Dimensions

Chapter 24: The Flickering Girl

Written by PhoenixAndHippogriff 

I sit on the floor, scrubbing at the blood stained into the hard stone. I utter a sigh and roll onto my back. The cool floor makes a shiver run down my spine and along my tail. Carina's been gone for a day now and nothing has happened apart from sneers and complaints from the High Priest. Apparently it's my fault she's gone. I rolled my eyes at him but he couldn't do anything because as soon as she's back she'll help him on certain conditions only. And me agreeing will be one of them.
I stand up from the floor. I turn to go to see Tempest, for the first Believers meeting but when I go to open the door Carina appears. She disappears as soon as she appeared, but appears again a few seconds later.
"Ember..." She whispers.
I run to grab her but she disappears. I look around. Spinning on the spot, I scan the entire room. No human. No sign of her. I stay like that, spinning like a Pegicorn foal caught in bright torchlight. After a while, I give up hoping for Carina to return and head to the meeting, late.
"I'm sorry!" I call as I climb through the door, "I got held up."
Shocked faces stare at me.
"What? What's wrong?" I ask.
"Your face," Tempest replies, "it's half... Human skin."
I push through the crowd to her bathroom, looking into the reddish looking glass. My face is seemingly split in two, a wavering line separating the halves. My tough red skin outlines my features like normal but on the other side fleshy skin clings tightly to my bones, pulling my face into a different shape. My right eye, the one on my 'human' side, is flecked with blue,  contrasting the black, and half of my lips turned slightly down. My nose is more turned upwards and my dead straight hair is curling at the edges. My right horn is smooth and smaller. The contrast not just in colour but in appearance and structure is painful to look at. I am not me anymore; looks make up a Deviann just as much as our personality does. I drop the glass and it shatters, collapsing into shards that fly across the room. One digs into my leg and the other slices my tail. A gash tears open on my arm.
I watch the black blood drip onto the floor but I feel nothing. I fall to my knees. Where the glass cuts into my knees I feel nothing but a pins-and-needles numbness. And then I blanked out. Carina stands in front of me. Her hand reaches out and she flickers like a torch. Then I am back in the bathroom and pain hits me like a wave. I pass out.
***
I lie sweating on a soft surface, feverish shivers shuddering through my body. I feel the breath of another on my neck and the closeness of many all around. Suddenly a hand fits in mine.
"Ember? Wake up, Ember. Please, please, Ember, wake up." A voice pounds against my head like an axe.
My eyes open, one squinting in the darkness.
"Tempest?" I call.
"I'm here," she responds, moving closer.
"I'm sorry," I mutter as my eye starts adjusting to the lack of light, "I've been a terrible friend recently. I... I became so obsessed with this revolution and being there for the two species that I forgot who was there for me when I needed it."
I feel her hand grasp mine tighter in a reassuring squeeze. "It's okay, I think I forgot too for a while recently. There was this Deviann... I loved them and I became so obsessed that they took up all of my thoughts. I didn't have time for anyone else. I didn't see them as a Deviann anymore; I saw them as a 'god'. They could do nothing wrong. Then your speech happened and I realised what I was doing. I realised what's important. Ember we're friends. Best friends. I don't want to lose that. Promise me that whatever happens, you'll stay by my side."
"I promise," I say, "as long as you stay by mine."
My eye has finally adjusted enough to see her smile in the dark. I return the grin.
I stand up gently, my arm looped around Tempest for support as I stumble to a chair a room over. The Believers look expectantly at us.
"Right, everyone, can I have you in your groups." Tempest demands.
They scuttle into huddles, distant chatter floating about. She points out the various tasks set to each group and what they're good at- the planners, the calculators, the thinkers, the collectors and the doers. I nod at her words, observing each group from my onlooking chair. She also whispers updates, telling me how the community is in shreds, half of the population sticking uniformly to the old ways and half rebelling against the High Priest and his strict commands.
"There's so much happening," she says, "so many changes for what has been constant for centuries. Sometimes I wonder if I'm dreaming. If this is all real."
When the meeting is over a representative of each group comes and explains what they've developed in this session. I gape at the theories and the ideas. Surely... Surely one of these things will work. There are about ten different propositions and they are all being explored completely. From the impression of my first meeting I thought all they'd be was what their name stated: believers. I didn't expect how collected and organised it would be.
After the meeting Tempest and I go into the cavern. We lay on Drikener blankets and stare at the stars, an echo of before Carina. One human has changed my life so much... I wonder how much more she will change.
"Ember?"
"Yes, Tempest?"
"Your eye... Your new eye- the flecks are so pretty."
"Mm..."
"You know why?"
"No?"
"It reminds me of something. Your eye is just like the stars."