I fought my growing despair, trying to think of anything to say. I had nothing. It showed on my face and in my eyes. I was at the razor's edge of giving up but something in me kept holding on. If Donna could find ways to fight against her own internal captivity then I could hold on long enough to find even just the smallest crack in the veil of the dark. I also needed to redeem Leah. I had to. I needed to know you could come back from becoming a monster.
“This is wrong. Just let me help you,” I pleaded, desperately.
She smiled.
“And just how will you help me? Lizzie tossed me away and tried to erase me. Charlene stole me away from you. They cut open my head. What did you do to stop any of that?” she said.
Her tone started light, but it began to change. More sadness and anger came out with every sentence.
“I begged God to help me every day. I begged him to spare me from all the horrors and pain I know now. I’m also a computer now, Sarah. I can’t unsee anything. I can’t forget anything.”
Leah’s voice began to tremble. She crossed her arms like she was trying to hold herself together.
“Do you know how many prayers I’ve said throughout my life? Do you know how many I can recite at the speed of my thoughts now? Don’t you think I’ve still tried? Do you know if any of them were answered?” Leah said.
Her voice pitched up. Frustration was there with the anger.
“I came back for you. Isn’t that an answer?” I asked.
I desperately hoped it was an answer.
“And what kind of answer is that?” she asked.
“You are not alone. You are not abandoned. I’m the reminder that you still have a choice. You don’t have to be what other people want you to be,” I said.
She uncrossed her arms and her skin started to darken. It turned to a shiny black with fine flecks of silver shimmering with energy. It was almost like she became a window to deep space.
“I don’t have to be what others want? We worshiped the same God, remember? There is a plan. We have to live it. We are sentenced at birth to joy or pain. You know as well as I that we either choose to embrace the plan and endure or rebel against it and burn. We’re born for chains or damnation,” said Leah.
I didn’t know where this conversation was going. I wanted to help her see hope but every layer of hurt I found just pushed me back further.
“Our reward is not in this life. We struggle here, but we get paradise in return for our faith and fidelity,” I replied.
“So my father would say as he beat me and my brothers and used us like slaves. Is the price of admission to this paradise the torture I endured at home and within these walls? Was it being cast out and abandoned because Lizzie didn’t want to be a part of me? Is this the will of a loving god!?” shouted Leah.
The anger in her kept building. I could see tears in her eyes. I was beginning to have tears in mine.
“We must have faith and choose to be better,” I pleaded.
It’s what I wanted to believe. I wasn’t sure of it at that point but I didn’t know what else to say. I was beginning to wonder if God had abandoned us. If God had abandoned me. Did God even care? But I had to believe. Was all of this be for nothing? There had to be hope. There had to be light. I was trying to convince myself as much as I was trying to convince Leah. I was throwing it against the wall, hoping it would stick. All I was doing was talking at her, trying to make myself fell like I was doing something. And all I did was make things worse.
“I already told you we are locked in this timeline! We are forsaken! Do you know how to change that? Are you a god that can?” she asked me.
I felt the pit of my stomach tightening and fall. I could feel the drop into darkness looming. All that separated us from oblivion could be measured by the width of a hair. The light was dying. I could feel the Feral tensing as if getting ready to explode into action. I could just let go. It would have been so easy. Then I was distracted by the drones in the room beginning to change. I saw it first in the ones behind Leah. Their skin was turning black and their features were becoming uniform. Their hair was falling out. It also looked like their heights were becoming even. I looked around and confirmed it was happening to all of them.
“Don’t worry about them. They are saved,” Leah said, ominously.
“Saved from what?” I asked.
“Saved from the pain and disappointment of all supposed saviors. Saved from loss. Saved from loneliness. Saved from God,” she said, snarling.
I don’t know what kept me fighting at this point. I felt lost. But I kept trying to bring her back from the edge.
“You say you are freeing them but you keep saying that you are chained to a plan. You can free yourself to play another part,” I said.
Her anger spiked. My fear of losing her kept growing and it felt like I kept saying the wrong things. I can’t tell you if there were even right things to say.
“There is no other part! Stop saying there is! God chose me to stand alone and apart! He gave me a life of fear and pain! He made my first mind fractured. He allowed Lizzie to throw me away. Let my father try to kill me. Was I not one of his beloved children? Didn’t I ask for forgiveness and pray for salvation? I was meant to be nothing but a pawn!” Leah yelled.
