Somewhere

  Somewhen

  My eyes looked at the veins of gold on the cave ceiling, trying to find the pattern that breaks the illusion. The reality? I should be on the ground, looking up at the Baobab’s branches. Eternally.

  The veins shone with an intrinsic light, pulsating even though they had their own heart. Their own Nabd. But they were subtle, in a way. Unmistakably, but so subtly did they spread over the cavern’s walls.

  I was not dead. Yet. My arms and legs felt light, so I stood up.

  “What are we doing here?” a voice said. It sounded familiar.

  I turned around, but I was alone. However, the voice was right. The cavern had diverging paths, going deeper into golden earth.

  Four paths, and I was at their intersection. A wide cave, with four exits. I took a small step, and sharp edges cut my foot. I wore no shoes; and looking down on the golden floor with the sharp edges, I could see my image reflected at me.

  I was wearing a long white dress. My hair was curlier than usual, and a white flower was on my left ear. It felt alien, or wrong, but I could not quite tell why.

  “Khalida, these streets are empty,” a voice said again.

  “Who is there?” I asked, but I felt a knot tying in my stomach. “Qadir? Is that you?”

  “These streets are empty,” the voice insisted. Could it be Qadir?

  It sounded like him, but faintly, as if he was a dream.

  Maybe this thing was all a dream, my dream before falling.

  “Is this a dream?” I asked. The veins of gold, gilding the walls around me, pulsated.

  “It cannot do much more than scare someone,” the voice responded.

  Had I heard well? Of all the voices I would hear, that made the least sense.

  “Tiwalade? Are these your paths? Manypaths?”

  I walked on the sharp surface, carefully not to hurt my feet. I went around, examining the four paths.

  “Qadir?” I shouted into one of them, the one I thought I had heard his voice from. “Where are you?”

  I do not know why, but I felt he was somewhere here. The moment Walid had told me of his disappearance, I could feel him drifting away. His absence was palpable at the Inn. But here, in this dream-like golden cave, I could feel him.

  “Qadir, it is Khalida! Tell me where to go!”

  “See you soon, Khalida.” The voice echoed loudly.

  I turned around, startled. Yahaya’s voice.

  “You witch! Show yourself. Is this your hex? Is this your godforsaken Curse?”

  I made a few steps back, and then changing my mind, I ran towards the path that I heard the voice coming from. I charged, foolishly, and tripped on the floor.

  I tumbled and my momentum dragged me to one of the walls between two of the paths. Angry, I hit my hand on the floor. It hurt like ice burned off my skin.

  “See you soon, Khalida.”

  “Shut up!” I screamed. And I screamed until tears streamed down my cheeks. I screamed and cried, and my body shook with each whimper. Still lying down on the golden rocks, my cheek on the hard glass-like surface, I could see my face reflected distorted on it. The flower of the Baobab had fallen off me and was lying next to me. But a glimpse of a red stain caught my attention.

  I tried to lift myself up, groaning and cursing. My left leg had been cut by the fall, and bright red had painted my white dress.

  “Speed it up.”

  A menacing voice, of a lioness.

  “You! You are the one who took my brother! I was a fool to listen!”

  Was I shouting at my Calling? Or Aisa’s?

  “Speed it up.”

  “When I speed it up, you will not find a single part of your mortal body to stitch it up together again! You will be a broken puzzle. Impossible to recognize!”

  I screamed again. Not at myself, but at Aisa. She was the one that had taken my brother, I was sure. She had to pay.

  “Speed it up. Speed it up. Speed it up.”

  I stood. The leg that bled, bled more, but it felt the strongest.

  “I will paint those caves red!” I screamed. “Let me out, and I will SPEED IT UP! Not a part of you to recognize, I swear!”

  Mucus ran down my nose. With my left hand, I scrubbed it off my mouth.

  I looked around. The more I had screamed the more blind I had become to the truth: I was not trapped. There were four exits out of this cave-like room, all decorated with gold. But all I did was flail around between the walls, unable to make any decision.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  “What happens next?” It was Yahaya’s turn to torment me.

  “How the fuck should I know?” I shouted and then whispered. “Where am I supposed to go?” I had no strength to shout anymore and the tears had not ended.

  “What happens next?”

  I did not respond. I tried to stay quiet. Would the voices change?

  “What happens next?” The voice insisted. I closed my eyes: there it was. It was coming from all directions.

  The Nabd I had swallowed, along with the flower of the Baobab, was everywhere, in all four paths.

  “It does not matter.”

  I walked to the closest path and into its darkness.

  I walked for a long time, without any voices or light, save for the occasional bright vein of gold that pulsated and revealed the path forward. I walked, and walked, and walked, with only but time to think. The path was clear ahead of me, no decisions to be made, only wishes for where it would lead.

  A strong force hit me in the head, and for a moment I thought the dream had ended, and I had reached the bottom of my fall to the Baobab’s roots.

  No. I was still there, in the manypaths. But I had hit my head on something. I moved my hands clumsily, only to uncover the terrifying truth.

  Dead-end.

