Writer:supercat Type: original fiction. Characters: Dessa Rovere and James Munore (scarcely) with mentions of everyone from here to there. Summary: Finding herself lost and frightened against an unfamiliar backdrop, Dessa finally learns what it means to have lived her life. Rating: PG-13, at best. Dark themes, but not much more. Word-count: 3,784 words.
The rush of blood to her face was of a very sobering momentum. A small groan, coupled with arms straining to hold their own against the dirt, signified her defiance to the pain. She retrieved her footing at long last, slipping and stumbling from the aches and pains that rang out different tunes as she arched her body in just the right time. The fact that the dirt was wet, which made it mud, she reminded herself petulantly, wasn't helping matters any.
She heaved a low breath, wiping the hair from her face in an anxious want to see her surroundings. Her brow irked, unsure of where she was. What this could possibly be to her. The forest was empty and long, proving to make her legs sore just at the sight of how far she might walk to find anything of worth in this godforsaken place. She tilted her head back, examining the soft light that echoed through the leaves falling slowly toward her from the treetops stretched above where she stood, rooted. She did not want to move. She saw no reason to even bother moving. Where was she expected to go and when was she set to return?
It took only a moment's boredom, and nothing more, to make her start walking. There was no direction to be had, no means by which she could deliberate the way in which she had to go, so she settled for walking the direction she faced. Perhaps it was all a big labyrinth and there was no exit to be found, only winding, asymmetrical trees in every path. It was like having deja vu every five seconds, because it all looked exactly the same. Even the trees had no garish, identifying marks to be seen. To a painter, this would be boring. To a writer, this would be a thing of distaste. To her, this was a nightmare.
Nothing. She was surrounded on all sides by absolutely nothing.
Except trees. There were enough trees for her liking.
She felt as though she were walking in circles without ever turning. If life could turn into a broken record, she still expected it to be somehow more interesting than this. What was it that had doomed her to walk the rest of her life through trees? It was some sort of cruel, sick joke and she just wished she could find a face to give a good, well-deserved sock to the jaw.
"What would I do without you?"
The words were hushed against the wind, near silent when they brushed against the shell of her ear. She spun around, startled by the sound of a voice. There was no one in sight, no strangers or familiar face to be found. Just a vast array of never-ending trees. She brushed the hair from her face, it having strayed when she whipped violently about. She stood still for a moment, straining her ears against the sound of the wind caressing the bark on the trees beside her. She had heard something. She was certain of it.
She turned back around in defeat after the pause, having nothing but her own paranoia to show for it. The dirt beneath her feet even looked the same. She knew she wasn't walking in circles if only because she'd yet to lay eyes on her own footprints. Then again, with the state of this place, it was possible she never would. Maybe she could prove that the Earth was flat if she walked long enough and toppled right off the edge when she wasn't paying proper attention. Too bad nobody would know. However, adversely, if a tree fell in the middle of nowhere, she was certain to know. Disproving a trick question had to bode well for her odds, right?
One couldn't say it wasn't how life worked, since no one particularly knew if life worked in any particular manner. Just to spite them, it might turn out to work by means of the stupidest things imaginable. There were endless possibilities and one could stress a lifetime sussing them all out for other people to cast calculated eyes on. It would never prove anything.
"What would I do without you, Jaime?"
Dessa stopped in her tracks. Jaime? Her head spun without her ever bothering to move. She turned around slowly, this time, as if she was worried she might frighten away whatever it was that was following her. Specifically speaking, from the sounds of it, herself. A small shiver ran the length of her spine, the suggestion of such a thing not taking the time to sink in.
"Jaime?" Her own voice was harsh from disuse, sounding foreign and unwelcome in the silence that had slipped in since the other person had spoken.
There was no response.
"You'd live, I'm sure."
At least, not directly. Her ears perked as she slid her hand along the nape of her neck, smoothing down the hair that prickled at the sound of such a hauntingly familiar voice. He was here. Somewhere, for some ungodly reason, he was here too. One sweeping turn later, there they were. When her hair settled back into its place along her shoulders, they were right there. Standing, clear as day, not more than twenty feet beside her.
"How can I ever hope to find another you?"
