Translucent (13 page)

It started one day, Karena didn’
t know which
day it was, as that
was something she’d stopped paying attention to long ago, when Karena was at the orphanage, sitting in class, halfway listening to the teacher drone on about something or other that she’d already heard three t
imes before in previous lives. It was an ordinary enough day, a day that wasn’t boring enough that you’d expect something to happen but not exciting enough that something happening wouldn’t make any difference.

“You see,”
said the teacher; Karena didn’t know his name, nor did she reall
y know anyone’s name, nor did she care.
“If the two sides of the triangl
e which are relevant to your
angle are opposite and adjacent, then you would use…”

Karena stopped listening. She looked around the dull classroom and to the window where outside the ground was frozen over with a layer of frost. There was nothing there, no birds chirping, no squirrels running about, no dogs barking, no humans walking.
Absolute silence.

And then there was a
human walking. He walked briskly across the area that could be see
n
through
the window, taking long strides, swinging his ar
ms purposefully beside him. Karena stood up.

And then he turned around and looked at her, giving an icy cold stare. Of course it
was him. His skin was now see—
through in places, revealing the whiteness of his skull on his nose and forehead. His chin was even pointi
er than before, and his face
just as gaunt. Karena couldn’t judge his age, having never seen a living man look like this before. He stared at her for just a moment and then, just as
abruptly
, he was gone.

“Karena, is there a problem?
” the teacher asked. Karena realized she was standing at the window with her face against the glass
. It didn’t matter. What was he doing her
e
, now? The only other time he’d done this was during the fire, when he’d appeared there, standing on the roof, and afterwards, when the nurse had changed into him. What could this mean?
She felt a sense of dread rising up in her throat, restraining her breathing and making her feel like she was going to suffocate. Karena forced herself to take deep breaths, trying to think of the next course of action. There was really only one thing to do.

Kar
ena bolted out of the classroom
. She didn’t care about the fact that the teacher was yelling after her, that there were kids giving her strange looks. She nee
ded to fin
d out what this meant right now, before it was too late.

She ran outside into the chilly winter air and sprinted around the building to the window she’d seen him out of.
She fina
l
l
y
arrived there, panting, but hardly slowed for a second before she ran in the direction she’d seen the Sandman walking. Looking up ahead, she didn’t see him,
but that was no matter. She hadn’t expected to see him. Why would he be there when he had the power to disappear if he could?

Nonetheless, she ran onward, just in case.
She continued running until she had run all the way around the building and was once again at the front. The whole time there was nobody there, just as she’d anticipated.

She only stopped for a moment, scanning the area quickly, before she took off once again, much to the dismay of the angry teacher chasing after her.

“Karena, for goodness sake, what are you…”

In just moments, however
, Karena was gone, around the corner of the street and running away. She was going to see Shawn.

Shawn sat down awkwardly, barely managing to hold his glass of water with his thick, clumsy baby fingers. It was strange to see him doing something she’d so often seen him doing before, but looking so different.
It was like he was
a new person
, and yet
exactly
the same.

“So, you’re sure it was him,” Shawn asked, though there was, of cours
e, no need for him to ask this, because the two of them knew full well that the other would have no reason to lie to the other about the
Sandman, and that neither of them could be mistaken about a sighting of the Sandman.

“Of course I am,” she said. “When I see him almost every night when I sleep, and when I know the exact feeling that he creates inside my body, there’s no way that I couldn’t be sure it was him. You know that just as well as I do.”

“I know, I know,” Shawn said. He’d only asked her that for lack of something better to say, something he tended to do a lot. You could hardly blame him, because in most situations of theirs there wasn’t much else to say but then to state the obvious.
He lifted the cup of water to his mouth and drank, before setting it down.

“
Look, my
point is, something’s going on
,” said Karena. “He never does this. Never. And the one time he’s done it in the past, something dreadful happened. I’m sure that’s what’s going to happen now. I don’t know what specifically, but we need to be on our guard, watching for him at all times.”

Shawn gave a dry laugh, which ended up sounding more like a squeal because of his physical form. “Believe me, I’m always on the watch for him. And if he shows up, I don’t think there’s any chance I’d miss it.”

“Yes,” Karena said. “But we need to be doubly on our guard, if that’s even possible.
That means we can’t concentrate on anything else anymore.”

“But this is just what he wants,” Shawn said. “Don’t you see? He wants us to be anxious, and constantly being on our gua
rd will only feed that anxiety. He’s playing us like puppets and we’re going right along with it.”

“Do you think we have a choice?” Karena asked.
“The answer is no. If we want to survive this, then we have to be wary. And by survive I don’t mean live. If we die it won’
t make any difference. I mean survive as in getting out of this cycle somehow and, that means taking down the Sandman.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Shawn! You were the one who told me at the beginning of this, when we met for the first time that one day, that we couldn’
t ever give up. You said that doing so would make things even worse for us. And now you’re
just taking back your word
by saying that it’s impossible to surmount the Sandman? What’s changed with you?”

