image [https://i.imgur.com/YvWQ961.png]
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She awoke with the sun and not a pesky alarm. Ah-ah. None of that nonsense. Not today. Just her and the sunlight. And the smell of earthy coffee.
It was just barely wafting in through her open doorway. She'd bought a new coffee maker just last week which had that new automation feature where it measured your sleep rhythms through your phone and timed its function to coincide with your awakening. It took a few days to calibrate itself to your schedule, and there were a couple days there in the middle of the week when Amy just knew the thing had spun itself up in the middle of the night and then had to stay hot until dawn — the coffee had that taste — but today, it got it right.
Right. On. Schedule.
'Today's gonna be a good day,' Amy thought, as she breathed in the dark roast and opened her eyes. 'A zen day. So zen. No day more zen'.
And she smiled. Then she levered her covers off and stood up, stretching in both directions and then touching her toes on the way.
"Zen Zone. Gotta stay in that Zen Zone." And Amy walked absently out of her room, down the short hall and to the bathroom.
... And then she darted back in because walking around her apartment naked — even when living alone — was awkward! But —
"But Trish says, 'sleeping buff is the stuff'." Amy recited. "Sleep is good for the soul. And soulful is zenful... or... something like that. And today..."
Amy huffed a sigh and pulled out her most comfortable, thick sweatpants, her blue, starry, long shirt which looked far too big for her but was soft and velvety on the inside and said My Favorite Muggle on the outside, and her absolutely fluffiest socks from her drawers.
"Today is all about that zen. Gotta stay in that Zen Zone, Ames."
"Zen Zone!" She sang out as she pulled on the clothes and took long, soulful moments pulling those fluffy, wool socks over her feet with her eyes rolling to the ceiling. "So much zen. No one more zen. Gotta stay in that" — she tapped a beat against her bed and bobbed her head — "Ze-eh-eh-eh-eh-en Zone!"
And Amy danced out, rolling her hips and shaking her fist to the song in her head.
"Zen Zone — Zen Zone. Gotta stay in that —" She pointed both fingers at no one in particular — seriously, there was no one here, and she would never, ever, not in a million years be doing this if there was!
The very thought gave her anxiety, and she stomped her foot hard to get that out of her head — after making sure all the windows were closed — and then she added that to the rhythm! Foot stomp once. Twice. Five times!
"Ze-eh-eh-eh-eh-en Zone!"
And this morning was all about zen. Her Zen Zone. Her bastion of all things, calm and fluffy and radiant. No mirrors this morning. Those made her question herself.
No radio. No TV and most definitely not her phone. Those were windows to the outside and th-things happened outside!
Li-ike car crashes! A-and muggings. Sexual assau...
"No! Th-think positive, Ames! Bunnies! Soooo fluffy. And Orchids! Live ones!"
Legion was outside. And the Downtown Demons, who were supposed to be a purely Tennessee problem, but everyone knew they'd expanded by now. And Amy knew they weren't actually outside outside, but the news happened outside and....
Amy chuckled nervously and dodged away from all of these thoughts like she was oil, and they were a hot griddle.
Those walls around her Zen Zone were solid as all h — solid as nobodies business! She told herself. Rock solid. Like diamond. Can't get harder than diamond!
Amy giggled nervously, and jumped up and down to the rhythm of Zen Zone several times to make up for it.
Today was the day!
The... day.... Amy looked around her meager excuse for a kitchen. And despite herself, and despite the day being the day, the corners of her lips drooped a little. There were dishes in the sink, and she'd left the yogurt out again.
'Ooooohhh!! It's probably still good', she thought and hurriedly put it back.
There was a single plant that Amy sometimes remembered to water, and it showed. Yesterday's coffee cup — her main coffee cup — was still out and coffee stained with crusted grounds at the bottom, and she'd left yesterday's mail out on the kitchen table and some of them had windows on the front and looked official! And — and.... Amy had been zenning it up last night as well — zen nights led to zen mornings — and she'd forgotten!
