Encase Page 23

  And then she’s gone, too. And then I’m alone, staring at an empty playing field, an empty screen, full of only one thing.

  Death.

  Not for me. Not yet, at least. It is in the distance, on the other side of a long, never-ending glass barrier that locks me in a world of clear and white. Locked, for I am a caged wolf, held back with chains of agony and disease and logic.

  But nothing sensible can surmount the terror in me. The anger in me. The anguish in me.

  “NO!”

  There’s no stopping me. No word that Thomas can say, no promise of no return. I may be tired, and I may be sick, and I may even be slowly dying, waiting for time to eventually suffocate me, but they are my charge– no. They are my family, and I cannot leave them to die alone.

  I’ve given everything for them. Everything.

  I’m not about to stop now.

  I explode through the barrier with ferocity I didn’t know I had, energy I’d perceived to be long dead. I run as wildly as I can through the water, towards the black jumping into the staircase, and diving, dying, always dying, after them, long hair catching and flowing behind me as I go over.

  There is no filter to compete with, but I seem to shatter to nothing as I come through. Nothing but air and breath and shivering outlines of where I should be. I see figures outlined in the red of the sea. They’re falling down to the depths. To their deaths. And they’re still far away from each other.

  Freckles is reaching towards Screech and she’s not making it. She’s inches away, too far to grasp him, to compete with the time he’d already been falling.

  But this world doesn’t care for legality when I am here, so I swim through and with and in the air, towards the pair, and bend starlight and screeches from the damned to force Freckles towards him. Within moments, they’re crashed together, holding on, limbs flying and flashing and both of them attempting to catch their breath.

  I hang on the side of them, between Freckles and Screech. I hang on, and the world obscures as though I have eyes to close and I’ve done so, as though I’ve wrapped the colors of the world so close to me they’re blinding, and I wind them so tightly together that I know they will never be able to let go.

  Which is good, because neither of them seem to want to.

  They’re screaming at each other, like over the sound of an avalanche, or a waterfall, or a symphony of horrified emotions. Though it hurts my weary mind, I allow them whatever they need in forms of comfort for their last few moments.

  I attempt to pull the staircase towards us, as a rug to capture us. I attempt to stall the air. It all defies me. I can keep them close and keep me with them, but I cannot save them from the inevitable.

  At least I am here, I tell myself. At least I am here.

  Their conversations are fitful to me, passing through one of my ears and out the next, forgetting what their words are the moment they are uttered. They sing, they whistle, they laugh, they explain, they talk, they are dying.

  I cannot let go of that knowledge as we torrent down to our doom. They are dying. I will never see Freckles shrug off a conversation again. Never watch Screech attempt to understand or decipher something. Never watch them laugh, shove, play. Never watch them cry as imaginations fill their reality.

  As much as I want to enjoy these last few minutes with them... I cannot, purely because these are their last few moments.

  And mine, too.

  I open my mouth, but my throat feels closed, cramped, unable to elicit air, let alone speech, and even if I could breathe out words, it is not as though they could hear me. They don’t even know I’m here. I paid them everything – every piece of my soul, every inch of my memory, and though it quite literally killed me, they will never know that I was here.

  Never know that I was always here.

  I recall Screech’s face when Shadow died. The terror. The reach.

  I wonder if my face resembles his.

  I wish I can tell them that I am sorry I did not save them, that I must not have tried hard enough. I wish I could tell them how much I sacrificed. I wish I could apologize – though I feel like I caused none of it, like we were both victims in some twisted game, some horrific story. But I open my mouth and nothing spills but a sob, broken and wretched and clawed from my lips. I shake and pull them closer together, cling as though I need them to survive.

  I do. At least, I must. I cannot imagine surviving on without them. I cannot imagine a day without them in it.

  There must not be any days to have, free of them.

  I can hear the ocean below us, and I cannot look at it. I cannot know when they are about to leave. I let my world be dark, for I do not want to watch them, I cannot do it, but Freckles tenses and I open my eyes just as we collide to the bottom.

