Chapter 24: Chapter 24 – End

Andrew looked a thousand times more intimidating than he ever had before. The giant of a man squared his shoulders the moment he had laid eyes on them and strode over to them with a purpose. She could swear she saw something on his face that looked like pure malevolence. Tyler grabbed Matthew’s sleeve and hid behind him. When Andrew was within arms distance of the two, he stopped fully and looked the old teacher up and down, appraising him. The man was a head and a half taller than Matthew, and he looked like a twig next to Andrew. The rain made his face look all the more intimidating.

A moment passed. Then a moment more. Andrew finally made his move and reached past Matthew directly for Tyler and her eyes widened, and she hid completely behind Matthew and closed her eyes as she buried her face into the back of his shirt and waited for the feeling of Andrew's large hands closing around her shoulder or arm, ready to kick and scream and fight. Anything to never go back to that room.

Instead, the sound of metal breaking echoed in the rain, followed by the sound of a grated door opening. She ventured a glance behind her and saw the way off the roof open.

“Go.” He said. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t help you here.” The large man turned around and headed back inside, the large door groaning as he pulled it open as if it were made of paper and weighed just as much.

Matthew and Tyler exchanged a glance, and Matthew looked down the side of the building. “There’s a ladder, it looks like it’ll go most of the way to the ground. I’ll go first and catch you at the bottom.”

Tyler nodded and waited for the teacher to make his way slowly down the ladder. “Be careful!”

The teacher didn’t respond, instead he just made one deliberate move after another, slowly making his way down the roof access ladder. She did want him to be safe and all. To make it down okay. But every second she was on the roof and not on the ground was a moment far too long, and the more the distance between the two grew, the more her panic rose. It was a million and a half years before he finally made his way to the bottom of the ladder. She carefully clutched both sides of the grate as she watched Matthew look down at the ground to gauge the distance. To her surprise, he then kept going down the ladder, using only his arms to hold up his body while his feet dangled uselessly in the air. When he finally made it to the bottom rung, he lowered his body down as far as he could without letting go of the ladder. He made one last glance at the ground and let go. It was only a second for the ground to meet his feet, and when he landed he tumbled into a roll. She was worried he had hurt himself, but he stood up and wiped his hands off on his soaked jeans and gave her a thumbs up. The top of the ladder suddenly began to look a lot more scary. She took a breath, turned around, and slowly put her left foot on the top rung. She was almost far enough down to grab a hold of the ladder instead of the grate.

Her right foot came down on the rung just below her left foot. She took a deep breath and let go of the grate and moved her hands to the ladder, trying to move both at the same time. Before she could fully grasp the ladder, the door to the roof burst open, and she saw Marisa look around frantically. When their eyes met, she felt true fear and instinctively moved backwards, realizing her mistake only too late as she tried to grasp for the ladder. She wobbled a bit, tried one last time to grasp the rail and, with a desperate lunge of her body, managed to grab the highest rung. The edge of a large steel bolt caught on the bracelet, further securing her hold.

A bolt of lightning flashed, and the rain had made the rung slippery enough for her to lose her grip and she fell backwards, the world around her fading to black as her vision became a tunnel.

◊◊◊

Eris stared at the space Tyler was in just a moment ago. She had said that she wasn’t dead, that she was trapped in a cell somewhere, but that didn’t make sense. How could Tyler have been here, with her? If she was dead, that must mean that they both were, but Tyler claimed she was still alive. So, this wasn't a purgatory at least. But if Tyler was still on earth, then where was she?

Eris felt renewed hope bloom in her chest, and she stood up and looked around at her surroundings, trying to gleam some hint from the warm setting. The sky was still a faint pink, and the water was still reflective and clean. The shoots of grass still stood out of the water and reached some unseen sun. She couldn't figure out anything she didn't already know.

Calm down, Eris. Think this through. She told herself. If Tyler is trapped in a cell, that means she can’t get out. The only reason she could ever be trapped somewhere is if she was separated from my home, just like me. She was a natural at using magic, so there wasn't an earthly prison that could ever hold her. She could feel puzzle pieces fall into place as she went through the logic. If that’s the case, then how were we able to talk just now? Were we talking through our souls? She didn't think that was possible, but she also didn’t think it was possible to be a spiritually conjoined twin either. Tyler and I share a body… so if Tyler’s body was closed off from my home that would mean I would have been as well… Which would mean my spells to project my soul outside Tyler’s body would have also been cancelled. But how would I be able to do anything from here? It doesn't matter if I know where I am if I'm useless to help.

