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Part 5-1: Destruction
From the soft down of my bed, traveling instantly to an unreal madhouse overseen by violent ghosts. That’s what was on my plate. Par for the course lately, as I had already popped in a few times since. The team had recently saved a teenager from zombiewalking herself off a bridge with a noose ‘round her noosin’ parts, as Fergus had put it. It was a test of sorts, if you were to believe the mad hatted, smarmy SOB called The Minder.
He’d put a bookshelf in between us and the portal to where Dack was likely trapped, insisting that involuntary education was our ticket fare. A yellow book had sent us on a merry chase after the teen and taught me a new wifi trick. Now we’d received a red book, doubtlessly along with another hapless soul’s fate tied to a string of bloody clues.
And maybe a new skill for me.
I admit, I wasn’t super excited, but it seemed there was little choice. So I had my friends open up the tome, slipped out of my real body, and focused on the picture on the first page.
The Minder’s world pulled me once more, this time in more of a slide than a quick snap. The library’s interior appeared far off, a square of light at the end of another hyperspace tunnel. It wasn’t a checkerboard pattern though, but rather a smooth, transitioning gradient of blue, sort of like those lights they have in hot tubs or airport terminals that are supposed to help you relax.
I doubted relaxation was this light’s intent.
It started off as the familiar shade of blue, the same blue that billowed off all creatures (save one), the same blue that swirled inside Eden’s humanoid shape. I wished I had an artsier background, so that I might name it more accurately. Lighter than navy, deeper and darker than sky blue. Maybe The Minder would help me install a mental eyedropper tool for his next lesson.
As I slid closer to Fort Ticktock, the blue did the fade-thing until it was white. As it did, I felt a pressure build in my chest, almost like I was underwater and going deeper. I expected the shades to come back, or maybe go to red like the book. But my heart lurched when stark black blots emerged instead. For a brief moment, there was a dalmatian skin pattern around the frame of my journey, then the border was black, the pressure in my chest frizzed into heartburn, then I was there.
I knew that sequence of colour. I’d met it early on, right after Eden killed three pigeons in a former tutorial of the super-unnatural. Later, it almost destroyed a huge set of grandstands.
“Oh, what, come on,” exclaimed Fergus.
I blinked, and turned to find him with me yet again. I opened my mouth to chirp him about being favoured by The Minder, but a low, sourceless rumble interrupted me.
Looking around, I noticed that the scene had aged yet again, this time rather severely. The couches were torn and dusty. Cobwebs muted the ceiling corners. The bookshelves were nearly bare, and chunks of debris littered the floor. An ugly curiosity surfaced. How much time had Dack experienced in this place?
“You’re back, and so soon, how splendid,” boomed our host’s voice.
“Again, what’s with the not showing oneself?” I replied.
“Apologies, truly,” said The Minder. “But the original University of Eden no longer suits our needs, my dear Sally-Alena. As such, there will be an immediate relocation. Further, as you’ve proven to be an exemplary student, I’m placing you in the accelerated class. The next lesson shall commence on the fly, here, and now. Good luck.”
Another rumble punctuated the little speech, and a heavy piece of ceiling came blasting down near the fireplace, exploding in a dirty cloud.
“Everything in here is fake,” I said to Fergus, who stared wide eyed at the cracked situation above.
“Your mind makes it real,” he said. “That’s a quote I know I got right.”
“If you’re killed in Fort Ticktock…” I breathed.
“The body cannot live without the mind.”
Another rumble, except this one didn’t stop. Three more explosions as the roof started to give, and one of the massive bookshelves creaked itself into a nasty tilt.
“Door,” I instructed, pointing to the only visible one in the room, along the wall adjacent to the fireplace. There clearly wasn’t much time, so I had to hope this wasn’t a complex puzzle. The colour display on the way in was what happened when Eden dissolved things. This was a lesson in destruction. Sublimation: solids into gas, indeed.
“What about the book, to get out?” said Fergus. It was on the floor between us.
“No,” I said, and watched the air above me for falling danger as I huffed it to the big wooden entryway.
“But—”
The tilting bookshelf interrupted by pulverizing itself into the floor. The impact jolted the whole room, sending Fergus to his knees, me tripping and sprawling, and the book in question up off the floor like an exploding popcorn kernel. It landed and poofed! into red dust.
“See? Now move,” I cried, as hunks of splintery wood joined chunks of former ceiling in continuing the aerial assault. The other shelves took to copying their fallen comrade’s fatal lean. I didn’t wait to see if he’d listen—the door was only a few steps away.
Nothing smushed me as I reached it, though I felt a few small objects pelt my back, and there was a bruising slap on my shoulder as a medium sized one glanced it. I planted my ring hand on the grainy surface and willed it to go away, to glow, to do anything.
Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that.
The door remained solid and door-like as the room behind me tore itself apart. I gave the iron hoop a yank, just in case the The Minder was being cheeky, but it stuck fast.
“Shit on a stick,” I cursed, and turned around to see where Fergus was, if he might be able to help. He was sprinting toward me, and I was just in time to see the last bookshelf erupt into shards of kindling behind him, missing making him into a pancake by an eyelash’s width.
The impact sent him skidding on his stomach, right to my feet. With icy fascination, sure to graduate into keening anguish any second, I stared helplessly at the forest of jagged splinters standing straight and deadly all along his ravaged, bloody back.
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