Amethyst - Part Two - Chapter Two

“Dr. Ott, please tell us about your findings for today,” Director Schultz requested.

“I believe I have made a breakthrough, although she still is incredibly suspicious of authority. I believe she has deep-seated issues with her future and purposefully ignores it. Mortality is an overarching theme. She’s seen many die and does not wish to do so herself.

“She also fears who she is now. The reoccurring dream is representative of her mediation on the past. She has no comfortable place to be. I do believe she is experiencing deep emotional turmoil that is physically manifesting as headaches. She is still a teenager and thus has difficulties in managing the emotional difficulties of her past,” he concluded.

“Dr. Henderson?”

“She really is quite extraordinary. I attended with Agent Necker as he asked her to attempt to find a memory of his without touching. She proved my hypothesis correct. I would really appreciate if I could do a few imaging studies on her as soon as possible. I think I disagree a bit with Dr. Ott, though,” Dr. Henderson ended quietly.

“Really? How so?” His tone was cutting as his eyebrows ascended upwards.

“I believe there is a physical cause of the headaches. Agent Necker will surely agree with me that she is a diligent worker. I do not think she would invent them, Dr. Ott.”

“I do not believe them to be a figment of her imagination, Dr. Henderson. They are very real. However, even hard workers can have emotional baggage they are unequipped to handle.”

“I do not believe she is emotionally unbalanced,” Henderson returned.

“Dr. Henderson, you are speaking from your background as-” he started.

“A neurologist. I study the brain, but in a different way from yourself,” she said proudly.

“Ah, but I do not believe neurologist delve into the psyche from a personable approach, as I do. You merely observe EEGs and cranial folding,” he cut back.

“Doctors, please. It is evident that you differ in opinion. Dr. Ott has known Miss Evans the longest, so we shall defer to his judgement on how to proceed with her as a person. However, Dr. Henderson has successfully proved her hypothesis suggesting she has a greater understanding of the abilities of Miss Evans, so she will be given permission to run tests on the subject. Agent Necker, do you have anything to add to the accounts of either Dr. Ott or Dr. Henderson?” Director Schultz asked.

“Miss Evans is an adult, albeit a young one. I see no need to apply scathing labels of teenager to point to emotional instability. From my interactions, she seems tired, and that is all. She has little to herself, so she attempts to keep her mind private,” Agent Necker added.

“It is concerning she appears to have not spoken openly to anyone. We do not know her motives. And her capabilities seem beyond what we originally thought. She is improving beyond what we can control. She can get information, make people feel things. It would be in our best interest to figure out a way to limit what she can do, if need be. Checks and balances,” Director Schultz said.

“She has expressed nothing beside compliance while I have been with her. I do not believe it prudent to attempt to limit her. It would only give her reason to mistrust us,” Agent Necker replied.

“She has not been so compliant with me. She has shown an obvious distaste of authority. While I agree we should not let her know there are any attempts to limit or control her, we should begin to explore options. For one, I think she would be more compliant if she had someone to talk to, similar in age and situation. Someone that could be her friend,” Dr. Ott declared.

“There is no one that fits that category, Dr. Ott,” Dr. Henderson shot back. “To take genetic manipulation out of a government-funded laboratory takes a special breed of scientist that is willing to spurn the law which they must have held righteously to throughout their education, has access to large amounts of money, and that can find hundreds of thousands of fertilized human eggs to perform tests on. Even then, probability is against them. Humans have evolved over a course of billions of years. The likelihood of those scientists stumbling on something as great as this, even if they knew what they were looking for, is infinitesimal.”

“It does not have to be as great as this, Dr. Henderson. It just has to be something. A friend would ease her into this transition, as she seems to have a fair bit of bitterness being here and being who she is,” Dr. Ott responded.

“Dr. Henderson is right, Dr. Ott. We have not found such an individual before. At your request, we can redouble efforts in searching such an individual out, but is there any other alternative?” Director Schultz asked.

“If I might offer a suggestion, Miss Evans has expressed a desire to avenge her mother. If she is allow to assist in a case, perhaps she will be more at peace,” Agent Necker said calmly.

“Dr. Ott?” Agent Schultz asked.

“It is possible. Some small thing as to not upset her too much may be of use. You would have to be careful though. I think it best to not let Miss Evans know quite the extant of what she could use her powers for.”

“I agree. We will keep these suggestions in mind. Thank you for your time. Please report back at the same time tomorrow,” said Director Schultz, dismissing them.

Therese sat up quickly. Her head was killing her. Her shoulder was stiff. And she was tired. So much the norm.

She stretched her shoulder out slowly and wiggled her fingers about, flexing them experimentally. It was strange to touch them to their right-hand counterparts, feel the difference in sensation experienced on both sides. She wondered if it would ever be normal.

This was her normal. This new normal. She would learn to accept it. Maybe she could do some good with it, as the simple carrier of this thing that she was able to do.

She was still in her clothes from yesterday, so she took a quick shower and brushed her teeth before she glanced at her alarm clock. Tonight had been a better night. She had given up on sleep only an hour before she was summoned. She guessed she only managed to fall asleep until much later than normal, so they canceled each other out.

She glanced at the door knob. She could just walk out of there. She could do what she did back with the people who murdered her mother. She could just make everyone she passed want to let her through. However, the control she had was so tenuous. It had led to the disaster last time. It would never work. And then she would have to have a long talk with Dr. Ott when she got back.

She regretted the sentences she spoke the day before. He probably called her depressive again and diagnosed her with anger management issues. He seemed to always assign several disorders to her when she felt perfectly fine herself. Well, maybe not perfectly fine, but as fine as anyone could get in her situation.

She went to her notebook and flipped to the page where nestled tiny in the margin she had written, “Buck up. You’re not dead yet.” For some odd reason, the words always made her smile. It made her think of her dad. He never tolerated any display of emotion. Any sadness was counteracted by telling her to think about it logically and, in the end, get over it. She sometimes wondered if she was actually physically related to him. As she understood it, her grandfather’s laboratory worked with a cartload of fertilized eggs. It wouldn’t be surprising if, as her mother had fertility issues, her parents genome were represented there.

More likely than not, she wasn’t.

But it didn’t matter. Anyone could be born. Not anyone could make something of themselves.

There was a knock at the door. Therese stood up, carefully replacing her notebook and lying the hair on top of it, and then she answered the door.

“Good morning, Miss Evans,” Dr. Ott said. She suddenly remembered why she had lost her temper a little the night before.

“Good morning, Dr. Ott,” she replied evenly.

“How did you sleep?” he asked, clipboard at the ready.

“The same.”

“Dreams?”

“The same.”

“And the headaches?”

“Well, I dunno. Maybe worse,” she said.