Her shoulders slumped. 'No! Gotta keep those zen walls up!' Amy thought furiously, and forcefully lifted her shoulders back. "Today's the day! Gotta be zen. Zen Ames!", She bobbed her head and stretched a smile on her face. "And all Zen Ames cares about now is coffee and soulful vibes and .... Yeah."
The coffee got poured, and the steam wafted and that dead plant stopped mattering so much and the dishes in the sink faded into the background... those bills didn't, but Amy knocked those aside with her wrist as if she didn't see them when she sat down.
She'd... pick them up later. Bills were stressful and Amy was super-duper, hyper determined not to be stressed in the slightest. Not today. Or... at least this morning.
"Or is today a tea day?" She asked her cup absently. This was important. She sipped at it cautiously and considered it, bobbing her head in what she thought of as a zen fashion
"Bleh! Why not both?" And so saying. And so smiling, and so so so zenning, Amy put the water back on, pulled out several chamomile tea bags — she liked her tea extra strong — and prepped them in a mostly clean cup. And then, to stay in exactly the right head-space, she threw out those moves one more time.
"Zen Zen Zen Zen! Who's zen? I'm Zen. Trish said to be zen. Ze-eh-eh-eh-eh-en" CLAP.
She clapped her hands
CLAP.
She tapped her foot and rocked her hips and shook her fist and bobbed her head — very glad that she had remembered to put clothes on for this, because even though she lived alone and all the windows were closed, this would have been super awkward — all the way until the water boiled again and then a few minutes longer so that the tea could steep.
Then she sat down at the single chair by the kitchen table. And breathed in the scents of both her coffee and her tea.
It was a little disappointing. The strong smell of coffee overpowered the subtler tea — she hadn't even thought about that. But it was ok, she decided, inhaling deeply again. And she allowed the coffee smell to fill her soul with vitality and tranquility.
Coffee smells were zenning all by themselves, and the tea would be zenning when she sipped it and that was what was important.
That was the theme this morning, if you couldn't tell. Zen. And as Amy sat at the table in her lonely kitchen with her dying plant and cluttered sink — and no bills anywhere in sight — and sipping at both cups one after another and rolled her shoulders, Amy thought that she was managing it.
So presently Amy exhaled. She reached out with her mind in a fashion she did not understand. Sipped her chamomile through barely trembling lips. Whispered "Zen Zone" one more time. And —
Beckoned.
...
And then she screamed.
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"— Its not working Trish! Trish! It's not.... Not.... None of this is working! I was calm. I had tea. I was in my zen zone" — she was hyperventilating, she knew. Not zen. Not — "AND NONE OF ITS WORKING! Please call. Please —"
Amy sobbed and hung up, sinking back against the cabinets underneath the kitchen sink.
"It's not..." She whispered through fat tears. "Not working".
She looked up through the moisture at them. They hung there. Innocent. And breathtaking. Until you got a good look at them.
Beauty. And Madness. Like caught Magic in space. Like fire frozen in form and burning in colors that weren't colors, but which felt like they should have been called names like Wonder and Glory and More and Other and Elsewhere.
Five of them. Five shapes. Five Cards. Beautiful.
Magic. Because they couldn't be anything else.
Amy looked at them with tears in her eyes the same way she did every morning. Each time she saw them anew even as she saw them again.
She saw the geometry stretching across each one in black lines. The lines were so straight and the curves so precise, they looked like they'd been drawn against the edge of a scalpel.
She saw the symbols etched along those lines and the script that she couldn't read no matter what dictionary she compared the letters to. The script and the symbols ran along the those lines and often, Amy knew, they ran above and below them as well — even though that was impossible — and twisted about them, like they'd been written deeper somehow.
This made sense. Because whenever Amy's gaze passed over them, they fell into them, beyond those lines, and beyond the four edges of those cards. She didn't know how far. Just Beyond.
