Entwined

Inhale. Exhale.
The clear night air filled her lungs.
Inhale. Exhale.
The bright white stars lit his night.
Inhale. Exhale.
The soft black grass caressed her arms. 
Inhale. Exhale.
The dark silent world calmed her mind. The dark silent world overrode her senses.
The dark silent world made her tears come alive.
InhaleExhaleInhaleExhale. Please let me stay.
InhaleInhaleExhaleInhale. Don't leave me.
ExhaleInhaleInhaleExhale. Don't go.
InhaleInhaleInhale.

Please.
  The dark silent world began to blur; the crystal clear image vaporizing into nothingness.
  "No!"
She clawed at the air as if she could capture its fading beauty.
  "Don't leave me! No! Don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me!"
He could hear her; she knew he could hear her.
"Where are you?!"
  She was screeching, but she did not care. Her fingers dug into the dissolving earth, and her hands ripped out the vanishing grass. She wept and cried for the disappearing darkness.
He did not answer, he did not comfort, he did not care.
Her manic eyes searched for the bright stars, her empty lungs searched for the clear air, but it was gone; all gone.

    “No!" she screamed, her shout echoed by the stone walls of the cell. She stifled a groan as the pain returned to her; the last few hours' torture still fresh on her body. The screams of other unfortunate souls replaced the silence of her illusion, making her feel safe regarding her own outcry.
  Here, silence was something to fear, and she burned with the memory of its warm embrace. She stifled a sob and wrapped her arms around her as if his night still enveloped her. She could still hear his last words echo through her mind as her last comfort died away.
  I'm sorry. I'm trying.
The words remained the same every time, and every time she could hear his remorse, his sorrow; his frustration. Find me, she said to him, hoping he could hear, hoping that he could.
Whoever he was.

  She shuffled forward in the line of shackled bodies, staring as her blackened feet disturbed the dusty grounds. She dared not look forward; this act of defiance called for immediate punishment, one delivered with unmistakable relish. Hundreds of prisoners, or residents as they were formally named, walked with their heads bowed and limbs fettered as she was, all herded to the troughs by their keepers. Passing by the groups of twenty or so chained together, only in this instance did she ever feel grateful for luck. Her group consisted of only six others and could move with greater ease and speed, so they escaped the consequence of dragging feet more often than those close packed bodies of twenty moving merely an inch every time they gained a yard.

  She took a seat at their designated table; the “designated” part of which irritated her. That “designated” was just a shard of the new crackdown within the House brought on by the impossible: just two weeks before, a resident had attempted to escape.
  Of course, he was immediately, privately killed, and the details weren’t known; but never before in her life had she even heard of the idea.
Escape. Freedom.
What wonderful words.
  Of course, she had fantasized, they had all fantasized, but no one had ever dared act. It was as if God himself had come down to the middle of their courtyard and attempted to steal one of them away.
  Of course, it was big news, and with it came gossip and rumors flying from the tops of the House to the very bottom.
  It had been a woman who seduced a guard into smuggling her out. Impossible.
  It had been a little boy who hid in the Mayor’s suitcase. Really?
  It had been a man who dressed as a guard. Unlikely.
  It had been a baby stuffed into an empty pumpkin and pushed into a trash chute.
Stupid.
  He had gotten outside the walls. He had been discovered instantly. He had hidden inside the walls. He had transformed into a bird.
  She had killed two guards. She had killed the Mayor. She had killed the Mayor’s wife. She had eaten his baby. Did the Mayor even have a baby? Did he even have a wife?
  Of course.

  Personally, she was starting to doubt the very attempt. Looking at it from their point of view, what better way to bring about new punishments, new rules, new fear? Maybe they were starting to feel they were going soft. Maybe they just wanted to flex their ill-used muscles.
  Yes, it was all fake. It was all just a show.
  But why go through all that trouble and risk insurrection? They were already obedient dogs; there was no need to drag them even lower.
  No, it was real.

