Water Stronger than Stone
INSPIRATION OVERDOSE ARC 4/7
::Is this what the end of the world looks like?::
The white-haired, plum-skinned Muse swung her legs over the roof ledge and pondered the street. She was in Shantytown. Unbelievably — or at least, that was her opinion — Shantytown had gotten even worse, more starkly dismal, since the last time she'd been here... and by her reckoning, that was more than a hundred years ago, half her lifetime ago.
There were more people here now, too. So many more. And they all shuffled past her perch, faces turned to the dirty street. None of them cared.
She shook her head suddenly, trying to clear her head of the... heaviness that seemed to permeate the air, here. She looked instead to the horizon, staring out over the Shantytown. Her eyes travelled from one border towards the other, but were held by the deadly cold sight of the great, gaping hole in the middle of Shantytown. It wasn't so much a hole, she realised as she stared at it, so much as it was a darkness — a deep impenetrable blackness that spread out from the origin like mould on bread, destroying and absorbing everything in its path.
It was slow. So slow that its slow devouring wasn't even visible to the naked eye — but Tris had been sitting here long enough to see it.
That, and the increasingly frequent reports of disappearing fictives, indicated exactly what that great spreading shadow was doing.
Tris then dragged her eyes away just in time to see a part of the shadows on the roof across from her detach itself from the rest and move across the stones. Tris scrambled to her feet as the shape stopped, turned towards her, and seemed to stare for a moment, before flitting out of sight over the far edge.
Tris was immobile for a moment until the feeling hit her; that it had something — or wanted something. The thing knew her, and had been watching her.
That thought spurred her on to do something she'd never done before, so boldly — or for that matter, even thought about doing until she'd started Musing for Chandri. She spread her wings, and without hesitation, stepped off the roof.
Her breath froze in her chest, as it always did as she fell the few feet before the updraft caught her wings and she was lifted up. She angled her self towards the building, and was carried over once, then back a second time — but it was too late — the shadow had gone. She was about to head back towards the City when she was seized by a numbing cold that chilled her limbs and made her fight to keep airborne. She looked up to where it was coming from, all her Muse senses screaming an alarm — and was frozen in a dark red gaze like a deer in the headlights.
Bits of shadowy mist gathered into a bird-like shape above the pit. It was staring at her, and seemed to beckon her nearer.
::Wait... I know what you're doing...:: she thought as the wind carried her towards it.
::No...:: she thought, then aloud: "No..." whispering, fighting the force of those eyes.
Finally, something within her snapped in two, and she closed her eyes, opening them again to stare defiantly at the figure — but it was gone. It had vanished back into the growing shadow that was now uncomfortably close.
Quickly, she back-pedalled, propelling herself backwards, away from it, then turned towards Subreality City, which now seemed much warmer and brighter to her eyes than it usually did.
"You what?" Chandri's voice was a little higher-pitched than usual, and Tris flinched at the sound. Her Writer's eyes gleamed violet, giving more light to their table in the half-dark of the Solar Heart Café. Since the sudden drop in clientele, Mike and Krissie had taken to shutting off the electricity after a certain hour in the afternoon. The main room was lit only by the fading sun from outside.
"I... uh... I went to Shantytown."
"Why?"
"Uh..." there was silence, until Chandri rudely interrupted it.
"Remember what I said about not going to Shantytown because of that great big hole? Do you?"
"Well, yes..."
"So why'd you do it?"
Tris shrugged. "I thought I'd be able to figure out what it was."
Chandri went silent and chewed her lip. "Well, at least you had the sense not to go any closer than you did."
Tris shook her head emphatically.
"What was that thing, do you think, anyway? You say it followed you?"
Tris tried to rearrange her thoughts for a moment. "It watched me. I don't know for how long — I was there a few hours. It might have been there the whole time. Damned if I know what it was, though. Not exactly, anyway. It was just... dark."
Chandri chewed her lip some more, then looked Tris in the eyes, as if she were trying to determine something. Then she drew a breath and released it, and looked at her Muse.
"Was it controlling you?"
"Not exactly. I just felt... drawn to it. It only had me for a second."
Chandri nodded. She didn't say anything, however, and when Tris spotted the gleam of an idea in Chandri's eyes, she felt habitually afraid.
"What are you planning?"
"Don't you know?" Chandri asked sardonically.
"Well, if you weren't so paranoid, I would. But I don't."