And in that forever distance, Amy saw —
image [https://i.imgur.com/BSG6YU6.png]
Elder Leviathan of Fallen Things
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
From the depths he rose and in his eyes lay death. From his maw dripped terror and claws, despair. The tide fled, and the moon dimmed for Leviathan rose and with his step fell nations
Amy choked and hiccuped. And her eyes skittered away, in the wrong direction though — the cards pulled at her — and fell into the next one.
image [https://i.imgur.com/k9OiyJ7.png]
Specter of Emphallion
The whisper from a forgotten realm, he carried the weight of one billion, billion souls. Reality fell cold and brittle at his passing and Emphallion was no more.
And... and they were all like that! The next was Void Herald of the Abyss which looked like smoke and shadow so black it tore the color from her eyes. And after that the Emissary Of Carnage which looked merely like a man, but there was something wrong with his grin and he carried a scythe with a blade of red blood, and the words which accompanied this one rang with so much juxtaposed horror that her heart skipped several beats in succession.
And the card she drew today...
image [https://i.imgur.com/tIPsE1H.png]
Emberlain's Phoenix
What pact made Emberlain in his folly? For the Phoenix called none her master. She descended in burning glory and her wingtips brushed both horizons. Wonder at Emberlain's Phoenix and despair for the sky burned at her passing and all fell to ash in her wake.
"Wha — Wh— WHY?!" she wailed into the silence of her kitchen. What am I supposed to do with you all?" Amy whimpered and covered her eyes with her hands.
"Why couldn't one of you — just one — be a — a bunny?" She hiccuped. "Or. Or. Or a Schnauzer. Or... or.... Something normal, like a — Unicorn? Even an evil one would be fine!" She hiccuped again and wrapped her arms around her knees, and stayed there for a long time.
Amy. Was not. Zen. How could she be? She drew a monster every morning and discarded one every night, and each one could end cities if she let it out.
It was like she carried five nukes in her pocket. And any one of them could go off with but a single evil thought.
Amy shakily pulled herself up, and pushed away her cards, dismissing them. She had to push. They didn't want to go. They wanted to be used. But Amy firmed her lips and glared at them wetly, and one by one, they winked out in little blazes of magic, and she felt them slot themselves into place somewhere in her mind, as present as always and ready to be summoned to her hand at a whim.
Five nukes in the palm of her hand. Five. With a fresh one on the way every day.
Sometimes she woke up, and she was holding one clenched in her fist. Sometimes she caught herself whimsically thinking about one of the cards at work or idly wondering at the magic she saw in their depths. Sometime...
Amy sighed. And gingerly started cleaning up the coffee that had spilled when she'd leapt from the table.
She had to be ginger about it, because the mug had shattered when it hit the floor and there were ceramic shards mixed in with the spilled coffee and littering the kitchen. And all the tattered remains of her Zen Zone needed, was for her to be stabbed in the soles of one of her fluffy-socked feet as she pattered around without care.
'Emberlain's Phoenix', Amy thought dismally as she swept. What's next? She didn't want to think about it.
'Please. Be small.' She begged the cards. 'I — I don't care if you have to be a monster. Just — be a small monster. A — a car sized monster would be perfect! Just one.'
Amy leaned against the wall of her kitchen, broom in one and her eyes squeezed shut.
'I know you can do it,' Amy thought at the cards. And they burned merrily at her in her mind.
Amy was not zen. And when Trish called, Amy snatched up her phone so fast she had to juggle it for several seconds before she could grasp it. She answered with a cry.
"Trish? Trish. It happened again, Trish. What? Yes. Now. I need to see you. Please. Please, Trish! Yes? Ok. I'm coming!"
And she hung up and ran out of the kitchen. But not before carefully knocking over her chair on her way out.
It didn't help.
Gotta be zen. She thought desperately. Gotta... got to be zen. Zen Zone.
Amy was not zen.
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And neither was Trish when she saw her. Though, at least Trish tried to put a good face on it.
Trish gave her a good hug — if a bit hesitant — and a tissue to wipe her eyes with — they'd been leaking on the way over and sat her down with another cup of tea.
"So it... didn't work?" Trish asked presently, after waiting what neither of them thought of as an appropriate length of time.
Amy shook her head despondently and then they both lapsed into silence for a far more appropriate length of time.