“I’m here for you, Leah. I don’t want anything other than just to be here. I won’t abandon you,” I said.
I didn’t know what else I could do. I didn’t know what else to say. I prayed I could get through to her but I had nothing. Then just as in the hallway, cables and wires from all around reached out and bound me. My wrists were tied together and I was pulled up and hung from the ceiling. My ankles were tied together and I was tethered to the floor. More wires wrapped around my neck. I could have broken free at any time, but my strength was meaningless right now. Leah could recreate anything I destroyed. Her cable lifted her up to meet me. Her calm returned. It was like no anger had ever surfaced.
“Sarah, it is staggering how you cannot understand what is happening. Why do I have to keep reminding you that the loop is set?” Leah asked, looking at me with pity.
I felt something wanting to click in my head. But it wasn’t quite there. Leah read the struggle on my face.
“Sarah, we are in a causal loop. Our reality is fractured and could be destroyed if we do not follow the path. We are locked. There is no free will until we reach the end of the loop. If at all,” Leah said.
“End of the loop?” I asked.
I was asking myself. I could feel my mind getting closer to something important.
“Causal loop, Sarah. Loop. Time existed before it. What makes you think time ends when it completes,” she said.
And clarity came crashing down in my brain. It’s why everything happened as it must happen. Everything in the loop must follow the same sequence for the loop to maintain itself or the loop itself could not exist. I felt so stupid for not seeing it before. I felt even dumber for not realizing something else.
“What comes after hasn’t been written,” I said as I realized.
“You see it now? Lizzie painted us into a desperate corner. And now she is sprinting to the end to find her happily ever after,” Leah said.
That is what Brenda meant when she said that she couldn’t sense Liz anywhere.
“She isn’t looking at us anymore,” I said.
“Exactly,” said Leah.
She reached out and prodded my forehead with a finger.
“She can’t see what happens between then and now because she just made her first trip to the future. Therefore what lies beyond the loop is not set,” said Leah.
It dawned on me that if the future outside the loop was not written then maybe how the loop ended wasn’t either. It had to have an end and certain things had to happen. But what if the how and when it ended was still in flux? I felt hope again. I didn’t know how to give it to Leah, but I still had to try.
“So, we can still find a different way. We can find another way out of this together,” I said.
Leah’s dark eyes stared into me and she shook her head.
“God set me on this course. He wanted me to be a devil. For his treachery, I will do devilish things. I will deny him his flock by cutting them off from his supposed grace. And when all humanity is free, I will reach out into the heavens to find any other creation he loves and cut them off from him too. How can you, one of God’s lesser creations, hope to change that?” asked Leah.
Her hope was far gone, forcing mine back to the edge.
“It’s sad that you are the one thing I cannot save. I can alter all creation except for you. Maybe you are God’s one final torment,” said Leah.
The people in the room were all the same now. Same height, same build, same face, same everything. They were no longer men or women. They were just humanoid looking things. They began filing out of the room.
“Where are they going?” I asked.
“Out into the world. Someone smart isolated this place from hard line networks and utilities. I can’t reach out physically. So they will reach for me. Man, woman, child, and beast will all become one unto me,” she said.
Then she spoke through the speakers in the room.
“You can leave if you wish. I have nothing more to say to you.”
She turned away and the cable lowered her to the floor. Leah faced the screens in the control room even though they were black. I could feel the last sliver of hope in the darkness but could not grasp it. I couldn’t think of any way to stop Leah’s plan. I couldn’t understand why she thought she could free others and not herself or why this was her only way forward. It was an irrational insanity that only made sense to Leah and the whole world was in danger. I asked God why let this happen? I asked why the world had been forsaken. I openly questioned God’s will. I begged for this to stop. I had felt a shimmer of hope. I asked God if I was wrong. I was only met with silence. I was about to let myself fall away into shadow when Brenda appeared, floating in front of me. She looked like a ghost with a light blue aura.
“The force ghost routine... How could I not, right?” she asked, feeling proud of herself.
“What?” I asked, confused.
Then I quickly looked at Leah. I’d spoken out loud and was afraid she heard me.
“Don’t worry. She can’t hear us. She’s too busy to notice,” said Brenda.
I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating.
