I’m something enough for thoughts and feelings, only I don’t know what to think or how to feel. Sluggish confusion slowly trickles details and memories into the void. I recall the back and forth click of a turn signal, the dull tapping rhythm of fingers on a steering wheel. I remember a deep growling voice, the slap of water over my face and a buoyant feeling.
More things, all these things, a bridge of wasted space and the lilting cadence of arguments, NASA posters, a firefighter’s picture-perfect smile, my memories. My life. Who I am, the things I think about, how I feel about things, my thoughts about my feelings, everything of substance that forms who I am becomes mine.
This lidded darkness is mine. My eyes are closed. I’m lying somewhere in a face-up sprawl. I’m in my body, but don’t I remember why I shouldn’t be, why this is strange. I think I know where I am, yet I have no idea where I am. I think I know what’s happening. I have no idea what’s happened. There’s still so much that I’m missing, but I found my body.
I open my eyes. An eye stares back. One eye, dangling on a red cord, a rounded white orb with a glazed dark center. A bright spot of color in a black and white world lacking substance, the shadow-on-shadow impossibility of the Otherside. It stretches above and around what part of my vision isn’t being taken up by this dangling eyeball, the fearsome red socket, a mottled ruin of broken skin that comprises a dead woman’s half-crushed face leaning over me. A scream tears from my throat. I kick and claw at nothing, wispy insubstantial nothing that resists enough I scoot backward.
Remembering how to use my body complicates matters, trying to think about what I’m doing complicates matters. Thinking I need to stay calm reminds me of Cain. Of a knife descending.
The kneeling dead woman turns her head to track my backward motion. She moves slow, glacial, eerily unconcerned and half-aware. Long auburn curls spiral around the bashed-in destruction that used to be her face. By the twisted, bloodied knob of her arm and jutting bone from her leg, I’m guessing she died in a car accident.
“Cain! Cain, I’m awake!”
A lack of heart-thudding, breathless reality leaves me standing there watching her in ways that seem calm, even though I’m screaming for Cain. He crossed with me, that was the plan, so I need him here to handle this dead thing.
“Cain?” I retreat from the dead woman’s lackluster effort at chasing me. She’s managing a crawl. Bright crimson paints blooms into the floral pattern of her dress. She might have been pretty, before.
Besides my own terrified shouting I think I hear something else. Whispering, or the wind, except the air is perfectly still. This burned to ash ruin of a world calls and moans. The dead woman seems to moan. Her mouth is a slacked-open horror. It wobbles nonsense in dead-sounding tones.
I cup my hands like a megaphone. “CAIN!”
If I had breath I’d be sobbing. I back away further from the dead thing that’s found me. I hold out my hands to check the length of heather-grey sweatshirt and slim, pale fingers peeking out from the end of the sleeves. I poke my tongue into my numbed knot of scar tissue on my lip. I feel at my face and hair, I look down at my jeans, my sneakers, this is definitely my body and not Cain’s.
A few shuffling steps get me further away from the dead woman. I’m not sure if she’s trying to talk to me or if that’s just the noise dead things make on the Otherside. I’ve never been here without Cain, he found me after the exorcism and had hold of me when I obliterated that motorcyclist. I thought he’d be here for this. I thought we’d cross together. I can’t do this without Cain. Racing panic loops my thoughts in tight circle of how Cain’s not here, I was with Cain and now I’m not, I don’t know what’s happening without Cain to explain it. Not that he’s ever explained much.
Thinking of how little Cain’s explained reminds me of my outburst, how I told Cain I hated him. Wildly I consider the possibility he’s ignoring me, but I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think that’s what’s happened here, but I’m thinking so carefully about those last moments we had together and how it seemed like a goodbye. Cain knew this would happen. I have no doubt that Cain knew this would happen, whatever this terrible unfolding disaster is that’s left me stranded without him.
Or, him without me, I realize. I left him. I left his body to find mine, and now Cain can’t find me. The stupid binding, those handcuffs, whatever power let Cain find me before he can’t use now. He can’t do anything. Phobos described it as deaf, dumb, blind, bound — Cain’s trapped, that must be the explanation. He’s trapped somewhere. I desperately don’t want to think of Cain trapped and helpless, even though he must be. Stomach-sinking certainty tells me that’s the meaning behind Cain’s silent answer to my desperate calls.
Knowing what’s happened fills me with calm, even though I’m still lost on what to do about it. At least I have some understanding of the situation. Wandering around the immediate vicinity provides a little more understanding, but not much.
I decide to assume this desolate crossroads of shadow is where the wreck took place. That fits with my understanding of things, it fits with what I’ve seen so far. The Otherside is the dark, twisted mirror of my world, a ruined-ash shadow devoid of color and substance besides myself and the dead woman. As I cautiously explore the intersection, it becomes easier to denote the separation between the grey, hazy shadow-shapes.