“I’ve been through 1 and a half lives since when we last met. That may not be a lot compared to all my lives, but during that time more has happened than ever happened in any of my 7 lives before meeting you. We found that what one person sees is different from what another person sees when the Sandman is near. We’ve learned that he can appear and disappear when he pleases, and that he can
even change other people so that they look like him. Above all, we’ve learned that he’s invincible. There’s nothing we can do to stop him, nothing. The reason he can play us like puppets is because we
are
puppets.
We may have learned more about him, yes, but the more we learn the more convinced I am that
he is impossible to take down.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Karena, I’m older than you. I’ve been through a lot more than you have. I may have provided you with hope and a reason to go on for many years, but that time is over. I’
ve come to my senses, and it’s time to
finally accept reality
. We can’t survive. We’re dead.
We were dead ever since he first started manipulating our lives.
”
There was clear hurt in Shawn’s eyes as he said this, as if it was something that he desperately didn’t want to have to say, but said anyway.

There was a long silence, and
Karena stared at Shawn fiercely, more fiercely than she ever had before. She was
n’t going to accept the “
reality.” She wasn’t going to give in. Shawn had planted a seed in her
long ago
that he couldn’t take out of her now. She would kill the Sandman and end all this, mad as that might seem.

“The Sandman will be killed. What he’s done there can be no rational purpose for. I will end his life.”

“You’re talking like a madman.”

“Well at least I’m not as mad as you.”
Karena ran out the door without another word. It was time to start making a plan.

Karena didn’t go back to class that day. She didn’t even go back to the orphanage, as a matter of fact. She spent the whole rest of the day walking around the city, thinking to herself about what she
needed
to do. It was time for her to not focus on anything but the Sandman.

But even more than that, she thought about Shawn. How could he just change his opinions on this so suddenly, and not want to do anything? Was he being a
fool, or was he actually right?
Karena
quickly decided to turn her mind away from the latter option. She couldn’t let herself fall to the place
where she thought that was true, as much as she respected Shawn. This time she wasn’t going to listen to him.

Karena looked all around for the Sandman. The weather was freezing, and she had no coat since she’d just run out the door without thinking about anything, but she hardly noticed the fact that she was getting a cold
and that her digits were turning blue.
She only focused on using her piercing eyes to find the Sandman, if he was, indeed, anywhere. That was the only priority.

When the day was over, Karena was hungry, tired, and frozen to the bone, but she didn’t care. Physical things scarcely had any e
ffect on her any more.
She returned to the orphanage late, sneaking in through the back entrance where she usually snuck in and out when visiting Shawn. All the children were already asleep in the long hall where she slept. She crawled into bed and dreamed about the Sandman.

He was standing in Quencher’s, where he was more often than not in her dreams. The dream began exactly like all others. She was sitting down, and the Sandman was near her table, standing even though in real life he normally was sitting at the table in the corner. This time instead of trying to ignore him, Karena turned fiercely and stared directly into his eyes. It was a defiant look, the sort of look she’d given Shawn earlier that day, but this time filled with more hatred.
Of course, he stared back at her, but for once Karena felt undaunted. Or at least not as daunted as she had before.

The Sandman’s face remained expressionless as he stared at her. His bones that showed through his tissue paper skin were set, gaunt. It was like his jaw was fractured in that position, without the physical ability of smiling.

Karena stared harder, her eyes boring into his skull, into his brain, searching for answers.
It was a battle of glares, a fight to the death to determine whose will was stronger.
“What do you want!?” she suddenly cried.
“You’ve been taunting me my whole life, taunting me with that silly little hourglass of yours, and there’
s no reason for it, no purpose!
I ask again, WHAT
…DO…YOU…
WANT!?!? Just show me what it is! Do your will!
”

The Sandman reached into his trench coat and pulled out the hourglass. The sand was near the bottom. And he reached his long, skeletal fingers, the joints and bones visible, out as far as he could, and he curled his fingers. It took a moment, but Karena found out what he was attempting to do. He was beckoning to her. Karena
stood up, though
she didn’t know why.

And the Sandman proved her wrong.

Because he smiled.

It was
n’t
a friendly smile, though. It was the sort of smile that would come from an evil person who has just had a big success, a person with a heart so cold that
it showed
even in a facial expression usually interpreted as nice
. Karena gasped and fell backwards
onto the table behind her
. The atmosphere grew darker, and the air took on
a dark violet color, and Karena could almost feel the violet seeping into her, though she did not know what it was doing. It grew in intensity, though not in brightness, and Karena found herself standing, running to the door.

But there was no door. There was nothing there but a swirling mass of violet, and Karena stepped back.

And then she found herself falling, falling through an airy oblivion with no end in sight.
It lasted longer than it should have, as she continued to fall for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, who knew how long. She only knew that she was falling and that she wanted to get out of this nightmare.

And then she hit the bottom, and with a jolt she woke up.

Karena looked around to see that there was
no Sandman, that she was safe.
She was back in the orphanage, in the long, smelly hall of slumbering children, and she was the only one awake.

Karena lay back down. Telling the difference between her dreams and her realities was becoming increasingly difficult. Maybe the phycologist had been right after all. Maybe this was all one big,
massive dream and that one day
she would wake up, just as she just had, and she’d find herself in her real body, to live a real life, a life where she wouldn’t be plagued by the Sandman.

But until that happened,
if indeed it ever did,
she
would
have to be strong.