7: Mask

I can’t remember. I can’t remember. I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember? Olivia stared at Miya standing before her, hoping to find some answer in her stern expression. It’s like before, it’s just blank. I just popped up. Not again. That can’t be right.

After a minute, Olivia still couldn’t form a reply. “Did I break you?” asked Miya to Olivia’s left, not really addressing her. She poked her in the cheek, failing to provoke any sort of reaction out of her.

“I’m still here,” murmured Olivia, eyes fixed firmly on her knees. She still sat on top of the table, though she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to swing her legs as before. If this isn’t real then I’m not normal. I’m just an idiot.

“What was that?” asked Miya, leaning in.

“I’m still here,” repeated Olivia, forcing a little more energy into her voice to be heard.

“Are you alright, Olivia?” asked Miya, taking a seat on the tabletop beside her.

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember how I got here or what had happened again. Again. How could I have not realized that? Stupid me. And get a grip, someone else is here. Don’t cry or waste her time or anything.

“I’m OK,” said Olivia.

Miya let out a disbelieving snort. “Bullshit.”

“I’m OK,” insisted Olivia, remembering to curl her fingers again, even though there were no claws to hide. Find a bright side. At least I’m not bleeding or being shot. “I’m fine.”

“We’re still here, and we haven’t reset,” said Miya. What? “Is there something else? You know, that you want to talk about?”

“I’m stupid, OK? I thought it was real,” burst Olivia. “I thought it was real and I didn’t question it and I didn’t want it to end and I couldn’t remember how it happened and I didn’t care. Sorry.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s so real though. Everything still sounds like I have a blanket over my ears, like when the road noise at the apartment got too loud. She twiddled with the hem of her shirt again. The fabric feels all fabric-y. Claws can’t really feel anything. But this might not be me. It might be just some weird illusion thing, not real.

Miya hopped down from the table and stretched, popping her back. With an annoyed grimace she said, “Let’s just focus on getting out of here.”

“Where even is here?” asked Olivia. There’s no door or anything out.

“As far as I can tell this is some sort of dream. Not a sleeping dream, but everything you want kind of dream,” said Miya.

“So you were in your own place?” Miya nodded. “What was it like?

“Great. I was rich.” Miya hurried to move on. She looks a bit different too. Why? Wait, I should know the answer to that better than anyone. She’s missing all those red dots on her temples. “When Ben snapped me out of it, I came around for a couple minutes. I saw some weird shadowy alien thing. It’s doing something to us, I don’t want to wait until its done. You should probably get us out of here.”

“Wait,” said Olivia. “Shadows? I, um, I think I might have seen him before. Not here. No, not here here, real here. Um, and before. If that made sense.” And I didn’t say anything about it. Because I’m an idiot. Or could I not remember? Can I remember not remembering?

“What?” asked Miya, jaw slack with utter lack of comprehension.

“Sorry. I think I’ve seen the shadow guy before. The first time was a couple days after I woke up. I think. It’s really hard to focus on him. But I think I saw him a few other times since then. Um, sorry. I mean, I didn’t mention it before. Sorry. And did you say you saw Ben?”

“Yeah, he popped up in my world, just like I did with you. I don’t know where he is now.” Miya slowly paced as they talked, taking half a dozen paces one way, then the other.

I hope he’s OK. “Why?” asked Olivia. “Why us? Just for fun?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Miya, lack of patience bleeding into her voice. “Me and Ben never had a chance to compare notes. Did you get a good look at him? What exactly was he doing? Any idea how to fight him?”

“Sorry. No. Well, kind of. Um… I never got a good look at him.”

Miya opened her mouth to say something. After a second or two of indecision she said, “Fine. But it sounds like he’s been stalking you for a month.”

“Could he be watching us now?” asked Olivia. She resisted the urge to turn around to look for some sort of boogeyman behind her.

Miya grimaced and said, “Maybe. I didn’t think about that. We need to figure out why he’s doing this, too, though I’d settle for just getting out and killing the bastard.”

“How?”

“You know this isn’t real.”

“I know,” Olivia mumbled.

“We’re still here.”

“I know.”

“You keep saying that, but we’re still here. I don’t think we’re moving on until you accept it.”

Olivia folded her arms. “But…” she began, trying to protest.

“That’s what I had to do.”

