Fragments of Time

by Dawn Dagger

It was as if she could read my mind. Heck, maybe she could. Either way, she slipped her hand into mine and gripped it tightly. She closed her eyes, and her chest rose and fell slowly, but she wasn’t asleep. She was far too tense to be asleep.

  I felt my own eyes close, and I relaxed as the orange light danced behind my eyelids. I don’t know how long my eyes were closed, but they flew open as my limbs began to buzz. I gasped and tensed, trying to move my arms.

  They stung and tingled, the pain biting fiercely. I groaned, and Dierdre sat up, her blue eyes swimming with concern. Dierdre crawled over to me, beginning to rub my arms and legs with her hands, whispering softly. I don’t remember what she said, only that I started crying and she did not stop.

  Slowly, very slowly, I regained the feeling in my entire body, and was able to twitch my limbs. I couldn’t speak in short, breathy phrases, but Dierdre shushed me, wrapping me tighter in the blanket, fighting off the sudden cold that chilled me to my bones. Then Dierdre found a can and stabbed it open with a knife, then offered the food to me.

  It was some sort of meat in a gelatinous mixture, something I never would have eaten of my own accord, but I was starving, so I devoured it with her help, my stomach still growling even after I finished the food. Dierdre insisted that I sleep some more, so she helped me to lay down on a few tattered rags, and I dozed.

  Every now and again, her hand would lightly touch my side and I would slit my eyes to see her concentrating hard. Her eyes screwed shut, her mouth pulled into a grimace.

  But we were never able to teleport.

  I don’t know how many hours or days we lay there, because the sun never rose. Everything stayed dark. Dierdre helped me wobble around the gas station, helping me regain control of my body. We ate scavenged food and laid close when we both dozed, everything so, so cold.

  Eventually, the candle extinguished itself as the wax became a small puddle on the concrete floor. We sat, staring at the dark spot the candle was once, cold setting into our muscles so fiercely that we mumbled curses.

  Finally, Dierdre stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet. “Let’s keep moving. We have a rattlesnake to find.”

  She had packed a satchel she had found with what was left of our food and water. She picked up the flashlight and turned it on, then stuck the pistol in her back pocket. Dierdre allowed me to lean on her, and we began out of and away from the gas station.

  I hated burdening her, whether she helped me gently and with joy or not. Everything going wrong with her was my fault. She was stuck here on this deserted planet with none but me because I opened my big mouth to Tiberius. We had lost the rattlesnake in the first place because of me. She could have kept both the jaguar and the owl, and done her mission already.

  She could be home. Safe. Warm. Happy. Clean. Fed. The haunted look in her blue eyes wouldn’t exist. No, they would be filled with triumph! She would have been a hero, she had saved the world!

  Tears of frustration and guilt pricked my eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” she murmured softly. “We’ll save your mom soon, Clayton.” I shook my head with a grunt, unable to speak past the hot coals in my throat. “What’s wrong?”

  I had a million words to say to her, so many sentences clawing up my throat, but all that came out was a croak of, “I’m scared of the dark.”

  Why did you say that, you idiot? I snarled hatefully at myself. I couldn’t speak though. My throat was stuck. She gave me a gentle smile and squeezed my shoulder, but did not say anything.

  We walked for so long, I lost all sense of direction or any sort of time. There were no signs of life. No animals, no humans, no monsters… nothing. We were alone in the dark, broken, desolate world.

  It wasn’t so bad, I guessed. It would have been just me.

  We found a small, abandoned house whose windows had been broken out, and decided to camp there for a night… day… Moment. We ate granola bars and took turns napping on the couch.

  After a long while of this pattern; walking, finding a place to nap, eating and scavenging, we began to really understand how alone we were. There was no one in existence except us. Even the monsters were gone.

  Dierdre kept a knife tucked into her belt, but left behind the gun.

  Eventually, the flashlight died, and we wandered in the strange half-darkness, both of us adjusting to seeing. We eventually stopped talking. It didn’t seem right to speak in an empty world.

  There were a million things to say, but we didn’t want to say anything of it. I eventually grew strong enough not to need support, but we couldn’t figure out the sudden deterioration I had experienced. Mentally, I was still wavering.

