“They all think I’m crazy,” I hissed quietly, leaning my head against my locker.
Well, they shouldn’t, came his reply. As always, his voice was creepily graceful. He never rolled his ‘r’s but it always sounded like he was purring.
“And why not? I’m talking to a voice in my head.”
Oh, come now. I’m not a voice in your head. I’m a soul that happens to wander into your mind every once in a while.
“To ‘wander in every once in a while’ would require leaving at some point. You never leave!”
Well, aren’t we snippy today. Did that little faux pas upset you that much?
“Yes it did! I had friends before you came along and now they think I’m a spaz. Just go away! I’ve got a test in five minutes and you’re going to distract me.”
Fine. I know when I’m not appreciated.
“You do not. Otherwise you’d have left a long time ago.”
I got no reply, a blessing in and of itself. At least he’d shut up. With him, silence was a rare treasure. When he wasn’t babbling to himself, he was babbling at me. I swear sometimes he even invaded my dreams.
The warning bell buzzed in the hallway speakers. I had two minutes left to get to class otherwise I’d be tardy. I’d been working on having perfect attendance this entire year and I wasn’t going to ruin it now. It was off to physics class at a mild jog.
In the silence of the classroom, I was grateful to have a few moments to myself. Inevitably, he’d poke his nose back into my business and try to give me test answers. He always did. There was not one test that he sat out of. Never mind that his answers were always wrong. The bastard still thought gravity was a myth. He thought the weight of the air kept things from floating off the face of the earth.
“Lyra, please do keep your thoughts to yourself this time,” Ms. Harper said as she handed me a test. “The other students don’t need any more distractions.”
“Yes, Ms. Harper.” Stuck up bitch. She thought that just because she got some amazing teaching award, she had every right to act like she had a stick up her butt.
He only lasted until question ten. It’s C, he piped up. Terminal Velocity.
‘I don’t need your help!’ I thought back at him.
Judging by your wimpy C+ in this class, you do.
‘Just shut up! For once, could you just shut up?!’ I had to focus on this test. I had to pass this damn thing. I needed a 3.0 this year to get any good scholarships.
I’m just trying to help you pass.
‘You’re not! You’re distracting me. Please just leave me alone!’
I am too. Without my help, you would have gone beyond failing this class by now.
“I said I didn’t need your help!” I shouted, pushing away from my table. As soon as I let the words out, I realized the error I’d made. I could feel Ms. Harper’s glare burning a hole in my head even without looking over at her.
“Lyra. Principal’s office. Now.”
Good going.
Wordlessly, I grabbed my things and the note from Ms. Harper before shuffling out the door. I could hear snickers from my classmates when they thought I was gone. I knew that they were just stupid teenagers and that anything from my behavior to the word, ‘penis’ could make them laugh, but it still hurt. Because of him all of my friends had stopped trying to stand up for me.
Jane didn’t even bother asking me why I walked through the office doors. She just gave me a look of pity before taking my note and gesturing to the principal’s room. I left my things on her desk and took a seat in the office.
Dr. Haus wasn’t in yet. I dreaded a conversation with him. He’d just preach his PhD earned psycho-babble at me about acting out for attention since I didn’t know how to socialize well. Then he’d call my parents and tell them that I had made a scene. Then he’d send me to the library until next hour to, ‘reflect on my actions.’
The dread sat in my stomach like a sack of rocks. I hated these talks with Haus. He never understood. I couldn’t tell him about the idiot in my head. He’d send me to the nut house. And I was perfectly sane when the idiot wasn’t chatting my inner ear off.
You know, if you kept your temper in check, we wouldn’t have these problems.
“Just shut up. For all that’s holy, just shut up.” He sighed and ‘tsk’ed at me.
I’m not the problem here. You could take my advice every once in a while. I’m only trying to help.
“Your ‘helping’ is driving me up a wall! How would you like it if I whispered in your ear every time you’re trying to concentrate? How would you like to doubt if your own brain were broken? How would you like it if I made you question your own knowledge every day?!” The sack of rocks was plunging further.
I’d enjoy the company, he said smugly.
“Well yours is deplorable! You just can’t let me do anything myself! You’re always right there with your snide comments. You just couldn’t stand the thought of letting me go, of letting me have a life without you. Ever since I decided to move on when I was ten, you’ve been rattling around in my brain, trying to make me believe you’re real! Well you’re not! Just give it up already!”
I’d never talked with him about these things. For the most part I just wanted him to leave me alone. But I also didn’t want him to leave. He was the only friend I had left. He had made sure of that.
I am very real, Lyridia. You just can’t accept that because everyone else told you I was imaginary.
“Don’t call me that!”
It’s your name, is it not?
“It’s not anyone’s name! It’s not normal!” I felt like I was going to puke. Why was arguing with him making me sick? I’d argued with him countless times before. This had never happened before. I held my hands in my head and brought my knees up to my chest.
Of course it’s not normal! You’re not normal! You’re so much better than normal.