Chandri sighed. "And you're not going to."
"But I..."
Chandri waved a hand to silence her. "There's something important I have to do. And you have something else to take care of, too."
"I do? Oh." Tris said, remembering the promise she'd made to Andri and Matt. She nodded, slowly, as Lise entered the Café.
"So do I," said the amber Oriole, coming near and glaring at her cousin.
"I have a feeling I'm about to get yelled at..." Chandri said, raising an eyebrow.
"Chan, why didn't you tell me?" she demanded. Chandri opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and she rested her chin on one hand.
"Never mind," Lise conceded. "However, I am going to have to insist on helping. A little," she corrected herself at the last minute.
"Well..." Chandri studied her cousin. "You could go with Tris to the hospital and keep an eye on her."
"Hey! I resent that!" Tris said immediately. The Writers ignored her.
"Just... stay out of sight, okay? And tell... tell..." she sighed, "Tell D^Knight if you see anything untoward, hey?"
"Such as?"
"I'll leave that up to you."
Lise grinned wickedly, but Chandri looked at her sternly.
"No flame throwers. Or swords. It's a hospital."
Lise pouted, then nodded, grudgingly. "Where's Isis, D^Knight and Static, by the way?"
"I asked Isis and D^Knight to see if they could gather as many currently Writer-less fictives and get them to the emergency shelters that are being set up downtown. Rachel went with them, so did Fred. Static went back to Tenth Level. He said he had stuff to do."
"Fred?" Lise inquired.
"Isis... she... acquired a Muse somehow. Little light-dragon named Fred...erick."
"Ah," Lise said.
Tris cleared her throat loudly, and the two cousins looked at her.
"May I inquire exactly how you plan to 'stay out of sight'? Even in Subreality General, a sort-of-glowing amber person is going to draw some attention."
Lise stared thoughtfully off into space, then suddenly faded into a diminutive, olive-skinned human girl with short black hair. Tris gasped appropriately.
"I wish you Writers wouldn't do that without warning," she said. "It's kind of disturbing."
Lise, in her new form, grinned. "Well, at least no one will notice me like this."
Tris sighed. Heavily.
In this place, she was herself. Her "Real" self, yet. Her Writer's Persona didn't even flicker over her "Real" form. Perhaps that was because of how very powerful the dominant force of this place was.
She walked slowly through the matted undergrowth, swearing every so often, when the vicious brambles snagged on her all-too-human feet. Even through the knee-high boots she wore, she knew there were several scratches there.
She was also beginning to regret her choice of alternate clothing, as her cloak snagged on yet another outcropping of stubborn thorns — since her form reverted to what it actually was, here, she'd had to forgo her Oriole-form (as well as most of her Teleportation abilities) in favour of her normal appearance. The first thing she'd done was to bind her hair into a single, uncomplicated braid down her back, and Write herself those boots and a thick brown hooded cloak to ward off the wind. She could see her objective in the distance. The Tree of Life reached eternally up into the solid navy-blue sky, grasping towards the only bright star in an otherwise starless sky.
It was the only light for miles.
She wasn't very far away now, and hastened her step, breaking finally through the carpet of brambles into the geometrically perfect circle of grass that surrounded the tree. Someone else tripped out right behind her.
"Chandri, slow down!" Robin Darking said plaintively. "It's hard enough to get through those bloody thorns without running through them!"
Chandri looked back over her shoulder at the honey-haired writer, and raised an eyebrow.
"Stop complaining," she said, pulling her companion back to her feet, "We're here."
She turned back to the tree, which seemed to have noticed them almost immediately. What Chandri and Robin didn't see, however, was the branch that snaked through the grass and around their legs, then abruptly, and rather rudely yanked them off their feet, to dangle precariously ten feet from the ground.
Robin emitted a colourful string of curses and Chandri simply frowned, biting her tongue. Robin was suddenly silenced by a great, shaking voice that seemed to be connected to the branches holding them.
WHY HAVE YOU COME?
The voice made both Writers shiver, not so much with fear, but with the utter power carried in the Voice.
When neither of them answered, the branch shook them like a person shakes a misbehaving pet, and asked again.
I WARN YOU, I MAY BE IMMORTAL, BUT I DON'T HAVE ALL NIGHT, it said.
Chandri shook her head to clear it of the nausea and motion-sickness-like thoughts and answered.
"We need your help!" she said, a little more loudly than intended.
There was a contemplative silence, and then the Voice again.
