I LOVED this book. I loved it so much I bought a hard cover copy so even if the world ends I can still read it by candlelight in an underground bunker somewhere.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?”

Check out ‘Ready Player One’ here.

I don’t know where I am.

I can see a city skyline across the river. Dimly lit from the glow of collective streetlights, the skyscrapers are shadows against the night sky, black on black. They show no light, as though the power were collectively out throughout the buildings. I don’t recognize their configuration; this is not MY city.

The river is wide and dark. Unlike the skyscrapers this DOES show light from the distorted reflections of the moon and stars. Unfelt breeze gives the water the appearance of living ink, writhing between it’s banks. What cities have a river running through the heart of them? Chicago? It smells like a city river, that’s for sure – death and chemicals. I scan along its visible length, but if there is a bridge stretching across it is lost to the darkness.

The cul-de-sac I find myself in is old, dilapidated; the pavement beneath me, gray in the orange streetlight, is pockmarked and crumbling, shot through with a thousand cracks and fissures of differing size. Bits of trash and errant newspaper skitter like nocturnal creatures across it’s surface. All of the lots surrounding it are empty, either fenced off or covered in post-demolition refuse and dirt.

Except one.

A red brick building stands before me, a monolith of architecture in a desert of urban decay. How tall is it? Ten stories? Fifteen?   It’s difficult to judge in the dark and I don’t think to count it’s windows until it’s much too late. At any rate it sits only slightly set back from the sidewalk, spaced from the street by two flowerbeds full only of short dry weeds and dust.

An awning colored a green only shades lighter than the night rests above the doors. It’s curved in the classic style, a quartered fabric bubble to keep patrons dry on rainy days and shaded on sunny ones. It’s frame and posts, formerly gold or brass, I can’t tell, is tarnished to a dull brown. Flakes of white paint are visible on the rough fabric but any semblance of a name has long been lost. Time has made it anonymous.

I take all this in without realizing I’ve approached it, slowly moving with  measured steps of unconscious observation. Only as the shadow of the coarse green awning blocks out the glow of the nearest streetlight do I  notice I’ve stopped just at the threshold to it’s entryway. A short walk, paved in brick muted with age, leads beneath the awning to the most notable aspect of the building.

Floor-to-ceiling glass lobby doors stand inset beneath the awning, their beveled edges lit warmly by interior lighting beyond them. Brass handles, each oversized and mounted so they appear to float against the glass, have been rubbed free of tarnish at their most common contact points; while the rest of the building is aged, these doors have been opened often.

A short swell of euphoria sweeps me as I gaze through them; for through the glass doors is not a typical hotel lobby, nor an atypical one. Instead there is a room only five feet deep and inset slightly beyond the width of the doors. Paneled in rich dark woods (cherry? stained oak?) and ringed with waist-high clean brass bars rests a simple, elegant elevator.

The carpet is a rich maroon inset with a  slightly shorter camel-colored design. The inset seems common and unoriginal, a small solid diamond surrounded by a larger open one. Some corporation’s representation of an eye, perhaps? I don’t recognize the emblem.

The curiosity of the thing intrigues me. What sort of building is entered only by elevator? Was it built as some art-deco architectural experiment? A failed 20s-era exploration of futurism? These thoughts fire and fade, congealing into a single driving impulse:

I must explore it.

After all, what harm can come from an elevator ride? At worst it could stick and I would need to be rescued, a problem easily remedied by my cellphone. Or it could rise and then malfunction, plummeting me to my death. I assume these scenarios unlikely given the clear maintenance it has undergone. Thin lines mark the carpeted floor, revealing a recent vacuuming; the railings too bear faint streaks of fresh wiping. It met all my unconscious expectations of what I felt a well-maintained elevator should appear as.

I reached a tentative hand forward towards the glass door on the right. I expected it fully to be locked, thus ending my exploration of the peculiar building. Instead I found the oversized brass handle to be infused with a surprising warmth and the large transparent door to pull outward easily and with little resistance.

The air which rushed out was warm, but not unpleasantly so, and faintly scented with a smell I thought I recognized but couldn’t place. Music which had been muted entirely by the doors was now faintly audible as well, though again I couldn’t place the song beyond generic soft jazz. It was here I hesitated momentarily at the threshold, door propped open by outstretched arm.

Should I really be doing this? After all, peculiar building or no I was still at a loss of where I was at or how I’d gotten there. Rationally speaking, I should pull my cellphone out and get a cab to the nearest police station or hospital. Still holding the door I reached into my pocket and withdrew my cell.

The clock read 3:47 AM on November 25th. So that explained my weariness. The signal strength readout, on the other hand, was empty. No service. I dialed 911, which every cellphone should be able to reach regardless of network, but got nothing but dead air.

Well that answered that. If I was going to straighten this out I needed a phone, and the nearest building with power was my best immediate option.

Shoving the cell back into my pocket I stepped into the elevator.

…….

The plushness of the carpet was surprising and momentarily distracted me from the silently closing glass door which bumped my rear end as it closed.

“Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya,” I muttered to myself absently.

I gawked as I rotated. The elevator’s interior was richer than it appeared from outside, but in an understated way. The wood paneling was polished in a way that it brought it’s flaming into a vibrant, almost three-dimensional manner. I recognized the wood itself as koa, an endangered grain grown only in Hawaii and extremely expensive. The panels seemed to float from the wall of the elevator by a gap of an inch or so, an effect I assumed was created by a clever system of rear mounts. The brass railings were polished so vibrantly I could see my bent reflection repeated in all of them.

The button housing was of the same polished brass with each floor number represented by a rounded cream-colored button that lit orange when depressed.   I ran my hand down the length of the button assembly, my loose fingers making quiet clacking noises as they drug over the buttons.

Beneath the primary buttons was a small second set featuring a row of three additional buttons. Depressions in the brass above these labeled them as “open door” to the left, “close door” to the right, and “call” as the center button. Beneath them was a round grilled hole which I assumed housed the “call” speaker.

Unlike the more modern elevators I was accustomed to, this one was missing the “emergency phone” which would automatically dial the fire department. Taking note of it’s absence, I pressed the call button. A slight tone murmured from the speaker punctuated by a lapse before sounding again. This took place four times before the tone was cut off with by an audible click.

“Hello?” I leaned slightly towards the speaker, “my phone isn’t working and I seem to be lost. Is there any way I could use your phone, or have you call someone?”

I waited for a response but none came, save a slight crackling static. It sounded to me like the kind of sound a vinyl record player makes as it plays “silence.”

“Hello?” I said again.

Nothing.

I pressed the “call” button again. This time the speaker clicked off, taking the quiet crackling sound with it. I pressed it a third time, but nothing changed.

So that was that.

Abandoning the call button I opted for the “1″ button. This illuminated momentarily at my press before darkening again, but the elevator did not respond.

Glancing around, it dawned on me that a collapsed accordion-style wrought iron door stood to the right side of the elevator’s threshold. I had seen doors like these in old films before and something at the back of my mind reminded me that some elevators would not operate without these guard doors being closed. I grasped the handle and pulled at the gate. It’s heft took serious effort to maneuver but it pulled across the opening with far fewer squeaks than I would have expected given its apparent age. This time when I pressed the “1″ button it remained illuminated and the elevator doors, paneled in the same brass as the handrails, slid quietly closed.

A swelling hum filled the room around me and with a gentle jerk I felt the elevator begin it’s ascent. Above the now-sealed door a panel of numerals labeled from “G” to “14″ stretched the length of the mantle, mirroring the design of the floor buttons. “G” was illuminated briefly, but winked out as the “1″ lit.

The elevator did not stop here, however. The “1″ blinked off as well, and the elevator slowed to a stop as the “2″ illuminated.

I glanced between the button I had pressed and the illuminated mantle markers with an uncomfortable sense of confusion. the “1″ button I had pressed remained illuminated, but above the doors it was the “2″ that was lit.

A soft tone sounded and the outer doors opened onto what appeared to be an innocuous hotel hallway. Through the grating I could see lush carpet colored dark blue-green running the length of the door-lined hallway, continuing around corners to the left and to the right at the end of the hall, carrying it from my vision.

And hanging on the wall at the far end of the hallway, a white courtesy telephone.

I shrugged off the elevator stopping at the wrong floor as a malfunction of age and pulled the elevator grating aside which gave off a ratcheting sound as it collapsed. Passing into the hallway the elevator doors slid quietly shut behind me.

The hallway was chilled, but not uncomfortably so. The faraway hum of air circulators was present as a sort of white noise but other than that it was silent.

I started down the hallway at a comfortable pace as my mind wandered with debate: should I call my wife first, waking her at this late hour? Or should I call the police? Or medical professionals? I didn’t seem to be the victim of any sort of assault, but my memory loss was damned peculiar.

So mired in these considerations was I that when the first noise came I was so startled that I actually jumped enough to separate my feet from the floor.  Spinning wildly around it took a moment for me to recognize the snap-buzz of an ice machine’s compressor turning on somewhere nearby. A common thing in hotels, to be sure. Perhaps if I hadn’t turned when I did I would never have recognized that something was amiss. But my mind was sharp enough to catch on to what I hadn’t consciously recognized, and a nagging whisper crept over my returning equilibrium.

Something was wrong.

I looked around again, slower this time, even as I sought to assauge my murmuring paranoia. “You were just startled is all,” I told myself internally. But it wasn’t just the noise. A creeping dread had begun to sprout within. With a blink and a tilt of my head I divined what my warning heart was trying to communicate.

Since I had left the elevator, eyes mostly on the blue-green carpet as I debated who to call, I had passed perhaps a dozen doors on either side of me. Yet the perceptible distance to the white phone at the end of the hallway appeared equal to what it had been at my dismount of the elevator.

“That can’t be right,” I said to myself, audibly this time, and turned to count the doors I had passed. A quick mental tally came up with thirteen, as did a second counting aided by my pointing finger.

Thirteen rooms passed, yet no closer to the phone. How could that be?

BANG!

This second noise startled me far more than the first had. Something had hit the door behind me and to my left so hard from the inside that it rattled on it’s hinges.

BANG!

Another impact, this from two doors down to my right, causing me to jump again.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

All around me the doors rattled with blows filling the once-quiet hallway with a deafening cacophany. Instinctively I pressed my hands to my ears, startled beyond rational thought at this sudden chorus of violence.

And as suddenly as it began, it ceased.

My hands dropped from my ears slowly, as though they distrusted this sudden return of silence. My heart pounded in my chest and my breathing had increased to a startled pant. Yet there were no more sounds to be cowered by. The hum of the ventilation system was the only thing audible. Calm disbelief tried to reassert itself, rejecting what had just happened. “It was a hallucination. You’re worse off than you realized. You need to call for help. Get to the phone,” it told me, a voice so much like my own I was inclined to believe it.

I looked from the phone to the elevator and back again. Would it be more worthwhile to try a different floor?

A click and a creak drew my attention back down the hallway in the direction of the phone. One of the doors just down the hallway and to my left had clicked open and drifted ajar.

I had never known a door to open by itself. “Hello?” I inquired.

Milky white fingers curled around the door and pulled it open farther, revealing only blackness. Then my wife, hair wet , in a terrycloth robe stepped forth from the gaping aperture.

“Honey? Where have you been?” she asked, rubbing an ear with a hotel towel.

I looked her up and down, momentarily overwhelmed at the possibility I had become somehow confused. But even as my hopes mounted they were dashed just as quickly. Extending out from both her bare feet her pinky and fourth toes were taloned and webbed together, far more reptillian than human. These alien appendages stuck out far beyond her other ootherwise-normal six.

She belched and the skin of her face rippled outward, as though effervescent bubbles were rising beneath the flesh. She uttered a low chuckle.

“Oh excuse me,” she  said demurely even as the sound of her voice changed into an off-pitch chorus. “I’m just so HUNGRY,” she emphathized the last word as the flesh of her face began to bloat and melt, sagging like warmed wax. Her chin and cheeks drooped to rest on her breasts, stretching her mouth and eyes into elongated ovoids. Her shoulders too began to droop, but at an outward angle, so that her torso began to grow broader even as it shrank.

The doors began banging again, this time in rhythm.

I was held in place more by shock at the bizarreness of the thing than I was horror. That came a moment later, and in that moment the monster who had been my wife had already started towards me.

Voices began chanting from behind the banging doors.

“Hungry!”

BANG!

“Hungry!”

BANG! BANG!

“Hungry!”

BANG!

Fear took over my impulses so that my torso turned and began escape independently of my feet. By the time mental impulse caught up I was already twisted and leaning into a stumble towards the elevator.

Oddly, the creature didn’t increase it pace. It continued to walk as my sprint put hallway between us. The chant from the doors rose in volume,  as did the banging.
“Hungry!”

BANG!

“Hungry!”

BANG! BANG!

I arrived at the closed elevator doors and slapped at the call button repeatedly. With a tone the “G” indicator lit above the doors.

“Where are you going baby?” the monster mewed in it’s multi-pitched voice. It’s stroll was almost casual as it approached. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back.” The skin of its arms split with a sickening tear extending thick insect-like hair.

Ding! the “G” on the indicator darkened and the “1″ illuminated.

I pressed my back to the wall next to the elevator call button; the hallway here was a dead end, the elevator being the only way of escape.

