Vanishing Act - Finale

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And now I’m alone in the night, walking aimlessly in the gloom when something causes me to stop and look more closely at the columns of stone gathered around me.

For a moment only, it seems like one moves a little closer. I stare so hard at the now immobile rock-face that my eyes water. Did I only imagine it?

“Please don’t leave,” a man’s voice cries out when I begin to turn away.

I’m not sure why I pause. “Don’t come near me,” I reply through chattering teeth, my body trembling with terror and cold.

“Please don’t leave,” he continues piteously. “You can’t imagine how lonely it is in this place.”

“Don’t move any closer,” I plead, remembering Hey Kat’s warning.

“I only want to talk; I won’t hurt you."

I know I should walk away, but something in his voice stirs my pity.

"Tens of thousands dwell in this dark place," he continues, "but I cannot see them, they never speak. They jostle and shove. Always jostling and shoving, never speaking. Terrible place. Just terrible.” His voice trails off in a lunatic mutter.

But no one shoved or jostled me as I walked through the ghostly, stone columns. Save for the voice, I am alone.

Still the hairs on my neck stand on end. Why does fear seem so much greater in the darkness?

“Do you know where I can find water?”

“Why would you want water?” he answers in surprise.

I feel sick to my stomach. Where am I?

“You don’t know?” The voice answers, reading my thoughts. “Weren’t you judged?”

Turning my back, I begin to walk swiftly away, barely suppressing the urge to break into a run.

“You don’t understand … there’s nothing and no one out there,” the voice yells after me.

I pause and turn, my heart in my throat. “Why are you here?” I ask, partly curiosity, partly fear of leaving without learning the answer.

“I died and was judged. She didn’t even tell me my sins. ‘Guilty,’ she said, 'Guilty of what I asked,' and then I found myself here in this Hell.

“In the daylight, the sun burns me as if I still had flesh, and at night my fleshless spirit trembles violently in the cold, just like you do now.”

“How did you die?”

He emits a mirthless laugh. “Lung cancer. Never smoked a day in my life. One day I had trouble breathing and went to the doctor and boom, stage four lung cancer. Before that not a single symptom and suddenly I’m condemned to die. I ask you, is that just?”

Staring, I do not answer, tears of rage welling in my eyes.

“‘Guilty,’ she said, “no explanation; alone for all eternity, jostled and shoved. Does that seem right to you?”

Again, I do not answer.

“What did I do to deserve such a thing?”

“You abandoned your family,” I reply flatly. This silences him for a few moments. I can feel his invisible stare as if the stone facing me has eyes.

“Eury,” he finally whispers.

“Eury,” I reply sadly.

His voice sighs. “Your mother’s fault. I told her I did not want children.”

“I know. You made that clear in your letters. And yet you made me just the same. And then you abandoned us both.”

“Eury,” he repeats quietly. “I’m not your enemy. I never was.”

“You made me invisible, father. You did that by leaving. By never communicating.

“Not one birthday card. No gifts at Christmas. No congratulations when I did something well. No encouragement when I failed.

“You did not love me, and now no one else can. You made me invisible and now you are too. That sounds like justice to me.”

I turn and walk away, his voice howling into the night. Carried aloft by the still desert air, I hear it for a long time before it grows fainter and disappears altogether.

But our brief encounter has created its own inner torment. I now realize how stupid this gamble really is. Orfy is no better than my father and yet I’m the one trapped in this hell.

He left me after giving me the false hope that I was good enough for him. If that was a test of love, he failed it. Why would this time be any different?

The rising of the sun only worsens my circumstances. The stone columns are strangely absent. I cannot see trees no matter the direction I face, the yellow sand stretching on forever.

I’m hungry, tired and filled with dread. The breeze of the previous day has turned to a blustery wind. The sand stinging my face, I tie my shawl around my mouth and nose.

The day is long, hot and dry, my mouth growing cottony with thirst. After walking for several hours, I begin to feel lightheaded.

I do not know how much longer I can do this, the events of the night before seeming little more than a dream. Perhaps they were. Who knows what is real in this place and what is imagined.

But I have grown so hot that even my sweat has evaporated, my skin and scalp prickly and scratchy. Pausing I scan the horizon for trees or a place offering shade. Even a rock outcropping would be welcome.

But there is nothing between me and the horizon but the same yellow sand. My dizziness increasing, I stumble and fall before almost blacking out.

Pushing myself up to my knees, I sit back on my haunches in an effort to stay conscious. A moment later, a surge of heat spasms out of my stomach and up my esophagus, my vomit spraying onto the sand between my knees.

But even after I have expelled all of the bile within my constricted guts, I continue heaving, coughing and spitting strings of drool onto the sand for a long time. Hekatos was right. Before the end I begin to long for death.

Even after the retching has ended, I still feel something lodged in my stomach, but it won’t let go.

With every moment, I believe Hey Kat’s promise less and less. “You said he would come,” I yell hoarsely. “You were sure of it. But if he doesn’t come soon, he’ll find me dead and buried in the yellow sand.”

Staggering to my feet, I begin to walk again, but I don’t get far before falling down. That’s when I finally see a figure approaching in the distance.

Standing, I weakly wave my arms, but the figure does not return the gesture. Stumbling toward it, I wave them again and cry hoarsely for help. But the sound does not carry, nor does the figure reply.

Continuing slowly forward, it begins to shimmer and fade. I croak “Orfy! Come back! I love you!”

Too late, I realize what I've done, the figure disappearing with the utterance of his name. "Idiot!" I shriek before collapsing to my knees a third time. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Another wave of heat surges through my stomach, but this time I spew more than bile, staring in horror at slimy bits and chunks of Hey Kat's doll in the wet sand while the wind violently buffets and pelts me with sand.

Shrieking “Hey Kat!” I try to push the pieces of her together again while the fabric in my clothing unravels in the angry wind, its threads disintegrating into dust.

"No, no, NO!" First my shirt and then my shawl come apart and are stripped away, and then my pants, shoes and socks follow. My bra and panties are the last torn off by the wind driven sand, my naked and reddened flesh fully exposed to the spiteful elements.

How long has Hey Kat waited for this moment? Two thousand years? Three? I didn't find her when I was a girl, that bitch found me!

I feel powdery and dry like a jar of paste left open too long. My mouth opens for one finale shriek, but no sound parts my lips, my skin sloughing off my pink flesh instead and blowing away in the wind.

Then muscle and meat lift from my bones like so many grains of sand to join their fellows in the endless yellow desert, my skeleton shattering on the desert floor.

Somehow, I’m still living and yet more invisible than ever. But I won't stay that way long. I'm coming for that lying bitch.

I'm coming for you both!