She stared at the razor-edged, glass-cut mosaic, its emerald pieces glittering in the yellowed bathroom light. Basil. The ivory white shards of what artistically passed for...she reached out to stroke its surface. Mozzarella. Those crimson amalgamated sworls, too—what the artist envisioned to be tomato sauce and underlying morsels of half-sodden crust—
Breaking away, she heaved a sigh, pacing back and forth, staring at herself in the tiled rainbow mirror as she contemplated her existence, and what exactly got her here in this mess in the first place.
The aqua capsule. The blue pill.
Which, of course, was still hidden in one of her many purse pockets.
Hearing a buzz, she extracted her phone.
Did you do it yet?
Screaming in frustration, she made to hurl the device into the nearest toilet, but paused, instead shoving the maddening object between her pleather wallet and faux velveteen gloves. Never mind her personal phone, its internet screen still paused on a podcast episode about three modern-day witches.
Someone knocked as the woman gave a start. "Everything ok in there?"
"Uh, yeah, peachy!" She inwardly cringed. Peachy was not in her rolodex of common lexicon. Where'd that come from?
Ok. Ok, breathe. Just—
Breathe.
Swallowing hard, she considered her options, each more unethical than the next. Or, as Boss put it, of 'dubious ethics'—
There had to be another way, she told herself as she continued to finagle through this highly questionable situation. Right?
Suddenly, an image popped into her head of grade school drama class. A simple child's game consisting of an evildoer and a detective, the evildoer's goal was to bring everyone else down by giving a secret handshake; people dramatically acted out their (fake) demise seconds later, a ruse to confuse others. The detective's object was to uncover the evildoer before everyone was prone on the floor.
A handshake—a capsule—her gloves—would it work?
Only one way to find out.
Moments later, she exited the restroom, gloves donned, as she encountered a jovial Zach, contentedly seated beside the other twenty-something youth near the clay mosaiced pizza oven, its walls lined with deep cobalt blue, bright orange, and rainbow tiling, beneath which lay a fiery opening for dough to achieve al dente crispness. "Thought you'd fallen in," he murmured, albeit jokingly as she found herself blushing—not out of ardor, but rather, ambivalence. A portend of things to come, she imagined. Forgive me, Zach, she thought to herself as she reached out a gloved arm to hug him closer, more chummy than anything else, her faux leather fabric dotted with microscopic bits of aqua.
Dermal absorption.
Like...skin cream?
It was worth a try.
Five minutes passed, then ten more. "How do you feel?"
He gave her a curious expression. "Feel?"
"After...uh, escaping your rogue simulated reality," she hastily added. Whew, that was close.
"Hmm....not thrilled about going back to the drawing board, but...it's for science, right? Speaking of which..." He glanced at everyone else, wineglass in hand as he proposed a toast. "To science!"
Right. "To science," she and the others called out, as she drained what remained of her glass—the most expensive wine she had ever had in this lifetime. And quite possibly the next, she mused with a certain dark irony.
Several Days Later
Fixing herself a cup of tea in the sunlit Air B&B, positively overrun with verdant, ivy-leaved spider plants as far as the eye could see, she finally allowed herself to exhale. Welcome to the Jungle, a cleverly chic sign read, from the topmost of the carved teak shelving. Indeed, as she quietly admired the small circular table's centerpiece, a pale chartreuse-green plant. Golden Goddess, it was called, according to a carefully-placed label.
Unfolding the newspaper, she skimmed each article, hoping for juicy details about the latest celeb gossip—when she suddenly paused, her eyes fixated on a section H health article.
"MAGIC LOST: RETROGRADE AMNESIA VIRTUAL REALITY RESEARCH MYSTERIOUSLY HALTED—"
And—she inhaled sharply—Zach—a grainy image, appearing more forlorn than disgruntled. Less seething, more sorrowful.
What had she done?
"Is there a problem?" Boss. On speakerphone.
"N-No," she attempted to keep her voice steady, the sinking feeling in her stomach threatening to overwhelm her entirely.
YOU ARE READING
Imposter Syndrome
ParanormalA woman's super-empath gift enables her to get her dream job. However, she acts as unwilling mercenary, tasked with nullifying powers throughout the globe. She questions her mission, and what emerges is her superhero origin story and her tale of fal...
