by P. K. Tyler
I take one step, a second, and I’m running now, out the bar, my handbag bouncing under my arm, coat clutched in the other. Out on the street, on the sidewalk, straight. Straight ahead. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Take off my stilettos and carry them in my hand. Forty, forty-one, forty-two, my breath comes in puffs, the uneven pavement stones cutting into my stocking feet. But I don't notice anything. All I feel is this crushing need to get to him, to see him. And this time, I follow my instinct.
Seventy, seventy-one and I hit the river, coming up against the raised embankment wall next to it. I stand there panting, sweat running down my neck and between my breasts. The wind rises off the surface of the river, cutting into my skin, and I shiver but can't bring myself to look around. Not yet. Not yet.
"It's okay, Fia." It's him. His voice. I've carried those echoes in my head all these years.
I shake my head. "No. It's not okay." I finally turn, tears running down my cheeks. "Why are you doing this to me? Why are you here?"
"You called me. I had to come, don't you see?" he says.
"Don't YOU see? I can't just accept some so-called crazy prophecy, a prediction, a future all mapped out. I can't be what you, they, whoever they are, want me to be."
"And yet, there is this.” He gestures to the connection between us.
The connection that I had tugged on, calling out to him.
I had done it and not even realized it.
As if the part inside, the part which is truly ‘me,’ had grabbed the connection and gone after him.
The cord shimmers and flows. It merges back into something stronger, more permanent, even as I watch. He swirls his palm through the air, in a graceful 'S' shaped movement, so strange, so alien. Just like Sofia.
It's all true.
Everything: what he told me, what Sofia told me.
Who he is.
What I am.
I turn sideways, looking to my right to where the river flows, now darkened in the shadows of the setting sun. On either side of us a bridge stretches, linking North and South London. Always divided, the two are. It's funny how much people here identify with which half they live on, swearing allegiance to their geographical micro roots as if it defines their very existence.
And to what, to whom, do I swear allegiance? To Sofia? To my life as I know it?
To a prophecy which shattered me, rebuilt me, and somehow over the years has crept under my skin, clawing aside my disbelief, feeding off my emptiness?
I touch the embankment wall, lean over, taking a deep breath, and his mind brushes up against mine, soft and yet firm.
Don't do it.
"You don't even know what I am going to do next. I haven't even thought about what I am going to do next, so how can you know?" I ask, my voice torn away by the breeze which blows off the Thames as if not wanting him to hear my words. But of course he does.
Are you going to jump in? Go over the side and think you will end it? You are wrong. It doesn't end there.
A part of me knows he’s right. Knows that this prophecy will haunt me. In this life. In the next. Will shadow me ‘til it becomes a part of me.
‘Til I turn around and face it.
And yet, I don’t want to give in. Not yet. Not when it feels I don’t have a choice. When it feels as if he’s coercing me, pulling at me, maneuvring me into a space from where I can’t return.
But that’s not true, is it?
He did let me go. I soared and explored life for what I wanted it to be. For what I thought I wanted it to be. And when I reached it, I found the place empty. Dark. A nothingness frightening in its isolation. All these years I had built those walls ‘til I couldn’t feel, see, or hear the world.
Couldn’t feel myself.
But he’d been there, always there. Even in that nothingness, his presence whispered always around the edges.
Patient.
Waiting.
Waiting.
I bite my lips, my eyes darting from the river to his face. High cheekbones, silver eyes glinting.
I loose a breath, the blood still zinging through my veins, the air sighing through my lips turning to vapor in the cold air between us.
"Sometimes facing your fears is the toughest thing to do."
"You mean you want me to give in, to accept? Is that it?" My voice trembles with rage, with fear.
"It's not about accepting or not, about giving in or not. The choice is yours, it has always been yours."
He smiles, those silver eyes glowing warm, amber flares creeping into them. And for the first time, reassurance pools off him. Soft, velvety, it settles around my shoulders, warming me.
"This is about being, that's it. You just, have to be. Can you do that much Fia?" His voice is soft, gentle. "Trust me." He says, "I won't hurt you. I'll never hurt you."
Heat curls around my waist, twining around my ankles, cocooning me in amber notes of comfort. He's shielding me from the world, from himself even. It's seductive in its intensity, in it's protectiveness.
He’s not even pulling at me anymore.
He’s never compelled me into doing anything I don’t want.
It was me all along.
Me pushing back. Me resisting. Me trying to make a choice, unable to decide.
And now he stands still, his presence calming. A steady stream of warmth flows off him, seeping into my skin. Despite everything, my muscles relax a little, and it’s like a signal to him.
He takes a step forward, then another, halting just an inch away; and that tug, the one that never went away since the first time we were bound, settles. It's as if it's found its notch inside me. Found its rightful place.
This time, the heat from his chest swoops over me, heating my cheeks, pulling that spark of desire so it soars a bright yellow inside, rushing the heat through me and drying my lips so my tongue flicks out and wets it.
He leans in, his skin touching mine, and I gasp as light from him slams into me, whooshes over me. Above us, colors explode.
Golden-silver.
Vivid.
