge to take us up to the monorail. I glanced back at the O.P.C. Medical facility. There were cars coming and going, headlights still on in the dim morning light, but I saw no one walking to and from the buildings.
Nero helped me take a careful step forward and I winced in pain, trying to keep as much pressure off my right leg as possible, trying to keep my constitution, and trying to keep my equilibrium.
“You can do it,” Nero said, and I believed him.
We continued slowly through the grass toward the highway. Provex City loomed elegantly in the distance. The buildings did not flicker and there were no large chunks of glass and aluminum falling to the ground like a post-apocalyptic war zone—though maybe I couldn’t see the destruction from this distance.
Once reaching the glass cube, we were greeted with the familiar freshly scented air, relieved of the highway noise, and the soothing melodies of classical music. The box didn’t lift when we entered like I had remembered. Nero sat me down against the glass and took a seat on the opposite side to face me.
“Now we wait,” he said.
“And it’s safer in here than out
in the field?”
“Slightly, and it’s warmer. We don’t have many choices unless you want to walk all the way into the city.”
We had talked so much over the past few weeks; there was nothing left to say. We sat and I fought to stay awake. I would sleep for a week straight when I got home. Nero looked like he could use some rest himself, but he wrapped a solid arm around me while I shivered against him.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked after a good ten minutes of silence.
“Someone to use this elevator. It won’t ascend for us.”
“What if no one uses it?”
“Since it’s close to the hospital, someone will stop or leave from here.”
We could be waiting here indefinitely. I was starting to feel better as the drugs diluted in my system—except for the pain, for the same reason.
“At this rate, I’ll be well enough to get home—”
While in the middle of my sentence, the elevator began to ascend. We reached the level of the monorail, which became visible in the distance as it rocketed toward us. One of the cars pulled right up to our glass cube and we stepped into it.
“I thought you said it would only stop if someone else was getting on or off?” I asked.
“It did. Someone from the other realm exited the monorail, allowing us to get on. Now that I don’t have you on the other side, I can’t see them, but I know they’re there.”
The monorail accelerated and we were on our way to the city. Nero and I walked through the car, which was almost completely empty. We only passed a few people sitting solo in the padded benches, greatly spread throughout the car. Nero chose the last booth in the car, having me scoot down to the window seat.
The sun had broken over the edge of the horizon, and even though I couldn’t see it, I could see its light cast over the roofs of the buildings and tops of trees. The world was just waking up and I felt like I had been up for days.
“It doesn’t look any different,” I said, gazing out at the somewhat familiar backdrop of Provex City as we flew toward its beckoning call.
SUSY Asylum Page 30