  Taking out a match and a cigarette, she put her feet up onto a fixed metal chair and herself onto a fixed metal table – they had all been wooden before – and lit up.
  “Ya noa Blue, I’da bet muh toe i’ wuz  dem Dill. ‘Memba Dill, Blue? Don’ta see ‘im ‘round heaw no mo,” said Eel, the man chained immediately to her left. He was old, maybe in his fifties – they didn’t really keep track of age here – and undoubtedly dying. He was slow, both physically and mentally, was constantly coughing up blood, was always feverish, and, Blue thought, was rapidly losing his mind. “Dill died las’ year, ‘member?” Blue replied, talking around her cigarette.
  “Dill die? You’s lie, Blue, you’s lie; he hard like da Mayor, Blue! Naw, he don’ta die.”
After this statement, he jerked his hand forward to catch the spray of glistening red blood that racked out of his deathly coughs, jerking her own hand and making her drop her cigarette. “Shit, Eel!” she cried out, watching the thing burn out on the dusty floor. But she felt a pang and a sickness in watching Eel wipe a handful of his own blood onto his already bloody trousers. Her left cuff had already warmed from his temperature heating their shared shackle. She regarded him sadly.
  She would have a cold cuff and a lit cigarette next week.
A guard approached them, and she stiffened with anger. It could only mean one thing. “No meal today,” the man yelled in a voice as harsh and discordant as the caw of the crows, “Back to your cells.” She felt the tug of her group starting to move, but she would not move. She would not move. 
  “This the fifth time this week we’s got no food,” she said, glaring at the guard, “We’s starvin’ t’death! And lookit him!” she added, pointing to Eel, “He jus’ plain dyin’! And you jus’ gonna stand there and say ‘no meal’? Was wrong wi’ choo people?! Ain’t you got no soul?!”
  There was a circle of ice-cold silence surrounding her outburst, and she felt immediate dread. “Soul?” the guard finally said. She did not dare respond. He walked up to her, and leaning in so that she could smell his putrid breath, he said, “There is no such thing.”
  Then with a malicious grin, he swiftly took out his knife and ripped open Eel’s throat. She watched in horror as the same glistening red blood flowed out of – out of everywhere, and Eel’s body crumpled down to her feet, dragging her with him. She stared at his blank eyes, widened with almost human-like shock.
  “Eat that,” the guard said. She looked up at him from her knees and watched him smirk with satisfaction as he left.

  The smell. The putrid, revolting, sickening smell of the slowly decaying dead. She was almost getting used to it. It sickened her, how she was almost getting used to it.
  Each resident normally occupied their own individual cell, but her outburst had rewarded her with her first-ever cell mate. Her violently regurgitated vomit surrounded her as she stared at her sad company of the past few days.
  Eel.
  The flies that coated his body had also bit and scratched at her, covering her with both insect and self-inflicted sores. They did not usually bother her so persistently; maybe she was dying. She certainly felt like it. Blue watched now as another fly zoomed over from him to her, her simply watching and past caring. She shivered uncontrollably as the black things dug into her ripped skin and pains pulsed from her entire body. She remembered distantly that she should be hungry – they had not fed her since the incident – but could only gag at the idea of eating.
  There was a reason they chose Eel.
Not just hunger seemed distant now; she herself seemed separate from her body, floating into what she hoped was death. But no, surroundings materialized into a familiar background, and she stopped shaking at once.
  The stars, the grass, the silence, the night: it was all as she had left it. This time, however, a full moon shone brightly from the midnight-blue skies. Breathing in the cool, crisp air, Blue stared up at the serene moon, her sobs the only sound in the silent scene.
  “I wish I could comfort you.”
His voice echoed in her mind, and she smiled through her tears. “You are,” she whispered. Blue ran her fingers through the smooth blades of grass, sighing. “You got no idea what this means to me.” He replied quietly, “I feel echoes of your pain, even your numbness…I have some idea.”
  Blue knew she did not have to respond. She simply stood up, stretching, loving that she was able to stretch, and started walking into the infinite night. The dirt cushioned her bare soles and the grass tickled her feet, making her want to sink into the ground.
  “Why can’t I be here all the time?” she said suddenly, “They could whip me, rape me, hell, even kill me and I won’t know.” His voice was faint, almost fatigued, “You know why. I told you – I keep on telling you.” She sighed, feeling his strain. She hated the effort that these otherworldly illusions cost him. Still, Blue replied, “But you’s got t’be stronger now. ‘s been years since I first asked you.”
  “Must we always talk about this?” he snapped, louder. She laughed, feeling his annoyance – she had missed it. It made him seem more real to her. “Fine, talk ‘bout somethin’ else then,” she said, entering a line of trees. She had seen them before in his worlds, but she still marveled at their beauty. He was grumbling, slightly mutinous, but eventually he replied, “Fine. I’m eating an apple.” Blue knew he knew that she had no idea what an ‘apple’ was. He wanted her to ask, and she complied, 
  “Whas an apple?”
His mood lightened, and after a temporary strain, he said, “To your right.” Smiling, she turned to her right. A plain, wooden door stood amongst the blooming trees.
  “Open it.”
  She grasped the golden doorknob, opened the door, and gasped.
Sunlight flooded the skies and ground and trees, warming the edges, the grass and her heart, the shimmering yellows and oranges crystalizing the flowing leaves, the green, green grass, the pure pools – it was unreal, but that did not matter. It was real to her. 
  Laughing with immediate euphoria, she ran into the new universe and marveled at the strange trees. Bright red, green, and yellow spheres hid amongst its verdant leaves, and she suspected that these were the mysterious ‘apples’.
  “Yes,” came his voice, confirming her thoughts, “those are apples. Take one.” Immediately, she plucked a red one hovering above her head, and waited patiently for his next instructions.
  “Bite into it.”
Her stomach now rumbling with hunger, she eagerly bit down into the vibrant sphere. A sudden burst of sweetness made her smile, and she instinctively closed her eyes to better savor the taste.
  “It’s like a pear,” she said, remembering the oddly shaped food, “Is this a fruit too?” “Yes,” he answered, “and remember don’t eat the seeds or the stem.” She could tell he was smiling too.
  Once she had reduced the red apple into a thin core, she picked out another one, again wandering among the trees. Chewing thoughtfully, she swallowed and said, “You know, sometimes I wanna die. Actually, all the time. But seeing all this…beauty, it almos’ makes me want t’ live. So I can see it in real life…with my own eyes. I really wish I could.”
  There was a pause where she could feel his mood dim. He said too casually, “This isn’t enough?”
She shook her head. “No, stupid…it’s never enough.”

