Identified: The Maya Price Story

Part Two: Chapter Five (1)

If it were true, and she was able move from one world to another, Maya had no knowledge of how to do so. Even if she concocted some sort of elaborate plan to escape from the pillow room that had become her prison, how would she be able to leave?

Everyone had left her alone. She knew that, if she did venture out into the maze of corridors in the brick building, she would become hopelessly lost. She had requested some time alone in the pillow room to think. Alake, who had joined them after Victoria's announcement concerning the prophecy, had shaken her head vigorously and claimed that they must MUST make it known that Maya had joined their cause before Leonas sent more after other humans. More what? Maya thought, but then remembered the earsplitting screams the night of the car accident. Her gut feeling told her that the owners of the scream would be those that returned for more humans. Though polite, Victoria had seemed very impatient when she told Alake they could buy some time for Maya to think. Alake had begun to protest, but Victoria raised her hand in a silent command to cease. In a whirl of flying braids, Alake slammed the door behind her.

Now alone, Maya lay on her back in the ocean of cushions, in the same form a child would lie to make a snow angel. Over and over again, the scene of the old man desperately spitting dirt from his mouth, and finally wetting himself, played in her head. She considered Leonas and her inexplicable loathing of the man. She thought of the shifter with honey-colored hair and the way Leonas had forced her to torture the aging onyx. All the while, the photo images of Pete with his bruised eyes and bandaged head pulsed in her brain, like a pounding heart.

She could not process everything that she had seen and heard in the last twenty-fours lying on her back, so she stood and began to pace back and forth over the eccentric array of colors. Shifters. Onyxes. Humans. Leets. Earth. The words repeated like an annoying chorus to a song stuck in her head. She remembered the dice sticking in the tree the day of the See Ya Later! picnic. She remembered hearing Judy's strange comment on Maya's filth and how she had heard it as clearly as if Judy were standing five feet from her. She remembered Mark flailing as he flew backwards when she kicked him. She remembered the screaming. She remembered her body's reaction to Pete's cologne.

Her gut knew what she had to do, but her head refused to acknowledge it.

And so, before Maya was able to rationalize that which she truly desired versus what she knew she must do, she left the pillow room and marched down the strange hall.

Victoria had told her she would be in the room three doors down on the right. Without hesitating, Maya knocked rapidly on the third door on the right. She did not wait for an answer, but rather pushed the creaking door open forcefully.

Though it was round like the pillow room, it was very different in most other ways. There was a window opposite of Maya, but there was no light shining through the glass panes. Rather, it was a picture of complete blackness, signaling to Maya that it nighttime had finally arrived. Underneath the window was an overstuffed, red armchair on a raised platform above the rest of the floor. Also on the platform was an old-fashioned blackboard, shoved off to the left of the arm chair. The lower level was filled with what looked like black desks, but they were different than the desks she had used in school. The tops of the desks were triangles rather than squares and the chairs that went along with each were swivel stools, like a shorter version of those in very old drugstores.

What caused Maya to pause, and to feel rather guilty for bursting into the room, was the scene unfolding in the center of the room. Seated in one of the funny desks was Nathaniel, Billy Hull's supposed cousin, and in front of him was Victoria. Nathaniel's eyes were closed and his fists were clenched on top of his thighs. Victoria was kneeling in front of him, her hand resting lightly on his left cheek. She was whispering something in that strange, singing language. If she had been speaking aloud, standing or even yelling, Maya would not have felt so awkward. Yet, she was afraid that she had stumbled upon a very intimate conversation and felt the need to apologize.