He scrawled upon his clipboard excitedly. He had scored a point.

They walked down the hall together. “So, Therese, I was hoping we could discuss more what you said yesterday. How does the word ‘mutant’ make you feel?” Why did he have to bring it up? It was really stupid of her to say so much.

“It’s a generic term. You’re a mutant too, in a sense,” she shrugged.

“What dreams did you have before you applied this term, mutant, to yourself, if you don’t have dreams for the future now?”

“I wanted to be an engineer, like my dad,” she replied tonelessly. He opened the door for her and she mechanically inserted a bagel into her mouth as she sat in her usual chair.

“Why?” he asked.

“I liked my dad.”

He made a note on his clipboard. “Surely you liked other people with different professions.Why an engineer?”

He was not making this easy. “It was an interesting field.”

“How did it interest you?”

“I dunno, I mean, you solved problems. That’s interesting,” she shrugged. He jotted notes down quickly.

“Did you consider yourself a problem solver?” he asked.

“Yes.” She had made it a law to answer with only one word whenever he asked a yes or no question. Still, he got something from it, by the rapid moving of her pen.

“Do you now?”

“Yes.” She fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat as he wrote more. What was he getting out of this?

“What problems did you want to solve?” he asked.

“I dunno. I was trying to figure it out in college,” she said, scuffing a foot on the floor.

“What about now?”

“What problems I’m given,” she replied. This time, she looked him in the eye, staring him down. However, he even seemed to take something from that, pen twisting in some complex dance as he ran it across his clipboard. He turned a page.

There was a knock at the door. Eagerly, Therese jumped from her seat and opened it to find Dr. Henderson outside.

“Good morning, Miss Evans,” Dr. Henderson said pleasantly.

“Good morning, Dr. Henderson,” Therese returned. She looked between the Dr. Ott and Dr. Henderson, seeking an explanation and a gentler way to ask, “why are you here?” Every so often, she got pulled into some research lab to which they connected her up to wires and the like. Was Henderson going to give it a go?

“You don’t look like you’ve been informed that I was going to invite you to my lab today,” Dr. Henderson said, looking over Therese to Dr. Ott behind her with raised eyebrows.

“I wasn’t,” Therese returned, looking back herself at Dr. Ott, who was very evidently not surprised to see Dr. Henderson.

“You’re early. I was getting around to telling Miss Evans,” Dr. Ott cut back.

“Miss Evans, will you follow me please?” Dr. Henderson asked. Therese still found it hilarious how they always made it seem like she had a choice. Still, being physically poked and prodded in a lab was better than this mental game with Dr. Ott.

“Of course,” Therese replied happily, leaving Dr. Ott readily behind.

For a moment, they walked in silence, before Dr. Henderson leaned in slightly, careful to avoid physically touching Therese, and whispered, “So, you don’t think it was my fault?”

Therese shook her head, thinking back to the siphoned memory. When Dr. Henderson first started her own lab, she had brought in a burgeoning PhD student who had great potential but had difficult concentrating. His thesis was rejected, and he had seemed unconcerned of the result. Dr. Henderson had a serious discussion with him and his work ethic. He shot himself later that day. “It wasn’t. No one could’ve seen it coming.”

Therese couldn’t help but feel a connection to Dr. Henderson through that insecurity. To be a part of death, however unwilling, always kinda hung over you. “Thank you.”

Therese wrinkled her nose slightly as her headache worsened as they walked into Dr. Henderson’s lab, reaching a hand up to her temple.

“So, the headache’s are still bad then? When did they start?” Dr. Henderson asked. She gestured Therese to sit on a stool near a bench. The room seemed a combination between a hospital and a research lab with much of the medical equipment Therese had come to recognize and benches with chemicals she knew from her friends who worked in labs during college.

“Uh, soon after I woke up in the hospital. So, like six weeks ago? They weren’t very bad at the beginning. They seem to be getting worse,” she said. No one had asked her that before. Dr. Henderson was acting as if Therese wasn’t just stressing herself out and giving herself headaches.

“Okay,” Dr. Henderson stood up, and strangely, after putting on gloves, gently took Therese’s head in her hands, looking down on it from above. She said nothing, but pulled up an ophthalmoscope. “Please look at my finger, Miss Evans,” she asked.

Confused at what having headaches had to do with her eyes, Therese obliged. Did she need glasses or something? For something so mundane to be causing her such pain seemed morbidly amusing.

Dr. Henderson looked at her right eye, then switched to her left eye. She set it down, and turned to Therese. “Miss Evans, you have papilledema in both eyes.”

“What does that mean?” Therese asked, completely bemused.

“It means your optic disk is swelling, usually caused by abnormal increase in intracranial pressure.”

“So, I have a lot of pressure on my brain?” Therese guessed.

“In a way. I have seen it before in cases of tumors, hydrocephalus, and craniosynostosis. I think the last may be similar to what we are dealing with here. To be certain, I want to get an MRI done on you,” she said seriously, standing.

Something was wrong. What could possibly be so strange with her that would cause Dr. Henderson seem so grave. Therese also stood. “Okay. They did that to me before once. When I first got here they did a bunch of things, MRI, EEG, even genome sequencing.”

“All the better,” Dr. Henderson returned as she opened the door for Therese and they walked down the hall.

“What is this craniosynostosis you talked about?” Therese asked, attempting to find reasons to her concern.

“As you may know, there are fissures in the skull that aren’t fused at birth to allow room for the brain to grow. In some cases, these fissures fuse prematurely, even before the child is born. The brain has no room to grow, which, as you can imagine, has a whole host of complications.”

“But, I’m not a baby. Brains don’t grow when you’re an adult. You can’t make more neurons, or something like that, right?” Therese asked.

“There has been recent research to show that adults do regenerate some neurons. However, it is not quite what I had in mind. I think your brain is growing much faster than that, Miss Evans,” Dr. Henderson said seriously.

As they went into the MRI room, Dr. Henderson went to the lab techs who were apparently in between doing experiments. They talked for a moment, before Dr. Henderson returned to Therese.

“They are allowing me to squeeze you in. So, if you’ll please,” Dr. Henderson gestured to the MRI.

Therese obediently laid down on the the table, thinking intently as she was pulled into the machine. Dr. Henderson thought her brain was growing? How strange was that? Maybe this would be how she died, her brain grew too big for her skull. Maybe she would just have a stroke and keel over at any moment. Dead.

Therese stared at the interior of the MRI. Could they just open her skull up? I mean, would it be that hard to just break her skull up into the fissures she had when she was a baby? Would they leave room for her big brain? What if her brain never stopped growing, and all the sudden she had a giant head that she could barely support?

She almost laughed at the image, but didn’t, knowing she had to keep still.

