She stood up again, now finding it harder than ever to do so without falling over, especially with nothing to hang onto. She assessed the angle of the building and the distance to the other one. They were getting closer. Their rate of descent was getting faster.
“Now!” Karena suddenly yelled, and although her parents weren’t entirely ready, they all sprinted across the rooftop, objects flying past them into the oblivion of the street below. It was hard to sprint when the floor was at such a steep angle, and Karena feared that they wouldn’t make it to the edge before the angle was too steep for them to run on. Had she spoken too late?
But they made it to the edge and Karena, without hesitating, leaped off the building without even looking to see how far she was from the adjacent one. Her parents followed suit, and for one moment they hung, suspended in air, in a truly magical moment where they could ignore the building in the midst of collapsing behind them and enjoy the feeling of flying despite the pounding in their hearts.
And then Karena looked ahead, and she saw that there was no way they were going to make it. The window of the building was still about 2 meters ahead of her, and she could feel her flight beginning to turn into a fall. Her velocity wouldn’t carry her all the way. Instead, she would plummet to the ground under the falling building.
But as she began to plummet, she didn’t cease to move forward. She was still moving towards the building, and from looking at the ground she could see that she was going to reach the building before reaching the ground. But she’d reach it at a very steep angle, and it was unlikely that she’d have enough force to break the window and safely get through. There were only seconds left now before she smashed into the building, and she knew now that there was no way she could make it. Even if by some miracle she could land on the windowsill, she’d be crushed by the falling building.
And then, an object flew out of nowhere and shattered the window just milliseconds before Karena sailed through the newly created opening, getting cut and scraped on the way in by shards of glass. She landed on the ground in a heap, her parents moments behind her, and instantly she felt a sharp pain in both her legs as she crashed to the floor. Her legs were on fire, and for a second or two all she could focus on was the pain. But then she remembered the building. Rubble would be piling into this room in seconds.
“Get up!” she cried, and she dragged herself across the floor with her arms, her parents wearily standing up and staggering after. But she only got a few meters before all the windows in the room splintered inwards and bricks and chairs and burning rubble flew through them, destroying everything in it. Karena felt the building shift beneath her as the other building collided with it, but it was only a second before she felt an object hit her on the head and the world went black.
33
Karena awoke to the sound of beeping and the smell of sterility, which was a telltale sign that she was in a hospital before she even opened her eyes.
When she tried to move, however, she found she was restrained to the bed by something, though she couldn’t see what. Her head was restrained too, and she could feel something over it, something that was of a similar texture to what appeared to be covering her whole body.
Why was she here? Had something happened? Karena searched her memories, and was surprised to come up empty handed on everything. She couldn’t remember why she was here, she couldn’t remember anything about herself at all, for that matter. How was that possible?
She opened her mouth to say something, but ended up coughing instead, and it was quite a large fit, one that lasted for a few minutes, not giving her a chance to say anything before a nurse rushed into the room.
“She’s awake,” she called out to someone outside the room, and she rushed over to Karena and checked several things such as her heart rate and blood pressure on a computer screen. Or at least that’s what Karena assumed she was doing, since she couldn’t see anything her from her position. The nurse then turned to Karena.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.
“Not really,” Karena managed to say before dissolving into another fit of coughs.
“Good,” said the nurse. “At least that’s better than ‘no.’ You’re in a full body cast, with extra protection around the head, and you’ve been restrained with your arms and legs suspended.”
Karena wiggled one of her arms to find that it was, indeed, suspended above the rest of her body, as was her other arm and her legs.
“It really is incredible that you survived this,” the nurse said. “From what I understand you were on top of a burning building and you jumped of and landed in an adjacent one, is that right?”
Karena searched her memories, not remembering this very clearly. Had something like the nurse had described happened? She had no idea. “I have no idea,” she said.”
The nurse sighed and looked back at the computer screen before looking back at Karena again. “I suspect there may be some brain damage from that hit you took on the head,” she said. “Tell me, what is your name?”
Again, Karena pored through her memories. Surely she couldn’t have lost her memory of who she actually was. Surely that memory couldn’t have disappeared along with everything else. But the more she thought about it, the surer she was. She had no idea what her name was.
“I don’t know,” Karena said, eyes wide with sudden fear. Who was she? What was going on? Why couldn’t she remember anything?
“Just as I thought,” the nurse said. “You’ve lost your memory. It should come back within time, though, of course, there’s no way to guarantee it. Basically, someone will just have to give you a briefing on who you are and what you’re like, that sort of thing. Enough to give you an idea of where to go in life before your memory fully comes back.”
Karena was panicking. Her breathing grew rapid with anxiety and she could feel sweat forming beneath the massive cast around her head. She’d lost her memory? What had she been thinking, jumping off a burning building, if that was what had really happened according to the nurse? Was she mad?
