The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.
-Charles Darwin
_________________________________
I watch the way that my hand grips the wheel as I turn off the engine. The way the fingers curl from the joints, the way that the tendons flex beneath the wrists, the ways that they respond to unseen signals that flick out from my mind and down into the limb.
The limb that was gone.
I don’t say anything as we make out way back to my apartment.
I’m not inviting her in. I barely know her. The fact that she already knew about this place is one of the only reasons I’ve allowed myself to bring her back here, to accompany her to this place.
But fuck no, I’m not letting her in.
I wonder at that, as I look at my home. It’s a nice condo. Cheap and always leaking out all the heating and filled past its intended capacity, but nice enough. I wonder how much longer I’ll live here, where I might go after.
I wonder at the fact that, up by one of the windows, I can see a little crack, the red behind it so very bright and glistening off the reflected light from the lampposts of the street.
I wonder at the fact that I don’t see that same visceral wetness anywhere else. None of the other houses have the cracks.
Just mine.
We make it to the steps of the building before I turn and sit on the top step, keeping her from entering.
She nods, shrugging. “Fair enough. I know you guys can be finicky about the old… whatchamacallit. The wizard tower, or whatever. Center of power.”
“I… don’t know what that means. You mean a sanctum? Sanctum Sanctorum?”
“Yeah, that.”
“That’s… technically more of a religious thing, actually. But sure, if that means you know you’re not coming in, then fine.”
On the road behind us, I watch police cars flash past, all three of the sheriff department’s finest chariots roaring down the street toward the source of the disturbance they were called for. Whatever defenses that Leisha mentioned being gone must have been impressive- even from here, in the dark and a bit more than two blocks away, I can see the deformations in the construction sites, the ways that two of the buildings have been torn apart and open.
It’s like looking at a pair of poorly butchered carcass, torn open as if by something rabid and far too strong.
Like me.
“So!” she says, flexing her shoulder blades, cracking her neck like an old habit. “I came here to figure out what the hell was going on. Didn’t want to hear that you went and blew up a condo right after we had our friendly little chat, and then I got close, and I wanted to make sure the big freak wasn’t just rampaging. I wasn’t all that surprised, finding a corpse there, but I was a bit curious when I say that body sort of… pull itself back together. Pretty advanced trick for someone who looks so spooked.”
“I didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
I sigh. “I didn’t pull myself back together. I think. I… wouldn’t know how. Also, pretty sure I was dead.”
“That your power, then? You come back after being mushed?”
I blink, cocking my head to one side.
“My power? What… the fuck does that mean? Does… what, does everybody get a special ability?”
Leisha shrugs, her hands out to her sides in a big gesture of “I dunno”. She’s very expressive- I notice that she spends a surprising amount of her communication using her hands, articulating.
“Dunno. You’re definitely not like my sort of style, and sorry, but I don’t really see you making something like the big dog.”
I can’t help it- I pinch the bridge of my nose, fighting against the headache that so yearns to make itself known. I take a long, slow breath.
“Ok. I’m assuming that the big dog, that’s the thing that…”
“Killed you.”
“Right, tore me open and ripped off my arm and made me bleed to death.”
“Yup. That’s big dog. Been in town for a while now, probably a few years, but it’s only been active the last few months.”
“And you mentioned that it was made?”
“Once upon a time, maybe. We don’t think it has a handler or anything, it just sort of roams around. This is the first time I’ve heard of it going after someone like it did, and I’d say it’s pretty obvious that we would be able to tell if it had done it more often. Considering the damage, everyone in town would know. It’s not exactly subtle.”
“More than you think.”
She tilts her head, prompting me onwards with a raised eyebrow.
“Just… don’t underestimate it. It’s smart. It can move slow when it needs to, be careful, and it’s clever enough to make tactical decisions.”
She shrugs. “You have more experience than I do, so I’ll take your word for it. Since that just means it’s even scarier than it would be otherwise, I guess that tracks.”
“Will it… will it come back for me?”
