Otherland (2 page)

“This is where we leave you. Be prepared for the summons for the ceremony to conclude this matter,” the white-figure with pink eyes said to the black-figures. Then they lifted off into the colorful sky.

Lydia waved. “Bye white things, it was nice to have met you.” Another step forward and she was assaulted by a complete change of scenery. If where she’d been had been in the daytime with a glowing sun and a beautiful sunrise, here it was night. No moon. Pitch black. The ground no longer soft and fluffy, but hard. Goosebumps instantly aroused on her skin from the chill. Shadows of blackness, hardly visible, flew in the air, like bats. “What the -?”

Lydia turned to where she’d just been and saw blackness for as far as the eye could see. “And to think that for one night,
one night
, I thought I might actually be able to go without a nightmare,” she grumbled aloud. “Let me guess, they have night vision,” she said to the boy, nearly tripping over him.

“They don’t need their eyes to see,” he said quietly. “And they’re not white things. They’re the Light and Dark Elders.”

She noticed he was trembling, so she wrapped her arm around him. “It is cold here, isn’t it?”

“It’s because we have body-heat. They don’t feel temperatures.”

“So they’re cold-hearted, eh?” she tried lightening the mood.

“You have no idea,” he whispered.

“I’ll protect you. You just have to remember that when we’re dreaming, nothing bad can really happen to us, no matter how much it may seem real.”

“Step up,” she heard a moment too late as she tripped on a step and fell forward, cracking her chin and scraping her hands on the hard ground. It felt like stone.

“On the other hand, you still feel the pain like it’s real in a dream. Ow! Thanks for the advance notice, Dark one. I’m sure you did that on purpose.” And she did hear him lowly chuckle.

“We’ve got two new prisoners, both humans. One’s been with us a long time. The other just showed up. They’re to be held until the Ceremony trial determines their fate.”

Their eyes were the only thing that could be seen in the darkness. She heard the boy whimper, so she searched for his hand. “Don’t be afraid. Nightmares feed off of our fears,” Lydia reassured.

They were maneuvered forward and then the black or dark whatevers were gone, and they were left in silence. Lydia walked around blindly, still holding his hand, tripped on something again, but caught herself last moment.

“Boy, I could really use a flashlight or something.” Suddenly, light illuminated the blackness from the flashlight that appeared in her hand. “Cool.”

“Huh-how did you do that? Humans don’t have magic.”

“Yes! A bed and a blanket. Finally! It’s not magic, silly. In the dream world, if you focus it just enough, you can control certain things, and get your conscious mind to manipulate the sub-conscious mind into providing something that you need or want. Come,” she patted the stone-hard bed. “Lay with me. We’ll cover our heads up with the blanket, like a tent, and tell stories until we wake up.”

The boy began to sob uncontrollably. “You don’t get it! You can’t – guh-go back. Thu- that’s why they put you here, so you can nuh-never go back, like – like me. We’re stuck here for all eternity.”

“Oh, you poor, frightened boy. I know our dreams, and especially our nightmares, can feel like an eternity, when it’s really no more than a few minutes of passing time. I was really hoping for a full night’s rest, but I can’t have you sitting here, crying, and being so frightened. We can leave here anytime we want.”

“Huh-how? We’re locked in a stone cell. Wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor stone that’s a foot thick.”

“Perhaps that is what you see, as that’s your imagination. You know what I see?” She swooped the flashlight around the room. “A completely open area. Freedom. To come and go as we please.”

“Are you mad? We’re in a big stone chamber. How can you not see that?”

“Watch. Tell me where you think the wall is, and I’ll walk right through it.” She began walking.

“A foot in front of you,” he said.

She kept walking.

“Holy cow, you just walked through the wall. How?”

She returned to him. “Because there is no wall. It’s just a trick of the imagination. Now, you just watched me walk through it. You believe that there isn’t really a wall, and we’ll get out of here together, back to the wonder part of dreamland.”

He trustingly took her hand, but there came a moment when she heard him cry out, he released her hand, and there was a tearful thud.

“What happened?”

“I ran into the wall I keep telling you is there,” he said angrily, holding his bleeding nose. She took a part of the blanket and held it to his nose.