She looked around for an answer, willing the space she stood in to be forthcoming, but there was only silence. She trudged through the knee-high waters trying to come up with something, anything to grasp. But there was only water as far as the eye could see. What could she do with water she could breathe and a sky she can’t touch? She rubbed her face in frustration and found her hands much scratchier than she remembered. She pulled her hands away from her face and saw that they were caked in mud. Eris remembered how the mud felt like Tyler when she went to sleep the first time she came here. Was that what did it? Was it the mud that connected their souls in this shared place? She looked up at the pastel skies and smiled. If there was any color that felt more like Tyler, she couldn’t imagine it.

Deciding to trust the closest thing to a sister she had since Babylon, she took a deep breath out of habit, and dove into the water and dug at the mud trying to bury herself as deeply as possible moving this way and that, changing direction and depth depending on how “close” Tyler felt through the mud and water. Her mind felt fuzzy and she suddenly felt cold. Very cold.

Then a familiar feeling came back to her.

The feeling of home.

◊◊◊

The first thing that Eris was aware of was the feeling of being. Her body ached in a way that she hadn’t known for more than a millennium. For the first time in recent memory, she could feel.

The second thing she noticed was the rain, and the chill of winter air on her hands and face. Both of which were numb from the cold.

The final thing she became aware of was the feeling of falling.

She quickly reached home and brought forth the full power of magic to bare and bound it to her will. How she missed this feeling, the exhilaration of that place from so long ago filling her veins and body.

Eris had felt everything this past week, yes. But it was dulled, the sensations sort of simulating what she expected them to be like. She reveled in the familiar warmth as the world of her home bathed her soul once more, and she stopped, midair, facing the sky. She took a massive breath in and realized she might have brought out too much, as every inch of her soul hurt from the exertion. It felt like a fire just beneath the skin. The surrounding raindrops held fast around her as everything in a one-foot radius floated gently on air. The rain continued to fall, but no longer touched her as it started to form an umbrella of water right above where she hovered.

Eris took stock of her body and realized it felt different from what she remembered. At first, she just assumed it had been too long since she existed in bodily form, but then examined her hands and realized this wasn’t her body, this was Tyler's! She noticed her thumb was completely dislocated and felt hypothermia begin to set in. She had all this magic floating around her, might as well start with healing Tyler’s body.

Eris smiled and wondered if she would ever be done with having to heal Tyler, then smiled wider when she realized that she didn’t care, that she was just happy to be with her, no matter what form either of them took. The warmth of home spread throughout her limbs and became true warmth as she bent her home to her will and began healing the borrowed body. She didn’t have time to do this slowly, like she had the first time, so this was going to hurt. A lot. Luckily, she could kind of feel that Tyler was “asleep” and hoped that would be enough to dull the pain they were going to feel. She let out a scream as her thumb popped back into place. All the bruises and muscles healed at once, sending electric shocks throughout Tyler's nervous system and lit up their brain with fire.

Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes once more and at the top of the building stood Ms. Knightly, Tyler’s history teacher, looking down at her in shock and confusion. She was confused as well. What she was even doing here? Eris decided to burn every promise for personal freedoms she’d made over the eons right there and then. Tyler was too important to her not to, and she had too little information to suss out what happened with questions. She brought Tyler’s body back up to the roof of the building and hovered there, eye-to-eye with the teacher, and peered into her mind with magic. Normally, this left a bad taste in her mouth, but she didn’t have the time or even the emotional will to deny herself the fast way in favor of the humane way.

What she saw filled her chest with rage.

Filled it so full she was no longer standing there at the edge of the roof. A series of traumatic flashbacks cycled through her vision as she remembered, with perfect clarity, every time she had been betrayed. Every time one of her family or friends or loved ones perished because of some stupid, selfish reason. When it was all over, she looked at this woman, who almost became an accessory to another loss. She realized that, at least this time, she would have been given the mercy of dying with her family.