“Why would I do that?” Karena asked. “Something that stupid? Why?”
The nurse bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she said. “There were no other survivors of the fire, and so I don’t have any idea why you were up there. Someone just observed you jumping from the ground.” The nurse paused for a moment. “I do know one thing, though.” Another pause. “Two of the people who died in the fire were your parents.”
And suddenly, something happened that Karena would remember the rest of her lives. It started with the nose; it became more crooked and tight, and then wrinkles began to appear in the nurse’s face. They spread rapidly, and her eyes changed too, and her hair grew shorter, and greyer, and her chin grew sharper. And in a few seconds, the nurse, who had been standing above Karena just moments before, was no longer the nurse. It was someone else, a man of great age with tight features and a cold stare.
And somehow that man brought back everything. Her name was Karena Byrd and she was 39 years old, although her body was 10 years old. She’d started her life over again twice and both times her parents had died. She’d been on the roof trying to save her parents, so that something would be different this time. She’d jumped off the building in an attempt to save them. She’d thought they’d survived. They hadn’t. They must have been killed by the rubble coming in through the window.
And most importantly, she recognized the man standing before her, a man from all her worst nightmares. And she now knew his power. Her parents dying was a fixed point in all her lives. There was nothing she could do to change it. Nothing. Other events she could alter, but this was something she couldn’t. There was no way. He had complete power over her life, and apparently over other people too, judging from the way the nurse had transformed into him. And he was coming again in 5 years, to take her again. She wished she hadn’t gotten her memory back.
And then, the Sandman’s face vanished, and it was the face of the nurse again.
&
nbsp; “Karena, are you okay?” she asked. “Karena is your name by the way. Karena…”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Karena cut her off. “I know who I am now.” In a quieter tone, she muttered, “Unfortunately.”
The nurse was confused. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“I know everything about myself. It all came back to me.” Karena wasn’t really focusing on what she was saying, or what the nurse was saying, or anything that was physically going on around her.
“That’s impossible,” the nurse said. “You couldn’t have just recovered from your brain damage like that.”
“Well, I did.”
The nurse was stunned for a moment, before gathering herself and asking a question. “Tell me, then,” she said. “What were you doing on the roof of the building when the fire started?”
“I knew it would start,” Karena whispered, finding her eyes to be moist. “I was up there to save my parents. But he won. He won again, just like last time, and just like he always will.”
34
Karena recovered from her wounds over the course of the next few months, which were terribly disagreeable, and afterwards she was sent to an orphanage, the same orphanage she’d been sent to twice before, which was now even more disagreeable. Life was like a dream now; nothing felt real as she floated through her days as a ghost, merely observing and not participating. Hardly anyone noticed she was there, and after a while no one did, she simply was there in the background, not interacting with anyone or anything.
Karena knew now the Sandman’s power. She knew that he could appear in anyone’s body, that he could appear anywhere at any moment simply to scare her, and that there was no reason why he shouldn’t. She knew that she was powerless against him.
After a while, physical things became of little consequence. Instead of focusing on things other than the Sandman, and instead of focusing on the Sandman, Karena focused on nothing. She simply glided over everything, and it made the time fly. Nothing really mattered, nothing at all.
She became weary of this lifestyle, though, as I’m sure any person in her position would. She became weary and yet there was nothing she could do, nothing at all, to give her a sense of where to go and what to do. She knew exactly what was going to happen next, and yet it was this sense of predictability that made her existence so miserable. If she never knew what was going to happen next, then at least she would have something to think about, something to give her more excitement, but this was the third time of the exact same thing, and there was nothing like that to give her something interesting. Life was a bore. No, it was worse than a bore. Any old person could say that life was bore. To her it was far greater than that.
The only reason she stayed in this mindset, however, was so that life was not a terror.
35
5 years later…
It was time again.
This time, Karena had decided she wasn’t going to do anything. She wasn’t going to chase after him trying to kill him, she’d already tried that. She wasn’t going to cower and beg for mercy or run away, Shawn had already tried that. Of course she would show some sort of reaction, it was inevitable. But she’d deliberately focus on ignoring him, on preparing herself for her new life. How bad could it be?
“Where do you want to go for lunch?” said the girl.
Karena knew her. In another life she’d been a friend. But that was a lifetime ago. Now she was just another person, just someone who was there. It was surprising, really, that she was acknowledging Karena at all, as pretty much no one did. For good reason.
Karena thought over the question. It didn’t matter where they went for lunch. It didn’t matter, because the Sandman would be there anyway, and even though she’d already ruined two restaurants in town for her, why should she ruin a third? So she decided to revisit one of them.
“Quencher’s” she replied.
