Chapter 20 Rachel

Chapter 20 Rachel

“What is happening?!” I yell, smashing into the wall.

            Aanya shrieks in response. Her body slams into mine and the room changes direction.

            “What is it?!” Tailith yells.

            I open my mouth to say something but end up screaming as I realize I’ve ended on the ceiling of the room. The room stops moving suddenly and we all lurch to the sides. After panting for a moment, I sit up, and lean against the wall.

            “Is it over?” Aanya asks.

            “No…” Tailith mumbles, lying on his side, trying to stand up.

            “We’re on the ceiling-” I begin, but am interrupted by the room spinning once more.

            The chair-which I’d lost track of until now-rams into me. We bounce around the room, running into each other, until the room settles back into its original position. I keep my head down, grabbing the walls and just breathe. I hear the other two breathing loudly. I look up, they’ve backed up to the walls as well.

            “Everyone okay?” Aanya asks us.

            I nod and so does Tailith.

            “Tailith, you know what that was?” I ask him.

            “Talith,” he corrects me again.

            I roll my eyes.

            “I don’t know. I’ve got nothing.”

            Out of nowhere, the walls of the room begin to stretch out. I don’t notice at first, but in a few moments it becomes clear the room has gotten larger.

            “It’s growing,” Aanya vocalizes.

            I hurry to my feet, and the others follow suit. The walls continue to expand. They get further until the ones to my right and left stop and the other two begin to move inward. I panic for a second, as if the walls are about to crush us. But they don’t. They stop. And the others begin to move. Inward. The others outward. Inward. Outward. Inward. The walls continue to move. Finally, the walls reach dimensions about twice the size of originally and stop.

I walk to the middle of the room. The others are backed up to the sides. I start to move to the edges as well, but something stops me. Walls. Walls begin to grow from the floor. Three layers of walls. They surround me. Rising and rising. I rush to escape but they surround me.

“Rachel! Rachel!” I hear them both yelling from the outside.

“Guys!” I shout back. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, we’re on the outside,” Aanya affirms.

            I’m barely able to hear them. “It’s okay guys, don’t worry.”

I stand in a small space about three feet square. The walls… They were impenetrable before when I’d tried to go through them. They’ll go down. They have to go down.

Talith says something through the wall.

“What?!” I scream.

“The outer walls of your cage are moving in!” Talith calls through the wall.

I panic for a second.

“You have to go through the wall,” Aanya shouts.

Her voice fades out at the end.

“Hello!” I yell. “Hello!”

No response. I hear movement. The second wall must be moving in as well. I turn again and again, around and around, looking for some way out. The inner wall begins to move in. In a moment, it’ll crush me. I try to calm down. The room grows darker. For a second I wonder how the light fluctuates with no kind of lighting, but I push it out of my mind. I focus on the wall in the dark. Putting all my willpower behind it, I walk. I go right through the first wall, and discover the second in my path. It’s lighter between these two walls than in the center. I can hear the others yelling, but I block them from my mind. This wall is moving as well. I focus again, closing my eyes, and walk through again. Last wall. More light. More sound. I walk through, into the well-lit room and the three walls begin to lower.

“Rachel!” Aanya yells first, and Tai-Talith comes around from the other side.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Good,” I respond.

I turn around and watch the walls sink back into the floor. Talith walks into the middle and begins to inspect the floor where the walls had come up. The walls of the room stretch outward again.

“It’s growing again,” I tell them, walking to the edge of the room

“Is that a bad thing or a good thing?” Aanya questions us, but I look and realize she’s talking to Tailith. She follows me to the edge.

He looks up suddenly, with a worried expression on his face. He starts to run over to us, but walls grow out of the ground and lock him in.

“Talith!” Aanya screams, running over.

I follow her. More walls begin to grow in a strange fashion, randomly it seems, around Talith’s enclosing wall. We reach the outer barricade. I bang on the walls, but they remain solid.

“I’m okay!” he yells from inside. He doesn’t sound as worried as I thought he would.

“No you’re not! Wait! I can go in, make the walls passable. I can get you out!” I shout with excitement.

“No,” he replies, more strained now, as he sounds whenever his power starts kicking in. “You won’t be able to.”

“Yes!” I scream.

I focus on the wall, trying to make it passable, repeatedly running into it, until Aanya stops me.

“It’s not helping, Rachel.”

“It’s okay guys! I think I can get out!” Talith shouts from inside. “It’s just a maze. I know how to get out!”

“Isn’t it dark in there?” I enquire.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter,” he responds, his voice fading.

I begin to hear his footsteps then. Soft at first, but gaining in volume. I hear walls sliding away.

“Segments are opening up, when I find the right spot and the pattern…” he explicates.

I hear him hit the walls some more, switching his type of knocks and the loudness. Finally, a segment of wall near us slides open and he steps out. He grabs his head and almost collapses on the floor.

“Talith, are you okay?” Aanya asks him.

His own walls begin to go down. As they do, I see the complicated pattern they’re in. A real maze. I back up to the walls. Before I get there, they move inward again, but stop soon after they start.

“Over here,” I assert. “Come over here, stay away from the middle.”

They begin to walk over. As they do, Aanya stops for a moment. A fly coasts by her.

“A fairy,” she says, staring.

The little insect flies over to Talith and touches his forehead. Immediately, he stands upright.

“The pain, it’s gone.”

Cautiously, I try to pull them back against the walls, but Aanya pulls away, moving toward the “fairy.”