When Amy had first woken up with a burning need to Beckon something and no idea how, or why, or what in heavens was going on... she did the responsible thing. Namely, find the best therapist she could find and specifically one who didn't hang up the moment they came to even the suggestion that she might be a Super.
And so she met Trish. And she had liked Trish instantly because Trish had more than three stars in all the places that mattered. Had a big office, with dozens of little knickknacks and banzai trees — some of which were fake — and coloring books with crayons, and plenty of full tissue boxes for when crying her eyes out really was the best answer.
Three months later, Amy was less sure Trish was the best, but now she was committed and gosh darn it, at least Trish tried!
So, when Trish said in her professionally soft voice. "There now, dear. You've had a good cry now. Why don't you tell me what happened." Amy sniffed one more time, and did.
" — And... and then It appeared. I did everything! I was calm. I dreamed of little, fluffy bunnies with floppy ears. And..." She couldn't finish. She'd started sobbing again midway through the retelling.
"Well — Well" Trish said, as she stared up at the card Amy had waved up into the air for Trish to inspect with slightly wider eyes than she usually wore. "I-it's not all bad dear. It's an improvement! Better than that man right?"
Neither of them liked the man. That grin...
"And — and it's got feathers. It's majestic! So you must have been doing something right. Right?"
"It's wings touch both horizons, Trish! And I don't even like birds!" Amy snarled tearfully. And then felt instantly bad as Trish's face fell. So she bobbed her head after a moment in what was at least half-hearted agreement. "Maybe not all bad." She sniffed. And pushed the card away.
They both relaxed visibly when it disappeared, and Trish got up hurriedly and went to put on another pot of tea.
She looked a bit more composed when she came back with two full mugs.
"Well it's a bit earlier than I expected to see you again, dear. But why don't we go through our routine, shall we? Tell... tell me how you've been doing. Has anything new happened in your life?"
Amy shrugged and hummed noncommittally. "Work's been good, I guess."
Trish hummed.
"My sales are down again, but everyone likes me, I think. A nice old lady said I was sweet the other day, and bought two phones and a tablet from me! So that was good!" Amy's face fell. "But then she returned them all except for the one phone at a different location, and my boss will see if she remembers to look."
"That happens, dear. I'm sure she'll be understanding."
Amy bobbed her head again. "And... and I guess I had another one of those dreams. I think."
Trish stilled mid-sip, and then jumped as she scalded herself. "Another one?"
Amy nodded and Trish licked her lips.
"The... the alter again?"
Amy shrugged.
"And the funny looking men with the hats?"
Amy shrugged again and nodded. "There were more of them this time, and they kept trying to give me something, but I can't remember what! I... Do you think they did this to me?"
Trish shrugged herself, this time helplessly and took a long pull from her mug which was impressive because Amy's own mug still felt too hot to drink. "I don't know, dear. It's not like they cover pow — Sup — ah conditions quite as special as this in uni, you know? At least, not when I was in. But... beards don't usually grow as long as you are describing, you know?"
Amy did know.
"Maybe..." Trish continued looking a bit weak. "Maybe it's time...." Trish petered off looking a little sick, and then finished in a rush. "Maybe it's time we had you talk to someone more specialized than me dear. Have you considered going to the police?"
Amy jumped up. "The police?! No! I can't go to the police! They'll..." What would they do? Amy felt here heart beating quickly in her chest.
"Or someone in the government!" Trish tried again quickly. "Just... someone else who might be able to help y—"
"You don't want to see me anymore?" Her voice was shrill.
"No. No, I —"
"I need you, Trish. You're the only one who understands! It's helping I promise it's helping! See?" Amy pulled out Emberlain's Phoenix again and they both stared at it weakly before Amy stashed it back away hurriedly. "It's got feathers. That's better! You said that was better!"
"I —"
"Please, Trish, I — I'll pay more. Double!" Double?! How was she going to pay for double? "Please Trish," Amy begged.
Trish licked her lips and then her shoulders slumped, and she downed the rest of her tea.
"But dear, I don't even know how I can help you. This is far out of my expertise. And I —"
"No. You're the best, Trish. I like you. Please, please don't send me away."