“Hmm, I wonder if you’re claustrophobic in the real world, which is why your nightmare is being imprisoned by stone walls. That’s something like what my sleep specialist would say. You need to face your fears. It’s the only way to get rid of them. In the meantime, you’ll just have to wait it out, lie down, close your eyes, and wait for the nightmare to pass.”

Suddenly, she heard other thuds and cries of pain all around them. “And apparently you’re not the only one with the fear of enclosed spaces,” she chuckled.

He grabbed her hand in both of his and said, “You must go back before they do their rounds and find out what you can do.” His beautiful, green eyes glowed brighter in his tears. “Promise you won’t ever come back here.”

“Of course I’ll come back. We’re friends now. We can have all the adventures you want.”

“Please listen to me!” he pleaded. “I can never leave here, but you – you can go back, but you must do it before they catch you. There’s another tunnel. It is white. It is the only light you’ll see in this realm. Go back to your world. Go to your meeting. Don’t worry about me.”

“I’ll come back for you. I promise,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “Here, perhaps this will make you less afraid.” She presented him with a stuffed brown dog with fluffy ears. He looked at her with awe. “I’ll be back.”

She ran through the darkness, following the path she’d taken on the way in. Being blind seemed no longer to phase her as she navigated with her internal-compass.

Long after she left, the boy curled up with the first stuffed animal he could ever remember having, and cried. Knowing … Once she returned to her world, she wouldn’t remember anything, and if there was ever a chance of him leaving Otherland, it was with the girl who looked like a warrior-princess, who did magic and walked through stone walls, and whose kiss warmed his heart more than anything he’d ever known.

CHAPTER 2

Something slammed into Lydia’s chest and she saw red. Surrounded, without sight, she flared her arms and fought the things she could not see. “Let go of me. Let go of me. Let go of me!” Suddenly she was without breath, without voice, pinned, paralyzed. Only her head was allowed to scream, but who would hear her?

“Don’t even bother coming into work today, because you’re fired, effective immediately.”

Fired, fired, fired, the familiar voice echoed. Whose voice?

“LET ME GO!” She shot up in bed, hearing the echo of a scream, heart pounding, freezing, but covered in sweat. Her phone began ringing. Her throat was parched. Dizzily, she made her way to the phone. “Hello,” her voice croaked.

“I’m not puttin’ my ass on the line fo’ you no more, Lydia. Now my job on the line.”

“Cherise?”

“You jus’ woke up, didn’t you?”

“I don’t even feel like I slept. What … what time is it?” she rubbed her bleary eyes.

“Ain’t nothin’ I can do fo’ you now, Lydia. You missed the mandatory meeting, and I was left lookin’ stupid in front o’ my superior, cuz I couldn’t vouch fo’ your absence.”

“Please,” Lydia sobbed. “I’ve been seeing a sleep specialist. It takes time.”

“Once a month, I covered fo’ you, but this the fifth time dis month.” Cherise sighed, and said more quietly, “I’m havin’ to fire you, effective immediately, I’m sorry.”

“It gets worse before it gets better. How do you think I’m paying for my treatment? I need that insurance,” Lydia begged.

“
I
care ‘bout you, Lydia. I understand what you goin’ through … to an extent.
They
don’t, and
they
happen to be my boss. I’ll drop yo’ last paycheck off to ya. We’ll go out to eat or somethin’, my treat. I don’t want this to hurt our friendship, but, I got kids. I can’t afford to lose dis job.”

“And I can?” Lydia said in exasperation.

“I gotta get back. I’ll – uh – I’ll check up on you in a few days.”

“Cherise,” Lydia pleaded, but the line was already disconnected.

Lydia chucked the phone across the room a second prior to realizing she couldn’t afford to break her phone. Then she scoured her small efficiency for her glasses.

Cause God forbid I actually put them in the same place every night,
she thought. She was near legally-blind without corrective lenses, which was the biggest reason for why the specialist told her she needed to keep her Cuckoo clock. She didn’t know how she’d come to be that way, near-legally blind, that is, or if she’d been born that way. Just like she could never remember living anywhere else other than this little apartment.

