Writer: Barb
Character: Theresa
Date: Day 2, late night
Location: #722, The Manor
After Khayyin departed Theresa walked slowly along the wide brick path that lead to the lobby. The path split off here and there, threading through the trees, emanating a cool white glow in the darkness that spread like phantom fingers along the floor of the forest. For her, the Manor Forest was populated with giant redwoods that soared 30-plus stories in the air like some sort of pagan cathedral. Between them a carpet of rhododendrons, ferns, creeping oxalis, mosses, and other greenery decorated the forest floor.
This had always struck her as odd. She knew that the forest was different for everyone who looked at it, and the only things that remained the same were the paths and the large pond on the other side of the turnkeys. For her, it had always been this coastal Californian woodland. The odd part was that to her recollection, she'd never been in the redwood forests of California in any of her lives. She could recall seeing them on television as Sidney, her most recent past life. A shudder gripped her like the one she'd just had looking at the couple on the bench at the turnkeys in the District, but this one was a hundred times stronger. It left her pale and shaken and she was suddenly glad that Khayyin had left. Gotta love that déjà vu, she thought, but somewhere deep inside she knew that wasn't it.
A line of trees accompanied the path to the revolving lobby doors and she stepped through and into the lobby itself. Darius had her room ready and she smiled at him gratefully. She was feeling slightly confused - and confusion wasn't an emotion she entertained with any sort of regularity. She walked to the banks of golden open elevators along the far wall and stepped inside one and pressed the button for the 7th floor. Leaning against the back wall of the elevator she watched the lobby grow smaller and smaller as the car glided smoothly upward.
Stepping out into the thickly carpeted hallway of her floor, she moved along the curved corridor until she came to 722. The confusion was still trailing her but she'd suceeded in pushing it into the background. She used her right hand, running her palm along the jamb as if she was caressing it. In reality it was reading her karma. The door clicked open and suddenly she was home. Suddenly, finally, home. The relief she felt shocked her, flooding through her until she was nearly brought to her knees.
The house sprawled on a cliffside that overlooked a pristine black sand beach. The back of the house was completely open and the ocean view was overwhelming, like the house was floating in it. A moon rode high in the sky, turning the water into an undulating silvery mass and she could hear the waves crashing on the rocks of the natural pier to the left of the beach. The water shot upward in sheets and then rained down on the rocks. She was looking at the foyer, and straight ahead was a wide, open archway that led to the main part of the house. Everything in the house was white from the ceilings with their lazily spinning fans to the whitewashed hardwood floors beneath her feet. There were splashes of color here and there, a brightly colored throw or a trio of pillows, objects of art and vases of flowers, but in the silvery moonlight it all looked black and white. Hanging off the back of the house a lanai stretched its entire length, lined with cane rockers and porch swings along with a giant jacuzzi. Except for the white wooden railing, the view of the ocean was unobstructed from every angle.
She stepped over the threshold on wobbly legs and shut the door behind her. The house was just as she'd left it, down to the crimson shawl that looked black in the moonlight, carelessly tossed over the back of a chair in the foyer. Closing her eyes, she let whatever was crowding her mind come, knowing by now it was futile to fight it. She braced an arm against the wall next to the door until her chaotic thoughts sorted themselves into something she could handle. She was having some sort of past life hangover; she could remember Sidney with perfect clarity from beginning to end, but interspersed with Sidney's life was her true self, and she could feel other, less pleasant things pressing their way toward her.
Opening her eyes, she dragged herself away from the wall without bothering with lights and staggered through the moonlight across the foyer to the archway. She didn't like these karmic hangovers and she hadn't had one in so long she'd forgotten about them, forgotten what they were like. Silly girl, foolish girl. She'd been away so long that she knew, with a creeping feeling across her skin, that she'd be lucky to live through the show that was about to begin.
She turned right through the archway and nearly fell into an overstuffed chaise, curling on her side and resting her arm over her eyes. She felt nauseous, a fine sheen of sweat on her brow. Everyone she'd ever been was back for an encore performance, just dropping by to say hello. Normally this would be sort of fun because Theresa had been some interesting people in her time; but it wasn't the dead ones that were making her nauseous - it was her true self and its memories. The memory of her true self stretched back and back, over centuries; things she'd done, people she knew, places she'd been. It was like a silken cord pulling her down a darkened hallway and memories flashed on like klieg lights as she passed them.