The cheek of the creature shredded, revealing a line of black needle-sharp teeth who’s length would have been ridiculous had they not been approaching me. Along its body the skin cracked and tore like brittle paper, sloughing off in ragged sheets. Beneath was something furred and simian, it’s pelt slick with moisture.

“Aren’t we going out for dinner?” the thing taunted.  Now its scalp was beginning to fall away. It raised one of its hands, still abhorrently appearing fully human, to pull away chunks of hair and skin before my eyes.

With a clunk the elevator doors next to me opened followed by a muted tone. The monster, seeing my way of escape arrive, flared its eyes and roared, collapsing onto its knuckles and dropping into a hurried quadrupedal gait. Keeping myself against the wall I rolled my body until I cleared the threshold, slapping blindly at the button panel. The button on the panel illuminated, but the doors remained open. With a curse I lunged for the wrought iron gate and wrenched it closed. The bronze doors slipped closed even as the monster made a wild leap towards me. The car shook violently as it collided with the closing doors.

The elevator began moving up.

My thoughts were jumbled and incoherent. It had all happened so quickly my mind was only beginning to process what I had seen. My wife melting into a monster? Voices screaming from behind doors? Was I hallucinating? Or perhaps there had been an accident and I was lying in a hospital bed, locked in the confines of some coma-induced nightmare?

These considerations and more sparked through my head like a lightining storm as I sat cowered in the corner of the quietly ascending elevator. It didn’t cross my mind to see what floor I had pressed in my haste until the elevator slowed to a soft stop and toned my arrival. The doors sighed open beyond the gate as I looked to the floor indicator.

8

The space illuminated beyond the threshold of the elevator was nothing like the second floor had been. Stained and divoted concrete spread away from the elevator doors as far as the dim light stretched and seemd to continue off into the darkness. At a great distance, much father than I would have thought possible  given the exterior of the building, bland streetlights stood as sentinels spaced in such a way to leave vast oceans of darkness between them. After my most recent encounter I was hardly inclined to attempt exploration. Stretching forward from my spot on the floor I pressed the “G” button. This illuminated and the elevator doors drifted closed. There was a slight jerk to the car before the elevator began to move this time. But move it did, and I felt the near-imperceptible motion as I descended.

The “G” illuminated above the doors which parted to reveal not the street with its short sidewalk, green awning, and dilapidated pavement, but the same dingy concrete and lights hanging amidst the ocean of darkness of the eighth floor.

Bewildered, I looked above the open doors again. The “G” was clearly lit, though there was a bit of a flicker and wink to its light now.

“No,” I muttered to myself, “No, that can’t be right.”

As if in response the elevator doors extended a quarter of the way out of their recesses and slipped back again. The quiet arrival tone repeated as if to say “Ding! This is where you’re going whether you like it or not.”

Placing my hands on my knees I thrust myself upright and stepped to the button panel. I pushed “6.”

The elevator doors slid shut momentarily, and then opened with a ‘ding.’ The ‘G’ on the floor indicator winked out and the “6″ immediately illuminated.

I felt panic begin to trickle down my spine like icy water. I shoved the “5″ button. The doors slid shut, toned, and opened again, illuminating the “5.” I pushed “4″ “3″ “7″ “9″ all in rapid succession. The doors flapped back and forth in their recesses while the indicators above them blinked like a carnival ride. The “ding” sound stuttered in staccato bursts, each tone raising my heartbeat higher. In desperation I pressed my palm to the button board and slid it the entire length, depressing all of them simultaneously.

Nothing.

Silence.

The elevator buttons all glowed faintly but the doors remained recessed. The floor indicators on the threshold stayed darkened, and no tone sounded. In my panicked state I felt a surge of satisfaction  at my accomplishment, though I couldn’t now tell you what I had actually accomplished.

Then, with a squeak, the gate wrenched itself open.

I recoiled away from the opening with a panicked scream and pressed myself as hard as I could against the wood paneling at the rear of the elevator car, brass handrail digging into the small of my back above my buttocks. Up until that point I think I had been holding to a hope, however remote, that there was a rational explanation to what I had seen on the second floor. Hallucinations. Something.

The elevator wasn’t done though. It dropped and rose with a sudden lurch that sent me sprawling. Another lurch and I pressed myself spread eagle to the carpet. A third and I yelled in reflex “STOP!”

It did. All the lights on the button panel winked out.

I rose gingerly to my hands and knees, apprehensive the car might lurch again. It’s didn’t. The message had been made clear enough:

I was getting out on this floor whether I liked it or not.

“And if I don’t go?” I asked aloud, glancing at the corners of the roof for cameras. Maybe someone was controlling it…

The small speaker grille below the buttons crackled to life. Just a click and that scratchy quiet static.

But… that wasn’t quite right. There was a rhythm to the cracks and hiss now. Barely, but I could hear it. I crouched to put my ear near the speaker.

Mixed in with the white noise was a single whispered phrase, barely audible. It repeated over and over again, quietly sighed in the same intonation.

“Please,” it sobbed, “please, I don’t want to die.”

In my voice.

A new tingle of fear crept across my skin. I had never uttered these words. This couldn’t be a recording. It was too real, too raw. This was… well…

This was how I was feeling right now.

I patted down my pockets, checking their contents. Just my cellphone. I looked at it, screen still showing no service. It wouldn’t do much, but it was better than nothing.

“So, you want me to go out there?” I asked the air in the elevator. My fear was being joined by a second emotion: anger.

The arrival tone dinged. Nothing lit up.

“Cute,” I said.

I stretched one tentative shoe beyond the threshold. The floor seemed solid enough. I waited to see if something would attack my outstretched foot; nothing did.

The arrival tone dinged again. The car lurched a little, throwing me off balance and stumbling forward into the dark. Even as I was regaining my footing the doors slid shut silently behind me,  swallowed from view. A lone floor indicator (showing “8″) was the only visible sign of the haunted elevator.

And was that what this was? A haunted elevator, floating me around in the dark? Or was there some more likely solution?

Now that I was out in it, the darkness seemed even more cavernous, to the point of exterior, like being in a mammoth parking lot under a sky with no stars. The air was stale and still, yet faintly scented with something I couldn’t place. Like a mix of dust and nutmeg.

In the distance I heard the skittering of a piece of trash blown by the wind scraping across the pockmarked concrete. And beneath it…

Beneath it another sound grew. A rumble so low I questioned at first if  an earthquake wasn’t beginning. As it grew in volume I realized that while the ground was vibrating, the sound wasn’t an earthquake but a growl.

Lights began to appear, floating above the sporatic streetlights. The same dim orange as the elevator indicator lights, these lights descended in the darkness until they hovered twenty feet or so above the ground. There was a secondary vibration as something large impacted the ground, and the lights began to hover towards me.

I stepped back to the elevator, groping in vain for the up and down buttons. Instead a second floor indicator light illuminated and they blinked as eyes, rising into the air. The wall which I was groping at began to writhe, rising as though lifting the lights. I tore my hand away from the movement but in those brief moments of contact I registered how it felt – segmented, scaly, hard.

From somewhere in the darkness scampering rats appeared in droves, swarming around my feet and running in all directions. Whenever one of these caught the edge of one of the streetlights they burst into squealing flames. The scent of charred hair began to overcome the musty air.

A deafening roar came from the floating lights and they rushed above me all at once, colliding with whatever used to be the wall. The displacement of air was tremendous, like being passed by a bullet train, and I was thrown to the ground from the shock of it’s impact alone. The thing’s body toppled several streetlights. Oddly, they continue to operate, casting burning cones of light onto the thing’s body.

From what I could see, for the top of the body is lost beyond where the toppled lights reach, the creature had a snakelike body covered in armored insect-like segments, black as pitch. I caught only a glimpse of the thing before it rose and I began running along with the swarming rats.

A bellow issued from where the elevator had risen and I could see the indicator lights lunge at the other creature. There was a tremendous impact and I was thrown to the ground, my fingertips glancing off a cone of light as I fell.

The burning sensation was immediate and excruciating. I jerked my hand reflexively to see that the ends of my pointer and middle finger were gone, burned away and cauterized about a half inch back into charred stumps. My fingernails on those fingers had blackened as well and the smell of my own scorched flesh rankled my nostrils.

Even as I impact the ground I’m was battered by flying rats as they too were thrown by the shockwave into writhing mammalian piles all around me. My own screams are lost in the volume of another roar as this time the behemoth and whatever the elevator has become slam into each other as juggernauts. A segmented tail whistles just above my head and scrapes more streetlights from the pavement, scattering them like spilled toothpicks. A third tremor, the largest so far, hurls me into the air and onto my face.

The ground vibrated momentarily before calming. I could hear no scraping sounds beyond the scampering of rats. Shaking loose some the vermin that still clung to me and I climbed to my feet to glimpse the black segmented body stretching out unmoving in the remaining streetlights. Above me in the air the elevator hung, doors half-open, rising and falling softly as though breathing. The illuminated indicator lights appeared to hover just above the apature, as though peering down upon me. Then, in a rush, the doors opened wide, and like a gaping maw rushed towards me. Instinctively I cowered, body bracing for the deadly impact rushing at me. My eyes clenched shut against the inevitable…

And with a soft ding I heard the elevator doors whisper closed.

I was back in the elevator, cowered into a rear corner shaking with fear and adrenaline. Other than the typical electrical hum there was no other sound. The indicator light above the doors said “8″ and the gate was pulled shut.

I screamed in anger and kicked out my legs against the far panel. The release felt good so I did it a couple more times as hard as I could. They rattled against their sockets, but my blows did little more than scuff them.

The elevator dinged and the speaker began to emit the distorted trill of a telephone ringing. It rang once, then twice, and with a click I heard a garbled answer.

“You’ve reached Sean’s phone. I’m not going anywhere, and you probably won’t see me again. But you can leave a message anyway.”

My voice. My phone. But not my message.

“So that’s it?” I cried out at the empty car. “You’re going to hold me hostage indefinitely? For what?”

With a tremor the car began moving again. No indicator lights lit up.

So it was going to keep me until it got whatever it wanted. That much was clear. But something else dawned on me as well.

Both hallucinations or appritions, whatever they were, only took place when I was OUTSIDE of the elevator car. In fact it FORCED me out the second time.

Which meant if I stayed in the elevator, maybe it couldn’t hurt me.

That wasn’t a solution through; I’d starve or die of thirst. I had to find a way out.

I peered all around the ceiling but saw no signs of a maintenance hatch. Sliding my legs around on the floor yeilded no telltale bumps as well. I hoped my movements were nonchalant; I didn’t know if this thing could read my mind, but if it couldn’t, I didn’t want it to know what it was up to.

So an access hatch was out. What about an emergency stop, or getting the doors open in some other manner? It seemed to operate only when the gate was closed. Could I open the gate somehow and force it to stop? And how could I buy enough time to try it?

The car seemed to be descending, but I couldn’t be sure. I would have to try and catch it unawares.

“Ok, my turn to pick” I told the empty room.

I pressed “14.”

The “8″ illuminated immediately above the door and I felt the elevator slow, stop, and then begin ascending.

Six floors to go. Would it be enough time?

I scurried over on all fours to the button panel. Pulling my cellphone from my pocket I slid the battery compartment door from the chassis and returned the backless phone. Using the edge of the battery door as a screwdriver  I attacked the four brass screws at the corners of the battery panel.

As I worked fervently the elevator showed no signs of reacting to my behavior. Floor after floor lit and darkened.

Nine.

Ten.

Eleven.

Twelve.

The twelve had just winked out when the final screw came loose. Pushing off with my legs and rotating my body to build as much force as I could muster I yanked at the paneling. Wires popped and snapped as the force of my lunge tore it free from the electrical system, buttons and all.

With a squeal of tortured machinery the elevator lurched to a halt. I was thrown to the floor unceremoniously by the sudden deceleration and plunged into darkness.

Clambering to my feet I yanked the gate back for fear the elevator would begin moving and I would lose my opportunity. Then pulling my cellphone from my pocket I returned the battery backing to it and clicked a button to illuminate the screen, and in so doing, my surroundings.

The button housing had tumbled into a corner of the car when it stopped. I picked this up and examined it first.

The interior side was initially much as you would expect to see. Each button was secured to the rear of the housing by a threaded nut, with soldered wires trailing from each button housing. (Though some of these wires had been torn of by my sudden attack.) These wires trailed until they were bound together in a sort of “trunk” by a plastic ratcheting band. This trunk was what interfaced with the rest of the elevator, and it was here the normalcy ended.

Due to the force of my pull some wires had been disconnected while others brought with them their interior connections. These were not more circuitry elements as you would expect. Instead the wires ended in fleshy purple sacs, most torn and leaking a noxious smelling liquid. One or two were intact and I found them both warm and revoltingly pulsing to the touch.

Tossing the button paneling aside I turned my dim illumination to the interior housing I had torn it from.

Inside the housing looked more like roadkill than a machine. More of the terrible smelling liquid, purplish-blue in the light of the phone, was pooling in the bottom of the recess and dripping down the wall. Dozens of clustered sacs hung wrinkled and dripping like deflated testicles. A few remained intact and felt warm to the touch.

The sacks clung to a fleshy interior wall that was shot through with blue and yellow structures like veins. Knuckled extrusions like thin fingers ran between the sacs and the veins. Some of these too had been torn and leaked the purple-blue goo.

