The Mouse

by Lauretta Hignett

  The scene inside was slightly different. The prisoner lay in the corner on a bedroll, eyes shut, apparently fast asleep. A guard stood directly over him, with a ticking object in one hand, and the lit-up device in the other. He stood motionless, staring at the prisoner for several more minutes, and suddenly Sunny jumped as the ticking object gave a loud ring.

  It was an egg timer. The guard gave the prisoner a hard kick on the leg and barked out an order. The blond man sat bolt upright, eyes wide with fright, and looked up as the guard shook the lit-up device at him. Taking a deep breath, the man composed himself. The light went out. The pulse was back.

  Well, that makes sense, Sunny thought, as the man got up and was handcuffed back on the chair. That’s why she couldn’t feel the pulse when she came to Korea. He was having a nap. She hoped that it was long enough for him, but taking a peek at the egg timer she saw that it only went up to twenty minutes.

  She felt so awful for him. He must be on the verge of insanity. She might not need the mushrooms after all.

  The guard sat in the chair opposite the prisoner, device in hand. The light went out; he flicked it on again. The light went out. Sunny waited with the two men in that bright white room for over an hour before there was any other action at all, and by then she thought she might go a little crazy herself.

  There was a crack, and the small door in the room opened. Another soldier entered, wearing the same uniform as all the other guards, but with different markings on the jacket. His hair, unlike the rest of the men in that building, wasn’t bowl-cut and slicked over on one side, it was completely shaven. He carried a tray with two bowls, one with rice, and the other with what looked like soup, and a plate with a hunk of rustic bread on it.

  Sunny felt passionate relief. Finally. The prisoner’s evening meal had arrived.

  The tray was placed in front of the prisoner, who looked at it, motionless, arms still handcuffed to the chair. The visiting man gave his fellow soldier a quick, jerky painful bow, and left the room.

  This was her chance. Sunny quickly rummaged around in her knickers and brought out the vial, and popped the lid. She floated over to the bowl as the guard got to his feet, and hastily tipped the entire contents into the soup bowl before he could see it. She quickly withdrew and headed into a corner to watch and wait.

  The guard strolled over to the prisoner slowly, deliberately, with a nasty look on his face. He took a key from his pocket and released one of the man’s hands from the cuffs. He picked up both bowls, returned slowly to his seat and sat, eyeing the prisoner maliciously the whole time. To Sunny’s horror, the guard carelessly began to slurp the soup out of the bowl, and take small handfuls of the rice to stuff into his mouth.

  The prisoner looked as if his heart would break, and gazed mournfully at the hunk of bread that was to be his only source of nutrition for the evening. Sunny, blessing whatever instinct had asked Hunter to give her a second vial, quickly produced it out of her undies and tipped it over the bread. The viscous honey goo soaked in while the prisoner’s attention was diverted by a particularly gleeful-sounding gulp from the guard.

  The pale man slowly and cautiously picked up the hunk of bread and took a tiny bite, chewing carefully. When the honey hit his tastebuds, his eyes lit up, but he carefully masked his response in case the guard saw him enjoying it. Feigning indifference, he took a bigger bite and chewed and swallowed delicately while the guard slugged back the rest of his soup and laid waste to the rice.

  Sunny sat in the corner and watched them eat. She wished Hunter had told her how long it would take. Twenty minutes? Thirty? And how would she know when they were starting to trip out? Having initially been horrified at the guard appropriating the food and swallowing the drugs, she was now starting to think that it was a good thing. He wouldn’t be raising the alarm when the prisoner started to lose his marbles.

  The two men continued their meal, the one slurping and guzzling, and one savouring every last bite of that little hunk of bread until the food had gone. The guard stood up and placed bowls back on the tray and cuffed the prisoner again, and shouted a quick order at the door. It opened immediately, and another soldier came and collected the tray, shutting the door firmly behind them.

