Zero's Return (15 page)

But, as more and
more People succumbed to the infectious panic, a single image began to burn in
their minds on a wave of calm, utterly drowning out Tenef’s madness with its
beauty and strength.  It was a magnificent circle of light, surrounded by waves
of color in all directions, carried on a rush of peace.  The glorious
apparition always appeared in their minds as soon as Tenef’s tirades began,
stronger and more powerful than anything Tenef could show them, completely
obliterating her projections of monsters and terror. 

To Tenef’s
frustration, the gentle image brought with it others of equal beauty and hope,
creating a barrier between her and the People.  The People stopped cringing
against the corners of their cells and began to ignore her terrifying, alien
pictures as noise behind a curtain.  Eventually, she gave up.

Once Tenef’s
horrible images finally ceased, Eelevansee realized she was hungry.

This was strange
for her, since she was always fed at regular intervals.  She couldn’t remember
ever being hungry, aside from one time she was Punished for touching a Keeper. 
The sensation was new to her, one that was even more deeply disturbing than
Tenef’s images of pain and madness.

Tentatively,
Eelevansee went to the front of her room and glanced down the hall to see if
the Keepers were coming to feed them.  They weren’t.  The double doors to the
Keeper rooms were closed. 

Eelevansee sat
down in the corner so she could watch the entrance, fidgeting nervously under
Tenef’s malicious gaze.  She closed her eyes, trying to ignore her hunger.  She
slept.  Time passed.  Her stomach began to cramp and ache.  The sounds of
movement across the hall made her jerk.  She looked…

And was stunned
to see that Nynjee was also sitting up, straddling his beds.  He had pulled the
bluish tube from his arm and was looking at her through the bars, his big brown
eyes confused.

Eelevansee
glanced down the hall.  Nynjee wasn’t the only Dreamer who was getting up. 
Some of the others had also pulled the little blue tubes from their arms and
were walking around.

She looked back
at the door, beginning to feel lightheaded.  Nothing.  Tired and hungry,
Eelevansee went back to her bed to wait for the Keepers. 

But the Keepers
never came. 

Eelevansee felt
herself getting weaker, sometimes struggling even to lift her head from the
pillow.  A couple of times she managed to crawl to the front of her room, where
she could see Tenef also laying in her bed, jerking with madness.  In the room
beside Eelevansee, one of the Dreamers hadn’t woken up and was starting to
smell bad.  Why hadn’t the Keepers brought food?

As time went on,
more and more of the People began to stink.  Eelevansee was so tired that she
found it hard to move.  Her throat was painfully dry.  She found it hard to
breathe, hard to think.  She had drunk everything she could from the commode in
the wall, but now there was nothing to take her waste away.  She tried to keep
everything in one corner, away from where she slept, but in the end she was too
tired to get out of bed.  Weak, exhausted, she slept.

The screech of
tearing metal startled her awake. 

Across the hall
from her, Nynjee was pushing the bars of his cell apart without touching them. 
Part of the wall had collapsed and the bars were snapping under the strain. 
Eelevansee watched, horrified.  The Keepers would make him Dream again.

She was even
more horrified when he crossed the hall and started bending
her
bars.

Panicked, her
weakened limbs alive with terror, Eelevansee crawled into the corner of her
cell, away from him.  She fiercely wanted him to stop, but only Tenef could
understand her, and Tenef began laughing.  Eelevansee started to cry.  She
didn’t want to anger the Keepers.

Nynjee finally
stepped inside her room and Eelevansee let out a frightened wail.  He was big,
much bigger than any of the Keepers.  She tried to scoot away, but he wrapped
her in her blanket and carried her outside the room like she weighed nothing at
all.  The moment she was outside her cell, Eelevansee felt a rush of dread and
tried to scramble out of his arms.  She didn’t want the Keepers to see her
being Bad.  When he held on, refusing to let her leave, Eelevansee desperately
thought about putting her hand to his face and making him stop.

You’re safe,
a soft voice told her.  Not Tenef.  The source of the brilliant ball of light
and color. 
Hold still.  He’s not going to hurt you.

Eelevansee went
limp, still panting with horror.