Leaving the horror that was the open panel behind I turned to the door. I had seen people pull open elevator doors in the movies but didnt know if it was something I could do myself. I opted instead to try to find the maintenance hatch in the roof. Retreating to the rear of the elevator I hoisted myself up, first one foot, then the other, so that I could stand on the brass railings with my back in the corner. Using the heel of my hand I smacked at the ceiling paneling for as far as I dared reach but found nothing. Switching corners and repeating the process also came up futile.

Back to the door then.

I probed the seam between doors with my fingers. It was difficult but not impossible to find purchase once I applied enough pressure to push into the rubber seal some. Bracing my foot against the opposite doorframe i pulled with all my might. Slowly a gap opened between the doors, first one, than two inches. But before I could go further my initial strength gave out and I had to let go. The doors relaxed shut and I stood panting with exertion.

Knowing now what would be required I again curled my fingertips around the elevator doors beveled edge and braced myself. This time I pulled more steadily rather than tugging. When I gained enough space to slide my shoulder into the gap I did, and used the extra mass of my body to help press the doors back into their recesses. Inch by inch I gained an opening until at last I was able to fit through and stumble out onto the thirteenth floor.

I fell forward on my hands and knees. The floor beneath me was hard and cold and made a loud clanking sound as I fell onto it. All around me was a sound like distant shuffling papers, as though there were a million people sorting office documents at the bottom of a canyon.  Pulling my phone from my pocket I illuminated the screen and began to examine my new surroundings.

I had fallen onto a catwalk of some kind, the sort of thing you expect to see in the roofs of theaters. Barely wide enough for one person, it was unpainted black iron with waffled flooring that allowed me to see through into the nothingness below. Guardrails to either assisted me in gaining my feet but stood too low to be of any real protection, rising barely past my knees. It continued off before me into the darkness.

“Hello?” I asked into the space. My voice echoed a dozen times before the sound of it drifted away. The whispering shuffling noises continued.

A slow moan swelled to fill the cavernous space until the catwalk shook with the volume of it, as though a whale were growling like a dog.  I knelt to keep my balance and clasped my hands over my ears against the sheer decibels. Then just as it had begun the roar trailed off and the shuffling returned.

Clearly, I was not as alone as it seemed.

Turning back to the elevator I found that the doors had drifted shut behind me. Remembering my experience on the second floor I removed my shoes and pried the doors open enough to slip them between. It wouldn’t keep them wide open, but would prop them open enough to give me a head start if I needed to get back inside.

As I turned to regard the catwalk a glint of white caught the edge of the dim throw of my cell screen. Holding it to the up/down button selection panel I saw a third unlabeled white switch below them. I took a deep breath.

“What the hell,” I muttered to myself, and flicked the switch.

Light suddenly blazed above me as brilliant fluorescent lights successively snapped on with a bark like a thrown breaker. I squinted and shielded my eyes from the sudden change in luminance. This illumination was accompanied by a second trailing growl and with my hands smashed against my ears I beheld the true horror of my situation.

The cavernous space was crowded everywhere I looked with enormous vital organs. Dingy wet pinks and purples shot through with yellow pulsing veins as thick as my thigh met my eyes at every turn. Some were piled on top of each other so close that they almost reached the catwalk, while others were so far away I can only guess that they were clinging to the exterior walls of the building itself. Thick grey umbilici crisscrossed above and below me, thick as treetrunks, their foggy translucent surface revealing darker masses moving at a constant rate through them.

The catwalk ran from the elevator straight through the midst of these growths to a door; a real honest-to-goodness matte green door with a burnished silver knob at the far end. What lied beyond that I could only hope was my freedom.

A third bellow, this more sinister than the last, brought with it a pressure on my mind. I felt the creature for the first time. Its hatred, its disgust at my puny existence was so powerful it was almost like a physical force, pushing me to my knees. Seething rage and contempt at my grotesqueness washed over me in waves leaving me gasping for breath. I fell to my hands and knees, panting with the force of the attack. And with the attack, I now understood.

The building was the creature’s camouflage; a dispisable but necessary disguise that allowed it to hide in plain sight. The elevator was real, but was the only physical apparatus within the four walls. Functioning as its gullet, the elevator was a bridge between unwary travelers and the beast, drawing them in through various means and allowing the creature to feed off of the traveler’s most base emotions. Just as it had drawn countless others in it had now captured me, intent on feeding off my terror through its induced hallucinations until I died, at which point my body would be absorbed and the elevator would return to ground level.

The thing was little more than an animal, drawn to our planet by our penchant for suffering, a collective psychic beacon that reached far further into the depths of space than we would have realized. How it came to inhabit the building or who might maintain the elevator for the beast I knew not.

What I did know was that I had only moments to escape.

Sprinting the length of the catwalk I heard another of the beast’s growls begin building. My attack on the elevator had damaged it somehow; stunned it. I had only moments to act.

Flinging the door at the end of the catwalk open I gazed out into empty air. The access door had opened four stories up. Far below me and off to my right was a garbage dumpster. Beyond that was only darkened concrete, dirt, and beyond that, the river.

The growl behind me began rising in volume, and I made the only choice available to me.

Even as I threw myself into the night, hoping my trajectory would carry me far enough to land in the dumpster and  debris I had sighted would break my fall enough to live, the question crossed my mind: What if this were just another trick? The beast revealed its true nature and concocted this elaborate fantasy to allow the truth to inspire further fear in me?

I felt the building wave of hatred dissipate behind me as I cleared the threshold into the frigid air. The dumpster rushed up at me, and then…

darkness.

Original artwork by austinevan. Used with permission.

“Our hope is to bring you a beautiful, twisted, and dark collection of images that will showcase the amazing talent of legendary scream queens, slashers, monsters, directors, FX artists, and of the minds and talent that have created nightmares for decades.”

Brighten your evening by checking it out. But be warned, a shot or two are NSFW.

http://thebloodybestproject.com

Sit down. We need to have a talk.

Are you sitting down?

Good.

So… I have a confession to make.

I’m… wow, this is harder than I thought it would be.

Ok. <whew> I’m just going to say it:

I’m not going to write short stories for awhile.

It’s… it’s not you, it’s me. I’ve been going through a lot of… changes recently.

And, well, I’ve been seeing someone else.

A novel.

I didn’t mean it to happen, ok? It wasn’t on purpose. I still like short stories and all, we just… drifted apart a little. And then I downloaded this program. It was just a demo. I never meant for it to go further. But, well, one thing led to another, and I kind of liked it. I liked how the novel was treating me. It made me feel special. It took me dancing, and out to nice restaurants. It bought me flowers. Told me I looked nice. That kind of thing.

We’re not moving in together or anything. I’m not ready for that kind of commitment just now. I’ve been hurt before. But I really want this to work. So I’m giving the novel until July. Like a ‘try before you buy’ scenario. (And yes, we’re using protection. Why would you even ask that? Gross.)

Short stories aren’t going anywhere, either. They’ll still be free and right on the site where they’ve always been. And it’s not like I CAN’T do one now and then. I’m not closing that door completely. To prove it, I’m going to leave the price of each STRANGITIES Collection at $.99. Permanently.

In fact, it’s actually a good thing. It also allows me to add something to the site I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now:

I’m adding a blog.

Nothing big at first. Not like Gawker or anything. Just a few posts here and there. I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff in my day, and I’ve wanted to share it with you, I really have, but I didn’t feel like I could post it on a short stories website. But now that me & the novel are together, I’m ready to take more chances. Be more adventurous. So I’ve added it to the menu. You can check it out now. I’ve already put something special in it for you.

2012 is gonna be a good year. Until… you know… the world ends.

Over the course of time I’ve built up quite a few garage recordings in various states of completion under the moniker “Dark Places” For a while there I was close to releasing an album called “Dislocated” with my buddy Bret (some know him as Blue Stahli) producing. I laid several demos down, and we even finished a few of them. But I got tired of working on it and let it go. Still, as the years have passed I’ve continued experimenting with music as a hobby. These are a few of the tracks I’ve done over the years. I’ve even made the songs recorded for “Dislocated” available as a digital album here. I hope you enjoy them.

Dark Places by DarkPlaces

Cordelia Zelmanova rolled her eyes at the mention of Randy Bellfore, Allswood High School’s resident weirdo. The ‘school tool,’ a phrase of Cordelia’s own authorship, was NOT what she wanted to hear about first thing in homeroom on the opening day of her senior year.

The inquirer, a shorter girl with mousy brown hair, (Band geek. Name was… Evelyn…? Elenore…?) was looking at Cordelia with a strange, almost expectant expression, as thought Cordelia would obviously know what she was asking about.

Cordelia calculated her response internally. E-girl was going to be her homeroom partner all year, so they would have to be on at least cordial terms. But she also needed to know what was acceptable behavior and what was not.

And opening Cordelia’s morning with a conversation about that freak Randy was DEFINITELY not acceptable.

“Nooo,” Cordelia replied with a measured mixture of sarcasm and contempt. “Why would I have heard anything about that freakcase?”

E-girl’s eyes grew and she recoiled as much as her stool would allow. (Good. Dominance established.) “Oh…” she sputtered. “It’s just… I figured, you know… with it… like… you… and all…” her eyes flicked to Cordelia’s body and then back to her face.

Cordelia kept silent and held her measured glare. (Get with the program, girlie.)

“I… I’m sorry,” E-girl said quietly.

Cordelia smiled and patted the girl’s hand. (It was just like training the Shit-Zhus; punish bad behavior immediately, reward good behavior just as quickly.) “It’s ok. No harm done.” And now the smooth subject change… “Who did you get for math?”

E-girl opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off completely by Judd Peck’s head thrusting between the two of them. Judd, (amateur motocross rider;  football team tight end) who sat behind the girls, had thrown himself bodily onto his table to achieve the feat.

“Mornin’ Cordie,” he said, maintaing his grip on the table so he could tense his biceps in a show for her.

“Good morning Judd,” Cordelia said with a roll of her eyes. She opened her notebook and did her best to seem as though she was looking for something in it.

Judd ignored Cordelia’s ignoring. “So crazy about Randy, right?”

Cordelia’s hands had slapped the table on either side of her notebook before she realized she had even made the movement. From the corner of her eye she saw E-girl jump visibly even with Judd’s head in the way. She turned on Judd with vehemence.

“WHY does everyone want to talk about RANDY this morning?” she asked Judd, her biting tone far less restrained than it had been with E-girl.

“Ohmygod you don’t know?” Judd asked with an expression of confused surprise. “Did you not get the text?”

Cordelia’s phone was in her purse, on silent. “What text?” she asked.

Judd reached back and pulled his phone out of his jean’s pocket. He flipped it open. “Ooooooooh man I can’t believe you don’t know,” he was chuckling now, poking at his phone. “It’s so royally fucked up…here.” Judd held out the phone to Cordelia but a voice from the front of the room stole both their attentions before she could get a good look at the message.

“Is that a CELLPHONE you’re holding Mister… Peck, is it?”

While Judd and Cordelia had been talking their homeroom teacher Mister Wilson had entered from the front and the entire rest of the class had grown quiet.

“Uh,” Judd pushed himself back across his table and onto his stool, his face red. Cordelia whipped her head around to face forward. “Yes, Mister Wilson.”

Mister Wilson, a shorter balding man with glasses that looked like they were from 1973 stood behind his desk at the front of the class, an annoyed expression on his face. He gestured to some words written in the upper right corner of the whiteboard behind him. “Now, you’re on the football team Mister Peck so let me inform you of what this strange collection of lines written here says. It says ‘All Cellphones Will Be Confiscated.’ So congratulations on being the first of this year. Bring it up here.”

The rest of the class broke into quiet murmurs which Mister Wilson didn’t seem to hear. Instead he held his gaze on Judd as the boy left his table and walked the aisle, setting his cellphone gingerly onto the teacher’s desk. Mister Wilson snatched the phone up with a speed one wouldn’t have expected from someone of his apparent fragility and threw it into a drawer in his desk, slamming it shut with a bang that caused the whole class to jump. Judd returned to his desk, everyone avoiding eye contact with him.

“Asshole,” he muttered as he passed Cordelia and E-Girl’s table.

Mister Wilson turned to the whiteboard and began to write his name, giving his introductory lecture. Cordelia looked back over her shoulder at the glaring Judd.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed silently, putting on her best sad puppy imitation.

Judd nodded to her and flicked up his middle finger at Mister Wilson’s back.

“And that’s detention, Mister Peck,” Mister Wilson, back still turned, said.

Cordelia crossed her arms on her desk and tried to appear to be attentive, hoping to do some damage control with Mister Wilson. It was in this position she could feel very clearly when her own phone, set to vibrate, went off in her purse.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

She counted the buzzes, each indicating a text message.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

The buzzing finally stopped at thirteen.

Curiosity crawled through Cordelia like kittens. Just what the hell was going on? And what did it have to do with that scuzzbag Randy? She bent crooked hoping to ask E-girl, but even at the slight movement Mister Wilson (who Cordelia had already begun to refer to as “THE Wilson” in her mind) cocked an eyebrow at her.

So no cellphones, AND no talking. Perfect. This guy was from the stone age.

…….

Her fifty minutes of homeroom seemed eternal to Cordelia. He phone had buzzed three more times at random intervals but she didn’t dare look at it. After his initial back-turn The Wilson kept his eyes on the class the entire time. When the bell finally run Cordelia was practically shaking with pent-up questions.

