“Daina!” Thom yelled, bursting into my room.
“What? Geez! Knock!” I gasped, startled and irritated all at once. “I’m tryina think, here!” Actually, I was sulking, but it was the principal of the thing...
“I have figured a way out of here!” Thom said proudly, shoving the back of his hand in my face. “You may kiss my hand at will.”
Several nasty remarks came to mind at once, but I couldn’t stop one to throw at him for the confusion they caused me. “Okay, so what’s your big plan?” I asked, shoving his hand aside.
“Simple,” he said. “This doesn’t need to be real for either one of us. No matter what you tell me and how well you write this up, this is still just a story for both of us. Just leave it. That’s all.”
“But there are rules here, Thom,” I said. “If I break them...”
“Then you broke a rule and that’s bad, but you get to go home and be alive again. Which sounds better?”
“Uh...the second thing you said,” I replied.
“Exactly, now get off your ass already.”
I wasn’t sure why, but Thom’s idea definitely had merit. We were, or at least, I was, making this more difficult than it was supposed to be. Hypothetically, all I needed to do was believe I was back in my head and it would work. “Don’t we need to do something first?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“Like...I dunno, like some kind of ceremony or magic stuff.”
“Hell, no, let’s just go home,” Thom said. “Quit trying to make it melodramatic.”
“Well, the least I can do is tell Fallon I’m leaving,” I said finally sitting up. “Let’s go tell her, then give this a shot.”
“She already knows,” came her voice from the open doorway. “Be careful and tell my sister to keep mending her ways.”
Thom turned to look at me with a flourish. “Well?”
Damn, I thought. This really is too easy! I coulda thought of this crap the moment I walked in this joint! “Alright, alright, so we can go home and it was easy and I didn’t figure it out and you did, okay? Feel better?” I snapped.
“You are worse than Jerry with this superhero thing,” he smirked.
“I am not trying to...” I stopped, realizing that arguing a point is stupid when you’re drop dead wrong. “Let’s just go, shall we?” I said, in mock politeness, slipping a hand in his. “Fallon...” I said, not sure what else to say.
“Go before I’m discovered with you,” she said. She quickly moved over to us and gave me a hug before backing away.
I looked up at Thom saying, “She’s Naomi’s sister. We were kinda close for a while.”
Thom looked at Fallon in surprise. “You’re her sister? What, did you suck up all the nice genes in the family or something?”
“Thom...we were leaving?” I reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, shaking his head as if still confused. “Alright...it’s not real. None of this is.” And with that, Thom winked out of existence.
Somehow, I thought I’d be with him...
I took a deep apprehensive breath. “Okay, it’s not real. None of this is.”
The pregnant pause that followed was almost as unbearable as Fallon’s disappointed look. “Oh, Lady Daina...” she sighed, her voice filled with pity.
“Don’t,” I said, holding up a hand to stop her. Pieces of this puzzle were floating around and I needed a moment to piece them. Slowly, I began to understand.”
”This would work, it’s just...it’s just not as simple as Thom thinks. This is real because I let it be. By my thought alone, this place has validity. I can’t decide it’s not real for me because I MADE it real for me. What I have to do is undo its reality.” I thought again for a moment, trying to condense this broad span of thought. Within seconds, I knew what I had to do. “Fallon...I’d have to uncreate this place.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I have to go through and dismantle my memory of this place or it’ll be just as real as my being here,” I replied. “Remember when I got shot with that crossbow quarrel and stuff started disappearing?”
Fallon shuddered. “I’ll ALWAYS remember that,” she said.
“Well, you’re one of the few who do. Anyway, it’s the same premise, except instead of dying, I’ll just be deliberately forgetting this place...and everyone in it.”
The dawn of understanding came across her face, which was followed by an immediate sunset of full comprehension. “You mean me,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said. “On top of that, it hurts like hell to deliberately destroy memories, which makes two reasons why I’m not doing it,” I replied.
Fallon was silent a moment. “And that’s already happened, hasn’t it?” she said. “My dying or fading from existence, as it were, I mean.”
“What are you talking about?” I frowned.
“Daina, I’m sending you back myself,” she said determinedly.
“Fallon, you can’t; you’ll be dead yourself,” I protested. “Remember, you said they’d send you back to die.”
“I know that.”
“Well, then I can’t let you...”
“No, now for once, listen to me,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Don’t tell me what to do, just listen. All my life I’ve done nothing but what everyone wanted, following their rules and regulations, even here. It’s time for me to break some.”
“Fallon...”
“And, anyway, you can’t stop me,” she said, turning away. “I’m queen here, after all.”
She looked back at me and Fallon became etched on my mind, not as Naomi’s timid kid sister, but as a brave fairy woman willing to give her life for me. Man, I thought with a faint smile, I am really diggin’ this random character development thing!
“Whatever you say, Queen Fallon,” I said, curtseying low.
“Thank you,” she said, placing a hand on my head. “And I say you go home. Goodbye, Lady Daina.”
“Goodbye, Lady Fallon,” I replied, acknowledging a title she’d long since earned.
She smiled at me...and with that, I winked out of existence...
...and ended up everywhere at once.
I was in my room, but for some odd reason, I was also in the hall and Naomi’s
room and Christine’s room and in my laser sword and in my...
It was the strangest feeling of
being, yet not being at all. I saw Jerry and Thom and called out to them, but
they didn’t answer me. I could even see Josh and Stevie
glaring at each other...or, at least I could feel it. In fact, now that thought
about it, I couldn’t actually see anyone or anything...I could just feel them.
I could feel the magic in them, coursing heavily through Jerry and Josh and Stevie, coursing around Thom and giving him shape,
outlining Naomi’s room in brilliant hue...
Now I was starting to panic. At
first, this had been a great feeling, like being omnipotent, knowing all,
seeing all.
But the only people who could do that were
either psychic, dead, or God. I wasn’t psychic and, with my reputation, I sure
as heck wasn’t God...
And the more I thought about it, the
more impossible and implausible the idea became and I could sense myself falling
away...the more I fell, the more I panicked...the more I panicked, the more I
fell...
I wanted to cry out, but even that
helped to shatter my calm as I realized I had no voice to call out with...