Activity

BURN

“Details. Now.”

 

The world warped into gray-gold sensations.

Sticky like honey.

Chalky like ash.

Warm like both.

Round and frail.

 

I feel my blindfold – it’s replaced the bandages. Finally. And the infection is gone.

“Hey.” Grimme calls – her voice is close and how did I not know she was coming? “Does that feel better?”

“Yep.”

I did not tell my body to do that.

Wait. I remember this. It was a bit after Grimme introduced me to Oscar. So that I could get “medical care.” Which really translated to “Make Oscar your dad.”

This is weird. They broke up ages ago. But apparently she can just drop off? Orphans she meets? And he takes care of them? And they coparent? And they’ve done this before?

“So. When am I going to meet them?”

“Who?”

“The other punks you adopted?”

I had only just started saying ‘punk’ – to annoy … to annoy … I’m annoying …

“What? Well. Um.” Grimme takes a breathe. “The last one tied a few decades ago.”

“HUH?!”

“Old age.” Grimme is cautious. “We have longevity. Oscar and I. Because of our talents. Okay?”

“Grimme!”

“He’s going to live with us he needs to know!”

Why’s Oscar here?

“You can’t trust him yet!”

 

Ugh. My head hurts.

And I’m shacking, hands covering my face, shame pooling in my gut like poison.

“Details. Now.”

Search is mad and has every right to be…

“Look. My parents were keeping secrets, okay? And I just got tired of it.”

“What does that have to do with selling me to a crazy cult?!”

“I think Grimme started it!”

Silence.

“This cult has been around for over 1,000 years!”

Crap. Oscar was right. They shouldn’t trust me.

“I’m not talking about the cult punk!” I say.

“Then what does Grimme have to do with anything?!” Search’s voice is laced with embarrassment and wrath.

Think fast.

“I don’t know! She doesn’t tell me anything! I’m trying to find out!”

Hey, the truth worked this time!

“I you this” Search screams and storms off. “Okay. Fine. Whatever. Thanks for saving me and shame on you for betraying me.”

“Technically I just betrayed an entire murder-happy cult.” I said.

“Ugh don’t remind me.” The final explosion overlaps with Search’s words.

“We should probably move.” I say. “If we don’t want This Place to fall on us.”

“I thought you said the next Shift would fix that!”

“Well I don’t want it to fix me!” I protest.

Then the world shifts again.

Why … why does this feel incomplete?

Why do I feel like I missed something?

This is going to come back and hurt me…

 

SEARCH

“Details. Now.”

I blink as the world ripples and fades into bluish glass. Then blink again.

I’m in … I’m in the Edgelands. And … where’s Burn?

He’s holding my hand. And trembling like a leaf during the dieback. [fall]

I’m … surrounded by glass-mirror people. Insubstantial forms fractured and fragmented through prisms and reflected in on themselves. This alarms me far less than it should.

This isn’t real.

Yet.

“So this is how we die.”

I try to see who said that – I know the voice like I know Burn’s. It fills me with love and burning and protection.

“Not without a fight that our people will write songs about.” I know him too. He makes me feel safe.

“Only if anyone’s left to sing them.” Burn mutters.

“Wh@t’^ ha%%en*n8?” I say.

But I’m not supposed to say that.

And there are consequences for breaking script, it would seem…

 

Fragmented mirrors spiral around me. The glass shards cut through and do no harm and it all happens in the space of a blink and

boom boom boom boom

I rock as the earth roars under me.

What idiot is blowing This Place up?! We’re all going to die!

“Punk blew up the catacombs!”

Burn… is underneath me? I’m entirely out of breath and we’re both sprawled out on the ground.

But I’m giggling hysterically like this body (why did I think that?) knows what’s going on. “We … we made it! We’re alive!” Just follow the script I somehow know…

“She’s coming back.” Burn blurts out.

“Who? Wh8’s c^m!n@ b#c%?” I turn to look at him.

