You would think that after thirty years I would have better control over my powers. Standing on the edge of Narmarra, the place if feel the most connection with my powers, I practice. I know I should be better everyone keeps telling me that I am but I just cant see it. My world is mostly covered by water, the scientists say is 98%. All that really means for me, the only lightning weilder in living memory, is that I am dangerous. So I stand here on the edge of this gorge where I can aim, or at least attempt to aim my lightning at something that wont kill everyone in the small floating village where I live.
I wear my traditional weilders wrap with the hood up. I imagine the sight of me out here summoning something so deadly would be menacing as the twin lightning bolts crash out of the skyon either side of me. At least it would be if anyone knew that I was out here. But time is running out. I have six cycles left to figure this out, or I’ll be stripped of my powers exiled from this world.
As all young children from my home world, I went before the Sacred Stones and petitioned the gods for powers. Like most of my friends, and family before me, I did not actually expect anything to happen. So when I left the Trial ceremony and nothing happened, I was a little disappointed. We all grew up with the legends of the Merris, and Yami, and Togashii, so how could I not, at least a little, want power like that.
The Trial ceremony at the Sacred Stones is supposed to gift you one of the three traditional weilder powers: light, growth, water. One for each of the gods we worship. So like a dutiful son I went to ceremony, paid my respects to the gods, and nothing happened. Or so I thought. It wasn’t until I
_I just have to make it to the other side. _This is the thought I keep telling myself. My feet are rooted to the side of the lake. Getting to the other side is more than just finishing this race I’ve involuntarily started. I didn’t choose to be here. I would not have wanted to be part of this but my family needs me to finish.
There have been so many tests and challenges in this race its almost ridiculous. If I can just get to the other side then I will be able to find the Heart of the Worlds. This is the last piece I need to finish the race but I can’t seem to cross this lake.
Ever since I was a little girl the water has scared me. My older sister and I used to go out onto the lake in a canoe every summer. We would fish, and swim and waste the days away. Thinking back to that time it was some of the happiest times of my childhood right up until she drowned. Every time I even so much as look at a pool of water bigger than a puddle I see her lifeless eyes staring back at me.
With my feet rooted to the shoreline, feet purposefully not touching the frozen lake surface, I see her eyes. They’re pleading with me, to save her.
_Dammit _ I can’t even see a frozen lake without her plaguing my every thought.
It’s not like I dont want to finish the challenge and see my family fed for the next cycle. It’s not like I dont want to get over my older sister dying eleven years ago. I do. I want that almost more than anything but the second I see water, apparently in any form, I am thrust right back to that day. I am forced to live that day.
It seems that no matter how much time passes I’ll live with this guilt, these memories, until I die.
If I can’t cross this lake…well I dont really want to think about that. So I shove it down as best I can where it’s wedged right up next to the memories of my sister. She would want me to finish. My family is counting on me.
So I take one step out onto the ice. Testing it. It seems to hold me, so I shift my weight and it still holds. I can’t think about the ice cracking. I can’t think about my sister. I have to think about the family I have left. I have to think about my little brother who doesn’t even know what is going to happen if I fail.
With only one foot on the ice I raise my eyes to look at the distant horizon. It’s frozen like everything around us. Frozen like I have to make my heart so it will quit thudding in my chest. I very slowly take one more step onto the lake. Weight still holds, and I dont hear any cracking.
My mind wants to think that we will never cross this lake, that it will crack and we’ll drown just like my sister. But my body is rebelling against that Idea, It seems to be saying, “ we can do this” and now I am paralysed from more than fear.
My mind and my body are at war. Go forward, or go back. Those are my options and I can’t choose. Choosing one over the other will mean I am giving up on the sister I wish I still had, and choosing the other means I forfeit the rest of my family’s survival.
You’d think this an easy dicision, one foot in front of the other until I reach the other sidle and claim the relic as my own. But this frozen body of water means so much more to me than that.
Pop. Fizzle. Opening my eyes I appear to have travelled to another universe… maybe. Everything looks the same. Same subway stop. Same buses. Same sky scrapers. For all intents and purposes I feel like I woke up in New York. I probably am where I think I am. But something that I can’t put my finger on feels off.