“Ok, tell me what the fuck is going on,” she whirled on Judd before the bell had even finished ringing.

Judd opened his mouth to speak, but Mister Wilson interrupted from the front.

“Mister Peck, please join me up here so we can have a chat about what we’ll be spending our time on this afternoon.”

Judd’s face darkened and he rose from his stool with a glade at Cordelia.

Seeing she was one of the last students in the room, Cordelia began frantically gathering her things together. She didn’t dare pull out her phone until she passed from the threshold of The Wilson’s class, but even as she walked from her table to the door her hand was already fishing for it in her purse.

“See you later, Judd,” she told him with what she hoped was an apologetic look.

Her clamshell phone was out and open as her heel hit the hallway. Sixteen messages.

“OMG Randy is n my HM with it RIGHT NOW!”

“Have homeroom w tool. Looks just like you WTF?”

“Can’t believe Randy! Did u know?”

“Just saw it! LOL”

All sixteen messages were variations of these themes. But none told her WHAT Randy had with him. Cordelia read through them again, hoping for some clue, but there was nothing.

The natural cacophony of the hallway was so much white noise as Cordelia walked oblivious, absorbed in her phone. Yet through it all her ears picked out a specific whispered phrase she caught as it’s murmurer passed her.

“Wait… shhhhhh. There she is.”

She looked about her wildly, seeking the source. He eyes settled on the backs of three girls walking together, one just turning from her over-the-shoulder gaze at Cordelia  to join in a giggle with the other two. Cordelia recognized the the three girls from all the times she had gazed hate into the backs of their heads hoping they would catch fire. She had sworn she would never talk to any of them, but she was desperate.

“Brittney! Wait up!” she called out, causing more than one uneasy glance from passerbys; her loathing of Brittney Delouise was well known amongst the student body.

The group of girls paused and turned in unison, their eyes cold and dangerous.

Brittney, the tallest and blondest of the three, smiled like a wolf regarding a chicken coop. “Good morning Cordelia. So nice to see you again,” she said. The other girls erupted in giggles at this.

Coredelia ignored whatever dig Brittney was trying to take at her. Though now that she had her attention, what could she really ask her? Cordelia was off-balance, but she had to ask SOMETHING.

“Did you do… something? With Randy, I mean?” she asked, instantly cursing herself for how stupid she sounded.

“Oh honey,” Brittney took on a look of mock pity, “I’M not that one that’s been doing things with Randy.” Brittney’s entourage giggled hysterically at this.

Cordelia pushed the issue. “Just…. just tell me what is going on.”

Brittney folder her arms across her breasts. “You really don’t know, do you?” she asked.

Cordelia shook her head, hating feeling this weak. She should have asked someone else…

The warning bell rang out. Second period was starting in five minutes.

Brittney eyed the buzzing speaker above the lockers. “Well I’d hate to be the one who spoils it for you. Come on girls, we better get to class. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of Cordelia today.” He friends burst into laughter at that, and they turned their backs on Cordelia to continue to class.

Flames of rage leapt hot and quick in Cordelia and she smashed the base of her fist into a locker behind her. Britteny’s dismissal wouldn’t be forgotten, but she was out of time. She rushed through the emptying hallway to enter second period just as the second bell rung.

…….

Her math teacher was less strict than Mister Wilson by a mile, but Cordelia knew school policy was to take cellphones if the teachers saw them. Still, she had absently kept hers in her hand during her exchange with Brittney and her goon squad. She thumbed it open out of sight under her lab table and tapped out a quick text to her best friend Staci by touch.

“U kno wut up w randy?”

Her phone throbbed twice in her hand almost instantly. Propping her chin in her hand and resting one elbow on the table as though she was boredly listening, she glanced down at the glowing LCD screen.

“OMG Sams n his HM Sayz hes got a doll of u – Staci – GO MUSTANGS!”

A doll of her? Cordelia didn’t understand.

“Wut u mean?” she sent back.

“Sam sayz Rndy has doll that look like u n wheelchair. Talk 3rd per. Wilson eying me. – Staci – GO MUSTANGS!”

So that was it. Randy had brought some kind of doll with him that looked like Cordelia. His infatuation with her since Junior High had been an irritation that Brittney and her crew had pestered Cordelia with often enough during cheer practice, but THIS was a new level of freakazoid, even for the Tool.

“Cordelia? Is everything copacetic?”

Mister Zimmer was standing at the front of the class, eyes bloodshot (likely from his most recent joint) with a look of concern on his stubbled hippie-face. Cordelia realized several of the class had turned around to stare at her at his questioning of her downcast scowl. She put on a smile she didn’t feel.

“Oh yes, Mister Zimmer. Everything is fine,” she told him.

“If you’re feeling funny you can go to the nurse,” he offered.

“Thank you Mister Zimmer. I’m all right,” she answered.

“Ok, if you’re sure.”

Mister Zimmer turned back to his whiteboard and continued his lecture on angles, but Cordelia didn’t hear him.

A doll?

…….

Her phone continued to buzz with variations on the “LOL just saw it” theme throughout second period. Cordelia ignored most of these, but one from Bryce (fullback, football team) set her on edge even further.

“Randy said I can try you out sometime! LOL”

Zimmer’s introduction to geometry barely registered to Cordelia as little more than background noise. She was seething inside.

Whatever Randy had with him was going to ruin her. Everything she had worked so hard to achieve – her place on the cheerleading squad, her position as one of the school’s elite, the control and respect her presence demanded – was now on the chopping block.

And it was all Randy’s fault.

The bell rung signaling the end of the period. Noise of a thirty backpacks and sachels being zipped and gathered swelled to an immediate crescendo. Cordelia scooped her binder up and dumped it into her book bag as quickly as she could.

She only had ten minutes to track down Randy and put a stop to this before third period. The longer this continued, the more she was in jeopardy. And if she didn’t end it by the end of the day…

“Cordelia…”

Mister Zimmer called out her name as she filed out of the room with the other students. She stopped and turned.

“Yes Mister Zimmer?” she asked. This was NOT a delay she needed.

“I’m…” he started and faltered, frowning as though at a loss for words. “I’m sorry if you’re having a difficult day.”

His statement caught her off guard. “Oh, thanks Mister Zimmer,” she said dismissevly.

He continued to look at her, frowning; she stood there clutching her backpack, wishing to be anywhere but there. The moment descended into awkwardness.

And she realized:

He knew something.

“That’s all Cordelia. You can go.”

Cordelia wanted to scream. She wanted to grab the man and get in his dull, stubbled face and holler “TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!” It felt like every nerve she had was electrified.

But that wouldn’t be proper behavior.

That wouldn’t be Cordelia Zelmanova.

So Cordelia turned and pushed through the door and out into the crowded hallway.

…….

Staci was at her side as soon as she was through the door.

“Where. Is. He?” Cordelia asked, smoldering rage dripping from every word.

“I don’t know. I was able to send out a couple texts, but no one was with him in second period. That could respond, at least,” Staci reported.

“Zimmer knows something,” Cordelia shrugged her backpack to settle it for the walk to third period.

“Zimmer?” Staci asked. “Why would he know anything? He’s a teacher.”

“I don’t know. Has anyone sent you pictures of it?”

“No.” Staci shook her head.

They walked in silence. Cordelia could feel her friend’s eyes on her, and the tension in Staci’s posture.

“Did you… you know… know?” Staci asked hesitantly.

“NO!” Cordelia screeched in horror drawing looks from the plebeians around her. “No,” she said again, quieter this time, looking to see who would dare acknowledge her outburst. No one would; either from knowledge of the situation with Randy or from the traditional fear of the wrath of a popular person, no one would meet her eyes.

Staci pulled out her phone, either waiting for Cordelia’s wrath to abate somewhat before speaking again or reading a real message. “Tim says it’s… big. Like, the same size as you.”

“Like, life-size?” Cordelia asked.

Staci tapped out a quick message. Her phone buzzed in her hand.

“Yeah.”

The first bell rang; two minutes until third period.

“Wait… is Tim with him? Can he see him?”

Staci’s fingers tapped deftly at the phone’s keypad. It buzzed back.

“He’s behind him. He’s headed to…” Staci looked up from the screen at Cordelia. “Mr. Azerjabi’s class.”

Cordelia’s eyes grew wide. That was only five doors down from her third period. She spun around just in time to catch a glimpse of Randy’s shoulder length greasy hair passing through the threshold out of her sight. His shoulders were hunched as though he were pushing something in front of him.

The second bell rang signaling the start of class. With a growl of frustration Cordelia slipped into their third period science class with Staci on her heels.

Still, all was not lost, Cordelia thought to herself. After all, she knew where he was. She only had to endure the mocking texts for one more period. Maybe she’d spend some time getting the boys organized to help her. But she knew one thing beyond all others.

After third period, the school tool was HERS, and this mess would all be over.

…….

Cordelia’s eyes were on her phone secreted beneath her lab table before Mrs. Steinbach had even launched into her “Welcome to science” speech.

She arrowed down to her “Football Team” contacts list and sent out a mass text.

“Need help with a problem. My locker, after 3rd.”

Her phone vibrated almost immediately.

“Drills during 4th Later? – Tyrone”

Cordelia kicked herself mentally. She was so caught up in this Randy issue she had completely forgotten cheer tryouts, which took place fourth period, right before lunch. The football team would be practicing at that same time, starting their drills for the year. It was doubtful she would get a chance to talk to any of them before lunch. If she skipped cheer practice, (which theoretically was auditions,) to pursue Randy after third, she could potentially lose her spot on the squad.

Staci, sitting next to her, slid a notebook in between them on the table and tapped it with a pen. On a clean sheet of paper she had written a single word and underlined it:

“Cheer?”

So she’d had the same thought. Cordelia nodded, and took the pen from her. Underneath Staci’s note she wrote:

“5th = Randy” then she circled Randy’s name and violently scribbled through it.

More texts came in from a few of the other players stating that they too would be at drills; Cordelia ignored them. Any plan to get Randy would HAVE to be put on hold until after cheer. She refused to let the tool torpedo her station in the school’s royal crust any more than he already had.

Staci took the pen back from her and wrote another note:

“Want me to follow?”

Of course! Staci had a walking cast on from a sprain; there was no way she would be trying out for cheer today.

“YES!” Cordelia wrote & underlined it several times.

…….

Cordelia & Staci feigned attentativeness for the rest of Mrs. Steinbach’s introductory lecture until the bell signaled the end of period. Cordelia collected both hers & Staci’s notebooks while Staci stood.

“Pictures if you can,” Cordelia instructed.

Staci nodded her comprehension, and limped into the outflowing crowd.

Cordelia finished collecting their things and trailed out the door, casting a glance over the shoulder toward the class where Randy and his abomination had been inhabiting. The tool didn’t present himself and she was on a tight timeline so she headed to her locker. Spinning the combination lock open she shoved the notebooks in and yanked her gym bag out.

…….

Most of the girls had changed by the time Cordelia arrived at the locker room. She slipped quickly out of her first-day-of-school dress, folding it carefully,  and changed into her workout clothes. Mrs. Fee had already lined the girls up along the football field sideline by the time Cordelia jogged onto the field.

“…and most of you probably won’t make it from what I’m seeing,” Mrs. Fee was saying. She raised an eyebrow at Cordelia as she took her place at the end of the row of girls. “Not like you to be late Zelmanova,” She said.

Cordelia saw Brittany, who stood near the front of the line, lean in to one of her friends and whisper something. The friend giggled quietly.

“Sorry Mrs. Fee, won’t happen again,” Cordelia answered.

“I’ll say it won’t. Something funny Delouise?” Mrs. Fee’s gaze whipped to catch Brittany still bent and whispering.

Brittany started. “Uh, no Mrs. Fee.”

“You and Sasha seem to have some nervous energy. Why don’t you get it out by demonstrating some backward  handsprings for the rest of the girls? Show them what they’re in for. Zelmanova, you come over here and talk to me.”

Mrs. Fee wandered out of earshot of the waiting girls as Brittany and Sasha walked out to the field and began their handsprings. Cordelia sheepishly joined her.

“I’m sorry I’m late Mrs. Fee…” she started.

“Oh can it, Cordie,” Mrs. Fee dismissed her apology with a wave. “We both know your shit is hitting the fan today.”

Cordelia was taken back.

Mrs. Fee knew too?

“You know about…?”

“About the Bellfore kid? Of course I know.” Mrs. Fee grimaced. “The whole faculty had a goddamned meeting about it a week before school started. Seems the almighty Superintendent Bellfore sent down a comminique from on high and your spineless prick of a principal couldn’t wait to ‘encourage us in understanding.’ And that, dear, is a direct fucking quote, thank you very much. Makes my stomach turn.” She crossed her muscled arms over her breasts. “Principal Donaldson probably used the word ‘tolerance’ eighty-three fucking times in his explanation of ‘Superintendent Bellfore’s son’s unique condition.’ You’d could practically hear the sound of him sucking off his career. God it made me sick!” Mrs. Fee’s right eye twitched, a motion Cordelia had only see two times before: once when they lost a cheer competition to a judge’s lousy call, and once when she had talked about her ex-husband.