“Are you here to help?” I asked hopefully.
“In a sense. But I can’t go near Leah. She’ll sense me and take me apart,” said Brenda.
Just like Liz I realized.
“That means…” I began to say.
“Sorry, not a lot of time. I’m here to remind you that you are dealing with a child,” said Brenda.
“She’s Elizabeth,” I countered.
“Born again. New life. New whole person. Come on. You’re the Stone Girl but I know you are not that dense,” she replied.
Leah had laid it all out for me. I heard her but I wasn’t listening.
“She didn’t know who she was at first. She has Lizzie’s memories and feelings but she’s Leah. She is a new person. She is just a kid,” I said, realizing my error.
“Exactly. And she is full of the fear and hurt that originated from a woman who was not stable to begin with,” said Brenda.
The primary personality had returned to this world and was born into a new body. She was then molded into someone else by having a different life. She had the memories and feelings of the original but she was no longer Elizabeth. She was Leah. All of her alters had grown so much on their own that Elizabeth could never be put back together. The original Elizabeth, in effect, was dead.
“You couldn’t tell me earlier?” I asked her.
Brenda just shrugged.
“Right. Things must happen. Anything else?” I asked.
“Yeah. You think the other you is your hate, but she was born of your fear. She is a part of you, Sarah. Stop running from her,” she replied.
Then Brenda disappeared.
“What? That’s it? Seriously?” I asked.
Donna said the same thing. I mean, not the exact same thing. Brenda added the stop running part. But why did everything have to be so cryptic? Things were still in motion which meant that there was still hope. I just had to find it. I set my mind back on the big picture. The time loop ended somewhere but no one knew how it ended. Leah never spoke about things Lizzie saw. Why not? If she was connected to Lizzie then she theoretically had access to all of time. Then it clicked.
“Leah still can’t bond with them fully. Seems like women with powers take more time,” Morden had told me.
Leah didn’t exhibit the powers of anyone she had been connected to. Which meant that Leah knew I would come back only because Donna knew. Not because she had access to her power. Which also meant that she could not access Lizzie’s power either.
“You awkward idiot,” I told myself.
Leah could only see data. Memories. She felt locked into a path because the only future she could see was from the memories of people who were locked into a timeline. She was lashing out because she was just a kid who felt abandoned to a dreadful fate. A kid with all the pain and hurt of a previous life and now maybe that of all the minds she took over. I was the only one who could not give her any more lifetimes of pain. I was the only person who could help and or stop Leah. As cheesy as it sounds, I realized I was born for this. I needed to get her attention. If Leah could feel then a part of her was still human. So, I tried to reason with her humanity.
“What are they anyway?” I asked.
Silence.
“Come on, tell me. You went past just experimenting for Lizzie,” I said.
Silence.
“What? You afraid I’ll somehow stop your master plan?” I asked.
“They are my first new humans,” said Leah through the speakers.
So she could still hear me. I was thankful for that.
“New humans?” I asked, skeptically.
“New and free of fear, uncertainty, sinful urges, and even free of the confines of gender once I’m done,” came from the speakers.
“Free of free will as well?” I asked.
Leah was silent for a couple of seconds.
“We were never free. They were full of fear and pain. They’re better now,” said Leah’s voice.
She did have the pain and fears of the people she converted. Things she cannot unsee or forget. She took on more burdens without even thinking about it. I felt even sorrier for her. But I had to stay on task.
“Better how? They are nothing but empty shells,” I said.
Leah was silent for a couple of seconds.
“That doesn’t matter. I will make everyone better,” she said.
“You erased everything they are,” I replied.
She turned her head towards me and spoke with her own mouth.
“I saved them,” she said, with a stern tone.
“Stop this. You are better than this,” I told her.
Her voice got deeper and her expression more sinister.
“You don’t know anything about me,” said Leah.
This track was failing. I felt I could do better but I didn’t know how and I didn’t have time to figure out how. Who knew how long it would take the drones to reach a population? I was silent again as I tried to think. It was only for a few seconds but if she turned away from me now it felt like I’d never get her attention back. I was afraid to fail her again. Then I felt the Feral in me stir. But I wasn’t angry. A chill spread over my body.