  We stumbled upon a small creek in the middle of nowhere, and I finally realized just how disgusting we were. I hated feeling dirty. It was the only thing worse than being covered in soap that never fully rinsed off. We were covered in grime, with greasy hair and hands caked with dirt and blood. Dierdre looked as miserable as I felt, but when she caught me looking, gave me a hopeful smile.

  Why did she do that? How did she manage to keep such a face?

  I hated that she had to do it for me.

  I gave her a tight-lipped smile in return and crouched beside the creek. I used the ice-cold water to rub the first few layers of dirt off my arms and face and out of my hair, and Dierdre followed suit. I watched her wash her face, feeling my heart sink.

  Her cheekbones were gaunt, her eye sockets hollow. She was wasting away. The blue of her eyes wasn’t quite so bright anymore. It was more of feverish brightness, and less of life. I wanted to fix her so desperately bad.

  Once we were done, we were cold and wet, and a little cleaner. We were no less miserable.

  We came upon a large city and turned toward it with a unanimous silence. There was nothing on the planet anymore. We could enter the city. We would be safe.

  We trudged through a city called ‘Nashville’. We wandered around broken cinder blocks and crashed cars. There was a large hotel in the distance, and we turned towards it. We helped each other to clamber over an overturned truck that sat in front of the entrance, and squeezed down in through the shattered doors.

  We landed softly in the dark lobby, kicking up dust. We coughed into our wrists, then waited for a moment, listening. Nothing stirred.

  Dierdre and I wandered up the staircase and she gestured with one hand, no doubt presenting the hallway of suites. She vanished into one room, and I stepped into the adjacent one. I found a mini fridge full of spoiled food that turned my stomach, but I found a few stale crackers and different chocolates that had not yet gone bad. I saved a few chocolates for Dierdre.

  I shoved the handful of crackers into my mouth and tried each faucet in the bathroom. No water. I threw myself onto the large bed, and it was so startlingly comfortable that it reminded me painful of the first hotel we had stayed in.

  I stared at the ceiling, shrouded in darkness, and felt tears prick my eyes. How long had we been there, on the strange planet? How long had we gone without talking, our tongues still? How much longer would we be here? How… how was my mother? Was she alright?

  I closed my eyes tightly. School seemed as if it had been lifetimes ago.

  I tried to hum, to sing my mother’s lullaby to myself to consul my aching chest, but my vocal cords stayed dormant. I kept my eyes closed, and gave into sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, because it was suddenly interrupted by a high-pitched shriek.

  “Don’t hurt me!”

  I jumped out of the bed, nearly falling over, my heart racing and sleep stuck against my eyes. I stumbled out of the room, scrambling at the waist of my shorts for any weapon, then burst into Dierdre’s room.

  Dierdre stood with her back to me, towering over a little girl, sitting on the ground. She looked only twelve, with tears cutting lines in the dirt caked onto her gaunt face. “Please don’t hurt me!” she begged, thrusting her hands above her head as Dierdre gripped her knife tightly. “I didn’t mean to scare you!!”

  The
words were supposed to be ‘don’t hurt her’, but instead it was a guttural sound that rose from the depths of my chest. “D--”

  Dierdre turned toward me, her eyes wide. The little girl crawled backwards, gasping. I yanked the knife from Dierdre’s hand and stepped back as she opened her mouth, trying to force words out. Her throat gurgled, and her lips moved, but no words made sense.

  The little girl was sobbing, covering her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry! Don’t hurt me!” she wailed.

  “W-We’re…” I coughed, clearing my throat of disuse. My tongue felt forgein in my mouth, and I had to think each sound through before making it. “We won’t.” Despite my efforts, the words were still just a croak.

  I gently crouched down to face her levelly as she trembled on the ground. I had the strange feeling I had met someone who looked like her before. Someone with a rounder face. Maybe in some other, twisted universe, I had gone to school with her sister.

  Her dirty hair hung around her face and her wide, green eyes regarded me fearfully. She wore a leopard-print jacket over a dirty t-shirt and shredded jeans. I could see her ribs pressing against the cloth of her shirt.