  The scene continued. The guard would flick the light on; the prisoner would mentally flick it off. They carried on, and Sunny watched, and waited, and hoped that this would work. Five minutes went by, then ten, then fifteen minutes.

  The guard suddenly whipped his head to the side, staring at the corner of the room, eyes narrowed suspiciously. Satisfied that there was nothing there, he resumed staring at the little light on his device. The pale man gazed at him cautiously, before dropping his gaze back to the table.

  A few moments later, Sunny jumped as the guard laughed, suddenly and loudly, before cutting himself off abruptly. He shook himself, blinked a few times, then carried on with his duty, flicking the light back on, watching it go off, then flicking it back on again. The door opened, another soldier poked his head through the door and shot a quick question at the guard, who shook his head angrily and snapped back his reply. The soldier disappeared quickly and shut the door firmly behind him.

  It was starting to work. She would have to time this very carefully.

  She positioned herself in the prisoner’s line of sight so he would see her as soon as he opened himself up to it. The guard, next to her, suddenly dropped the device on the table with a clatter and started staring at his hands in wonder, turning them over, waving them this way and that. Sunny moved back a little, out of view of the guard, just in case he started to see her first.

  She watched the pale man carefully for signs that the drugs were starting to take effect, but there was nothing yet. The guard had gotten to his feet and was examining the patterns his hands made against the light on the ceiling, his mouth slack.

  Looking over at the prisoner, Sunny finally saw that his eyes were starting to bug out.

  He tugged at his handcuffs and said something in his unfamiliar language, but the guard either ignored him or was too far gone to register it. The prisoner tugged again, and looked as if he were about to freak out.

  Sunny was panicky; he couldn’t see her, what could she do? She drifted over and placed her hand on his shoulder, trying to pour some calming energy into him.

  “It’s ok,” she whispered to him. “You’re going to be fine. Just open up, and you’ll be able to see me, and I can take you home.”

  He wasn’t registering her words, but he did stop his agitated pulling on the handcuffs. Sunny wracked her brains, trying to figure a way out.

  He couldn’t see her, but he might be able to feel her, and his energy showed that he wasn’t open to being taken anywhere right now. How could she make him see? How does this all work?

  Were they looking at objects on a different plane of existence, not the one that she was occupying? She remembered what Hunter had told her about the infinite layers of reality, and how some people could see things, like ghosts, that we couldn’t see in our dimension, but were there nevertheless.

  In the end, she did the only thing she could think of. She closed her eyes and attempted to meditate, hoping to move into a different layer of reality where he could see her. It was the hardest thing she had ever done, to clear her mind in that little stark white room while trying to ignore the guard, who was busy stuffing one of his shoes on his head and licking the wall with big, slurpy strokes of his fat tongue.

  Slowly, she felt her mind clear and her energy settle. A few moments later, she heard the guard gasp in shock. He was staring at her, wide-eyed, mouth open, frozen in astonishment. She ignored him and turned her attention to the prisoner, who was panting in fear, eyes closed, trying to shut out the horror around him.

  Praying he could hear her, she drifted towards him, holding out her hand. “You’re dying,” she whispered her line in Norwegian. “Come with me to heaven.”

  His eyes suddenly snapped open, and he gasped. The guard gave a keening c
ry behind her and dropped to his knees. She was frantic to wrap this up before anyone else came into the room to investigate and ruin her chance, but she hadn’t counted on him having both hands cuffed, so he couldn’t put his hand in hers. She moved closer, looking deep into his wide, awestruck eyes, and whispered her line again.

  Two little furrows of confusion appeared on his forehead, and his face went blank, uncomprehending.

  Fuck. He wasn’t Norwegian. She’d got that wrong. Her angelic demeanor was starting to look a bit shaky as she hastily reevaluated her situation. The guard behind her had broken into what appeared to be a hymn, and he was caterwauling and rocking deliriously on his knees.

  Taking a stab in the dark, she whispered her line again in English, hoping he would understand the meaning, if not the words.