Circles, triangles, hexagons, shapes so iridescent, so bright I have to close my eyes. The light sinks into me, dissolving those final knots of uncertainty.
When I open my eyes, there's only a gentle heat lapping over us, embracing us.
It’s quiet. As if I’ve fallen into myself.
Everything around me seems clear, sparkly, touched by a clarity that’s unusual, yet so normal I wonder why I haven’t seen it before. Why I haven’t seen him before.
He places his hands on my shoulders, reassurance seeping into my skin, "You always have a choice."
I nod. I know I do.
Exhale is part of the Ascendants series. If you liked this story, then you may also like the Many Lives series. Subscribe to Laxmi’s newsletter here to get a starter library of books set in the Many Lives universe.
About the Author
Laxmi Hariharan is fascinated by the unseen. A one-time journalist with The Independent, she helped launch MTV and Syfy, and writes speculative fiction with a paranormal, urban fantasy twist. Her novels feature intense love angles, entwined with fast-paced action, and are set in locations around the world. Follow Laxmi on Amazon to find out about her latest releases.
interdimensional investigations initiative (iii) - ifrit
by Brent Menske
Summary: Previously, Dr. Inman of the Tessera University Institute of Science and Technology (TUIST) opened a portal to another dimensional and what flowed through was… everything ever conceived. Every ghost and ghoul, every mad scientist and robot and dinosaur ever given fictional form fled the fractured containment field. Sealing the rift required the herculean efforts of a fourteen-year-old boy, but now the doctor has become infatuated with the interdimensional incision, and his lust for knowledge cannot be undone…
Intrepid inspirations suddenly sliced Inman's brain in twain. Instantly, initial insights intercepted normally dormant neural networks. Now, new nuanced notions negotiated without i
nterference, and a smile surfaced.
“I think I ought to say, 'Eureka,’” he said.
The good doctor's ruminations rooted him right there. No, no, he had to have answers.
Inman did a dance and dashed down the darkened corridor, with white coat tails whipping every which way while wisps of wonder wafted and wended their warped whims in the wildest corners of his mind.
He pelted past partially passed-out guards on post, partaking in petty pleasure as they blearily peered at his person. Instead of intruders or interlopers, they detected only the doctor. Curiosity satisfied, they continued investigating the insides of their eyelids.
The doctor darted down deeper, where dour men and women were disallowed dream time, but rather dutifully demanded Inman desist this course.
“You know you need authorization from Strazinski,” Simons said.
Prepared, Inman produced a peculiar powder and puffed a breath at the perplexed guards. Simultaneously, Simons and Sousa slumped soundlessly to sleep.
“I am coming, my dear.”
Ahead, answers awaited. The doctor beeped the biological sensor systems, batted the buttons on the password protection, and attained the antechamber. He picked up his pace and ascended all sixteen sets of stairs at a sprint.
Above floated anything, all assumptions and all anomalies arrayed in careless chaos, if he contained courage and cognition to carry this cross to its crucifying climax. Absolutely anything could alight at the apex of this amazing zenith. The peak promised perfect clarity for every problem posed, though perhaps apocalypse or perilous predicament might follow. It could easily deal out the doctor’s death or some deadly demise more horrifying than any previously conceived.
Gasping, he gathered up his gumption and grabbed the gun turret guidance controls.
This huge hall wielded weapons, oh yes, which the civilian circus would, with luck, never witness. But what wonders lay beyond the breach before him…
Another button brought blaring klaxons to bear on the base. The three-hundred-foot zipper was slowly lowered, behind which a writhing whirlpool—a mixed miasma, an impossible insanity—cavorted and careened. A mere meter, and then some slight skosh further, the portal pranced and preened. Inside its iridescent depths, demons frolicked and feathers flashed.
“Come now,” the doctor frowned and fixed his focus on the insane incision. “See what I want.”
“Ah, the good doctor,” an androgynous answerer remarked with regal reserve.
A single slim foot slid from the swirling slice of succulent, sinful seam, that wretched rent in reality. The supple, sensuous slip of finely formed femininity emerged effortlessly, effervescent emanations not even attempting to conceal her curves.
As soon as her entirety entered Earth, the doctor deftly decked the defense controls. Whatever wonders or new nightmares now folded or flew from place to place were swiftly severed and profoundly punished for spawning here. As for the flawless female form, Inman immediately impressed upon her the imperative to seek shelter to survive. He hugged her in hopes that the tearing, terrible turrets would note him in their security sweep by the longish lanyard on his person and decide against annihilation.
With the remarkable rift re-closed, he shut off standard security and the serious nature of his stupidity started to sink in.
“Why have you brought me here?” she asked without wonder.
“You have the power to get us out of here, correct?” He had crippled containment fields prior to dosing the now dozing sergeants Sousa and Simons downstairs.
“My power is limitless,” she supplied.
“To my lab then, if you please.”
They thinned out, dropped density to that of a dram of helium, and flew through impediments at her insistence. Inman saw she had set them smack in the center of his personal, private place. Beakers, Bunsen burners, boards beset by baffling theorems, computer consoles, every conceivable core element, scads of stainless steel and glinting glass, equipment evidently unavailable under any circumstance… these and more mocked the lush life of the doctor and his colorful creation.
