Doria Falls

by Michael Pierce

  I was frozen in place for the split second everyone around me seemed to be reacting.

  “Don’t!” Mr. Gordon yelled, but it was already too late.

  Nicholae caught Richard by the throat. Richard was about four inches taller and had a larger build than Nicholae, but he became powerless and immobilized in the boy’s grip.

  “Who are you?” Nicholae drew Richard’s face in closer until they were nearly nose to nose.

  “I’m Richard, the boys’ stepfather,” he growled.

  Nicholae smiled menacingly. “Of course you are. Welcome to the family.” He released Richard, who took a few steps back, massaging his raw skin with one hand.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “That’s enough.”

  Nicholae turned his attention back to Jeremy, who continued to bleed into his hands. Jeremy brought the hand furthest from Desiree behind his back for a moment, then back up to his nose as more blood poured down his face.

  “That’s for nearly killing Oliver, yourself, and most likely this little lady over here,” he said, gesturing to Desiree. “If you put them in danger again, I will come after you myself and it will take more than a screwdriver or the gun behind your back to save you.”

  Nicholae stepped forward and extended his hand down to Jeremy. “Get up. Your nose has to hurt like hell.”

  Jeremy raised a bloody hand and Nicholae yanked him to his feet. Nicholae spun him around and grabbed a pistol from the back of his pants. Jeremy turned back to face his first stepfather and dropped his hands to his sides. Blood was smeared all down the front of his face and streaked his neck, but it seemed to no longer be flowing. Desiree stood by his side, giving Nicholae a death stare to absolutely zero effect.

  “When you stop thinking about shooting me,” he said, holding the pistol up, “then you can have it back.”

  Nicholae turned on his heel and headed back in the direction he’d come. “Welcome to the new Doria Falls Rebellion Compound. We’re still setting up, but make yourselves at home. Colton and Briggs will show you where to go and I’ll meet up with you later.” He tapped both men on the shoulders and continued past. Without a word, Matilda joined him.

  “Are you all right?” Richard asked, reaching out to Jeremy. “Daniel, can’t you do something for him?”

  “I’m fine,” Jeremy answered sorely. “Nicholae already healed me. He just left the mess.”

  Colton and Briggs showed us around: the sleeping quarters, cafeteria, training rooms, and offices, which were still being created. The entire compound was less than 24 hours old. Nicholae had scouted this spot in advance, anticipating a next move. After news spread about the security breach, he acted fast, took members that he wholeheartedly trusted, and left the others behind at an alternate post, not giving them the heads up that they were under surveillance.

  “So this place—all of these buildings were built this morning?” Desiree asked.

  “Nicholae creates our compounds as we move around within and across the planes,” Briggs said, the taller and more muscular of our two tour guides. He had short sandy blonde hair, inset eyes, and a long chin.

  “Jules is the architect, going through and providing all the finishing touches,” Colton added. He had a more sinewy frame with small features and a shaved head. “She ties all the interconnecting systems together and makes sure they’re all working properly and in harmony with one another, the details Nicholae delegates to her.”

  “That explains why everything’s still in such good shape,” Desiree said.

  “Nicholae cleared the plane above to make sure nothing collapsed onto us. This is a safe space for us while Nicholae and his elite team work on finding the remaining guardians before Kafka.”

  “What guardians?” I asked.

  “He can better brief you before he leaves,” Briggs said, which ended the conversation.

  We passed a number of men and women in similar dress moving throughout the compound. Colton and Briggs exchanged brief pleasantries with some of them, but without stopping. One building had two wolves stationed on either side of the main door. They watched us suspiciously as we approached, but didn’t make a sound.

  “What’s in there?” Desiree asked.

  “Nicholae,” Briggs said and led us away.

  After turning down another row of smaller buildings, we were guided into one on the left. Inside looked like a large dorm room. Rows of bunk beds lined one wall and doors to a bathroom and several closets on the opposite one. The back wall had several large darkly tinted windows.

