Lit Read online

  Bethann hides behind Bud, her back is to the middle of the circle of megalithic stones. Her eyes are wide saucers like a deer in headlights. She shrieks in high-intensity, ultrasonic screams. My ears feel like they’ve been double clapped. My eardrums rupture. Blood leaks out of my ear canals. The ringing in my ears drains out the battle cries.

  No one stands within arm's distance of Bethann. The closer you are, the quicker you die. Yet she keeps moving closer to Bud who is saddling up next to me.

  Bud turns to Bethann and shoves the air—directing her towards the door. Bethann whips around and successfully runs to the door. When it shuts behind her, the shrieking stops. The constant ringing doesn’t.

  Bud and I are the only ones remaining on the right side with ringing and bleeding ears.

  Allan is producing a light show of fireworks. Ruby slings bolts of lightning at his side—she is slightly more in the front-lines, leading the offensive. Jasmine stands behind Wallace producing a constant flow of water that he suspends in the air creating a mobile wall. Ruby and Allan electrify the water-wall. Beast bodies fall, re-direct and bottleneck through to the other side, to my side of the battlefield, the right side.

  Bud sees the change in dynamic and moves so that he is closest to the door.

  Instead of flanking to my side and moving like a unit, Bud forms a V and diverges. He sprints to the door and slams it behind him. I’m left with dozens of eyes staring just at me.

  I snap my fingers together in a last-ditch effort of self-preservation.

  No spark.

  6

  First Watch

  In the 1850s the hypodermic needle was invented. The timing was impeccable, right before the civil war. Minié ball bullets shattered bones and ripped through tissue. I imagine the sensation is similar to the fists and kicks from the Beasts do now. Each sole is like a large caliber hollow point. I feel each impact.

  I’m hit again and again. The Beasts deliver an arsenal of attacks in devastating accuracy.

  I’m pressed against a stone I had no intention of touching.

  Civil war medical practices were barbaric. The injuries were unspeakable and massive. Germs didn’t exist. There was no time to clean. There was no opportunity to breathe. They cut limbs off expeditiously with a saw. Liberal doses of opium and opiates flooded soldier’s bloodstreams to help ease the pain, lessen the shock.

  Did soldiers feel the same as I do now? Gruesome, ghastly, and utterly destructed as collateral damage for someone else’s survival. It’s like I’m getting corporately fucked. I didn’t sign up for guerrilla warfare. This is a presupposed conscription.

  The Beasts indiscriminately attack my body. I don’t think I could ever mentally prepare myself for the amount of pain. No amount of research could provide me with the tools to be properly empathetic until now.

  All I can track are the slippers kicking me—just like the boots Genevieve couldn’t rationalize past. I can’t focus on faces or distinguishing features.

  I always assumed given the circumstance that I would be better. It’s like a driver having post-it’s and a pen nearby in case they’re in an accident and need to jot down the license plate number, make and model of the vehicle, physical description of the offender. They’re prepared. Yet somewhere between seeing B58LX4W, experiencing the wreck, and searching for the designated pen, all one recalls is B4. All I see is black soles.

  The Ipsumroot powder is still in my veins. After all this time. It hasn’t been enough. My fire won’t light. I can’t ignite.

  This is the First Watch. And Beasts with one apparent goal, to hurt us, circle me. They are humans just like Hudson, with no extra tricks, just extra everything else. I’m left to use my resources, my weak human strength against the many superhumans on the offensive.

  I disconnect from my body. The Beasts hit another version of me. They abuse Lily. Aviana is elsewhere. Aviana is safe and looks away.

  A massive Beast barrels through a wall of fists and kicks. Lily tries to scratch and bite when the Beast makes it to the forefront. But instead of attacking Lily, the Beast turns and guards Lily instead.

  Does the Beast know we bleed the same?

  The Beast guarding Lily is savage, I can’t discern how many are attacking the Beast, but their movements promptly stop.

