When We Were Mortals

by E. S. Mercer

  "Again? What do you mean by again?” I cried out.

  Neriah was forced to ignore my question, fleeing with her companions. I expected them to disappear into the shadows they had emerged from, instead, the three of them ran towards the end of the alley and faded into the light.

  “Are you ok?” Gail asked as she came out the door and found me picking up the hardware I had dropped.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered. “I am not sure at all.”

  “UM, what is with the strange accent?” she asked with a giggle. “What strange accent?” I asked, trying to listen to myself speak. Sure enough, I had gone from sounding like any American girl to an obvious accent.

  “There it is again,” she laughed.

  “I don’t know,” I responded. “I’m not doing it on purpose.” “Oh wow,” Zara said, as she came out the door. “You sound foreign as hell, like you come from old England or something.”

  “Coming from the girl that has the thickest accent I have ever heard,” Gail chided. “Girl, sometimes you are hard to understand.”

  Zara swatted Gail with her towel and brought her focus back to me.

  “Seriously though, something is strange about you,” she said, looking me up and down. “You seem so much more…”

  “Mysterious?” Gail added. “I think that is the word.”

  “Aware,” Zara exclaimed! “Oh, I am aware all right,” I said, walking towards the back door. “Aware of the fact that we are going to be late to our own opening if we keep standing out here talking!”

  “Seriously though,” Zara said, “are you ok? Somethin’ seems off with you.”

  “I’m fine,” I replied, “I can’t explain what is going on and we need to get ready for Gail’s sake. Talk later?”

  She smiled ever so slightly as she grabbed the bag out of my hand and walked away. “Sure.” We finished what we needed to do to get ready, making sure that we were the most put together group of people on the block. But as the night wore on and the guests started to pour in, I could feel myself becoming more concerned with what I had seen earlier and less on what was in front of me.

  “There is someone out there that can tell me what I need to know,” I muttered to myself as I sat slouched on the art deco sofa perched in the back corner of the room. “I’m tired of sitting around waiting for the answers to come to me.”

  “What answers?” Zara asked as sat down beside me, sipping on a pink, frozen drink. “Will you tell me what is going on now?” I pulled it out of her hands and took a sip, contemplating whether I should tell her what I had seen earlier that day. I knew she was the only one who listen without judgment, so I handed back her glass and took a deep breath. “Today I saw three of the most exquisite creatures I have ever seen in my life. They were like angels, with porcelain skin, and wings made of…,” I paused as I could see a growing panic in her face.

  “Wings made of what?” she asked, turning towards me. “Wings made of what Ness?”

  “Glowing light,” I responded, confused by her reaction.

  With each panicked breath, she took, her skin color faded from an exquisite caramel color to a ghostly shade of white. “I think I have to go,” she announced, shoving her glass back into my hand and lunging at me for a dramatic hug. “I am so sorry Ness,” she said squeezing me tightly. “I promise, I’s doin’ what I’s told.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, pushing her away. “Sorry for what?” I tried to listen, past the sounds of the music and the voices in the crowd near us, hoping I could catch a glimpse of what she was thinking. When I was finally able to tune in to her thoughts, all I could hear was, “he’s coming.”

  “Who is coming?” I asked, grabbing her arm. “What are you afraid of?”

  “I have to go,” she said getting up. “I can’t be here anymore.”

  She bent down to give me a gentle kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Anessa O’Shea.” I tried to keep her there, asking her repeatedly what she meant, but she finally gave me a look I couldn’t resist and I let her go. The pain she felt in her decision to leave grew visibly on her face and I couldn’t stand to see it.

  Running off into the crowd, she turned, asking me to do one more thing, “Say goodbye to Gail and Levi for me, would you?”

  I nodded with a strange smile, as she disappeared, leaving me completely dumbfounded and completely frozen in my seat.

  “What just happened?” Levi asked, stumbling towards me. “Where is Zar going?”