Cheap, comfortable, everything literally only a short walk away. Her bedroom was the living room and the dining room, and then there was a small bathroom attached to the efficiency kitchen. There was a hatchback door on the floor that led to the stairs, which led to the driveway. She essentially lived in the attic, but for as long as she had lived here, no one else had ever occupied the downstairs, with a little help from blared music, stomping footsteps, and toilet-flushing whenever someone else arrived to check out the place.

Lydia had always been just a little more than the average paranoid and suspicious. In the 14 months of her life that she could remember, that is. She felt the constant need to watch her back, to always have, within her eyesight, a door, an escape. A lot of her sleep issues had to do with being on hyper-alert.

Every creak, thud, noise was magnified. Any sound she wasn’t familiar with placed her on instant alert and got her heart pumping madly, so she’d memorized all the sounds in the house. If someone were to move in below her, she’d never sleep, for she wouldn’t be able to predict their sounds.

She’d had sleep issues ever since she could remember. The specialist thought it might have to do with the ‘accident’, and all the rest of the life that she’d had that she couldn’t remember.

She’d basically been born in the ICU in the hospital. They told her she’d been comatose for two months, and had arrived with a variety of contusions, bruises, a few broken ribs, and some blunt force trauma to the head, not enough to explain her two-month coma, as her brain hadn’t swelled, surgery hadn’t been required, and she should have wound up with a bad concussion, at best. What she hadn’t arrived with was any memory or identification as to who she was.

Her memory had never come back, so eventually she donned the name Lydia Marie Smith. No family or friends had ever come to claim her, despite the pictures all over social media, flyers, and everything else saying, ‘Who am I?’ It’s like she’d never existed prior to 14 months ago, but according to her specialist, that was impossible. She had to have existed. Lydia didn’t even know when her birthday was or how old she was, so had taken a vote on how old she looked, at the time, and 24 had won out. She marked her birthday on the day she woke up in the ICU, so she claimed herself to be 25 now.

NCOS wasn’t the first job she’d had in these 14 months, nor the first one she’d been fired from due to her sleep issues. NCOS had been her fifth job fired from, but it was the only one where she’d made a friend, Cherise, whom had just fired her.

A social worker from the hospital had helped set her up with this apartment and her first job. Not knowing where she’d come from, there was only one possession Lydia had from her former life – a heart-shaped silver necklace. It was shaped like lockets are, with the rounded body, but didn’t open. Other than a tiny hole in the back that hardly a needle would fit through, there were no engravings or anything that said where it came from, or where she came from.

One cup of coffee swallowed, Lydia finally built up the nerve to look at the clock that hadn’t alerted her of the time. 11:48. God, could she really be mad at Cherise for having to fire her? The meeting had been at 9:00 am. Cherise had already used the broken phone excuse numerous times, Lydia’s car breaking down, the flu, a 24-hour bug, and being hospitalized and not able to call. No, she couldn’t be mad at Cherise at all.

It was the specialist’s fault. He’d taken from her the only thing that forced her body to pass out, and now after a month of no longer self-medicating, not being able to overcome her insomnia, not being able to feel rested, not being able to wake when she needed to, she was without a job.
Nothingness
, she heard. Was it the specialist she’d told about how essential it was she be up at 8:00 today for this meeting or she’d lose her job and have nothing?

Either way, this was his doing, and now she needed him to do something about it. So after Lydia finished a ¾ pot of coffee, she threw on some clothes, ran a brush through her hair, and checked her face in the mirror.

She didn’t see herself as being very attractive. She thought her face too pointy, her chin, her cheekbones, her nose. Her sleep issues had left a permanent mark of blue and purple bags beneath her bloodshot eyes. If she could ever actually feel rested, her eyes might actually be the large, oval eyes they were supposed to be, but the thick eyelashes with tired lids only served to make her eyes look too small for her face.

Her best feature was probably her hair, or had been, before she chopped it to a bob-cut that she mistakenly thought would make her face look less pointy. She’d done it in an attempt to free herself from a person, a life, a past she couldn’t remember, so that she could move forward.

Now her honey-blonde hair was just past shoulder-length. When she’d looked at herself in the mirror at the hospital, in an attempt to remember who she was, she’d had thick flowing hair that would have reached her bottom, if not for the curls at the tips of her hair. Hair, a face, a body that she’d felt she was looking at for the first time.