  The offensive ceases.

  I still feel as if I’m being assaulted—even though there isn’t a finger laid on me. It’s a sensation similar to being on a rocky boat and then standing on solid ground. One can’t help but sway with the tide or roll with the punches.

  Spilled blood reeks everywhere. The grass oozes like a waterlogged sponge. The Beast protecting me walks away. Their feet squish with each step as they move.

  I’m left me in the serenest of massacres.

  The flesh of the slain ripens with me on the sodden battlefield. Excruciating pain sends me into shock. Vasovagal syncope has me passed out.

  I’m not alert enough to understand. I just catch—

  “We agreed,” says the voice that normally comes out of a brick-sized radio. Now the voice is within a body. I can’t discern more than just the shape. It’s large, but not as large as the Beast that guarded me.

  7

  My friend Onyx

  White. My hands rest on white sheets. There’s a white wall ahead of me with an even whiter rectangle where a television screen used to hang. I stare at the rectangle and wonder why someone removed it. And also, why did they not replace it? The once white walls are now beige in comparison.

  The tail end of the whiter rectangle is cut off from my view.

  I move my head gently and am immediately overwhelmed with vertigo. I’m not drunk, but everything around me is wasted and dizzily turning about me.

  After a moment of profuse sweating, I look slightly to my right and see a white sheet hanging like a shower curtain. I can’t see past the sheet through the closed partition.

  The full picture of this room is off center. I’m off-kilter.

  To my left, I see white window curtains. I wonder if I’ll have a view or if it will be locked tight with storm shutters. I wonder if there are even windows behind the curtains.

  My eyes go in and out of focus like there is a constant stream of eye drops dripping into stigmatized eyes.

  Fuck, I’m about to lose it, the contents of my stomach, the contents of my thoughts. Am I above begging?

  I sit up straight and feel a sharp tug. A needle sticks out of my arm. A tube leads from the needle and rises to a plastic bag of fluid. And that’s when I realize I’m the only color in this room. My entire body is painted in the different shades of an injury. From the freshest red, a congealed ooey-purple, bone-deep black bruises, the yellowing of pus, and brown bandages, upon bandages, upon bandages.

  My finger shakes beneath the needle. I am about to pull the metal out of my vein, when I hear whistling. High and low notes blend in a macramé tune.

  The whistling stops when the door opens to my right behind the curtain. A signature clomping comes my way. The curtain pulls back somewhat. Guardian stands and looks at me as if he’s on stage, I’m backstage, and he’s worried I won’t remember my part.

  He has every right. I don’t remember my part. What’s my purpose? Do I even have character? Am I supposed to be on the other side?

  Another drip falls into the tube connected to my vein. The liquid is a milky white with a paint consistency.

  My back tires of sitting forward. Everything about me is aching. My body is heavy with soreness. My heart is raw, did Hudson survive? I survived. Did he? Is he on the other side of the curtain? Is he?

  I think to move, but the action of moving is incomprehensible. My legs couldn’t hold my weight. My body would never stay upright. I would compound injuries. I stay. I try to be wise. Even if I’m without character, I try to have a compass.

  “I brought you some orange juice and crackers,” Guardian says while he steps into my side of the room. He doesn’t pull the curtain back. Why doesn’t he pul
l the curtain back?

  “Do you want to try to eat again?”

  “Again?” My voice is hoarse like I’ve been yelling. Not the fun yelling of oh my God I’m coming so hard, or the yelling of being at a concert—this is not the best night of my life.

  I yelled because the Beasts attacked me. I yelled because I fucking fought and fought with everything—I fought until I had to decide if preserving my organs was more important than trying to combat my attackers. I fought until everything I had wasn’t enough.

  I take the juice and test my words again, “Why’s the curtain shut?” I take a sip and wait.

  Guardian looks at the curtain and rubs the back of his neck, “That’s Onyx.”