Nynjee left her
on the cold white floor and walked down the hall to Tenef’s room.  He moved the
bars there, too, opening up a passage into Tenef’s cell.  By now, those People
who could still move were watching with mixed fear and excitement.

Nynjee brought
Tenef out of her room and set her down beside Eelevansee.  Then he knelt in
front of the two of them, eyes locked with Tenef.  Eelevansee started shuffling
back into her room when Nynjee stopped her with a huge, solid hand on her
ankle.

He wants you
to make us food,
Tenef said.  The image of a bowl of Keeper food burned
brightly in her mind and Eelevansee’s stomach rumbled unbidden.

How?
Eelevansee thought.

Tenef paused,
glancing back at Nynjee, who frowned. 

Like he does,
Tenef said. 
He said he saw you do it, behind the green door.

Eelevansee
swallowed, hard. 
The Keepers made me do those things.  I can’t do it now or
they’ll make me Dream.

Nynjee placed
his palm on the floor.  When he was sure she was watching, he lifted up and the
white surface rose with his hand, making a bulge in the perfectly flat tiles. 
Then he looked at her expectantly.

I can’t,
Eelevansee thought.

Something
powerful suddenly gripped Eelevansee’s mind in an iron fist and she cried out. 
The Keepers!
  Even as she desperately fought to get back in her cell,
Tenef wrenched her body around and Eelevansee was forced to watch herself press
her palm against the bulge Nynjee had created in the floor.  Then, unable to
stop it, she watched the bulge under her hand begin to take shape…

Abruptly Nynjee
slapped her hand aside and started scooping the stuff underneath it into his
mouth.  Gasping, choking, he ate until his face was covered with whitish lumps
that slid down onto his chest and the floor. 

Now water!
Tenef screamed at her, the thought hitting her mind like a flesh-rending
shriek.

But, seeing the
Keeper food, hunger overpowered rational thought.  Instead of obeying Tenef,
Eelevansee reached into the depression that had once been floor to scoop out
Nynjee’s leftovers, depositing what she could find on her tongue with shaking
fingers.

Only then did
she realize that it was Tenef who had forced her to make the food.  Tenef took
hold of her mind again and tore her hands away from the pit, forcing her to
create water.  Then she cast Eelevansee off like a used dish and bent to drink.

In a daze,
Eelevansee returned to picking at the remains of the Keeper food.  It did not
occur to her that she could make herself another batch until Tenef took hold of
her chin with a thin, bony hand that was missing a finger.

More, girl!
 
I’m
hungry.
  Tenef pointed at the floor.

It was hard to
focus with her fear of Tenef in the back of her mind.  Eelevansee had to start
over three times before the floor shimmered and glowed with change.  By the
time the food appeared, Eelevansee was lightheaded.  It was all she could do to
slump forward into the pit beside Tenef and scoop handfuls of the whitish muck
into her face.

Once she could
eat no more, Eelevansee rolled away from the pits and lay on her back, staring
at the ceiling.  Beside her, Tenef and Nynjee were also finished.  Nynjee was
groaning, holding his stomach, but still drinking.  Tenef was sleeping.

Help us.
 
The thought was a gentle whisper in her brain.  Eelevansee looked up.  Lining
the edges of the hall, the People were staring out at her longingly from behind
the bars of their cells, their hollow eyes fixed on to the three of them in
yearning.

Please.
 
Another fleeting thought, weak and barely audible, not from Tenef.  It stunned
Eelevansee, who until this point had thought that only Tenef could speak in her
head.

Despite her
exhaustion, Eelevansee forced herself to sit up.  The People were watching her
and her companions with open envy.  She glanced over at the pit and felt a stab
of guilt.  There was still plenty of food left.

Shaking,
Eelevansee crawled to the closest cell.  Tendee fell to his knees in front of
her, his mouth open in a plea.

Eelevansee stuck
her hand inside the bars, and made him Keeper food.  Beside that, water.  Then
she pulled back.  Barely able to keep her eyes open, she went to the next room
and repeated the process.

Thank you,
the whisper in her brain said.

Eelevansee
glanced back at Tendee, who was slurping up water and food.  

I’m further
down the hall.  Help the others first.