“Miss Evans, while you are there, would you mind trying to did what you did yesterday?” Dr. Henderson asked. Therese noticed she wasn’t very specific. She guessed the lab techs did not have clearance to know about her.

Therese knew it was impossible. Dr. Henderson was very far away. A few millimeters had been hard to breach. Perhaps she just wanted Therese to try, to see what her brain did. Other scientists had done that to her.

Therese realized she didn’t know the student’s name who died. That would be her goal. She summoned up all her energy, and attempted to press it from her, into the void of the air, and to Dr. Henderson.

It felt as if the ground had been suddenly yanked out underneath her feet. She felt nauseous, but she kept pushing. Dr. Henderson was out there somewhere. She didn’t sound that far away.

She felt a tickle, but it became too much maintain. She slipped back into herself. She thrust her energy out again, seeking out exactly where she knew Dr. Henderson was. She felt as if she was slowly dying as the energy was sucked from her. She couldn’t stop though, she had to keep going when she was so close. She made contact. She was slipping, but she clawed out wildly through Dr. Henderson, attempting to find grounding, something to hold onto.

She fell.

When Therese opened, her eyes, she staring into a very bright light was above her. Her head felt as if it had been split it to two. Everything seemed slightly fuzzy, and she was so very tired.

Therese made out someone’s face. “His name was Chase,” she murmured.

“Are you alright, Miss Evans?” it wasn’t Dr. Henderson. Where was she?

Therese closed her eyes, pressing a hand to her throbbing head. The light was too bright. She sat up slowly, attempting to recollect herself. “Where is Dr. Henderson?”

“She’s talking with some people. Do you remember me? I’m Dr. Vaca.”

Therese opened her eyes again, staring at the balding, Hispanic man with a ridiculous mustache and open, brown eyes. “Yes. I do. You were the geneticist. Did you find anything interesting with my DNA?”

Then, she felt it. She felt the answer before he spoke. She felt his excitement over the nature of the experiment, his confusion as he wrestled through billions of base pairs, and his determination to keep going. “Well, it is all very interesting. There are many, many novel mutations we simply haven’t seen before and that we don’t know the effect of-” he started.

Dr. Henderson had entered the room, Therese realized without looking up. “Miss Evans, you’re awake.” An overflow of emotion was pouring from Dr. Henderson. It was too much. Therese clenched both hands to her temples, trying to staunch the flow of thoughts.

“Miss Evans, are you alright?” Dr. Henderson asked.

Therese took several steadying breaths, attempting to find herself. Her name was Therese Evans. She was eighteen, almost nineteen, years old. Her parents were Daniel and Carol Evans. She was as strong as her father made her.

She looked up slowly as her own thoughts overcame the static of those around her. “I’m fine. It’s just, well, I don’t really have to try now to hear what you guys are thinking. I have to try not to hear it. I have it under control now though. So, my brain is growing, then, Dr. Henderson?”

Both faces had identical expressions of stupefaction. Dr. Henderson quickly recovered. “That is quite astonishing, Miss Evans. And yes, your brain is growing. I was talking to my colleague, a neurosurgeon named Dr. Lewis, and he believes it possible to reassemble your skull to fit the increasing volume. We have scheduled the surgery for next Monday. More than that, we’ve target the region of the brain responsible for your abilities.”

“Wait, it’s just a region? You mean, you could remove it, and I’d be normal?” some strong emotion was brewing in her chest. As she thought to decipher it, her headache crescendoed. She let her defenses down. She felt the onslaught of Dr. Henderson’s and Dr. Vaca’s minds pressing down on her.

Her name was Therese Evans. She was almost nineteen years old. She grew up in Idaho. Her father was an engineer. Her grandfather was an illegal, genetic experimenter.

She found herself again and motioned for Dr. Henderson to continue.

“Theoretically, yes. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know. I will have to think about it,” Therese rubbed the side of her head. She could be normal. She could touch people without becoming them. She would not hear their thoughts. She would not have to fear that eventually the voices in her head would become so loud she couldn’t hear herself. Maybe they would let her leave.

“I’m really quite tired. Can I go to bed now?” she asked. It was all too much.

Dr. Henderson nodded, and Therese was escorted back to her room. She stared at the ceiling for a long time, rubbing at a skull soon to be broken apart to make way for an enormous brain. She may not be a doctor, but she knew that things growing abnormally was a precursor to cancer. Maybe a brain tumor would kill her. Would removing the part of her brain responsible for this ability stop the abnormal growth as well?

Maybe.

She had five days to figure it out. To go back to being normal or not. Well, she was never really normal, so she couldn’t go back to it. Her ability had just been latent. How would it have been if her father had trained to use it, as Agent Necker was doing, instead of teaching her to avoid using it? What could she be accomplishing now? Would her brain not be squeezing itself to death inside her skull as then the fissures hadn’t fused when she was a young child? Would she have been able to stop the people from murdering her father? Her mother? The girls?

She could get away from it. Never have the purple dreams again. Sleep normally. Go back to real life. Get a boring job. Have friends.

Her headache was pounding in her head. At each peak in the sine function of pain, she lost control a little. Her mind expanded outward, touching the consciousness of those around, feeling their pains and their triumphs.

It was always getting worse. Would she, in the future, not be able to stop it? To never differentiate herself from the minds around her? Would she go insane?

It was a lot to think on, and she did it uneasily long into the night.

Amethyst - Part Two - Chapter One

The amaranthine hue clung to her surroundings with a sort of dreamy desperation. Lilac, mauve, and periwinkle tones coloring the bed she knew so well now, the face she knew as her own. She stared down at it, above and away from herself. It struck her strange that she saw it as a sad sort of thing. The mouth was always turned down rather sharply, her brow creased. Blankets were tumbled around her legs that the young woman kicked off in sleep. Still, the lavender body was shivering in some chill.
She should not loiter however. She felt as if there was something she must be doing, but she could not think what. So, she stared at the body longer, tracing a scar just peaking out of the collar of the woman’s shirt. It was terribly disconcerting though; she really must be doing something. But what was it?
Was she supposed to meet someone? Was that it? She couldn’t remember. Maybe if she woke her body, she would remember then.
She turned back to herself and tugged at the orchid hair. “Wake up.”
Therese gasped herself awake, breathing heavily. She didn’t think she would ever like the color purple again. It had refused to leave her. Even though it was now physically possible for her to sleep as long as she desired without ill effects, she couldn’t. Old habits died hard. She didn’t have normal dreams anymore. Even at the worst of it, she sometimes dreamed of other things that weren’t purple. Not now. Whenever she closed her eyes, she would open another set, and stare at herself as she slept while getting increasingly incensed that there was something she must be doing. Then, she would wake herself up and not be able to get back to sleep.
Cerebrally, she knew that there was no one to call to her anymore in her dreams. There was no one to whisper the name, “Yvette,” but it didn’t stop her subconscious from waiting to hear the word again.

