I turned back to the room and finally started to take in the details. A cute patchwork comforter lay on the bed using the colours of the American flag which followed through in the whitewashed pine furniture and the red and blue rag rugs that lay on the wooden floor. Pictures of boats on the harbor and trees in fall told me someone was a keen photographer in the house and I wondered if it was Lucy’s husband Denis.
As a whole it was so warm and welcoming that it put Mrs Collingwood’s ‘homely feeling’ rooms to shame. It felt safe and secure in a way I had never known and I found myself wishing I never had to leave. Even looking down at myself now and seeing how different I looked had me feeling a sense of belonging in this new world that I never thought I could have. But the guilt that went with any of these feelings had tears burning to break free. It wasn’t fair to feel this way when I knew Ari was still out there somewhere, or even worse, a prisoner to those monsters of nature.
All of these new things I had only ever dreamt of experiencing them with Ari, so walking out of the bathroom to find all of these clothes to choose from was conflicting. I had felt my heart leap at seeing all the colours and soft comfy materials but then the pang of regret would hit and all I could see was a pile of clothes that would look great on my sister.
In the end I had pulled on a pair of jeans that despite the dire circumstances still had me smiling at the feel of denim once again. I then picked up a T-shirt that still had the tags on as Lucy had said. It had Route 66 written on the front which I covered up with a soft grey knitted sweater that had a big rolling neck and long wide sleeves. Looking at myself in the mirror for the first time dressed like this had me staring open mouthed in utter shock. For the first time in my adult life I looked …well…normal.
I had even plaited my hair to one side deciding I never again in my life was wearing it in a tight and uncomfortable bun at the base of my neck. Looking at me now no-one would have guessed the life I had run away from but one look at that dress Lucy had washed and she knew. Her face said as much, so when she brought me back seconds I wasn’t surprised when she started asking questions.
“Your car wasn’t stolen was it?” I almost choked on my food at this point.
“It’s okay, I understand why you would lie about it, after all I can imagine that the Amish lifestyle isn’t for everyone.” My first thought was the guilt I felt in lying to someone who had helped me but then confusion took over and I had to ask,
“Amish? What’s that?” After this question it was now Lucy’s turn to frown.
“You mean you weren’t in an Amish community?” My face must have said it all.
“But your dress and…” I decided it was time that I confided in her.
“I escaped from a deeply religious Colony that me and my sister Ari were forced to go to when our father died in a car accident.” Lucy gasped in shock and this is where my story began. I told her everything I could remember, sparing her the gruesome details when I could. I ate my food as she asked questions and left out anything unworldly as I didn’t think she would believe me if I started accusing the Fathers of being Vampires. The only reason we knew what they could be in the first place was thanks to some monster cartoons we used to watch as kids before life at the Colony began.
I told her about only being able to leave once we had hit the right age, shocking her when I told her mine as she must have thought me much younger. I decided to warp the truth and said that my sister and I had this choice taken away from us so we knew the only hope we had was to leave. When she asked about my sister was when I found myself breaking down and admitting she had been recaptured just after I had made it over the wall.
Lucy talked about going to the authorities with this information but after I explained that everyone is controlled under fear and that they were unlikely to find any proof of my allegations, she agreed it wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“So what are you going to do?” She asked once I had finished the last of my meal. I put down my spoon and looked out the window before answering with the only plan I had.
“Ari was in contact with someone from the outside. I know if I can find him then he will know people that can help us.” Lucy gave me a nod and then said,
“I know what you need.”
“What’s that?” I asked smiling when she took my tray. She stopped just before leaving and said,
“Dessert…oh, and the Internet.” She then winked at me and left me wondering what was an ‘Internet’?
Lucy spent the rest of the day teaching me a crash course on the computer, eating lemon meringue pie and being introduced to the marvel that was Google. I couldn’t believe you now had a library at your fingertips and could learn about everything at the touch of a button! I wanted to go crazy on it and I would have if Lucy hadn’t been there. She thought it best if I go slow and first start to learn more about ‘her’ world as I kept putting it.
Being born in the early 90’s meant I still knew about the existence of computers but by the time we were forced into the Colony having personal computers in your home meant having a TV with a keyboard, mouse and a computer tower plugged into it.
Our father had one in his office at home for work and he allowed me and Ari to play games on it every so often, which was probably why it felt so natural to me after being on it after only a few hours. Even if this was the case, I still couldn’t get over how small and compact they now were. Lucy told me that since laptops came down in price hardly anyone these days bothered with ‘Desktops’ which I gathered meant the one like my father had.
I just remember Ari playing a game called Lemmings and getting angry when all her little men went splat off a cliff.