REALLY? it said, uncertainly.
"Yes," Chandri said, and then, "You sound surprised."
I AM, the Voice replied. YOU WRITERS SEEM TO THINK YOU CONTROL THE UNIVERSE. NEVER THOUGHT ONE OF YOU HIGH AND MIGHTY WOULD GET DOWN OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE TO ASK FOR MY HELP... AFTER ALL, I'M JUST THE TREE OF LIFE...
"S'cuse me..." Robin interrupted, "...but could you put us down now? I'm getting dizzy."
The Tree seemed to think about it, and then set them down with a grudging noise.
SO WHAT DO YOU WANT?
"There is a disease in Subreality..." Chandri began, but the Tree interrupted her.
"AH. BURNOUT. IS THAT ALL?
Chandri stared, "How did you know?"
The Tree issued a derisive snort. I AM THE TREE OF LIFE, WRITER. HONESTLY. MORTALS THESE DAYS...
"Can you help, then?" Robin said, looking up through the branches.
HMM... the Tree said, its branches swaying.
"No one in Subreality knows what to do. We don't even know just where it came from. If you'll only tell us..."
WHERE IT CAME FROM? the Tree said slowly. I THINK YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT, WRITER.
"I was right, then?" Chandri said, and interpreted the following silence as a yes.
"What can we do? Can we stop it?"
WELL... The Tree considered some more. STOPPING IT IS REALLY MORE THAN JUST CURING IT. BUT YES. YOU CAN CURE IT. THIS TIME, AT LEAST.
"What do you mean, this time? You mean it will..." Robin squeaked, staring up at the Tree, but it silenced her.
NEVER MIND, WRITER. ALLYOU NEED TO KNOW FOR NOW IS THAT IT CAN BE CURED. BUT YOU WILL NEED THE HELP OF OTHERS FOR THIS.
"For what?" Chandri asked, but her question was answered when a slender branch lowered through the others to place a small vial filled with pearl-coloured liquid at her feet. Or at least, it looked like liquid — or more like solid smoke.
Chandri picked it up, carefully. "What is it?"
THAT IS AN ELIXIR OLDER THAN TIME. THE CREATURE THAT CREATES IT LIVES IN MY BRANCHES. IT IS CALLED ESPERE, OR HOPE IN YOUR TONGUE.
Robin and Chandri both stared, mouths agape.
"You have the Wings of Hope up there?" Robin whispered in awe.
YES. I DO. THE BOX OF PANDORA WAS BURIED AMONG MY ROOTS LONG AGO. IT IS EMPTY NOW, BUT ITS CONTENTS WERE SAFER WITH ME, ANYWAY.
"Then how..." Chandri raised the palely luminous vial before her eyes and stared at it.
THAT LIQUID IS AN ELIXIR OF PURE HOPE. IF USED, CAREFULLY, IT WILL REVIVE YOUR PEOPLE... THE OTHER WRITERS. BUT IT NEEDS A SECOND INGREDIENT — YOU MUST FIND IT BEFORE USING THE HOPE... OTHERWISE, IT COULD BE DANGEROUS. IN SOME, IT COULD BECOME GREED INSTEAD, AND THAT CAN BE VERY DESTRUCTIVE.
"We know," Chandri said quietly, carefully storing the vial in a leather pouch around her neck and tucking it under her cloak.
"What's the other ingredient?" Robin asked of the Tree, her eyes on Chandri.
I BELIEVE YOU WOULD CALL IT FAITH, the Tree said, BUT I CANNOT GIVE THAT TO YOU. YOU MUST FIND IT YOURSELVES.
"But how?" Chandri asked.
THAT IS ANOTHER THING YOU MUST FIND. BUT BE WARNED. IF THE NOTHINGNESS THAT IS SWALLOWING YOUR WORLD IS LEFT UNCHECKED FOR TOO LONG, THERE WILL BE NO STOPPING IT. YOU WRITERS, MUCH AS I HATE TO ADMIT IT, ARE NEEDED. THERE, AT LEAST. AND REALISE THAT THE ONLY REASON I AM HELPING YOU IS THAT I OWE WRITERS MY EXISTENCE. IF IT WERE NOT FOR THAT, I WOULD NOT HELP YOU. IT IS NOT MY WAY TO AID MORTALS.
"Thanks a lot," Robin muttered, but Chandri glared her into silence.