She yawned heavily. She slowly stretched her shoulder. A month and a half after her surgery, it was still stiff.  She went through the motions her physical therapist had taught her then glanced at the clock. 4:38 AM.

She still had almost an hour and a half until they would come for her. She yawned again, rubbed her eyes, and then flipped on the light. She glanced at the handle leading out of her room. She thought it was funny. It seemed like such a normal handle. It locked from her side of the door. It didn’t even have a dead bolt. But for all that it stood for, it might have been a bank vault door.

Beyond it, there were people upon people that stood between her and the outside. People that would stop her with increasingly forceful commands of “Please, Miss Evans, let me escort you to your room.” She might as well have been imprisoned.

It was funny. She hadn’t slept properly in years, but lately it seemed to be giving her headaches. They had offered her all sorts of sedatives, even prescribed things for her, but she refused them. The idea of being chemically put to sleep every night was repulsive. When she had as little bodily freedom as she did, she was determined to cling onto every last morsel. Even if that meant sleeping fitfully at night and living each day more tired than the last.

She flipped on her desk lamp and took out a notebook. They had given her a computer, but she had quickly realized they monitored her activities carefully. Every website she visited, they analyzed. If she looked at a news article about alternative fuels, she suddenly found herself being quizzed on why she was looking up nuclear reactors. God forbid if she ever did light research in the Middle East.

So, she kept to pen and paper and a small treasury of books they had gifted her with. That would be harder to analyze, she thought. They couldn’t tell what books she looked at, and she didn’t think they would stoop so low as to go through her journal.

The psychiatrist guy had given her the notebook. On that alone, she almost immediately rejected it. She didn’t particularly like him, and she was pretty sure he didn’t like her. They said something about post traumatic shock, but it felt like an awful lot of meddling into her psyche to her. She didn’t understand how asking about her relationship with her mother was relevant to anything. Or how she slept the night before. Or asking about her dreams. They were shameful enough to herself that she couldn’t get over what had happened. She didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. They could never understand.
She looked out the window at the vast sprawl of government buildings. It had been so long since she had just walked around people. She’d never repaid that Jason kid for his help. She may have never stopped the murders without him.
They never let her contact outside people though. They had warned her explicitly about it, how she could not send emails or letters. They hadn’t even attempted subtlety. They were boxing her in.
She drew a bird in her notebook. It wasn’t a very accurate representation, but it offered a suitable diversion as the minutes clicked ever forward into the next day. She got out one of the books, an encyclopedia, and used it as a reference for her next attempt. After she had completed the sketch, she purposefully drew a cage around it.
There was a knock at her door. She shoved the notebook into the back of her drawer, draping a stray hair on top of it. She would know if they were meddling through her things. “One moment,” she called hastily. She threw on some clothes quickly, struggling a little with tying her shoes. Her left arm still didn’t feel quite right, and she had some trouble with fine motions in her left hand. The doctors had spoken of nerve damage.
With trying patience, she managed the task. She then quickly stood up and opened the door.
“Good morning, Miss Evans,” the psychiatrist said in an oiled voice.
“Good morning, Dr. Ott,” she returned, attempting to remove any sourness from her expression that naturally appeared when Ott was near. They began the walk down the hall to his office together.
“How did you sleep?” he asked. He asked it every morning, although the answer never varied.
“As I always do,” was her curt response, glancing down at the floor.
He scribbled something down on a sheet of paper. “Hmm,” he said daintily. She had grown to dislike that“hmm” and what is signified. It was a giant sign pointing to some demeaning lecture where he would treat her like a distressed little girl and resume attempting to pick apart her brain.  
“So, um, I saw out my window there’s been a lot of rain lately,” she said, trying to fight her way out of the approaching didactic.
“How often do you look out your window?” he asked, pen poised. She inwardly groaned. Why did everything have to seem have some deeper implication for her emotional stability? She was talking about the weather.
“Well, its kinda hard to ignore thunder and lightning,” she murmured, attempting to brush the question. He wrote something down.
“What does it remind you of? What were your experiences with rainstorms in the past? How does it make you feel? Sad? Angry? Frightened,” he asked encouragingly. He opened the door of his office for her.
“I’m not afraid of a rainstorm, Dr. Ott,” she said. She felt like emphasizing she wasn’t a child to him, but she decided against it. Every word she said would probably be analyzed a thousand times to the nth degree. It was best to say as little as possible.

Two comfortable, cushioned arm chairs sat across from each other with end tables holding a breakfast for two. She was never hungry when she was being questioned about everything, but if she didn’t eat to his satisfaction, then she’d end up being questioned about her body image and the like.

Thus, she obediently picked up a bagel as she sat across from the man. He crossed his legs, propping his clipboard on his leg. He took a sip of coffee, and looked across at her expectantly.

“What did you dream of last night?” he asked. She wished she could effectively lie to him, but she couldn’t.

“The same thing I always do.”

“How did you feel when you awoke?”

“Same as always.Tired.” She was honestly very tired of being tired. However, she was more tired of having this psychiatrist ask her about it.

“What about the headaches?”

“The same.”

“Anything else you feel?”

“The usual stuff,” she mumbled.

“Could you please elucidate what that might be?”

“I dunno.” She didn’t think she should mention how she felt lost or trapped. Those were very bad thing to tell a psychiatrist. It was like catnip to them. Instead, she gave a shrug. He gave up on the line of questioning.

“And regarding my continued offer for a sleep aid?”

“No, thank you,” she replied. She took a sip of her herbal tea. He had recommended that she not be allowed coffee or anything with caffeine anymore. She thought it was ridiculous, but the movers and shakers behind her stay in the building seemed to disagree.

