Less of Me

Some little part of me must see the flickering torchlight through my unconscious eyes. There’s a bruise forming on one of my closed eyelids, but I don’t know it yet.

Torches? I dream-think to myself, a faraway part of my brain registering the input. Who uses torches nowadays? Isn’t that, like, a huge fire hazard?

What’s left of my mind goes to strange places sometimes. Thoughts creep in unwelcome like burglars and worm themselves deeper, burrowing and corrupting as I spiral down, down, down.

This time, these thoughts paint a dream-picture of myself dressed in adventure girl gear. Khakis with lots of pockets and heavy leather boots and one of those tan helmet-hat things. Serious business. None of that impractical busty-shirted, booty shorts-wearing sexist video game stuff.

I carry a torch through a dark hallway, squinting through the glare as something in the distance reflects the dancing orange light. I press forward, eager to claim the prize in this deep, dark place.

A burning cinder breaks free from the torch and alights in the curl of hair resting on my shoulder. I become a torch. I am a torch holding a torch. It doesn’t hurt because it’s just a picture show projected by my messed-up mind to fill the empty space where my sugarplum dreams used to live.

They never show that in the movies, but I’d bet it’s happened before in some faraway dark place. Some doofus with a flaming stick totally setting himself on fire.

I giggle myself awake.

I blink away the darkness. I’m sore all over and my hands are shackled with these thick, old-timey handcuffs stapled to the wall with a rusty chain. Dancing firelight is coming from a tall thing jammed tiki-style into the ground. The cold dirt floor beneath me and the few other things I can see in the dim orange glow tell me I’m in a cellar or basement or something like that. Some dark, damp place that smells like old potatoes and stale mouse farts.

I suppose the details of just exactly where the heck I am really don’t matter because I’m definitely not in my bed reading that steamy romance novel I snuck home from the library.

It was just getting to the good part, too.

Footsteps from the shadows. A man walks into the circle of light. He’s dressed all in black TV bad guy sneak-around clothes and is wearing a red and white Japanese-looking mask. The thing’s frozen in an angry frown, its dark, pointy brows coming together in a downward angle like a cartoon villain’s. He crosses his arms and stares at me. I see the glint of his eyes through the cutouts in the mask.

I guess this is probably the time to get scared, what with being handcuffed in some kind of cold, torchlit dungeon with a masked man. I mean, I really should be wetting my pants, screaming my throat sore. They’ve cultivated a real A-plus scary movie vibe down here.

I guess I am scared, but not of this man or anything he thinks he can do to me.

I pull myself to a sitting position and cross my legs Indian style. Or at least that’s what my kindergarten teacher called it. According to the kids I used to babysit, they call it crisscross applesauce these days. It’s all about the PC-ness.

I giggle aloud. PC-ness. Sounds like—

“What’s so funny?” Kabuki Man asks. His voice is high-pitched for a man. Definitely not a villain voice.

That makes me laugh, too.

He takes a step forward and crosses his arms. “What’s. So. Funny?” he demands again, his words punctuated through gritted teeth. The pitch of his voice creeps upwards as anger sets in.

That makes me want to laugh even more. I shake my head. I need to get a grip. I’d like to still have all my teeth when I make it out of this.

He grunts and takes a few more steps forward, locking eyes with me while stooping low and weaving his head from side-to-side in a dramatic, menacing show.

Jesus. Is this guy trying too hard or what? I try to stifle it, but a burst of laughter snorts out of me.

“Shut up!” the man yells. He lets out a furious growl-scream and jolts forward with his fist raised. He thinks better of it and stops a couple steps away from me, his breath coming in little ragged gasps. The sudden movement kicks little bullets of dirt up into my face.

“Sorry,” I say through dying laughter. I take a deep breath and clear my throat, letting the laughter fall away and skitter into the shadows.

“Keep laughing, girl,” he says, almost spitting the last word at me. “When the others arrive, your only sounds will be screams.” He pulls back his dark sleeve with a gloved hand and peers at his watch. “Any time now.” I can hear a snug smile within those words.

I lean my head back against the cold stone wall.

You heard the man. Time is short. You know what you have to do.

The words creep whisper-soft into my brain, crawling through the cracks with icy fingers. I push them away.

No! Not again! I have to find another way.

Don’t be a fool.

I don’t want to! I don’t want to! I don’t want to!