  “What’s your name?” It took three attempts, but I grated it out.

  She sniffled and dashed her hand underneath her nose. “A-Amy…” she murmured.

  Amy? Maybe it wasn’t her sister, maybe I had known a version of her… I held out my hand, but she crawled backwards. “Are you alone?”

  She nodded fearfully. “Momma and Patrick… they… they…”

  Patrick? I knew I didn’t know a Patrick, but the name was still yet familiar. How did I-- “Oh, my God,” I whispered. “You were at the jaguar exhibit.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dierdre recoil. I turned to her urgently. “Hey, we have to bring her with us.”

  “Will you really?” Amy cried, leaping to her feet. “Please, oh please! I won’t eat very much! I won’t talk much either. Take me with you. Please, please.” She began to sob again, fear and hope twisting in her eyes all at once. “Don’t leave me alone anymore…”

  Dierdre opened her mouth then closed it wordlessly. She did this two more times, then gripped my arm tightly and drug me out of the room. I waited patiently in the hallway as she coughed past her own frozen throat. “We… can’t…”

  “Can’t?!” I shrilled, startlingly her back a step. “What do you mean we can’t?!”

  “You can’t carry both of us!” She coughed and spat, her face reddening. “I-- Clayton, I can’t teleport three people!”

  “She could hold the rattlesnake! Then we would each have only one!” My face was heating up. My belly churned. I could feel bile pressing at my throat. I was so angry. How could she just abandon this poor little girl?

  “It could screw up so much, Clayton.”

  “It’s all screwed!” I exploded. “She is the last person on this planet! We can’t leave her, Dierdre! We saw her at the zoo! We can’t just let her die! No one--” I choked as tears hit my eyes. “No one deserves to die alone, Dierdre!”

  Dierdre swallowed thickly, pressing her lips into a thin line. “If anything happens to her,” she hissed, jabbing a finger hard into my chest, “if anything happens to the timelines, it’s your fault. I do not want to bring her along.”

  Her eyes were so bright and intense with sadness and worry, I almost laughed with pity. My chest twanged for her. I forgave her.

  “Okay, Amy…” I said, peeking back into the room. “Don’t worry. We’ll take you with us.” The little girl crept out of the room, looking frightened and worried. I gave her the sweetest smile I could muster. “We won’t leave you.”

  “I-I’m not any trouble… am I?” Her lip trembled. “You don’t have to--”

  “It’s fine,” I gently reassured. “You’re no trouble at all. Would you like to hear where we are going?” She nodded eagerly and I crouched to be level with her. “Alrighty. We are trying to find a few very special artifacts.” I pulled the jaguar out of my pocket and let her look at it.

  “W-we!” She gaped. “We saw that at the zoo! Someone… someone stole it… They thought the people having an… an ‘affair’ or somethin’.” Her eyes widened. “You stole the jaguar!”

  “We didn’t, uh, we didn’t steal it.” I felt my face burning. “We borrowed it… for an extended period of time. Without asking.” She narrowed her eyes in confusion. “Anyway, we are headed down to Georgia to find the next one, which is a rattlesnake. If you’re extra super careful, we’ll even let you hold it!”

  Her jaw fell and she stared in wonderful for a few seconds, then bashfully smiled. “I’ll be super careful! Promise! Why… Why do you guys need them?”

  I looked around, as if searching for listening ears. “Can you keep a secret?” I whispered. She nodded vigorously. “We’re trying to save the world.”

  “So,” some sort of desperate hope glittered in her eyes, “so you’re trying to fix all of this?” She gestured around.

  My heart clenched in my chest, and I thought it might have cracked. I fought back the feelings trying to bubble onto my face. “Yes! Absolutely. We’re trying to fix things that are broken.”

  Amy leapt forward and hugged me tight, nearly knocking me backwards. I felt so horrible lying to her that I might have thrown up my guilt. I’ll save her. It’ll be okay. Once we get her off this world, it won’t matter we didn’t save it. There’s nothing worth saving anyways. I have her a quick squeeze, swallowing thickly, then stood up, turning towards Dierdre.