  A fire burned, dancing life before her shining eyes as she huddled towards the impossible warmth. The crackling gravel of her shift echoed comfortably through the lively cave. The dancing shadows gave her the company she was habitually bereft of, but even without them, she would have been completely content.
  He was there.
Right then, his voice filled the spacious cave with an unfamiliar yet comforting song as she rested on the unnaturally soft ground. The warm red of the fire filled her closed lids, blanketing over her body. The silent music of the drifting snow just outside joined in with this peaceful rest, this impossible haven. A heavy yawn escaped two healthy pink lips; giving their cousin eyes an excuse to free a few sparkling tears. He did not question those tears, but let her drift off into the sweet oblivion of sleep, his song still soothing in her mind.

  She woke up naked in a freezing bucket of water. “What – ?” A single candle was lit in the otherwise empty room, illuminating the rusting metal bucket in which she sat and her usual ragged clothes piled in a distant corner.
  Blue was beyond confused. The last thing she remembered from reality was that lonely fly joining its friends on her decrepit body. Then, He had pulled her into a blur of scenes, lives, and places for a blissful eternity, the last world being a serene cave in a mountainside. Now she was here.
  In a bucket.
Shivering, Blue slowly lifted herself out of the ice-cold water and made towards her familiar, yet strangely cleaner, shirt and pants. Once she was properly dressed and slightly warmer, Blue glanced at the burning candle. As she watched, the flame finally guttered and died.
  A previously hidden door boomed open in the same instant, flooding the mysterious place with a blinding light that stabbed at her eyes. She yelled out at the sudden pain, but the man – she could tell he was a man by the heavy footfalls – said nothing and roughly grabbed her thin arm, dragging her out of the strange room. The feel of cold unyielding metal clapped down around her wrists and ankles the minute she passed through the doorway, and, though she hated it, the familiarity of the action calmed her.
  They were in a stark white and forcefully rectangular hallway with neither doors nor windows breaking its monotony. Blue felt claustrophobic as the man led her down this never-ending hall.
  She wanted the endlessness to end, but feared that pain awaited there.
They abruptly turned an imperceptible corner, and she felt visual relief in the presence of silent black doors. However, they had their own menace with that black finality, and her claustrophobia grew.
  They continued on.
The urge to ask her intimidatingly muscular escort what the hell was going on mounted with every step they took in this odd institution, but punishment terrified her. The place itself seemed constructed for the terror of punishment.
  However, Blue soon reached the point of unrestrainable curiosity. She finally opened her mouth to speak, but was immediately cut off by the man’s own speech.
  “We’re here,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft. Quickly placing her lips back together, though they sought speech now more than ever, Blue merely grunted in answer. He opened one of the continuously black doors and, letting go of her chain, gestured for her to enter. With immense trepidation, she did so.
  ....
  ....
What?
  Blue turned back around, this time unable to contain her questions, but found herself facing the familiar dirt wall of her cell. She walked, transfixed, towards what she now believed to be some kind of hidden doorway. Upon reaching it, she ran her hands gently against the jagged stones jutting from its surface.
She pushed it.
It did not yield.
She pushed it again with more force.
Nothing.
  Now using her entire body, Blue willed all her strength into moving the solid wall. After several minutes of this, only a few shallow cuts greeted her efforts. Huffing from exertion and frustration, Blue forcefully kicked the wall, bringing nothing but throbbing pain into her poor toes. She glared at the wall as if it had somehow coerced her into smashing them.
  In a way, it did.
“Why?!” Blue screamed to the wall, to the guards, to the muscly man, to the mayor, “I want to know why.”
  She stumbled backwards, tripped over something, and fell to the ground. Well, knocked her head against the door and then fell to the ground. “What the – ?“ It wasn’t as if she owned anything to trip on…oh. She had forgotten.
  “Eel,” she said aloud as if he would stir with the sound. Blue could almost see him blink the way he did before starting to speak. She waited.
  “I’m a stupid son of a bitch,” she continued when he remained silent, “Stupid, ya know, like the guy who tried to get outta this hellhole. But he only hurt himself….I hurt the both of us. And…I’m sorry, Eel…I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry you’s dead now cuz of me…You was good to me, and I – I….I’m sorry. You should’a died quiet like the rest of us. It should’a been one day you jus’ not be there, and then there’d jus’ be the five of us. No one would’ve said nothin’ but we’d’ve all known you’d gone on. You’s gone on now…but it should’ve been different. I’m sorry.”