She saw her own hand brush the hair back behind Jaime's ear as she pressed her forehead to his. They stood, dull against the background. Discolored and disfigured, she noticed, when she took the time to inspect the scene in front of her. They looked unclear, like someone had taken an etch-a-sketch and shaken it until everything previously on it was unrecognizable. The outlines were there, the rest blurred by some unseen barrier between the scene and herself.
She didn't dare try and cross it.
"Do you think you'll find yourself in need of another one?"
She was distracted by that warm, familiar laugh she'd missed so lately. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad; huddled in this place with a Jaime that still smiled when he saw her. Still spoke with genuine adoration in every word. She ventured a few steps closer to the spectacle, testing her luck. She wasn't sure what exactly this place was, but part of her warned that they might turn into rabid bears if she tripped the right mental wire. Something, she knew for certain, she did not want to experience in the near future. If at all.
She leaned against the tree at her left side, watching them affectionately. She remembered this moment. So, perhaps that's what this was; a memory? She could feel the warm press of his forehead against her own, and her eyes slipped shut. She needed the comfort this offered so openly to her. If she played her cards right, this could be her safe haven. She could spend the rest of her life running through the trees to an awaiting Jaime. They could watch the stars through the branches above their heads and talk about how awkward looking their kids would be, if they ever had them.
"They'd have your mouth." She murmured, lost in the time itself.
"Yeah, well, they'd have your big ears."
She could hear his laugh still ringing in her ears when she opened her eyes, except now she found herself alone. She watched the shadow of the day creep ahead of her, flushing her in dark colors. It seems she hadn't caught the train home before dark. She found herself gazing off into the distance where they had stood, water brimming at the bottom of her eyes. She slid down to the ground at the base of the tree, clutching onto the only thing she knew was real—herself. It was supposed to have been them against the world, right? The two musketeers, to hell with the third one! The bark scratched roughly at the back of her head, pulling at strands of her hair, when she looked up. Where was she expected to go?
She watched the light disappear off in the distance, leaving her behind. The words she'd spoken so innocently at the time repeating like a broken record inside her head: what would I do without you? This. This is what she did without him, she thought miserably. She wiped at her cheeks, warm and damp from the tears she couldn't push back. She felt a small drip against the side of her face, pressing her fingers to it in alarm. It certainly hadn't come from her eyes this time around, she was sure of it. She rubbed her eyes, enough for them to ache something fierce when given a bit of time, staring up towards the sky above her. She wondered, for a moment, if it might open up and swallow her whole in her misery.
She wouldn't fight it, she decided, if that's what it decided to do.
A few more dribbles of cold hit the back of her hand, perched on her knee as she looked about at the woods, watching how they grew dark and ominous around her. She withdrew her hand, a droplet sliding down the length of her leg. She shuddered, not from the cold, but from the overwhelming sense of loneliness that overtook her. She was alone. She was going to be stuck here for the rest of her life and have absolutely nothing to show for it. She would die here, without anyone around to care. Maybe, if she was lucky, ghost Jaime would come back and tell her it would all be alright. But, somehow, she doubted it. She didn't get lucky.
She'd done everything she thought she'd ever wanted. She'd married the love of her life. She'd gotten her dream job. She graduated college in the top 10% of her class. She'd lived her life exactly how she wanted and maintained her best friend of so many years whilst doing it all. So, why wasn't she happy? Really, honestly, she could tell anyone why. Why wasn't the hard part of the equation. It wasn't the part she struggled with every day of her life.
She didn't marry the love of her life. Not that she'd known that years back when she'd said 'yes'. Though, perhaps on some subconscious level, she had. That was when he started to pull away. She could see it now, clear as day amongst the rain that was steadily pouring down on her head. Colin hadn't been anything special. He'd been in the right place, at the right time. She'd reflected on their life together for so many nights, recently, and not a single day of it ever felt worth it. Someone could strip those forty-some pages from her life's book tomorrow and she'd be better off without them. She'd seen him through hopeful eyes. That's what kept them together for so long. The only thing. It wasn't love or commitment. It was laziness.
