February 29

Chapter 32

I stared at the figure before me, aghast, confusion and awe conglomerating into one perplexing emotion. My eyes narrowed, spit going dry in the back of my mouth, a slight tremor sliding along my fingers. A painful tightness crunched in my sternum and only then did I remember to take a breath. It was ragged and harsh, scraping my throat as air traveled into me. It couldn't be. It made no sense.

"What?" I said, the syllable spilling onto my tongue. "Who--how--?"

I stared back at me blankly, an expressionless face, as though I didn't know how to manipulate my features to match the tumult in my head. I craned my head sideways and peered at me quizzically. My eyes searched my face, darting adroitly, absorbing each facet of my visage. It was learning, I concluded. It was learning my face.

I closed one eye, then closed the other. I stuck my tongue out. My eyelid twitched. I raised my hand to my face, turning it over in the weak light. I peered at my pale hand, studied the blue veins popping on the surface. I reached out, closing the gap between us. Disgusted, I tried to recoil back, but my movements were lethargic, action potentials traveling through lead. I shivered as my hand brushed against my clammy skin. Icy, lifeless fingers caressed my cheek, traveled to my eyelids. I smiled slowly.

"I told you, didn't I?" I said softly.

"No," I said, bile rising in my throat.

"It's like we always said, from the beginning," I whispered.

"No," I said back, as color washed like acid from my face, blood pooling into my fists.

"Ethan, we're...we're the same--"

"NO!" I shrieked, swinging my arm back to strike me.

But my fist hit an invisible wall, some field veiled in the very air around us. I stared at my closed hand, hanging in the air, inches from my face, my mouth falling open. Realization flooded over me like an icy surge of water. I could feel it, this dragging weakness in my bones, an absence of an essential part of me.

I was powerless.

My other half seemed to have come to same conclusion at the same time. It swiveled my gaze from my eyes to the hand, which had slowly begun to sag to my side. A corner of its lips twitched.

"We can't stop us," it murmured, tasting every word on its tongue, its eyes shifting about in a wild nystagmus, as though possessed. I watched, sickness crunching in my stomach, as those eyes shifted to the blood red I was so familiar with, becoming blazing brighter and brighter as they bounced around in the sockets. And suddenly they stopped, brown again. It rested its gaze upon me. "And...neither can they."

Ethan!

I heard it, loud and clear. Mark. He was nearby, I could sense him, and Stacy, shaken but determined. Coming closer...

The Aura's eyes swiveled towards the wall to our left. A malicious rictus metamorphosed onto his mouth, and he turned from me. A dying spark ignited in the marrow of my bones, and I lunged out to--

"You will never move. Ever."

The words clanged against my brain like a feverish bell. My hands and feet and tongue grew heavy, my appendages recoiling about against my chest. I fell to my knees, every myosin fiber in my body going taut with tension as the universe's weight multiplied upon me, squeezing air and sense out of my mouth. Tired...I was so tired, I couldn't move, I didn't want to, I would never move again. A needle of ice injected at the base of my spine, and I curled into a shivering ball, slashing my nails into my palms.

The Aura turned its attention once more to the wall, the same evil grin smeared over my face. It took slow, stalking steps in that direction, pausing with each footfall, craning my neck, flaring my nostrils, as though searching for a scent.

Ethan, what the hell is going on?

There. It strode towards the wall, eyes narrow.

I blinked, and it was gone.