I know I travelled through time. Or space…or both. But I just can’t seem to find anything different. I mean it even smells like New York. You know that smell. If you’ve ever spent any amount of real time in New York or Chicago or LA… it smells like that.
Beyond what I can see, it just feels different. I spent my whole life in New York, Queens born and raised. I would know if something was different and it just feels that way but everyone I know would probably say I’m crazy. Ok… let’s rewind a litttle bit.
There I was minding my own business walking down the street. I had just stopped by my favorite gyro spot. If you’ve never had Santorini, I don’t even know what to say. Enjoying the best gyro in all of New York City, I passed by an alley way I walked past most days and never thought anything of it. Until today when I noticed what appeared to be a rip in reality. Like if you took a small knife and slashed through the air and there were stars on the other side. Like a complete moron I reached out to touch it. As soon as my fingers made contact with the tear I felt a pulling sensation behind my eyes. My ears needed to pop like I took a sudden jump in altitude.
After the sensations behind my eyes and ears subsided, nothing seemed to change. Other than I took an involuntary step forward. Everything was the same, if you discount the feeling I had in the pit of my stomach that something, everything was different.
Growing up in New York you have several instincts just built in, first is that New Jersey, sucks. I mean really sucks and is unequivocally NOT New York. Second you just know how the city feels. And third you have these built in senses of what the best types of restaurants are. Like you know where the best pizza is, where the best chicken alfredo is, etc.
Channeling that inner feeling that something was different about the city I was born into, I started walking. I fell into the stream of people walking toward the nearest subway station. I saw an empty seat which was rare so I took the opportunity to sit and think about what was happening to me. _I really must just be going crazy, _I thought to myself.
Once I reached my subway stop, I got off and walked up to the street level. I think it was around this time that I started to really notice things were not normal. I was really struggling to put my finger on what was different when all the sudden it smacked me in the face, it was the pants. I know such a little thing and you’d think that everyone would be wearing different pants anyway but these all were almost exactly three inches short of everyone’s shoes.
I almost just mistook it for a some stupid Gen Z fashion trend. I thought that until I saw one of those guys that clearly fought in Vietnam wearing the same kind of pants that it really clicked.
The way home got weirder and weirder. Beyond the pants, it was in peoples manerisms. Normally when someone bumps into you in New York, they just look at you funny. Or give you a, “fuck you”. Everyone thinks that we say, “I’m walking here!” But that is just in the movies. So it was super weird when someone bumped into me and said, “Oh Sorry, didn’t see you there.”
_What were we in Canada now? _I reflexively thought. I mean they are the nicest people around outiside of those crazy people from Minnesota.
Beyond the pants, the “oh sorry”. It just kept getting stranger. I got to my building, and the door man actually bowed to me. I mean who does THAT.
Ok so weird feelings aside the people were NOT acting like New Yorkers and now I feel like I had proof. I was not in New York City any more. Where I was I could not tell you. Probably some alternate dimension where people were nice or something dumb like that.
_I have to figure out where I am. _I thought. And how the hell do I get home?
Drowsie. Head spinning. I realize I’m standing, but I have no idea where I am. As my eyes begin to focus, I realize there are bright lights shining directly at my face.
_What the heck _I mumble.
There’s also a horn blaring. I’m standing in the middle of the road. No, I’m standing on a bridge, with a car right in front of me headlights on, laying on the horn.
_WHAT DO YOU WANT? _I scream in my mind. As I realize I can’t speak. I know that I know how, but my mouth doesn’t seem to be working.
Glaring at the car…jeep…truck. Whatever it is. It’s not stopping with the horn. I step off to my left and cross over a low wall dividing the bridge.
Wait, am I on the wrong side of the road or is he? She? __ _Where AM I? Why am I here? _And a million other questions sprint through my mind. As the jeep-truck thing speeds past me. Still laying on the horn as it races by me.
“Why are they in such a hurry” I ask of no one in particular, “There is no one else out here.” _Whereever here is, _I mutter to myself.