Grimme. Why do I know he’s talking about Grimme?

Uh oh that wasn’t the script…

 

The world shifts again but barely. Just a smidge just barely and and and

And he’s still. Still and there’s blood and bruises and cuts and wounds all over him and he’s not moving

“Burn?” I shake him and he’s still not moving he’s not swatting me off he’s not moving

Was Dad like this?

No. No why did I think that? Dad’s fine. He’s alive he was murdered

“BURN?!”

He’s not moving.

“SEARCH?!”

Who… who’s calling me?

“SEARCH?!”

“Just hang in there.” I tell him, “Help!” I scream.

There is a crashing and stomping and a fell wolf leaps beside me out of the opalized trees and thick undergrowth.

I’m … not scared. The wolf is glassed over like everyone else is (except Burn. He’s crystal clear and I’m terrified.)

“Get 5e!p!”

 

That wasn’t what I’m supposed to say either. But I can’t think of anything else. Maybe there is no script here. I can’t understand and then then then

 

Then a glassy-figure thumps out from the trees. “Verily we have arrived!” he booms.

But then he freezes. “Burn!” and he’s limping forward why is he limping is there anyone not hurt here

The fell wolf whines, tail curling between her legs, ears flat, shaking her horns

(and a female fell wolf doesn’t have that many horns.)

“Drake?” Burn’s voice is a fluttering, hoarse thing – and it’s not from years of smoking. It’s from pain. “I’m … I’m fine.”

Lier.

Wait. He was just unconscious, why is he moving?

Maybe he’s actually okay. Maybe I hope just

Don’t fool yourself.

Burn falls back into the mud and leaves.

“Yeah. You look fine.” The fell wolf is gone and a child stands there instead.

“I’m not the one covered in mud.” Burn says.

How does he know that …?

 

“No broken bones. No large blood spots.” The large man is carefully examining Burn. Why do we have time for that they’re coming they’re

We blew them up. I’m the reason there was a booming?

 

No. You only suggested it.

 

The stranger pulls Burn’s shirt up. He screams and pulls away. “Apologies friend. Please let me examine the wound.”

It’s a huge bruise. It covers his ribcage and bleeds sluggishly in the center.

Then Burn goes limp.

 

The world reals and rocks and tries tries tries to correct itself.

I’m not supposed to be here. I don’t want to be here. How did this happen and why?

 

“It may be poisoned.”

“You can’t poison a bruise.”

“No. but you can use a bruise to hide the injection site.”

 

Who? Where? What’s happening where’s Burn and and and

 

“It’s a massacre.”

“The dead that aren’t buried. We … we need … we don’t have time, so you’ll have to sink them in the river. Better than leaving them.”

“Don’t bother with the ones in the cave in. They’re taken care of.”

 

“GRIMME!”

“Shh. Shh.”

“She … went over the cliff.” Burn shakes with fever, twitching as, as, as who is that? Who is the stranger Burn lets touch him?

“I know.” I’m saying this. I’m up to my elbows in bandages and ointments and first aid kits. I’m … I’m tending to myself. I’ve been crying.

“I couldn’t save her.” Burn says.

“I know.” The stranger says. I love him. Why? Who is this?

“Did she … did she come back?” Burn looks hopeful, so hopeful. “She came back right?”

“No.” I say. Why am I filled with conviction?

 

Ugh the world’s changed again. I still feel panic but it’s … quieter. Numbed off because it’s been too much too much too much can’t feel it anymore

“Please. Please stay with me.” I’m not crying – but my cheeks are sticky and stiff from when I was.

Burn’s lying so limp beside me, wrapped up in blankets, sweat beading over his face, each breathe rattling in his lungs, and I’m scared so so so scared

The … the armed people are shifting nervously around us. We’re so few now. (What happened why were we here?)

