by Bob Dattolo
I can’t remember so much.
My childhood…it’s gone. I know I did things. I have memories of memories of things. Vacations. Happy times. I know I went to Disney World. Multiple times. I know it. But I don’t recall the actual trips. Who I went with. What I did. Where we stayed. I remember having a home. A room. But the room? I remember it fading as I actively thought about it, being torn apart by the spell ravaging my brain.
My parents.
I know I had them. They were there. I’d bet my soul they’re the ones that did everything to me. Started this nightmare. I went from happy about the ceremony to begging. Pleading.
Screaming.
All because of…I don’t even know what.
Because I’m this weird dragon? Is that why? I wasn’t whatever they are, so I’m not worth anything? Let’s kick her out of the family. Let’s turn her into an outcast. Let’s turn society against her. Let’s strip her of everything that makes her her. Fuck that she grew up with us. That we raised her. That we did things with her. That she was part of our family.
Now she’s not.
One thing that she couldn’t control, and poof, your life is gone. We’ve taken it all from you and walked away. Leaving you behind to pick up the pieces.
Or not.
We don’t care.
No one does. Not for you. You’re not who you were. You’re not a person. You’re not even good enough to be a norm. You’re a former person. You used to be someone that mattered in this world. Now? Now you’re a stricken. A pariah. A toy for others to play with. A target for others to attack. To hurt. To belittle. To laugh at. You don’t even deserve police protection. You’re wasted potential in the form of a person, and you only deserve what we bother to give to you.
Which doesn’t even include your name.
It sure as fuck doesn’t include your memories.
Or your history.
And now I’m here…in this hell. Wherever this is, this is worse than where I came from. It really is. I know…I know I was a pet there. I can’t remember specifics, but…I was a pet. I was used and abused, but I was also cared for.
That was better than this.
I’d go back to that in a second if given the opportunity.
Chapter 36
A taste floats through my brain that I can’t place at first. No idea how long I’ve been tasting it, but I have been for some time. That’s apparent.
My eyes feel crusty. My skin feels dry. Brittle.
I stink, but I can’t really place it.
A shadow moves and stands over me. I’m in a space that smells like me and someone else. Someone that I should be able to name but can’t. Is this them? Or someone else?
Someone that’ll finally end it?
Maybe I can die and stop this nightmare ride. Get off at this stop instead of taking it to the end. That’d be…
So much better.
The form comes closer, barely coming into focus. She has dark skin and is pretty, but…I can’t see details. Her mouth is moving, but the sounds blur into the background and don’t make sense. Nothing makes sense any longer.
The expression changes and then changes again. Then they move, and there’s a sharp sting across my face.
I wonder what that was?
Then another.
Nothing happens after that other than mouth moving.
It’d be so much easier to know what’s happening if they’d just speak to me. Why wouldn’t they do that? I know that everyone hates me and wants to kill me, but…why not just tell me that and do it?
It’d be easier for all of us.
The figure moves again, and the floor recedes as I’m picked up.
Good, maybe this’ll be the end of it all. Maybe I can ask them to kill me a certain way? Do you think they have a gun? Or a knife? I’ve been whipped nearly to death, and I didn’t like that one. I’ve been fucked nearly to death, and I didn’t like that one. People I should have known but don’t any longer drove things into my skull and tortured me, and I really didn’t like that one.
Maybe they’ll do something else?
Water covers me, with the other person holding me there for the longest time.
The water is toasty, filling me with something I haven’t really experienced recently. Feelings. Then I’m down, with the water splashing across me, and the person tears at the covers on me, removing them, and letting the water reach the rest of me.
Then the heat’s gone as the water changes to cold, sending a spike of adrenaline through me that clears some of the fog.
“That’s cold.” My voice sounds ragged to me, which is a shock. I don’t remember the last time I talked.
The person that I now recognize as Parece crouches under the shower water, “Are you finally fucking back?”
Blinking doesn’t help much as I stare at her, only to have my head jerked to the side as she slaps me. “Are you fucking back?”
My cheek stings as I touch it, looking back at her, “What…what’s happening? Why am I in the shower? Why did you hit me?”
She started scrubbing at me with a loofah. I smell piss. Shit. Food. “Why? Why the fuck…I don’t…you…”
“Stop washing me and tell me what the fuck is happening?!”
She hits my hand away from hers, “Shut the fuck up and just sit there!” The scent of rage fills the shower area. “My fucking God, what the fuck…what happened? You happened. You…you became a fucking zombie. Do you remember any of that?”
Vague things flowed back into my head, “I remember everyone turning their back on me. I didn’t do anything, and…they turned away. You did too. Levi was so angry, but I didn’t say anything to him that should have caused that.”
She pinched her nose and then started scrubbing me again, “I don’t fucking believe this. I don’t know why the fuck I’m doing this.”
“Then stop.”
