The Fate of Kane (ONC 2023)

Paradox, Unveiled - Chapter 8

The sound of men laughing awoke her.

Opening her eyes, she blew out a breath of confusion. She was in a white room with small, double-hung windows. Smoothing her hands over the cool, cotton sheets surrounding her, they were also white.

She rubbed her eyes, stretching her mind. Had it happened again? Had she lost consciousness?

Her mind was a mess of rampant dreams; it felt like she had lived a hundred lives in just one night. Antebellum fantasies, life on the lamb, historical fiction, futuristic time travel; her waking mind raced to make sense of the images her sleeping brain had conjured.

Sitting up, she caught sight of herself in a mirrored dresser across the room, and stifled a strangled gasp, gripping the sheets tightly to her body.

Naked. Shit.

Was she really naked?

She peeked under the sheets, thankful to see her underclothes exactly where they ought to be.

"You're awake."

A shrill moan escaped her as she snapped the sheets back over her chest.

Kane.

"Where am I?" she could barely conceal her panic. "What happened to me?" she whispered.

He leaned against the doorframe, arms knotted across his chest.

"You're in my house," he jutted his chin towards her, "in my bed."

"Oh my, God," she closed her eyes, embarrassment flooding the skin of her chest and snaking its way up her neck and onto her face.

Snickering, Kane pushed off the doorframe and approached her, stopping momentarily to pick up a set of folded clothes, which he tossed on the edge of the bed.

"You... fell? In the water," he pointed to the clothes, "I dried your clothes, but you might want to shower."

She fell in the water... the memory came rushing back. She had been running to someone?

The girl with her own eyes.

"Why am I in your house?" She shook her head in disbelief. "Isn't mine closer to the water? You could have left me there?"

Kane slipped his hands into his pockets. "I'll meet you downstairs when you're done." With nothing more, he turned to leave.

"Who is she?"

He froze.

"Who was the girl?"

Kane's shoulders rose and fell, but still, he didn't respond.

"Did you see her, too?"

After a moment, Kane shook his head.

No.

A dissonant sob, hardly audible, escaped her lips; some distant part of her had hoped Kane had seen her, too. Then this madness wouldn't be hers to bear alone. As quietly as she tried to pull herself together, suddenly embarrassed and ashamed for not only her current condition, but that this man had gained a hint of what was happening to her, she knew Kane could hear her.

He turned and surveyed her sorry state, consuming every morsel of her bewilderment.

"The girl," Evelynn whispered, "she looked just like me."

Flicking his eyes to meet hers, Kane stared down at her, sitting like a little bird in his bed, wrapped in his sheets.

"I stood beside her, looked right into her eyes," Evelynn gestured with two fingers at her own eyes and then at Kane. "It was like looking at myself." She dropped her hand. "A hazy, fake, old-fashioned version of myself."