Chapter 2018 (Patreon)

ToC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/23899958

Congratulations! +1 Muse’s Reverie!

Weird that I get the Attribute before I even look at the memory… Randidly thought to himself as he opened his eyes and returned to the Sonara. He quickly scanned the area. It looked like Xershi, Pullas, and Fiona were just now finishing a fight against fourteen of the silvery beings. Based on the sweat on their brows and craters in the surrounding area, Fiona had been telling the truth when she said they were much more difficult when allowed to use their combined image.

“Perfect timing,” Xershi panted and rubbed a hand across his gleaming forehead. But he seemed to be positively glowing from a long battle. He raised his arms and flexed. “Now that I’ve proven myself, it’s time to make our Ascension Pact and move-”

“Not quite yet,” Randidly shook his head. He beckoned to Pullas. “Pullas, can I… show you something?”

“What is it?” The blue-haired woman tilted her head to the side.

“Just a bit of life,” Randidly replied.

Pullas mulled that over, her face shifting back to some of that uneasiness from earlier. Perhaps even now, she replayed her abrupt decision to follow him and Xershi on their dash up the Sonara. Then she nodded. But as she walked over, Fiona stepped forward. “Okay, I feel the need to remind you that they will now be sending three parties at us this time. Three is also a powerful number for them. They-”

“Will be stopped by you,” Randidly said, feeling genuine faith in this stranger. He looked at Fiona for several seconds, so that her winning smile disappeared and that deadness spread across her eyes and face. He nodded heavily, sure of his pronouncement. No one could carry that horrible exhaustion without a burning engine; it was the same sort of forward thrust he possessed to resist the pull of Entropy. He felt currents of significance swirling around him. “Yea, you can handle it. We are going to be… an unusual Ascension Pact. With unusual demands. But the reason you fit amongst us despite- despite how dangerous you are, is because your demands are a bit crazy, too.”

“Plus, I’ll be here to help.” Xershi flexed his bicep. “Now that I’m all warmed up, nothing can stop me.”

Fiona held his gaze for several long seconds. The massive and glacially slow gears of her personality spun, her thoughts grinding forward through this problem. Eventually, she nodded. Randidly looked back at Pullas. She seemed tentative as he gestured for her to sit down next to him. He pulled out the Dreamcatcher of the Long Night, reached out and gripped her hand, then pulled her into that world of chimes to access a particular memory.

Obviously, he had his own version, but he needed Sydney’s side too, in order to help Pullas. Part of it was being alone, up until that last moment. The scene formed around him, just as he remembered it.

It was night. The air was cool, but May had been warm enough that year that they only needed to wear light jackets when they snuck out after midnight. Above the entrance to the middle school, a single light remained on, illuminating the door metal double doors. The rest of the parking lots, recess area, and outdoor cafeterias were submerged in darkness. The only exception was the lazy fireflies, clinging to the grass and buzzing around the air in the surrounding fields.

Below that light above the door, you felt suspended in an entirely different world. For two teenagers wanting to escape their lives, Sydney’s idea had been a stroke of genius. And also vaguely nonsensical.

It had been at the end of middle school, in the best years for Randidly and Sydney’s relationship. They had planned this for weeks, driven by one of Sydney’s insane epiphanies about life. And Randidly couldn’t have been sure, but even though she had wanted it so badly, something in her attitude changed when he had worked so hard and gotten this dream for her.

She trusted him less based on how willing he had been to give. It had been a long time before he had been able to accept that meant more about her than it did about him.

Randidly straightened his jacket, pulling it a little more tightly around his shoulders and turning to Pullas, playing the role of Sydney in this reenactment. His young voice broke slightly as he spoke. “Okay, let’s go up and I’ll show you what’s going to happen. Then I’ll go first, and you second.”

“Ahem, this is… well, I will allow the strangeness of being somehow teleported here.” Pullas cleared her throat and then looked down at herself. “But why am I like this? And you look… quite feeble, compared to your mature form.”

Pullas, who had been quite short, was now even shorter. Her limbs were reed-thin and she had extra thick glasses. The clothes she wore were nothing from Expira. Apparently, her own youthful form had been pulled out of the depths of her own memory.

Randidly, a middle school boy, grinned at her. “You don’t remember being a child? I suppose it was a long time ago. Here, come with me.”

He reached out and took Pullas’s hand. With Sydney, he had been too unnerved by his crush on her to do so, but now he felt a driving certainty. Instead of stumbling into the darkness and pushing his way face first into a bush, he led her to the side door that had been propped open with one of his Louis L’amour paperbacks. He carefully led Pullas into his middle school and eased the door shut after him.

Besides, Randidly paused and trembled. The raging emotions in his chest were growing worse, almost painful as its claws scraped along his insides. I don’t think I can afford to waste much time.