We’re surrounded by the Encompassing the robbers and theives and people who keep taking and taking and destroying and taking 

“Drop your weapons.” It’s the stranger who helped Burn. Who was with us before this stranger there are so many strangers I don’t know but we’re all linked we all need to do something …

“What?!” a voice that reminds me of Dad he was murdered no he wasn’t I talked to him yesterday

“I’m not surrendering to…”

And then the man whips around, slams the rifle barrel downward and knocks the roaring man backward.

“Enough have died.” A stranger I apparently love (I love all of them so much how can iI when I don’t know any of them?) says. “Now is not the time to fight.”

He shoulders the rifle before saying, “Tie them up.”

It takes a long second for the words to register.

And then my heart breaks.

(Why does it hurt so much coming from this man who’s name I don’t even know…)

Burn jerks suddenly. I grab his hand.

Then he’s still. Not even breathing. I search for a pulse but know I won’t find one

(Why am I not crying? Why does this feel so real and so fake?)

“ENOUGH!”

 

I scream as the glass fades again.

The disembodied voice is snarling. “That is not how this mirror is supposed to work!”

I flinch. Where is the voice coming from who is

Amnesia.

“You are not permitted to see the future.” He continues. Absolutely furious. “What are you that you can break the rules?”

I am silent.

“What. Are. You?”

“How far into the future?”

“Mortal you dare?”

“I dare.” I say.

“THEN DIE!”

But the room shimmers again. Becomes a checkerboard of black and white. Amnesia is gone. No longer the disembodied voice. No longer the intimidating presence.

Just … gone.

I take a deep breath.

Sometime in the future, someone I love will betray me.

And someone will kill Burn.

Unless you stop it…

 

BURN

Search is weird. I’m weird. I just almost kinda not really relived that horrible day I sold her out but not really. It was a bad day.

But the crazy scheme worked.

(Why a lizard? Why is it always a lizard?! Can she just leave them alone?)

Um. What is this?

“Search.” I feel around with my smoke. She’s not here and then she is, taking me hand suddenly.

And then she’s hugging me.

“Wow! Punk! Not okay!” I squirm away but she’s not letting go. “Hey!”

“You’re alive.”

“Yes.”

“And it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Um. What hasn’t?”

“Dad dying. You, Grimme. You’re all okay…”

Wait. “What?”

“What?” she asks, her voice tight suddenly.

“Mr. Rosewood… he did … murdered.”

Oh no.

“What … no, no it hasn’t happened yet.”

“It has! And you’re helping hunt me cause Goldbeard was murdered and maybe I did it but I don’t know why and I can’t remember and …”

Deep breaths. It’s okay. Deep breaths.

Why doesn’t Search remember

“Holes in reality.” I say. “If there are holes in reality, then … then you came from one further back then me.”

“What?” Search’s voice is tight and scared.

“That’s … that’s so stupid and creates so many paradoxes!” I scream. “Time doesn’t work like that! This isn’t even possible… we’re falling through holes in reality; it is possible okay so then what can we do to fix it?”

Search just takes my hand. “One step at a time.” She says.

“But what’s the first step punk? What is it?” My head hurts. My foot hurts. And her pack is still roiling with treacherous evil lizards.

Search shrugs. “Apparently, Amnesia can’t kill me.” She looks at me. “So. Why is that? I know you know why…”

Uh …

… “Actually I don’t. But I bet Grimme does.”

 

 

@this-is-not-an-alien, @ethan-leonard, @rusted-knight – Let’s play a game, shall we?
<p style=”text-align: center;”>[The room is dark, living shadow. You can see nothing save a throne, a mere silhouette in the darkness.]</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>[The room is still, silent, a tomb. You hear nothing but footsteps, slow and purposeful. They come nearer and nearer – or so you think.]</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>[The room shudders – this is why you think the echoing footprints come close – shudders like it would warp and fold and bend to the will of this person.]</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>[Friend or foe? How can you know?]</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>[Do. You. Proceed?]</p>
<p style=”text-align: center;”>{yes} + {no}</p>
{if yes – approach the throne.}

{if no – turn back}