Part 1, Chapter 1

 

For the best reading experience and viewing of illustrations, I recommend you use a computer!

Note to reader:

            My sole aim in writing this story is, quite simply, to convey the lives of Paula and Ray as they have occurred. My hope is that you will choose to join in on their journey and accompany them as they attempt to uncover their bizarre pasts.

            Thank you for reading, and welcome!

            -Saidy

 

I: The Black Bay

 

Drip.

 

Drip.

            

             An awareness, if dull, of sensation.

 

             Drip.

 

             A cool tingling. Faded. Then again.

            

             Drip.

 

             Humid warmth.

 

             Drip.

 

             Prickling at the back of the throat.

             He wanted to recede, back into the comfortable black. He swallowed. The prickling worsened. He coughed, choked on something in the back of his throat, and in an instant was wrenched into light:

            

             He was awake.

             His abdomen quivered and burned as he forced himself upright and pressed his palms against concrete for stability. His lungs ached, and his neck felt like brittle wood. He took quick, shallow breaths. The hard ground was grey and dotted with yellowing leaves and torn palm fronds. The sky above him was dark, imperial.

             His thoughts quickened, escaped from soporific molasses, and then all his sensations leapt from dull, confused neutrality into panic. A buzzing crescendo so deep in his ears he felt it between his eyes, gripping his head and seeming to hurtle it; his fingertips, reading every crack and dip in the vast concrete, and how it changed, curved, spread away like roots.

              Suddenly, a young feminine voice in the distance that extinguished the bedlam:

“Hello?”

             He tried to produce a noise from his throat—which word he had attempted to form even he was unsure of—but all that escaped his chapped lips was a dry whistle. Another painful swallow moistened his vocal cords enough to say:   

            “Hello.”

             A heavy silence. Distantly, an undulating droning—a pleasant sound, familiar in such a way that felt like a very long time ago. His eyes followed the sound carried on the wind to abundant trees that bent and kissed, leaves skittering against each other.

             He called again into the humid air, and a nearby rustling replied. Sounds of fabric. 

             “Help me,” she coughed, “Help me.”

             He grunted, fighting against his weight to stand, and pivoted in the direction of her voice. There, on the other side of the massive concrete structure, was a girl crouched on the ground. Her head was buried in her arms, and even from this distance he could see that she trembled.

             On legs that buckled every couple of steps he staggered in her direction. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

             Her hands shifted, gripped the sides of her head.

“Where am I?” she urged.

             Ray surveyed rows and rows of old plastic seats fixed onto the concrete. The entire structure was in a state of disrepair, coated in rotting vegetation and the arching slopes of vibrant graffiti. It seemed to be some sort of stadium, but the seats all angled not towards a field, but instead watched bay of black water that lapped softly far down at the base of the structure.

             “I don’t know,” he said.

             “Then who are you?” she cried, lifting her face from her arms.

             Suddenly a blinding light that stabbed into Ray’s skull.

             “Holy SHIT!” he shrieked, “Put your head down!”

             She ducked her head, buried it again under her arms.

           “What? What–what happened?” she demanded. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?” Her shoulders shook, and her voice wavered. “Why can’t I see? I’m supposed to see.”

             “Hold on,” he said gently. “Keep your eyes closed…but lift up your head.”

             Stiffly her head rose from her arms, and Ray gazed at the girl’s face.

             Behind the girl’s eyelids two suns burned. As though a light shone from within her skull, the thin flesh covering her eyes was illuminated in a fiery orange, with the soft blue of veins and capillaries meandering over in rivulets.

             A pulsing violet disc burned in his field of vision where the light had thrown knives into his head, but through it he could see she wore a white tank top that exposed bruised and scratched arms, over which stringy dull purple hair fell in oily clumps. She was pale and slim, and her lips continuously trembled as if caught between silence and speech. Ray seated himself beside her and inhaled deeply.

             Past the dark bay, he could see the warm lights of a city skyline. A sluggish breeze dragged its arms through the air and pulled gentle disturbances over the surface of the seawater.

             “Okay,” he said softly. “What’s your name?”

             “Paula.”

             “My name is Ray,” he offered, and his mouth started to form the next words, but too soon—he realized then that there was no more information to give.

He cleared his throat and swallowed again. “I’m thinking we’re both a little confused about how we got here, yeah?”

Paula was quiet.

He sighed. “Okay. Okay…” He scanned his surroundings once more, eyes pleading for something to scream out to him any sort of familiarity.