Inman could not contain his curiosity.
“You are an ifrit, yes?” He queried.
The nude new woman’s wide smile wrinkled, weakened, and withered. Smoke and soot smoldered in her eyes, sulfur singeing the ceiling.
“I have no designs on detaining you. One favor and you may return to Illiyria, if you wish.”
“Humans like to tell themselves lovely little lies,” she purred. “Lie to me and I will erase you.”
“One favor, though I hope you can permit me some small bit of patience.”
“State your wish, mortal,” she seethed.
“I want to witness the beginning… safely, of course. The beginning of the universe, the… if Hawking was right, the Big Bang. In miniature, of course,” he added hastily. If it was possible, a tiny, terrific Big Bang bottled in an unbreakable glass ball, birthed beautifully for his benefit.
“I shouldn’t be permanently damaged,” Inman insisted.
Before the doctor, the dimensional devil debated, alternately adding fleeting doubt to the flow of feelings, until finally emotions exited and left her countenance calm and controlled.
“Don your goggles if you would like to resist permanent blindness,” she said simply, and the doctor didn’t deign to reply, only reached into a receptacle for the requested eyewear.
He slipped them over his scalp; a single speck, a solitary spot sat in solitude at the center. Behind bled naught but blackness, no balls of burning gas glittering galaxies away.
“How—”
“I lit it for the benefit of your inferior sense organs This is the center of the supermassive black hole to rival all supermassive black holes humanity has ever held in conception. A cycle of death and rebirth that has existed for time infinite, time immemorial, from before the physicists counted years in the billions, before even the guesses gods made.”
Inman let slip a soft sigh.
And then eternity exploded. Faintly, he found the edges of extradimensional emanations; she had sculpted a sphere from some soul stuff and saved his life, if not his senses or sanity.
“Could you slow it down?”
Her pout persisted and then puckered, but the oblivious doctor only observed the overwhelming display developing deeper. Time took a short stroll.
Everything, encapsulated.
Breathlessly, he beheld the blossoming birth at the beginning. Matter melted, mixed, at temperatures incalculable by instruments, more magnificent than Inman could infer. Expressing even his exaltation at the elementary explosion entering into his mind was infinitely impossible.
“Wait—” he faltered. Only once this overwhelming sight sprouted silently before him did he make the logical leap of calculations, re-creations, experimentations and, at the lowest level, recording the rest.
Her frown furrowed further. “Watch, mortal.”
“But—” the poor doctor protested.
“Ask me no more.”
He watched. Wide were his eyes, the sublime spectacle subsumed him absolutely, abolishing afterthoughts.
Plasma, precious metals, protons, plutonium, galaxies gamboling and greatness given shape all played out profoundly in the confines of his cohort’s contrivance. The former professor processed these proceedings and awe abounded.
“It’s so beautiful. I want to keep it.”
Silence should have signaled that she would suffer no more slights, but the doctor stood deaf and dumb to his downfall.
“You overreach your bounds,” the manipulator of matter muttered finally.
The revelation of the ifrit’s irritation rocked him riotously out of his revelry. The room reddened. Recliners now ran raw crimson. The steel sinks and every iota of equipment seeped as though slick with surging blood.
“What, I didn’t—”
“We agreed. One service would I do you and one only. Yet all I hear is demand after demand; and from a weak nothing,
a bag of flesh that fancies itself the master of the known universe. You have summoned an ifrit and, in your foolishness, you neglected to state your terms of service.”
Her hands hovered and halted, vibrating viciously in the doctor’s direction. Lances of light lifted him, latched like leeches onto him, leaving him a shivering shell, a whimpering worm. Still she stood, and still he shuddered; such supreme agony antagonized any and every atom attached one to another within. He was a wrenched, wretched man; he retched and recoiled, and it ran ruthlessly on. No noise now issued; instead, Inman suffered in silence—dumb, deaf. Only sibilant seething hissed henceforth from the furious force of nature.
And then the deed was done. Defied, she struck. That defeated something slumped simply to the steel sink, then further to the floor, a boneless blob.
Winds whipped, initiated by the ifrit. Her initial inception of the internal, magnificent model monstrosity disappeared, dissipated. When the hurricane’s gales halved, she levitated a little and left.
Perhaps eternity elapsed, perhaps six seconds. That thing stirred and sighed again, so softly. Idiot Inman was left to live. He ached on awakening, agonized. Pain pulsed pitilessly through his pale person.
Guards gathered, guessing what fate befell the foolish doctor.
“Doctor! Doctor! Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”
“What? Uh… three.”
“Good. Doctor, I’m Major Michaelson. Can you tell me what happened?”
“What?”
“What was it? Where did it go?” they asked.
“What?”
“The intruder. You opened the portal.”
The doctor’s blinking eyes beheld blurry blots of blue and black before him, but of understanding, not much materialized. Somewhere, still secret, smoldered a solitary spark, but he blinked and concealed the clue. All traces of the trespasser’s taint vanished.
“What?” he said, stupidly. Illusory ideas itched behind his brain, but bore bad fruit. Reality refused to reconstruct any remembrance or recall within him.