"Can't you tell us more? Where we might find this Faith?" she asked the Tree.
ONLY THAT IT WILL BE FOUND IN THE PLACE WHERE NONE EXISTS, the Tree said.
"But what does that mean?"
I AM TIRED NOW. LEAVE ME AND GO BACK TO YOUR WORLD.
"But..."
The ground shook in warning, and the two Writers took the hint and backed out of the clearing. Soon they were fighting their way through brambles again, and Robin caught up with Chandri and tapped her on the shoulder.
"What d'you suppose it meant?" she asked.
Chandri shook her head. "Dunno. Why do all the immortalised metaphors have to speak in riddles?"
"Melodramatic Writers," Robin said, grinning.
Chandri only glared.
Lise leaned against a convenient wall, observing the almost comically panicked behaviour of the hospital staff as they rushed one way and the other past her.
She hadn't had to do much, and the activity of the staff had been one long, constant panic attack since she'd arrived with Tris.
As for Tris herself, she'd vanished into the crowds, looking for Dr. Hamilton, almost immediately. Never having been to Subreality General before, Lise had been left to wander the hallways, and had eventually found this spot to be a good vantage point. In view of the meeting room where the doctors were all shut up, and a main corridor, so she could see most of the comings and goings.
One negative point... she'd been sitting (almost) still for near to six hours now, and her rear end was falling asleep... along with her right and left feet.
She was about to give up and return to the Solar Heart, when a tumult of noise and voices came from the other end of the hallway, near the main entrance. She got to her feet and moved down the hall just enough to hear what was going on.
"Ma'am, you can't go in there... it's..." a young nurse said, his voice high-pitched and nervous.
Another, female voice answered. "Do you know who I am?" Lise grinned to herself, recognising the voice.
"Yes Ma'am, of c-course I do, but the doctors said specifically that they weren't to be disturbed..."
"Did they say specifically that I wasn't to be let in?" she inquired, sounding deceptively calm.
"Uhm, no, but..."
"Then I'm sure they won't mind."
The owner of the voice moved swiftly past the flustered nurse, (muttering: "I can't believe I just did that," as she did,) and down the hallway in Lise's direction. When Kielle saw her standing beside the door, she stopped.
"Don't I know you?" she asked, staring.
Lise quickly went back to her Oriole form.
Kielle nodded. "Thought so. Lise, right? Chandri's cousin?"
Lise nodded. "I don't suppose you've seen her recently, have you?"
"Not for a couple of days," Kielle answered, "Not since I saw her in Crystallis."
Kielle looked suspiciously at the door they were in front of.
"They've been in there for hours," Lise said, trying to shake some life back into her feet.
"Yes, well..." Kielle said, turning the doorknob.
The collection of medical fictives and medical Muses looked up in surprise as the creator of Subreality, followed by another Writer, strode purposefully into the room.
Matt leapt to his feet. "Scribe! We didn't know you were..."
"Save it, doctor," she said shortly. "I want to know what's going on here. And now."
The table was silent for mere moments, and then, in the true fashion of public (sort of) servants, they all started talking at once. Kielle stood it for a full minute, then picked up a nearby coffee mug and banged it on the table. When that didn't work, she flung it against the opposite wall, where it smashed into pieces. The table was abruptly silent as the pieces bounced around on the floor to a stop.
"Now," she began, setting both hands on the table. "One at a time."
"The burnout rate has nearly quadrupled in the last two days," Matt began, since he was already on his feet. "We've admitted nineteen Writers today. That more than quintuples our yearly rate."
"Which is?" Kielle looked around the table.
Matt looked to one of the interns, who got to her feet slowly. "Two a year," she said clearly, "And that's our highest ever."
"How many this year, then? Altogether?"
"Forty one," she said, her voice shaking a trifle.
"What about the fictives?"
"What about them?" another doctor got to his feet. "More than a hundred have vanished outright. And we're getting reports of parts of Shantytown disappearing." He looked to Tris, who paled, then nodded.
"It's true. I saw it."
"Good gods..." Lise swore from behind Kielle's shoulder.
"Do we know how it's spread?" Kielle asked.
"Barely," said a new voice. Andri had stood up next to Matt. "All we know for certain is that it affects Muses, and through them, their Writers. Like carriers. The Muses aren't affected until after it's been passed on. We don't know how it starts."
"It's like a parasite. Or a virus." said a medical Muse.
"A virus?" several of the more newly created Reboot fictives shuddered.
