Chapter 27
Crawling from the mess of broken crates that cushioned my fall, I’m met with the same room I had just flown through, complete with the broken trap door. Only now it is empty as if everyone else has vanished. And if it weren’t for their footprints left in the dust covered floor, I’d have questioned myself as to whether they’d been here at all.
With a crack of my knees, I stumble back to my feet and wonder how long I’d been out for. Luckily for me, the fall only knocked my head, resulting in a splitting headache and a small bite to the tongue which fills my mouth with a thick metallic tasting ooze. Making me want to gag, I spit a mouthful of glistening blood to the ground, letting it splatter and disturb the dust at my feet.
“You’re bleeding?” a voice calls out.
Panicked, my eyes rapidly scan the entire room, worsening my aching head with the quick motions. “Who’s there?!” I yell.
“Whoa! Chill out bro, it’s just me.”
It’s his eyes I see first, those pure white eyes that were so new and frightening to me when we met all those months ago, only for them to be the norm now, like green, blue or brown eyes. “TJ?” I murmur.
“In the flesh,” he confirms. “Kinda.”
Walking to the centre of the room, he stops short of where Talia and Matthew were standing before I momentarily lost control of my powers. “A lot calmer than the last time we met, isn’t it.” He sniggers, running his hand through his black hair, pushing back some of the strays. “Can you see it too?”
I join him and look in the same direction. “See what?” I ask.
Having to tip-toe to match my height, TJ grabs my head and forces it lower. “Look, there!” he points out.
I focus, staring into nothing unusual until a flicker of light rebounds back at me like the sun being reflected from the ocean. Looking closer, it seems confined to a small area directly in the middle of the room. It’s tall, starting from the ground and goes up to the ceiling in the shape of a whirlpool. “What is it?” I ask, unable to take my eyes off the swirling transparent waves.
“A Nexus-Point.” He replies, scrunching up his nose.
Still disorientated from my fall, I step back and nearly fall over my own feet. “I’m dreaming?” I ask.
“Of course! How else would I be here?”
The swirling vortex mesmerises me, almost tauntingly so. A warning, begging for my attention, it screams out my name. Even in its transparent state, it’s visible and would have been back in reality.
“Do they always look like this?” I frantically ask.
“Were you expecting a door?” he jokes.
“Why can’t I see it in real life?” I snap.
Crouching by my side, TJ’s eyebrows narrow in. “Because… there aren’t any open in real life. Not for a very long time now.”
Constricted within my chest, my lungs expel what little oxygen they had in them, forcing me to my knees.
Panicked, TJ tries to calm me but has obviously never been in a situation like this before or he just naturally can’t deal with them. “Breathe!” he repeats, sounding like a midwife. “Deep breaths, take deep breaths.
Listening to his voice, I focus on the words he speaks and notice the different accent he’d displayed when I first met him. It’s calming, almost soothing and with each subsequent breath, I feel my heart rate begin to slow.
With our backs to the frosted glass, I continue to count my breaths, making it to fifty-four before TJ cuts in. “So… you gonna tell me what’s going on?” he hesitates.
At first, my voice is strained, compressed under an anxiety that won’t let it or my mind go free. But as time goes on, my throat loosens and allows me to tell him everything; all about Talia and the Kalayaan ritual. “We’re here right now, tonight, to seal the Nexus-Points. All Nexus-Points.” I add.
“Can you hear that?” TJ questions, interrupting me.
In a trance, he stands to his feet and begins to circle the Nexus-Point, running his hand through the waves, disrupting them and sending ripples that reach the ceiling. At first, it plays along, until the transparent vortex latches onto his hand and filters into his body. “We’re one. Yet, we’re many.” He says, in a voice that is not his own.
To my feet in seconds, I hesitantly stare at him. “Who’s in there with you?” I caution.
Like he’s frozen, TJ’s body remain stationary, and the voice, a mix of many, speak again. “Since the dawn of time, we linked both worlds, sharing the energies that created everything you see and everything you don’t.”
I steadily walk towards him. “And are you friend… or foe?”
“We are neither. We just are.”
Heart rate raising, I look to the trapdoor, my only escape. “TJ,” I ask. “Is he safe?”
“We keep him safe, he is merely our vessel.” Then he extends his arms, filling me with a warmth that pours through my body and heals my injuries.
He continues. “The impossible twins, as foretold, will be our saviours.”
“From what!?” I shoot back.
“From our children, that wish to use us.”
“You’re making no sense!” I fume, throwing my hands up in frustration. “I’m here tonight with a Nexus-Being to perform the Kalayaan ritual, to seal you all. I have to rid myself of these powers.”