“I tried to stand up for you, of course, when he showed us the pictures of the thing,” she continued. “Called ‘em all out on it. Donaldson blew me off. Said any resemblance to a student was purely coincidental; that Bellfore had ordered the thing custom to avoid just such an incident. Called it a ‘self esteem support device.’ Custom my ass! It’s custom alright. Custom enough to look just like you. Gods Cordie,” Mrs. Fee sighed heavily, “I’m sorry. I tried.”

Cordelia was taken aback. Mrs. Fee had always been one of her favorite teachers, but to know she went against the principal and the rest of the staff to try to protect her… Cordelia was touched.

“How many more Mrs. Fee?” Brittany, the armpits of her gym shirt now wet with sweat, hollered from where the rest of the tryout hopefuls stood waiting.

“Half the football team tells me you’re pretty limber, so how about five more?” Mrs. Fee shouted back, eliciting giggles from the girls and a look of pure mortification from Brittany.

“That should shut her up for a while. I wish she wasn’t so damn good,” Mrs. Fee looked Cordelia up and down. “You’re tough enough to take it, girl. So take it. Now come on,” she put her hand on Cordelia’s shoulder and urged her back towards the line, “lets get this chickenshit circus on the road.”

…….

A shower and Mrs. Fee’s assurance that she had, in fact, made the team, left Cordelia feeling improved after tryouts had ended. She gingerly pulled her underclothes from her locker and dressed quickly, mindful of the blinking light at the top of her waiting phone.

Someone had sent her a message.

Bra and panties secured, Cordelia slipped into her dress and closed her gym locker. Steadying herself with a deep breath she flipped open her cellphone.

“1 NEW PICTURE MESSAGE FROM STACI… DOWNLOADING NOW.” it read.

The screen blinked black for a moment and the picture was there.

Staci’s thumb partially obscured the bottom third of the image but Cordelia could see enough. Randy the tool stood doe-eyed, mouth open, digitally frozen in a posture of oafish stupidity. His outstretched arms were obscured by the frizzled dark mane of the doll, though from the angle of his exposed elbows it was clear he was pushing it in a wheelchair of some kind.

The doll itself filled Cordelia with a knot of revulsion. That its intent was to be her doppelganger no one could argue – it’s dead glass eyes matched her shade and shape perfectly; it’s skin tone sat a shade darker only due to her lack of tanning; it’s body size and type reflected Cordelia’s down to how the swell of its breasts filled out its dress;

The exact same dress Cordelia wore now.

An airless shriek escaped Cordelia’s lips. Rage and sickness poured over her like twin tidal waves; feeling drained from her knees and she fell into a sitting position upon the bench that ran between the gym lockers.

Little details became more apparent the longer she looked at the image. There was a belt cinched just around the midsection of the doll, and smaller ones around it’s wrists and ankles. Cordelia assumed these were to keep it held in place in the wheelchair. It’s mouth hung slightly open, like a ventriliquist’s dummy without the jaw gaps, it’s tongue a barely visible shade of pixelated rose, lips contorted into an ‘o’ shape, as though it was whistling.

“It’s not JUST a doll,” something whispered from deep inside her.

No. Not just a doll.

This was so much more. An incredible replica of her, down to the smallest detail. Dressed exactly the same as she was. (Did Randy see me shopping for the dress? Did he see me buy it? Has he been following me this whole summer?)

And the mouth…

Her understanding began to snowball with her disgust. The mouth was the key, wasn’t it?

There was only one reason the mouth would be shaped just so.

Only one reason to copy someone you could never have, really.

Cordelia swallowed back a rush of bile.

Randy had made a SEX doll. Of her.

No.

Wait.

That wasn’t right.

This wasn’t something the Tool had made.

This was beyond professional; the reproduction – immaculate.

This was something he had paid money for. A LOT of money.

Money RANDY didn’t have…

…but his DAD did.

Cordelia slapped her phone closed as if it were a window into hell itself. With a start she realized she was shaking. Her stomach turned and she dove for the toilet in a rush, puking up what remained of her breakfast.

She was throwing up for the second time when the bell rang for lunch.

…….

The cafeteria was raucous and loud when Cordelia entered. A dimming hush rolled like a wave through the enormous room as students became aware of her presence in groups of twos and threes, dropping their normal conversation to hushed whispers.

Cordelia recognized it for what it was; the situation had reached critical mass. Everyone in school knew about Randy and his pet Cordelia, and the real Cordelia was paying the most brutal of all prices: simultaneous collective reappraisal from the body of her peers.

She saw nerds who only hours ago wouldn’t have dared breathe her name (except in the privacy of their lonely darkened bedrooms) look up from their MMORPG strategy guides and nod smugly between each other. Saw the leers and the elbows and the chin thrusts pass between the jocks as they directed each others attentions towards her, their subtlety inconspicuous as a train wreck. Heard the clicks of cameraphones firing off like automatic weapons, each lens opening an aperture of social media scorn to be heaped upon her.

She felt all her work, from freshman year until now, crumbling around her in the hush that was falling at her entrance. Felt her separation from the strata of the school’s elite dislocating like a joint pulled out of place.

There were no more chances. The damage had become too severe, the story spread too far. Randy had accomplished in one disgusting, disturbing fell stroke the murder of her entire High School career.

He had made Cordelia just like he was.

A freak.

An outcast.

An object of derision.

The cafeteria was now completely quiet. Everyone waited, watching what Cordelia would do. Burst into tears? Run out screaming?

Cordelia felt both of these impulses well up within her, and pressed them both back. She had not come this far, fought this hard, or dealt with so much bullshit to be derailed by this. Randy and his toy were problems of epic proportions, true.

But Cordelia was a fighter.

She walked over to where Staci was sitting, tasteful-length heels clopping echoes into the cavernous silence, and tossed her head at her friend.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s go off-campus for lunch.”

…….

They drove in silence, Cordelia catching the movement of Staci’s wary sidelong glances out of the corner of her eye. Staci waited until they had received their food and taken a booth at the back before speaking.

“Are you… doing ok?” she asked Cordelia.

“No,” Cordelia answered. “But I think I will be.”

“I tried to do what I could from it getting to far, but Bryce…” Staci trailed off.

Cordelia gave her a weak smile.

“It’s ok. You did what you could.”

They chewed in silence for a bit before Staci spoke again.

“It’s creepy.”

Cordelia nodded. “Mrs. Fee told me the teachers all knew about it.”

Staci’s mouth hung open, half-full of chewed food, aghast. “What?”

“Randy’s dad is the superintendent. Fee said he passed world to principal Donaldson, who held a meeting before school to tell all the teachers what was going on. The excuse was that Randy is handicapped and the doll is a ‘self-esteem support device’.”

“Randy isn’t handicapped, unless his handicap is being a disgusting loser.”

Staci’s righteous anger made Cordelia smile in spite of herself. At least she wasn’t ENTIRELY alone. Then she sobered.

“I don’t know how to handle this, Stace,” Cordelia admitted after a few moments.

Staci took her hand. “I don’t either hon. But we’ll figure something out.” She glanced at the clock on her phone. “Ohmigosh, we better go, we’re gonna be late.”

Cordelia sighed heavily. “Do I have to?”

Staci nodded, pulling at her arm. “It’s high school. Everyone will have forgotten about this by tomorrow.”

Somehow, Cordelia didn’t think that would happen.

…….

A cursory glance at her phone told her she had 24 unread messages waiting as Cordelia walked from her car to fifth period, opting to go around the outside of the buildings as opposed to braving the halls. Even with the lowered surrounding population glances, chuckles, and hand-covered whispers followed in her path like a wake.

The class was a blur. Cordelia heard next to nothing of what the teacher said.  She was too busy thinking ahead.

This Randy business was a brutal blow to her empire, to be sure. Potentially even fatal. But the plebeians were fickle; all she needed was a bone big enough to throw them to get them off of her trail and onto something else.

But what? What could be big enough to shake this? From the sound of things, Randy was going to be walking the halls with this thing, making it a permanent new fixture of school life. It would be around in the mornings, and at lunch, and at night he would take it home and…

Ugh.

Moving on.

Whatever she was going to do, it had to happen today. This had to stay an anomaly. Any longer and she would be sunk. She would lose and Randy would win.

And Cordelia Zelmanova was NOT going to let Randy the Tool win.

The bell rang signaling the end of fifth. More than one glance was cast her way, but Cordelia ignored them. She had decided: she would take this hit square on the chin, but in the end come out the victor.

She had found her fire again.

…….

This time she headed straight for the halls. No more slinking outside. She didn’t know what she was going to do yet, but she knew she’d figure it out.

Only, it had to be her, didn’t it? If she had the football team roll Randy after school it would be hanging over her head (and who knew what else) for the rest of the year.

No, it had to be her.

Staci sidled up next to her matching Cordelia’s stride. “Where the heck have you been? I sent you a text” she whispered.

Cordelia held up her phone so Staci could see the outer LCD readout: 47 unread messages.

“This is getting out of hand,” Staci continued. “Blomquist wanted to have a debate about Randy’s kinky… thing… in ethics. Can you believe that?”

Cordelia’s step faltered and Staci continued a step or two beyond her before realizing she had passed her friend up.

“What…?” Staci started, and then followed Cordelia’s gaze.

There, standing at the doorway to Mr. Wilson’s class, was Randy the Tool.

Mr. Wilson stood directly in the path of the wheelchair that Randy had in front of him. Cordelia could see her doppleganger’s limp dark hair, arrayed somewhat frazzled by now, hanging down over the rear of the wheelchair seat. The doll had slumped to the side slightly.

“Oh… my… gawd.” Staci muttered.

“… is not a student it doesn’t belong in my classroom,” Cordelia’s ears caught onto Mr. Wilson’s nasal voice.

“But Mister Wilson…” Randy protested as the ringing bell warned class was about to start.

“You can leave it outside the door, if you like, but it is not coming in my class, Mister Bellfore,” Mr. Wilson looked beyond Randy and locked eyes with Cordelia as the crowds of students fanned into their classes.

“I’m sure,” Mr. Wilson continued to hold Cordelia’s gaze as he spoke, “it will be here when you get back.”

“But Mister Wilson, Principal Donaldson said…” Randy protested.

Mr. Wilson held Cordelia’s gaze a moment longer before regarding Randy again.

“Principal Donaldson says many things, Bellfore. But not right now, and not in my class. Which is starting right about…”

The second bell rang.

“…now.” Mr Wilson finished.

Head hung low, Randy pushed his Cordelia doll over to one side of the doorway and entered the classroom. Mr. Wilson cast one more significant glance at Cordelia before pulling the door closed behind him leaving Staci & Cordelia in a now-deserted hallway.

“Ohmygod. Did Wilson just…?” Staci whispered.

Cordelia turned swiftly to her friend. Staci started at the movement.

“Go to class.” Cordelia told her.

“What? Why? It’s right…” Staci began to protest.

“Because whatever happens, I need you to not be involved,” Cordelia whispered back. “Plausible deniability. Now go.”

“But… what are you going to do?” Staci asked, eyes wide.

“I don’t know yet,” Cordelia told her.

…….

Staci ran around the corner to her class leaving Cordelia alone in the hall. Cordelia figured she had maybe forty minutes left before class was over.

Forty minutes to set this thing right.

She slipped off her heels and shoved them into her backpack even as she crept forward quietly on bare feet. She had to be quick, but she also had to be quiet. Hurrying as quickly as she dared she ran to the wall and slid herself along it, ducking under windows inset in the classroom doors. The last thing she needed was for someone to see movement flick by one of them and get curious enough to look out.

Three doors left.

Two.

One.

She ducked under the window to Mr. Wilson’s class, resisting the urge to peek inside. Instead from her squatting position she grasped the handles of the doll’s wheelchair and pushed until she thought she was safe to straighten up.

Cordelia’s mind spun.

She had it.

But now where to take it?

She needed somewhere close by, and deserted. Her spy routine had cost her another five minutes. Thirty five left. Frantically her eyes searched the hallway while her ears strained to catch the approach of any hall monitors that might be walking around.

Biology? No.

Music? No.

Art?

She shoved the wheelchair hastily towards the Art Class door. Funding had been cut for the school’s art class two years prior and now the room was rarely used. It was her best shot.

She backed herself and the wheelchair up to press against the wall and slid her face along the door just enough to peek into the classroom window.

Empty.

Her breath caught in her throat. If the door was locked…

She grabbed the handle and pulled downward.

The doorhandle turned easily and the heavy door edged open a crack.

Suppressing a squeal of joy Cordelia pushed the art room door and held it open with her foot while she hauled herself and wheelchair into the dimly lit room.

With a hiss the art room door sank shut behind her.

…….

Cordelia could still scarcely believe the thing as she stood beholding it. The doll was an incredible reproduction of her, right down to the faint scar they shared along the chin.

How long had Randy had it? She asked herself the question before she realized she had it. Had he had it all summer? Had he been doing… things… to it for that long? Imagining her while he did?

The potential answers were enough to push her over the edge.

She scooped up a pair of long silver scissors, the kind with painted black handles that seemed to be standard issue for every school she had ever been in, and drove them into the left eye of the doll. There was a soft chinking sound as the blades reflected off a blue glass eye and sank into the soft silicone gel that composed the majority of the doll’s body. Cordelia had stabbed with such force and at such an angle the scissors perforated down through the doll’s lower jaw. Rather than pulling them up and out Cordelia yanked down, ripping a chasm through the front of the doll’s face.

