The worst pains were never heard. You stifled them because the tears hurt too much to shed. You wanted to throttle them from behind, garrote them, bottle them up, and bury them at the bottom of the sea, starved of light and air, hoping they’d die and stay dead and stay there, never be found. But matter how much you wanted it, they never died. They just festered.
They were festering in Jules right now. She tried to get rid of them, but couldn’t. There were like bats, squirming in her chest, wings scraping the soft wet of her throat. But she couldn’t open her mouth. She cried and cried, but she couldn’t scream them out, just as she couldn’t stop crying. It was quiet, muffled crying, not half as loud as crying into a pillow. She cried because she was scared out of her mind, and because she’d finally realized just how much she hated herself. And her mother. And, well… everyone.
I should have taken a stand, she thought. I shouldn’t have let Mom convince me Dad was gone.
But she hadn’t, and she blamed herself for it.
Jules wasn’t good at keeping time. By her best reckoning, at least an hour had passed since the half-changed wyrm had stuck his golden-eyed head into the ancient wine cellar. She felt like it was closer to morning than midnight, though she couldn’t be sure.
She was tired as fuck.
Jules’ knee was still sore; she’d bashed on the wine cellar’s beige stone floor when the wyrm had come around the corner and made the forcefield keeping her out of the wine cellar disappear. Jules had leapt off the stairs by the entryway and tumbled onto the floor, swallowing the pain in her knee as she’d ducked in cover behind the row of wine casks furthest from the stairs. She’d spent the next few minutes with her butt cold on the floor and her back against the cask’s heady, wine-drenched wood, scared shitless that the half-wyrm might discover her.
Unfortunately, being scared shitless also meant Jules hadn’t been able to pay too much attention to the half-wyrm’s conversation with Jessica. From what she had managed to pick up, it sounded like the half-wyrm was trying to catechize Jessica about the Last Church’s beliefs. She’d heard from Jessica that this had happened before, and she was pretty sure this latest attempt would be just as fruitless as the others.
Right when the conversation seemed to end, when Jules felt safe to vent a tiny pocket of terror that had been pushing up against her diaphragm, something totally batshit happened.
The half-wyrm slithered down the steps. Jessica tried to get away, but the half-wyrm lunged toward her, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in.
Jules held her breath, peering out from around the wine cask. She’d watched in horror as the two changelings started merging with one another. Like, physically melting together. Fungal threads twined around the two of them, giving them the appearance of a gnarled tree trunk, branchless and burnt, with roots spreading across the stairs and the walls.
Jules’ mind had gone into somersaults to try to figure out what had been happening. Her first thought was “wyrm rape”, but as the minutes piled up, her thoughts started to run wild. All she knew was that the fused-wyrm-thing was didn’t move or make even so much as a peep. Even so, Jules hadn’t been able to convince herself that that meant it was safe enough for her to get the hell out of there.
The rapist-wyrm straddled the doorway with its tail, while the fusion-thing’s roots and trunk obstructed the stairs,which meant that the only way out would be to climb over the two wyrms, which Jules flat-out refused to do. She’d seen plenty of monster movies. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what would happen if she tried.
So, instead, she just sort of sat there, on the cold stone floor with her legs tucked up against her chest. Thankfully, her samue covered her legs all the way down to her ankles, so she wasn’t freezing, just cold, and sad, and tired, and hungry, and…
Ugh…
She was terrified for Pel and Rayph. Her mother could get pretty desperate when it came to her and her brother’s wellbeing, and desperation made people stupid and do stupid things. Stupid things like trying to get dirt on the Last Church from Jessica Eigenhat.
