Soul Split

I look down at his head in my lap, tears running down my face. I never thought he could be hurt. I never imagined my life without him, not since the day we met. I run my fingers through his curly hair the way he always liked. My arm shakes as I feel how cold he is.

“We have to go.” Katie has tears streaming down her cheeks. I’m holding her brother, after all. “I’m so sorry…” her voice breaks. “But we have to go.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.” I whisper. She pulls on my arm, and I’m too weak to fully resist, but I won’t just get up and walk away, either. My fingers tangle into his curls even tighter, the world blurring once more as another wave of tears overwhelms my sight. Ray stumbles back into our little shelter and forces me up, and I open my mouth to protest, to scream, but my voice shatters in my throat. Something in my chest rips into pieces, and I sob pathetically as I’m hauled out of the shelter, but once my feet are set on the path before me, I stumble forward, and my mind shifts into gear, just putting one foot in front of the other, not thinking, not feeling. We trudge onwards through the wreckage of what was once our home.

I open my eyes and startle at the unfamiliar, hedonistic city before me, but he’s here, by my side, one arm wrapped around my shoulders. He puts a finger to his lips. We can hear fighting, with animalistic roars punctuating the chaos in the distance. We stay hidden, until the fighting starts to sound closer, and we begin to see winged…humanoids, over the tops of the buildings.

We slip out of the alley and start picking our way in the opposite direction, towards where the buildings get shorter, and the streets get dirtier. There’s a tall building on the outskirts that we unconsciously make our way to. A whistling sounds over my shoulder, and I flinch, turning my head, but he’s already shoved himself behind me, and a golden spear splits his ribcage in two. I scream, but he pushes me aside. “Run.” There’s no room for argument when he takes that tone, but I still reach out and touch his face one last time as it dissolves. “Run.” So I run.

We spend another day trudging onward. Exhaustion weighs down my limbs. We move under cover of night, ignoring the screams around us. Ray keeps watch while Katie tries to hold me up every time I stumble over a broken bit of concrete or asphalt…or worse. He ushers us under another wreck of twisted metal as the eastern horizon begins to faintly glow. I’m surprised the sun still rises. I don’t expect to sleep.

I reach the tall building. An assortment of…strange characters…move about the grounds. Some have horns, some wings, some tails. Some are nine feet tall, others smaller than me. One of the tall ones, a mostly red creature, keeps looking in my direction with pitch-black eyes. I think he knows I’m here. I back away, down the slope, as carefully as I can without taking my eyes off him. He turns to talk to a winged cat. My foot slips out from under me, but I manage not to scream.

I’m not expecting to be caught in someone’s arms.

I sit facing the direction we came, my feet itching to hike back into the ruined city, but Ray takes my arm and pulls me up, spinning me around to start walking the other direction. I finger the last of his curls caught between my fingers. How long has it been? I don’t know. I don’t care.

The owners of the apartments end up taking me in, despite not knowing or understanding who I am or how I got here. I help them run the place, answering the phone, manning the desk, calling the cleaning lady or maintenance guy–the tall red guy, unfortunately– whenever something is more than I can handle. He still creeps me out, but I’ve noticed a pattern–he only fights the people who disrespect his people, or women and children. I only feel a little safer–fighting isn’t the only dangerous thing around here. I truly do wish I could do more to help–the owner has become a close friend. She took me in, and for probably a few weeks, I didn’t even say a word–just curled up in the room she gave me and either slept or cried. She brought me food, water, and tea. She talked to me, sang to me, read me stories, which I later found out were written about her parents.

Don’t worry, her dad isn’t actually as terrifying as that makes him sound. He’s a bit strange, and probably the strongest person in the city–but he’s taken a weird liking to me and follows me around asking questions nonstop about where I came from. He’s pulled me out of the rubble of a fight more than once. He offered to train me…but that makes me nervous. I don’t want to see an angry expression when he looks at me. It might be the last thing I see.

She’s invited me out to this amusement park her dad owns with them. It’s her, her partner, her dad, and me. There’s this energy under my skin whenever I think about it, and I’d be considering not going if it wasn’t for all she’s done to help me. I can’t help feeling this is going to end badly.

We’re still wandering the wastelands, but we’re getting weaker. It’s not just me that’s stumbling blindly along, and at one point, I come to my senses and can’t find the others. I spot Ray up on top of a sand dune, and begin the long, arduous trek up. How did I get so far away? How did no one notice?

When I get up to the top, no one is there. I scream Ray’s name over and over again, but no one answers except the dunes echoing my voice back at me and the wind screaming in my face, filling my eyes and mouth with sand. I drop to my knees and let it bury me. I want to go home. Go back to the way things were. I want him back.

Cristal jumps up and down, waving excitedly as I make my way down the stairs to the lobby. Lori stands at her side, and…Sam. He has his hands folded behind his back, and on a human I’d swear his grin looked nervous. Here, I really can’t tell. And assuming someone is nervous might, again, get me killed.

My feet hit the floor of the lobby, a sense of clarity rushing through me suddenly. I glance around, but I don’t see anyone else, and I wipe the thoughtful frown off my face before turning back to…well, they’re my friends, even if they’re actually kind of dangerous friends. Doesn’t that make them more dangerous? Do I even care anymore?

