005

5. V

Eden awoke slowly. For a moment, she had no recollection of last night's events, and a wave of panic rushed over her. Moments passed, and it all slowly came back to her. I’m in another dimension...and people are trying to kill me.

She lay in the soft bed, watching the darkness of her private chamber, trying to think of something else, but it was hard to distract herself from the intense anxiety. Still groggy, she crawled her hand across the soft sheets of the bed and fiddled with a switch on the smooth, navy blue bedstand. The dark tinting on the ceiling and the walls faded away a bit, giving her a shielded glimpse of clear blue skies.

Momentary snapshots of her previous life flashed in Eden's head. Ted and Mary Gardener had been her parents. When she was 13, they told her that they had adopted her when she was just a newborn, but they’d always known that she had been the child that God intended them to raise. The three of them had lived a quiet life in the suburbs of Greensburg. Her parents were simple, kind people, so Eden always just did her best to keep them from worrying. She never told them about the nightmares about dark men that plagued her, or the other strange things she experienced as she grew up. And then, one year ago, a drunk driver collided with her parents’ car on their way home from the bowling alley, killing them instantly. Eden was still in mourning, not only from the loss, but from knowing deep down that her life would never be the same again.

Mom...dad... she thought, tears welling up in her big eyes. I miss you so much.

The more she cried, the weaker Eden felt. Shaking away the sad memories, she tried to focus on something positive: memories of the strongest woman she’d never known, a woman named Victoria. When Eden was a small child, she remembered being visited frequently by a friend of her parents: a tall, beautiful woman with long black hair.

Once, when they were playing basketball in the driveway, Eden fell and skinned her knee on the pavement. As she started to cry, Victoria knelt down beside her and whispered softly to her.

"Other kids may cry when they get hurt, but you don’t need to, Edy. You’re different. Look back down at your knee, and remember: you’re unbreakable."

Eden can still remember what it felt like to hear those words – as if the wound had just disappeared, as if it had never existed at all. She stood back up, grabbed the basketball, and went right back to playing.

I always wondered if maybe she was my real mother.

Eden pulled herself out of bed and rolled her T-shirt up. She could remember her pursuer’s bullet blazing across the side of her stomach, but there was no longer any trace of the wound, not even a blemish.

I’m different, Eden thought, lightly skating around the unsettling truth that she’d worked so hard to hide from many different people over the course of her life. She’d even made sure to hide it from Cliff during their car ride. But am I really strong?

Wiping sweat from her brow, Eden moved over to the wall and twisted a dial on the nearest vent. Crisp air drifted through the tinted æsotech walls, and for the first time, Eden realized how clean and empty her bedroom was.

Aside from the bed, the bedstand, and a strange console in the corner which Eden didn’t know how to use, the room was bare. There was a small alcove with a large panel near the bed, which she hoped led to a bathroom and a shower. Across from it, on the other side, was the dark panel she’d used to enter the room after Cliff got called back by the Seneschal.

Eden moved up to the door. It looked like a plain sheet of plastic encased by a thin white shell, flimsy enough to break with one’s bare hands. As she touched a finger to it, the door vibrated and let out a dull sound. She put her palm on the plate next to the door, but it generated no response. Even slamming the door didn't budge it, and she was left with nothing but the echo of that unnerving vibration.

I’m trapped, she realized in horror, stumbling backwards. How could I have been so naïve?! Parallel dimensions...I actually believed that? They're going to keep me in here, and... Tears began to stream down her cheeks. Oh my God...

Eden covered her face with her hands, breaking down, just as a muffled voice called out to her from the other side.

"Miss Gardener?" It was the Seneschal’s voice. "I came to see if you’d like to have some breakfast. Is everything alright?"

You’re unbreakable.

"Y-yes, I’m fine..." Eden murmured, pulling herself up. "But I don’t know how to open the door."

"Understandable, since it requires psynergy to open," the Seneschal replied. "If you don’t mind, please allow me."

A moment later, the panel disappeared, and the Seneschal carefully walked inside. He was dressed in the same cloak-tunic as before.

"Miss Gardener?" The Seneschal noticed Eden’s swollen eyes. "Oh, my. You seemed to be adjusting well earlier, but perhaps the shock was just a bit delayed. But really, you don’t need to worry. You’re in good hands here."

She rubbed her eyes. "Am I...really?"

The Seneschal took a step back. "What's gotten you so shaken up?"

"I thought I was locked in this room...that I was being kidnapped or something. What’s going to happen now? When do I get to go home?"

"Home..." The Seneschal pursed his lips. "An interesting question, Miss Gardener. Of course, we have no right to imprison you against your will, and the choice is yours. But I believe you would be very unsafe if you decided to go back to Earth. In the meantime, if you would be so kind as to let us guard you, I’d like to devote some resources to figuring out why exactly you were being pursued in the first place."

Eden listened to the Seneschal carefully. "What's Cliff going to do?"

Tao’s warm eyes remained focused on Eden. "He'll be heading to Despair shortly to retrieve something. Despair is his homeworld, but he's had...some rough times there. It may prove to be a painful journey for him."

"I’d like to talk to him," Eden said abruptly. "Once more, before he leaves."

The Seneschal smiled. "That’s perfectly acceptable. I can call him right now, and we can all have breakfast together."

"Okay," Eden grinned, feeling some warmth rush back into her face. "Oh, but before that..." She ruffled her T-shirt awkwardly. "I, uh, really need to take a shower."