  And then the water hits us, slides into the sky to meet us. It’s Screech first; he breaks and shatters and disappears, and the shards of him begin to pierce his companion; and then it’s her turn, her body turning into a bloody mess, her last words cut off by her impending death, and my side is stinging, and it is my turn, my turn, my turn.

  I wait. My lips are open, awaiting the rush of blood water to fill my lungs, to fill me. Awaiting for the deaths of others to be all that I am.

  I wait. I wait. I wait.

  And that is it.

  They are gone, done beneath the waves.

  And I am trapped atop of them.

  I sit up, slowly, right hand seeking out unfeelingly. I am frozen. I stare at the waves churn around me.

  I can’t even feel the water. I can’t taste it. I am not part of it. I am faraway, small, nothing, once again.

  “Ives.”

  The voice is familiar. Too close. I do not even look up. I’m shaking, and I can taste nothing but warm fear, acid tone, somehow.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Why didn’t I die? Why didn’t they take me with them? Why?

  “It’s okay, Ives.”

  I look up, slowly, near robotically, to my left, and see a man standing there, atop the waves, just as I sit. He’s taller, broader than me, but something about the way he stands makes him seem to fold into himself. His hair is short, coarse, atop his head, curving with the shape of his skull. He has skin dark – alike to Kinjia, but cooler, undertones of pink, all sard edging to obsidian. Eyes like charcoal sparkle kindly above a wide nose and mouth. He’s smiling, broadly, as if he knows how to do little else.

  My lips part. I consider the voice I just heard and I shiver.

  “Thomas?”

  For the first time, I see the laugh I’ve always heard rolling through him. It’s short, melancholy.

  “Yeah.”

  Relief. Even in this loss. Even in this pain. I try to find my feet beneath me, try to find the sky above me, attempt to stand, and he is at my side, catching me as I slip on waves as slick as my staircase.

  “Thomas.”

  “Yeah.”

  I wrap one arm around him, and he pulls me close to him, his hands on my waist. I smell the other staircase on him. Light, clean, distant. I feel it in my teeth.

  “How – how are you – how is this... –”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” His laugh is tentative. Voice softer. Everything in him so soft...

  I wait in silence. He seems to hear the prompting I don’t verbally pose. He often does.

  “One of uh – one of your old yous... taught me. How to break out.”

  “What? How?”

  “I used to – well. You know how I hardly ever answer your questions?”

  “I’ve never noticed.”

  He laughs, suddenly, but it feels wrong, here, and he seems to think so, too, because he cuts off, clears his throat, speaks again. “Uh. Before, I used to. In-depth. Told you everything you asked, as much as I knew, even though it wasn’t on the sheet. You worked things out too quickly... I’d get in trouble. Anyway. You’re very smart. Found a way to wade through staircases. We went to one t
ogether, once.”

  “You and me? On a staircase together?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did we do?”

  He seems to darken, some, around his cheeks. Looks away. Breathes unsteadily. “We danced.”

  Danced.

  It sounds like me, in some aspects, I suppose. Dancing. But it seems too romantic, too sentimental, too heavy, even though my lungs are filled with deaths only half-experienced, half-felt.

  I close my eyes. Rest my head on his chest. The waves must move back and forth, beneath us, and so do I, in return, a reply to whatever part of Screech and Freckles lingers in the depths of tossing waves below. A song to the fallen. A shuffling dance.

  “I do not remember that. I am not her.”

  “I know,” he whispers.

  I believe it. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  “You’re better than she was.”

  I smile, vaguely. It doesn’t feel real, even though it was an automatic reaction. “I am not that good, apparently.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “I did not even die for them. I could not even muster up an inch of love, after all of that.”

  He’s quiet above me, and my pain throbs in the beats of his breath. I tighten a fist around his shirt, press the rest of my other arm into his back. I try to recall what breathing is like, how it goes.