“Just shut up! Shut up. Shut up. Shut up!” My own throat was choking on the words as tears squeezed out of my eyes. “Why can’t you leave?! Just LEAVE!”
The rocks in my stomach vanished so quickly. I felt so horribly empty without them there. Light surrounded my chair before it vanished as quickly as the rocks, leaving nothing underneath me. And as the law of gravity still applied, I plummeted, screaming, once I found my voice.
First concrete and loose dirt flew past. My knuckles were white with my grip on the seat. Packed dirt in darkening colors flew by too. The wind whipping past tore away my screams before they could reach my ears.
A small, round light started to grow as I sped towards it, leaving me with at least something to look forward to. Black puffballs the size of dandelion heads floated by. One scuttled up the leg of the chair and paused on my arm. It’s wide eyes stared at me for a split second before it jumped into the air and was whisked away.
The chair and I shot through the light at the end of the tunnel, straight up and into a blanket of rain. The grey clouds above snaked with lightning and rumbled with thunder. The chair shot off into another direction as I fell straight towards a pond. There was no way to save myself, so I ended up landing with a splash.
I floundered to the surface and took a grateful breath once I’d reached air. Pond scum stuck in my hair, not that you could tell one from the other. But you could see it on the shoulders of my white blouse. I leaned on the edge of the water and coughed up the water I had accidentally swallowed.
“You tell her.”
“No you tell her.”
“Somebody’s gotta tell her.”
“Well it ain’t going to be me.”
I must have been going crazy. First the hole and the tunnel, now little voices coming from the reeds to my left.
“We could get a vapor to chase her out.”
“She’s too big to be scared by a vapor. Just look at her.”
“Well, what do you suggest?”
“Yeah, not like you’ve made any progress in this either.”
I reached out and pushed the green stalks away, hoping to find the things that were obviously talking about me.
“Ah!”
“Aeiiieeeee!”
“Holy sassafrass!”
I really couldn’t believe my eyes. Little people the size of beetles were gathered in a group behind the reeds. There were ten of them, all huddled in a circle. Each one of them looked terrified.
“Quick! Before she decides to squish us!”
“Rush her, boys!”
All ten of them grabbed tiny twigs and other pointed objects and ran at me. I let the reeds snap back into place and scrambled from the pond, my heart hammering.
There were tiny people living beside the pond. Tiny people dressed in tiny clothes made of plants. Tiny people that wanted to attack me! I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Sure, it was probably hysterical-- borderline manic --but I laughed anyway. There was no way this could be happening! I must have fallen asleep in class, or waiting for Dr. Haus.
But dreams were never this clear. Or this orderly. My dreams were always chaotic and jumped from one scene to another without warning. And even then most of them were fuzzy and hard to focus on.
“That’s it. I’ve gone completely insane!” I laughed to myself. “I’ve finally gone off the deep end. I knew this would happen someday.”
I sat in the grass and let the rain wash over me, breaking up the scum on my blouse. It felt cold, but a good kind of cold, I guess. It felt like the rain back in reality. The little people stabbing at my sneakers didn’t bother me, as neither did the chill seeping into my bones.
This was all just some super-vivid hallucination. My brain had said, ‘Fuck it’ to reality and now I was stuck in my own personal la-la land. I mean, there was no other explanation for it. Dreams were never this vivid. And there was no possibility I’d gotten sucked into a different world. That was something that happened in stories, not in reality.
“Hey, go back to your little houses,” I told the little people. “I’m not your pincushion.”
“Our attacks have no effect!”
“Well, duh! What made you think we’d have any chance against a giant like her?”
“Shut up, Larry. You attacked too.”
“Yeah, but only because you lead the way, George.”
“Would you two shut up?! The giant’s noticed us.” The eight that had the balls to attack me all looked up to find me staring at them. Aside from the attempt to do me harm, they were all adorable. I had to thank my messed up brain for inventing them.
“Oh, don’t mind me.” The eight of them edged away, their bravado spent. “Please continue.”
“Larry, she’s not attacking. Why isn’t she attacking?” ‘Larry’, the one in the little vest made of red flower petals, shrugged and took a tentative step towards me.
“Giant,” he yelled louder than necessary, “what brings you to our village?”
“A hole in the ground,” I answered. None of them felt placated by my answer. Of course they wouldn’t. I didn’t understand it myself.
“You’re just here by happenstance then?” I nodded and Larry turned back to his fellows. “Good news everyone!” The rest just groaned and slapped their heads, or shook them, or acted out any other gesture of annoyance.
“Larry, you’re an idiot.” That was George. He had quite the impressive beard for a little person. “That giant could be lying, you know. Psh, a hole in the ground. What nonsense!”
“You know, I can still hear you,” I said, making George turn pale. “And no, I’m not lying.”
“Well, be that as it may, I still don’t trust you, Giant,” George said. I shrugged.
“If that’s how you feel, you could tell me where I could get out of this rain.”
