Chapter 13 – Again

She’d tried to prepare herself for those words, but it didn’t lessen their sting as she heard them cautiously flow from Marisa’s mouth.

She felt sick in a way that a spray of barely-digested apple wouldn’t help. She felt an all-consuming sense of illness. She swallowed and returned her focus to the fact that this was Sim’s doing and he wouldn’t break her. She took a breath and said, “You’re right. I know you. You’re the first person I met in this place. My friend.” Marlise looked away.

Marisa took a step towards her and asked, “Tell me. Please. I want to remember. I feel so empty right now.” Nicolas took care of securing Oswald to a wall with what he was wrapped in.

Marlise admitted, “There’s so much…” Gesturing to the couch, Marisa invited Marlise, “Tell me what you can.” Nicolas found a spot nearby and listened in as Marlise began her tale. She reiterated her name and then paused.

Again she wondered if it was her right to remind Marisa of Isaac or forget about him. She took a breath and offered faintly, “When I first met you, you were male. A man named Isaac. Isaac Hatch.” The last name got the others scrunching up their eyes. Marlise tried to simplify it by saying, “It all seems to go back to Sim.”

Nicolas leaned forward and asked, “Did you say ‘sin’?” After pausing a long moment, Marlise corrected and noted, “Sim, by name. Claimed his…her…its name was made up of the first letters of all our names.” She pointed to herself, Marisa, and in the direction the original Marley had been in turn to illustrate. “S.I.M. Sim….” She paused again with a glance at Nicolas and then the twitching Oswald before changing her word to, “Simon. Seth. Isaac. Marley. Oswald. And Nicolas.” Marlise clenched her lip and watched Nicolas.

Stroking at his chin, Nicolas’s expression definitely seemed skeptical as he mulled, “So…you’re saying this powerful person, or whatever, took its name after all of us?” Sighing through her nose, Marlise offered, “If he is to be believed, then it’s the opposite. But that doesn’t exactly mesh with its version of events. Which I will…try to explain…”

She began with the cube, even Marisa had a sense of that, though she strained trying to recall the details. She continued through the dark which began in the second room and continued mentally even into the light. The mirror. This made Nicolas glance at the mirror in the restroom, which hadn’t caused her any trouble. She felt as though she was sleep-speaking, only conscious of certain words as they passed from her lips.

“Cube…Blackness…Mirror…Fall…Voice…” Telling the story again like well-worn folklore more than something she’d lived through. Marisa bent closer when it came time to talk about Isaac, the man she’d begun this place as. She had no flash of recognition, nor did Marlise expect one.

“Another…Smirk…Holes…Monster…Marley…” Not really Marley, but the first time she’d met her. Sim wearing Marley’s skin and trying…for what she didn’t know. The other times, he’d been crueler and shifted in her mind from something of indeterminate or feminine gender to the presence she’d struggled against again and again.

With a solemn breath, she gave up the words she’d set before Oswald as well, “That Marley had claims which Sim reiterated. We are trapped here because we are dead and this is Hell. Sim claims to possess us because we signed a contract with him before and he can do anything to us he wants…”

Immediately, Nicolas’s face relaxed. Suspecting what his next words would be, Marlise continued, “I don’t know if this is true. I’m just passing along what I’ve gathered.”

He held his calm expression firm and noted, “I trust your words. Sad words but they feel sincere….” He stroked his chin and added, “I don’t trust this ‘Sim’ you talk about…or Simon, if you’re right and we count that one over there and myself. Of course, maybe Nicolas isn’t even my real name and that theory doesn’t work.” He added the emphasis of a shrug.

Biting at her lip, Marlise blurted out, “You look exactly like my brother, Steven.”

Pausing, Nicolas gave that a quiet moment before letting his smile bloom again. “I had a feeling you had something in mind when you first met me.” Marlise nodded back. Marisa had been quiet. She folded her arms and put on an intensely-thoughtful look but let Nicolas and Marlise lead the discussion.

After another stroke on his chin, Nicolas offered up, “I don’t presume to know much. I’m just stumbling my way through this weird place. But my sense is that it would be very easy for things to be manipulated this way or that to the point no one can trust anything for sure…makes sense you were wary when you came in here.”

It was a well-worn notion by this point. She wondered if Nicolas might have some answer or crystallization of it.

He explained, “This place could all be an illusion. I mean I’ve seen some weird stuff here but nothing as wild as you have. It would make me doubt anything. And maybe that’s this here ‘Sim’ or ‘Simon’s plan. Break down what you have and know to replace it with his own creations.”

