ADRONITIS (II) : tmr minho

28: I could be Here

Ella 28

It's not me now, since they shucked up and fixed me. The sky actually is grey. There is no sun. It's melted back against the backdrop that surrounds us. Everything is shadowed over, although there can be no shadows if there is no sun.

The solution: there never was a sun.

After all, you can't take something away that was never there. Maybe she was an illusion before this too. Maybe the thing they shifted in my head helped me remember.

I roll out of bed. Rolling on to the ground. Rolling away. I'm tired. Really, I don't want to do this. What's the point anyway? I already knew what was going to happen, and then they messed with my head I forgot the whole thing. Maybe we can just have a conversation, you and I.

So, there was this thing that I've already forgotten.

The solution: synthesize my memory.

The solution: find out why this happened.

The solution: find a solution.

The solution:

The solution:

The solution:

"Hey El," somebody, and by somebody I mean somebody who I don't remember but recognize, pops in my room. "You need to come downstairs."

I saw the sky. I saw the doom, and fate, and all that stuff stirred together in a cauldron and then spilt out above us. Painted the sky is different strokes, all of which are the same colour. All of which are uniform. As if they managed to take the creativity and the life out of everything and replace it with something rigid, firm, and mechanical. For sure the sun isn't gone. We are underground, I bet you. Maybe that's why everyone is gloomy all the time. Lack of Vitamin D.

The solution: eat more fish.

We have no fish.

"I saw the sky," I tell him. "It showed me all that matters."

He stiffens, leaning away. Zart's been distant. More than before. Before, we were friends.

Once he braided me a flower crown of daisies. Beautiful and white and yellow, but not hers. Not ours. Not a universe I understood.

Once we gardened together. The dirt was too cold, too sterile to be real. It matched my fingers.

Once he loved his tomato plants. Now, they rot in the ground.

Once I didn't repeat myself.

Once I remembered.

Once.

"Okay," he manages, unsure where to continue.

"What did you do Zart?" He stiffens when I ask him. Stiffens, and I expect him to answer. Stiffens, freezes, burns, lies. Zart has been lying to me. I've been sleeping for weeks and weeks and months and years, and now he knows and he didn't tell me.

If he is keeping a secret, he has caused my demise. He has flattened my bones to the ground before the impending sky could flatten me.

Zart shifts awkwardly. I step up closer and closer to him. "What did you do?"

He takes a second, exhales, and looks me in the eyes. "Clint thought he could help you by shifting the chip. He thought your body would have less seizures, and be in less pain, if he just moved it."

"He made me forget," I say, as if he cares. "He took a choice away from me.

Zart stands by his decision. He betrayed me. He was in on it. He helped them ruin my life. Destroyed, in one fell swoop, all that I had gathered here.

"He made you stop hallucinating too, El," Zart continues. "You are too sick to make decisions for yourself. Now, your body is better."

I don't care about the physicality of being. Never has that mattered. It is only my brain, which exists protected within me, that actually is of importance. I'd rather die than forget. I'd rather lose everything I have ever had, than forget I had anything. Zart helped steal it from me. He thought he knew what was best for me.

"How could you do this?" I demand. Now, I have forgotten. "How could you betray me?"

He crosses his arms, shaking his head. In a low voice, he whispers back to me, "you needed help Ella. One of those seizures, you were going to die. Your memories don't matter more than your life."

I am my memories. They are more important than me, or than anyone else. I need to know what happened. I need to see the truth. For some reason, things aren't right, and if I could remember more than glimpse, everything would be fine.

Solution: get stung by a griever.

That's when I leave the room. I walk past Zart, farther forward until I am in the Glade. Chuck stands still, staring forward. Maybe he notices me. Maybe he doesn't. There is nowhere to escape. There is nowhere to walk and hide and scream and fight. There are many places here I haven't been, and will never be, but there aren't places I can hide from Zart.

I walk to the Gardens. That's where Zart wants me, right? In his perfect world, where no one is unhappy and no one gets hurt, he wants me here, gardening alongside him. Next to his tomatoes.

Beside the tomatoes, there are violets growing. I remember having a seizure. I remember thinking about her, but who she is seems barely tangible anymore. I remember him. Not seeing him, but thinking I'm seeing him. Still today, I can feel his presence, licking my shoulder.

I miss her so much. Not just her, but the idea of her. I miss being able to remember her.

"Hey Curly," Dawn crouches down next to me in the dirt. Her eyelashes flick up. She buries her hands in the earth, taking it up in her hands before dropping it. As if to remind me that this world is tangible too. This world feels and thinks and breathes.

There is earth here, and I don't know if I've tasted its rust before. There is a sky, and though it is pretend and without a sun, the sky is freeing. Here, there is Dawn, able to smile at me.

"I haven't seen you out here in a while," she remarks, trying to remain calm and casual. I don't think I am the one upsetting her. I think the lack of a dawn has ruined her day.

"I'm cleared now," I tell her, though I don't tell her why.

She smiles as if this is good news. I don't know if I can even pretend it is.

~~~~~~~

Woah. This is awesome. I love it. It makes things a little grayer, doesn't it?

I'll see you soon, in Leo and Panic.