“Incorrect. Nexus-Points have already been sealed. The Kalayaan ritual is our freedom. Regardless, you cannot rid yourself of your powers, they are part of you, a gift.”
I grab TJ by the shoulders, shaking him desperately. “Then help us,” I beg. “Tell us what to do.” But he looks on blankly as if his body is empty.
“Too late. The wheels of fate have already been set in motion. We cannot stop what will be.”
Unable to look at his solid face, or their face, or whatever, I turn away and slam my fist on the frosted glass. “Then what,” I hiss. “What do you want from me?”
“Two worlds as one, their connection severed. One child as two, born into existence. A Daemon and a Celestial. They are to be our saviours.”
“Enough!” I yell. “This means nothing to me.”
Suddenly, the whole tower begins to shake, throwing me to the floor while TJ remains standing, perfectly still, as if to moves with the tower itself. “Return now, Mitchell Harper. Join with your brother. Correct the mistakes of our past.”
“How!?”
“Find your light. Follow it.”
Then the transparent waves release their hold on TJ, throwing him to the ground. “Mitchell?” he murmurs. “What was that?”
Lifting him back to his feet, I explain the last five minutes, firing off everything he said, to which he had no recollection. “I was the Nexus-Point?” he asks.
“I guess so…” I shrug.
Slowly fading, TJ looks at his now see-through hands. “Times up,” he says in a shallow voice. “Good luck, bro. I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Wait!” I bellow. “Who are you? Are you my Mundarium guardian or something?”
“No bro!” he snorts. “I told you, I’m TJ… and I’m from New Zealand.”
Then he’s gone, along with my surroundings. Sending me into a spiral of darkness. From above, it’s spacious but already I know where it leads. Down. Further and further into its narrow base. Pulling with it, the world and its pain, concentrating all the worries, doubts and sorrows into a thick, heavier strain. Readying itself for its victim. Me. For I have been here before, many times, falling into my own worries, doubts and sorrows, creating a powerful anxiety that traps me and refuses to let go.
If I could pull myself away from the chaotic swirls, turn and run from what awaits me on the other side, would I? Selfish? Maybe. But this is no normal spiral, for, at the end of it, my friends reside. So I turn and face my fears, swimming to the sound of my name being called out, deeper into the black mass and deeper into the fate I cannot run from.
“He’s waking up!” says a distant voice.
“Hun, can you hear me? It’s Mia
h.”
Slowly my senses return to the real world, dull and remote at first, until a gust of life tears through me, pumping my beating heart. Before me, all with the same worried look on their faces, stand the people I’d returned to reality for.
“You gave us quite a fright,” affirms Miah.
I cough, sending a cloud of dust swirling into the air. “Are they still sealed?”
Miah looks to the others for support before returning to me. “No hun… Don’t ya remember? Ya didn’t complete the ritual.”
“Maybe the fall knocked you harder than we thought?” says Matthew, lifting me to my feet with ease.
Sat on the opposite side of the room, an unimpressed Talia shakes her head while whispering to Lucas who smiles wickedly. Leaving an uncomfortable looking Callum to sit alone, nervously rubbing his elbow and shaking.
“Miah,” I whisper. “Now’s your chance, read Callum.”
“I got this,” she smirks, retreating to the corner of the room.
Knowing we won’t have long before someone begins to suspect us, I call out Talia’s name, grabbing her attention.
“Are you ready?” she huffs.
Over-exaggerating my injuries, I add a limp to my walk and rub my battered head. Anything to stall her while Miah gets a read on Callum. “I don’t think I can.” I cough.
“Oh. Here I was thinking you wanted to rid yourself of those awful powers.” She sighs, gliding towards me with a suspicious glare.
Acting has never been one of my strong points, standing up in front of an audience while their eyes follow your every move has always churned my stomach, the thought of it alone is enough to make me feel sick. Even now as I fake my injuries, I avoid all eye contact with everyone, knowing it’s all a lie. “I do, I really do,” I reply, trying to sound convincing.
Like she’s sense something in the air, Talia twitches, then begins to scan the room until her big round eyes fall upon Miah. “Oh. You naughty, naughty girls!” She shrieks.
With a shocked gasp, all life returns to Miah’s body as she panics to find me. “Mitchell!” she yells. “It’s him! He can influence people’s thoughts!”
On him like a flash, Talia, who seems completely unfazed that she’s been rumbled, grabs Callum. “You want this to stop?” She questions him. “Then do as we planned.”
Standing before us, little short Callum’s eyes turn white. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, mimicking my dream. “It’s the only way.”