Jules missed me, both because she genuinely missed me, and because my absence meant that she couldn’t vent her anger at me for not being there, which made her angry. Fake optimists like me helped people keep their spirits up without putting them in danger of taking anything for granted. Had I been more assertive and domineering, perhaps I’d have come to get them, despite my transformations, and maybe we could have at least been a family as the world met its end.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Jules was too scared to move. She shivered while her tears trickled down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure how long she’d stayed like that, with her thoughts passing like tumbleweeds across her fear-bleached mind. The spores’ overpowering, sickly sweet smell made her eyes water. However, after what seemed like forever and a day, she decided, to hell with it, dusted herself off, and slowly rose off the floor.
One of the many valid criticisms my daughter had for my behavior is that by being stuck in indecision, I drew things out longer than necessary, and made them worse for myself than they would have been if I’d just picked something and run with it. Once Jules realized she’d been doing the same thing here and now, she refused to continue.
She’d rather be dead than a hypocrite.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Enough waiting, she thought, with a sniffle.
She had to go tell her mother and Rayph what she’d learned.
If she was gonna be miserable, at least she’d be miserable with company.
Quietly, Jules crept in front of the wine cask. She was about to step up to the next row of casks in front of it when the fusion-tree twitched. She had barely enough time to duck in cover between the two rows before she saw—and heard—the two half-wyrms come apart. Their roots and tendrils slowly retracted back into their bodies as they pulled away from one another. It was disgusting to watch, yet also somehow fascinating. Maybe even awesome.
Oh fuck, I’m turning into Rayph.
It was all the more reason for her to get the hell out of here!
Much to Jules surprise, the wyrm slithered up the stairs and out of sight without a word. She looked left and right, confident the monster was about to spring back into the room.
“You can come out now, Howle,” Jessica said.
Jules flinched. “Is it safe?”
“It’s as safe as it’s gonna get.”
Jules crept out from in between the wine casks, and then stared at Jessica awkwardly.
Jessica crossed her arms.
“Did he just… rape you?” Jules asked.
Jessica flicked her claws dissuasively. “Hardly. Hell, I’m pretty sure we don’t have the equipment for that.”
“TMI!”
“Jules, you wouldn’t know the meaning of ‘too much information’ if it bit you in the ass.”
Jules rolled her eyes. “Fine. Just, tell me already: what the fuck was that? You melted into each other like hot crayons!”
“It’s a changeling thing,” Jessica explained. “We…” She lowered her head. “By physically linking like that, we can enter each other’s minds. He tried to shove his crazy ideas into my head. Fortunately…”
Here, Jessica made a facial movement that Jules believed was most likely a smile.
“…I flew in circles around him.”
“What?”
Jessica slunk back and leaned against one of the wine casks. “I figured out how he set up and dispelled the force field.” She raised her developing snout up to the entryway. “I’m pretty sure I can do it myself.”
“You would help me?” Jules tried to sound less surprised than she actually was.
Jessica lowered her head again. “They’ve been torturing me, Howle. Every time they come in here and link with me, it’s…” she shook her head. “My transformation is the only reason I’ve survived.”
“What do you mean?”
“While they go to town on me with their religious claptrap, I can hide the core of who I am deep, deep inside myself, safe and sound, with all the ponies I could ever want.”
Jules snickered. “No. You were one of those pony girls? I never would have guessed.”
“Don’t judge, Jules. For some of us, it’s empowerment.” Jessica looked up. A few more strands of her fading hair fell loose and drifted off her spreading scales and onto the floor. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for that, I…” She shuddered; the movement rippled down her spine and tail. “You gotta understand: from my perspective, I’ve been here for months.” She looked Jules in the eyes. “Us talking was the first real interaction I’ve had in all that time. You weren’t trying to mold me into something I didn’t want to be.”
There was a long quiet.
Jules tried not to cry. “You were a real bitch to me, you know.”
Jessica averted her gaze and nodded and muttered. “I know.” She turned back to Jules. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Why?”
Jessica glanced at empty space. Though, from the look in Jessica’s eyes, maybe it wasn’t as empty as it looked.