  “Um,” I stuttered, trying to shake it all off, “I don’t know, but she said she had to go.”

  “And leave her phone?” he slurred, picking up her phone from beside me. “That’s soooo ‘nlike her.” I got up from the sofa, grabbing her phone from him. “I have to go find her,” I said, thumbing through her recent texts, “I’ve never seen her so scared.”

  “But the opening,” Gail blurted, overhearing the conversation. “You can’t leave me too.” I ignored her for a moment as I looked towards the front door. Zara had showed fear when I told her what I saw. She seemed visibly shaken and desperate to return to camp which was, needless to say, quite uncharacteristic of her.

  “This night is more about you anyway,” I responded, deciding to go after her. “Enjoy it all. It’s all yours! All of it.”

  “Why do you act like you are not coming back?” she asked, putting down her drink. “I might be gone awhile,” I responded, hugging her. “I need to go find Zara and if that leads me down a path where I might get answers, then I need to follow it. I just don’t know what that will mean.”

  “Answers to what?” she asked.

  “To who I am,” I responded confidently.

  “And you think her leaving had something to do with you?” Levi asked smugly. “I do, yes and she all but said so herself,” I barked. I could feel the myself getting restless and for some reason, his lack of understanding was getting to me. Because of it, I didn’t linger long enough for either one of them to get another word in. The longer I stayed to answer their questions, the more distance there was between Zara and I, and I just wasn’t ok with that.

  When I got to the street to hail a taxi, I couldn’t find one. There were usually at least three, always parked at the Bodega on the corner of our block, but tonight, I couldn’t see one yellow car in sight. I kicked off my heels and sprinted the closest subway station, seven blocks away, hoping I would find one there, but nothing. I couldn’t take the train, since it didn’t run into the outer districts past end of business, so I stood, waiting for bus for almost an hour.

  By the time I finally made it to the Gypsy camp, Zara was gone. Everyone and everything was gone. Except for one single fire pit where my caravan used to be, there was no trace they were even ever there.

  I knelt and held my hand above the embers that escaped the fire’s horrible fate, feeling how warm they still were. If Zara had made it back to camp, I feared that it wouldn’t have been in enough time to leave with them. So, I decided to go to the next place I would have imagined she would have gone. Aaru.

  Yet again, when I arrived, instead of finding lights and lines of drunk co-eds begging to get in, I found a dark, run down building with boards on the windows and paint chips flaking off the building, like ash and snow. The neon sign which shone brightly the night before now hung by a thread as rain water from a storm we never got, dripped at my feet.

  I shook the front doors, rattling the chains that prevented me from entering, hoping someone would answer and give me an explanation for what was before me. But those, like the other doors I could find, refused to give. Finally, after trying each door more than once, I collapsed on the filthy concrete and cried out to the universe.

  “OK! You win! I’m done ignoring the signs! Something isn’t right with my life and I am here trying to get answers! So please, please someone help me!”

  Someone, somewhere heard me, because an old rusty metal door in the back corner of the building screeched open ever so slightly, inviting me into the d
arkness behind it. And the moment it opened, I could hear the faint sound of music. So faint, that at first, I wasn’t sure it was coming out of the building.

  I peered around the corner, hesitating for just a moment, waiting to see if anyone was going to come out. When no one did, I decided I probably needed to find out what was inside. Which wasn’t much, because the moment I crossed the threshold, I found nothing but darkness and muffled sounds of bass and an occasional high hat.

  My keen eyesight was quick to adjust to the darkness, allowing me to head towards the inner doors of the club. The closer I got, however, the volume of the music never changed. Still at a distance and yet mysteriously nonexistent. I whipped them open, hoping to see the usual sights and sounds of Aaru, instead seeing something so strange, it nearly terrified me.