I wait for it, the voices in my head to take over, but nothing comes my way.
“Hey… guys?” Matthew worries, inching backwards. “You can see that… right?”
The room is as it was, Talia and her goons one side and the rest of us the other. But Matthew continues to panic, swatting at the air as he desperately tries to escape an invisible culprit. “The darkness!” he cries. “It’s everywhere!”
Having succumbed to the darkness many times before, I know I have to get him away from its pull before it infects him. “Aimee! Get him out of here!” I demand.
But before she can even leave the ground, he’s already calmed himself and turns to me with a hollow smile. “No need brother,” he booms. “Everything is fine.”
Grabbing my throat, he lifts me from the ground with ease, as I struggle for freedom, and stares deeply into my eyes. “Now, now… stop faking those injuries of yours, brother, we have a world to change!”
Choking for breath, I kick out and thrash in Matthew’s clutches as he drags me across the dust-covered floor. Unfazed, he sends out a bright white light from his free hand, blinding the others and foiling their attempted rescue. “Consider that a warning!” he roars.
A brother in appearance only, I call out his name in hope on some level I’ll be able to reach him, but he doesn’t even react, flinch or twitch. Matthew has been suppressed by the darkness, of which, Callum creates.
Throwing me at Talia’s feet, Matthew takes his place by her side and sneers. “Delivery.”
But then he stumbles back and takes a quick scan of the room. “I’m sorry, Mitchell!” he cries, before switching back to his cold calculating demeanour.
And this goes on, as he continues to flip between his normal and dark self, causing him pain as he struggles between the warring personas.
“I-I-I can’t.” Callum stutters, falling to his knees. “C-C-C-Can’t. No more.”
Scooping me up, Matthew helps me back to the others, distancing us from Talia. “Useless mongrel,” she fumes, throwing Callum to the ground.
Like a lost child, he cowers behind his hands. It’s hard to watch, as it would be for anyone, but on some level, I can’t find the sympathy he deserves, as I know the blame now lies with him. “Why!?” I demand.
“S-S-She told me,” he points to Talia, who curtseys with a wicked smile. “She said if I could convince you that you were turning evil, you’d have no choice but to perform the ritual, freeing me of this curse.”
Pushing himself back to his knees, Callum’s hollow face looks up to us as he remains the focus of the entire room; an audience for his confesses. “You don’t understand, I couldn’t control it, I was changing people’s lives. My friends, family… complete strangers, I was turning them evil. They’d do things! Stuff you cannot come back from… because of me!” He cries.
I should feel rage or at least the slightest touch of anger towards this person who have put me through hell. He took away everything that made me who I am, convinced me that I was to turn evil and destroy the lives of many. Now I see what my dreams meant, he was the other me, the being shrouded in black. His enticing power, guiding me down a road of no return. It’s even brought us here tonight, to change the world as we know it. But looking to him, this lost soul before me, I feel only compassion. Like looking into a mirror, I see his pain, my pain. I see his sadness, my sadness. I see me.
Tears rolling down his cheeks, Callum murmurs. “I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”
Stepping to gasps from behind, I make my way towards him. “It’s ok, Callum,” I promise, lifting him to his feet. “I can see now, I was not the only one being manipulated.”
Supported by the lives behind me, each one a light in their own right, I begin to feel a confidence I’ve never had before and build upon an inner strength I never knew existed. “It’s over, Talia.” I force upon her. “The Nexus-Points will remain sealed.”
Returning to the many proud faces, I block out Talia as she hisses and sighs, feeling untouchable. But the faces before me quickly turn to horror, a panic so rich I cannot be sure I’ve ever experienced it myself. Not until I turn to the sound of glass shattering and catch his eyes pull away from mine as his body crashes through the clock face.
His screams, fading the further he falls, tear at my body with a fear that holds me to the spot. Even now, as I hear him tumbling through the air, I beg it not to be true, that my mind is playing a trick on me. I replay it, watch it over and over as my eyes begin to well up, I see his face again, Callum’s face leaving my sight as he falls, but still I won’t believe it.
People cry out, who? I cannot be sure. They pull at me, panicked, but still I do not move. To move, would be to confirm this is real and I’m not ready to come back to reality. I want to live this lie, drag it out and pretend it never happened.
The cries for help stop. Was that it? The end of a life cut short in mere seconds.
Gradually, my eyes wander back to the splintered remains of the clock face. So I close them and breathe to three, hoping my mind has finally snapped and sent me insane, only to have them re-open to no change.
No longer can I hide from the truth. Callum is dead and we’re stuck in this clock tower with his murderer.