The girl smiled. “Great,” she said, and they left. The girls walked in front. Karena followed. They reached the restaurant. They walked in the door. They sat at a table, the same table they always sat at, the same table she’d been in before. They ordered food. They laughed and they chatted. Why was Karena even here? Why did she even bother coming to this? Why did it matter that she was in a restaurant when was taken? Why did any of this matter? Answer: None of it did.
She didn’t order. The girl tried talking to her a couple of times, but she found it easy to ignore her. She was an expert at ignoring things now. People, classes, animals, you name it, she could ignore it.
Except for the Sandman. She could only partially ignore him, never completely. This time she would ignore him. Or at least she’d try. She wasn’t even looking at a clock to see when he’d be coming. She didn’t even care. Or at least she tried telling herself she didn’t care.
It was getting late, later than usual. He should be here by now, Karena thought, finally finding her willpower at an end as she gave in and looked at a clock. It was five minutes past the time he usually showed up.
But she realized she shouldn’t be surprised, really. She’d learned from the incident with the fire that the Sandman could be unpredictable if he wanted to, and that his established routine wasn’t necessarily established and didn’t necessarily mean anything. It was merely a tool to trick her, another thing he used to manipulate her and her anxiety. He could do whatever he wanted with her. He didn’t have to come and take her every life on this exact day. He could do whatever he liked and it wouldn’t matter. There were no rules regarding what her could or could not do.
An hour passed, and Karena found her anxiety growing. At last, she realized what he was doing. He knew that she’d been feeling fine before, and that he had to do something to make her anxious. He was toying with her, like he always did.
Another hour and still no Sandman. Karena’s heart beat faster by the minute. She was just as anxious as she’d been last time now. The same amount as before; her attempts to ignore the Sandman had failed because of him refraining from coming at the proper time. Whoever he was, he knew what he was doing. And he knew how to produce anxiety in her. She was tough, but eventually she would crack. Maybe it would take longer for her to crack then it would take the average person to crack, but nonetheless she would still crack in the end, and that’s all that mattered.
Finally, when Karena thought she could bear it no longer, he came. Just where he’d been sitting the first time, just where she’d seen him sitting in all her nightmares. He was a strange character, the Sandman. Consistent and yet unpredictable at the same time.
She realized the girls had left. She didn’t care. Just like last time, just like all other times, she didn’t care.
He didn’t stay very long this time. Only a few minutes. Occasionally during that time, she would remember what she’d originally planned on doing. She remembered how she’d wanted to be resilient and push through and ignore him. But these thoughts didn’t come often. They were overwhelmed by terror.
He was there and he raised the hourglass, the hourglass that controlled all of her life and, as far as she could see, would continue to control her life for the rest of her lives. He tapped it exactly three times.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
He removed his hat and she could see his face. He was so old now that he had to be at least over 120, though that was a rough estimate. His skin clung to his gaunt face, and in some parts it was almost translucent, so tissue paper thin it was. But his expression was the same. He merely stared at her as he tapped his glass.
And then, he frowned. His mouth grew into an aggressive frown, eyes bulging out almost with anger, head tilted to the side. And he was staring directly at her.
He tapped the glass again, three times.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
And then everything was purple, something that’d never happened before. There was a swirling sensation, and everything that was there was gone, except for the Sandman, who stood his ground as the world was swept away and disintegrated int
o the violet beside her, still staring at her with the same aggressive expression. He was standing in a vortex of violet, doing nothing but holding out his hourglass and staring.
Then his feet began to dissolve, and then his legs, and soon his whole body was gone, swept away by the vortex and dissolved into thin air. And then the vortex dissolved away too, and Karena was back in bed, waking up from a dream. She was a baby again.
It won’t end, she thought to herself as she lay there. Never. It’s never going to stop.
36
And so it dragged on for the fourth time. The anticipation killed her. The anxiety killed her. She was being stabbed every day and there was absolutely no way to defend herself.
What sort of person, or thing, could produce such anxiety in someone? Perhaps that was really the Sandman’s greatest power. Yes, he could turn other people into him, and he could appear and disappear as he pleased, even in her dreams, and he could even keep starting her life over again and again. But his greatest power was the production of anxiety within one’s mind. She could see it in Shawn, how it was constantly killing him even more than it was her.
Why on earth would he want to do this though? Was he anyone who could be reasoned with, or the kind of person who would have any rational whatsoever behind doing this to a someone? Or was he just doing it for no reason at all? So many questions and not enough answers. The more she found out, the less she knew. It was an antithesis, an impossible situation, and yet it was somehow possible, somehow it happened.
Karena grew up in a regular fashion. She sped through her younger years and into her childhood. She quickly came to the realization that nothing in the world in general would be different unless she herself changed it. It was like it was programmed to do one thing over and over again, even down to matters of mere probability, and the only people who could ever alter what happened were her and Shawn. And the Sandman, of course.
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