“Although I didn’t really know him,” she said, “from what little I saw of the guy, I could tell your Dad was a good dad. It’s easy to recognize good parents when yours are shitty.”
“You deserve better than this, Jessica.”
“You, too.”
Another pause.
“Jules, if your Dad really is turning into a wyrm, you need to find him. I mean it. Nothing else matters, you hear me. Nothing. Are you sick yet?”
Jules pouted. “I’ve got a cough.”
“Do you feel dead?”
“What?”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Jessica said. She crossed her arms. “Listen, if you ever start feeling like your body is dead and no longer yours, then you’re gonna turn into one of us. If that doesn’t happen in a couple more hours, then that means you’re going to die. Those are the only two outcomes: either you die, or you become one of us. You can’t stop it. All you can do is prepare yourself.”
“Prepare? How?”
“If any of you end up turning,” Jessica explained, “your Dad will be able to guide you through it. If not, the best outcome is gonna be for him to absorb you. Either way, he’ll be able to help you, and keep you safe. If your Dad is anything like what I saw in that meeting in Principal Jacobson’s office, he’ll be the best caretaker a ghost could ever ask for.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Trust me, you do not want to end up inside one of these psychopaths. They can do whatever they want to you in there, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them.”
“Lass…” Jules said, with a quiet stare.
“Yeah. It’s super fucked up.”
More silence.
“It’s kinda funny.” Jessica put on a bitter smile. “I think this is the first real conversation I’ve ever had. Who would have thought it’d have been with you?”
“Never say never,” Jules said. “I’m sorry we fought so much. It would have been nicer if we could have been friends.”
Jessica flopped the end of her tail to the side. “I’m… not cut out for having friends.”
“Then change yourself until you are.”
“Listen, Howle,” Jessica glared at Jules, and then up at the stairs at the corner of the room. “Stan put the barrier back in place when he left.”
“Shit.”
That would definitely throw a wrench in Jules’ escape plan.
But Jessica shook her head “I’m gonna open the barrier now, and you’re going to get your family and bring them here.” She tapped her lips together. “Then I’ll bust you out of here.”
Jules swallowed hard.
She’d never thought she’d be thankful that Jessica Eigenhat existed but, then again… never say never.
“Jessica, I…”
“No, just shut up,” Jessica replied, in her familiar, catty demeanor. “You got your fucking sneople helper, okay?”
She bent her snout down, to hide that she was smiling.
“Now, get out of here, okay? Go back upstairs and tell your mom and brother your Dad’s still out there, somewhere. And then, get some sleep. You were up all night. You’ll need your strength for tomorrow.”
“You can come with us,” Jules said.
She shook her head. “I can’t. Some of the changelings can see the energies around me. They can even see it through walls. So, once I make a break for it, that’s it, there’s no turning back. You understand?”
Jules nodded.
Jessica slithered forward. “Alright, now step back.”
Jules complied.
Jessica sprawled herself over the staircase and then, scooting forward, raised her claws to the barrier and closed her eyes. Her arms trembled. At first, Jules wasn’t sure anything was happening, but then all the wine casks began to jostle in place, gently rocking left and right.
Then, with a groan Jessica slunk away, sliding back down the stairs.
“There,” she said, “it’s done. Come tomorrow morning. I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll leave together. Now, go. Go!”
“Wait,” Jules said, “what if something goes wrong?”
“Pull the fire alarm,” Jessica replied. “I’ll come to you as quickly as I can.” She passed and blinked. “Where’d your Mom park? Which side of the building? South? North? West? East?”
“I… uh…”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Which street?”
“Uh… Chatham,” Jules replied.
“Got it,” Jessica said.
“That’s it?” Jules asked.
“Yes,” Jessica said. “Now, get going! I mean it!”
Jules ran up the stairs as fast as she could. As she left, she glanced back to see Jessica with her eyes closed, and her head and neck raised toward the ceiling. She was making the Bond-sign, intoning a sporey prayer.