  “Khalida, these streets are empty,” Qadir’s voice warned me, now as clear as ever. He sounded like he was next to me, in the streets of Waw Al Kabir, when he first uttered these words. But the darkness around me left no crumb of misunderstanding.

  “Don’t worry Qadir, I will go back and find the other paths,” I promised, and headed back.

  I walked, and walked, and walked. All the way back to the cave I had started from. Its light coming from the many golden veins was a welcoming break from the darkness.

  I stood there for a moment, trying to push away the sneaking thought: what if all the paths were a dead-end?

  “Speed it up,” Aisa’s voice coaxed me.

  I ignored it and went to the next path and its darkness. I could not estimate how long I had to walk, but it was longer than the first one. Until again, dead-end.

  “What happens next?”

  “I won’t give up,” I said and turned back. Even though I was dripping blood from my leg, I felt the strongest I had ever been.

  It was the second time I had reached back the golden-lit cave, and I decided to take a break. This place was peculiar and my body did not obey to rules of logic; after losing so much blood, I should have fainted. Still, unwilling to test the limits of this realm I had found myself in, I ripped part of my dress to make a makeshift bandage.

  “What’s the point?” I wondered out loud. The cave was well-lit, and although it was not comfortable, the prospect of hitting another dead-end tired my heart. Regardless, I stood up, and walked into the third path.

  I walked and walked and walked.

  Hope diminished and rekindled many times. This path was long, longer than any of the rest, so long I was afraid I would not ever reach its end. But it also did not end. And the more I walked, the more desperation consumed me.

  It was a desperation similar to the being lost in the desert, in the wilderness, a feeling I was well accustomed to. We humans always bore that instinct, and I could feel it every time I would look at the vastness of the desert from afar. Inner compass in shambles, looking at the vastness of the desert, one would know that this vastness would be a dead-end without having to walk it all.

  Somewhen, after many lost hours, I decided to turn back.

  “Others got a Calling sister, but not like this,” Qadir’s voice echoed. I took it for an omen of a choice well made.

  Eventually, I reached the cave again. I had to resist temptation to rest – if I did, I would never decide to venture again. So, I walked right into the fourth and last path.

  Immediately and sharply, I knew something was wrong with this path as well. I had only made ten steps when the darkness had swallowed me whole, and the eleventh step felt cold and light.

  Water.

  I stripped myself off my dress. Nothing should weigh me down more than I wished to.

  I dove into the water.

  I swam forward for a short time – well, short compared to the other paths that felt like an eternity. And the more I swam, the more calm I felt. The water was cold and unwelcoming, but its embrace felt final. I was not going to exit this pond.

  And it was not long until I could see again through the darkness. An otherworldly light, not gold like my original cave, but dark mourning blue. It came from below.

  I took a deep breath, the deepest I had ever taken. I felt all my Nabd in that breath and many others. All the Nabd I had ever captured, by halting, manipulating, reversing my and others’ breath. I had never noticed it so clearly, but it was the same as if I gave a spark to new air and breathed that in as well.

  “Sharara.”

  I dove in the dark deep blue, dove towards the light. I could see my hands reflect the light, and I knew the dark waters thanking me for that, my body being the only surface that could reflect and spread it in absolute darkness.

  I knew my breath would not suffice but I just wanted to see how far enough I could go before I died.

  As I swam, I saw it in front of me. Blocking my dive. I charged into it, I wanted to touch it.

  A fractured wall of glass, so thin and imperceptible, but also impenetrable.

  I could see through it.

  “All you have to do is wait for Aisa,” I saw myself on the balcony of my suite. Nassor lay on the table sleeping. The scenery was overtaken by the Baobab flowers I had spread everywhere. “If you both tell the truth, and none of you have harmed my brother, I can hand you the man. If she lies, I will know and she will pay. Do you understand?”

  I had lived through this. I had failed through this. Who was I talking to?

  “I believe you are mistaken, Khalida,” Yahaya’s voice echoed in the water around me. The last words she told me before I took hold of her once more: I saw myself tilt my head and raise my hand.

  The wall of glass tempered and stiffened.

  “It does not matter what you believe,” the Khalida inside the glass said.

  The image turned into darkness, as Yahaya’s will weakened.

  I swam closer to the glass before it turned dark. Before Aisa arrived and proved impenetrable to my Curses. Before Yahaya idly waited for me to die, surprised and mistaken. Before I fell through the Baobab branches.

  I touched the glass.

  Two eyes appeared before me, and I could see Yahaya floating behind the glass divide, illuminated by bright blue light. She was as naked as I was, eyes wide open, observing me.

  I repositioned myself. I pulled my fingers into my leg’s open wound, letting the blood flow. I smudged the glass with blood from my fingers, and she moved her hand from her side, tracing my movements. She was listening.

  “More dangers will follow your path, and your Calling will draw you to them like a moth,” her voice echoed.

  I screamed releasing all the breath and spark I had captured before I dove.

  “CUT HER!”

  The glass broke, breaking a dam of overflowing water and pushing me back upwards. It did not matter – I had given up all my breath.

  I was falling upside down, heading for the Baobab’s branches, impossible to tell them from the roots.

  Patreon!