“Are you alright?” Pullas asked quietly, likely feeling his tremor through his hand. He released his grip and waved his hand airily. He led her through the cavernous halls of the school, ominous in the darkness. Their slender and inexperienced bodies made the heavy walls and long hallways of lockers seem more solid, heavy enough to collapse in on them and crush them to dust.

They reached the central staircase and went all the way up to the third floor, accessing the roof. This door, too, was propped open by a thick pulp western. Randidly led Pullas out and was glad to see that the two plastic bins were already here, filled with water balloons.

Getting them up here had been the real bitch of the plan. He had done it himself originally, as the sun had set over the city.

He clambered over the short fence at the edge of the roof, Pullas following and swearing quietly about the obnoxious limits of this body. The fireflies didn’t venture up here, everything was grey and navy blue in the darkness. He walked to the edge of the roof and swayed, slightly dizzy from the three-story height. He pointed down over the edge; they were situated right above the single light of the middle school front door. “Okay, the way this works is I’m going to go down there and call up when I’m ready. Then you dump one of the bins over the edge toward me. After my turn, we will switch.”

“That’s it?” Even behind her large glasses, he could see Pullas raise her eyebrows. “Just… there are balloons filled with water? I don’t quite understand.”

“Yup, that’s essentially it,” Randidly chuckled. “Well, you’ll get it when its your turn.”

He left Pullas up there and walked back through the school and out the side door. Then he went around the front. He had the tape in his pocket from the memory and stood under the light to gauge the distance. Then he put a blue x on a spot just off from beneath the light. He stood there and looked up expectantly. “Okay, I’m ready whenever.”

He heard her grumbling and then the scrape of her shifting the plastic container. Even through the pain of containing his emotions, his palms tingled. Because from this angle, with the light directly above, you couldn’t see anything. You were blind. The waiting was one of the best parts of the crazy idea. And suddenly-

Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, the water balloons that had been painted into one shade by the darkness were suddenly thrust onto the stage of their own brilliant colors as they tumbled down. They rushed past the light, each grabbing his attention with their sudden arrival. For a moment, the first arrivals undulated and tumbled, held in stasis by the brain’s ability to make itself think it had been watching for longer than it had. Each seared themselves into Randidly’s eyes, a shock of vibrancy.

Then reality caught up and the brain’s tricks ran out. More balloons tumbled down, the first brightly colored leaders hitting the ground and sending wet splashes onto his pants. Randidly grinned, adrenaline pumping at the weird, unexpected transgression they had made just for these few moments of-

Randidly jumped as the plastic bin fell down too, banging off the light and falling into the bushes. He winced; that hadn’t been a part of the memory. But he still felt too much childish enjoyment to really care. Water dribbled down the steps, carrying little scraps of rubber down with them. Allowing himself a private laugh, he went back through and climbed to the roof. There, he clapped Pullas on the shoulder. “Okay, your turn.”

He positioned himself why she made a much slower journey through the unfamiliar school. Randidly blinked several times, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Flashes of color and the burned spot on his retina where he had stared up at the light lingered with him.

When on the ground, Pullas moved to the x and looked up. She squinted, unable to look directly through the light with her childish body. “Okay, let’s just do it.”

Randidly shifted the second bin of water balloons. Being up top was a different sort of enjoyment than being on the bottom. You had the control. And while below you were blind, up here you could see the person clearly, a spotlight blazing upon their target. He tilted the bin. The water balloons began to roll and fall.

He saw Pullas’s eyes go wide as the first tumbled into the halo of light and lit up with a rich purple. Weirdly, she took an instinctive step forward-

Which meant the first smacked and popped against her shoulder, even as two dozen more rained down on her. She didn’t even flinch, just goggling at the unexpected sensation of cold water.

Randidly hurried down to the ground floor, feeling the first threads of doubt about bringing Pullas here. Those doubts inflamed the continued pounding of the heat in his ribs. As he moved, he collected the two paperbacks; even if it was just a memory, he couldn’t bear to leave these remnants of his childhood. He found her underneath the light still, her hair dripping and covered in the remnants of popped balloons.

Pullas looked at him, her expression unreadable. “Why did we do this?”

Randidly suppressed another burning stab of pain. “To feel alive.”

Pullas looked down, beginning to shiver. It was warm enough to be out, but not when you were partially soaked. Then a smile split her face. “Heh. Well, I definitely feel something. What a queer way to live. I wonder… I wonder what sort of death I will have now that I’ve experienced this. How unexpected. I was right to follow you; even a surprising event, even a surprising death, can be illuminating if it is one that happens in the richness of life.”

She looked at him, her smile fading. “Thank you. This was a good memory. You noticed I was in doubt. You put us in danger because you wished to help me to address my own issues. Ahem, I will remember this favor and repay you in kind someday, Mr. Ghosthound.”