She’s not going to let it go. They’re going to just keep going at it. And she’s right, and the others are still going through whatever illusions this guy has for them, and I think I’m crying, and my memory is easily manipulated, and I’m still just a weird stupid monster thing once we get out, if we get out, and…

“Hey, hey, hey,” said Miya. “I have no clue what to say now,” she muttered under her breath. Welcome to my world. “It’ll be alright. We’ll figure out a way out.” Right. Just… just get up. Olivia wiped her eyes on her forearm, then sat back up.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“You sure?” asked Miya. “I was worried we were going to reset there.” I still don’t know what that means.

“Yeah. I’m better.” Get it together, get it together. What did I say before? It’ll be OK. I’ve made it this far already. The others need help, and I can’t do that from here. Even if this isn’t real, it’ll be OK.

***

Olivia came to with her wings digging into her back. A familiar smell of dust immediately filled her nostrils, even as she struggled to regain control of her own body. I know this smell. This is my old apartment building. The off-white paint on the walls, the style of the window with its sun brittle plastic cover, even the threadbare carpets were familiar.

She took as deep a breath as she could, regaining use of her jaw at least. In addition to the wires running up to her skull, three oval shaped white disks orbited above her, beaming soft blue light down on her wings, hands, tail, and feet in turn. The disks had no power source, no fan even she could hear, simply defying gravity.

With some effort, she managed to flop her head over, towards the source of a pulsing light reflecting off the walls. She found not one, but two different lights on a panel built into the wall, of a far different make to the normal, terrestrial type it was set in. A humanoid figure worked feverishly at it, pressing the screen several times, checking one of the lights, then resuming its work. This cycle repeated several times before the figure turned, giving Olivia a profile of a bullet shaped head embedded with a dozen black eyes.

It began scuttling along the wall before simply slipping into a shadow cast by a partially opened door, vanishing from sight. You. You did this. Olivia took another deep breath and lifted her head, pulling her chest up a couple inches with it. She relaxed and tried again, getting a little further. A third light, this one red, began to pulse as the disks froze in their orbit and rose to a foot shy of the ceiling. No, no. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the figure slip back into the room, freezing once it realized she nearly sat upright with her elbows propping her up.

There was little else she could do but let out a threatening hiss. The figure backed off with at least half of its eyes on her at all times, swaying its upper body in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. It tapped the button on its wrist a second time.

***

Air escaped from Olivia’s throat as she found herself standing in a concrete corridor, similar to the ones around the Arena. Beside her, Miya let out a surprised grunt. Olivia looked down at her hands, finding neat, trimmed nails instead of claws.

“You saw him too?” she asked, the moment they got their bearings.

“Yeah,” replied Olivia, shivering. “We’re at my old apartment building.”

“Whoa, what? How did you not know about this alien thing?”

“I don’t know. But I watched him move weird and smell weird and teleport through shadows. Is that some weird technology thing?”

Miya bit her lower lip. “That seems too weird and specific. Aliens can have powers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not? They can have mages too. Some Siberian mage nearly wiped out half of China once.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait, that’s perfect, you and me can see it if he was a mage. You didn’t see any streams of magic, right? I didn’t.”

“I don’t think so.”

Miya sighed. “Wait, where are we?”

To Olivia’s right was nothing more than a concrete corridor, though she heard a faint mechanical grinding noise from it. The color of the concrete shifted between different sections, with the occasional bit of sheet metal over random patches of wall.

Miya, looking the other way, gasped and took a step back. Olivia spun around and followed suit. Several paces away from them loomed a pitch-black void. Chunks of concrete, half-finished and forgotten, splintered off into oblivion. Neither of the girls showed any interest in approaching the edge.

Olivia sniffed the air. “Oh, that’s weird.”

“Besides the eternal void?”

“There’s no smell here. Or it’s not strong. It’s just metal. That means Rob, right?” I’m still worried about where the others wound up.

“Yeah,” replied Miya, backing away from the void. “Let’s get this over with.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like underground concrete bases like this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s like,” Miya trailed off. “Whatever. Let’s find whoever this is and get out of here.” 

They left the void behind as they headed deeper into the corridor. Its haphazard twists and turns

They passed an open door. Out of curiosity, Olivia looked inside, to find a stereotypical bedroom. A bed, desk, a shelf full of knickknacks. Behind her, Miya stood on her toes to get a good look over her shoulder. Yay, I don’t have wings to brush up against the roof.