  “Block G has been set up especially for you,” Colton said. He and Briggs stood by the door as we meandered around the room, the wooden floor creaking under each step. “The accommodations should be acceptable.”

  “They’re fine,” Mr. Gordon said.

  “Dinner’s served between 17:00 and 18:00. It’s 15:45 now.” Briggs pointed to an analog clock overhead. “The bathroom is stocked. There are a few sizes of fatigues in the closets if you want to change. We’ll be around if you need anything else.” Colton and Briggs left, closing the door behind them.

  Jeremy shuffled off his blue and bloodstained jacket, let it fall to the floor, and headed straight for the bathroom.

  “I guess I should clean this shit up,” he said and slammed the door.

  Desiree sat on one of the lower middle bunks.

  “So what happens next?” Richard asked Mr. Gordon. They both headed toward the darkly tinted windows on the far wall.

  “Already claiming your bed?” I swung my backpack onto the bunk above where Desiree sat and took a seat next to her.

  “I can always play musical beds,” she said, taking my closest hand in both of hers.

  “I don’t know if I’m okay with that,” I said with a smirk.

  She pushed her shoulder into mine. “You know what I mean.”

  “I’ll be right upstairs if you need any company,” I said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek and climbing up to the top bunk.

  “Hey!” she said, standing up on the edge of her mattress so she could just reach the top bunk. “Leaving me so soon?”

  I rolled to the side, toward her innocent peeking face, and leaned in to give her a real kiss this time. I pulled back and she pushed forward, just like Jeremy had said when he used to try and give me advice on attracting the opposite sex, back when he thought I was hopeless. I carefully stroked her tangled hair and breathed her in. The room wasn’t exactly private, but the madness from the outside world was kept at bay in that moment—and for as long as I could help it. Her lips, her tongue, her teeth, her breath—every part of her touching me was heaven.

  “I so need to brush my teeth,” Desiree said, momentarily breaking away.

  “I don’t care,” I answered, and meant it, and drew her back into me.

  “How’s the view from up there, Mr. Lorne?” Her lips were wet and she gazed up at me with what I pictured yearning to look like.

  “Beautiful,” I said. “You should see it for yourself.”

  “Maybe I should.” She flashed a wide grin before her face dropped out of sight. Desiree emerged back into view climbing the bunk next to mine. She lay on her side, facing me. “You’re right. The view is pretty nice from up here.”

  “I like your sweatshirt.” I could look at her—even wearing a form-concealing sweatshirt—forever.

  She placed her overlapped hands to her heart. “Me, too.”

  Jeremy exited the bathroom with his—Mr. Gordon’s dress shirt slung over his left shoulder. His right arm and shoulder were still bandaged up from the events of yesterday evening.

  “Now what happened to you?” Richard said from across the room.

  “Daniel’s hutch attacked me.”

  “Is that my shirt?” Mr. Gordon asked.

  Jeremy tossed it at him and checked out one of the two walk-in closets. Mr. Gordon didn’t even care to look at the soiled shirt and simply placed it on the back of one of the wooden chairs surrounding a small circular table. Jeremy steppe
d back into the room wearing a black T-shirt while still tugging a black flannel shirt over his head.

  “I sure could use some food,” he said, taking in the vibe of the room.

  “I don’t think I can ever eat again,” Desiree said, propped up on an elbow so she could be seen as well as heard on her top bunk.

  That proved to be a lie. Desiree joined us for dinner, maybe had less than usual, but she still ate. The cafeteria had rows of long metal table-bench combinations, and we claimed the end of one for our misplaced group. The room never filled and felt way too big for the amount of people seeming to reside at the compound. We all picked at the food on our trays rather quietly like separate people sitting together.

  “Are we actually welcome here?” Richard asked. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, crumpled it up, and tossed it onto the corner compartment of his tray.

  “Yes and no,” Mr. Gordon replied. “We’re mostly family, so in that sense, we’re always welcome. But—and this is a big but—this is the most dangerous time for us to be here. I know Nicholae is concerned.”