I arrive back where I started, in front of the dead woman. “I don’t suppose you can actually talk, and not just moan?”
An insensible zombie-quality slur forms my response. She drags her ruined body closer to me as if magnetized, no matter where I stand. She seems ready to chase me in circles, if I let her. I recall Cain referring to me as a beacon for anything feeling ambitious during my first visit to the Otherside. I guess this dead woman’s ambition lead her to me. I wonder if she died in this same intersection, or if she crawled here from somewhere else.
I don’t want to think about how long my body lay limp and vacant, why this dead woman may have been lured to it or why she’s still eager to get hold of me. I’m trying my best to ignore the lifted whispers calling to me, because none of them sound like Cain.
“Sorry. I’d help you if I could,” I tell the dead woman. “But I need to find my demon. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”
Her shattered jaw quivers, same as the dangling eye, as she drags herself forward.
I tuck my hands into the front pouch on my sweatshirt. “You remind me a lot of a zombie. I hope you’re not trying to eat my brain. Although, if you were trying to crawl into my body, I guess that kind of is like eating my brain. I hope you weren’t trying to do that, though. You seem like a nice enough dead thing.”
Talking to this dead woman isn’t helpful. I know that, but I do it anyway. I’m not sure what else to do, besides leave, but that’s terrifying. I know where this place is, in some small degree. I’m not sure which direction to walk without knowing the names of the streets or being able to see any of the landmarks. I can’t navigate blind like this.
Except I’m not blind, I can see all this hazy dark nothing of the Otherside. I might not see much, but I see something. If I get close and focus I can tell the difference between curb and street. I can tell the difference between the terrifying upward abyss of the sky and the jutting overhead shape of the street lights against it. As I stand there staring up at a void without any stars or glimmer of moonlight, I think of Cain watching the sunrise.
“Where am I?” I whisper. To myself, of course, because the dead woman’s not going to have an answer and there’s no voice inside my head listening anymore. I’m all alone.
Or so I think. Until a voice replies nicely, “I have no idea, sorry.”
I whip my head around at the dead woman in silent accusation. That’s a familiar voice, though, sometimes maybe boyish tenor memory but definitely not a feminine one. And these are such distinctly shaped sounds instead of the zombie-dead babble she’s been giving me so far.
Slowly I scan each surrounding shadow. “Where are you?” I use the same to-myself-hush, hoping for another response.
“Definitely no idea,” the voice replies. “I hope I’m not dead.”
If this weren’t the Otherside, my reaction would be a lot of sweaty-palmed, heart-pounding breathless terror. I still get to feel all that, but my body is a perfectly calm vessel to carry me forward. I step cautiously, eyes on the ground.
“Can you hear me?” I ask.
“Um, yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”
I know who I’m talking to, but it’s the strangest thing where I’m not sure I actually do know who I’m talking to. I can’t think of the name. I can’t think of the face this voice belongs to, what the body looks like that shapes it. I recognize the voice, but I don’t understand this. I can’t think of his name, what to call him.
“Where are you?” Desperate now, even though I think I’m getting closer.
“I really have no idea, I’m sorry. Let me know if you figure it out though, okay?”
This is so not okay. The dead woman’s been crawling around the spot where I woke up, and I can’t get back to that same spot without getting within reach of her.
“Get out of my way,” I tell the dead woman. I point across the intersection like commanding a dog. “Go. Get. Crawl faster that way.”
She comes toward me instead with that same stubborn, relentless, snail-paced determination. A terrible fury born of frustration and fear grips me. “Get out of my way!”
I burst toward her and snatch a fistful of curly auburn something . The slippery-soft feel of hair tangling into my fingers is a visceral shock. Without thinking I tug — yank, really, like whisking a sheet off a surprise. The dead woman vanishes. She wisps into shreds of nothing with a soft murmured regret that barely stirs any memories. I don’t know anything about her other than her ugly dead body in my way. My impression of her fades almost immediately, so that I doubt I even had one to begin with. I’m just glad she’s gone.
I take her place crawling on my hands and knees like searching for a dropped contact. I carefully sweep my fingers until I feel resistence. “Is this you? This is you, I found you –” Excitedly I feel further at the firm bit of shadow I’ve found, and my exploring hands shape the darkness like molding clay. “I’m so glad you’re here! You missed so much, it’s crazy, you won’t believe what’s happened –”
Little reminders, like bubbles popping, my enthusiasm deflating as I think about the back-and-forth click of a turn signal, fingers tapping on the steering wheel, blood streaming a stark crimson mask over a slacked round face. I think of seances and ouija boards and waiting scared in an alley after delivering a letter. I think of why this voice won’t think I’m crazy, but yet I still can’t name this person I know. I found my best friend, and I have no idea who he is.