“Ready?” Cristal’s bouncing on her toes now. I nod at her, and she grabs Lori’s hand and yanks her out the door to the waiting car. How…pedestrian, when two of us can fly. Sam holds out his arm, like a gentleman from back home. I’m so stunned I just blink at it for a moment, and his arm wavers like he’s considering lowering it. I take it before he can, my hand just barely brushing against his sleeve. Odd. But then again, he’s always kind of odd. He seems to mean well, at least towards his daughter and her people. I’m thankful I count as one of her people.

He leads me down the steps and steps back to let me slide into the back seat of the car first. Cristal’s turned around in her seat to grin at me. Lori looks at me in the rearview mirror with a cautious expression I’m not sure I fully understand as Sam slides into the seat next to me and pulls the door closed. “Everyone ready?” Lori asks. I nod, out of the corner of my eye I see Sam nod, but he’s also glancing at me, so I look back up at Cristal, who’s bouncing in her seat and clapping her hands really fast. I really need her to chill a little bit.

I look out the window and watch the city pass us by. Cristal made me a charm that hides what I am, and I’ve never been more grateful for it than when I first met Sam, and now. A few of the citizens look at our car, but none approach us. Cristal and Sam talk pretty much the whole way there. I don’t turn around to see whose eyes are on me.

When we get there, the crowd parts before Sam and Cristal, so Lori and I walk quietly at their sides. Sam offers me his arm again, and I suppose I’m more concerned about offending him than what any of these people I don’t know will think of it, so I take it.

My suspicions grow as we decide to go on a rather classic roller coaster first, and Cristal and Lori step up and get in the front cart together…leaving me in a cart with Sam. Cristal keeps looking back at me, Sam keeps looking at me…why is it just the four of us here?

The ride takes away any rational thought as we whoosh through the twists and turns. Cristal and Lori slide on the seat ahead of us, sides pressed together as they laugh. I have a death grip on the rail in front of me. I realize Sam has also braced himself, but he’s watching me, and he looks so much more casual about it than I do. I bite my lip as the ride jumps over the last crest, gliding back down to the start. A part of me is flattered, sure, but…

As soon as we’re back on the pavement, I put some distance between myself and the others. I can’t run, Sam is still watching me, and I can’t read his expression. There’s a split second where a not-so-distant explosion draws his gaze away from me, even though he’s moving towards me with a hand out. I take it, dodge his hand, and run.

I weave my way through the crowd. Everyone’s screaming now, and no one pays any mind to the little creature bumping gently into them and ricocheting off back into the crowd.

A clawed hand grabs the back of my shirt, and my feet leave the ground, still kicking at the air as if running.

“Here she is!” Says a female voice behind me. “Your new human toy. She’s unharmed, Sam, look. Oh, perhaps a little scared. I think she figured out your little pretense for this trip. Perhaps it wants me to save it…put it out of its misery.”

I’ve never seen Sam look as furious as he does now, and I can’t help but shrink away. There’s a reason every citizen here fears him. For just a heartbeat, I realize he saw me flinch, and his expression changes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say my fear hurt his feelings. How ridiculous.

“Why don’t we ask all of her?” The female voice continues. What the fuck does that mean?

In the now-empty space below, there’s…me. Regular, human me…but I look really rough. Like my hair hasn’t been washed in weeks, my bones sticking out in places they shouldn’t, and I think I’m covered in sand. Other me gasps and coughs. The woman carrying me sets me on the ground near her. I sink to my knees, staring. What is going on?

Sam lands on her other side, eyes wide. “What have you done?” he demands, looking at my captor.

“I didn’t do anything but scoop her up. She would have died if I didn’t. I wonder what would have happened to your half if she had?” The voice replies. Sam winces. I swear. My head is spinning, and I kind of think I might be sick.

I open my eyes and look around. Voices wash over me, and I’m so dizzy it’s making me nauseous. Is this the afterlife? I look for him, to see his face again, but I don’t. I see…mine, but distorted to look like some of the other creatures that surround us. She looks well, like she’s dressed for a date. Sorry to ruin your day. I know I’m a half-dead, maybe all-dead now, mess. She puts her hands over her mouth.

“You can talk to each other.” Says a female voice. She sounds annoyed. “You’re two halves of the same woman, after all. Figure out who gets to stay.”

“Where is he?” I demand. If she’s another half of me, she’ll know. She shakes her head.

“He told me to run.” She whispers.

“You didn’t actually do it–” She wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t. I don’t recognize my own voice as it bursts from my lips, and she flinches, then turns to me with fire in her eyes.

“What was I supposed to do? The only thing I could do was grant his last wish! And how exactly did staying work out for you?” She rakes her gaze over my appearance. “He’s still dead, and you’re well on your way there! When you see him again, will you have done anything to be proud of?”

“She won’t have betrayed her lover for another.” The female voice says, amused. My other half turns to glare at her.

“Even if I did find someone else, that doesn’t change what I had with him. It does mean I might have reason to take care of myself, might have something worth fighting for.” She lifts her chin. She looks fragile, given the tall, horned woman behind her, but she stands her ground anyway.

Sam steps up beside me, pausing for a moment just behind me, before gently taking my hand and moving to my side. “Stop this.” He says to the woman. “You made your choice. I’ve made mine. She’s made hers.”

“Only half of her has.” The woman replies.

Sam turns to me. “I am my own person.” I say. Whatever happened, I’m sure of that. There’s no putting the two of us back together now. She’ll have to find her own way of coping. I have a purpose here. I have my friends. I might have something more. I found my own strength and crawled up that hill in search of something, and I’ve found it. Yes, he’s gone, but he told me to run…to write him a story worth sharing when we meet again. And I’ll be damned if I leave out any of it.