“How have you been attending to your journal?” he asked. He had mastered the open-ended question, which was always difficult to answer in the one word, ambiguous, answers she desired.
“I look at it sometimes,” she shrugged.
“How often is that? What is the sort of things you like to record?” he asked.
“It varies.”
He looked her very directly in the eyes, arching his eyebrows. He knew what game she was playing. The two had played it for quite a while now. Therese promised not to lie, but never to reveal any more information than could be avoided. He, in turn, would attempt to squeeze all her feelings from her.
“How do you feel about your arm? I see you still have some difficult in grasping,” he said, gesturing towards her fumbled attempt to pick at a grape. She felt herself blush.
“It’s slow. It’s annoying. But, it’s improving,” she muttered. She felt like hiding it, as if it represented a failure. As the wound was self-inflicted, he seemed to take great pleasure in bringing it up in discussion, which Therese disliked. She didn’t like going back to that time.
“And, how are you improving? How are the deaths affecting you now?” he asked.
“I didn’t think I was that messed up to begin with,” she shrugged.
“How often do you think about what happened?” he asked.
“I dunno. It’s hard to forget it.”
“How does it make you feel, when you do remember it?”
“I’m glad it’s over, if that’s what you mean.”
“No one doubts that. But, I want to help you, Miss Evans. I must understand what you are going through. It was your grandfather. And then with your mother and your friends. What do you think about when you remember?” he asked, taking on a slightly pleading tone. Or maybe, it was just the more wonted exasperation. It was difficult to tell.
She hated how he brought it all up and threw it in front of her like that. Maybe he was attempting to rile her, as she certainly felt peeved. “I killed my grandfather as he wanted to use me for murder. I do not regret it, as I’ve told you. I do regret that my grandfather was able to use me to kill so many of my friends, and, indirectly, my mother and my father. However, there is nothing to be done about it now. I’ve told you this many times. Meditating on it won’t change it,” she replied as calmly as she could.
“Repressing your emotions won’t either, Therese. It is okay if you need to cry. It is okay to let yourself feel.” He reached out gently, condescendingly, and patted the air above her left hand, the one she could not feel very well. She thought that was very much on purpose.
“Thank you for your concern, Dr. Ott.”

He smiled. “Just tell me when you are ready to discuss it. So, how are your activities here going?”

“Alright. That reminds me that Agent Necker wished to start on today’s activities early. If it doesn’t bother you, I would like to go meet him,” she said, attempting to restrain her enthusiasm for the departure.

“Very well, Miss Evans. I look forward to talking with you further tonight,” he said pleasantly, although she could see that dangerous glint in his eyes as he turned to his clipboard. Apparently, she had done something noteworthy.

Once Therese closed the door to his office, she ran into Agent Necker.

“I can’t keep making excuses for getting you out early, Miss Evans” he said with a subtle grin as he noticed her obvious relief upon seeing him.

“I don’t like talking to a psychiatrist,” she said, shaking her head.

“I’m surprised you find that the most unnerving out of everything,” he said, as they began walking down the corridor.

“My head’s my head. I kinda like to keep it to myself, you know?” she replied slowly, still looking at her feet.

“Understandable, but Dr. Ott is only looking to help. He is the best in his field. Your head, as you say, is safe in his hands,” replied magnanimously.

“So they say,” she said. She rubbed her temple unconsciously as the headache needled at her temple. He opened the door for her and led her into the large, open room.

“Miss Evans, this is Dr. Henderson. She will be assisting us today,” Necker said, indicating the woman standing near the center of the room. She had gray hair and a peculiar curve of her lip to suggest some unrestrained cunning.

“Hello,” Therese replied, somewhat shyly. It was still difficult for her to be introduced to some many new people on such a regular basis.

“I have heard much about you, Miss Evans,” Henderson said, nodding politely. That was the worst part. They all seemed to know so much about her when she knew nothing about them.

“I believed Dr. Henderson first wished for a quick demonstration of what you are capable of. I would like you to make Dr. Henderson happy and find out the name of her first dog,” Necker instructed.

She held out her hand to the older woman, “If you please.”

Therese could not tell if the woman seemed excited or frightened, or somewhere in between. Therese summoned all the happy emotions from the pit of her stomach as the woman put her hand in hers.

Therese released the torrent of emotions carefully, with the control wrought over many hours of practice in the last several weeks. Ever so carefully, she began to look into Dr. Henderson, first name Polly. She tried to retain privacy, but it was difficult to not seem the major life events that overclouded everything else like her husband’s affair or the day she graduated from medical school.

Henderson pulled her hand out of Therese’s. The connection couldn’t have been much more than a second. Therese noted, with some satisfaction, that the woman was smiling ear to ear.

“So?” Necker asked.

“That was a trick question. Dr. Henderson has never had a dog or any other pet. She named her rosemary bush ‘Horatio’ once,” Therese responded carefully.

“Oh my, that is quite incredible,” Dr. Henderson exclaimed giddily. It was almost humorous to see the transformation from sly, serious, elderly doctor into the vision of a giggling teenager.

“Miss Evans, I now request that you tell me what I got for my tenth birthday,” he said. Therese almost sighed with relief. This was going to be easy. Usually, when he brought other people in, it always meant some difficult assignment that would result in her complete and utter failure a thousand times before there was a spark of improvement.

She held out her hand, but he did not proffer his own. Instead, he added, “But, you cannot touch me.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t do that.”

“Dr. Henderson here has hypothesized you can. While there is substantial amount of  research still needed to elucidate how you can manipulate the neural circuits of others, there is some inductive proof that you can without touching. You were nowhere near the girls in your dreams,”  he said in a way to suggest the logic was elementary.

She paused, attempting to control the dropping pit in her stomach. Why did he have to mention that? It was true though. She’d been miles away from all those girls. She had always assumed it was just some trick of her grandfather’s, that he was responsible for it all. She didn’t think she was able to effect others without touching them, could she? It was impossible. Of course, she seemed to be doing many impossible things these days like reading minds and controlling emotions.

“Let’s try it. Here, you can start off easy. You can almost touch me, but don’t,” he held his hand slightly under hers. There was about half an inch between them.

She ordered her mind while taking several deep breaths, as she had learned to do before attempting these things. Then, carefully, she let the build of energy percolate through her body and to her fingers. She tried to push it through the air, but it wouldn’t budge. Nothing was happening.

She built up another round of energy, and pressed it forward. Still she could not find him. She felt as if every fiber of her nerves was vibrating from this onslaught. It was draining all of her energy from her. She was feeling very tired.

She would try one more time before she would break. She summoned up another round, and pressed it forward. Then, the tiniest blip of something. She couldn’t be sure of what it was, but there was something. She broke off, gasping.

“I felt something,” she exclaimed through haggard breaths. “I think I felt something.”

“Good. When you are collected. Try it again,” he said as she sat down on the floor, draping her arms over her knees. Her brain hurt.

“Is this physical exhaustion normal?” Dr. Henderson asked, returning to her pre-happy state.

“Only if she is un-conditioned to the activity. It is a bit like physical training. She grows stronger every time,” Agent Necker said. “Are you read for another try, Miss Evans?”

No, she really didn’t feel ready, but she nodded anyway. She regained her feet and hovered her hand over Agent Necker’s. She took several steadying breaths. Here went nothing.

She summoned everything again, pressing it into the space between their hands. She summoned more, forcing it, berating it, calling it into that space and beyond. She felt as if electricity was crawling through her with the intensity of the will.