  “What’s in the bag?” I jiggle the clear tube connected to my arm.

  Guardian’s hand grips the back of his neck. His eyes check with the curtain to see whether he can relay information to me. An internal dialogue occurs before he responds, “It’s Ipsumroot powder mixed with a regenerating agent. We used your stem cells to create an infusion. Don’t remove the needle.”

  My tongue slicks across the backs of my teeth. My hips and back hurt, though all of me is sore. A bone marrow donation is plausible.

  “We have your cord blood.”

  Guardian leaves me with his parting words and a handful of crackers in a thin clear sleeve and a water bottle he withdrew from his back pocket. The water bottle tips over and lies parallel to my shins. Guardian shuts the door softly behind him.

  Silence. No breeze, beep, or flutter. There is no electrical confirmation of life.

  “Onyx,” I whisper. My throat is swollen and thick with inflammation.

  “Lily,” whispers back in a deep baritone.

  “Can you pull the curtain back?”

  There’s no response.

  Socked feet pad to the end of the curtain and gradually slide the partition back. The socks have rubber treads that make subtle gripping noises. Non-slip hospital socks that are one-size fit all. I wiggle my toes and feel the pliable ridges of the treads. I must have a matching pair on. My feet are warm. My body is warm. It’s a chemical, artificial heat that numbs my nerve endings. My body and my mind are on pause. I’m resetting one drop at a time. There is no need to rewind. Simply pause.

  I don’t see Onyx until the curtain is flush against the wall. He’s built like an ox, big and bold. His hair is dark like the gemstone of his namesake.

  “Are you honest Onyx-ox?”

  He hesitates with his hand on the curtain. A moment of self-reflection.

  He nods, gets back in his hospital bed and continues reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman. The solitary tree and bold letters face me. I want him to read aloud, but I don’t ask. Instead, I watch him and wait for him to say the next words.

  He doesn’t say any.

  He doesn’t anything.

  He doesn’t appear ill or injured. He couldn’t be more than just tired. I’m sweating and he’s not even mildly overheating or glistening. He’s completely normal while I’m hardly holding on. “Why are you here?” I ask.

  He dog-ears the over-creased book and gives me his attention. “How existential of a response would you like?”

  I drain my juice and take two crackers. The crackers are dry. The plastic cap of my water bottle clicks and cracks as I struggle to open the seal and twist off the lid. The synchronization of my hands with my eyes is not computing easily. Fuck, this.

  “None preferably,” I say after a swig of water. I cringe and cough, my throat on fire. The cracker shards goes down with barbed edges.

  “I was told to be here. Here I am.”

  Here we are, able to communicate.

  Am I here for mental or physical treatment? Would the room appear different depending on the treatment? Over the railings that adjust up and down for transport, I see white linoleum tiles. No restraints. There is no chair provided for visitors.

  “How long have we been here?”

  Onyx makes a show of looking around for clocks. He looks under his bed and beneath his pillows. His wrist is full of freckles. He says it’s a hair past one of them. He’s the embodiment of a Popsicle-stick joke.

  “Why am I even talking to you?”

  “I find it interesting that you first wonder why, and not how. Don’t you want to know how you weren’t able to speak earlier? And yet you can now?”

  “I want Hudson and then I want Tracy.”

  “You want Tracy?”

  I nod and stare at him. Why is he questioning me?

  I heard the announcer. I heard Tracy. If he knows Guardian, then he might know Tracy. He knows people. Tracy has to be one of his people.

  Is Onyx going to bend with me, or am I going to break?

  My fingers slip beneath the needle in my arm.

  Is my brain tricking me? Or is someone tricking my brain?

  “What do you know about Tracy?” Onyx asks me.

  I shake my head.

  There is a moment when enough is enough—a significant precipice of time that manipulates the acts of submitting, compromising, and giving up as synonymous actions.

  I want it all taken away. Take my eyes and ears. Take my pain and my knees.