"The thing is, we just don't know for certain," Andri said, slumping tiredly into his chair. "It's all so uncertain. It doesn't behave like a regular disease... though I should have expected that, I suppose..."
"Can you tell me anything for certain?" Kielle said exasperatedly, and as she looked around the table again, every fictive and Muse shook their head in turn.
Kielle swore and fell into a nearby chair.
Behind her, Lise suddenly stiffened and gasped, and Kielle turned around to look at her.
"Lise? What is it?"
"I... I don't know. Something just..."
Almost immediately following that, Kielle stiffened in much the same way, and swore.
"What the hell was that?"
"I..." Lise whispered, and met the Scribe's eyes. "I have to go. I'll be back." Lise turned and faded from sight, the room silent behind her.
"So, remind me again why we volunteered for this job?" Rachel griped, glaring at her Writer as he stood at the mouth of an alleyway, peered into it, then, satisfied that it was empty, moved on.
"Because at the moment, we're not good for much else," D^Knight said, more patiently than usual.
"Neither of us are doctors, and neither of you are Medical Muses, so you wouldn't be much good at the hospital."
The little light-dragon hovering over Isis's shoulder chirruped in agreement.
"I don't think you or any of us particularly wanted to brave that thing in Shantytown..."
Rachel shuddered and shook her head.
"...and Chandri already had someone to go with her to the... wherever she was going. Where was she going again?" D^Knight looked in Isis's direction.
The Oriole looked up from rifling through a pile of old crates: "She went to the Tree of Life. And the Tree doesn't like males. Or Muses."
Rachel glowered, but Isis shook her head. "Sorry, but it's true. And I'd rather do a lot of things than go see that bloody tree. I imagine you would too. Promise. Besides, she already dragged Robin along with her."
Fred, still hovering over Isis's shoulder, chirruped in a way that sounded like laughter.
Suddenly, though, Isis froze, her eyes distant.
"What is it?" D^Knight asked, before he did the same. When both Writers came out of it, they stared at each other.
"What the hell was that?" D^Knight said, looking at the others.
"Don't know..." Isis said, "...it felt like something just... broke."
"It did. Just snapped loose. But what?" D^Knight pondered aloud.
Unknown to them, at the same moment all through Subreality, every Writer felt the same thing, and stared, confused, in the direction of the phenomenon.
Shantytown.
A squeal of tires caught the attention of the four searchers as a long, sleek black car rounded the corner. As it neared them, Isis tugged on D^Knight's arm and backed away from the street.
"I think... for some reason... we should run."
D^Knight nodded. "I agree," he said, before turning and following Isis down the nearest alley.
Seconds later, it turned out that they'd made a mistake. The alley ended in an extremely solid brick wall, and they couldn't make it vanish, no matter how hard they tried, and even Isis's and Rachel's attempts at Teleporting out were useless. Something was blocking their Writers' Powers, and Rachel's Muse Powers. They were trapped.
D^Knight, Isis, and the two Muses whirled about as the sound of multiple sets of feet came from the mouth of the alley. As the sound became dim shapes hurrying towards them, Isis looked up to Fred, and said: "Go! Get the hell out of here and find Chan! She'll know what to do!" and under her breath, "I hope."
Fred chirruped worriedly, but Isis batted at him. "Go! Before they see you!" Finally, Fred grudgingly swooped above and then beyond the brick wall as their followers got close enough to see.
Or rather, they would have been, had they had faces, or any features at all, for that matter. They were approached by five figures of identical height, all wrapped in deep black cloth from head to toe.
D^Knight, Rachel and Isis backed into the wall, pressing themselves against it as if they could shift it by main force — but the wall didn't budge.
Nor did the figures make a sound as they advanced and seized the two Writers and one Muse by arms and legs, half-carrying, and half-dragging them to the car.
The back door was opened, and they were thrown inside, into soft, deaf darkness. Then the door slammed shut, and all was black.
Only the squeal of the car's tires was heard by nearby residents as the car drove off into the night.
Disclaimer:
Agh.
Subreality is Kielle's.
All Writers mentioned herein belong to themselves and were used without permission.
The Tree of Life is not mine.
Pandora's Box and the Wings of Hope are not mine.
The Muses mentioned belong to their respective Writers.
Shantytown was created by Seraph.
Matt Hamilton and Andri Kiln are mine, original characters, but their Subreality versions are public domain.