Olivia kept walking, Miya following a few moments after. “You didn’t notice anything strange about that room?” asked Miya.

“No, why? What was it?” What did I miss?

“Never mind,” said Miya. She pointed, “That way, I hear it too now.” How did you not hear it before?

Light flickered from a partially open door, accompanied by more grinding noises. Olivia ran the rest of the way. She pushed open the door and came to a stop on the inside. Rob hunched over a workbench in the center of the expansive room, bent back towards her. On one hand lay a disassembled gun of some kind, a shotgun going by the pump on the barrel, half covered by a cleaning rag. A half-eaten apple sat at the other hand amid a disorganized pile of tools. Miya joined her at the door a second later.

Just above the workbench hovered an undulating mass of metal parts easily ten feet in diameter. Gears slotted together with unnatural precision spun, turning the blob of parts inside out. Rob reached up, placing with great reverence a plaque covered in fine engravings within a beckoning four fingered hand of tiny steel ingots bound in copper wire. The hand withdrew with a rattle, growing metal pins to trace the otherwise nonsensical engravings on the plaque. Rob reached out and the blob ceased all movement. He seized a gear the size of his palm from the frozen maelstrom.

The lights flickered again. Olivia glanced up to find the roof replaced with the void, the light emitting from nowhere in particular. Even as the blob resumed its chaotic movements, the source-less light consistently cast several shadows on its surface, giving the distinct impression of a grinning comedy mask leering down on her. Rob grabbed a file from beneath a ball-peen hammer and began drawing it across the edge of the interior circle of the gear, his face not more than a few inches from it.

“Fucking techies,” muttered Miya under her breath.

OK, that’s weird, but he’s here. “Hi, Rob,” called out Olivia, once she recovered her voice. She received no response, Rob still intent on filing the gear. She and Miya exchanged glances. I didn’t think I was being that quiet that time.

“Hi, Rob,” repeated Olivia, raising her voice as much as she dared. He stiffened and spun around in his chair.

Rob took in the two of them for a long moment, face impassive with a lack of recognition. His eyes seemed to look past them. He jerked his head towards the way they’d come in. “Out,” he said.

Olivia flinched at the hostility. What? Why? “But,” she began.

“It’s not done. I’m busy, fuck off.” He grabbed the shotgun, assembled despite no one touching it.

Miya grabbed Olivia’s shoulder. “Come on.”

Olivia opened her mouth to protest but went anyways without a word. They closed the door behind them.

“What? Why did he do that?” she asked the moment the latch clicked. A shotgun? Really? I thought we were friends. I guess he’s only been here a few days, but that’s plenty of time to be friends!

Miya replied, “I guess he doesn’t want to leave.”

“Why? All that’s here is that crazy metal thing.”

“I don’t think we see what he sees. He reached into that thing without even blinking. That would have taken off my hand.”

“OK. So now what?”

“Well, we can’t be nice. We need to make him realize on his own what’s going on.”

“Oh, OK, yeah. Can he see the void? He is working hard.”

Miya snapped her fingers. “Working hard! Perfect!” She opened the door to the workshop and yelled “Rob!” repeatedly until Olivia heard heavy footsteps.

Rob leaned against the doorframe with his right arm out of view. Olivia heard the metallic clink of a shotgun barrel tapping the concrete floor, just out of view. Miya leaned against the opposite wall, leaving Olivia to stare at the ground, rubbing her upper arm with the other hand. What are we doing?

Before either could say anything, he said, “Who are you, how did you get in, how do you know me, and what do you want? In that order. Go.”

After a silent moment where the two of them absorbed what he said, Miya  said, “It’s really hard to explain. I’m Miya, she’s Olivia.” She gestured to both of them in turn.

“Cute. Try again.” He pushed off the doorframe with his shoulder, letting them get a glimpse of the shotgun. He pointed at Olivia. “She’s literally half the Olivia I know. An’ for that matter, why go halfway across the country for a visit without so much as a heads up? No, you gotta do a lot more to convince me.” Olivia’s eyes widened. He doesn’t think we’re in the shop.

“You have to hear us out,” pleaded Miya. “Some alien did this. None of this is real. What even is that?” he jerked her head towards the thing in the center of the workshop.

“Ain’t it obvious?” he said as he waved his free hand at the mass, causing a series of ripples over its surface.

“No,” said Olivia and Miya in sync.

“You wouldn’t get it. It’s a fuckin’ masterpiece,” he said, with a hazy smile.