Her eyes widened. There might be something there. She’d stood up to Sim but when it came to this reality she’d accepted it in so many little ways as if it were the real world. Marlise sat up a little straighter. She continued off his musing, “So, anything could be his. Everything could’ve been tampered with by him. Made into an obstacle or a bit of suffering. He claims dominion over us and our souls. But even fighting against him acknowledges he has created an obstacle we need to overcome.” She felt at the verge of an epiphany, just barely out of reach of her consciousness. A way out of the cycles of feeling trapped inside again and again.

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Nicolas left it there with his hands folded but encouraged her, “So, what might be true then?”

It seemed too bold a notion for Marlise. Marisa didn’t quite seem to grasp it, but she rubbed her cheek in contemplation. Marlise tried to push the idea. What would be true then? It would have to be anything. Anything could be true. If anything in this place could be false then anything could be true. That would mean they weren’t really trapped at all.

It couldn’t be that simple. Just any assertion of a different reality? After all, Sim controlled all this but…she reminded herself that was just a concession Sim encouraged. What if she chose to truly believe that Sim had no power and she had all the power? No more cycles. It was worth a try.

The first thing she thought about was a door to the outside. A way out. She took a breath and said, “We can leave. There’s a way out. I just need a door.” Marisa and Nicolas both sat up but didn’t say anything.

Tensing herself, Marlise tried to hold onto something. She focused on how the system said she was authorized, and she’d gotten it to unlock the door to where Isaac had been trapped. Looking up, she said, “I am authorized! Open the door! Unlock the system and let us out of here!”

Nothing happened, at first. She prepared to reiterate what she’d said when a door off to the side of the pantry appeared in front of them. It was a heavy, iron door much taller than the opening nearby or the way to the restroom.

At that moment, Marlise could feel like she was being watched. Doubt crept into her. It shouldn’t be this easy, especially with what Sim had done to them and how he’d treated them. It all felt wrong. She shook her head and muttered, “That has to be a trap.”

Nicolas stood and approached the door. Pulling on the handle only rattled it around a little. The same was true for Marisa. The two of them stepped aside and looked towards Marlise. She stood cautiously and gazed back and forth. Her new friend and her oldest friend. There was nothing between their expressions to give her cause for concern but there were subtle fears.

Like the absence of Sim and how he could double people. How did she know that Marisa was the Marisa who’d been shot? Also, the Nicolas who’d left to tie up Oswald had been gone longer than she expected. A look over to Oswald revealed him docile, very docile. Her neck prickled and she cupped it, thinking to herself, I have no reason to trust any of this. It’s all gone too nicely and too calmly. All in my favor.

Still, she approached the door. She tried to think of something. Maybe the door could have special powers. If it wasn’t a real door and if this wasn’t a real place then a door could do or be anything. It could also be nothing but an illusion, except for her determination that it was something. Like so many times before, she was torn.

And even if this wasn’t a trick, she was still afraid of what was on the other side of it. Her hand paused over the knob as she said to herself, “Gotta try though…”

Without thinking it another moment, she took the risk and turned the knob. She expected something amazingly weird or blackness or whiteness. What greeted her as she pulled open the door was a normal room, one more normal than any she’d seen before. Light shimmered through windows on the other side of the room. Plush carpet covered the floor in a pale ivory color. Couches, fine china, and peach-colored walls filled her sight. Wooden floors with a deep, radiant varnish stretched over the far end. It was a comfortable home. Nearly a mansion. And there was someone inside it.

She could hear a woman humming to herself in a room nearby. Marlise was about to speak when she felt something press against her back, plunging into her flesh. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected, but it was impossible for her to move. She was pushed through the doorway. A large mirror hung on the wall of the mansion which allowed her to see what had happened.

Nicolas and Marisa stood on either side of her, they were quivering and twitching like they too had something plunged into them. Their mouths lolled open and, despite trying to fight, quiet words slipped from their mouths into Marlise’s head.

“Good work, little Jessica. I knew you would be useful to me.” Sim…

She could feel him wearing her two friends like a skin and that skin had pushed inside her back, their hands pressing into her body like it was nothing but a shell. His presence violated her. She tried to mount rage against Sim but all she could manage was a stiff walk like a puppet, her legs dangling along. Her own mouth lolled open and it felt like Sim was projecting himself out into the room. She tried to swallow him back, but the force ejected him like a wave of bile.

From around the corner emerged a woman in a flowing white blouse and loose, black pants. She had a skin tone darker than anyone Marlise had yet seen. Her face was sleek, deep in color but not with any clear ethnicity. Her hair carried lighter brown traits as well as deep blackness in its short, crinkly length. Her eyes, seen from the edge, were the color of wet metal, not quite silver and not quite blue. She held a tray with a sandwich on it. She almost didn’t notice them at first, then she turned and her calm face took on a brutal edge as she stared.

Sim pressed through, speaking with Marlise’s throat, as he said, “Hello, Avery. We’ve come for a visit...”