Although Genevra was a dream job, she'd always had the sensation that Colin's friend was breathing down her neck—keeping a close eye on her and Jaime whenever they went out for coffee or a late lunch—as though he thought ill of her intentions. She appreciated her husband for the strings he pulled for both her and her friend, but it wasn't worth the stress of being hounded on every occasion someone questioned her intent. She was level-headed, raised to be a fine, upstanding wife any man would be proud of. Any man but her husband, it seemed.
There was a crush of leaves somewhere off to her right. Close. She whimpered, unsure of what she should expect from the sound. What sort of face would come out to greet her, now? Now that the weather was dark and looming, like a cat waiting to catch its mouse. She heard more rustling, closer this time, and instinctively huddled closer to the tree, eyes skewed shut tight against the rain, against the dirt; against the forest around her. She waited for a pounce, but it never came. Nothing attacked her, not even after several minutes passed by, nearly unnoticed if she hadn't been waiting for an occurrence that never bothered to rear its ugly head.
She breathed a sigh of relief, head resting back into the tree as she relaxed. It was over. She didn't know what it had been, but it was over and there was nothing but silence, and for the first time in her life it was welcoming. She wanted to hug the silence, let it cradle her like a doting mother to a frightened child. In that moment, she loved it. Deeply, sincerely.
"Guilt consumes."
The voice was eerily soft against her ear, as though the person saying it were perched beside her. She sprinted from the tree, her heart loud in her ears as he spun around, nearly losing her balance and toppling face first into a puddle of mud at her feet, face-to-face with the tree. She saw the shadow; the creature, the thing hiding behind the tree to look out at her. She wiped at her arms, trying to rid herself of the immense feeling of fear that was ebbing into her. It had no face, no name, concealed in the shadow of the trees. Unrecognizable.
She wasn't sure why she stayed. She felt rooted, like a tree, about to remain in this very spot for the rest of her life, left to haunt the people who came here after her in search of hope, only to find themselves equally as stuck in the parallel. Perhaps the trees lived and breathed as people; the people they once were when they became trapped here, and she was doomed to repeat the mistake all the people who entered this place made.
It uncoiled from the tree, bluish hands making an appearance in the dip of dying light that seemed to peak from the sky overheard. It was a human hand, marred with bruises and scratches of unspeakable things. She felt a shiver, like the brush of a finger, run the length of her spine as she watched with bated breath at the person that stood before her. The movements were slow and sloppy, as though the person was injured, but Dessa bit her tongue. She wasn't about to ask some monster if they were alright.
A foot appeared next, speckled with what looked like blood. Oh god. She felt the tips of her fingers tremble, her foot edging back in the tiniest of increments. She couldn't stay here. Surely, she would be slaughtered if she stayed here. That thing, that person—it didn't look like it was new at this. She shut her eyes, trying to still her nervous shaking, before snapping them open again at the thought that shutting her eyes at this exact moment could be the last decision she ever made. The body moved its way around the tree, matted brown hair sticking to the—what Dessa now confirmed was, in fact, a girl's—face, covering it almost completely. Her breath caught in her throat, refusing to face whatever was standing a few feet from her. And then, slowly, she was supplied with an actual face as the girl tilted her head some, the hair falling down along the sides of her neck.
Her heart, for lack of a better word, broke.
There she stood, face-to-face with her regret, her guilt, her every fear looking back at her from such recognizable bright, blue eyes. Those eyes blinked at her, as if looking at her for the very first time, as though she was a stranger and maybe, just maybe, she found herself liking that better than the alternative. Her head told her to run and, for once, her heart agreed. And yet she stood stock still in the middle of a darkening storm, with nowhere to run.
"I am what you made me."
It—she, her brain supplied—spoke, her voice diluted and thick with accusation. There were flecks of blood clinging to the girl's jaw, filling in as though she'd taken a nasty spill. And, she had. Dessa knew this because she knew her.
There was another whimper, this time coming out with a defensive plea on its tail, "I never wanted—I never meant to—" She broke, the tears brimming once more as she pleaded for what she knew was surely her life, her soul, her very existence at this point. "Claretta—"
The girl was silent. Cold, distant eyes stared back at her from the broken body that belonged to her younger sister. Her small, round face bruised and bloodied. What Dessa remembered as her sister's favorite dress, clinging loosely to the small, forgotten frame she'd once recognized. She didn't look real, with her arms hanging limply at her sides as though they were heavy, like she'd stepped clean out of an old zombie movie to be standing here, before her. This wasn't real. This couldn't possibly be real. Why was all of this happening? Why wouldn't she wake up?