She followed this up with a series of quick stabs to the thing’s chest, but it wasn’t good enough; she wasn’t yet satisfied with the damage.

Cordelia next took to the doll’s fingers, first trying to cut them off completely and then, when the scissors encountered the resistance of the doll’s pvc skeleton she opted for sliding the scissors into the fingers like she were trimming wrapping paper, flaying the doll’s digits open.

This worked so well that she lifted up the doll’s dress and did the same to it’s thighs and calves, dragging the scissors down in a white-knuckled grip.  She then switched to holding the scissors as intended and snipping randomly at the dress and skin.

Finally she opened the scissors and held one half of them like a knife, slashing at the doll’s face in broad ‘x’ strokes like she was swordfighting.

Panting she tossed the scissors aside and stepped back to regard her handiwork.

The doll’s face looked as though it had been shoved into a garbage disposal; the once recognizable visage resembling chewed orange jello. It’s arms and legs had slits that looked like gills covering them. The dress, HER dress, was in now in tatters.

And she still had fifteen minutes left.

Exhilaration coursed through Cordelia, but it was muted. There was still something missing… some final master stroke…

She looked quickly around the room. Her eyes fell on a jar of red paint, stacked among various other shades. She scrambled for it and grabbed a paintbrush from the nearby bin. The bristles of the brush were dry from unwashing, but it would serve her purpose well enough. She wrenched the lid free of the paint jar and dipped her brush in. Across the torn bust of the doll she swiped letter after letter until she had written ‘WHORE’ in bright wet characters.

There, that was it.

Done.

She grabbed the wheelchair and pulled it over near the artroom door, eyeing the hallway as best she could through the small rectangular window. The coast still looked clear.  Cordelia pressed the doorhandle down with her elbow and slipped back into the hallway, modified doppleganger in tow.

…….

The hallway remained empty and silent as Cordelia wheeled Randy’s doll back to where he had left it. A glance at the clock on the wall told her she had seven minutes left to be anywhere but here.

But where to go?

She chose the nurse’s office, concocting her story as she went. By the time she arrived she was fairly well in tears.

“Cramps,” she told the school nurse, and unmarried woman named Jenkins. “I went to the bathroom they hurt so bad. Do you have anything?”

“Oh honey just lie down here,” Miss Jenkins indicated a cot. “I’ll get you something to take the edge off.”

“Thank you Miss Jenkins,” Cordelia said.

She was still on the cot when the bell signaled the end of class. Not soon after that the louspeaker announced that Cordelia Zelmanova was to report to the principal’s office immediately.

“I’m feeling better,” Cordelia promised Miss Jenkins, “the pills had made me feel well enough to go to see what Principal Donaldson needs. Probably a student leaders meeting or something.”

“We all get it bad sometimes, honey,” Miss Jenkins told her as she left the nurse’s station.

Cordelia nodded. Today was definately one of those times.

…….

Principal Donaldson waved her into his office with a flapping of his hand. Cordelia thought he had to have been pushing at least 350 now. The summer had not been kind.

“Sit down, Miss Zelmanova,” Donaldson instructed, collapsing behind his desk into a protesting leather chair.

Cordelia took the left of the two low chairs which sat facing the principal’s desk, smoothing her dress across her knees as she did. Composure was key here.

Donaldson regarded her briefly before clearing his throat and launching into it. “I understand you were at the nurse’s station just now,” His voice was deep and not altogether unpleasant.

“Yes sir,” Cordelia said. “My menstural cycle just started. Lot’s of cramping. It’s very painful.”

“I see.”

Cordelia didn’t see how he could, but she remained quiet.

“Miss Zelmanova, are you aware that a fellow student, Randy Bellfore, had a very expensive handicap aid with him today? One that some have intimated to me potentially bore a passing resemblance to you?” Donaldson’s chair springs squelched as he adjusted his bulk.

Keep it together, Cordie. “I think one of my friends mentioned he had something with him.”

“Did you happen to see it yourself at any time?”

“Oh no sir,” Cordelia answered. “So far I haven’t had any classes with Randy today. And we don’t,” she lowered the tone of her voice just a bit, as though she were intimating a secret, “we don’t really have the same friends.”

Principal Donaldson nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard that. Miss Zelmanova…”

“Call me Cordelia, please,” she interrupted him and flashed him a smile.

“…Cordelia,” he paused before continuing, as though he were still getting used to the taste of her name in his mouth, “While Mister Bellfore was in sixth period today someone… damaged his property.”

“Oh no!” Cordelia tried to sound as concerned as she could. “Who?”

Donaldson frowned at her and crossed his arms across his massive chest.

He knew. Cordelia could see it in his eyes. The question was, could he prove it?

After a few moments the big man sighed.

And she knew: he couldn’t.

“We don’t know. We were hoping you might,” he told her, his eyes flicking rapidly across her face, watching to see how she reacted to this statement.

Cordelia held her expression of shock. “Me? How would I know?”

“Did you see anyone in the hallway when you left the restroom and went to the nurse’s station?”

“See anyone?” Pause. Look up and to the right. Squint your left eye. Aaaaand… respond. “No sir. No one. Though I was bent over pretty good. Because of the…”

“Cramps, yes,” Donaldson finished her sentence for her, absently waving a hand as though he knew this already. He continued to regard her. “Cordelia, here at Allswood High we take damage to student property seriously. Especially when in involves damage regarding a handicapped individual.”

She struggled to maintain her composure. He was goading her, and she knew it.

“Oh yes sir,” Cordelia agreed.

Principal Donaldson frowned. “I’m concerned that there may be a criminal investigation, if we can’t find a way to handle this in-house.”

There it was. His trump card.

Cordelia’s mind raced. What would a criminal investigation mean? Had she left fingerprints? Surely she had when she had steered the wheelchair to and from the art room. Could they pull fingerprints from wheelchair handles? Cordelia didn’t know.

But what had Donaldson said? ‘If we can’t find a way to handle this in-house.’ And that was what he was wanting, wasn’t it? Surely he wouldn’t want newscasters reporting that a the son of the superintendent was carting around a sex doll under his watch, would he? She gambled.

“That WOULD be bad,” Cordelia nodded in agreement, and fell silent. His next words would tell her if she had forced his hand.

Principal Donaldson re-crossed his arms.

“Yes,” he said finally, “that would be bad.”

She had made it.

“Thank you for coming in, Miss Zelmanova. I hope you feel better. Let Jane at the front desk know if you need to call your parents to come and pick you up.” Donaldson used his desk to hoist himself to his feet. Cordelia stood as well.

“Thank you sir,” she said. As she paused the final bell of the day rang, signaling the end of the schoolday. Cordelia smiled. “I’m feeling better already.”

Original image by Jason Hargrove. Used with permission.

Phoenixia spread her wings wide, arching her long neck before straightening it out in a stretch. The rocks of her den still held warmth from when she had warmed them last night, breathing flame until they glowed red to keep out the winter chill that clung to the mornings and evenings of spring. Her wingspan almost reached the opposing walls of the cave here in her sleeping chambers, with just enough room to allow her to turn fully without scraping the walls. When the time came she would have to use a different branch of the cavern to lay and raise her brood. But that time wasn’t here yet.

Folding her wings back against her sides after a leisurely yawn, she lowered her head and trudged on foot through the narrow passage that opened up into the main cavern. Whether hewn naturally or shaped by another dragon long before her Phoenixia didn’t know, but she still enjoyed its comforts. A massive opening with plenty of room to curl figure eights, if she were inclined, the central cavern was home to massive stalactites and an underground river fed by a waterfall which came from an opening in the ceiling too small for Phoenixia to investigate. Its convenience in providing drinking water had long overtaken her curiosity.

Braxxas. He was the one who balked at her curiosity. Who defamed her searchings causing others who might have been willing to help shy away, for fear of receiving the same treatment. His chiding had forced her away from the brood; had forced her here. And in a way, Phoenixia considered, she owed him for that. Let him have his tunnels and his burrows, and let the brood dig with him to the center of the earth; Phoenixia couldn’t leave the sky.

Scraping herself against her favorite outcropping she listened to the crackle of dry scales coming free of her hide and raining down. There were more every day; maybe only a month more before her final molt. Then she would be an adult, ultimately free of the brood and and able to live how she wished.

With a mighty leap she extended her wings then glided down to the main entrance of the cave, a small tunnel barely wide enough to admit her, even with wings folded. She had passed it three times during her initial search for a home, believing it too small, and she took some comfort that any other rogue would most likely think the same. With her tense seperation from the brood she thought it unlikely any would answer her call should a territorial dispute arise, and without regular sparring practice she was more than a little rusty.

Phoenixia let her head scrape along the roof of the entry tunnel as she headed out, letting its rough surface scrape any dry scales away. Once she was satisfied she twisted her serpentine neck to do the same against the rock walls. The gray light from the tunnel’s mouth told her it was almost sunset and her stomach rumbled in anticipation.

Time for breakfast.

She emerged from the cave, brushing aside another stray throught of motherhood as she did, and took flight with a mighty downstroke of her wings. The land receeded beneath her as she stroked for altitude, wondering which way to scout this evening. Game had become increasingly scarse since she had inhabited the cavern and she had little clue why.

The open air felt good beneath her wings, cool and full of movement this morning. Stretching wide she set out at a lazy glide, her shadow sliding silently along the ground beneath her. Rocks permeated the green grasses and sparse bushes of the highland country like the petrified corpses of a subterranean troll army.

Phoenixia dipped to follow her preferred hunting ground, a swift shallow stream that cut a path through the hills. From experience she knew the animals would be headed to water down before retiring for the evening.

It was there, high above the stream, that the vibrations first found her ears. A simple ripple so perfect Phoenixia’s heart lept within her as it tickled through her brain. The voice pure and sweet, peaceful and lovely.

Phoenixia had heard music before, in the broodhome, and had even sung with her brethren, adding her roar to the Song to Shake the Heavens. But to feel this tune course through her bones struck her as though she had never heard before this moment.

All thoughts of her hunger faded, and she resolved to find the source.

She followed the melody down the stream, lowering her altitude to ensure she didn’t lose the vibrations. The bones of her jawline hummed with them, pleasure tickling across her brain in a sparkling stroll.

The creature making the beautiful noises was so small Phoenixia almost passed it by. Pink like a pig in parts, the thing also had strange broad feathers covering most of its body. Phoenixia thought the feathers were almost as though someone had flattened the clouds and wrapped oneself in them. It’s head (or so Phoenixia took it to be,) was covered in a waterfall of blonde-brown fur that ran down it’s back. The hole in it’s head resembled a mouth, but with flat teeth.

‘It must eat grass, like the cows,’ Phoenixia thought to herself.

The beautiful vibrations she had followed were coming from the creature’s mouth hole.

Phoenixia pulled up her flight, spreading her broad wings to catch herself from overshooting the pink creature-who-sang. With a couple quick flaps she alighted onto the hill just behind where the creature-who-sings sat perched on some of the grey stone boulders.

The creature, suddenly eclipsed by Phoenixia’s shadow, turned to regard the dragon. It’s eyes grew greatly in size and the vibrations it had been making ceased. In their place the creature began making a new noise, this one much higher-pitched and harsh, a gasping sort of bark that grated on Phoenixia’s listening bones like pumice.

Leaping to its legs it began to run from her.

Phoenixia was disappointed. She hadn’t meant to interrupt the creature-who-sings, nor had she intended to frighten it away.

“Please,” she roared. “Please don’t go. Sing again!”

The creature-who-sings continued it’s sprint away from Phoenixia, though with it’s small legs it did not travel very fast. It did glance over it’s shoulder, its eyes growing even wider at her pleading roars.

‘This will not do,’ Phoenixia thought to herself, spreading her wings for a hop that took her over the head of the creature-who-sings and directly into it’s path. The thing tumbled to a halt in front of her, some of it’s flat feathers sprawling over it’s head.

“Don’t be afraid,” Phoenixia roared at it.

The creature-who-sings pulled the feathers from over it’s head. It’s eyes appeared to be leaking.

“That’s right,” Phoenixia growled in what she hoped was a comforting manner, lowering her head toward the creature-that-sings. “Hello there, little one.”

The creature-who-sings made the higher-pitched noise again, drawing this one out. Phoenixia grimaced but held her ground, hoping a show of good faith would calm the small creature.

A second barking answered this time, this one coming from Phoenixia’s flank. It was lower than the first creature’s noise, but clearly made by the same type on animal. This noise, however, was accompanied by a sudden sharp stinging sensation in one of her haunches, as though a bloodfly had bit her.

Startled at the pain, Phoenixia spun about, looking for the source. As she spun she felt her tail glance off an obstacle. She completed her circut in time to see a second creature-who-sings, this one with much shorter fur that covered it’s entire head, collapsing underneath one of the long-necked cows she had occasionally found to eat. The long-neck added it’s own screaching to the noises of the new creature-who-sings, thrashing about on top of it.

Phoenixia, worried the writhing long-neck might hurt this new creature, diped her neck down and lifted the long-neck from it with her teeth. The long-neck only thrashed for a moment between her fangs before it was still.

The new creature-who-sings made only quiet sounds now, moving little.

Suddenly aware that the first had ceased making noise as well, Phoenixia felt a sensation creeping through her talons. Sticky, yet also crunchy, as though she had  tread on a forest made of bee sap. She retreated a step or two to see that she had indeed stepped on the first creature-who-sings in her surprise.