She doesn’t shrug this time. Her hands go into her pockets, hiding the most expressive of her motions. I don’t know if it’s intentional, a choice made with the intent to be subtle, or if it’s subconscious, hoping to hide her movements from me. If it’s subtlety, it’s not very well executed, but the idea that it’s something she’s doing without noticing is somehow more threatening- the idea of someone who knows so much more than me, the only person who might give me some assurances or information, having such a clear and human flaw.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know why it went after you in the first place. This is your first day out of your ‘sanctum’ since the big ripple, so maybe it just saw an opportunity, took a chance to get you alone. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. It’s not exactly easy to track- it’s got a den somewhere in town, but I have no idea where.”
Despite myself, my eyes dart to one side, then another. I haven’t heard any noise, that scraaaaaping sound, but the thought that it could return, that it’s been less than an hour since it left me…
I don’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t here.
I’m starting to become paranoid. Except… it’s not paranoia if I’m right, is it? Then it’s just a reasonable assumption.
If this isn’t the onset of PTSD, I don’t know what is. And, frankly, it would be strange of me to not have any.
I died.
I came back.
Hallelujah. Now, to suffer further.
“Well, this is all great news, but you haven’t actually answered any real questions yet. Hearing about how little you know about the thing that killed me, and how it might do it again at any time, isn’t what I’d like to call encouraging. So- what do you mean about the powers? Different ones?”
She shrugs, and this time, her hands are back out of her pockets, adding to the motion. “You seemed really confused when I took out the bracelet, so I don’t think you do that. And I can’t do what the big dog does. If there’s a single ruleset for all of this, I haven’t met it. Whatever you can do, besides come back from the fucking dead I guess, it’s probably not going to look like me. Hell, if something tore my arm off, I’d-”
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I don’t know if it’s something in my face, or in my posture, but she stops what she’s saying. Her hands follow suit a moment after, extended out into the air as if in the midst of a demonstration, before they too fall silent, back at her sides.
It’s cold out. I shiver a bit.
My jacket isn’t wet. I bled into it a lot when I died, but it’s dry. I wonder about that.
She lets out a breath, and it fogs in the air, a curling wisp of a thing that wraps back around her face before dissipating.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
It isn’t, but I don’t want to talk about it. Certainly not with her. Maybe not with anyone, ever.
My therapist would balk at the statement, but my therapist isn’t here. We haven’t talked in a while. She’s not my therapist anymore.
“Still, I’m sorry. That was… I mentioned a big ripple, right? A few days back? I’m assuming that you know something about that.”
I don’t nod, but I don’t deny it either.
“Well… point is, it was a big ripple, apparently. We- I dunno, it just seemed smart to check in on it. Figured that if anything that big happened, it happened because someone scary knew what they were doing. I wasn’t expecting you to be new at this. Came in with the assumption that you’re too big and scary to leave alone, so I went in, couple of safeties on, tried to get the lay of the land. You bluffed a good game, too. Impressed the fuck out of me, some excellent threat techniques.”
“Thanks. I practice.”
“I could tell. I walked out of there thinking we had some big shot move into town, just now got off a big ritual or something, and then got got by the big bad wolf-pig of the woods. If I’d known you were brand new to this, I’d have come to the situation differently. So… sorry. Again.”
“Mmh. Apology appreciated, and not accepted.”
Leisha shrugs, flapping her hands to the side and then back down with a satisfying “smak” onto her jeans. “Fair enough. Tough situation, tough start, and I’m still pretty sure you died and came back. Beat the record-holder too, far as I know. Last fucker that did it took three days, you didn’t even need an hour. And you came back clean, too. You should probably get some antibiotics, though, a lot of the blood that went back in was splashed out on the debris.”
I flex my hand, feeling the line of red around my elbow and bicep, the tension of the connection there.
Something wriggles at the motion.
Under the skin.
I pretend not to notice. I don’t know how well I do.
“So what is it that you want?” I ask. “Now that you know that I’m not some weird bigshot.”
“Well, jury’s still out on that, but now I know that you’re new to this. You probably need a little time, right? Get back up after that whole… event. I’ll leave you to it. I haven’t seen the big guy around during the day, so… maybe just stick to only being out with the sun, yeah? No guarantees, but since it didn’t attack before, it probably won’t attack you at home. And when you’re ready, sooner than later, give us a call, will you?”
She reaches out of a pocket, and holds out… a card.
Like, a business card. The sort I’ve only seen from businessmen and convention centers. The surprise of it actually pulls me back a little.