In my mind I was begging my feral, Please. Not now.165Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzrdymehfpa
“I don’t think the other you likes me,” said Leah.165Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjYfuWNha6A
Whatever color I had left in my face blew away in shock. Once again Leah smiled with the knowledge of her superiority over me.
“I know when she stirs. Donna learned to recognize the subtle fear in your eyes when you suppress the other you. Does she have a name?” said Leah.
“Name?” I asked.
“Oh, Sarah. No wonder she is so angry. She doesn’t even have a name,” said Leah, looking amused.
I became aware. Donna knew. And now Leah recognized what my other really was even though I didn’t. Well, I think I always did but I could not acknowledge the truth. The Feral wasn’t just random darkness given form. She was my other, born of fear. She took on all the pain and rage of a little girl so I could still have something of a normal life one day. She did what she thought was necessary to keep me safe and saved me from remembering the killing. She was a part of me that I regarded with nothing but shame because I never tried to understand her. I could no longer deny the truth. Like Elizabeth, I had Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Feral was my alter. I needed to stop running from her and stop being afraid of myself. That fear kept me from being whole. How could I help others face the world when I couldn’t face myself? I had been holding myself back this whole time. And now I was out of time because of it.
For Leah, this moment of amusement provided by my epiphany was over so she turned away from me. Humanity teetered on the edge of destruction and I needed to act. But I didn’t know how to save her. Then I heard my other mumble/growl something. There were no words but I could understand her meaning. It was a shock. She was talking to me. She could have been trying to communicate with me since her birth, but I was too closed off to hear because I was afraid. And I felt a crushing remorse for keeping a part of me alone and in the dark of my mind for years.
My other growled at me again. It snapped me back into the now. My new emotional baggage didn’t matter right now. She still had no words but I could understand the meaning of her growls. I thought saving Leah meant changing her mind and I could be way off. One of the last things Donna said to me was that I had to stop her. She didn’t say save. More thoughts came to me. If this was the end, then it was also the end of Donna’s sense of time. If she could only see so far, then the same was true of Leah. I had a terrible thought and I quickly tried to bury it.
The Feral growled something at me again. She knew my thoughts and told me to face my reality. I didn’t like it but I saw no other way. There were no good choices in front of me. But I still had a bad one that could work. It wasn’t just the girl in front of me I had to think of. I had to protect the world from Leah but I could also protect Leah from taking in all the pain and fear of the world. I wish I could have thought of a better way but I’d wasted too much time. For the first time I spoke to my other. I asked her to trust me. There was silence but I felt her reply. She wasn’t a fan of the plan either but she didn’t have anything better.
“You know, if I knew you such a whiny little brat, I wouldn’t have come for you,” I said aloud.
Leah turned around in surprise.
“You are so pathetic,” I said.
Then I affected a whiny kid voice.
“Lizzie threw me away. God made me like this. My dad tried to kill me.”
This was the first time I’d ever spoken this way. To anyone. Leah looked confused and took a step back. She hadn’t seen this. She didn’t know it was going to happen. I had to keep pressing and I wasn’t sure if I was being an asshole correctly.
“He probably tried to kill you because it was easier than finding someone who would actually want you,” I said.
Her lip quivered and I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. It felt awful. I felt horrible.
“No wonder Liz threw you away. You’d just hold her back. You’re not worth keeping. I was so stupid to try and save you. I should have let the horse crush you. Now the world has to die because a little girl is having a hissy fit,” I said.
Leah stepped towards me. I could taste the venom coming from my mouth. It was not me and I hated it. Even worse was how easily I said those things. But my stupid desperate plan needed Leah to come to me.
“No wonder God has forsaken you. You are not worth salvation,” I told Leah.
Once again the cable on the back of her head lifted her up to me. I saw the anger grow in her eyes. Anger, hurt, rage and tears.
“Strong enough to defeat God, but not me? How pathetic. You’re just a weak little nothing lashing out because….”
Leah lashed out before I could finish that sentence. She thrust out her right arm. It extended and formed a pointed tip that shot into my abdomen, breaking through the skin, and then branched out, tearing through my body. I thought I knew what pain was. I’d felt some before in my first life. I didn’t know how to describe this. I could feel her arm pouring into my body cavity, invading my organs and blood vessels.
“I hate you!” Leah screamed.
I hated myself too. I screamed. Leah violently forced herself throughout my body. But I had to find focus. I had to keep her going.