“No, no, no, this isn’t real,” said Miya, motioning around wildly to the base. “None of it. That shotgun was in pieces when we first walked in, remember?”

He glanced down at his shotgun, jaw clenched. “Why would I? I can do that in my sleep,” he replied, his voice far less confident than before.

“Idea. We’ll be going now,” said Miya. “Show us the door and we’ll be out.”

“What?” asked Rob and Olivia simultaneously.

Miya nudged Olivia, who, rather than taking the hint, asked, “And what was that for?” Rob raised an eyebrow.

“You know this place so well,” Miya said to him. “You made it with your own two hands, just like that masterpiece,” she said, gesturing to the blob, now pulsing like a heart.

“Did you fuckin’ booby trap one of the doors or somethin’?”

“What? No. You want us gone and we’ll be gone,” said Miya, rushing to keep up with him as he stormed down the hall. “Just lead us to the front door.” Olivia hesitantly followed.

He passed the extremely stereotypical bedroom and stopped at edge of the corridor where it turned into void.

Miya shrugged after a few silent moments. “Is there supposed to be a door there?”

He stared at the void. “Yep.”

***

Olivia jerked awake. Noise hit her ears. Lots of noise. Lots of sound. Creaks in the roof and walls around her, the ragged breathing of her friends lying beside her, a horn in the distance. Someone muttered something in the room. She blinked several times as her eyes focused. Loud. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Not again.

She eased herself upright, flexing her wings and tail as the paralysis wore off, much quicker than before. The wires on her skull popped off without meaningful resistance. Remember, block it out. Focus on something else. Where is everyone? A negligible trickle of light came in under an old, warped door, enough for her to see her surroundings. Dust floated throughout the room, a fleck or two catching her in the eyes. The floating disks still hovered near the roof, their red lights beaming down on her.

With a hiss of frustration, Olivia climbed off of the table and headed towards the door and the hushed voices that had just started beyond it. She found the others arranged on a circle of five tables in the center of what would have been a living room.

“Hey, wake up,” whispered Amanda, eyes darting back and forth, not resting on any one place. Can she see anything? Rob, the nearest to her, grunted in response.

“Sleepy time. Fuck off,” he mumbled, throwing an arm over his eyes.

“No, you idiot,” she said a little louder, punctuating her statement with a punch to his shoulder. “I can’t tell where we are.”

Something else caught Olivia’s attention, a soft sound almost like a water pump. She stomped over to the kitchen, leaning over the counter to find the alien hiding. There he is. His eyes met hers, and he slapped the thin metal bracelet on his wrist. Her eyes felt heavy for a moment. You. Olivia hissed and marched around the corner. You made me think I was normal.

Her wings smacked into the ceiling lamp. The glass shattered completely. You attacked my friends. You made them suffer.

The alien pushed backwards with his legs, scrambling towards the shadow in the corner of some cabinets. Olivia closed the distance. You tricked me.

She aimed a downward kick to the center of his chest, putting as much force into it as possible. Right before she made contact, he vanished, though not before a pair of her toe claws nicked his chest. Her foot shattered the tiling of the floor. No running. She pulled her foot up with a snarl, bringing wood and floor with it.

Where are you? She followed the scent of alien blood, and the much louder sound of a pump. What started as an attempt to open the front door with the handle ended up as her thrusting her fingers through the crack between the door and frame and ripping the whole thing off of its hinges and dropping it to the side.

The alien, in the hallway, jerked his head in her direction. The desperate tap on his bracelet did nothing. Shadows started to coalesce around him, but he ran to the nearest room and slammed the door behind him. No. None of that.

Olivia simply lowered her shoulder an inch or two and plowed through it in her pursuit. She barreled into another room, just as dusty and featureless as her old apartment, except this one had a fleeing alien in it. Get back here.

It stumbled over the remains of a chair, giving her an opening. She charged with fingers and claws unfurled and brought her hand down on him with a roar. In the nick of time, it teleported through the shadows. Olivia hissed in frustration. Kill him. She stormed through the room. Movement in the window of the room caught her eye and the scraping sounds of feet against tile brought her to the window. The alien slipped down another foot on a slanted roof of a nearby house, arms windmilling to the side as he recovered. The stoplights and headlights of the city twinkled in the background. Olivia brought her hand crashing down on the intact window. Tear his fucking throat out.