“Listen, it wasn’t my idea, alright?”
I can’t help it- I snort. But I take the card.
Written there, on hardened cardstock and with raised lettering, are a few short tidbits.
Dani John Silvester, Medium
Tarot Readings | Spiritual Assistance
By Appointment Only.
And on the back- a phone number and an email.
I laugh, this time. It comes out like a cough, like an exhalation of smoke, like a release of pressure and pain- and a consequence of both. It tastes like blood when I laugh, and my throat hurts.
“Sure. Maybe.”
Leisha nods, as if that’s enough. “Can’t ask for more, except that you not come after me with a bat later.”
I don’t respond. I smile, but it’s an instinctive response, a learned program more than anything real. Without another word, I get up, pulling myself by the arm that should not be, and find myself opening the door to my home, and then closing it behind me.
I don’t look to see if she leaves. I don’t care. She can stand out there all night and it would do little for me. I’m done. I have finished with this conversation, with this moment, with the cold air of the outside and the ringing in my ears and the way that my arm should hurt but doesn’t.
Because it’s not fixed. It isn’t healed. I know how my arm feels when it is whole, because I was informed, deeply and clearly, how it feels when it is broken, torn apart, pulped and pulled off of me. I didn’t notice it at first because the shape is right, the form of it is all fine and good, and instinct had me waving my dominant arm around without even a thought, but now? Since I got out of the car?
I stand in my doorway and look very carefully at the ring of red around my elbow and bicep.
It is scabbed, but not dried. It is like clay, like that kind of ooze that you can make with the right shaving cream and glue.
And underneath it, I can feel, ever so vaguely, the point where my skin does not meet itself.
I look closer at the arm, and I can see lines. Like little razor cuts, precise and polite, failing to bleed in any way and yet visibly wounds.
The ragged edges where my arms would, were, should be torn apart. I think, if I pulled, it would come apart. I could pluck and pull and tease away the illusion of sanity that my arm which is not whole implies, until the broken bones and red beneath it all are revealed.
But my fingers curl. My arm flexes. Bones that I know to be shattered into splinters flex and move as if whole, and it does not hurt. Not a bit.
I feel something move beneath the arm, right around the connection point between it and my body.
I take a long, deep breath.
I put the business card in my pocket, and let myself slide down the doorway, so that I can feel the hints of cold air leaking in from the bottom of the frame. I let myself exhale, just once, and then inhale again until my lungs hurt, until the bones of my ribcage feel strained.
And as the air escapes, no longer like smoke from a fire inside, but invisible and just as strangely warm… I speak.
“Show stats.”
I feel something move against my eyeball, like a muscle that should not be, and feel as much as see what forms on the inside of my pupil.
{MANIFESTATION OF [00000000]}
GENUS: HOMINIDAE HOMINIA HOMO
SPECIES: SAPIENS
STATS:
ADAPTATION
CANALISATION
EVOLUTION
SYNCHRONICITY
🔺
🔺
🔺🔺
ORGANS:
* CUTANEOUS
* HOMO SAPIENS SKIN
* SKELETAL
* HOMO SAPIENS BONE
* MUSCLE
* HOMO SAPIENS MUSCLE
* HOMO SAPIENS TENDON
* CIRCULATION
* HOMO SAPIENS CIRCULATION
* HOMO SAPIENS HEART
* RESPIRIUM
* HOMO SAPIENS LUNGS
* GLANDULAR
* HOMO SAPIENS LIVER
* HOMO SAPIENS PITUITARY GLAND
* NEUROLOGOS
* HOMO SAPIENS CEREBRUM
*
UNDERDEVELOPED [0000000000000]
* SENSORIA
* * HOMO SAPIENS SENSORIA
* DEGUSTATION
* HOMO SAPIENS DIGESTIVE TRACT
SKILLS:
* GLIMPSE BEYOND
MUTATIONS: N/A
SYMBIONTS:
* DIVINE BLOODLING
Well.
Here we go.
Rebuild the glass. Step back behind it.
You’re not safe.
You can’t break down now. Not anymore. Bury it. Prioritize. Now.
You’re still in the game. Still in that other world. You need to survive.
I need to survive.
I’m back in the fields of hair and bone.
I’m here in my home.
I’m not safe.
Here we go.