“I promise you, this is gonna be fun.”
“It better not be like last time.”
“Okay, fine, last time was pretty lame. But this will be cool. I swear.”
“Uh huh. You’re so dead if it’s just as bad.”
***
What the fuck?
Cora lurches violently, one moment careening through a tunnel of endless light, the next deposited into a void. She rotates her hands and stares through her palms. Tendrils of vapor hiss along her skin, forming loops and swirls that turn into solid shapes and lines.
Just a second ago, she’d been fighting her former best friend.
And now, she’s in geometric hell.
Lines and hard angles intersect on planes stretching infinitely into the void. Circles eat triangles, rhombuses pierce ellipses, and cubes glitch into cylinders and ride along rectangular spines.
Cora’s head pounds. Her chest heaves, stomach squeezing bile into the back of her throat. But when she reaches to rub her temples, her hands phase right through.
“Am I dead?”
Among the interlocking shapes, her question echoes back, voice distorted into a whine.
She’d known the risks. That’s why she kept the equivalent of a nuclear ICBM on her bed stand, and every night she slept facing it, her dreams plunging into so many different worlds.
Cora thought she understood it.
But the box had magic. And magic doesn’t obey any law. There was a risk, however small or big, that she wouldn’t step into a world with the same physics. Much less anything resembling sanity.
It’s not supposed to be like this!
Cora shakes. She sheds plumes of vapor, rising into a mist, dividing and solidifying into pure geometry. She stares at her arms, halfway eaten through, ethereal wounds shedding her very essence into the void.
Oh, Mari. I’m so sorry.
Tears stream down her face, only to exit as streams of vapor, curling into circles and spheres. “Help!” Her scream multiplies tenfold. She curls into a ball and squeezes her eyes shut, but her eyelids, too, are translucent. “Help!”
A cube floats beside her. She latches onto it, and surprisingly, it’s as cold and unyielding as steel. This came from her body, right? Cora scavenges other shapes, stacking them on top until she builds an artist’s nightmare, a conglomeration of shapes held together by sheer will.
Yet she continues to disappear. Most of her right half is gone. Her right hand finally disconnects from her wrist and becomes a trapezoid, fingers little rectangular prisms drifting off.
Stop.
It’s the only thought screaming in her head, and out her mouth, as her legs break away into cylinders. Arms snapping off into isosceles triangles.
Stop!
Then everything vanishes.
The void’s silence leaves her ears ringing. Its darkness hurts her eyes. I’m dead. Cora swivels around. I died.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
If she still had her heart, it’d explode. She silently screams. No vocal cords carry the weight of her despair, no physical body shakes and heaves and collapses.
Cora’s dead.
I died, I’m dead, and I’m going to be here for all of eternity.
A pinprick of light twinkles. Four threads of light knit into a square. Within it, images flit by. Inverted and distorted, some bright, some dark. A river, a planet, a cave, a lake.
Her thoughts break apart. The square is rushing toward her. No, she’s rushing toward the square, even though she’s supposed to be dead. Reincarnation? Is she going to end up like those characters from the stories she read before the incident?
No, no, no, no.
Her thoughts project into the void. It screams back at her, harsh feedback and squeals and what sounds like a string of high-pitched laughter in the background. The colors of the square brighten, and it swells in size, and beyond is a single static image like it’s on a television screen, and then she plunges through the screen
Veil
And her entire life changes forever.
***
All she remembers by the time she plunges through the portal is crushing, existential dread.
Cora flies over a dark, bristling forest. Warm winds propel her, even as the icy air slashes at her arms and face. Shadowy mountains fade into the distance, discolored like an old movie film. But the bruised skies, mahogany clouds, and blood-red moon tell her everything.
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This isn’t home. She isn’t anywhere near it and won’t be ever again.
She’s a human comet, a superhero, a girl terrified out of her fucking mind. She hurtles through the skies screaming, flailing her arms and legs in the hopes she’ll somehow catch herself midair, maybe lower herself gently to the ground.
One moment, Cora tastes fleeting freedom, the next the cold sweeps under her and yanks.
The last thing she glimpses is a world wreathed in twilight before she plummets through the canopy, branches scratching her arms and face, leaves nicking her cheeks. Her leg catches on a branch, and it carves through her shin and ankle before freeing itself from her jeans.
Her screams are short-lived. She crashes onto a carpet of leaves; her left wrist suddenly hurts, and her legs turn into jelly. But as Cora lies there bloodied, bruised, and cut, her scrambled brain pieces together the most important thing.
I’m alive.
She heaves, lurching aside, emptying her stomach. Her mouth tastes sour. She licks her dry lips. How long since she drank water? Those last few moments seem years ago for how stark the contrast is.
Her room, sleek and modern. Her decorations, warm, inviting, shelves full of plushies and golden light spilling from her lamps. The forest, dark, desolate, despairing. Dead. A cold breeze stirs life into the shadows, branches creaking and leaves fluttering around her, but there are no animals here.
No people. No light, apart from the sickly reddish glow pouring through the hole in the canopy she left behind.
And God, the cold. Cora shrinks into herself, tucking her legs in. The cold creeps into her flesh, strangling her heart. Leaving her throat tight as she struggles to suck in a breath.
At least I’m alive.
Her right leg throbs. There’s just enough light to make out a dark liquid trickling down her shin. Already, the fabric of her jeans is stained, a blotch of wet darkness running along the length of her leg below the knee.
She doesn’t want to look. She can’t. Her left wrist is cherry red and hot to the touch. Swollen. Cora bends it, and instantly she feels her bones grind against each other, producing shockwaves of agony that leave her clenching her teeth, shaking.
