Aiden

Black room. Black walls. Black ceiling.

It's dark enough that I can’t even find my own hands, where they start and nothingness begins.

I don’t remember how I got here, where I am, why I’m here. All I know is this inky darkness. That is, until the door opens. And the black room is splashed with light.

Lucy’s frame is outlined in the light from the hallway. My hands are small. She’s small too. I had the strangest dream, one where we were all grown up.

“There you are,” she says. “Why were you hiding in the dark?”

“Lucy,” I smile. “I had a nightmare.”

“Sleepwalking again? Is that why you’re in Mom’s room?”

“Mom’s room?”

I spot her vanity, the uncapped lipstick on her jewelry dish. She always wore that color, that blush rose. Wears. Why am I using the past tense?

“Do we have superpowers, Lucy?”

“Superpowers?” she scoffs. “Man, that would be so cool. Come on, go back to sleep in your own bed.”

I let her pull me away from the mirror, stumbling away from the darkness.

The light feels worse for some reason. It feels wrong.

“Am I still dreaming?” I wonder aloud. Lucy must not have heard me because she doesn’t answer.

“Hey, Lucy?”

“Hm?”

“Do you ever feel like you’re just living the same moment, over and over?”

“No.” She stops in the hallway, in front of my room. It’s strange, I don’t remember having my own room at such a young age. But… that was a dream. None of it was real.

“Are you feeling ok, Aiden?” she asks with a frown. I look past her, down the hall into another open room, with pink walls and pink lights.

“I just… I can’t tell if I’m still asleep or not.”

“Want me to punch you? That’ll wake you up for sure.”

“Shut up,” I scowl. “Where’s Mom?”

“Living room,” she shrugs. My feet lead the way, though I don’t know how I know where I’m going. And there she is, huddled under a blanket on the couch, the screen of the tv illuminating her in dull colors.

“There you are, honey,” she smiles. And I cannot explain why but, at the sight of her, I begin to cry. She doesn’t seem all that taken aback by it either. Mom draws back the blanket and makes enough room for me to squeeze my body beside her. And she runs a hand through my hair.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” she hums. “Did you have another nightmare?” And I did, but I can’t bring myself to tell her what about it was so terrifying. Maybe it was the fact that I grew old, or the fact that she wasn’t there, or maybe it was because I was so scared of being scared. Of being alone. All alone in the dark.

So I just nod, and close my eyes really tight as she wraps her arms around my shoulders, presses a kiss to the top of my head.

“It’s over now, baby. Mama’s here.”

“My head hurts,” I whisper. It feels like my skull is getting crushed by tons of pressure. I am forgetting something. Something important.

“Maybe you hit your head on the way down.”

“Down from where?” I murmur.

“Hell.”

She must mean heaven, right? Because you can’t fall from Hell. You cannot sink any deeper than that.

A strange feeling washes through me, something like ice-cold anxiety, which doesn’t make sense because Mom is smiling. Because everything is fine now. I’m safe. Mom’s here.

The next wave crashes over my head, making me shrivel up into her side, covering the blanket over my eyes. Sometime’s blindness is a choice. Maybe the dark is a kind alternative.

To what?

I grit my teeth in pain and curl tighter into myself.

“Sweetheart?” I remember. The final wave crashes over my head and all the fogginess, all the pain dissipates. I remember. But I don’t want to remember. All I want is for this moment to be real.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper.

“For what? What on Earth could you be sorry for, silly?”

“I wasted your sacrifice. I gave it up for love.”

My mother is silent for a long time. I don’t dare remove my head from the blanket, afraid of what I might see, afraid of her not being there beside me. She’s going to tell me she has no idea what I’m talking about. Because she isn’t real. Because I’m in my own head, my fake memories. Little dreams and wishes and fears that have burrowed themselves deep into my brain.

“Doing something out of love… how could that ever be a waste?”

My breath comes out shaken and trembling. And for a little while longer I close my eyes and pretend, pretend that it’s really her next to me.

“What do I do now, Mom? Everyone is counting on me. I can’t let him break the seal between worlds, but I don’t know how to get out of here, or how to stop him. Everything is just… impossible.”

“Impossible?” she says. I can hear the small smile in her voice. “You know better than that, sweetheart. Impossible is just a word used by people too scared to try. And you, Aiden, have never been too scared to try. You’re my brave little soldier. Always have been.”

“But if I do… if I get out of here, I have to let you go. For good. I know that now.”

“Aiden,” says Mom–or the memory of her that lives in my subconscious–gentle like snowflakes on my lashes. “I’m already gone.”

You’d think letting go of your dead mother for the hundredth time would be easier, but it’s not. Every day from here on is absent of her, absent of everyone I’ve ever lost. I’m supposed to keep picking up the pieces, always losing more along the way. Back when Alex took me to the ruins of my apartment I thought that there was no way I could keep doing this: building and rebuilding forever. Now I know that I can’t.

But I have to. I can’t just stay here beneath the covers to rot. I’ve had my time to grieve. It’s over now.

“How do I become more than I am?” I ask my mother.

“My Aiden. You are already everything you are meant to be.”

The tears won’t stop, even when they do.

“Tell me you won’t leave me, Mom. Even when I go back. Even years and years from now when I forget what you look like, or what you sound like.”

“I never have. And I never will. I will love you forever. And that kind of love doesn’t go anywhere. Even death can't take it away.”

I hug her tightly, etching her into my memory one last time. Her warmth, her security, her love. I clench my eyes tight, searching for a heartbeat that isn’t there. It’s time for me to go.

“Goodnight Mom,” I squeeze out.

When my eyes open I am back on the floor in the darkness. Black room. Black walls. Black ceiling. But this time I know where I am. And where I’m headed.

I step forward, into shoreline foam that permeates the darkness in waves. The splash of water caves around my feet, sloshing up against my ankles. I am suddenly surrounded by it, by black water. And even though I know what I have to do I’m terrified to do it.

It’s not real. That’s the mantra I mutter beneath my breath as I shut my eyes and take a step forward. But it feels real.

The shore disappears beneath my sneakers, dropping me into a body of dark liquid. Instinct kicks in and I panic. My arms and legs thrash violently to keep myself above the surface, but it doesn’t prove very successful. I’ve never quite learned how to swim.

I barely have the air in my lungs to scream, just to gasp for more air, to shove my body up up up above the surface. But everything is dark and I can’t swim. I know what I have to do. I have to. It’s not real.

I blink my tears back and stop fighting. Absent of its buoyancy, my body begins to sink. I watch the shoreline drift further above my head as I drop like a weight to the bottom of the sea.

Fear does not control me. Fear does not define me. I am afraid but I am not powerless.

I fall until gravity redirects me and I am suddenly floating to the surface of another shore. But this one is different. This one is real.

I claw out of the pond with all my strength, flailing to grasp onto the coils of dead plant stems and roots, my fingernails submerged in mud and underbrush as I unbury myself, begging land to support my weight.

And it does. But relief is short-lived.

Above my head are the dark gray skies of Caligo. The tallest tower looms with grave authority over the dead forest I am hidden in. A promise that I will never leave.

***