  “It won’t be no different for me though….You wanted t’die quiet, Eel, but I ain’t gone die smothered like a candle. You’s never seen a candle, but they’s weak little things. I ain’t gonna die weak like a candle. Ima be a forest fire, Eel…and only the kinda storm with big thunder and gray clouds and whippin’ rain will be able to kill me. I almos’ died like a candle before…but He saved me.”

  “You know him, Eel? I don’t know him…but he visits me sometimes. Takes me from reality into his world…I don’t really know why he does it though. He’s funny, not like anyone I ever known. He sends me places, but I don’t ever go anywhere. It’s…in my mind, I guess. He shows me things that I never even imagine, like grass and sky and sun and apples. He says it’s the world I never imagined…says it like it’s the only world in the whole world. He don’t know our world though, Eel…he don’t know the House and the mayor and Mr. Ugly and the Kisser and its pain. He come in here and say he don’t know the Kisser and people gone lookit him like he crazy…but I go out there and say what the hell’s snow, people gone lookit me like I’m crazy. Yeah…you should’a seen his world though, Eel. You should’a seen it.”
  “I remember when I first saw it. Thought it was a dream, but…it didn’t feel like a dream. Felt like…like I was conscious, you know? Like I was awake. I thought I was crazy then for a long time…I liked it better that way.”
  “But He told me I wasn’t crazy. He told me we had some kinda connection, some kind I still don’t understand…but it’s…a part o’ me now. I can’t let it go, really. And him…he…I don’t know how to say it Eel, but he…he’s me like this hand is me. Like that connection is me.”
“Eel….Eel, you should’a seen it. You really should’a seen it.”
  The door suddenly opened, and Blue automatically stood up in preparation to be cuffed. Looking back at Eel, however, the dead man black with glistening maggots and gnats, she sat back down. The guard stumbled in, shackles out and ready to imprison, but at the lack of compliance he stood dumbfounded. Blue simply stared, wondering what would happen next. “Finally cracked have you?” the man managed to sneer once recovering from his shock. “You’s the cracked one,” she muttered, looking back to Eel. She noticed that no fly or maggot had yet touched her. Strange.
  Blue suddenly cried out at a vicious lash that whipped across her face, both disorienting and blinding, and in the next moment she was being jerked up to her feet. Three more brushes of the whip’s venomous touch lashed through her skin before the guard deemed her ready to meet the chains. Both glanced at the decomposing Eel at the click of the cuffs, her with sympathy and he with gruesomely blatant disgust. He jerked her chain forward, obviously eager to get the hell out of her cell.
Blue hid a smile.
  The flood of people overwhelmed them as usual, the chaos comforting in its regularity. She was joined into her now five neighbors as the third. The morning song filled the brown air as her sector of hundreds headed for breakfast: the cracks of whips, the shuffling feet, the jeering taunts; the usual.
  Blue could feel the shock of Minnie, the man chained to her right hand.
His name was a joke. Every resident chose their own name, but Minnie had his name chosen for him due his scrawniness as a child. The guard might have laughed, but so did the residents that knew Minnie. He was the boldest child the House had ever seen, and although his petit frame persisted to manhood, so did his intrepid daring.
  He was also Blue’s best friend.
Well, as best a friend as anyone could manage in the House.
  His hand now closed over hers, passing her a cigarette, and she again hid a smile. Where he got them, even she didn’t know. The metal table now loomed before them, and they each sat down, obedient. They were always the first, however, and had some time to talk unhindered in the chaos.
  “Match, Minnie,” Blue said nonchalantly, sticking the cigarette in her mouth.
He handed her the match.          
  “Where’s you been, Blue?” he asked, voice lowered, “Thought they killed you, the way you’s not been here! And what was that shit wit Eel, Blue? You’s tryin’ t’get killed?! Shit, I’s stupid sometimes, but that was somethin’ else. You’s more stupid than me, now!”
  She took his hand. “You tellin’ me you wasn’t mad, neither?”
He seemed to take comfort in her hand, and leaned back some. “Course I was mad. Course. But I took revenge sneaky, like someone smart like you shoulda done, and beat the hell outta that guard. At night. Not in the face o’ all of ‘em at day, like a stupid person.” Blue scowled at his last statement, but was again surprised by his actions in the one before. “I can’t be stupid and smart, stupid,” she began to say, and spoke over him as he started to respond, “And you is stupid. You beat the guard?! You’s crazy?! Talkin’ bout me bein’ killed, man, you’s a thousand times worse.”
  She didn’t bother asking him how he even managed the feat.
He laughed and let her ‘stupidity’ go with an “I guess we’s both crazy” as the cafeteria started to settle down.
  The place was now silent as the grave as groups were called up to receive their food. Whips randomly lashed as the chains rattled forth and the guards leered amongst themselves, but from the residents no sound was uttered.  They waited for their turn, impatient yet never daring to be. “Hate this,” Minnie muttered so only Blue could hear. Her blood spiked in fear, but she stared stonily ahead. His stupidity would not cause her a meal, cannot cause her a meal. They finally went up to a line, one of ten, the guards whipping them to their scarred feet. Some unfortunate – well, more unfortunate – resident piled a slop of gray goo onto Blue’s block of wood as she reached the front. Nodding her thanks and her sympathy, she shuffled back to the table with that daily gold.
  The soft hum of murmurs seeped through the meal-room as guards whispered amongst themselves. Residents were mute, silently scarfing their sickening sludge.
  Then…Blue’s blood started painfully pounding in her stomach, in her ears, and in her chest. Flush warmth filled her with a strange sensation, and seemed to sabotage her vision with a roaring haze. She compulsively clutched Minnie’s arm, pierced with a fleeting worry of the inattentive guards. Every breath came labored and she could feel her panic.
  What is this? What are you doing? What did they do to me? Is this you? What’s wrong with me? “Blue,” Minnie whispered, not checking for danger like she would have. She couldn’t help it. It was the haze, that haze…Blue reached up and kissed him.
  He pulled back immediately, staring at her with a mirroring fear, his mixed with hatred and shock. “I-I’m sorry – “ she managed to stutter in the silence. Then the guards yanked her whole line to their feet, all five of them cursing her to the depths of hell as the jeering guards beat, flayed, crushed, and killed. Blue knew He couldn’t save her this time, not so soon, so she cried, screamed, cried, fought, screamed…

