The girls stood in the doorway, staring at their seemingly deranged leader. Her hair was unkempt and wild, her normally pale features were pastier than usual, and her trademark dark-ringed eyes were more bruised-looking and swollen than even Soohae’s. Soo pointed at Sol and turned to Hanna. “Please tell me that I at least look better than that!”

A thin, twisted smirk stretched slowly across Sol’s otherwise expressionless face. Her eyes held no light. “The children,” she muttered quietly. Something between an airy laugh and a pitiful cry came from her brittle throat. “Please, don’t look, not at the children,” Sol muttered, a look of confusion slowly taking over. “They’re ghosts. We don’t need any ghosts. Who said ghosts?”

“Sol?” Soohae said pensively before turning to Hanna. “Sol, she’s..cracked. What did they do to her?” Soo began approaching Sol slowly, her arms slowly wrapping around herself protectively.

“Hanna stared at Sol, dumbfounded, and then slowly seemed to snap back to herself. “She’s drugged,” she murmured. “I think, anyway,” she added, an empty disbelief forming her words. She approached numbly. Sol seemed to shrink in on herself, wincing, tears instantly forming and spilling from petrified eyes. Hanna crouched low before her, feeling as if she were watching the scene from somewhere above. The feeling was surreal—and terrifying. To see her friend, her leader, in utter pieces, was terrifying.

Tears spilt down Sol’s cheeks as she carefully cast her eyes up at Hanna. Then her eyes narrowed and her expression was one of suspicion and anger. “It hurts when they talk through me, Hanna,” she said, her vow low and accusing. “It hurts so bad. I must be dead.” Her terror melted into something thoughtful. “Or dreaming.” Sol tilted her head up in half-hope and half-wonder. “Am I dreaming?”

Hanna’s lips parted, but words she couldn’t find stuck in her throat.

“Or maybe this is the dream the dead have.” Sol continued soberly, lowering her eyes. “Am I in hell?” she said, more to herself, as if she’d forgotten Hanna and Soohae were in the room. “Or, am I the dream?” Sol dropped her head, her brows screwed up in confusion. “Why would she do this? Why are there two of me?” She looked back up at Hanna, brow furrowed. “Two of you? Two of everyone? Where is the other me?”

Sol went silent, her completely dilated eyes holding Hanna’s gaze for a long time before slipping away, her face slightly relaxing, but still looking lost and uncertain. Her shoulders sagged. Hanna blinked, examining the chair in the center of the room. A medical one, like in World 3. Like in..

A flash of red. Somewhere, she knew this chair from somewhere. Red.

“Help me.” The words fell numbly from Hanna’s lips as her body went on autopilot, grabbing at the straps on Sol’s legs. Soo turned and immediately followed suit, attacking the straps around Sol’s center. Their leader had lost weight. A lot of weight, and quickly. Too quickly..

Soo took care of a strap around Sol’s shoulders, meant to keep her upright, Hanna took care of the wrist and arm restraints. Once the job was done, she backed up slightly and waited. She waited for Sol to rub her raw wrists or stretch or come to herself, but she just sat docile and vacant, staring past Hanna at something unseen, her face a blank canvas.

Soo’s hands rose to her face and she began to cry softly. Hanna took Sol’s hands in her own, surprised at the cold of them.

“Sol?”

No response.

“Sol?” She repeated gently, giving her hands a small squeeze. Nothing. “Sol?” Hanna tried again, more urgently, giving her hands a little squeeze, but her boss just looked past her at nothing.

“SOLREIL!” she cried out, grabbing Sol’s shoulders and giving them a hard shake.

Soohae gave a squeaked cry as Sol’s head jerked and her body twitched. But Sol’s body relaxed and she turned her head slightly. She blinked and looked at Hanna, leaning in slightly.