She could hardly see, hardly hear, hardly think, besides that small space between them. Then, she felt the blockade slide slightly. She felt Agent Necker. She ran through to his memories, but stopped short. It was if she ran out of rope and could not travel any further. She attempted to summon more energy, more propellant, to free her of the superficial entity that surrounded the deep of Agent Necker. Each second, however, she lost ground, lost traction, falling back into herself.

“Are you alright, Miss Evans?” someone asked. She looked up. She was sitting on the ground again, pain radiating in the hand she seemed to have caught herself with. She shook it out.

“I’m fine,” she whispered. She was very tired. “I was so close. You were watching me, I think, Agent Necker. I couldn’t go further though.”

She rubbed both hands on her face, attempting to regain herself. It felt hot. Her headache was pulsating. She felt like sleeping, although she knew she was really bad at that particular task.

“Are you ready to try again, Miss Evans?” he asked.

Some part of her wanted to say, ‘no.’ She was very tired. But it felt as if this was all of her these days. She couldn’t help but think to these people, she was her ability, wrapped in a rather cumbersome personality they disliked the presence of. She had to keep going, as who was she without it? The girl she once knew had been left far behind many years ago.

She nodded. She staggered to her feet. She placed her hand over Agent Necker’s. She forgot the steadying breaths and the control she was supposed to you. She gave it everything. She could not restrain a flow like that. She felt as if she was thrown into a river, the world twisting around her. but then, she caught it. She found Agent Necker. She grasped onto the thread and pulled deeply into it. She searched and chased and pursued the memory. In her rush, she could not as carefully block out all of the things she was not looking for. She found glimpses of high school romances, boyhood pranks, and siblings rivalry as she closed onto the day.

She was running out of steam. Such an onslaught could not be maintain. She was slipping quickly away. She kept searching, holding on tightly to what she found, but the current was too great.

“I think that is enough for today, Miss Evans,” Agent Necker said. “You were not controlling yourself.”

She opened her eyes slowly. She was looking at the ceiling. To add to her headache, it felt as if she had whacked the back of her skull against the floor when she fell. She slowly crawled to her feet, stumbling as she stood up. Dr. Henderson reached out to steady her, placing her hand in Therese’s.

The onslaught of experiences was very unsteadying. After trying so hard to jump the gap, the easy connection of flesh felt like a torrential flood. The boundary between Henderson and herself was wavering precipitously. She felt the emotions, the memories, the essence of the doctor. It was only when Henderson broke away that Therese could see straight again.

“I’m sorry about your student, Dr. Henderson. It wasn’t your fault,” Therese whispered. Dr. Henderson was staring at her, biting her lip. Therese had meant to comfort her, as she knew the distress she was having on the subject. However, it was not only Therese who disliked other people getting into her head.

“Do not worry, Dr. Henderson. Miss Evans is trustworthy. Whatever she saw will stay safe with her. I would recommend refraining from touching her if there is anything you wish to keep private,” Agent Necker said.

“You got a stringed instrument, I think a ukulele for your tenth birthday; it was your uncle’s,” Therese said quickly, with sudden realization. She looked up expectantly. Agent Necker nodded.

“So, then the reception and projection of this isn’t just chemical, but must have something to do with electric field created by the brain,” Dr. Henderson exclaimed. “Perhaps the touch is just a conditioned physical stimuli.” Therese couldn’t help but note the almost salacious eyes of the woman darting about her scalp. No doubt in a few days she would be called up into another lab so they could perform more tests.

“I think I will take Miss Evans to lunch. I believe she is rather fatigued by now,” Necker said suddenly, for which Therese was relieved.

She walked down the hall with Agent Necker. She was very tired, and her head hurt. It seemed like those two emotions overwhelmed everything else in her life these days.

She bumped into an open door as they walked. It was sometimes hard to focus on what was happening around her when it got this bad.

“Are you alright, Miss Evans?” Necker asked.

“No, I’m fine. It’s just that I think my headache’s gotten worse. I’m just tired,” she said.

He smiled somewhat grimly. “You’ve been progressing very well, Miss Evans. I know this is all very difficult for you and that you have been working very hard. We are very glad of your cooperation.”

“Well, I’m not all that altruistic or anything. I mean, people that murdered my mom are still out there. I think anyone in my situation would want to stop them,” she murmured. She thought of that bullet exploding through her mother’s forehead. Images like that are hard to shake. She would bring those men to justice one day.

“That doesn’t belittle your efforts, Miss Evans,” he said softly.

She thought about adding she didn’t really see much alternative. They held over her head that she had been a participant, albeit unwilling, in several murders. She could go to prison, or she could stay here. She decided against telling Agent Necker that.

Once they reached the empty cafeteria, they ate lunch in silence. That training, or whatever they called it, always worked up Therese’s appetite, so she consumed the three sandwiches in quick succession. She liked how Necker never bothered her with questions or made comments on how much she ate. He was a much better dining companion that Dr. Ott.

Afterwards, Therese met with the physical therapist, Lawrence, who had her do several intricate activities with her left hand. One of his favorite was always to make her write long passages in cursive when she wasn’t even left handed. They were usually full of laborious words that required delicate finesse that Therese lacked to complete.

After he felt he had exhausted her patience enough, he let her go swim laps in the pool. It was her favorite part of the day, when she could forget about her brain and her surroundings, but just be. Her left shoulder always bothered her enough so that she would have to stop before she would’ve like to. Especially since afterward, she always went to meet Dr. Ott.

Only once her shoulder was throbbing and it began to alter her stroke so that Lawrence called her out did she reluctantly remove herself from the pool and dry off. Dr. Ott was waiting for her.

“Hello, Miss Evans. How was your day?” he asked, opening the hall door for her.

“Fine,” she said. Her hand reached up to massage her worsening headache, she tried to bring it back down before he noticed. He always made the biggest deal out of things like that. He was like some busybody mother.

“I’ve heard your headaches are getting worse. Tell me about them. How do they make you feel?”

She bit back a biting response that pointed out the stupidity of his question. Instead, she attempted something more subdued. “They aren’t terribly fun.”

“When do you get them?” he asked.

“All the time.”

“Hmm.” He marked something on his clipboard. “How do you feel about medication for it?”

“I’ve told you before. I don’t want to be medicated,” she said quietly. Its not that she would’ve minded a Tylenol as much as she didn’t want the man prescribing her drugs that might do anything.

“Of course, of course,” he opened the door to his office for her where dinner sat on the side tables. She sat down and began poking at the meal. She hated having the man examine her as she ate.

“So, how was your training today?” he asked.

“Alright.”

“I’ve been informed you’re progressing rapidly, that you don’t need to touch anymore,” he said. There was something behind those bespectacled eyes that Therese could not identify. It was something different from the normal condescension and false empathy. “How was that?”