“There is the forest behind you. Now begone! Away from our village!” George, Larry, and the others returned to the reeds where their little village was. A few of them lingered around the edge of the plants, waiting for me to get a move on.
I figured sitting in the rain wasn’t going to do me much good, even if it was my own imagination. I got up from the sand and brushed what I could from my jeans. The forest behind looked fairly dry with the branches of the trees interlocking above. The only other way to go was across the broad plains in every other direction. At least within the trees I’d be less likely to be struck by lightning.
Under the foliage, it was nearly bone dry. A few open spots let the water drip down, but not many of those were present. It was pretty neat to see the amount of detail my imagination could conjure up. The trees’ bark was rough and cracked and full of different mosses or mushrooms. Some of the trees were almost willows, but still not. Their leaves hung on dripping branches, but they were shaped like spades the size of my hand.
And the colors! I would have thought I’d died and gone to heaven had I not known I was just crazy. Some trees were vibrant greens only seen in children’s books. Other trees had foliage the colors of deep lagoons. Some squat bushes nestled against the trunks bore lively purple berries shaped like miniature pears. I plucked a few from their stems and popped them in my mouth. They almost tasted like blueberries, but with the texture of muskmelon.
Some trees twisted around others. It was quite the symbiotic relationship. I assumed that the rigid ones in the center required the outer ones for protection while the outer ones needed the support of the rigid ones.
“Lyra!” a familiar voice shouted. I whipped my head towards the source, finding a young man standing by one of the purple berry bushes. He looked normal enough at first glance-- blonde hair with black dye at the edges, t-shirt and loose shorts. But a more in depth look revealed much more interesting details. He had cat ears sticking out from his hair. Honest to goodness cat ears. It didn’t take long to notice the tail either. It was the same colors as his hair with the black on the end.
He rushed over to me, his bare feet slapping against the dirt and grass. He looked me over top to bottom, front to back. Breathing a sigh of relief, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and set his chin on my head.
“Sweet stars am I glad you’re okay,” he breathed. “I lost track of you in the middle of our argument and I was just so worried that something had happened to you. But you’re okay!”
“Wait a second,” I said. “Our argument?” Then I remembered the conflict between myself and the voice in my head. Rage bubbled up from my stomach as I realized why his voice sounded so familiar.
“Lyra?” It was all he had time to say before my hands forcefully acquainted themselves with his throat.
“It’s you!” I shouted, his gasps for air oddly satisfying. “You bastard! Did you even realize what a hell you made my life?! Now you’ve dragged me down into Crazy World with you!”
His hands pushed against my chest, trying to shove me away. Choked words hardly made it past his mouth. I let him go, mostly just so I could punch him in the stomach and watch as he curled into a gasping ball on the forest floor.
“Oh, hot fireflies,” he groaned. “I forgot about those days at the gym. Holy hell, Lyra, you’ve gotten strong.”
“It wasn’t enough to ruin my life in reality, was it?! You had to drive me insane. You had to drag me down with you!”
“Lyra…” He was giving me puppy eyes. Did he think I was going to forgive him that easily? I knew he was just a part of my broken mind, but it still felt good to get some revenge. “You don’t think this is all a hallucination, do you?”
“Well what else could it be?” I snapped at him. “I just fell through a hole in Haus’ office to a hole in the ground here and into a pond populated by teeny tiny munchkins. What else would this be but a hallucination?!”
“Lyra, this is the Adjacent Realm, this is another world. This is my world.” I glared into his sad blue eyes and scowled.
“Yeah right. Give me one good reason why I should believe you.”
“Because I can do this.” Before I could puzzle out what he meant, he scooped me off of my feet and started to run through the forest. It took a second of me shoved against his chest to realize just what he’d done.
“Put me down!” I protested, squirming against his surprisingly strong grip. All he did was throw me over his shoulder and continue to run. “I swear to God if you don’t put me down, I’ll kick you in the face!”
“Nice try, Lyra. Your feet can’t even reach my face.” The bastard laughed. His bouncing gait was not making my stomach feel any better after that hole in the ground nonsense.
“I’m going to hurl,” I groaned.
“You are not. I’ve seen you eat foods anyone normal would throw away.”
“No, really.” I could feel the bile rising up my throat-- or rather sinking down, in this position. My stomach decided that right then would be the best time to expel its contents. The stupid voice in my head nearly dropped me.
“Lyra!” he yelled, making my head pound with pain. Good Lord, couldn’t he be quiet? “Lyra, you’ve got to level with me here. Did you eat anything since you got here? Did those Pinchkin offer you anything?”
“No,” I moaned, holding my stomach. “Just a few of those purple berries.” His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. He rushed off, scuffing the grass in his wake before he came back holding the same berries I had eaten earlier.
“These ones? Lyra. Lyra, stay with me here.” I think he could tell that the world was going fuzzy. Everything was kinda funny looking when it was soft at the edges… like a poorly rendered painting. “Lyra, how many of these did you eat?!”
I think I may have held up four fingers… I wasn’t sure. Mostly just because the next moment everything went black.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