That’s impossible. This is so many degrees of impossible that I sit back on my heels to stare at this shadow that’s getting upright to stare at me. The burnt-ash ruin that’s meant to be the street separates into the outlined body I felt at and shaped. Roughly my size, thicker in the limbs and chest, this person I’ve known since the third grade and can’t even name. I saw him nearly every day of my life after meeting him, I have no idea what to call him.
I grip my hands into my hair. That seems the safest place to put them. I’m suddenly horrified about what I might have done, if maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that. I shouldn’t have started talking back to voices calling to me. I learned my lesson already with Cain.
This shadowed friend of mine turns his head. I can only tell by the arrangement of hazy charcoal limbs that he’s facing me and looking around, or I suddenly hope that’s what he’s able to do. I can’t see any eyes, not a lick of color or light, no pale freckles, not a single white-blond curl.
“Oh, wow. Ethan?” he asks.
It blurts right out of me. “You know my name? You know who I am?”
“Well… yeah,” he says, sounding confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Which is the right way to be thinking, that’s the way to approach this, what’s wrong with me instead of what’s wrong with him. A lot’s wrong with him, if I dug the smoky insubstantial shadow of him out of the place where the old sedan rumbled its last. Why isn’t he like the dead woman, flesh-toned and bloodied?
“Maybe you’re not dead,” I say.
“Oh, that’d be nice,” he says. As if I’ve offered to buy him lunch.
The dreamy unconcern of even the way he remarked on recognizing me, it all reminds me of that motorcyclist. It’s better than the zombiesque moans from the dead woman or warbling nonsense I’ve gotten from speaking shadows before. Maybe it’s worse, because he should be scared we’re talking like this.
“Can you stand?” Sitting, it’s hard to confirm that I shaped the legs of him correctly. I stand so this shadowed friend of mine does as well, and it’s easier to tell what’s him and what’s the Otherside.
“Did something happen?” he asks. His head turns again with a disorienting lack of context besides motion to shape the gesture. “Where’s my car?”
“There was a wreck. Do you remember that? Do you remember me?”
“Yeah, I remember you,” he says. “You’re Ethan. I have a lot of memories of you.”
It’s a tickling lack of breath to catch, a lack of tears to shed, a lack of heart to break. “Yeah. I have a lot of memories of you, too.” And despite all these memories he might as well be a stranger, if I can’t think of his name.
Then suddenly I have my answer, my explanation, because I’m thinking of the first time we met. I went to the very beginning of our friendship, that moment I met him, and there’s my answer why I’m coming up blank on his identity. I smiled and threw out a friendly, Hi, I’m Ethan! only to get timid, fearful silence in return. His mother had to tell me his name. She told me what to call him. He was too shy for introductions.
But that’s crazy, that’s completely crazy, that makes just as much sense as everything else. Cain listened to people talking about me by name, calling me by name, and still had to ask. I’m pretty sure I heard Cain say Deimos’ name, back at the crash, actually, because now I’m thinking of Cain shouting that word I couldn’t understand while inside his head.
I’m trying to make sense of all these impossibilities without making progress on my goal. I need to get that binding off Cain. I need to find him, or Phobos, I’m not sure which first. I don’t even know where I am.
“What else do you remember?” I ask. “Do you know where we are?”
“Um,” my friend says. He’s not used to answering questions, since I usually decide things. His midnight on moonlight head turns against the shadowy world around him. “Forty-second and Union.”
I turn as well to look up at the street sign, which is where he found the answer for me. “Okay. Well, I need to find Cain, so… Which direction is north?”
“Um.” He starts to walk closer to the sign for a better look, and I follow closely. I’m concerned if I let him out of my sight, I’ll have to find him again by feel. It’s almost impossible for me to tell where anything is, which shadows are something and which are simply dark nothing.
“Let me hold your hand,” I say.
“Okay.” His hand takes mine in a warm, familiar clasp. With his other hand he points. “This way is north. Did you want to go that way?”
“Yeah. I think so. The place where I took the letter, that’s where I want to go. Do you remember how to get there from here?” If I had breath to hold, I would. Instead I hold his hand and wait for the answer I know he can give me.
“Oh, yeah. Sure, I can take you.” I bet anything he’s smiling, even though I can’t see his face. “Do you know where I parked the car though? Also where are my keys? Did you say I was dead?”
“Nope.” I’m quick with it, because the last thing I want to do is start an argument with my best friend about if he’s dead or not. “Nope, I didn’t say that. I don’t think you’re dead.”
“Oh, good,” he says.
Scary as it is for him not to sound worried, I’m glad he’s so unconcerned about things. “Your car’s not here. It, um, it’s somewhere else. We can walk though. Okay?”
This friendly shadow nods agreeably. “Okay.”
He leads me into the endless darkness with the confident air of knowing precisely where he’s going, and I keep a tight hold of his hand. The last thing I want to do is lose my best friend, now that I’ve found him.