She would have appreciated her body … if not for the scars. So many scars. She recalled one nurse saying to her on a bad day that she was struggling with not knowing who she was, “If those scars are any indicator, I’d say it’s probably a good thing you don’t remember, as though you’ve been given a new life, a clean slate, to make the most of it.”

“What happened to my face?” Lydia said aloud, touching and wincing at the cut on her chin. She scrubbed the dried-blood. “Must have been sleep-walking again and tripped and fallen on some stone.”

Stone? Where’d that come from?
“Maybe hit it on the coffee table or the table or something,” she concurred. There had been a very brief period of time when the specialist had prescribed her sleep medications. Never again, as her body and mind had remained active while under the drug’s effects, and she’d wound up quite a few miles away from home, passed out in a cemetery. She’d probably looked like the walking dead. She’d certainly felt it.

15 minutes later, she was barging into her specialist’s office. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Lydia,” he said in surprise. “I was just about to go on lunch.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You can schedule an appointment with the front desk if you need to see me before our next appointment.”

“It’s too late for that. I was fired today, because
you
told me to stop self-medicating with alcohol. I haven’t been able to sleep for a month, and today was my fifth no call no show this month, because of it. Now, I’m without insurance, so what can we do?” she placed her hands on her hips.

“There’s not really much I can do if you’ve lost your insurance. I’m sorry to hear about these circumstances. You could ... apply for Medicaid.”

“Which your office doesn’t accept. I don’t
want
to apply for Medicaid. I want to work. I want to keep a job. This job was the longest job I’ve been able to keep, but I followed
your
advice and I lost it.”

He chuckled, his fake hair flopping on his head, “Be reasonable, Lydia. I’m a Doctor. Of course I would advise against your using alcohol to treat your sleep condition. I know it’s been a month, but the effects of nightly consumption of depressants take quite a while to get your body accustomed to producing enough melatonin to cause the same depressant effect as the alcohol, without the impairment and damage to your liver and kidneys.”

“The melatonin wasn’t enough to begin with. This is the fifth job I’ve lost due to my sleep issues, and the
only
reason this last one lasted as long as it did was because I was drinking. I stop drinking and now suddenly I’m without a job again. My sleep problems are a lot less of a problem than being without a job and money. I’m so sick and tired of having to pick myself up and start over and over and over again because of issues beyond my control, and issues no one seems to be able to treat.”

“You could go on unemployment for a while, give your body the time it needs to adjust to sleeping without substances fogging your system.”

“I was
fired
! Again. Fifth job in 14 months. Fired. Are you hearing me?”

“Hmm, that is quite a lot of jobs to be going through due to these issues. I know. I’ll take you out on disability. That should put some money in your pocket and get you disability insurance.”

“I’ve done all I can for you, Lydia. Perhaps it’s not so much sleep that’s the problem. Perhaps it’s underlying mental health issues. I’ll get you a referral to a mental health therapist who accepts Medicaid. How’s that sound?”

“It sounds like you accepted my money for as long as you could without actually fixing the problem, and now you’re getting rid of me,” Lydia’s shoulders drooped.

“You see? It appears you have some abandonment issues that only a mental health therapist can treat. I specialize only in physical/medical causes to sleep disturbances, not mental.”

Lydia gritted her teeth, as all the while he’d been taking steps closer and closer to the door to make his getaway. “Fine, but I want you to do the disability thing now and fax it over to my job before the termination paperwork goes through.”

“As soon as I get back from lunch.”

“No, now, and you can charge my insurance for it, for whatever it’s worth, while I still have it.”

He sighed heavily, and returned to his desk.

“Just look at it this way. You won’t have to deal with me from here on out.”

Paperwork in hand, Lydia exhaustedly went to social services, then to the bank to withdraw her last 20 bucks. Fortunately, she’d paid the month’s rent a couple days ago, so had some time to figure out how she’d be paying next month’s rent. She stopped at the liquor store and bought the cheapest boxed wine she could find.

“Abandonment issues, listen to him,” she murmured bitterly, and prepared herself for a blissful night of oblivion and sleep.