  “Did you get any rest?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Mhm… Let’s go then.” I stood and held my hand out to Amy, who took it. I gave Dierdre her knife back, and she stashed it in her belt. We left the hallway and wandered back down the stairs. I helped Amy scramble over the overturned truck, then jumped onto it. I paused and pulled Dierdre up.

  Dierdre said nothing as we wandered through the city, and I appreciated her not continuing to insult my decision in bringing Amy. The little girl kept near silent, as she had promised, but she was jumpy. She jumped at every little sound, and paled when things clattered and fell around the city, but she didn’t ask for reassurance.

  After about an hour of walking, I grew bored of the slow pace. We needed to get a move on. “Dierdre, c’mere.” She gave me a questioning glance as I held out my arms expectantly. “We’re jumping.”

  She turned her gaze toward small Amy, who had tilted her head in confusion. She then turned toward me, her face doubtful. “Are you… are you sure? Last time…”

  “Last time I overdid it.” I brushed her off. We believed my collapse and sickness had been the overuse of my newfound powers. “It’s fine. I’m strong enough for both of you.” Obviously tired of walking, she chose not to argue, hopping into my arms. I turned toward Amy. “You ever have a piggyback ride?”

  “Uh… Yeah.”

  “Go ahead and climb onto my back. You’ll have to hold on tight.”

  “Oh, no, I’m okay!” She shook her head. “If you have to carry your wife, I can still walk. I’m not all that tired. Don’t worry.”

  I almost laughed at the ‘wife’ comment, but I swallowed it down as Dierdre’s ears turned dark red. “No, trust me. Climb on. You’ll see what’ll happen in just a second.”

  Amy bit her lip, looking conflicted, but gave in and hopped onto my back. I pressed my elbows against her legs and she wrapped her arms around my neck, choking me. I didn’t ask her to loosen her grip.

  This will be the most anti-aerodynamic thing the sky has ever seen, I thought as I crouched, rolling on my heels. I leapt and we flew through the air, the wind rushing past our cheeks. Amy shrieked. We landed lightly, not as far as I would have liked, and Amy fell off my back before we could jump again.

  “What was that?” she shrilled as I turned around.

  “I can super jump,” I explained matter-of-fact-ly. “It’s much faster than walking. C’mon, Amy. You won’t fall off, I promise. It’s like… it’s like superpowe
rs. There’s nothing to be scared of. I won’t let you get hurt, okay?”

  She stood up, trembling. “You promise?” she whimpered. “Just like a superhero?”

  “Pinkie promise.” I nodded. Amy took a deep breath, steeling herself, then climbed onto my back again. I appreciated her willingness. She held tightly to my neck, shaking. This time, as I leapt, she buried her face into the back of my neck, sniffling and getting my skin wet.

  We jumped four or five times, clearing a satisfying distance, before I set Dierdre down to take a break. Amy slid off my back, sitting down on the ground and looking sick. I tried to force my tight lungs to take deep breaths, steadying my wildly beating heart.

  It only took a few minutes to feel better, so I loaded the girls up again and continued across the countryside. Once we were all tired, we found a small restaurant, completely barren of food but no worse for the wear, and settled down.

  We ate nothing that night. The growling stomachs kept us up. We formed a small fire and sat in a triangle around it, staring into the orange tongues that licked up toward the ceiling. We liked the light. I saw Dierdre was more relaxed when there was a glow touching her face.

  The fire crackled, casting long shadows against the wall. Amy looked frightened, though there was nothing on the planet to worry us. Dierdre looked exhausted, but mildly content.

  “Why don’t we tell our favorite stories?” I suggested, propping my elbows on my knees, ignoring the pain that stretched in my side. As we had begun jumping once more, it had tore open again. It was excruciating, but I didn’t want to bring attention to it.

  I didn’t want Dierdre to find out. She would be too worried.

  “Amy, what’s your favorite story?”

  She tilted her head, squinting. She thought hard about it, pursing her lips. “I think… My favorite story is the story of the twelve dancing princesses!”

  “What’s that story?” Dierdre asked, turning towards her and hugging her knees.

  “Well, you see, there was a young boy, the youngest of, like, twenty-four boys.”

  “Twenty-four?!” I exclaimed. “That’s a lot!”