  “You’re dying,” she murmured softly, placing one hand gently on his cheek. “Come with me to heaven.”

  He gave a gasp, and his eyes went wide. Grabbing hold of the opportunity with both hands, she leaned closer, looking him full in the face. “Relax, open yourself to me. Come with me.”

  His body obeyed her command. He went limp. His energy started to change immediately and it responded to her touch. Through the connection of her hand on his cheek, she pushed out her aura until it melded to his, and smoothly pulled him into her Alternate.

  Holding out her other hand and giving him what she hoped was a benign smile, she said, “Take my hand. We’re going home.”

  He slowly lifted his hand up and placed it in hers, giving a shout when he realised it had floated right out of the handcuffs. A wide, entranced smile split his face, and he sighed with pleasure as she drew him up into the air.

  The guard was hysterical, singing and tearing at his hair, alternately laughing uproariously and sobbing like a baby. Sunny didn’t give him a backwards glance as she pulled the prisoner up through the ceiling of that little room, past the guards on the roof, and up out of that little town, streaking through the night sky, headed for Scandinavia.

  The pale man laughed out loud as they flew slowly through the air. He was so high that he fully accepted what was happening to him.

  “Why did God send an English angel to me?” He asked suddenly, with a thick accent.

  She thought quickly - she needed to find out where he was really from, without betraying her non-angelic origins.

  “Who do you think She should have sent?” Sunny murmured in what she hoped was a musical voice; half-hoping he’d ask about her use of the feminine pronoun.

  He giggled hysterically, eyes round and wide with delight. “My grandmother, maybe. I wanted her to come and get me.” He waved his other arm madly around and watched it cut through the darkness. “Or, at least an angel who spoke Swedish.”

  He was from Sweden. Bingo. Now her only obstacle was to find Sweden. She had the foresight to look up where Norway was on a map but had no idea about Sweden. All she knew was that it was close by.

  The pale man was laughing and flailing around so much that Sunny was worried she might drop him. She held onto his hand firmer and pulled him around to face her. “Relax,” she crooned. “I’m going to take you home.”

  He became calmer and settled down in a quiet euphoria, watching the world whizz by below him. Now and again, he went almost completely limp, and Sunny, fearing she would lose her grip on him, had to shake him awake.

  He hadn’t slept properly in a long, long time, and he was stuffed to the brim with hallucinogens. It was only a matter of time before his mind gave up and he drifted into unconsciousness. Sunny, starting to panic and thinking hard about her next move, took him higher in the air as they approached Norway. She paused there and swept her hand dramatically at the landscape below.

  “Tell me, what do you see?”

  “Oh!” He traced the lines of the coast below with his fingers. “There’s Norway and Denmark, and there…” he trailed off, pointing. “There is Sweden.” He sighed and turned to face Sunny. “Can I visit my mother before we go? I want to say goodbye. I haven’t seen her in a long, long time.”

  Sunny’s eyes welled up with tears. This poor boy, barely more than a child, had been through hell just because of what he could do. And she couldn’t guarantee that his hell was over.

  She almost wished she were an angel, and he was dead, and she was taking him to heaven.

  She gave him a gentle smile, and led him down to Sweden, picking the brightest city to come down to. He gave a little tug on her hand.

  “But my family is north, in Gallivare,” he protested weakly. Sunny turned and placed a finger on his lips.

  “Shhhh,” she whispered. “Trust me.”

  She quickly scanned the city below her, picking out the sirens of two vans leaving a large building with a helicopter pad on the roof. Guessing correctly that it was a hospital, she went down and paused near the roof. She turned to the pale man, touched his cheek again. He trembled under her touch.

  “We just have to make a quick stop,” she murmured softly. “I want you to do exactly what I tell you, ok?” He nodded at her, eyes rolling back in his head. She could tell that she didn’t have long, so she rushed it. They zoomed through the bustling hospital, her eyes scanning quickly for an empty room. She found one in complete darkness, and drew the boy down and lay him on the white hospital bed.