She felt it coming before it ever got there - and suddenly she was in the Pit again. She jerked upward and ran for the railing of the lanai, stumbling over thick throw rugs but managing to stay upright. She hit the railing at waist level like a gymnast on the parallel bars and vomited over the edge. Her mind was filled with images that no one should ever have to see again. She vomited until there was nothing left and still she kept on. Her hands gripped the railing like claws, her hair hanging around her face as she leaned over the rail, tears squirting from her eyes and down her face to mingle with the runners of saliva dangling delicately from her mouth.
She remembered it all - Luci's true form, the minutes that took months to pass in the Pit, the agony and despair and sheer terror of it. And then she remembered him, and she screamed.
Seven feet tall and scaly, talons like scythes and an elongated muzzle-like jaw filled with razor sharp teeth. He'd taken a liking to her, she remembered now, and was faintly surprised to find there was something left inside her to puke up after all. He'd stared at her with those inhuman golden eyes, toying with her for hours at a time that felt like centuries. The cool, leathery feel of his skin even in the fire, the smell of his breath, the coil of his tail wrapping around her - memories of him piled one on top of another, each more vile than the last. She'd never seen him in human form; he seemed to delight in her revulsion and terror as he touched her with that deadened, scaly skin. She shook her head back and forth as she hung on the rail, shreiking incoherently over and over again until her throat was raw and blood sprayed from her lips in a thick mist. The blood splashed on the railing and smeared under her feet on the whitewashed floor. Her body was wracked with spasms nearing convulsions until finally she collapsed in a heap on the lanai floor alternately sobbing and screaming.
An hour later she was able to lift her head. She lay in a puddle of blood and spit, and looking at it she gagged again. But she was blessedly empty, finally. The hysterical terror had dissapated as she became accustomed to her own memories once again. What replaced it was a void of emotions so complete it had to be psychological self-defense.
She lifted herself on trembling hands and knees above the mess on the floor, not looking at it. Slowly, painfully, she crawled back inside the house and toward her bedroom. It took her almost an hour just to get to the doorway of the bedroom, and another 15 minutes to crawl inside. She sat against the bedroom doorjamb and drew her legs up to her chest, circling them with her arms and resting her forehead against her knees. Tilting her head to look behind her, in the moonlight she could see the dark trail of fluids she'd smeared on her journey across the hundred feet or so of bare floor to the bedroom. Quickly she turned her face away. Thankfully she wouldn't have to clean it up - her home cleaned itself, but she needed to have the presence of mind to think the thoughts required to make it happen. She was nowhere near possessing that at the moment.
She sat like that for a long time, her mind a blank. Later, she looked down at her clothes. The black leather was creased and damp with sweat and other things. She turned over and crawled to the wide fireplace in her room and pulled herself up onto the white brick apron. Carefully she peeled her clothing off and flung each piece into the hearth, including the boots, until she was naked. She felt marginally better without those clammy things against her skin. Testing her strength to stand she lifted herself off the apron and found she was almost steady. She turned to face the hearth, took a deep breath and pointed a finger at the clothes and they burst into flames.
Bracing a hand on the mantle, she concentrated on just breathing for a few minutes and then staggered into the bathroom. The shower stall elevated and was large enough for a dozen adults to stand in, surrounded by opaque glass. Water fell from all four sides in a tumbling waterfall and Theresa started it flowing with a nod of her head. She climbed up the wide marble steps and opened the door and stepped inside. The steam enveloped her quickly as she sat down on a marble outcropping inside the shower and let the water pour over her, washing away her horror along with the filth that covered her.
When she came out a half hour later she was squeaky clean and steady on her feet. The emotional void was gone, and flooding back in its place was the force of her true personality. She wrapped herself in a thick white robe and walked barefoot back into her bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed - a massive thing with a wrought-iron canopy hung with miles of dianphanous sheer fabric that draped above and pooled on the floor around it - she closed her eyes and concentrated on the mess she'd made earlier and saw to its cleaning. When she opened her eyes, there was also a steaming cup of tea and some dry toast on the bedside stand. She ate the toast and sipped the tea as her hair dried, then she shed the robe and crawled between the white linen sheets. Her sleep was instantaneous and blessedly free of dreams.