  The mass congregated in the Plain, an empty stretch of dirt and dust walled in by gray cement. Bored guards lashed or beat, residents muttered of their hunger and Blue sat dreaming of the sun. The harsh claw of ash clouds gave little fuel for that wisp of warmth and beauty, but Blue made do. Her dreams were broken, however, by the shape of Minnie. “Shit,” she grimaced, pulling out of fantasy, “I was restin’.” “Then some action’ll do you good.” He handed her a cigarette, and she took it grudgingly but gratefully.
  Blue watched her smoke furl lazily in the nonexistent breeze as they walked, intertwining with Minnie’s, and she wondered if He had cigarettes in his world. “What ya gonna do, Blue?” Minnie said, again shaking her from her reverie. She scowled. He couldn’t just let it go.
  “’Bout what?”
He stopped walking.
“You know ‘bout what," he said savagely, "You coulda killed me, kissin me. Nah, you killed Figits like you killed Eel! You's gone crazy, Blue, crazy. You's gone kill everyone if you don't kill youself first. This yous plan wit the Mayor, huh? That where you gone after you's killed Eel? You a snitch bitch now?" Blue threw her cigarette to the floor and slapped him. "I ain't a snitch bitch." He wasn’t a man to show his shame, but she could hear it in his words. “Then you’s plain crazy.”
  They stared at each other. Blue itched for her cigarette.
Minnie mutedly handed her another one, and they started walking again. “I’m sorry I’m crazy,” she said quietly. He hadn’t fully forgiven her yet she knew, but he still forced a smile and mussed her hair. “Ain’t lotsa people could resist me anyway.”