  “I did love them.” A quick change, I suppose, a fast flop to the opposite. “I loved them so much, Thomas.”

  “I know. I know you did.”

  “I tried to – I tried to. I tried to.”

  “I know you did, Ives. I know you did.”

  “Why? Why didn’t I die? Why couldn’t I...?” Teeth meet together, unevenly, gritting. Angry. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand why...”

  The waves whisper. I do not know what they say, but I listen. I listen for signs of friends long gone. I listen for signs of my own demise. I listen.

  And finally, suddenly, I hear something.

  “Didn’t he already tell you? You can’t love.”

  It’s a new voice, but one that still, strangely, sounds familiar. I lift my head from Thomas, listen to the wind hiss past us. I feel him tighten beneath me the same way that Freckles did right before she hit the water.

  Whoever this person is, they mean death. I feel relief, so much so that my legs buckle, near-dissolve, and Thomas to catch me once again.

  I am staring into a mirror. A strange mirror – one with no seams, one that does not accurately reflect the background behind me, and one that has decided to omit my severed arm. It is me. Long, silver hair, piercing eyes. Sitting on the staff that Thomas had given me, now hovering above the ground, staring at us in some form of curiosity. She nearly seems bored. Her lips move and mine do not, and I start, realize fully for the first time that it is not a reflection; it is a replication of me.

  “You told her. I recall it.” She isn’t moving as she considers. Dull and near-tired. Leg crossed over the other. Watching me dispassionately. One hand propped on a knee and leaning against it. “Yet she still questions why.”

  My eyelashes flutter, wildly, distantly. I am trying to process. I feel so tired, so many universes apart from my body.

  Beside me, Thomas is rigid as a board. I position my body, even stumbling as it is, in front of him.

  “I had hope for you, you know. Well.” A hesitation as she rises from the crook of the staff, floats to the ground, plucks it from the air and puts it before her. “Hope is a strong word. But I thought you’d maybe be able to develop something, given enough cycles.”

  “She did!” His words are exploding behind me, too loud, too dizzying, and I near evaporate with the weight of them. “She loved them! You know she did, Ivory.”

  I open my mouth to stutter the name in return – nothing comes out. Ivory? But...

  Isn’t that... my name?

  “Look at her, Thomas. She’s still here.”

  “Please – please, don’t. Give her more time!”

  “More time for what? For her to lose her another twin brother? For her to sacrifice more for other charges?” She shakes her head. Lines beneath her eyes proclaiming exhaustion. Approaches me in a slow stalk.

  My heart jumps into my throat as I move – I can feel it hitting out a beat against my teeth, and I tighten a fist. Ready to defend us. Ready to save us.

  I open my mouth, but the death of my charges seems to have rendered me near silent, for this other Ivory reaches out and holds my chin with her thumb and forefinger without a word of dissent from me.

  “You know, Thomas,” she says, gazing right into my eyes – looking as tired and bored as I oft did watching the very charges I am now sobbing over – “I truly am disappointed in you. I thought you’d be able to pull something from her. Anything. Something interesting.”

  “I – I... I’m... I’m sorry.”

  “Is that the only thing you know how to do?” Eyes narrowed. Too dark. It reminds me too much of myself, though I attempt to tell myself that it is only because she has my face. “I gave you chances, and you squandered every one of them.” A drawn-out sigh. “I suppose that’s what I get for putting my hope in organics and their feelings.”

  The anger I have lost with the death of Freckles and Screech has returned again. It twitches in one my fists, curls until my nails eat at my palm. I hardly register the movement, hardly register anything. All I know is that one moment I am standing, being clasped by a twin who looks more alike to me than my brother could ever have, and the next she is on the ground, and my fist sits only feet where her face had been.

  She’s been hit off her feet, back on glass, staring up at nothing. She smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “You’re feistier than your other versions, at least. Isn’t she, Thomas?”