Now that the jeep truck thing is gone. I start to analyze where I am. A persistent mist hangs all around the bridge. It’s cold. Not cold enough that I probably should be wearing a coat and gloves. But chilly, I guess. I seem to be standing on a suspension bridge that looks a lot like the Golden Gate Bridge but tiny. Really only enough room to have one car driving each way on either side of this low wall I am now standing on.
Trying to peer through the mist, I can make out the vague outlines of distant mountains off to my right. The light seems to be rising or setting over behind the mountains. I’ll have to wait to see which.
Looking down I realize I am wearing a suit. It’s not a fancy suit but also not the kind you’d find on the rack at some big department store. It’s got the feel that it was tailored to me. There’s not a speck of dirt on my shoes. Which is weird because the bridge has pot holes with standing water in them, and seems to be really muddy.
I need to start figuring out who I am I think sullenly. Go the same way as the jeep-truck, or the other way? __ __ Resolved that its a gamble either way. I choose to go the opposite way that the jeep-truck went. I don’t care to run into them anytime soon, seeing as they were just honking at a man standing in the road clearly not willing to help. Carefully I pick my way around the pot holes.
There are so many things about myself that I need to figure out, like my name, where I am, what I’m doing here. These questions are swirling around in my head as I finally make it across the bridge.
_Golly that thing was long, a lot longer than I was expecting it to be. _ __ __ My chosen path leads me further into the mountains it seems. The road, if you want to call it that, starts to rise up and curves off to the left. I keep walking down the mist shrouded path. I’m not sure but It seems to be getting thicker. And there are no other noises, other than my shoes scuffling on the dirt road. It’s really eerie, I feel like I should hear a distant river at the bottom of the valley, or birds, or monkeys, or something.
After walking what feels like forever. The “road” is now paved. So it seems like I am walking in the direction of civilization. It’s made the walk easier, that and as it now is going down the other side of the mountain from the bridge. I feel like I should be tired from all the walking I have been doing but I am not out of breath, and my feet miraculously don’t hurt, even though I’m wearing dress shoes.
The mist is still clinging onto everything I can see. The mountains are now receding behind me and as the ground levels off I can’t quite tell if I am exiting the mountains, or if this is just a large valley.
The sun continues to illuminate the landscape through the mist so maybe its still morning time, whereever I am. There are still no sounds around me. No wildlife, no rivers, streams anything. I still don’t feel tired in the sleepy sense but the monotony of walking along this road with nothing and no one is starting to grate on my nerves.
_I’m going to die here. _
As the thought crosses my mind, I hear a blood curdling shriek come from somewhere in the mist. I run.
Heart thudding in my ears, I still don’t hear anything else. I try to yell out but my mouth, no my vocal chords aren’t working. No time to wonder if I am mute or something else as I thunder down the road, which has become straight as an arrow.
After a couple of minutes of running. I still can’t hear anything in the mists. So I slow to a jog. Still not tired or out of breath, which seems weird since I feel like I should be. I resolve to take a break and try to think logically about my next move. I know I don’t really have anything to go on but I lay it all out.
I was on a bridge, where a jerk sped past me and did not help. I seem to be mute, temporarily I hope. I came out of the mountains into a valley or plain of some kind. I am on a paved road, so civilization exists. I heard the shriek of an animal or something and I ran. Here I am listing out all the things that happened to me over the past couple of hours and I still am no closer to knowing, well knowing anything.
Just about the time I give up to start walking again, the same shriek comes out of the mist but closer now. The hair on the back of my neck is standing on end as I hear a thud just enough in the mist all I can see is an outline of something that is tall. Like seven feet tall, with wings?
Petrified I stand still not even breathing. The fear has crawled right out of my stomach and lodged itself firmly at the base of my throat I couldn’t yell even if I could. It has also rooted my feet to the ground.
The hulking shadow takes a small hop towards me. And then another. As its huge chitinous body is covered in litltle spiny protrusions all over its cobalt body. Two huge cerulean wings are folded over its back. It’s standing on four massive legs, ending in huge claws and sharp talons that could end me quite quickly. Just as my eyes begin to settle on it’s avian face, in a rasping voice it says, “There you are. I have been trying to find you.”
