Endeca (The Escapism Series) (17 page)

I couldn’t believe my ears. How could he give up so easily? It was so unlike him.

“Who are you?” I asked suspiciously.

“Oh, it’s me alright. I can’t bare this anymore. I want to be with you but not if it means I’d have to share you. I can’t share you with him.”

“Sharing? There’d be no sharing of me.”

“If you’re not entirely invested in us, it’s because a part of you is with Orion. That’s sharing to me…”

‘Nicholas! Come back here!” I shouted after him but I was too exhausted to move, let alone get up.

I heard the front door slam shut and shortly after, Calliope entered the guest room, my room for all intents and purposes.

“Wow that sounded pretty intense. You okay?”

“No.”

“Good,” she scorned.

“What’s your deal?”

“You have some nerve. Forbidding me from seeing Orion, meanwhile you’ve been pinning for him, secretly seeing him even behind Nicholas’ back. How could you?”

“You don’t know the half of it…I detest him! And besides, I’ve seen the way Orion gawks at you.” I threw a curb ball—anything to get her off my case.

“Pray tell, whatever do you mean?” she whispered with a little southern drawl, brushing her hair to the side. She was really improving her range of accents, courtesy the fine arts department. Her course schedule was the epitome of randomness, as was her track record with men.

“Maybe you think there’s something going on between the two of us but there isn’t. I try to keep him away from the people I love, so I understand where the confusion could stem from.”

“I don’t understand it though. How is it he came to be involved in your life and the people you love?”

I thought there would be more questions like, “so he really likes me?” or “how could you tell?”

“We run with the same crowd is all,” I slipped.
Damn it.

“How come I don’t know about this crowd, Xeni? What am I, chop liver?” she hissed, continuing, “I mean, is Marla apart of this secret society too? Is that why she was shot?” In that moment, silence befell on us both. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I-I don’t know why I said that.”

“It’s fine. We just got caught up in the moment.” I couldn’t help but feel the guilt laden words skewer me. Marla’s fate was altered, and it was because of me. My actions led to her untimely…mishap.

“Xenia, I’m scared. For the first time ever in my life, I’m scared of losing Marla.”

“I know, Cal. So am I.”

“She’s gonna die, isn’t she?” she whimpered. I rushed to her side, irrespective of the deadening aches I felt all throughout my body.

“We don’t know that. Only Marla knows.”

Exactly why I decided it was time to pay her a visit,
offline
.

~

Just as soon as Calliope left for lectures, I got in the shower. Something I easily took for granted day in and out. It was a triumph clearing my legs over the tub into the shower. The warm nearing hot water against my skin felt unusual but satisfying. Once I finished, I slid the glass door open and stepped out just as carefully as I had going in, except this time there was water everywhere. I slipped and fell landing on the hard marble flooring scraping my knee against the edge of an elevated corner piece. I rested on the bathroom floor with a sudden surge of energy. I breathed in deeply as a heavy weight lifted from my shoulders. I looked down at my knee and realized I had a deep gash. Kiran’s words dawned on me.

It all made sense. I knew what I had to do.

After I cleaned up and prepared myself for the day ahead, I was able to get around much easier. I transitioned through Styx and a part of me willed me to stay in search of the Lifter, which robbed me of my fragment, but the rational part of me said, no. I was strong enough to persevere and as I travelled to the offline world, I felt at ease because in this world, Marla existed. Maybe not the Marla I had known since childhood but nonetheless, still a part of her.

With every travel to the offline world, I was beginning to notice the differences. The air smelled different, almost like it was thicker and more concentrated by Mother Nature. The air we breathed in the online world was thick, however filled by a cocktail of toxic chemicals and gases. The people looked odd too. Maybe it was my overactive imagination but I swore there was something different about these people offline.
Were they aliens? Or was I the alien? I couldn’t quite pin point it…

Once I reached Marla’s door, I knocked with a shaking fist. I was petrified of what would happen once the door opened.

“Hello, how can I help you?” she asked, waiting patiently. It was Marla’s mother. “If you’re selling something, we aren’t interested.”

“No, I’m not selling anything. I was just looking for someone. Maybe I’ve got the wrong address…Marla?” I asked. She shot me her classic ‘don’t mess with me’ look. I shifted away from the doorway.

“Yes, but I think you must be looking for Marla junior.” She was named after her mother and rightfully so; she was the spitting image of her.

“Xenia!” she shouted, running down the stairwell. “Wait, it’s really you!” she ran into my embrace, nearly knocking me over. I clung to her, and the tears streamed on cue.

“I don’t understand. I woke up one day and then you were gone. You were literally non-existent,” she said, nearly hyperventilating. Her mother watched us, riddled by confusion.