  “Yeah, he seemed real concerned when he punched me in the face,” Jeremy mocked.

  “He didn’t leave your nose broken,” I said. “So that’s a plus.”

  “I knew I should have stayed home.”

  “And you still can,” Mr. Gordon said. “It’s not too late.”

  “Yes, go home and watch after your mother until I go back,” Richard offered.

  “No.” Jeremy shook his head. “I’m already here. I can’t go home now.”

  By the time we left the cafeteria, it was dark. Spotlights hanging from the roof edge of each building lit our path back to Block G. There were even less people out this evening than when we arrived earlier in the day. The few conversations we passed could barely be heard over the trill of crickets.

  There wasn’t much to do once we’d settled into the room. A small bookshelf with several shelves of paperback books and one shelf of stacked board games was pushed to the corner of the room by the table. Near the doorway, there was a small stand with a CRT television. The rounded glass screen and three knobs on the face reminded me of the television I’d seen in the asylum recreation room—where I’d had my last conversation with Anna, if you could really call our verbal exchange a conversation. She was so drugged up and broken; I began welling up just thinking of her again in that pitiful state. I tried to push away any attempt of my mind flashing to the next and last image I had of her.

  “Are you okay?”

  I was kneeling in front of the television, staring at the blank, charcoal-colored screen. Desiree stood over me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah,” I answered. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You’re not moving…and holding your breath…and staring at a blank screen.”

  I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. “I’m fine,” I insisted.

  She didn’t look like Anna, but as I looked at her now, she reminded me of her. We were all connected in my head, and it was hard to separate what I felt. My soaring heart plummeted when I saw Anna peeking through her face. I pushed a fallen lock of hair behind her ear and attempted to smile.

  “I’m fine.”

  I turned the top knobs and the television blinked on like an opening eye. It crackled as I turned up the volume, but the precarious picture was colorless and laced with static. After flipping through a few stations, I gave up, never finding a clear picture, and turned the set off.

  “This is stupid,” I said, turning to Desiree. “What are we doing here?”

  “Where else were we gonna go? You can’t go home. I thought you wanted to meet your father.”

  “I did.” I thought back to the brief interaction we’d had earlier in the day. He seemed to barely have time to greet us upon our arrival, and then he was gone with obviously more important things to do. We weren’t important. “I dunno. We’re here. We’re guests. But we’re not family.”

  Desiree licked her lips and shrugged. “Sometimes you can’t have any expectations, just accept what’s presented. It seems to be a fact that he’s your father, whether good or bad, and he’s here. Maybe tomorrow will be better.”

  But I couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Once the other conversations died down and the others in the room retreated to their bunks, I turned off the tablet and stuffed it back into my pack hanging off the right post next to my head. Zipping up the backpack would be too noisy, so I left the flap open like a gapping mouth with tiny, shiny teeth. Rereading Logan’s letter got me no closer to posting as Commodore Chaos. I had no idea where to begin and started to believe the commodore truly was dead.

  I slipped down the ladder at the foot of the bed and grabbed my shoes tucked underneath. Desiree stirred under her covers and I froze. I waited for her to sit up and acknowledge me standing there, but after 30 seconds, I let out my held breath, realizing she hadn’t awoken. Jeremy was on the lower bunk beside her, and he was definitely out. I tiptoed across the room, trying my best to avoid other fixed objects highlighted by the pale gray light shining in through the tinted, curtain-less windows.

  The floor squeaked and I stopped again and waited. When no one called out into the darkness, I cautiously continued, now testing the wooden floor before each step. The biggest challenge, I knew, would be opening the door without waking the whole room—but then I realized it wasn’t a challenge at all. I wasn’t confined by doors anymore. I had no confines at all. I could come and go as I pleased, and if Alexandria Lorne couldn’t stop me, no one could. I stepped up to the door, pressed a palm against the cold metal, and mentally pushed. Physically pushing would just push me into the door, but mentally pushing—that was the key to slide right through like air. My hand no longer felt the door. I passed through like it was just another semi-permeable opening in Provex City and instantly felt the rush from my freedom and abilities.