“No!” She hit the wall next to my head, “You don’t…Dammit!” She fumed, then started scrubbing again. “What the fuck happened? You started out talking this big game about wanting to make it through the trial with everyone. No killing. Then…you started to change. You pulled away. No matter what we said. Did. You kept pulling away. We’d give you compliments, and you’d act like we insulted you. Threatened you. You were so cold. You started pulling away. Planning on attacking us. Threatening all of the weaker kids.”
My mouth fell open, I couldn’t even help it, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I don’t remember saying anything since…I don’t even know what day it is.”
Her washing slowed, “It’s Wednesday morning. 4am. The trial starts at 7.”
“What the fuck? How did I lose…it was Monday last I knew?”
She sat on the shower floor in front of me, “You don’t remember the last two days?”
“No! I remember everyone turning on me. The past week has been…” You know what? Fuck it. “Someone kept attacking me. Kaylee. I don’t know who it was. No idea. Everyone I talked to seemed to be in on it. No matter who I’d run into, there’d be hints that they were involved. Then on Monday? In the caf? I’m kinda done. I just don’t care any longer. Everyone turned away from me. Levi freaked over I don’t even know what.”
She frowned at me, “We’ll get back to some of that, but Levi freaking out? You mentioned that you killed two people? The people that were raping and beating you?”
“Umm, yeah?”
“What were their names?”
“El and Annie. At least that’s what they called each other.”
“Last names?”
“No idea. I never heard one.”
“What were they?”
“I didn’t see their faces clearly until the last day.”
“Okay, what were they?”
“Gold dragons.”
She shook her head, “Maddie? Levi’s parents were named El and Annie. They were killed by a stricken. Where were you found?”
My mind ran wild, “Uhh…I’m not sure, but I think
Florida?”
She grimaced, “That’s where they were killed.” She started scrubbing again, “So you did kill them.”
“What? I had no idea they were his parents!”
She sniffed and stopped washing again, “You’re telling the truth.”
“Yes, I’m telling the truth!”
She sniffed again. “I need you to be honest with me. Can you do that?”
“To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t lied to you since getting here. Prevaricated? Yes. Skirted things? Sure as fuck yes. Outright lied? No.”
“Then tell me the truth. The full truth. What are your plans for killing me?”
What the fuck? “I have no plans to kill you.”
Her mouth fell open for a second. “Paige? Riley?”
“I have no plans to kill either of them.”
“Samantha?”
I rubbed my face, then held my arm up to her nose, “Other than Levi and the others that have been pushing at me, I have had no plans to kill anyone. Have I wanted to? Yes. Have I expected to get sucked into a challenge and had to kill them? Yes. I have made no plans for attacking anyone and killing them in the trial. I have made no agreements with anyone to attack and kill anyone in the trial.”
“Have you made any plans to hold someone while others kill them?”
“What the fuck? Where is this coming from?”
“Just answer the fucking question, Maddie.”
“I never even thought about that as being an option, Parece. None. I spent nearly every fucking minute of the past two days wanting to die. Expecting someone to kill me and not giving a shit if it happened. I haven’t made any plans to kill people.”
“What about gathering all of the weakest in the class and slaughtering them?”
“No!” My yell made my ears hurt, “What the fuck is going on around here? I wake up and my shit’s destroyed, and then all of this happens?”
She cocks her head, “I’m sorry, what?”
I couldn’t stop the glare, “You have to be kidding me, right? Like you didn’t notice?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Fuck, she smells honest, “I woke up last week and everything on my desk and in my dresser was shredded. Destroyed. Laptop. Clothes. Books. Everything. I hid it and bought new stuff. That gets destroyed later too.”
“What the fuck? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I thought you might have been involved in doing it!”
Her eyes filled with hurt, “Why would you think I’d do that?”
“Why? Because we share a room? Because you kept saying things to make me think you were involved? Same with everyone else. No matter where the fuck I went, someone would make comments that made me think they were involved in it.”
“What? What’d I say?” She put her arm under my nose, “I haven’t damaged or destroyed anything of yours other than the clothes you were wearing when we got in here.” She looked to the side, drawing my attention to it. “You were so crusted with piss from everyone pissing on you yesterday and you have just been shitting in your pants since late Monday…nothing’s saving them.”
“What…what the fuck?” That’s the smell I had picked up. Piss. “People were pissing on me?”
More shock, “You don’t remember?”
“No.”
“Do you remember people dumping food on you?”
Umm, “Barely? Not really, though.”
She rubbed her face and sat against the far wall, “My fucking God, you’re something else. You disappeared in this fucking fog. I don’t think you’ve slept since Sunday night. You sure as fuck didn’t sleep last night. You just…you ignored everything everyone said to you. Threats. Questions. Kaylee has been going crazy since Monday trying to get through to you. She’s freaked even more than she had been. Samantha, Angelica, and I tried to get through to you a bunch yesterday. Yet…it’s like we weren’t even talking.”
“I don’t remember anyone talking to me. I didn’t even recognize you until you hit me with cold water. Voices were…just faint buzzings, if even that.”