The poor animal had been crushed, Phoenixia’s weight turning it from vibrating beauty to a mangled pile of meat in a spreading pool of pink and red.

Heartsickness gripped her. It had been such an ugly creature, true, but it had sung so beautifully. Such gentle majesty out of so small a thing.

A rumbling in her stomach reminded her of why she had left her cave this morning, and with a heavy heart and empty ears Phoenixia took to the skies again, wheeling around to follow the stream.

…….

That night as Phoenixia slept in her den, she dreamed. She saw her father, a powerful spellcaster and scientist of the art. She saw her mother, tender and kind, yet fearsome and far more viscous than any male when roused.

But when she woke, she held no memories of these things. She recalled only one face.

The face of the broodmother.

…….

That morning, Phoenixia flew home.

…….

The Stone Guard were the first to meet her as Phoenixia flew into her brood’s territory. Brothers and sisters who perched at the edge of firemountains day after day, the heat baking their scales to strength neither tooth nor talon could tear, each taking pride in lasting a little bit longer at the lip of the mountain. These were their foreguard, their elite soldiers.

“Who’s is the sky?” one of the three Stone Guards growled to Phoenixia formally.

“This sky is Maor’s, and kin of her brood,” Phoenixia answered just as formally. Stone Guards were known for their lack of humor.

“Phaderus will escort you,” the Stone Guard stated, leaving no room for question.

A Stone Guard peeled off from the group and dropped into a steep dive, Phoenixia following. She could recall not so long ago when it would have been a single Stone Guard who would have met her. Things must have grown even more dire in the short time she had been away.

Phaderus led her through the steep canyon walls she had flown a thousand times over, never casting a glance behind him. At the entrance to the broodhome he landed, hardened claws gouging the rock of the gaping opening.

“Who seeks the refuge of Maor?” he asked.

“Phoenixia, her second-daughter,” Phoenixia answered meekly.

“Then enter the den of your broodmother, Phoenixia, and may the skies be yours.”

“May the skies be yours,” she echoed meekly as he flew back the way they had just come.

Four more Stone Guards, perched two to either side, stood watch over the entrance. They watched her with careful disinterest as Phoenixia pulled into a glide and entered her former home.

…….

Maor’s Den was massive. Home to her brood of a ten thousand strong, what had started as a series of natural volcanic caves had been shaped and engineered over the centuries until the mountain range they belonged to was honeycombed with caverns.

Phoenixia threaded effortlessly through the maze of stone colums, growling greeting occasionally to those she passed. She knew few of her cousin’s names but recognized most of them. That no one greeted her was evidence enough that her abandonment of the broodhome had not gone forgotten.

Until Lyxx found her.

“Phoenixiaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!” Lyxx swooped from somewhere above her, screaming Phoenixia’s name and tackling her mid-air. Together they tumbled downward, a tangle of wings and claws, the seriousness of Phoenixia’s errend temporarily forgotten in the embrace of her friend.

“Lyxx! Let go!” Phoenixia hollered good-naturedly.

Lyxx released her suddenly, spreading her wings to catch herself.

“You’re back! What are you doing back?! Braxxas…” Lyxx spoke excitedly, but Phoenixia cut her off.

“I’m not here for long. Braxxas doesn’t even need to know I was here until I’m gone.”

“But your mother…” Lyxx started.

“…roosts with Braxxas. And is no longer my mother,” Phoenixia stated sternly, sweeping her wings to resume her course.

Recognizing the sensetivity of the subject Lyxx, wheeled around and kept pace.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“I found a cave. In the highlands,” Phoenixia glanced at her friend and saw concern marring her features. “It is well hidden and easily defensible, Lyxx. And farther north than almost anyone has traveled. Zalasphar and his brood would have to cross our entire territory to get to me. I’m fine.” She considered the amount of room she had to herself and continued. “In fact, I’ve got plenty of room if you want to come stay with me.”

“Go rogue?” Lyxx’s voice pitched higher, surprised at the suggestion. “I couldn’t! I mean, you know I love you Phen, but…” Lyxx took a deep breath, “I’m betrothed.”

“What??” now it was Phoenixia’s voice who grew higher in surprise. “To who? Since when?”

“To Marsus. Just this last moon. I didn’t know where you were to tell you…”

“Congratulations! We’ll have to celebrate…” Phoenixia cut Lyxx off, then remembered the creature-who-sings and her errand. “Just… not right now.”

Lyxx cast a sidelong glance at her friend. “You didn’t come back just to visit.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No,” Phoenixia admitted. “I came for my father’s things.”

“Braxxas took them. Did something with them. I don’t know what. I was visiting your mother as he was,” Lyxx told her.

“Do you know where he is now?”

“The Cavern of War, most likely, he…”

Phoenixia was already spiraling away from her friend even as Lyxx continued to speak.

“The sooner I get them from him the sooner I can be done with him. Forever,” Phoenixia called over her shoulder. “We’ll get together soon!”

…….

Phoenixia found Braxxas in the Cavern of War just as Lyxx had said. He stood clustered with several other males regarding something Phoenixia had no interest in.

“Braxxas. Where are my father’s things?” Phoenixia spoke over the male who had been speaking.

“Phoenixia. Welcome back. You can see I’m…” Braxxas’ voice, deep even for a male, held no warmth for her.

“All I want are my father’s writings, Braxxas,” she interrupted him. “After that I will be gone and you will be rid of me. For good.”

“Phoenixia, that is hardly what I want.” the males with Braxxas were looking at him uneasily now, their planning temporarily forgotten.

“My father’s things, Braxxas. And I will leave you in peace,” Phoenixia demanded.

Braxxas sighed.

“I moved your father’s things into my den at the request of your mother. They are at a cavern towards the rear. You may retirive them if you wish; I have no use for them.”

Phoenixia grew angry at this. This was the Braxxas she hated. To others he sounded wise and magnanimous, but she knew his intimation. He had never supported her father’s pursuit of the magical sciences, often referring to him as foolish when he believed Phoenixia wasn’t listening. He knew how to manipulate the situation to make whoever opposed him seem the enemy, and Phoenixia was long past trying to prove otherwise. Turning her back without reply she set to flight before he could say anything else.

…….

Barxxas’ den was empty when Phoenixia arrived, a small gift as far as she was concerned. The last thing she wanted to do was get into yet another argument with her mother; they both had made their choices.

Searching from cavern to cavern she finally located her fathers things in the rearmost opening irrevently tossed in a pile. The cavern was clearly the worst in the den, dank and cold and wet. She felt a mix of sadness as she dug through the pile; many of the writings had become warped and smudged beyond reading. It took her longer than she had hoped, but she eventually uncovered what she was looking for: her father’s collection of successful experiments. Seeing it brought immediate memories of her father  bent precariously over skins breathing thin lines of flame into the fresh hides to document his processes.

“You’ve got to write it down, Phoenixia. Every success as well as every failure. Otherwise it will pass on, and our people have allowed too much to pass already,” he had told her.

Using the foreclaws on the tips of her wings, Phoenixia gingerly transferred the bundle of writings into a one of the many empty sacks she found strewn around the room. She tried not to wonder what had inhabited the empty bags at one time; too much had been allowed to pass indeed.

Seeking to leave Braxxas’ cave, Phoenixia stopped short by the appearance of a Stone Guard at the entrance just as she was preparing to exit.

“Maor has called for you, daughter,” the Stone Guard told her.

“…me?” Phoenixia asked, taken aback.

“By name,” the Stone Guard said. He lept from the ledge and hovered, powerful wings sweeping in deep swishing noises, waiting for Phoenixia to follow.

Shaking her head so the strap of her sachel would settle comfortably around the base of her neck and hang to her chest, Phoenixia joined the Stone Guard in flight.

“This way,” he instructed, whirling about and taking a course.

…….

“Ah, welcome daughter,” Maor said in greeting as Phoenixia was ushered into her chamber. The broodmother’s age showed in the dull lustre of her scales and the battle-drawn tears in her wingleather. She lay curled on a flat bed of rock surrounded by a moat of flame. Keeping her cold blood warm in her age, Phoenixia assumed.

Maor’s bright eyes watched Phoenixia taking in the scene. “Your father made this bed for me, you know,” She told the younger dragon. “He burned very bright, during his time.”

“Yes, broodmother,” Phoenixia cast her eyes to the floor. She didn’t know what sort of protocol she should be observing with her answers.

“I hear you have been unhappy with you mother taking Braxxas as a mate,” Maor said, making it sound more like a statement than a question.

“You… have heard of this?” Phoenixia asked, confused. Their brood was over ten thousand strong, or so she had heard. To think that the broodmother kept track of her…

“I am aware of the dealings of all my children,” Maor told her. “Though, some make more noise than others.” she said with a hint of a smile.

Phoenixia felt her scales flatten in embarrassment.

“Your father was of great value to me,” Maor continued. “With so few of our race born with the blood for sorcery these days, having a son so dedicated and talented was a great blessing. You are not the only his death weighs on.”

Shame joined her embarrassment. “Yes, broodmother,” Phoenixia said quietly.

“Braxxas and his ilk are necessary to protect the brood. Without sorcerers to rely on for our warfare, brute force is all we have left.” Maor paused, but Phoenixia made no reply.

“I am sure you wonder why I called you to me this day?” Maor asked.

Phoenixia nodded. “Yes, broodmother.”

“I have made inquiries, amongst the other broods.” Maor sighed. “Your father was not only the last of our sorcerers, Phoenixia. He was the last of them all.”

The heaviness of Maor’s words hung in the air, sinking in slowly for Phoenixia. Without sorcerers to assist the broodmothers in egglaying, they would be reduced to laying a single egg in their lifetime. And if that were the case…

“Yes,” Maor said finishing Phoenixia’s thought out loud. “Our race is dying. It has already begun. But I have hope. For you have your father’s spirit, and his blood. I saw both of them when you abandoned the den rather than suffer Braxxas. So I ask you now, daughter: will you, even in your freedom, seek to help us?”

Phoenixia was taken aback. To have that kind of responsibility…

“I ask only, daughter. I expect nothing,” Maor told her. “You have left the brood, and for good reason. You owe us no allegience.”

“I…” Phoenixia started, still reeling from the broodmother’s forthright explination. “I will do what I can, broodmother.”

“That is all I ask daughter,” Maor blew two small trails of smoke through her nostrils.

They stood in silence for a bit, each stewing in her own thoughts. Phoenixia struggled with so many conflicting emotions. And as she wrestled, the song of the singing creature began to echo in her thoughts.

“Mother,” Phoenixia spoke, “near my den, to the north, I encountered a creature I have never known before. It was small, with soft pink flesh. It made the most beautiful noises, though less so when I frightened it. As you know so much…?”

“Ah,” Maor frowned. “I have heard of these creatures. They are called ‘man.’ Alphasannas’ brood has nearly been overrun with them to the far east. They are fragile things, easily damaged and too bony for meat. But they have minds as sharp as our own and have killed several of Alphasannas’ brood with weapons and clever tricks. Be wary of them. You are the first of us to explore north in my lifetime; there is no telling how many of them there might be.”

“Yes, broodmother. I will be careful.”

“Then go, daughter. Return to me if you uncover any knowledge that might help us.”

“Thank you, broodmother. May the skies be yours.”

…….

Phoenixia’s long flight back to her den was crowded with tumultous thoughts. Her race was dying; she, who had forsaken them all because of Braxxas and his close-mindedness might now be their only hope. She, a daughter not even of full-molt.

As she wrestled with these things, the song from the creature-that-sings returned to her again and again. Though as before it held beauty, now it held a nagging urgency. Yet, Phoenixia could not discern it’s secret.

‘You know something,’ she adressed the melody in her mind. ‘What is it?’

But the melody didn’t respond.

It was only a song.

…….

The next morning Phoenixia spread out her father’s burnings before her within her sleeping chamber.

“You must have seen it,” she muttered to his ghost. “You must have known. You always knew.”

She took few breaks that first day. Fewer still on the second. But by her fifth day of study she had grown restess and hungry. Frustrated and irritable, she abandoned her den and took to the sky.

…….

Her thoughts returned to her encounter with the man-creatures as she coasted above the bubbling stream below. The one who sang had been alone, surrounded by a flock of smaller horned goats, and had traveled slowly on it’s own legs when frightened by her. The other, however, had traveled on a long-neck. Phoenixia had occasionally chased long-necks in the fields where they lived in her younger days, and she knew the speed they were capable of. If the man-creatures rode on long-necks often, they could travel far greater distances than on their own. This could mean that their settlement was far further from her cave than she had traveled. Phoenixia considered to herself: if that were the case, perhaps she should know a little more about her neighbors before she settled in much further?

And perhaps she could hear their song again.

Pushing thoughts of hunting away, she elected instead to follow the stream, thinking it the most logical path; after all, all creatures needed water.

…….

It took her several more hours of flying before she smelled the smoke of their settlement. A hint on the breeze, nothing more. But her nostrils knew the scent well enough to know she was headed in the right direction.

The den of the man-creatures looked very strange to Phoenixia as she drew close. It was a collection of stumpy hills they had made themselves, with cut trees forming their roofs. Holes in the hills were everywhere, some larger than the men, some small. Phoenixia supposed these small holes were for their young.

