My Friend the Worm

Chapter 15 Ash

I woke with a wild gasp. Adrenaline coursed through every muscle in my body, which fought to break free from something holding me down. The shooting pain in my arm that the avatar had nearly severed was gone. I didn't feel dizzy anymore from blood loss. I had an awful headache, but that was the most pain I was feeling at the moment, and I could think clearly enough.

Then I understood that I was still strapped to a stretcher, and my whole body tensed again. I'd woken in The Machine.

I was staring up at a transparent coffin, which glowed purple; electricity or some kind of alien energy was squiggling around through this tomb, giving the impression that it was a living cell.

I could hear laughter, crying, and excited voices outside The Machine, which encased me like a tiny prison, making me feel claustrophobic. Suddenly there was a loud hum and I jumped under my restraints. I felt the conveyer belt moving under me. It carried me out into the open where Lola and her towering bald friend stood, embracing each other, tears in their eyes. My chest strapped down, I could barely turn my head to look at them. I still wore the cumbersome cap, which sprouted copious wires from my head like a nest of snakes.

Lying there immobilized, I was completely on edge, as if I expected something gruesome to happen to me at any second. Lola and the man turned their full attention to me, and I braced myself for a knife to my throat. I wondered what it would feel like to have my neck sliced from ear to ear. It would be fast. I shouldn't overthink it. It would be quick.

"Thank you, Ash," said the man, his face beaming and wet from crying. He was agog, like the look of a child discovering a basket of chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday. Grime and white-haired scruff covered his cheeks.

Lola didn't say anything. Although I'd heard her laughing and shouting with joy a few seconds ago, her smile seemed much more reserved when she looked at me, as if I'd intruded upon her conversation somehow.

"You're speaking English," I replied, almost noting this fact to myself.

"I am and it's all because of you," he said, grinning again and shaking his head, as if he couldn't believe this was actually happening. "Every scaypian alive has received that which you gave to The Machine. We all owe you our lives. You have no idea the great things that are in store for you and the world you have saved. You reap what you sow, and you have sowed all of Scaypia."

He reached for my head and I flinched. Then I realized he was just taking off the cabled cap from my head. I suddenly felt someone tugging on my leg and saw Lola loosening my restraints. Eventually she and her friend completely unstrapped me, and I could finally sit up.

"I thought you were going to kill me," I said to Lola.

Her smile fell from her face. "I never said I would. It was always in your head. It was your doubt. You fought The Machine, over which I have no control, and it nearly killed you." Her eyes seemed to glare at me. "That was your doing, not mine. And why would I kill you now? I've seen inside your head. Every single scaypian alive has now seen inside your head, Ash. They know you aren't a danger to us."

I didn't say anything. I just looked at her blankly for a moment. Her fiery eyes were like lasers, so I looked away at the floor, at the wall, and adjusted how I was sitting. I felt wounded and a little bitter, but not because of her words. I felt hurt because I could tell Lola couldn't fucking stand me. The whole friendship, our elementary-school-level romance I thought we'd developed this entire time, was a crock of shit.

Maybe I'd always known this. There wasn't any real chemistry from the get-go. It was forced, if I was being perfectly honest with myself. She needed something from me, and I was so desperate for companionship, especially companionship from a gorgeous woman such as her, that I lied to myself. Well, that was not a surprise.