“Hanna?” There was a momentary spark of recognition before Sol’s face clouded over again. “There’s no use running. There’s nowhere to go,” she lamented in a sad whisper. Sol sunk back into the chair, her eyes so desolate and empty where life should have been. The hairs on the back of Hanna’s neck began to rise and she felt a shudder course through her spine as Sol leaned her head closer.

“She’s already here,” Sol breathed, her breath stale. “She’s already here, smelling of death.” Sol looked into Hanna’s eyes and gave small, melancholy smile, soft and warm. “I can sleep now that you’re here. I’ve been waiting. She can’t get through if I’m awake.” Then she pushed herself back into the chair and closed her eyes. “Tell the other me I said hello,” she mumbled, her head lolling to the side.

“What the hell was that?” Hanna muttered under her breath, still feeling disconnected in spite of her pounding heart.

From beside her, Soohae sniffled then sucked in a startled gasp, her gaze at something behind Hanna.

“I see you’ve found your dear leader,” Isis’ voice came floating bitterly from behind. Hanna leapt up and spun around, turning her back to Sol and spreading her arms defensively, as if to keep her and Soo safe. If she hadn’t wanted to kill Isis before, she sure as hell did now.

“What did you do to her?” Hanna growled.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Isis met Hanna’s rage with a cool stare and a weak half-shrug. “Most of it she’s done to herself,” she replied dismissively, her gaze falling to Sol behind Hanna’s outstretched arms. “She wouldn’t let herself sleep. It won’t work if she’s conscious. I’ll give her some credit, I didn’t think she’d last as long as she has. Even I was beginning to worry about her health.” Isis took a step closer, but stopped when Hanna bared her teeth. She offered a weak smile. “But now that you’re here, it looks like she’s more than happy to cooperate. Happy accidents,” she said dismally.

“I asked what you did to her, ISIS,” Hanna snarled.

To Isis’ credit, she was neither surprised nor intimidated, but she did suddenly look very tired. “I told Candace that you weren’t her Hanna. She really wanted to believe that you were,” she sighed passively, a hint of sadness tinging her words.

“I did what I had to do to survive,” Hanna retorted.

“SO DID I!” Isis suddenly cried out, causing Hanna to jerk in surprise. Isis laid a hand to her forehead and leaned with one hand on a counter beside her. She took a breath and dropped the hand from her face, meeting Hanna’s gaze with one of so many mixed emotions that Hanna couldn’t tell what she was seeing.

“You don’t understand, Hanna,” she said firmly. “You never could. That’s probably why she never brought you into the project. Not like she did me. The other Sol—the REAL Sol in this whole paradigm—she’s back in her lab waiting for contact, growing impatient and getting closer to a solution that I won’t have if I’m busy here talking with you! So, I need you two to back off of Sol now, get the hell out of my way, and keep your mouths closed—and then I might forget you were in here.” It was less of a suggestion than a demand, but the bizarre absurdity of it nearly rendered Hanna dumb.

Hanna’s mouth dropped open, but instead of words, she let out a haughty, incredulous laugh. “Hah! You’re out of your mind crazy if you think I’m gonna let you put one fucking hand on our Queen!”

Isis rolled her eyes. “Oh, again with the Queen thing, Hanna,” Isis groaned. “This version of her is so inferior that it’s laughable to even think she could be the leader of a group of street urchins, let alone a guild! Did you know that AFTER I drugged her, even after I locked her up, she kept trying to reason with me? Can you imagine?” Isis’ voice was taking on a manic quality, her voice quivering.

Hanna shook her head. “Because Sol’s a good person, that’s why you’re looking down on her? Because she’s not half the BITCH that you’re being?! She’d never lock up or drug her friends! She’d never torture or do—whatever the hell it is you’re doing!”

Hanna’s chest heaved. She wanted nothing more than to go and rip that smug head off of Isis’ shoulders. Aema, a voice in her head reminded her. That body belongs to Aema. Don’t hurt Aema.

“All for what, so you can follow an evil version of her?”