“Ari would have loved this.” I told Lucy when she showed me a few of her favorite sites. She loved one called Pinterest where she got most of her recipes and craft ideas from. She also talked me through ‘Social Media’ and explained sites like Facebook and Twitter. She told me this was how she stayed in contact with her daughter Kelly and also one called Skype where they could actually see each other through ‘Video Calling’. It was all amazing to learn about and I was in awe at how far the world of technology had come. But then there was the other side to it all, the one I chose not to speak to Lucy about as I didn’t quite understand it myself.
It was the strange feeling that as soon as I was shown something new it felt more like I had just been reminded instead of seeing it for the first time. Almost what I can imagine waking from a coma was like and being reminded of the life you had been sleeping through. I tried to ignore it but the more she showed me the harder that became.
“I must say, you pick things up really quick.” Lucy had commented proving to me that it wasn’t just all in my head. I guess if I was to really think about it then a lot of things didn’t seem that lost to me but more like simply forgotten. Even the clothes I was wearing felt more natural to me than if I had been wearing that horrid dress for the last eighteen years. The food, the smells, even the shower had all felt like life had at last found me again and I wondered if there was more to these feelings than I allowed myself to believe.
Using the laptop now was no different than Ari suddenly being able to drive the way she did last night. How was that possible after a lifetime of living together and never once seeing her in the driver’s seat of a car or me with a laptop on my knee, yet we had both taken to it like old times? None of it made any sense and it wasn’t long before I was given the time alone to think about this.
Lucy had left the room to make dinner for tonight and no doubt in time for when her husband Denis returned home from work. She had left me with the laptop to continue exploring and given me enough tips about looking for someone on the Internet. She had tried asking me questions about this ‘friend’ of Ari’s but when I couldn’t answer any she just patted me on the knee and said,
“I am sure it will come to you.”
After that the answer had been clear and was exactly what Ari had tried to tell me. I needed to let my
dreams and visions guide me and pick up on the clues they were trying to tell me. I needed to recap and think back to everything that had happened in them. If only I had paid more attention to the smaller details. However, that had been hard because as soon as a certain male figure had stepped into the room all thought process had been solely focused on him. Every single thought dominated by a man whose name I didn’t even know and someone I believed evil enough to kidnap the other side of me in my dreams. The whole thing was as crazy as it got but unfortunately the reality of the matter was, it was simply all I had to go on.
So I thought back to my most recent vision and after a nervous shudder, typed in Google the only words I had to go by…
‘What is Afterlife?’
Chapter 9
The Lonely Road
How had this happened? How had I messed up so badly to find myself back here again. I couldn’t remember what it had been that I had done wrong but if I was back here then it must have been something unforgivable.
Once again I found myself walking down an empty road to nowhere feeling as though the weight of the world lay on my shoulders. Well at least this time there was no storm to soak me to the bone and I looked down to realise that they thankfully let me keep the clothes. How could I not remember? Had I upset Lucy, my new friend…my only friend?
I looked straight ahead to see the endless road that held no answers but only more questions. Ones like ‘Where was I going?’ and ‘How would I get there?’ I knew I needed to be somewhere, I could feel it as though it was connected with my soul. As though something was calling me home. I wanted to believe I could get there, I really did, but the uncertainty was overwhelming my belief.
It was because of what Ari had said to me in the car. That haunting sentence that warned me of things I knew were to come.
A truth I knew I didn’t want to face.
‘Our whole lives Kay…it was never real…we were never real!’
How could she say we were never real? How could she do that to me?!
“WHY?!” I screamed at the road in anger only hoping she would be there at the end of it to answer me. Because that’s what I needed, answers not more questions. But more importantly this was the time I most needed to believe in myself and how could I do that if Ari didn’t? It was infuriating and made no sense why she said any of what she did that night. I was caught between two frustrations of both wanting to grab her and hold her close when I saw her again and the other was to shake her so hard she would realise her mistake.
If only she had grabbed my hand. If only she had trusted me to take care of her. If only…
Wait, what was that?
I squinted against the fading light as night was quickly seeping in ready to take the place of the sun. It looked like a figure walking towards me in the distance and getting closer. Where all the cars were on this road I didn’t know but like me the person was mirroring me by walking dead centre at the same pace.
I wanted to run to the person, knowing somewhere deep inside they were here because of me. I wanted to run as fast as I could thinking that on some small prayer that it could have been Ari but then logic started to seep in and I started to ask myself how she would know that I was here. So I continued to walk as the other person did. It felt like some act of rebellion that neither of us wanted to back down from. Two lone people out meeting each other in this deserted part of the world. The closer we got to one another the more the light died and night was all that was left to greet us.
So with the details lost I had no choice but to wait until the bitter end to see who I would come face to face with. They walked with purpose the same as I and I wondered which one of us would break first. In the end we both did and we starting running at each other at the same time. I felt my pulse beating against my skin as I strained to make it to the figure quicker. I ran and I ran, over and over just like I had done that night but the closer we got to each other the less and less it made sense. Because just before I could stop myself and before that point where I could comprehend what I was seeing I ran straight through the mirror before me.