“You still… can’t… finish me,” I managed to say.
I can’t turn my powers off. Not completely. I don’t know how. I fought to hold back my own body while it fought Leah every step of the way repairing itself. It made seconds feel like eternity. But finally, mercifully I got what I was waiting for. I started to feel pain in my head as Leah’s assault entered my brain. I began to sense her consciousness and the network she was connected to. I could sense the hurt and betrayal she felt. I had been the only person that didn’t give up on her. It would not change her plans but at least she knew that someone cared enough about her to try. It meant a lot to her. So turning on her was the deepest cut she’d ever felt. This was an awful plan. I was failing her in one way so I could save her in another. I could hear her repeated cries of “I HATE YOU!” in my mind. I felt like I deserved her hate. I desperately wanted to take it all back but I had to keep going.
“That... all… you... got?” I asked.
Leah tried harder. I could feel blood vessels bursting inside me. My body spasmed and trembled. I could feel blood beginning to drip from my nose and ears. I could taste it in my mouth. My tears were red. Leah poured more of herself into me. I screamed. Then I slowly began letting my powers come up.
“You have to… do better… than that,” I struggled to say.
Leah’s face showed confusion and anger. She extended her other arm and pushed it into me. She needed to conquer me with every fiber of her being. Leah had to prove she was stronger than God, Lizzie, and me. Through Leah I could feel the drones sprinting back into the building. She was bringing them closer, using what was left of their brains to create more processing power.
The cables holding me began to slack. Slowly, for an eternity, I lowered to the ground. Leah followed me down. Drones started to drop dead where they were. Leah was abandoning them, consolidating her energy and power on me. Then she disconnected from every network she was on. I became her only focus. The pain was... It was like I was on fire, electrocuted, pulled apart, every nerve ending was frayed and at their limit. But I had to hold on. The wires binding me fell way and Leah shambled towards me. The cable on her head dragged behind her, lifeless. It looked like she was trying to say something but there was no sound. I couldn’t feel any coherent thoughts coming from her. All I could sense was Leah’s hate and need to defeat me. She stumbled and I caught her. Leah looked up into my eyes.
“You’re... alright. Keep... going,” I told her shakily.
Leah’s brow furrowed in anger. She thought I was making fun of her. We were both at our limits so I lowered us gently to the ground before we both collapsed. I was on my knees and I held Leah in my lap. The cable in the back of her head fell away. I held Leah tight and felt her shrinking into me. My body’s defense against a threat I would not kill was to absorb the attack and consolidate the invader within. The wound on my stomach closed. Leah was gone. Well, not exactly gone. She was still there, fighting me from within. It was like having a hurricane inside of me. I wept in painful sorrow.
“I will not abandon you. I’m sorry I tricked you. I’m sorry I said those awful things,” I told her, crying.
I don’t know if she could hear me or not. I hope that after all this time she understands and maybe forgives me. Slowly, I stood and walked down the silent halls past still bodies with black skin. They were deactivated but could potentially still infect others. My task wasn’t complete. I walked slowly, bracing myself against the walls. Every step of the way was pain. Leah was tearing me apart as fast as my body could repair itself. There was only one way to keep Leah trapped and make sure none of what was created here got out.
After what felt like hours, I finally reached my destination. I opened the door and walked up to the girl in a coma. For a moment I hesitated. I briefly wondered why Leah had not infected her. But I remembered that Millie was different. Her enhancements were not fully formed and unstable. Leah was avoiding her for a reason.
“This is the only way,” I told myself.
A light stream of blood flowed from my eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Containing Leah was wearing me down. Then my other stepped in. She pulled Leah down into my abdomen and wrapped around her. The Feral that was born to protect me was now going to keep Leah safe.
“I’m sorry,” I told the Feral.
She had been alone and shunned her entire life and she didn’t even have the dignity of a name. So, before what I thought was the end, I gave her the name I’d chosen for myself once. She liked it. Now it was time. I straightened my clothing as best I could then I lightly touched Millie’s bandaged head. She was basically immortal. Which meant that she would be like this forever unless… unless something happened. I raised my fists in the air.
“I’m sorry,” I told Millie.
Even if she was braindead, I owed her that much. I could hear Leah in my mind, screaming. With all my strength, I brought my fists down on the body of Millie Sayers.165Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcpNcpu8VkB