  In front of me, on the dance floor, I could see trails of translucent people dancing and flailing all while ignorant to the fact that they were not physically in the room. The music, still muffled, played to the beat of their drunken cadence, which was grotesque to say the least, as they flashed in out of view with each thump of the bass. If they looked in my direction, it was to see through me as they were quite visibly ignorant to my presence. As I made my way to the center of the room, I noticed that they were nearly absent of color, with ashen skin tones and a diffused color of blue in their eyes. There was no usual stench of sweat and alcohol, rather a void of smell and solidity.

  I reached out to touch one of them, hoping to get his attention, but my fingers went right through him. It didn’t faze him as the shape of his arm collapsed into the darkness, leaving him less than whole. I stood frozen in my tracks when the man then turned his head, looked right at me and then reached out his other arm to grab me. I could feel the arctic crispness of his non-existent flesh as it went right through the heart of me. Then, his entire body followed, cutting through me like a wintery Canadian chill. If that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t hear a word he was saying with my ears, but for a moment, I swear I could feel the words coming out of his mouth.

  “Where am I? How did I get here?”

  “Where is here?” I asked, hoping he could hear me. “What happened?

  But he didn’t hear me. He kept on walking, grabbing ahold of people and asking the same question repeatedly. “What is going on here?” I asked again, hoping to get an answer this time. “What happened to this place?” Again, no one answered, so I made my way towards the Noita’s private room. Maybe, I could get in there and find some answers as to what happened to the place.

  What I ended up finding, was a locked door I had to bust down and a catatonic witch laying on a large four poster bed with two blonde and very naked men lying on either side of him. They, unlike the people on the dance floor were corporeal, however, impossible to wake. Noita’s skin was frigid, while his companions’ skin felt like lava to touch. Their eyes were the color of coal, wide open and fixated on the ceiling while his were the same haze of colorless blue that I had seen in his patrons.

  “He can’t hear you,” an indiscernible voice responded to my endless calling of Noita’s name. “As long as the Gateway has been closed, he will remain like this.” “The Gateway? And what is wrong with him?” I asked, looking around the room for the voice. “Who are you?”

  “That is not important,” it replied. “I am nobody. And he is caught between the realms.” “Caught between the realms? What does that mean?” I asked, still searching. I looked in each of the corners of the room hoping to catch him or her in the shadows, but found nothing. It wasn’t until I decided to focus on the light that I caught a glimpse of my new informer.

  “This club is a magical place,” he said, coming into focus. “It exists in two different realms and caters to mortals and Caelumites alike. That creates a problem when your father shuts off the realms from each other.”

  I heard him, but I wasn’t listening as intently as I should have been. He was a spitting image of the witch on the bed, just blonde and a little more handsome.

  “I’m his brother, Sorsha,” the man announced. “I know you think I look like him.”

  “Yeah, like twins,” I replied. “It's creepy.”

  “We all are identical,” he said, brushing me off. “and you really shouldn’t be here.”

  “Where should I be?” I asked, watching him walk over to his brother. “I am looking for my friend.”

  “Well, she obviously isn’t here,” he said, pointing towards the dance floor. “and again, you shouldn’t be either.”

  “But I want to know more about your brother and the club being magical,” I pleaded, walking towards him.

  “No, you don’t,” he replied. “Now go, this is all because of you anyway.” He waved his hand in my direction, muttering something under his breath and then sat down on the bed. I tried to open my mouth to contradict his last statement, but couldn’t utter a word. As a matter of fact, when I tried to take a step closer to him, I couldn’t do that either. He glanced over, noticing the panic on my face and wave again.

  “Buh bye,” he said, winking at me.

  The next thing I knew, I was thrown off the balcony and into the middle of the dance floor, landing squarely on my feet. I contemplated running off and calling it a day. The people I ran into were always a little too cryptic, never giving me full answers or even attempting to satiate my need for them. I wasn’t going to get what I needed from anyone, so I wasn’t sure there was a point to this anymore. I nearly gave up, walking towards the front door, when I saw a faint light appearing from the far end of the dance floor. It was like it called to me as it began to dance with ghostly shadows, drawing me in and away from the feeling of helplessness I had standing in the dark.