The teacher, who Eris now knew was named Marisa, stared at Eris, shaking. From the cold, or fear, or the feeling of having her memories forcibly invaded, Eris didn't care.

She saw every single thing. Every concession she made, every excuse, every time she wanted to go back and fix things, and every flimsy exculpation she employed not to do so. She hurt Tyler, knowing it was wrong, and continued anyway.

Eris didn’t even bother asking her if she had any last words. She just brought forth the full force of her homeland. The air and space between them bending and twisting, as if nature itself needed to get away from her. The rain boiled and the teacher screamed. Each drop hitting her causing blisters to form.

Eris realized that she didn't feel any joy from this, which was strange, given her history. Every time she got revenge for a lost loved one, she always felt better, cleaner. This time just felt hallow. She decided to end the poor woman's suffering quickly instead of prolonging the pain.

Right as she was about to scatter her very soul to dust, a familiar voice called out to her.

“Eris! Stop!”

“Tyler? Where are you?” Eris looked around but couldn't see her.

“Stop hurting her. Just. Go home? Please?” Tyler sounded desperate, scared.

Eris looked at her hands, and looked at the teacher. The woman was sobbing and covered in red welts.

Eris realized why she hadn’t felt the same this time. This was a piece of Tyler. Bless the girl, the piece of soul she gifted Eris was a kindness she hadn’t known before, and Eris started to cry.

She looked down on the faux teacher. Now that Marisa was free from the boiling rain, she began gasping for air. She must be in incredible pain, and Eris realized that what she was feeling was empathy. Empathy for her would-be killer. Eris stretched out her hand, and the teacher fell back and wailed when her hands scraped the black tar of the rooftop. She leaned forward and cradled her hands against her chest, quietly sobbing. Eris bent down a little further and laid her hand on the teacher's should and pushed some of her home into the girl. Her skin returned to its original, flawless olive color, and her breathing steadied.

Not bothering to exchange words with her, she turned and walked off the edge of the building and caught herself with magic, this time using just a small amount, and stepped gently onto the wet grass.

“Matthew?”

The teacher had a look of pure shock and fear, which was tempered when he shook his head. “Y-yes?”

“Let's go.”

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Matthew nodded and started heading away from the building. As they made their way past the side and out to the front, they heard the sound of breaking glass.

“Tyler!”

Eris recognized the voice as Orlando's. “What is he doing here?” She asked.

“Oh. Umm. Orlando, Durian, and Christine sort of came with when they found out I was out looking for you.”

“I see.” She turned to the front door of the asylum, now shattered, and called out. “Orlando! I’m over here.”

“What?” His head appeared from the inside of the building. When he spotted her, his face lit up with relief. Following him was Durian, and from another direction came Christine. She looked so tired. Her work uniform was dirty, and her hair was a mess. She was wrapped in a coat that didn’t look like it did anything against the freezing rain. The moment she laid eyes on Eris, every single notion of exhaustion left the woman's features, and she appeared ten years younger when she broke into a run. Eris wasn’t sure what to do, so she just stood there and waited for Christine to come to her. When she was within arm's reach, Christine picked Eris up into a hug. Eris wasn’t sure where she got this strength, but she had been picked up like paper.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” She was practically frantic.

“I’m okay. I got hurt a little, but I’m better now.”

It was hard to tell because of the rain, but she was crying. “Oh, Eris, I’m so glad you’re safe. Where’s Tyler, is she okay too?”

If Eris had full range of movement for her neck, she would have done a double-take. “How did you know it was me?”

“I knew it was you because I know my daughter. Also, her hugs are warmer.”

Eris smiled, remembering the feelings from her blessedly short sleep. “They are really warm, aren’t they?” Christine nodded into her shoulder, still refusing to break the hug. “Tyler is okay, by the way. She’s here too.”

Eris could feel every muscle in Christine’s body relax as the hug weakened. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed on the wet ground, relief plain on her face as she clutched the hem of Tyler's shirt to steady herself. “Oh, thank god.”

“You’re welcome.” Eris deadpanned.

Everyone was quiet for a beat, and then Orlando, of all people, broken into uproarious laughter. “Did you just make a joke?” He said in between laughs.

“I did.” Eris nodded, beside herself with so many positive emotions. She wondered if Tyler had heard her joke. She was actually a little proud of it.