“Can we go to your room and catch up?” I said, motioning with my eyes toward her mother.

“Marla, why don’t you introduce your friend? She’s just a friend, right?” Marla senior pried, suspiciously.

“Yes, mother. We’re friends...long
lost
friends.”

“But I’ve met all your friends.”

“Apparently not all of them,” she chided in the background. Her black hair was just as shiny and her green eyes just as electrifying.

Holly shit.

“Cal! Hey!” I yelped, quickly biting my tongue.

“Uh, right.
Hey
, you,” she said at first and then whispered to Marla, “Who’s this girl?”

“Okay, this is monumentally messed up,” Marla sighed, continuing, “How could you forget Xenia? You met her at that party…remember?” she hissed through her teeth.

Calliope hung in the balance confused over, what appeared to be, her faulty memory. In the online world, one would never challenge Calliope’s…well
anything.

“I didn’t forget. I was just trying to remember what the occasion was, is all.” Apparently, some things never changed.

Marla’s mother cleared the room once the ruckus simmered down.

“Cal, I think I’m going to spend some time catching up with my old friend. Thanks for stopping by,” she said, ushering her out the front door.

“Alright, alright. I got it. No need to shove. I’ll leave,” she glowered.

“Thanks again. I’ll call you later.”

“Yeah, looking forward to hearing more about…this,” she pointed between the two of us.

Once we were in the clear, Marla went on a rampage. “What’s going on? Why doesn’t Calliope know you, and why are you supposedly dead? How—” she paused, looking as white as the paint on the wall.

“Marla, I can explain. Please…sit down before you pass out.” She did as I directed and once she turned a shade pinker, I started to explain something forsaken to humans. “First off, do you remember what happened that night of the shooting?”

“Yes, I do. What I don’t remember is living in a world where you don’t exist!” she exclaimed.

“I promise I’ll get to that soon. More importantly, what do you remember after the shooting?”

“Not much…it all happened so fast. I remember a lot of blood and you were crying and screaming at someone. I remember blood everywhere, even on your face,” she said, straining to remember. “Then I saw nothing for a while but I could hear the commotion all around me; beeping and incoherent chatter before everything went silent. I don’t know for how long but then I awoke by a stream. Three little kids came to me but they were…dead…and their eyes, Xenia. There were so horrid.”

“I know this is difficult for you Marla, but I need to know everything.”

She understood and nodded in response. “The children told me I wasn’t supposed to be there…I didn’t belong. That’s when they cornered me and I fell.”

“Fell where?” I asked, feeling a shiver travel down my rigid back.

“Into a river but it wasn’t your ordinary river. Just before these horrid kids came to me, I sat by the same river. It was as though it called out to me and as I stared into the water, it was the strangest thing Xenia. I had no reflection. It looked like water but I had no reflection…a part of me wanted to touch it and then I hesitated…something didn’t feel right.”

“That’s the River Styx,” I clarified, “Remember we learned about it in mythology?”

Her eyes widened and she swallowed the lump in her throat. I knew what she felt because I had gone through the same thing when Kiran enlightened me.

“I fell into the river and I kept falling as though I’d fallen off a bridge…or what I’d assume would feel like that. You know how I have a fear of heights. It triggered a panic attack and from then on, everything was a blur aside from waking up in my bed. I don’t know how I got here. I attributed it to one horrific dream. Then when I went about my usual routine, everything was the same except for you. I went to your place and your mother told me you had died, but I didn’t believe her…I knew it wasn’t true.”

“How could you know that?”

“I had seen you there just earlier. You had come home and I thought I’d swing by shortly thereafter…but I didn’t expect the news I got. I thought I’d lost my mind! I even visited your grave... that’s all that I know. Tell me what you know, please. Tell me…where am I?”

“You’re in the offline world. I don’t know how to explain this but I’ll try my best. Try to keep an open mind and stay calm…”

She nodded eagerly but the usual peaceful glimmer in her eyes froze in fear.

“Our world that we live in isn’t the only world out there in the universe. Styx, the middle world, is a portal into the offline world. It’s a parallel world Marla where our off-sources live. You see, our soul isn’t one entity to begin with. It’s divided into two fragments, and for some, so widely divided that they aren’t capable of living very long in both worlds; usually the dominant source is the last one standing. You were capable but then the shooting happened and well…now you’re in a coma in the online world, where
we
come from.”

She stood glaring and her breath halted for a moment. “Does this mean I’m going to die?”

“I don’t know, Marla. This isn’t supposed to happen. Your offline fragment shouldn’t know these things. It’s almost as if your fragment crossed. There was a temporarily sealed portal before I…somehow you were able to share knowledge to your off-fragment even without a Charon.”

“A Charon?”