  I hopped forward on one foot to slide on a sneaker and clumsily performed the stunt on the opposite foot, not wanting to waste any more time. A few people were out and about, and no one paid me any mind. I had as much right to be here as anyone else, and they must have sensed it. A few guys even greeted me as I passed, so I returned the salutations and continued purposefully forward.

  After a few turns through washed-out rectangular buildings, which all looked the same, I found the marker I was looking for: two wolves sitting outside a main entrance. As soon as I rounded the corner, the two canines zoned in on me with their aggressive yellow eyes, but remained seated. The only movement came from their pivoting heads and eyes, following me as I strolled closer. They began growling when I was about ten feet away. I slowed, but didn’t stop. They were not going to keep me from going into the building.

  “I’m here to see Nicholae,” I said, immediately feeling stupid for addressing them like they understood.

  The two wolves continued to growl, but I continued to approach. I tried to remain light on my feet, ready for an attack if necessary (not that I could successfully defend myself from two large wolves). Once I reached them, I finally stopped—and they stopped growling. The wolves gazed up at me with their predatory eyes, but dropped their upper lips. I waited a moment before attempting to pass between them, my heart pounding like jabs to the chest.

  One step.

  I looked down at the wolf to my left. His expression remained unchanged.

  So I took another step. This time I gazed down at the wolf to my right, and he too, sat stoic and silent.

  The door let out a high pitched whine when I pulled it open. Like our building, inside was primarily one large room. White glowing orbs the size of golf balls hung suspended in the air in several points around the room.

  Nicholae turned his focus from the others in the room to me and waved me in. I thought my heart was beating hard from the aggravated wolves, but it quickly began pounding against my ribcage threefold when I took in the room.

  Several men and women sat in a cell near the far corner of the room, surrounded on all four sid
es by bars of purple lightning. Nicholae stood closer to the center of the warehouse-like room with Matilda, a beefy man with thick muttonchops and long hair pulled back into a braided ponytail, and a slight girl with golden hair that couldn’t be more than eight years old. Before the four of them sat a bald man tied to a chair. At least he seemed tied to the chair, but I couldn’t tell what was confining the man to the worn piece of furniture. And then the realization of what I was seeing hit me and transported me back to the horrific scenes from earlier in the day, when we first arrived in Doria. The man was not tied to the chair, he was fused with it. He wasn’t sitting on the chair, he was the chair!

  Wooden legs protruded from the back of his calves like an exoskeleton. The arms of the chair disappeared into the underside of his forearms. Halfway up his back, the back of the chair jutted out at a curving angle. And sitting there, he looked sunken into the seat. Sweat dripped from the man’s face, his skin pulled tight and the veins in his neck bulging.

  “Come in, my son,” Nicholae said, continuing to wave me into the room, away from the doorway. Once I fully entered the room, the door closed by some invisible force behind me.

  Being called my son by someone who looked three or four years older than me felt so strange, and frankly, a little unnerving.

  Halfway to them, I noticed the wolf-head tattoos on the hairy man with the ponytail and the tween girl. They were all Lornes, even the little girl.

  “I—I couldn’t sleep,” I said, not knowing what else to say. This didn’t feel like the most welcoming of environments, not that any of what had transpired today had been in any way welcoming.

  “Then it’s a perfect time to get acquainted,” Nicholae said. “The hulk behind me is Bruno and the sweet-looking little thing to his left is Julia. But don’t let her fool you; she’s not nearly as sweet as she looks.” The four of them laughed, and Julia nodded with a malicious grin. “You’ll quickly come to understand that the appearance of age is an illusion. I’m sure Daniel’s told you about tapping into the experience of past lives, which is what’s fueled the family for several thousand years.”