  I want my hands and shame taken away. I can’t trust the beat of my heart. Take my heart away too.

  I want to lose it all, my tiresome soul and my faith. Take it all away from me.

  Blame it all on me.

  Blame it all on

  Me.

  The needle slips out of my arm.

  Is this all I amount to?

  The pressure of life and the pressure of words and the responsibility of them have me sinking under. I can’t escape myself. Negativity, confusion, vulnerability, and overall overwhelming particulars buildup like nitrogen gas bubbles. The buildup causes decompression sickness—gauged by the depth of one’s descent, amount of time under pressure, and the rate of ascent.

  I sink like a lead anvil tossed overboard at sea.

  I rise as quickly as a Naloxone shot to the outer quadrant of my ass after an opiate overdose. The shot takes two-three minutes. One could experience the longest or quickest two-three minutes of their life, depending on which end of the waiting period they’re on.

  Experiencing the quickest two-three minutes, I rise too fast with the bends.

  I swallow large gulps of air. My lungs squeeze through my esophagus. Red drops scatter on the linoleum. I’m leaning over the side of the hospital bed. A hand is on my back. I’m assuming its Onyx.

  I laugh. A maniacal, sweet, deliciously delirious laugh that has spit, blood, cracker, orange juice, and water sprinkled across the white. Another mosaic crafted by my bodily fluids. I’m purely disgusting. This piece is on the opposite color spectrum than the one from the barn, full of reddish hues instead of blues and browns.

  “I’ll help you,” Onyx says.

  I settle back in bed. My organs seize. My body shakes. Rashes marble my skin.

  He reiterates, “I’ll help you.”

  Onyx looks sincere, and retreats with his hands raised. I’m feral. I lick my lips. They’re cold.

  Slowly, Onyx climbs back into his hospital bed. “Hear me out tonight.”

  After a sturdy breath, I ask, “Nighttime?” Coming out of my mouth, my question sounds like Nhigh’Ty?

  He smiles, caught in an admission.

  “It’s past nine o’clock at night. You’ve been in here for five days. I’ve been with you each of those days.” He pulls a brick walkie-talkie from beneath the mattress. “What’s the time?”

  Beep.“23:11,” Guardian rattles.

  11:11.

  I’m staring straight ahead at the full white rectangle. I’m the ghost in the room.

  Onyx answers the question before it leaves the tip of my tongue. “Guardian is my brother. His legal name is Gerard. When I was a kid, three-piece suits tossed around names like Guardian, Guardianship, legally Gerard. Guard became his nickname. He’s my protector, my legal guardian.”

 
He smiles again and rubs his neck. Must be a familial trait.

  “There is a network of wells placed strategically on known black hole locations. Black holes don’t just happen in outer space or air. Black holes happen on land; we just work to keep those locations concealed. Trackers target participants and wait until the participants are needed and they commit the intended murder. Each participant has an intended individual to kill. Murder is a requirement for admission into the Arena. Consider it a skills test.”

  His hand drops to his side. “Trackers trigger participants who have killed to go to a known well. They help those who get lost along the way. Trackers are in charge of the participants in the field. Guardian watches the system of wells. He oversees participants climb up and out. The well is our defensive mechanism, our gates. Guardian doesn’t like to kill, but he will make sure that only the chosen individuals come out of the well. He is very good at directives. He doesn’t get lost.”

  My eyes close.

  I’m listening.

  “The Arena is a black-market fighting ring. Both contestants and Beasts are genetically engineered. Natural superpowers vs. superhuman—which will prove superior in battle?”

  There’s a heavy, contemplative pause. “Don’t get caught in the crossfire. Heal yourself. I’ll keep you alive tonight. Tomorrow you’ll be going back to the Arena.”

  8

  Tracy

  Clinking clasps scratch against metal. The curtain fabric sways and fluffs the air around my hospital bed.