The Day My Dream Died

39 - Beyond Sonder

— 39 —

Beyond Sonder

//\\

After the respite, Aleen brings her further into the complex. Here are more green-garbed folk, bustling through the winding corridors. There is nothing marking the halls apart, nothing to tell where they are within it. She pushes her along a path Lise can't follow, at times pausing to fix the carpet where the wheels scrunched it. Stairs lead up and down, but they remain on the base level. At last, she stops her before a wooden door matching every other she's seen in the place.

"Just wait here a moment, I don't have my keys..." Already jogging ahead, "I'll be right back!"

The words exist around her for a moment, dissipating before she thinks to catch them. She watches her fingers, bending and trembling, gripping and releasing. Trying to hold them steady, but the more she tries the more they shake. What has become of me? Who is me? These hands aren't hers—they can't be. When did I lose me?

Potted everflowers lined along either side of the door cast a rich purple glow, crystalline petals cracking in her curious grasp, borne away as glimmering mist.

"Um... Hello?"

When Lise opens her eyes someone appeared. She nods... off... then, blinking, nods a greeting. It is a young woman, probably around her own age—pale of face and hair, inset eyes racing over her. In her arms she clutches a woven basket, brimming with plump brown mushrooms and grotesque tubers. After dismissing her as incapable of speech, the woman looks around her for a handler.

"Do you need help?" She asks, enunciation excruciatingly slow. "Nod for yes, shake for no."

Lise lifts an eyebrow. "I'm fine."

She straightens, surprised. "Oh. Oh! Um, are you here to see The Kelle?"

"No."

"Then... Oh! You are... a friend of Aleen...?"

"Sure." Leave me alone.

"Pelanea? Are you bothering Lise?" Aleen drifts down the hall, now adorned in emerald and gold.

Pelanea startles, turns, and bows in a single awkward movement. "My... My apologies! I was just coming to ask–"

"Again? I told you I would send for you when I heard any news. Please trust my word; your concern is endearing, but you build my irritation with each iteration."

The young woman sways, taking each word like a blow to the gut. "I... I'm sorry." She never lifts her head, running away in tears.

Lise looks at the basket's bounty left behind. "You spilled," she muttered. Neither Pelanea nor Aleen hear her.

Aleen sighs, kneeling down to gather the dropped food. "Sorry about that, she's a bit notorious for her worry. She didn't prod you too much?"

She shakes her head.

Setting the food in a pile beside the door, she reaches up and unlocks it. "I don't normally receive guests here, so excuse the clutter."

Lise nods, looking over the apartment through wilting eyes. She pushes her through the narrow foyer and into the front room. Stale air tinged with past smoke. The supposed clutter is nonexistent, as far as she can tell. A couple plush couches surround a table of gnarled red, a miniature cactus growing in a terrarium set into the wood, prickly flowers budding along it. An unlit fireplace rests opposite the entrance, two closed doors to either side lead elsewhere.

Aleen maneuvers the chair up to one of the couches, "I'll help you get situated."

A few minutes later, Lise is curled under a blanket, staring into the crackling fire. The drugs have her feeling fuzzy, experiencing everything through a haze. Fire flicker, dizzying, it buzzes, one moment blurring into the next.

"Teeeeeaaaaa?" Aleen slurs, off-kilter, holding up melting kettle.

Lise hovers, an object stretched out slow, putty. The world pulls apart.

\\//

Lounging, Lise falls first into herself, then the undermind. The couch sucks her into its folds, drawing her down and down. She will never get up again. World vibrating, she lets the zzzzz take her further.

'Take my hand!' Aleen reaches out.

She watches it extend, bend, swirl—drifting away without care. Distance is something she could feel. Far far far away a sister seeks freedom; here, fraught with failure, she watches, fearful for fate names her foe.

'JUuuust rrrrreach ffffff–'

Lise dwells in death's mantle. NON is near; an end made clear when all other paths are seen through tears. The fool's choice: pathetic persistence, or a pauper's prescience...

//\\

Shaking shoulders, pain pours through her. "LLLiiiisssse," she hisses. "Caaaan–"

Lise opens her eyes, air whistling through her nose as each intake comes quick—cut off, unable to breathe. She can't get enough air, the pain restricting her to hyperventilation. Eyelids fluttering.

"Lise!" Aleen peers into her, holding a candle up to her face. She watches the flame dance to the tune of the woman's words. "Lise, can you hear me?"

She nods, trying to ease her breathing, tears dribbling down her cheeks. "I'm... pain..."

Aleen sets down the candle and ruffles around her pockets, pulling out a bottle of green-black pellets. She pours a couple into her hand and holds it out. Lise takes them.

"Hold on, I'll get some water..."

By the time she returns with a glass, Lise is grimacing at the bitterness lingering on her tongue. She drinks the water anyway.

Grinding teeth, she tests the limit—she focuses on her breath, trying to find the balance. Aleen leans on the armrest by her feet, rubbing her brow. Let the disquiet dissipate in quiet.

"I planned to wait for a better opportunity, but at this rate I may be waiting for something that will never come. I think we should discuss... what's happening."

It is a terrible time for her throat to tighten, sorrow-strained. I want to cease. All she could say was, "Okay."