             “And you can’t see,” he said, “but you used to?”

             “I think so. I—I don’t know,” she cried. A couple of moths flicked themselves into the warm glow emanating from her eyelids, then fluttered back off into the darkness.

             “That’s okay. Alright. We’ll solve this.” He took another deep breath. “I think we should look for help.”

             Paula nodded. Her shoulders had steadied. 

             “Alright. I’m gonna grab you by the hand,” he said, “and we’re gonna walk together.”

             The way out of the stadium was littered with misshapen cans of beer and pine branches, and twice Ray nearly fell as he guided Paula safely through. While they exited on the other end, the gusts of wind were guttural, as if protesting their entrance into the rest of the world. From this side, Ray had a plain view of their surroundings and saw that they were on an island. Cutting through its middle and seeming to run far to his left and right was a busy road spotlit by intermittent street lamps. On his side of the road, buildings, patches of woodland and thick mangrove. On the other, a beach with empty parking lots.

Whizzing by on the road before him were great smooth hunks of metal, now and again glaring at him with harsh lights and protesting each other in blaring horns. They were monstrous and horridly fast, spinning their own wind currents as they tore down the asphalt. It occurred to Ray that these awful machines were called cars, and at once within him there broke out a grave fear. His leg muscles tightened in a subconscious preparation for escape. Surely he could find help on his side of the road and avoid plunging himself into the passage of beasts.

He stood on an expanse of gravel and asphalt, at the far edge of which stood the concrete stadium and the sea. On the other sides of the expanse were other, more temporary structures, most of which had shabby white tarps for roofs, and some of which appeared to be outhouses. Under one of the tarps stood a few men in reflective vests, chatting and setting up equipment.

             But as he came within earshot of the men, it was like an invisible force had wedged itself between Ray and them, and he froze in place. Up until this moment, his mind had been knotted to finding the nearest person and pleading for help. But now, faced with people no more than fifty feet from him—he couldn’t approach. For some reason he couldn’t understand, he felt he had to hide his state of disarray for the sake of his own safety, and now the idea of telling these men of their situation was repulsive to him.

             “I don’t think we should ask for help,” Paula whispered to him, and for a moment Ray wondered if he’d spoken his thoughts aloud.

Ray’s head was an overturned basket, objects and emotions strewn about in nonsense heaps, but one thing he did feel with certainty, now, was that something about them was quite different from other people, and that this was something they should keep close to their chests. He felt like a thief, slinking under cover of darkness so as not to have the girls’ unusual eyes seen by any other.

             By one of the outhouses there was a water fountain. Ray led them to it, helped Paula take long sips. After refreshing themselves, he scavenged the littered ground for empty bottles. He picked up two soda bottles, rinsed them to the best of his ability and filled them, then gave one to Paula to keep for wherever they went.

             He led them around the perimeter of the expanse, away from the sparse overhead lights and away from the white tents. Here along the edge grew great palm trees with tall, slender trunks and fronds spindly like fish bones. They waded through grass that grew to their waists and now and then pierced through their clothing.

As they walked, Paula’s feet began to drag, and Ray centered himself on finding a safe place for them to rest. Now having walked away from the road that carved through the island, they were close again to the stadium, but all the discarded bottles and spray-paint made him nervous about passerby; so he turned to the right instead, led them past the gate of palm trees into a thick of mangrove and pine, but only a few meters into it, so that still he could catch glimpses of the stadium through the tangled branches and orient himself.

Eventually the vegetation opened onto the shoreline. Here the breeze was cooler, the air fresh and light and mildly salty, and Ray’s shoulders were less heavy. They seated themselves on the coarse sand, backs against the wall of brush and faces towards the black ocean. Paula’s eyes were still shut, soft light radiating from within.

“We should be safe here for a little bit,” he said. “I don’t see anyone, at least.”

Paula nodded faintly and reclined, resting her head on the sand. The skin under her eyes was puffy and irritated, and her lips still trembled, but her breathing had evened under the cape of sleep.

Ray, on the other hand, was wired. His muscles seemed to pulse with every heartbeat, and his eyes refused to focus on any one object. He wondered how much longer Paula had been awake in the dilapidated stadium, calling out for help. A part of him wanted to take advantage of his energy and see what else the island had to offer, but a larger part refused to leave her side lest anybody come. So throughout the remaining hours of the night, he retreated into his own thoughts as he dug his fingers into the sand and watched the tide wander its way out.