  I feel one of his hands on my left shoulder. I wish I had energy enough to smile, but I don’t. This day has taken everything out of me.

  Everything but anger, apparently.

  Thomas never answers, so I take the privilege of speaking next. “You shouldn’t speak of him like that.”

  “Who? Thomas?” Her head tilts as she rises – staff hesitating next to her form to help her to her feet. I see, within red waves that threaten to foam, a flash of a pale limb and freckles. I feel overcome with nausea, so much that I can do nothing more but nod.

  “Fascinating,” she whispers.

  Breath in. Breath out. Eyes closing. I feel Thomas rub a small circle into my shoulder, yet I do not react to it, even once I find my voice and speak again.

  “Who are you?”

  “Ivory,” she answers, but she’s somewhat distracted.

  “But I – ” am Ivory, I’m meant to say, to combat bile in my throat, but she’s already speaking ahead of me.

  “Do you love him?”

  Love. There is that word again. That word that so much of my life seems to be based upon. That word that so much of me seems to fail, to die, within. She must see me flounder, somewhere in my eyes, somewhere in me figure, for she rectifies, “Thomas. Do you love him?” And indicates towards him, as if there is another Thomas to whom she could be referring to.

  “No!” It’s not me who speaks, but Thomas. His voice shivers as he fights it to rise, above restless growls of the sea, and much to the other Ivory’s absolute shock, he steps before me. “No. Don’t answer her, Ives.”

  I feel heat in my cheeks, my throat, in all of me, shaking and shuddering and slipping and unsure.

  “What?” Amusement in Ivory’s eyes.

  “You’ve seen enough! You’ve seen her sacrifice for them, cross over for them. You’ve seen the way she treats all of us. You know she loves. You know she feels. She wouldn’t’ve hit you if she didn’t!”

  “Other versions of the white blossom have acted in what appeared to be anger. Same reason I do.” Arms crossed over her. Long hair falls to her side, dances slight in the wind. “An attempt to provoke. To study further.”

  “I am not trying
to provoke.” I feel as though I’m being spoken around – about – as though I am not really here. “I want you to leave him alone.”

  “Is that so?” Long fingers against her face. “Well. I suppose there’s only one way to confirm or deny that.”

  “What do you mean?” No answers, none anywhere, and I feel back too far again, back on a staircase alone with a silent Moderator, and there is no part of me curious or hopeful or strong enough to consider, and then –

  She stares pointedly at Thomas, then back to me, eyes watching as distracted and detached as though she is my Moderator rather than Thomas, and she is watching me through a glass barrier, not breathing the same air as I.

  I step forward, put a hand on Thomas, and he collapses as though I’d struck him, folds into the floor.

  “Thom – I – n – what?”

  There, from the center of a white shirt, comes blossoming liquid – red, thick, slow moving. Black eyes just soft with emotion are going glassy, teeth that were just crafted into a shy smile grimacing in pain.

  I hear the ocean, too loud, feel too much. Heat in my throat, in my toes, in my knees. Everything collapses and buckles. Arms scoop around him.

  “So?” Her voice sounds very clear in my ears. “How do you feel? Do you love him? Tell him.”

  “Thom – Thomas, I – ... I...”

  “Don’t.” When he speaks, a rush of blood comes from his lips, from his tongue, from his mouth. He stares as if he can’t quite see me, and then when his eyes meet mine, and he finds me, and we are staring at each other for only the second time that I can recall, he locks himself there, as if unable to pull away. “I don’t – I don’t want – t – to hear it – b – because of her. Or n – not hear it. If y – you don’t – I don’t want that to b – be my last thought, and if you – do – I don’t want to... feel bad that... nothing will ever... –”

  I’d do near anything for him, I had begun to decide, these last few days. And anything involves staying silent when he bids me to. “I – alright. Okay.”

  My hand goes to him, as though to staunch the bleeding. My limbs come away thick in the same liquid around us.

  “It is going to be okay, Thomas. I – I have you.”