Chapter 4

The next day was much like their first. They passed the time and the trees in a steady rhythm of conversation. It occurred to Timbrelle during the rare lull while Adna built a fire that they’d hardly allowed a moment of silence between the two of them. At home in Utah, she hadn’t been this talkative… had she?

The specifics of her first encounter with the creature plaguing her were fuzzy at best. After waking up, there were small patches of her memories missing, a name here, a place there but she was starting to wonder if the patches were as small as she had once thought. It was something she consciously avoided thinking about. There was no knowing just how much of her memories had been lost. She worried that if she went rooting around in the fabric of her mind that instead of a rich tapestry of experiences she would find some ratty old net she’d fished out of the mire. Was she deluding herself? Yes. But if she didn’t look for the gaping voids in her memories, it was kinda like they didn’t exist and if they didn’t exist, then she was still in control. The only control she had… a delusion.

“-relle. Hey Timbrelle. You alright, bud? You look like you’re about to vomit.” She sat across the fire looking concerned. Whether that concern was for Timbrelle’s wellbeing or about finding a new camp after Timbrelle soiled theirs, it was hard to tell.

“Sorry. I just got the scaries for a minute there.” She apologized. “I’ll deal with it later. I’m back now. What did I miss?”

“Nothing. I was just fishing for compliments on how fast I started that fire.” Adna said. “Especially when my back hurts so bad. I’m glad I have the short watch tonight.”

Timbrelle waved off the idea, “I was planning to take both shifts tonight.”

“You’ll regret it tomorrow.” She shrugged and hunkered down before Timbrelle could change her mind.

There was little evidence of Timbrelle’s encounter with the creature. Aside from a profound pain in her chest whenever she stood, sat, slept and breathed there was only one visible mark. An obscenely black smudge about three inches in length on her forearm. While it ached like a bruise, it flaked fine black ash. A gift from the creature, clearly. There was no mistaking the placement, it was precisely where it had brushed her. Darker than anything she’d seen, in this world or her own. Even in the brightest sunlight it was difficult to make out any kind of detail in the skin underneath.

That night, the creature was surprisingly active and thankfully distant. She could feel its proximity fluctuate as it roamed the forest, back and forth, over and over.

“Adna,” Timbrelle tested. “Adna. Adna.”

The woman’s only movement was the slow opening of her mouth, sleep loosening her jaw. This quickly devolved into rumbling snores.

Satisfied that she was functionally alone, she started trying to find some sign of the system she’d seen during her two back-to-back near death experiences.

“System window.” She stated firmly into the thorny forest.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Nothing.

“Open menu.”

Nothing.

“Game screen up.”

Nothing.

“Settings?”

Nothing.

“Show me message history. Dialogue history.”

She was beginning to feel silly. Perhaps it was only visible when she was about to die. “Maybe I hallucinated it. Or maybe it only triggers when the creature is near?” If that was the case, Timbrelle was more than happy to never see the messages again. That thought spurred her to spend the rest of the night commanding the ephemeral window to open/appear/manifest—anything. There was no way in hell that she would willingly approach the creature to test the theory. Something else had to work.

“I will close my eyes and when I open them, a window with text will appear.” She was getting desperate.

“Timbrelle. What in the world are you doing?” Adna said in a clear voice, much too steady to believe she’d only just woken up.

Timbrelle audibly choked.

“Dammit Timbrelle. I had the worst nightmare last night. Do you know what it was about?” She didn’t wait for Timbrelle to answer. “I’m in a huge building with dozens of floors and hundreds of windows. Can you maybe see where this is going? Anyway, my job is to open all of them, I’m very good at it. But still, my boss follows me around all day to make sure I do my job. She’s giving me useless orders to open windows I’m already opening. Commanding, threatening, begging. All. Night.”

Adna flipped onto her elbow and stared at their night watchman through sunken, accusing eyes.

Timbrelle could feel the gaze boring directly through her temple. Between that and the blush that burned through her face, she wondered if she might spontaneously combust. After a few seconds of silence, she could see Adna’s stare become markedly more intense. She invited her—challenged her to explain.

“I thought you were sleeping…“

Adna thrashed in place for a moment before yelling “I was!”

Her next words were spoken to the sky in a furious whisper. “Expect consequences.”

When Adna woke up again at noon, she had regained some stability. Her eyes were not so hollowed and voice not so bloodthirsty. Timbrelle had made roasted apples in apology and left them beside the fire to greet her companion. She lurked nearby. Close enough to avoid getting lost, but far enough to stop any sort of sound from bothering her.

Adna flopped ungracefully onto the dirt beside Timbrelle. Silent, save for the munching of the roasted apples she held in both fists.

“I can take the watch again tonight.” Timbrelle offered.

“It’s my turn, and I feel pretty rested now. As it turns out, the key is quality sleep. Imagine my surprise.” She rotated her shoulder with a wince. “Actually, my back hurts like hell. Can you check it out? I can’t tell if it’s a bruise or a rash and I don’t want some mysterious forest rash.”

The surprise at Adna fully removing her shirt was cut short. There on her back, in a color that the light refused to illuminate, were two handprints. Connecting at the index fingers and thumbs, a triangular patch of skin remained clean and clear. The rest of her back had been stained a deep slate from the ash rubbing against her shirt— in sharp contrast with the triangle centered below her shoulder blades and directly over the spine. A line of three small black dots hung in the negative space of the triangle.

“You have a mark like mine.” She offered her forearm to Adna.

“A smudge?” She touched the mark with hesitant fingers, pulling away with charcoal fingertips. She touched her back with her left hand and, sure enough, the same unnatural soot.

“Quite a bit bigger, actually. Two handprints. Like this.” She held her hands up together.

Adna was pensive. It was a new look on the woman that Timbrelle found mildly amusing.

“Do you know what did this to us?” A question Timbrelle had been dreading, but expecting.

“I saw that look.” Adna pointed at her face.

“What look?”

“The-“ she pulled her eyes wide and furrowed her brows on top of them, the picture of incredulity, “-look.”

“I don’t make that face.”

Adna pulled the face, “I’m a weenie who likes to keep secrets. Don’t ask me about them or I’ll get defensive.”

Timbrelle stared, mouth agape at her partner.

“Don’t even try to sleep around me. I like to take the watch and talk to myself ALL NIGHT!”

“Oh. I see what this is.” Timbrelle accused flatly. “Are these the consequences I was told to expect?”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough.”