At least I’m alive.
Cora rises to a kneel. She sways, nauseous, before forcing herself onto her feet. The world swims around her, but she doesn’t care. Anywhere is better than here. Her heart beats so hard she fears her ribs will shatter.
“Mari!” Cora shouts. Her throat hurts as she continues to yell her best friend's name. “Mari!” She sucks in a deep breath. The cold, dry air hurts her nose and lungs. She steps in no particular direction, clenching her fist.
Mari was right there. They’d been touching, hadn’t they? Mari had tackled her to the ground. “I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry for everything.” She trembles. “Mari!”
She touches her eyes. Her fingers come away wet. Why is she crying? Isn’t this what she wanted? A break from her world?
“Mari. Please, come back,” Cora sobs, stumbling. She crashes into a tree, leaning onto it for support. An ugly sensation rears its head inside her, and what comes out is more like a strangled gasp than anything human.
It’s all gone. Her life, her family, the few friends she had. Cora is never, ever going to see them again. She howls and slams her fist into the bark. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! I wasn’t ready!”
She drops to her knees. Doubles over and stares at the black fabric of her backpack, resting just a few feet away. Is she dreaming? Cora touches it. She unzips the front pocket, and inside is the bloodied rag she’d wiped her hand off on.
If the backpack is here, then that means–
Mari. The box. Cora lurches onto her feet again, swinging her backpack over her shoulder.
The box. She needs the box. She limps around the area, keeping the hole in the canopy in her sight. She checks behind trees, inside bushes, inside piles of leaves for any disturbances.
Every search worsens the pain. Whittles down her hope until it’s a nail stabbing into her heels. She cups her hand around her mouth, turning her head in every direction.
“Mari!”
Still no response. Cora braces herself for the final short trek. She sucks in a shuddering breath and sets out toward several trees. Piles of leaves crowd around their trunks, decayed like the rest of the world.
Carpets of leaves crunch under her boots. She limps around the trees, between them, kicking at the mounds, scattering even more leaves over the ground. She kicks down every last mound, checks around every tree, and checks the surrounding trees for good measure.
The environment is as barren as a desert.
Cora feels the all-too familiar sting of incoming tears. “Don’t,” she whispers. “You’re stronger than this. Fix this!” The knot in her throat grows as she goes around another pair of trees, beyond sight of the hole in the canopy. Every foot of scoured ground twists a dagger into her heart.
It has to be here! It has to be! She checks one more tree. Her eyes rove over the land, past several decaying logs, past mounds of leaves she knows have nothing.
Suddenly, light glints at the corner of her eye.
So dull she almost misses it. Cora digs her nails into her palm, approaching the glint. Nestled among mounds of leaves, nearly buried, she finds the box.
With its lid closed.
“Jeez,” she gasps, slamming her hand over her chest. Willing herself to calm down until her breathing is slow and steady. She struggles to suppress a smile. Everything’s going to be okay.
Cora buries her good hand under the leaves and spreads her fingers to raise the box by its bottom. It’s a little more scratched up than she remembers, and a corner piece chipped off, but the box is intact.
That’s all that matters. As long as the lid is closed, everything’s going to be okay.
Cora carries it back to the tiny clearing, where weak light trickles through the canopy hole. Gingerly, she sets the box on the ground, double-checking that the lid stays closed. Her hand trembles when she pulls back. She stuffs it into her pocket, craving the meager warmth it offers.
Memories flash before her. Mari shouts at Cora, her face blotchy red. Cora shields the box, standing in front. Mari gets too close and Cora shoves her back. Mari punches her and Cora swings back. Cora wipes her hand off on her cloth after breaking Mari’s nose. Mari tackles her, their bodies crashing into the nightstand.
And then, teetering in the world’s most dangerous dance and losing to gravity, the box plummets onto the carpet, lid cracking open and light consuming them.
“Stop,” Cora says, shaking her head. She needs to focus on getting home. She pictures a hazy image of her bedroom and superimposes it over the forest. She blocks out the cold and silence, and replaces it with warm air and her speakers belting out classic rock.
Her focus doesn’t waver. She bends down, sliding her fingernails under the lid’s groove. This was what she was supposed to do. Before Mari came.
But Cora will fix everything. When she gets back, she’s going to make the biggest apology cake for Mari and beg for forgiveness. Cora doesn’t care about her pride anymore. Not after coming so close to being trapped here. Mari can laugh at her, slap her, punch her again for all she cares.
Cora just wants to make things right again.
She clenches her jaw and starts to lift the lid. Pauses, looks back at the world she’s leaving. She stares at the moon, that bloodied eyeball staring at her. Judging her.
Then, she yanks open the lid.
A ghost of a memory traces its way along the edges. Light should’ve come out like water from a broken pipe, gushing all over her. She checks the inside, shocked that it’s so basic, shocked that the light that teleported here is missing.
“No. No, no, no…” Cora flips the box upside-down. Nothing. She grabs it by the lid and rotates it. She inspects the box’s bottom, sides, interior, even the protruding hinge. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. It can’t be! Cora slams the lid closed and yanks it open.
Why? This time, she can’t stop the tears from stinging her eyes. Warmth trickles down her face. Her vision blurs. She feels the heaviness of despair sink low into her gut. The full weight of her situation slams into her like a pile of bricks.
Cora growls and seizes the box by the lid. She slams it into the leaves over and over. Keeps going until her arm hurts, and then she throws it as far away as she can, tucking her knees into her chest and burying her head between them.
Seconds later, she shrieks.
Home is gone.