"Right. The private bathroom is right back there. Let me show you how to use it. There's a vortex pool, a steamer, a massage shower..."

Eden raised an eyebrow. "Umm, I don’t know what any of that is."

Tao put a palm to his forehead. "Of course you don’t. Okay, let’s start from the beginning."

Eden chuckled a bit, scratching her hair

*************

relentlessly, as if searching for some unseen object. Gazing into the mirror above his dresser, Vance saw a tall young man who was neither thick nor thin, with a small, yet developing gut.

Nothing special.

He gazed at the clock on his bedroom wall. It was 8 AM – far too early, considering he’d spent most of the night pouring over Caskett’s diary. But none of it made much sense. No matter which entry he read, it always seemed like he was missing the vital pieces that tied everything together. Caskett’s writing concerned clocks, dimensional portals, alien races, energy auras, and lots of other elements one would expect to find in occultic essays.

If Naomi ever saw it, she’d flip, he thought with a smirk.

Vance walked across his room to the window shades and opened them. Rain again. His room had always been a cluttered mess, but he felt it’d gotten worse in the past few weeks. He was always stubbing his toe or tripping over something.

Finally, Vance’s eyes floated over to his desk. Sitting in the center of it was the clock, right where he placed it after he got home the previous night.

The mechanism’s hour and minute hands were clearly moving, but not at the same rate as any other normal clock. At this moment, the hour hand had just passed the XII mark, continuing its steady rise toward XIII. Vance glared at the object, trying to tease out its purpose, but he found nothing save for the reflection of his own monochrome eyes.

Frustrated, he grabbed some clothes from a pile on his floor and shambled out into the hallway. His head shot to the left as he heard glass shatter downstairs, reviving memories from the previous night. He heard Naomi let out a curse and snorted. Such a hypocrite.

Quickly dressing himself in a drab white shirt and blue jeans, Vance searched through the mess for his black jacket. The left sleeve was now torn, and he could see dark crimson bloodstains lining it, but he still put it on. It was the last thing his mother had ever given him.

Downstairs, Naomi was cleaning up a broken coffee pot on the floor. As soon as Vance came into sight, her eyes moved up to meet him.

"You know, I think it's about time you got a haircut."

Vance made no sign of recognition as he walked past her, then opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice. He made sure to hold the container in perfect sight as he began to drink, tilting it high above his body like a rebel flag.

Naomi went on. "Anyway, I called and made you an appointment this afternoon. You need to get rid of that rag. Just get a buzz or a crew cut, those are so much easier to deal with."

He paused his drink just enough to spit out a cold reply. "I like my hair how it is."

I've lost my temper with her so many times before. It's not worth it. And on top of that, dad never sticks up for me. I won’t let that bitch control me.

"Your father agrees with me, so that's the bottom line!" she declared.

Vance returned the carton to the fridge. "I don't really care."

"Hey, don't argue with me." Naomi turned around, her lips furled. "Whether you like it or not, I’m your new guardian now, and young people need to respect their elders. It’s in the Bible!"

"No." Vance revealed an evil sneer. "I'm going to get the last word this time."

Naomi rose from the broken coffee mug. "Stop talking."

"I'm going to get the last word."

"Stop talking!" she screeched.

Vance stood his ground with malicious glee, arms folded across his chest. It felt so good. "I'm...going to get the last word."

Naomi walked up to him, raising a finger. "You’re such a little shit..." she muttered. "Go away, and don't talk to me ever again!"

"It has to be mutual," Vance replied. He could smell her horrible coffee breath.

"Don't talk!!" She was livid.

"It has to be mutual, you can't talk to me either." The more he felt like he was getting to her, the more his smile widened.

Naomi threw her arms up in frustration. "NO MORE!"

"Naomi, I hate you." The words smoothly rolled off his tongue. He’d been waiting so long for this.

"You made me this way!" she rasped. "You made me this way, do you like me this way? You must, because you're the one who made me this way!"

At that, Vance threw his head back and let out a mad laugh. When he opened his eyes, he saw Edward Darcouver standing in the doorway to the kitchen. A pang of shame shot through Vance’s mind, and he stifled himself.

"If you two are done bickering, I have an announcement to make," he spoke, looking disdainfully on the broken coffee pot.

"Hold on, dad," Vance spoke up. "There was something I wanted to ask you. Do you remember the Casketts? Remember how they used to come over when I was a kid?"

Edward gave his son a confused, tired glance. "Not right now, Vance. This is something really important. I’ve been promoted. Starting next week, I’ll be the new director of public affairs at the Zexaron Corporation."

Naomi moved over and embraced him, then stared over at Vance with piercing brown eyes.

Vance made a sour face. "So what?"

Edward continued. "Due to the promotion, we need to move to California right away. Bakersfield, California. Their new headquarters is out by the oil fields there."

"Ca-li-fornia!" Naomi sang the words as she squeezed her husband. "How exciting!"

"That’s right," Edward said with a smile. "They’re going to cover all the moving expenses, so we can leave immediately."

As Vance listened to the last line, his head and shoulders slouched forward, and time seemed to grind to a halt. The wind had been taken out of his sails, and then a tsunami had come along and obliterated the boat.

"Vance?" Edward asked in an incriminating tone. "Aren’t you happy for me?"

"Of course," his son replied through gritted teeth. "Mom would be so proud."

Next: A Razorlike Blue