  “The dubiousness of this is more than enough to cause anyone to pause,” I muttered to myself, sprinting towards the door. “But, I’m not gonna get anywhere if I don’t take any risks.”

  The light came from under a door with rusted hinges, which was next to impossible to open. I pushed at the door, giving it all the strength I had, but it wouldn’t move. I even tried kicking it a couple times, but nothing. Finally, I decided to back up and get a running start, attempting to throw my entire body weight into it, when it literally just opened, causing me trip over the threshold and face plant into a thick layer of slime on the concrete across the hall.

  I just stood there, face stuck to the wall, as I looked up towards the emergency light that flickered from dim to dimmer, as the nearly drained battery held on for dear life. I could have heeded the warning I assumed it gave, as the word ‘exit’ shone the brightest on the sign. It too flickered, but instead of fading with the rest of the light, it glowed bright enough to light up the entire stairwell, up and down.

  Finally releasing myself from the filth, I adjusted myself as I looked at the options before me. Behind me was a door that led out of the club, the stairs going up led me back towards the VIP room and down, led to the unknown. The unknown called to me, descended without a second thought.

  The first flight of stairs seemed normal enough for a forsaken hole; gloomy and a bit foreboding, with a touch of eerie uncertainty and adventure. The second flight, however, although oddly well lit, looked a little detached from the rest it’s construction. The stairs graduated from solid cement to a pitted and bungled up mess and finally rickety wooden stairs that barely held the weight of my tiny little frame. With each step, I worried that I might go right through them.

  Once I was well beneath the club, I noticed a change in the materials of the walls as well. Boulders the size of a small car were stacked one on top of the other, with nothing but a bit of leaching sand and plaster in between them.

  Although I was heading in a downward direction, I also seemed to be making a direct movement forward as well. For every step I took down, I took two or three ahead. I was either next to or just below the subway, as I could hear the grinding of the brakes as the cars came to a halt. The vibration on the rock walls shook the plaster loose directly into my already dr
y and tired eyes.

  I didn’t think I had gone too far away from the club at this point, but it wasn’t normal for the subway to run in the Toiler District at this time of night, so I decided that at some point, I had crossed District lines. Lines that were easily twenty blocks away from where I had started.

  Finally, I made it to another door. This one was not metal and modern like the one in the club. It was extremely large and wooden. The hinges were made of iron as it hung commandingly in front of me. It didn’t do much for keeping out noise, however, because I could hear voices as if they were clearly on the other side of the hatch. But, as the door swung open with ease, instead of finding people, I found yet another stairway.

  This one was a little more intriguing than the last. It was created from large boulders, covered in moss and descending at a much faster rate. It seemed to lead to a dark hole below me with each of my footsteps echoing blatantly. To top it all off, frayed electrical lines that connected to original Edison era bulbs, dangled haphazardly above my head and down the length of the wall to the left of me. A brittle rope hung just below it, tethered every few feet by pieces of decayed leather, in an attempt to offer someone the chance to feel safe while the dared to walk down the stairs.

  To the right of me was a darkness like I had never seen before. A darkness that carried with it a nagging feeling that it led to nowhere and the billowing black fog that spilled into the vast nothingness that accompanied it, made me second guess what I was even doing there. It was cold and lifeless with a sting to it only a burning coal could give.

  “This is stupid,” I said to myself, taking a hesitant first step. “I don’t even know what I am doing down here.” I plopped myself down on the top step so I could think of an answer to my own question. Honestly, what was I doing there? I started out looking for Zara, who I obviously couldn’t find. Then, I run into a creepy little witch twin who gave me cryptic answers and instead of just going back home and regrouping, I had decided to head down a dark stairwell that led me to the mouth of an abyss.