Her Samsara

Chapter Eight

Tamashi sat on a pillow, looking at Tonya as she slept.

She was tiny compared to Tonya's giant body, measuring about the same size as her hand. 

 The cool unfamiliar smell of Vish's room made her shiver and her eyes prickled with homesick tears. Her stomach let out a loud growl, hungry for Lucids. Samsara take nutrients from Lucids in the same way humans do with food and water.

Even though Tamashi had done this every night since landing on Earth, she still marvelled at Tonya's skin, so dense and thick compared to the grey skin of the Samsara. 

Close up, humans looked different to the visions she had seen when catching Lucids. Tonya's skin was a light brown colour, with little pigments and grooves on it. There were a few bumpy spots scattered across Tonya's forehead and a few dark brown freckles dappled around the top of her nose and her cheeks. 

She wished she could touch her thick brown hair strewn across the pillow in wayward curls that looked soft and bouncy. Tamashi fixed her gaze on Tonya's ears, pierced in multiple places, with little gold hoops and studs decorating her lobes.

Tamashi watched Tonya's ear hungrily, crouching in the air like a lion fixed on its prey. Before long a Lucid began travelling down a thin silver thread that was coming out from Tonya's eardrum. 

Since coming to Earth, Tamashi had discovered that the thread – which was so thin it was barely visible – came out of all human ears when they were asleep. Tonya's had a silvery cobwebby colour that caught the moonlight pouring in through a gap in a pair of lacy curtains. 

Tamashi climbed even closer to the thread, which had a thin hole in the middle, almost as if it was a tunnel. Suddenly the thread began to jerk backwards and forwards, tensing like a snake as it arched its back and wriggled. She could see now that it was contracting and expanding, with the hole at the end growing as it birthed a Lucid. 

Despite seeing this every night since she'd come to Earth, she still found herself gasping in delight. Gliding out from the thread, Tonya's Lucid sped out into the room. Tamashi lunged to catch it, but it was so fast, unlike anything she had ever seen before in the sky. It had so much energy, it flew like a lightning bolt, seeping into the windowpane. Tamashi climbed up to the  window and watched in awe as it came out the other side and raced off into the sky. It was as if it had an internal magnet inside, pulling it up through the atmosphere.

Tamashi cursed herself for missing it. She pulled herself up expertly onto the bed, her climbing skills coming in useful, then she waited at the end of Tonya's silvery brain straw for the next one. Once again, her string began to bend and retract as it pushed the next Lucid down its length. Tamashi was ready this time, though. Waiting at Tonya's ear, she pounced on the Lucid as it emerged. 

It was the size of Tamashi's hand, a big Lucid, stronger than anything she had ever felt in the sky before. She clasped it in her hands as it dissolved away and revealed a vision of Tonya as a small child, swimming in a lake with a man that looked like he could have been Tonya's dad. 

Tamashi broke it up quickly and pushed it hungrily into her ears. She still couldn't get over how incredible Lucids were on Earth. They were nothing like she had ever experienced in the sky before. It started with a fiery heat, cooling instantly as it slipped down her throat like a warm trickle of honey. It hurtled around her stomach, filling her empty stomach and renewing her body like never before. She immediately felt energized, filled up with hope. 

She remembered the night she had fallen onto the Earth. After she fell her body had scraped itself along a London pavement and she had followed Tonya home through the rain and hidden in her bedroom, tending to her wounds and her aching body as it shivered with the shock of what had just happened. That night she had been so terrified, but once she had discovered her first Lucid it had faded her rope-burned hands, and the pain from her bruises and grazes from the fall seemed to vanish instantly as its full power tingled through her body. It had soothed her like a drug, reminding her of home in the way that comfort food always does.

Then just as quickly as it entered it sped down her leg, seeping out through the soles of her feet, bolting off, transforming back into a triangular Lucid and disappearing through the ceiling, charging off into the darkness of the night. The magnet inside it didn't allow for it to stay inside her, instead pulling it up towards the skies. She had sat on the edge of Tonya's bed, stunned into a shocked silence. 

Never had she known a Lucid to escape from her body once it had been consumed. It just wasn't possible. It was undeniable that her body had taken the nutrients, but somehow, she had not been able to store the Lucid itself. Its magnet on Earth was too strong; its mission was to get into the sky and nothing could stop that.

Tamashi appreciated just how tough these Lucids were, how much energy they started out with on their journey and how she had only ever really known them at their journey's end, at which point they were the battered, faded version of the same Lucid, the one she was accustomed to, and nowhere near the vision they had once been. There was no way she could have realized how wonderful a Lucid was when it was brand new like this. It would be like only ever touching a grandmother's face and trying to imagine what skin feels like on a newborn baby. Until you experienced the sensation, it was too hard to conjure it up in the imagination. 

Tamashi had tried again and again, pushing Tonya's Lucids into her ear one by one, but the same thing happened. Each time Tamashi was growing stronger and more nourished, savouring the delicious flavours and warmth they were giving her body but she was never able to store the Lucids inside her stomach.

Later that day she headed out into the street, walking the pavement aimlessly. Incredibly lonely, she missed her family and friends, more that she could ever have thought possible. 

She looked at the sky, pining for the world above, the world where everything made sense. She thought about her little sister, Muku, worrying about how she would be coping without her. It made her feel sick to imagine Muku might think she was dead, her poor sweet little Moo who had already been through so much. 

Then she thought about Rupa, she wondered if she had survived the storm and if she'd known she had been there, that she'd tried to rescue her. Her intial anger subsided each day, and although it pained her to admit it, she missed Rupa terribly. She had never connected to anyone like that before, and now she was all alone and the miles between them felt infinite. 

 She replayed her conversation with Zarni repeatedly, remembering with agony how the last time they spoke she had snapped at her best friend, when she had only ever been supportive of her. She wished she could apologise and tell her that the lucid she helped her catch had saved her life. She wondered how her mother and grandmother had discovered her missing, did they presume her dead? She ached for the answers to these questions that would now likely remain a mystery to her for as long as she survived on this planet.

Tamashi knew that her biggest discovery since coming to Earth could change the world in the clouds forever. She was desperate to get back home to her family because she loved them, but she was also desperate to get home for her community, to tell them that there is a reason they live in the clouds. 

No one knew you couldn't consume Lucids or Akumus down here. If they knew, it would change everything. If they couldn't consume the visions, then they couldn't create minds. This was the reason they couldn't exist on planet Earth and still carry out their duties creating the future minds of human beings. Earth would rob them of their second life, their reincarnation, their individual destiny to become human. She knew how important this information was, how many wars could be stopped, how many ladders didn't have to be built. It was extraordinary to think that this small fact could save so many lives. 

She tried not to think of her mother too much. She thought of Oba's grief when Nayko had died and shuddered at the idea of Oba dealing with her death as well.

"I'm alive..." Tamashi whispered to the sky. "...and I miss you all so much."