_Um ok _I think weakly
“I don’t think you realize how difficult you are to find in all this mist”
Cocking it head to the side it stares at me like it wants me to respond.
My fear still has not let my feet move an millimeter. I want to say something back to the creature but I can’t.
I stammer the first thought that comes to me, I…I’m sss…sorry __ __ “Well I should hope so. We have a tight schedule and we are well behind thanks to your wandering.” __ _I… I don’t know what to say, I dont know what you are, or who. Or who I am for that matter. _The thought just start tumbling out of my mind. Fear temporarily forgotten.
“Oh, the transfer must not have been complete.” It says in that raspy voice. Like it’s smoked too much in the past.
So you know who I am? __ __ “Not per se but I know someone who will. You’ll need to come with me.”
I’m not sure that is a good idea. I don’t even know where I am. __ __ “Well seeing as you are much smaller than me, I don’t think you have much say in the matter.”
With that it takes a small leap into the air and with a beat of its enormous wings hovers over me and grasps onto me with its talons.
_I guess not. _I think forlornly.
“Nope” It mocks. “Besides you definitely do not want to go the way you were walking. That way is certain death.”
_Oh good. _I think. _I left certain death for uncertain death. _ __ __ That’s the last thought I have before the creature beats its wings a few more times and we climb over the mists and the landscape is breathtaking. Headed to… headed to…
_Hey! Where are we going anyway? _I think up at the creature.
“Oh, you’lll see soon enough.” It says in that same mocking tone.
I can’t seem to decide if it’s saving me or taking me to my doom. Either way, I am along for the ride for now.
__ __ __ __
Driving down the road. Top down. Wind whipping through his hair. This was Ryan’s favorite time of day. Twilight, just as the last of the light leaks off the horizon. The engine of his 1970’s corvette humming along was the perfect sound at the perfect time of day. The only thought in his mind was on the drink he would be making once he got home. His week had been a nightmare and now it was three days of doing absolutely nothing. At least that was the plan. Rounding the next corner, Ryan almost slammed on the brakes. Just off the right side of the road he saw one of those telephone boxes, like in London. “What the actual F…” he almost said, there just wasn’t anything like that in the small Californian coastal town he lived in.
Just as he was passing the “telephone box” and ominous red glow emanated from inside. This did cause him to slam on the breaks and say “What the hell?” Looking over his shoulder he realized he had just enough room on the shoulder to turn around and face the glowing box. “Damn the turn radius on these things” he muttered as the wheels came uncomfortably close to the steep hillside. Just as he got his car lined up with the mysterious box. The red light inside the box began to pulse and deepen in hue. What started off a bright cherry red deepened to a sinister vermilion. “Um…ok?!” Ryan said to himself. Pinching himself to make sure this wasn’t a trippy dream as a result of too many gin and tonics. Ryan stealed himself to get out of the car. __ _This can’t really be happening, can it? _ __ Popping the latch, he stuck one leg out the door. _This is the part of those stupid horror films where the unsuspecting victim checks out the creepy thing and then dies. _Ryan thought mockingly.
As Ryan approached, he noticed that this wasn’t one of those telephone boxes like in London. There was no phone inside. It was just three wall of slatted windows and a solid glass door with a simple black handle on it. The word, “pull” in some standard corporate font that everyone used and simultaneously hated.
In the next moment several things happened all at once.
Ryan thought _This is so dumb I should just go home. _He pulled the door open and the red light from inside bathed him in that same creepy red glow. He started to smell the tang of ozone, as a mechanical whirr began to wind up. __ __ With a loud pop and fizzle, Ryan blinked and was no longer in front of the weird not-telephone box. He was no longer standing on the top of a steep hill overlooking his small coastal town. He was standing in front of, well he didn’t quite know how to describe it. But his first thought was, How am I suppposed to go home now? He then realized he was still holding onto the door to the not-telephone box, but it was not attached to anything. __ __