Glass exploded all around me just like it did that day in the car, only this time I could see my own terrified expression reflecting back at me printed on all the tiny shards. I had run straight into the mirror that divided our worlds and as I burst through to the other side I stumbled onto the floor. I looked down at myself feeling no injury but still needing to check. I was amazed to find not one scratch on me and I looked back to find the locked doorway between our worlds had finally been destroyed.
“I did it.” I said out loud speaking for the first time in my dream world but the most important question remained…had I been heard this time? I got up from the floor and looked around the room I knew well. It was the same one I had been living most of my nights locked on the other side and trying to find my way into for the last eight months. This was the room I had witnessed what loving someone could make you do.
It was the room he had locked her in and stolen from her soul time and time again. It was her prison and his hands had been the shackles that tied her to the bed. Her Demon jailor that…that…
“No, that doesn’t feel right.” I said aloud when my thoughts started to trip up on themselves. Suddenly thinking that way no longer felt right. Why was that? What had changed that meant bathing him in that light just felt like painting the truth with lies. I looked to the bed and saw my naked body spread out shuddering in rapture. I blinked back the vision and felt like something was crumbling away in my mind. It was as if I was stood on the edge of a canyon and had to keep walking backwards as the floor cracked beneath me.
Suddenly my small world started to open up around me and it felt as if I had finally started to open my eyes to her world. I turned as though that world was pulling me to do so and I walked towards the glass doors that led outside. I touched the glass not ever expecting them to push open as you would have thought. Nor was I surprised when they simply disappeared into the stone wall either side.
The cold wind testing my skin only made this world feel even more real and I sucked in a quick breath in shock. Not shock at feeling the air blowing through my hair or the even the smell of being surround by nature. Not the shock that it felt like I was actually here for the first time since the obsession began. But shock at seeing the beautiful sight before me that felt like it had been lost long ago.
“I have seen this.” I said knowing it was true. This sight that felt like I had once fell in love enough to paint it and I didn’t even know how to paint…did I? It was a stunning vista of oceans of green. Rolling mountains and sweeping valleys that looked touched by the Gods. But which Gods were those I wondered and why when thinking about them did I no longer feel any fear.
I stepped up to the railings and instead of looking down at the immense drop I knew was there I understood that’s not what I was here for. I had never known where this place was in the world or if it even really existed but none of that mattered. Because something pulled me to look to the sides and see what the building looked like and it looked like a castle. I frowned as soon as the thought entered my mind as though it knew the assumption was wrong.
“No, not a castle…home.” This is where she wanted me to go. This is what Ari was desperately trying to tell me. I had to find this place, I knew that now. I had to do everything in my power to try. Because I was no longer scared. I couldn’t be because Ari couldn’t afford me to be. I didn’t know who these people were or what I might find when I finally knocked on their door but I knew one thing, if Ari believed they were the ones who could help me save her, then that was what I would do.
I just wish it had been as easy as seeing the address written down or why a vision couldn’t tell me as much?
“But you know why, don’t you?” The sound of his voice caused my breathing to hitch. I felt his presence right behind me but knowing he was there didn’t prevent me from flinching when I felt his touch for the first time.
“Easy.” He warne
d softly placing his hands on my shoulders and the weight of them scared me, knowing the power he held within. The touch of his fingers when they found the bare skin beneath the sweater I wore caused me to moan and the shock of it prevented my head from falling backwards against him. All I wanted to do was sink back into him and let him finally hold me the way I had always craved. To be the one to feel his touch now was…well, this was what breathing for the first time felt like. Breathing free and safe was the only way to explain it.
“Where did you go, Vixen?” He asked hypnotising me with his commanding voice that at the moment was velvet smooth hiding the rawness that I knew lived there within him. I had seen it, the beast with wings he kept controlled and buried until the time came to release them upon the world. Was that what he needed me for, or did he believe I was her again?
“I know you.” He told me, whispering his promise near my ear and I felt his lips form the words against my skin. His hands squeezed my shoulders before releasing his hold enough to caress up my neck, holding me still firmly in his control.
“You left me…why?” He hissed out the accusation as his grip tightened around the column of my neck. I thought this was it, my moment in this hidden world was coming to an end and I would take my last breath in it by his hands. But his grip simply became a constant reminder that he could apply pressure at any moment and end it all.
“I…I…never left you.” I said this knowing it was true as I knew I never could. How I knew this I didn’t know but it still didn’t take away the truth behind every word.
“Are you coming home?” He asked and this time I let my emotions win. My head fell back into his chest and I felt the tears flow up and over. Because my next words were too much for me to bear, they escaped on a whisper that broke me…
“I’m trying.”