"Of course I'm not going to send you away. It's just. What are we going to do? I — how much time do you have left?"
Amy looked tortured.
"Months?"
Amy shrugged.
"Days?"
Amy shook her head, then shrugged again. "I don't know." Amy said miserably. "I — I'll go to the Rage Room again. Tons of things there I can break. And... and put out of order. That helps!"
"And the... the killing things?"
Amy went white. For her part, Trish didn't look much better herself. "I... I will. If I have to. Amy said at last. "The poor things."
Neither of them said anything for a while after that, and eventually Trish went and refilled her cup, and Amy definitely saw her add several dashes of something to her cup that most definitely was not tea.
Breaking things. Killing things. Putting them out of order. There were costs to the cards, Amy had found out. Costs to pulling early, or disposing late. Costs to not pulling at all... and... Amy was absolutely certain there were costs to not using them too. And those costs were piling up fast.
At, first, just breaking things helped. That was easy, and Amy had happily bought a whole carton of those old lead pencils no one actually used anymore but which you could still find for very cheap, and broken every single one of them in two.
That had stopped working soon after, so Trish had suggested a Rage Room. It was a seedy little place, and the corpulent man behind the counter had definitely been eyeing her as he swiped her credit card, but he'd led her to a padded room filled with old computers and TV's and furniture and old junk, passed her a face-mask and a wooden bat, then closed the door behind her while she went ham on everything.
That had also helped! Aannndddd also stopped helping.
But then she'd accidentally run over a rabbit one morning on the road.... And that had really helped. Her mind was clear for weeks afterwards. Weeks!
"I'll go to Pet's R Us." Amy said quietly, bobbing her head. "Buy some feeder mice, or... or something."
Trish looked sick.
What Amy did not tell Trish, is that she'd already done this about a month or so ago. She... didn't like thinking about it. The little rats she'd picked up had looked so soft and cute, with their little paws and beady eyes and whiskers.... She'd let these ones go. But the next morning she'd been in a daze with the cards burning in her eyes and refusing to go away, and so she'd stuffed them into her pocket, and rushed back to the store to pick up another set.
Then she'd wrapped them in a black plastic bag and whacked it against the floor hard until the squeaking stopped and the bag stopped moving and all the while bawling and screaming and telling them she was sorry. So sorry.
Then she'd gone and found Trish, and was inconsolable, but had not told her what she'd done.
"And then what, dear?" Trish asked. "You'll eventually have to —" She dropped her voice to a whisper. "To use your p-pow-er."
"I just. Need to wait for a small one." Amy stressed quietly. I need to Beckon a small one. And then I can let it out — somewhere far — far away. And... and see what happens."
"And if you don't get a small one? Which one will... you pick?"
Amy sniffed and looked at her hands helplessly. "I... m —"
"Not the man!"
"No." They were both in firm agreement about the Emissary of Carnage. I... maybe the Leviathan?" She asked weakly? "In... like a desert somewhere."
They were both quiet after that, until Amy's time was up, and she left with promises that she wasn't going to let anything out tomorrow — and definitely not without talking to Trish first — and promises from Trish that she wasn't going to stop seeing Amy.
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That night, as the moon rose, Amy dismissed the Emissary of Carnage and his grin was the last things to disappear as his card burned and flickered away.
It was Knowing, Amy realized, as he burned away. His grin was for her, across time and space. Beyond. He knew her. And smiled at her. And burned away grasping a Something that only looked like a scythe.
The next morning Amy woke with the sun. That earthy aroma of her coffee was filtering into her room and outside her window, she could hear the birds chirping and dogs making happy dog sounds to one another.
But this morning Amy was not smiling. She lay in her bed for a long time and when she finally pattered down to her kitchen table her coffee tasted burnt and her plant had very obviously died now.
She sat there and stared at the kitchen sink and said Zen Zone half-heartedly a couple of times.
"Please," She said at last to nothing in particular. "Please. I'm begging you. I'll go to church. Or to synagogue... or anywhere you want me to. I'll pray every day. But please. Just once. Give me something small today."
'I know you can do it,' She thought.
And she Beckoned.