“This is so fucked.” She didn’t move for a bit before sliding forward and starting to wash me again, “You disappeared. Mentally. You showed up to classes. Most of them. Do you remember being hurt by Ms. Pierce?”
“Umm…a little? On Monday. Metal spikes?”
“Right. You should have seen the look on her face when you got up like nothing happened. You healed. You fixed your clothes without showing any sign of doing magic. Then you walked out. She didn’t see you making the spikes disappear.”
“I barely remember doing that.”
She sighed, “People are starting to guess more about you. The healing was one thing. That could be part of you. But fixing your clothes? I don’t know anyone that could do that. Not like you did, that’s for sure. Yet you didn’t show any sign that you were doing magic. You got rid of the blood on you. Same. Your hair didn’t light up at all. Not even when you made the metal disappear.” She paused for a second, “You’ve said repeatedly that you don’t have an affinity, which is true. I think it’s misleading, though. It’s not that you don’t have an affinity, it’s that you aren’t limited and restricted based on the known affinities. Right?”
Fuck. How do I answer that?
A small smile formed as her posture changed, “Don’t blame Parece.”
“For what?”
“I had her set her computer up to record things in the room. She didn’t watch them until late yesterday and realized what you had done with the balls you had bouncing around the room. You had something from every known affinity there. Something from legends and dreams.” Her posture changed again, making her slump a little. “She’s right, right?”
Fucking hell. “Yeah. She’s right. The researchers think I have an affinity, but it’s an affinity for magic. They don’t know how to test that just yet, but…yeah, I can cast spells in every affinity.”
She sniffed, “You’re telling the truth.”
“I am.”
She moved on to more washing, “You’re really not planning on killing me?”
“No. You never answered my question when I asked you the same thing, so I have to assume you are? After all, you kept giving me hints about destroying everything.”
More washing. I so didn’t expect her to answer, “I didn’t really have any active plans to kill you. I figured if it happened, others would do it. I wouldn’t want to get in the sights of Levi or Samantha. When you started to change? I began to expect that you had plans to kill me. Then the rumors started up. How you were going to kill me. You were being friendly just to get close and double cross me.”
“What? I never once said that to anyone or even thought about that!”
She sniffed again, “Yet that’s what I was told. That’s what all of us were told. You were going to rally the weaker kids and then double cross them. Harvest them like wheat. You were going to cause problems in classes so that people couldn’t learn what they’d need to live.”
“What the fuck…Kaylee was told the same rumors. I never had that plan. I never even thought about causing issues in class to stop others from learning.”
She took a deep breath before hauling me up and starting to wash my back. It feels weird to let her do this, but I think both of us need it. “I don’t know what’s happening, but someone has some serious shit in motion around you.”
“And it’s not you?”
“It’s not me. It’s not Samantha that I know of. Same for Paige and Riley. I don’t know about others.”
“And you really didn’t destroy my stuff?”
“Other than your clothes in here? No.”
I couldn’t formulate a response through the end of the shower. Through brushing my teeth for the first time in I don’t even know how long. I still tasted piss after the first time, so I brushed them three more times before stopping.
Deodorant and running a brush through my hair finished it
before I wandered from the bathroom with her behind me. She gaped when I opened the closet door. Just as I remembered, everything was destroyed.
“This is what I found originally. My laptop was on my desk and it was crushed. Wrecked. Everything in my dresser was wrecked. The shoes I left out? Wrecked.”
She stopped at the door and looked over everything, “What the fuck could have done this?” She smelled honest.
“That’s when the comments started from everyone.”
She cocked her head and looked from me to the destroyed clothes, “I don’t get it? What comments? You mentioned that.”
“What comments? Compliments about my shoes. Shirt. Outfit. People asking me if I wanted to play online games. Stream shows or a movie.” She gave me a strange look. “More comments after I replaced everything. Then even more after I left my closet door open and everything in here was fucked. That’s when I came back in my dragon form. I had to buy everything again. Everywhere I’ve gone? It’s like the entire school was involved in it.”
“I…I don’t know what to say about that. If this was done by magic, I don’t know any spells that can do that.” Honesty. “Could I have done it physically? Yes. I never did, though. As for the comments?” She shrugged, “I don’t know what to say about that. I was told…” She stopped talking.
“What were you told?”
She looked back at me from where she had been staring, “I was told that you were going to kill me. That you were being nice just to turn on me. We were all told that. We were told that…you wouldn’t do that if we tried to be nice. To compliment you.”
“What the fuck? Someone told you to do that?”
“Yeah. Compliment you. I was told that asking you to watch a movie online would help. That you haven’t done it a lot.”
“This is so fucked.”
A knock at the door interrupted us. I was still standing near the closet door when she opened it, finding Samantha there. She glares at me as she steps in. She inhales to say something, when Parece covers her mouth, “Please don’t say anything. We need to talk.”
Confusion. “What the fuck do we need to talk about? You heard what she has planned for us! For everyone!”