“You have to let me go,” I say to Kabuki Man, a hint of desperation creeping into my voice. I jerk at my bonds. The cold metal bites deep into my skin as I strain. Warm blood trickles down my forearms.

He laughs. He thinks I’m just a scared girl. He doesn’t know the danger he’s in.

I stop struggling and lock eyes with him. Tears spring to mine and threaten to spill over and flood my cheeks.

Now! Now is the time! The words are insistent, powerful, alluring.

No! I can do this!

“Please,” I say, a creeping dread making my voice shake. “You have to let me go.”

He chuckles. He thinks I’m afraid of him, of what he plans to do to me. He couldn’t be more wrong.

“And why is that?” He mocks me with a simpering, whiny voice and points down at the blood dripping from my cut wrists. “Doesn’t look like you’re in a position to demand anything, little girl. Not unless you can top this.” He pats a black messenger bag strung across his shoulder. “Twenty grand. Plus twice that when the job’s all done.”

He reaches under the bag’s flap and pulls out a little black book. The thing is fat with years of use, and the corners of the cover are worn and frayed. My dad’s journal. He flips it at me. I flinch as the thing smacks me in the forehead and tumbles into the dirt.

“Now. Since Daddy wasn’t home, I had to do improvise. That’s why you’re here.” Kabuki Man squats down and locks eyes with me. “If you tell me where the real one is, I might be persuaded to let you go. I can be a reasonable man, but I don’t think they will be too happy to pay 60,000 for a blank book.” He sniffs and lifts his mask to spit a glob of goo into the dirt. I catch a glimpse of a stubbly chin, but the shadows conceal the rest. “And if I don’t get the rest of my money.” He snatches the book and stands up. “Then you may just see how unreasonable I can be, too.”

Should I tell him that what he’s looking for is sitting right in front of him, staring at his stupid bad guy mask? That, like a complete doofus, I read the book when I went snooping in Dad’s stuff? That the strange words I couldn’t even understand faded from the paper and tattooed themselves in my mind?

Probably not.

I shake my head. “If you let me go, you get to stay alive.” I try to sound ominous, but my racing heart won’t let me pull it off.

He laughs again.

Now! You know what you must do.

“Please.” I don’t hide the despair in my voice. Tears stream down my face. “Don’t make me do this.”

He turns his back on me.

I finally give in. I close my eyes. My mind fills with words my conscious brain can neither pronounce nor comprehend. The strange rhythms of their incantations circle my brain, tugging at my sanity, threatening to unseat my fragile hold on reality.

The words escape my lips, formed and pronounced with a voice that’s not my own, with a voice I won’t be able to remember or imitate when this is over. The man hears. He cocks his head at the strange sounds.

He speaks, but my mind hears as if straining to perceive through a thick wall of fog. “What are you—ack!”

He chokes on his words as the last sound escapes my lips. He tears off the mask, gasping. My consciousness returns in a sudden rush, but a small piece of me is left behind. I am less than I was before.

Always. Always less of me to return afterwards.

How much of me is left inside? I’m not sure I want to know.

His eyes are wide, and he’s making wet, gurgling noises. He claws at his throat, trying in vain to loosen the strangling cords that aren’t really there. He falls to his knees.

Tears cloud my vision and grief grips my heart as I watch. And I do watch. I see because I can’t avert my gaze. It’s impossible. I can’t not see what I’ve done.

Because that’s part of it. These things I do, they cost dearly. And each time I draw upon these currents of power, the cost becomes harder and harder to pay.

He writhes in pain on the floor. His skin begins to shrivel and crack as his body’s vital fluids are sapped into nothingness. His mouth opens and closes like a fish, and his eyes plead with me.

The eyes are always the last to go.

“I’m sorry!” I sob. “I’m sorry! I didn’t want to!”

He stops squirming. His body is no longer recognizable, a gray, dried-out husk. I look down at my wrists. The bonds are gone, crumbled to dust by the same power that claimed the man’s life.

I grab the bag as I run by. A new hope springs up from some forgotten oasis, a fresh springtime flower bud in the death-tainted loam. Twenty grand will get me and Dad far away from this place and from the people who want to steal these secrets and unleash them on the world.

My feet carry me into the night, 20,000 tickets to freedom clutched tightly against my hammering heart. A cricket’s chorus welcomes me to my new life as my lips part in an untainted smile.