And the young! She saw them swarming everywhere amidst the dirt tracks that ran between the man-dwellings. Some saw her shadow pass over them and made noises far more shrill than the creature-that-sang.

‘So many!’ Phoenixia thought to herself. ‘They already number the size of a small brood!’

Some of the larger man-creatures, the ones with the shorter fur covering their heads, followed the screams of their young and sighted her as well as she returned for a second pass. These made barking noises similar to the one she had seen on the long-neck, calling out in their strange rough voices and pointing their leatherless wings at her passing. A few of the short-furs threw sticks in her direction, but Phoenixia flew too high for their reach as she strafed their den again and again, trying to learn all she could.

Some short-furs, mounted on long-necks, were marshaling the long-furs and the young into a group at the far end of their den. These set out along a well-worn dirt track which led away while a larger gathering of short-furs swelled into a group on the outskirts of their den. Phoenixia followed their path with her eyes as she flew, and was astounded.

There, on a hill not far from their den, the man-creatures were constructing a cave.

They had formed huge walls by piling small stones one upon another until they stood beyond four man-creatures high. Four round stalagmites stood at each edge of the wall, these rising far higher still. These stalagmites were all hollow and seemingly unfinished, each standing jagged at a different height.

The walls and the stalagmites stood only to surround the main cavern, a massive sprawling pile of stones that rose and fell in height like waves from the ocean. Phoenixia marveled at the incredible structure. For creatures so small and weak  to create such large cave must have taken an incredible amount of time.

From her vantage about she could see they had constructed several smaller caverns within the stone cave. Some had more of the cut trees covering them but enough stood open to the sky that Phoenixia recognized their purpose.

The man-creatures meant to inhabit the thing.

An unpleasant feeling in her stomach reminded Phoenixia of her real reason for leaving her own cave. Dipping down to collect a few of the goats that were scattered about the man-creature’s den she peeled around to follow the stream back home, chewing as she flew.

Seeing the man-creature’s incredible cavern had given her much to think about.

…….

That night, settled in among the writings of her father, Phoenixia found her answer.

…….

She arose early the next dusk, vibrant with plans. She paused to enjoy the sensation of her cavern waterfall cascading over her scales before finishing the remains of the last night’s goats and hurrying out into the  day. Her father’s spell had been very specific, and she would have to travel many lengths to obtain the proper components before the new moon rose that evening. She didn’t understand her father’s explanation entirely of why the spell could only be accomplished during the new moon, but she trusted his knowledge. It WOULD be successful. And she would return to the brood a hero, savior of their race and championing her father’s work. Braxxas would be shamed; Maor would be grateful.

And hopefully her mother would see what a fool she had been.

Phoenixia flew to a part of the brood’s canyon unguarded by the Stone Guards but rich in memories of childhood. He father had often taken her here to collect the crystals which lined the gullies of this part of the canyon, explaining that the crystals had been formed long ago by the ambling runoff of the fire mountains. She had grown up toting progressively heavier bags of them back to their cave and watched in fascination as her father made them arc with lightnings of all different colors. Now it was she who was on the hunt for the perfect specimens,  with only memories to guide her.

Her collection of five took her much longer than she had anticipated, and the sun was already beginning to set when she returned to her cave. She bypassed it, having curled the skin with her father’s spell into the bag it now shared with the crystals, and continued on towards the den of the men-creatures.

It was the last ingredient, she knew, that would be the most complex.

…….

The sky had bled from blue to deep red as she approached the den of the men-creatures. Already the first star had appeared in the sky, winking like one of the crystals she carried. Phoenixia flew high, hoping the settling darkness would mask her approach and not alarm the creatures.

They milled about far below her, some wandering between their hills, others out among the goats. Even at this height Phoenixia could see the young, their shadows far shorter than their fully-grown counterparts, weaving in and out of every activity.

Now, to pick a good one…

She saw a longer-furred man-creature out on the edge of the settlement, out even past where the goats clustered.

This would be her target.

Flexing her claws in anticipation, Phoenixia pulled around in a tight circle and dove, pulling her wings tight to her sides. The wind pulled at her scales as luxuriant speed washed over her. Having experienced the fragility of the man-creatures first hand, she knew she must be gentle.

The ground rushed up at her like a hungry predator as she braced herself  for her next maneuver. Throwing her wings wide she sailed smoothly into a strafing run, and with claws extended she swooped the long-furred man-creature into her palm and took to the sky again even as the first alarmed warning barks began to ring out.

The long-furred man-creature struggled against her grip at first but as Phoenixia gained altitude it’s struggles turned into a fierce grip around one of her talons. Phoneixia took this as a good sign that she had not harmed the creature.

“Do not worry little one,” Phoenixia roared reassuringly, “I only need your for a moment. Then you will be free again.”

With one eye on the darkening sky, Phoenixia set flight for the man-creature’s cave.

…….

With two quick brushes of her wings Phoenixia landed with a hop, making sure to keep her claw that held the man-creature from colliding with the stones. From the inside the man-creature’s false cavern was even more impressive, and Phoenixia marveled at the amount of effort the creatures had put into stacking stone onto stone to create the place.

Balancing carefully on one leg with wings outstretched to keep herself from toppling, Phoenixia lowered herself until the satchel she wore containing the crystals she had collected rested on the stone floor of the cavern. Phoenixia dipped her neck to the ground and pulled out of the leather strappings.

She could hear the long-furred man-creature making it’s high barking sound from within her grasp, and it occurred to her she may have gripped it too hard. Setting the creature carefully to the stone Phoenixia backed away so she could regard it.

The man-creature, finding itself once again on solid ground, began to scurry away from her at once. Gaining it’s legs it ran towards a large opening set into one wall of the cavern. Phoenixia blew a quick puff of fire towards the door hoping to dissuade the man-creature’s retreat.

It worked. The man-creature froze in it’s tracks.

“Please, I mean you no harm,” Phoenixia roared to the creature which grabbed it’s head at the sound of her voice. “I know of no other way to ask for your help.” The creature turned wide-eyed to stare at Phoenixia, still grasping it’s head. Phoenixia could see it didn’t understand her. With a frustrated growl Pnoenixia nosed open her satchel and began to remove the five crystals she had selected for the evening. “This will all be over soon,” Phoenixia told the man-creature, hoping to sound reassuring.

With an eye on the sky that was retreating from deep blue to black Phoenixia set up her crystals at five different points within the huge cavern. Then, taking a mouthful of the ingredients her father had instructed from her sachel she chewed, grimacing at the taste.

‘No wonder father ate whatever was offered to him, if he could stand the taste of this stuff!’ Phoenixia thought to herself.

After she had chewed the mixture to paste she established herself in the center of the crystals and blew a thin stream of fire, turning on axis as she did. This carved a dark circle around the perimeter of where the crystals stood. It’s purpose served, Phoenixia spit the mashed mess into a shadowed corner of the man-creature’s cavern.

Then she waited.

It took only moments before the crystals began to hum, a low droning noise that rose steadily in pitch as the last vestiges of color drained from the sky and the stars burned their way through the darkness in force. The long-furred man-creature continued to hold it’s head, beginning to make its grating high barks again but remaining where it stood outside the circle.

The crystals began to pulse internally with light as the hum grew to fill the room. Snatches of lightning sparked out in arcs and the man-creature turned again to run. This time Phoenixia didn’t need to block it, as a stray tongue of electricity shot from the nearest crystal and caught the man-creature by surprise. A second licked out to catch Phoenixia as well, and she felt a shudder pass through her body.

‘I’ve done it,’ she thought to herself as more lightning lept from the crystals to dance across her scales. ‘I’ve saved my people. My father’s blood runs true within me.’

She began to feel faint even as euphoria shuddered through her. Now the crackling bolts which leaped from the crystals were so bright and so quick she pressed her eyes shut against them. The droning hum drown out all other noises leaving Phoenixia unsure if the long-furred man-creature was still barking.

With the room shaking from the sound and her eyes blinded from the hot light of the magic all around her, Phoenixia slipped into unconsciousness.

…….

Phoenixia awoke to the coldness of the stone she lay on seeping through her scales. A tingling sensation danced across her body even as it faded. She opened her eyes and she knew she had been successful.

Her new body stretched out before her along the stone floor of the man-creature’s false cavern. Flesh as milky white as moonlight covered her now, soft and warm to the touch. Gone were the leather of her wings and her short powerful legs, replaced by lengthy and gracefully curved appendages. Her wings now ended in flattened claws with five elegant digits which she maneuvered in a waving motion one by one.

She was transformed.

Hesitantly, she placed one wingclaw to the ground and pulled her new legs beneath her. Shakily pressing against the cold stone with her new wings, she stood.

The crystals were burnt to the last, smoky and cracked from their performance. The long-haired man-creature lay where she had fallen outside the circle, feathers rising and falling.

It was still alive.

With a start Phoenixia realized just how truly cold she had grown and curled her wings around her. Her arms brushed over two rosy-tipped lumps that hung from her chest with the motion and she started in surprise at the sensation.

This was going to take some getting used to.

Rubbing her shoulders with her wingclaws to make friction, she received another surprise; long fur like the man-creature’s but as black as her scales hung from her head. Turning her head this way and that, she could feel the gentle brush of it travel across her back. Keeping her wingclaws on her shoulders she played some of the fur between them. It was soft and slick, like nothing she had felt before.

With a sharp intake of breath the long-furred man-creature awoke with a start and sat up. Her eyes, foggy for a moment, gazed wildly around the room until they setteled on Phoenixia in her new form.

And to her surprise, Phoenixia could understand her.

“Who…?” the long-furred man-creature’s eyes peered searchingly around the made cavern again before returning to Phoenixia, “Where… where did the monster go? Who are…” It’s eyes fell to the burnt crystals and followed the scorched ruts that had burned in the cobblestones to where Phoenixia stood, epicenter to the charred web. The long-haired man-creature’s eyes grew wide in fright. “…you?” it whispered.

“I hope I did not hurt you,” Phoenixia told the man-creature, surprised at the pleasant lilt of her own voice. “It was not my intent to frighten you, either. I tried to be as gentle as possible, but you are very small. Are you well?”

“I…” the long-furred man-creature’s brows furrowed. Phoenixia was charmed by the movement.

“Please,” Phoenixia continued, “my people, we are dying. Can you tell me; how do you have so many young?”

A sudden clatter arose as several short-furred men-creatures came running from the darkness of a nearby tunnel. Some held pieces of silvered steel; others sticks with silver talons on their ends.

“Rosamund!” one shouted, running to the long-furred man-creature and scooping it up in it’s leatherless wings.

“Phillip!” the long-furred man-creature exclaimed back, throwing her own wings around the other.

While this took place the dozen or so other men-creatures that had come with the man-creature Phillip had gathered together in a loose bunch just to the inside of the cavern. Some of these watched Rosamund and Phillip, but some had now taken notice of Phoenixia.

“Whossat?” one of them said, leveling it’s wing in Phoenixia’s direction.

Rosamund’s voice rose as she pushed Phillip away from her. “It’s the monster! Phillip! The creature! It changed to look as us somehow! There was light everywhere and I…”

Phillip rounded on Phoenixia, brandishing the piece of steel he carried.

“Crush my sister and then take my wife?!” Phillip hollered. Phoenixia felt the heat of his anger as though he were breathing fire. She took a few steps back.

“Please…” she began, but Phillip shouted over her.

“Silence fel witch! You’ll kill no other with your sorceries! Nyeeeeah!”

Phillip advanced in a rush. Grabbing Phoenixia’s shoulder he forced the piece of steel he held into her chest and out again through her back.

Stunned, Phoenixia stumbled back from Phillip. Some of the onlookers gasped as she clumsily grabbed for the handle protruding from her chest. Once and twice her hands brushed the stiff ‘T’ of the hilt before her new legs, suddenly without feeling, gave way under her. She fell to the stone floor of the cavern, finding it growing colder still.

She could see from her skewed vantage as the long-furred man-creature Rosamund buried it’s face into Phillip’s shoulder, very close to where the metal protruded from Phoenixia’s own.

“Take your malevolence with you to hell,” Phillip muttered.

Phoenixia didn’t hurt, exactly. It was more as if she were falling asleep  and growing colder at the same time. She felt herself slipping, slipping to somewhere else. Not knowing what to do, she seized upon the one thing that came to mind. The one thing she had dreamed of from the moment she had persued her wild plan to save her people.

Pressing her lips together she hummed the song she had heard the man-creature singing what seemed like an eternity ago.

She did not sing long.

…….

Phillip held Rosamund’s face to his chest until the creature’s chest stopped moving. For a moment he thought he heard it trying to cast some final spell or devilry, but the sound drifted off before it could reach his ears. Gently, he released his grip on Rosamund.

“Peace, love,” he told her. “it is dead.”

“Oh Phillip,” Rosamund said. New tears had begun to pool at the sides of her eyes. “I thought it would eat me. And then it blew it’s fire and I was so scared…”

“Shhhhhhhh…” Phillip shushed her. “We will speak of it tomorrow, after you have slept.” He looked around the room with a grimace. “We will have much to do as we talk, it seems. I would hate for our lordship to arrive and find his castle so defiled.”

Rosamund nodded, leaning into her husband as he threw his arm around her shoulder and guided them back through the hall’s entrance.

The others followed a few moments later.

Original Photo by AMigill. Used with permission.