Isis bit down on the inside of her lip, but said nothing, turning her eyes away from Hanna. A moment passed, heavy and tense, then Isis said something usually said by Sol. “But, wouldn’t she?”

Behind her, Soo sank to the floor against the medical chair and clutched Sol’s limp hand, tears flowing. Hanna risked a quick side-glance at Sol, who lay motionless aside from the steady rhythm of her chest in sleep. “No,” Hanna whispered darkly. “She wouldn’t.”

Isis raised her head and tilted it slightly. “Then what do you call what she was doing to you in the other world, Hanna? What do you think she was doing to Candace and to Anderson—to Cris and even Soohae? Even me!” she cried out. “What do you think she did to me, to Aema?! What she’s still doing! Don’t you get it? She’s not innocent!” Isis screamed, waving an arm towards the unconscious Sol. “None of them are! Nobody is!” Isis’ eyes shone bright with emotion.

Hanna let out a cry of frustration. “Then why? Why do you follow her?” she demanded. “If Sol—if ALL Sols are so damn evil, why would you help them? Why become her plaything?!”

Isis lowered her head for a moment and squeezed her eyes shut, as though ashamed, the air whooshing out of her. Then she met Hanna’s eyes with a crumbling determination, the steel in her eyes melting.

“Because she was there for me when I lost my husband.”

The reply was soft, as if all of the wind had been let out of her and whatever had been powering Isis had just given up. “Because she knows what that’s like—loss—and she found a way, however small, that I could see him again.”

She at Hanna’s eyes, imploring, as tears welled up. “Even if it was just one more time, to see him again—even a version of him—is better than knowing I could never see him again at all.”

Damn it, Hanna thought, her chest tightening. That damn Isis is making herself human to me after all! She knew better than to give into her empathy, so she tried to bottle it tightly in her fist and pretend to crush it into a fine powder.

“So, what, you became a murderer? A kidnapper? Someone who steals and uses other peoples’ bodies, steals their time, their lives—and consciousnesses?!”

Damn, Sol was right. There’s got to be a better word for that.

“To what end?” She demanded. “So that you can MAYBE see another world’s version of your dead husband? Do you have any idea how selfish that sounds?!”

Isis squeezed her eyes shut and took a shuddering breath, but Hanna continued. “I know it hurts, and I know that the kind of hope it gives you feels like it might dull the pain, but it won’t help you!” Hanna dropped her arms.

“First, you’ll just want to see.” Hanna said, not realizing she had taken a step towards Isis. “Then you’ll want to visit, touch, make contact.”

Another step.

“And then what? Take over? Don’t you see?” she breathed, stopping and leaning closer, her face inches from Isis. “The longer you follow that evil Sol, the worse of a person YOU become! Do you think that’s what he would want for you?!” Hanna’s voice had raised as she talked until she was yelling her last sentence, but now her dropped her voice to a low whisper.

“Don’t you think your dead husband would be ashamed of you? Of the wife who would hurt so many people who loved her—even a version of her—just to take a quick peek at a version of him? A version that would never even compare, who would be nothing more than a shadow—an echo—of the man she loved?

Hanna had taken a risk using the word she’d overheard before, but it seemed to hit home. Isis’ hardened face shook, then crumbled. She dropped to her knees and put her face in her hands and began to sob. “I just wanted to say goodbye,” she sobbed to herself, her body trembling. “I just wanted to say goodbye..”

Hanna stood with mixed emotions, but she swallowed them down. She couldn’t bring herself to leave, nor to look away. She had to witness this. She had to remind herself that these were still humans, and humans could be reasoned with. She just had to find Doctor Sol’s weakness. What was her hang-up that made her want so desperately to travel?

If Hanna could find that, she could put a stop to all this. Just maybe, evil Sol was still just Sol in there after all.

She couldn’t comfort Isis, not after everything the woman had done, but she allowed her time to grieve and mourn. It was the least anyone deserved.