  Still holding his hand, she laid his head on the pillow. “Rest,” she told him quietly. “When you wake, you will be at peace.”

  Desperately hoping that she wasn’t lying, she watched his face as his eyelids fluttered, and closed. The muscles in his face relaxed and ironed out his expression into one of complete serenity. He was asleep.

  She let go of his hand and backed away from the bed, taking a second to whip her hand out of the Alternate and draw the curtain around the bed. She hoped he would get a good sleep before someone found him.

  She flew towards home with a tired, heavy heart, and within a few minutes, she was outside Hunter’s apartment door, knocking.

  “Come in,” he called, and she drifted through the door.

  He was sitting on a barstool at the counter typing away on his laptop, still wearing the beige pants and crisp white shirt, now with a few more buttons undone. He didn’t turn when Sunny appeared.

  “How did it go?”

  “Done,” she replied tonelessly.

  Hunter looked like he had a range of questions to ask her, and was wordlessly shuffling through them, ordering them in order of importance.

  He stopped when he saw her face.

  “Are you ok?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was flat. She felt oddly empty.

  Hunter got up and limped over to her, staring into her face quizzically, then with an almost tender expression. He took her hand and led her to the sofa, and sat her down.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  She was quiet for a minute, rewinding the night’s events in her mind’s eye. “I found him; they were in the same place, the ugly grey building. After a while, they brought him his dinner, so I dumped the mushrooms in the soup bowl. I couldn’t have known that the guard would steal the soup and eat it himself.”

  Hunter’s mouth opened, poised to ask a question, and Sunny plowed on before he interrupted her. “So I quickly poured the other vial onto the lump of bread that the guard left him. Luckily, he ate it. The guard started tripping out first – it would have been very funny in any other situation. His hair went all messy, and he started watching his hands like they were suddenly getting humungous, he was singing and bugging out…”

  “And the prisoner?” Hunter interrupted.

  “He started tripping too, but he was just freaking out. He couldn’t see me.” Sunny paused for a minute, trying to put into words what had happened next. “I didn’t know what to do – I remembered what you said about the different layers of reality. I thought that maybe I could try and alter my energy a bit to go to a different one so that he could see me, so I tried to empty my mind a bit and concentrate.” />
  “You should have come home,” Hunter growled. “You put yourself in danger. You might have gotten stuck somewhere; they might have been able to shoot you – “

  “Anyway, it seemed to work, because the guard copped a look at me first.” Sunny soldiered on before she could get too much of a lecture. “Your little makeover apparently worked, because I think that he thought I looked like an angel. I said my line to the prisoner, but he didn’t understand me.” An idea occurred to her. “The guard did, though. At least he spoke Norwegian.”

  Hunter was looking angrier and angrier at the idea of her continuing her mission, even though everything was going terribly wrong, so she took a deep breath and rushed her sentences.

  “So I tried again in English. And he understood me. He opened himself up, and I grabbed him and zoomed out of there. On the way, he dropped it on me that he’s Swedish, which makes sense. All the Swedish people I’ve ever met speak better English than English people do.”

  She paused and looked at Hunter, who was still looking angry, but a hint of amusement was creeping in.

  “Anyways, I found a hospital in Sweden and dumped him in an empty room. He went straight to sleep, poor sod. I hope he sleeps for a long time.”

  She finished her debrief and waited for Hunter to speak.

  “What hospital?” He finally asked her.

  “Uh, I don’t know. A big one. In the biggest city in Sweden.”

  Hunter quickly got to his feet and picked up a fuzzy blanket from over the sofa and draped it over her, and flicked on the TV in one smooth motion.

  “I’ve got to make some calls,” he told her. “Just hang out here for a bit, OK? I’ll make some dinner after.” He went into his bedroom and shut the door.