“Okay,” she shrugged. He switched subjects.

“Tell me about your dreams,” he said.

“It’s the same dream. I’m not sure how much more I can tell you,” Therese said. If anything, these sessions were a lesson in patience.

“No, not dreams in that sense, but your dreams for later in life. Where do you see yourself in ten years?” he asked.

This was definitely a new direction. “I don’t know,” she said. It was such a silly question. What were those sort of dreams when you had so little personal freedom?

“Have you considered careers? Have-”

She cut him off. “Listen, I know I’m a mutant. No one has any idea how long I’ll live or if I’ll suddenly develop Alzheimer’s or dementia or amnesia or something. I can’t really plan for a future I don’t know I’ll live to see. I don’t know what your purpose is in asking me about it, but I assure you, I know that a ten-year plan is inane.”

That set him off writing. Admittedly, it was the largest number of sentences she had said to him in a long time. She was tired, had a headache, and was irritable. It annoyed her more to think that he obviously felt he had scored a point.

“Is that so, Miss Evans? So, tell me more about how you feel being a ‘mutant’ as you say. Do you feel lonely, afraid?” he held his pen at the ready over his clipboard. She sometimes wondered what he wrote about her on it. How he construed her words into some sort of image of instability. Who did he think she was?

“Listen, Dr. Ott, I’m really tired right now. Can we just talk in the morning?” she asked.

“Of course, Miss Evans. Of course. Let me walk you back to your room,” he said.

Therese was exhausted. The moment she walked through the door, she collapsed onto her bed, kicking off her shoes lazily. She’d let Dr. Ott get to her. Why did she do that? Was it the headache? The fatigue? She had no escape from these people. She never got to walk alone anywhere. She’d never left the building and its small yard that Lawrence sometimes told her to jog laps around. And, she didn’t know what she was anymore.

She hated to admit it, but some part of her did feel lonely. Agent Necker and Lawrence were alright, but it wasn’t quite the same as her old life. She would just have to get used to it. Her father had taught her to be entirely self-contained. She could do it.

She stared up at the ceiling for a long time. It never mattered how tired she was. Sleep came slowly and fitfully. Every time she dozed, she would awake what seemed like seconds later. She turned on her side, pulling her knees up to her chin.

Hey, at least today she figured out she could read people’s mind without even touching them. That was pretty awesome. Dr. Ott may be a jerk, she may be imprisoned in a government facility, but she was telepathic. She had that.

God

The lights blurred and flickered through my creased eyes. The pain was fading, drifting away like a forgotten memory. Darkness was coming, slithering through silently as reality walked away. I was alone as my life left with muted footsteps. Then, I floated away.

There was light, light so bright I could not see. I staggered, surprised to find that I was standing. I hadn’t stood in so long, not like this. Not upright. Not without pain. Not with unmarred, perfect feet, as new and soft as a dewdrop on a summer’s morning.

There was music, a soft music that one could forget about if one didn’t listen. It was lilting and sweet, resonating through one’s heart like a lullaby. It was warm.

“Hello,” a voice said, filled with kindness and soft wisdom.

I turned. It was difficult to make out much in the light, but I thought I saw a man, a short man with a bowed back and white hair like candy floss. He wore white so his dark olive skin stuck out all the more in the intense lightness of the place.

“Hi,” I said. I wore white like he. White was everywhere. I tried to recount my last memories, before I realized, “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“Do you feel dead?” he asked, simply.

“I don’t know. I’ve never died before, at least not that I can remember, so I don’t know what being dead feels like. But, I think I was dying. And now I’m here. So I must be dead, right?” I frowned in concentration, before looking up at the man. I could see him more clearly now. His face was lined with wrinkles and he wore a soft smile. Soft. I decided that was the word that described him. Nothing about him was sharp-edged. He was as soft as a warm blanket, a swirl of mist, and a tender heart.

“How about we take a walk?” he asked, gesturing broadly into infinity.

I nodded. Somehow, this idea of a walk made tremendous sense to me, so we walked.

The light shifted and lifted, revealing a beach. I could feel the sand beneath my feet as my heels sunk into the granules. The breeze rustled my hair. I could taste the salt and hear the rush of waves. The sudden change did not perturb me. It seemed right. Natural.

“Are you God?” I asked suddenly, my mind slowly making connections. But the lowered speed of my thoughts did not concern me; there was no rush. There was no longer any need to hurry. There was nothing but tranquility now.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You seem rather like God, but I don’t know if I believe in God.”

The waves gently lapped at my ankles as the surf rose. The water was warm, as if kissed by the sun.

“How come bad things happen to innocent people. I mean, little children die and starve in Africa. If you’re omnipotent and benevolent, wouldn’t you stop that? I mean, couldn’t you just wave your hand, and then they would all have food and people to care for them?” I asked.

He looked at me with warm eyes. “Do you need more food and people?” he asked.

I looked down, thinking hard. “Well, I suppose there is enough. Just in the wrong places. Other people have too much food, and there are plenty of people. But, why don’t you put food in the right places? And what about diseases? Cancer, heart defects, congenital things? What about them?”

He looked out into the waves, and I did as well. There was blue as far as the eye could see. A startling, warm, true blue that transcends such a prosaic germanic word as blue. This blue was as deep as space and just as captivating.

“What is your body made of?” he asked.

“Um, cells?” I said. “I mean, I’m not sure I’m made up of cells anymore, but I was.”

“And what do you wish for the cells in your body?” he asked, still staring.

“Well, that they keep working and keep me healthy,” I said. “I need them, or else I would die.”

“Would you be sad if one of your cells died, if it suffered?” he asked.

“I suppose; my cells make up me,” I said. “I’m sad if I suffer.”

“Do you know the fate of every cell in a body, before the body as a whole passes on?” he asked.

“Um, well, they eventually all die, right? Different cells live  different amounts. Like the cells in your lining of your stomach only live a couple of days but muscle and bone cells hang around for a couple decades. Nerve cells stick around forever, right?” I asked.

“Why do you think the different cells live different amounts of times?” he asked.

“Well, I suppose it’s because they have different tasks, and some tasks are harder than others. To be a cell in the stomach means you are constantly exposed to acid, but as a brain cell, the conditions are not so extreme,” I said.

“What would happen if you gave every stomach cell the lifespan of a nerve cell?” he asked.

“Well, you’d have too many, and they wouldn’t work right. They would be worn out. It’d be cancer. It would kill you,” I said.

“So, why do stomach cells pass on so young? Is it because you don’t like stomach cells? That you want them to suffer?” he asked.

“No, it’s because they achieved their purpose, they’re tired, and they need to make room for others,” I said. I took a deep breath of the warm, salty air. It was filled with soft scents of lavender and vanilla, so delicate that one might miss them. It soothed every nerve and lightened every heavy thought.