“Yes, only select Diplozoes can be Charons.”

“The creepy fairy man?” Marla paid more attention in mythology than I’d expected.

“There isn’t just one and we aren’t creepy either. Remember when we learned about the whole creationism vs. evolution?”

Marla gulped once and nodded anxiously.

“Well, I can personally vouch for the evolution part.”

“How so?”

“Because I’m living proof. Some humans have evolved since the early seventeenth century.”

“You’re one of them?”

“Yes. Don’t be alarmed though. I’m not evil or anything…”
Not now, anyway.

“For how long have you been like this?”

“Well, apparently all my life, but I didn’t know. I only found out recently,” I said, avoiding actual dates. Less was better, especially in her case.

“How couldn’t you know?”

“I guess I didn’t want to know or embrace the changes I felt. They weren’t normal and so I never embraced any of it.”

“Your eyes…that’s why they aren’t like ours.”

“You noticed? Has Calliope noticed too?”

“No, well, she’s never mentioned anything to me before.”

“Can you maybe not mention this to her? For now at least?”

“I won’t say anything to Calliope in this world, anyway. But I’ll say something to
our
Calliope once I see her. She deserves to know, Xenia. We both deserved to know!”

“I was trying to protect you, Marla. I didn’t want to ruin freshman year.”

“You’re my best friend, Xenia. I want to say that finding out that you lied is worse compared to this reality, but it’s not.”

Finally, a healthy dose of reality smacked her square across the face. Exactly what I had hoped for because I knew I’d made the right decision
. No one would want to live in a world whereby everything they’d come to learn was actually one big fabricated web of lies from the day we were born.

“I’m going to fix things. Give me your hand.”

“What are you going to do with it?” she asked skeptically before giving in.

I tried not once but numerous times to travel to Styx with Marla. It was too painful, even for her.

“I don’t feel any different aside from pain,” she mumbled, confused. “Static like pain all over my body.”

“That’s because it didn’t work. You’ll have to just wait it out Marla. Until I can figure something out, and I will. I promise.”

She smiled in light of everything. “I know.”

“I’ve got to get back to check on…
you
. I’m literally doing double time here.”

Marla giggled. “Thanks Xenia. If there’s one thing I’ve realized in the short while I’ve been living here is that life wouldn’t be the same without you. Calliope is almost too tame here, it’s unsettling.”

“Calliope and tame both used in the same sentence. Now that’s just creepy.”

After we exchanged warm pleasantries, I bid her adieu.

~

Online.

Once home, I pondered if one day I’d scrupulously explore the Offline world. I had a mission to work toward and that didn’t involve my ancestry at the time being. Saving Marla was on top priority. Figuring out how to track the Lifter was right up top in the stacks. Becoming half-dead or dead-dead now of all times, was a huge inconvenience. Mostly because Endeca would have to unite and the unknown outcome could jeopardize Marla’s future. That was something I wouldn’t leave to chance.

I returned to the loft with half of the energy I’d left with. The other half was on reserve and kept me running at rest. Calliope was home and from the sounds of it, she had company. I quickly went to my room and called Kiran.

“Hey, I need your help.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I think I may have figured out a way to regain my light, however short lived. Is there anyone that could prolong it?”

“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, then that’d be Caleb.”

Great. Poseidon of the land.

“Why him?”

“Trust me, just talk to him tonight at the club. He’s likely to be there. I’ll be there too.”

“Okay, count me in. See you tonight.”

“See who tonight?” she asked, catching me off guard.

“God, Calliope. You scared me.”

“Sorry, I was just checking in on you and happened to overhear.”

“I could say the same. Who’s keeping you
company
?”

“Zack. You weren’t home and I got bored. So I bored-dialed him.”

I nearly forgot about Zack. I wondered how much of that night he recalled.

“I didn’t know that you actually planned on seeing him.”

“He seems nice. Maybe even boyfriend material…I mean he did stay and help that night…”

Yes, that’s what I was afraid of. He stayed and witnessed things he shouldn’t have
.

“Did he mention anything about that night? He must have been scared…he took off in a hurry.”

“He said he called an ambulance and then took off because he doesn’t do well at the sight of blood.”

“Anyhow, I’m going to a club tonight. I need to blow off some steam,” I said.

“Let’s go. Marla would want for us to have at least one night of fun in her honor.”

“I think I’m going to go alone. I need some time to myself and loud music will help drown everything away.”

“I can’t let you go alone. I’m coming and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Alright. Let’s get ready.” The stitch of pain stretched from my umbilicus right through me like a stabbing pain. It felt like it pierced my organs, slicing horizontally. Once we were ready and out the door we passed by the hospital to visit Marla. She was part of our club ritual so we decided to uphold the usual.