I heard. Tyler said, and she felt her other half roll her eyes.

◊◊◊

Marisa wasn’t sure what to make of what just happened. She just sat there on the rooftop in a daze, barely noticing the freezing rain that had just moments ago boiled her skin.

She remembered being downstairs, where she found Andrew fumbling around in the dark. When he managed to get the lights back on, she asked him why he hadn’t returned his car yet.

“The sedan?” He asked, and she nodded. “I returned that a day or so ago. I bought a cheap car from a local, some college kid, the same day. It’s parked outside by the emergency exit.”

Marisa’s eyes widened, and she made a dash around the corner to Tyler’s cell. She opened the door to find the cell empty. She ran back to the main stairwell and yelled at Andrew. “Tyler’s missing!”

Then the next thing she remembered was seeing Andrew by the emergency exit. He looked a little smug and gave her a small shrug of his shoulders. She ran to the door and tried to open it, but found that she couldn't. The door seemed to be stuck fast. She knew Tyler couldn't have gone out the front door, she made sure to lock it as well as she could, and looked back to Andrew for answers. But Andrew was already walking away from her at a leisurely pace. Fine, she'll do it herself.

She spent a few moments checking around the main floor when she heard the sound of a metal door closing above her. The roof.

When she had made it up there, she saw Tyler falling off the roof backwards.

“No!” she cried. She didn’t want this. She just wanted to get the magic out of her and send her back home. She didn’t want her dead.

She ran to the edge of the roof and looked down, and what she saw froze her to her core. There, at the bottom of the ladder, where Tyler’s broken body should have laid, was instead Tyler’s body hovering just above the ground, as if frozen in time. She rubbed her eyes a bit, trying to make sense of what she was seeing when things got weirder. Marisa shuddered at the memory of what happened next.

From the distance, Tyler’s eyes locked onto hers, and she looked at her in a way she had never been looked at before. It was like her very being was laid bare to the young girl, and she felt some deep and integral part of her shake.

She had nearly screamed when Tyler appeared before her at the edge of the roof, hovering there and looking at her with such contempt. She tried to shout or scream, but whatever had just made her tremble brought with it incredible pain. So great was the feeling, she saw nothing but white and the wind was knocked from her. She fell to the ground as she tried to take in a breath. Any breath. She coughed instead.

It felt like she had just broken the world record for holding her breath underwater while suffering from a hangover.

But that was nothing compared to the pain that came after. It started on her hands and the back of her neck. It felt like spots of her skin were given the most painful sunburn imaginable, and then someone came along and slapped her. Whatever was holding back her voice couldn’t hold it back anymore, and she screamed and screamed until she felt her voice rip. She coughed blood and gasped for breath again.

She was barely aware of the pain easing. It was still there, but less now. The now freezing rain felt like a balm, easing her open sores.

“Tyler? Where are you?”

What? She didn’t understand what she had just heard. She looked up at Tyler and saw her looking around frantically.

“Stop hurting her. Just. Go home? Please?”

Was Tyler—. Was she talking to herself? She looked at the girl, now standing on the rooftop, and she felt more confused than ever.

She recoiled when Tyler moved her hand in her direction, and let out another pained sound, her voice too raw to make any louder sound, as she held her burning hands close to her chest. She looked upon the young girl and realized then that the thing in front of her wasn’t Tyler, and she was even more afraid than ever. Whatever that artifact had been, she was now staring at it. The thing in the shape of a girl reached out its hand and grabbed her shoulder, and suddenly all the pain and cold left her body and she could breathe freely again. But before she could ask any more questions, the girl walked off the rooftop.

Marisa scrambled to her feet and looked over the edge. Tyler, or her body at least, was standing there at the bottom like she hadn’t just fallen three stories.

It was a long time before she felt she was able to move again. And when she did, she realized that she was finally free. The rain had finally stopped, and she was soaked through, but she was free.

The moonlight played on the waist-high grasses through the breaking clouds as a freezing wind blew through the fields.

Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t Tyler. It had demonstrated that it was more than capable of ending her, and instead left her alone. She knew when to cut her losses and run.

She remembered Andrew’s words from earlier. She really was a shrewd woman. She didn't care. As long as she could get away from this, from it all, she would be as shrewd as she needed.