“So, that’s why people die? Because they have served their purpose and they’re tired. They did what they had to do. Now, they pass on so others can take their place?” I asked.

He smiled softly. He gestured ahead of us. “Would you like to sit down?”

We walked forward as the sand faded and newly shooted grass took its place. The soft blades waved in the wind and caressed each step. As we sat down, it took our weight as gently as a chair knit from marshmallows. Slowly, wildflowers of every shade and hue grew from the grass to brush our toes and fill our noses with their sweet scents.

Bees buzzed lazily by as I looked up at the sky. Birds flitted here and there in newly raised conifers, singing songs as lovely and lyrical any of Beethoven’s symphonies.  

“Do animals come here when they die? Do plants too?” I asked, turning toward him.

He was staring into the sky as I had been, smiling at the flight of a ladybug around his hair. “What is here?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What is here?” I asked.

“What brought you here?” he asked.

“Death, I suppose. So does that mean this is heaven? It can’t be hell. It’s too nice for that. It could be heaven though, but I didn’t believe in you. How come I’m in heaven if I didn’t believe in you? Or, is it not either heaven or hell, just what’s after life, what’s after forever, the far side of forever.”

“The far side of forever?” he asked with a smile, tasting the phrase. “It’s quite a nice phrase, no?”

“So, if it’s the far side of forever, is everything here dead? Is all the dead here?” I asked.

“What do you see?” he asked, brushing an upraised palm past the horizon. The trees faded and the birds took flight into another plane of existence, leaving an enormous void of penetrating brightness.

“I see white and lightness,” I said, squinting my eyes slightly against the glare.

“What is white light made of?” he asked.

“All the colors of light--green light, blue light, and red light,” I said automatically. “So everything is here then? That’s what you’re saying? We all make up this place like individual colors make up white light. Then, how come forests and meadows and beaches and oceans can be created? Are you like a prism that separates out the colors? How can you do that?”

“Am I doing that?” he asked, with raised eyebrows.

“Aren’t you?” I asked. “If not, who is? Is there another god somewhere? It’s not like I can wave my hand and raise mountains.” To illustrate my point, I swept my hand across the whiteness. From it, large, majestic sandstone, tinted with ferric oxide, rose immediately.

I stopped and stared.

It was beautiful. The rocks stood regal and proud, of a deep red that roared passion and ferocity. The edges were tickled with orange beget in fires. Fierce, unrepenting angles defined ledges and cliffs.

With another gesture, I leveled the scenery. I brought sands upon sands without any notice of plant or human life. The sands were of beautiful crystal, refracting light into a million colors.

Then, I brought the stars and sky. A curtain of black over a prismatic shifting sea.

“How can I do that?” I asked breathlessly.

“How did you think I could do it?” he asked.

“Well, you’re God, aren’t you? I mean, I mean-” I started. I looked at the soft man and his warm smile. I recognized him from somewhere, somewhere deep in my past, but I could not place him. Whatever memory it was, it was full of warmth, but not divinity.

“You’re not God, are you? Does God exist, or was I right? If there isn’t a god, then what is this? How can it exist? Is this real? Am I just having throws of delusions in death?” I asked.

“What is real?” he asked.

I grabbed a handful of sand from beneath me, letting it slide through my fingers in a cascade of particulate silicon dioxide. I could feel the grains press into my finger, feel the coarseness. I could see the light refract into a rainbow as each grain danced in the air. I could smell the dry, earthiness that bespoke the aerosolized minerals in the sand being bound by olfactory receptors in nasal cells. I could hear the subtle impact as each grain joined its brethren once again as it fell to the ground. I was sure if I placed it to my tongue, I would taste it.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure if anyone can ever know. It is impossible to separate reality from whatever my brain tells me. The brain takes the information observed by the body--the hands, the nose, the eyes, the ears-- and turns it into a vision of reality. If my brain doesn’t do it correctly, then I can never know. I could be dying right now, imagining all of this while dying alone, and not know it. Except I’ll die, and then my brain will stop working. Will I know when I die or will I just blink and that will be it?” I asked.

“What the difference between being alive and being dead?” he asked.

“When you’re alive, your brain works. When you’re dead, it doesn’t,” I answered automatically. It was simple.

“Is that it?” he asked.

“Yes. Probably. I don’t know. It’s what I used to think, but now with this, maybe there’s more, something else in life that isn’t just neural circuits or cells reacting to maintain homeostasis. Maybe there’s souls, or whatever you want to call them. A lifeforce. A brightness that encompasses all living things and brings them here.” I laid down in the sand, looking up at the stars. Their entrancing, crystalline beauty sparkled like a chandelier. “Is that it? Is there more than what we can document scientifically? Well, I guess we are constantly increasing what we can document scientifically with more sophisticated equipment all the time, but I mean now, or then, before I died. That is, if I’m really dead now. Is there more?”

“Is this more?” he asked.

“I think so. I do, but I don’t know. What if it’s not? What if I am dying? What if the darkness comes for good and I can’t open my eyes to find this place? I don’t want to go,” I said. “I don’t want this to disappear.”

He wiped a tear from eye. I smiled sadly. “Will you hold my hand? Just for a while. Just to make sure this is real, and if it isn’t, then I don’t want to die alone.”

He nodded, leaning back into the sand and watching the dark sky with me. He held my hand in his warm, soft one. His touch was light and kind.

“Have you died?” I asked.

“A very long time ago,” he said. “But I waited.”

“Waited for what?” I asked.

“For you.”

I faced him. His face was lined, his hair wispy and thin, but his eyes glistened with youth. In those eyes, I saw him as a young man, broad-shouldered and smug, when his hair was dark as night and lustrous as a ripe raspberry. I saw when he wasn’t so soft, but let his edges show by the cut of his jaw and the jibe at his tongue.

“You waited for me,” I repeated.

He nodded. “I did. I had to. So we could do this together.”

“You mean, go onward?” I asked, staring up at the sky.

He nodded.

“What’s onward?” I asked.

“Do you think I know? You were the one with all the answers; I just ask the questions,” he said. He smiled. There was that edge of youth, sparkling in his teeth.

“Thank you,” I said. The world was whitening. The stars I created were brightening to fill the entire sky with a blinding white. The dunes of sand trickled away as if funneling through an hourglass.

I held his hand. He held mine. Our fingers interlocked as if the whole world may collapse but it would not matter if we had each other. Perhaps the world was collapsing with this oncoming brightness, or perhaps it was beginning. Whatever it was, we would meet it together, as one, as we were always meant to be before death twisted us apart and now, how we were when death pressed us together.

I did not die alone.