"You can't run forever."
"You wouldn't—" She gasped, a nervous sweat breaking out on her brow as she widened her eyes, "You wouldn't hurt me. You—you love me."
"You loved me. I'm still rotting."
The first, heavy step of that oh so very dead foot was enough to jostle a bit of sense back into Dessa and she ran. She ran and she didn't look back, not even for a second to see if she was being followed. The trees whipped past her head with delicate grace, all of which she failed to present herself as she went stumbling and tripping over various patches in the ground, so desperate to rid herself of everything behind her.
"He's here too, you know."
Her blood ran cold, panting desperately as she moaned from the aching bits of her body demanding attention. The air was warm and stale around her head, barely holding her conscious as she grappled around trees, weaving in and out of the floral just so she could find herself lost again. She couldn't hear rustling or words or breathing behind her, but she didn't feel safe. She didn't let her guard down, she just ran and ran and ran until it felt like she was inhaling pins and needles with every anxious breath.
And there, like a miracle in the midst of non-believers, she came to a break in the trees; an opening. Finally, when she needed it most, she found something different. Before her stood a small bridge, rickety and flaking off bits and pieces onto the ground below. Her heart was in her ears, pounding her head with every beat so she couldn't stop and think. She heard laughing; dark and humorless, it wasn't that far behind her. In that moment, her body went silent and she was left with nothing but a spare murmur from her head: hide.
She slid down the side of the small ditch, landing in a splash of muck across the side of her face, wiping it blindly across the expanse of her neck as she tried to rid herself of the grime and stumble underneath the bridge all at the same time. With her back pressed against the underside, she screwed her eyes shut tightly, whispering every stupid line she'd ever heard from every childhood book and movie that had gotten the hero back just in the nick of time. Right before the monster had stalked down on them, poof, and they were safe. She wanted that. She wanted that right now more than she'd wanted anything else in her entire life.
Hands were on her in an instant, fingers clenching into her skin as she screamed. She fought tooth and nail, screaming and crying and apologizing all in a single string of unintelligible words. This was what she had condemned herself to; she accepted it.
"Dessa!" Pause, "What in the hell is wrong with her? What did you do?" The voice that met her ears was angry, edging with desperation, "I swear to God if she doesn't come back this time—" The voice was seething viciously in the back of her mind, hands shaking her violently.
Her eyes flickered open, looking into a pair of worried brown eyes. She blinked, feeling sluggish and unfamiliar as she spilled forward into his arms. Her fingers clawed at his jacket, making sure he was real, making sure he was here and he was with her this time and not with some ghost version of her like the last time she'd seen him.
"Jaime, oh god Jaime." The sobs racked her tiny frame as she cried openly for the first time in front of him since she'd gotten married. She wasn't above admitting that she needed him, not in that moment. In that moment he could have anything he asked of her.
His hands were around her in an instant, cradling her head against his chest until her cries grew quieter. When she had regained some form of composure, he released her and got to his feet. He'd already showed more weakness and outright attachment in those few moments than he should have. He turned to look at the nurse that stood at the door, waiting with wide eyes.
He coughed, sparing a single glance back at Dessa before turning to the nurse. "I apologize. I shouldn't have yelled at you. It was—" He saw her in the corner of his eye, "inappropriate." He sighed, running a hand at the nape of his neck before taking the clipboard from her and giving it another once over before handing it back, "Stop those meds, we'll try something else."
With that, he left the room, shutting the door behind him. She watched in silence as he left her for the second time that night. She blinked, dazed as she examined the room she'd called home for the past several months. She wasn't even sure how many months, considering no one thought to tell her the day or even the month when she thought to ask.
Conniving, evil bastards, the lot of them. And Jaime, he barely even looked at her for more than he absolutely had to these days. He seemed to avoid her at all costs, sending in nurses to do his bidding when he wasn't absolutely required to visit. Slowly, so, so slowly, it was tearing the bits of resolve she still had out and spilling them out all over the floor.
"Get out." She spat, shooting a glare at the lingering nurse who quickly took her leave.