Eelevansee
continued making food and water for those trapped behind the bars until she
passed out.  She woke to Nynjee shaking her.  When he saw her eyes were open,
he got down on his stomach and made slurping sounds, nodding at her
insistently.  There were others with him.  Eelevansee closed her eyes.

Nynjee shook her
again, more roughly this time, jarring her head on the tiled floor.  Weakly,
struggling with her own thirst, Eelevansee made a tiny pool of water…

And was pushed
aside as seven of the People fought to get at it.

Eelevansee moved
away from the struggling mass, delirious with thirst.  Part of her wanted to
jump into the fray even though she was smaller and weaker than the others. 
Instead, she hung back and concentrated on the floor again, forming a larger
pool with her mind.

Immediately, one
of the others noticed and hurried toward her.  Though there was easily enough
room for both of them, he shoved her away and stuck his head down into the
water, sucking it up in gulps.

Eelevansee
wasn’t sure what part of her responded, but in one instant the man was drinking
her water and in the second he was reeling away from her, holding his wrist
where his hand had turned into a mush of Keeper food.  Eelevansee ignored his
screams and bent to drink.

When she finally
finished, she saw that, despite the fact that their pool was dry, the others
had not made a move to take any water from hers.  The man who had pushed her
had started to Dream, his stub a globby mixture of bright red Keeper food. 

Feeling guilty,
Eelevansee backed away from the pool and motioned for the others to drink. 
They moved forward cautiously, their eyes darting to the man who had shoved
her.

Nynjee drank
first, then got up and went further down the hall, where more People were
watching them with hungry eyes.  He began prying open bars, freeing more People
to eat and drink at the pits. 

Eelevansee
followed, but stopped beside Twelvay.  Nynjee had passed him over after not
getting a response, but Eelevansee could see that he was not Dreaming.  He was
slumped sideways against the bars, his mouth open as he watched her, but there
was an intelligence in his eyes that Dreamers did not have.  Eelevansee knelt
and laid her palm against the floor at his feet.  She concentrated and it
shimmered, turning soft under her hands.  When she removed her hand, the
depression was filled with Keeper food. 

Twelvay only
smiled at her sadly.

Eelevansee mimed
the act of eating, but got no response.

Eventually, she
gave up and started to walk away, only to stop when the People who had been following
her fell upon Twelvay’s food, dragging handfuls of it out through the bars as
he watched, immobile.

Eelevansee let
out a shout that sent them scrabbling away from her.  Then she turned back to
Twelvay and squatted in front of him.  His eyes were closed now.  She knelt and
took a handful of Keeper food and dropped it onto his half-open mouth.  Most of
it slid to the floor, but a few globs remained on his tongue.

Twelvay’s eyes
flashed open.  He closed his mouth and swallowed, staring at her with wide blue
eyes.  She scooped up another handful and fed it to him.  They repeated the
process until the overwhelming picture of a water basin appeared in
Eelevansee’s head.

She blinked,
startled.  Twelvay was the whisperer in her mind? 

Please. 
Water.

As Eelevansee
made water and scooped it up with her hands, she saw the long, slender tube
that had hung near Twelvay’s bed.  Looking down, she saw that his arm bore a
small red mark.

You were a
Dreamer,
she thought, surprised.  She dribbled water from her fingertips
into Twelvay’s open mouth. 
Like Nynjee.  What did you do?

I killed a
Keeper,
he responded softly, staring into her eyes with his deep blue gaze.

Eelevansee
jerked back and scooted away from him, suddenly very afraid.

The Keepers
are gone,
he whispered in her head. 
Please help me.  They can’t hurt
you anymore.

Eelevansee bit
her lip, considering.  Then, carefully, she reached out to touch the bars in
front of him.  They dissolved into a puddle of water and she crawled inside to
sit beside him. 
Can you move?

A little.
 
He managed a feeble smile and lifted one hand before dropping it back onto his
knee.

Eelevansee
returned her attention to the delicate process of feeding him.  After several
minutes, he seemed to gain enough energy to lean down and sip water from the
basin, but that was the extent of his abilities.  Eelevansee had to prop him
back up against the wall when he was done.