“Aanya,” I say, slowly. “That might not be such a good idea.”

She stops for a moment, about halfway to the center now.

“You’re right. It’s just a trick,” she realizes, backing up quickly to the walls with us.

Just as she touches the walls, a new barricade comes up in the center.

“Narrow escape,” I say.

I feel relieved for a moment. A moment. Then the walls begin to move outward, straight at us.

“It’s a test,” Talith says, “and you have to take it.”

The walls continue to move, now only a few feet away. We’ll soon be crushed between this new wall and the edges of the room.

“Then I have to go,” Aanya realizes.

The fly reappears, and Aanya follows it. The walls slow down.

“You don’t-” I start, but Talith silences me.

“But she does,” he says.

Aanya walks away. She gets to a point almost to the corner of the room. The wall is now almost to us.

“There’s a hole,” she says.

I see no hole, but I don’t say anything. She walks through with no trouble. The wall touches my nose, and keeps pressing, a little slower now. I back my head as far as I can against the back wall.

“I see another one,” Aanya calls.

The wall in front of me suddenly lowers. I take in a deep breath and I hear Talith do the same beside me. The walls she’d just walked into, however, come quickly toward us. Even as it gets closer, although it slow, it is faster than the previous one.

“A little faster, Aanya!” I yell.

She says something back, but I don’t catch it. The wall soon lowers, again pressing Talith and I against the other wall. This happens several times before a wall peels back and Aanya is standing in the center of the room. She rushes over to us.

“Are you okay?” she questions us, looking us both over.

We assure her that we are, in fact, okay, and make sure that she is as well. The walls stay as they are. There is now a few feet in between the doors, whereas originally there was only about a foot. We sit down against the wall, still absorbing all that occurred.

            A long moment of silence rolls out between us. After a while, my eyes wander to the doors. I look closely at the nearest one. It’s a simple wooden door. What’s so special about it? I find myself looking up at the handle. I don’t know why, but for some reason I get a bad feeling about it. I reach out to touch it. As my fingers brush against it, a shock runs through me. It zaps me backward halfway across the room.

            “Rachel!” Aanya yells, rushing over.

            I feel dizzy and sit up slowly. “Don’t touch the doors,” I breathe slowly.

            Rachel gives a breathy laugh and says, “No kidding.”

            Talith crawls over as well. We sit on the floor together.

            “Do you think it’ll get much worse?” I ask, smiling.

            “No-”

            “Yes,” Talith says in complete seriousness. “Much worse.”

            We both look at him curiously.

            “Kind of a Debbie downer, aren’t you Tai-Talith?” I respond.

            “Sorry,” he acknowledges.

            “You’re okay, though, right?” Aanya enquires.

            “Yeah, fine.” I give them a thumbs-up, but it’s kind of half-hearted.

            “So, can you really turn invisible, and phase through things? And can you really see all those things?” Talith questions us suddenly, a little sheepishly.

            I give him a sly smile and disappear. I stand up and, as quietly as I can, I walk over and grab the chair. It had turned over from the-whatever that was-earthquake thing. I’m surprised the walls hadn’t crushed it. I bring it over to our little circle. I laugh at the expressions on their faces as they see the chair floating in mid-air. I sit down and reappear. They clap, and I give a short bow.

            “Now for my next trick…” I begin.

            I turn around and focus on the back of the chair. Then, facing them back again, I lean back, through the back of the chair, then sit back up. They give me another round of applause.

            “Alright, now for someone else. I want to test some stuff.” I stand up. “Anyone? Anyone?”

            “I’ll go,” Aanya volunteers.

            I take my place on the floor, next to Talith, and Aanya takes a seat.

            “Alright, what now?” she wonders.

            “Just wait, I’m going to try to turn you invisible.”

            “Can you do that?” Aanya asks me.

            “I don’t know, I’ve never tried it.”

            “Well, work your magic.”

            I concentrate on Aanya, but nothing happens. After a few minutes, I try just her arm, then her finger. I poke her in the arm, but nothing transfers.

            “Rachel, your foot,” Talith tells me, pointing to my foot.

            It was invisible.

            “Yeah, that didn’t work,” I say. “Sorry, guys, I guess only I get to be invisible.

            “What a shame,” Aanya responds, starting to stand up.

            “Wait!” I yell. “Test number two.”

            “Alright, if you insist,” she complies, “but it’s Talith’s turn this time.”

            He hesitates at first, then gets up. Rachel and Talith switch spots. I focus on the back of the chair again.

            “Alright, lean back, through the chair!”

            He leans back, although he moves a little too quickly and collides with the back of the chair. It falls backward and he goes with it. I jump up.

            “Sorry, Talith. I didn’t mean to…”

            “It’s alright,” he tries to console me.

            He reaches for the back of the chair, but his hand passes through it and he falls back again.

            “Oh! Sorry,” I repeat myself.

            I look back and for a second I think I see the back of the chair lighter. It fades. I shake my head, must be imagining it.

            I help Talith up.

            “I’m okay, really,” he assures me.

            “Okay,” I say. “At least it worked! Isn’t that exciting?!”

            “Yeah, great,” he replies, rubbing his head.

            Aanya stands up and walks over. “Any more tests?”

            “Um…”

            I walk over to the wall, patting it a few times.

            “Why can’t I go through these stupid walls?” I complain.

            Talith grabs his head again, “There isn’t anything behind them. There’s nothing there.”

            “What?” I question him. “How can there be nothing there? There’s something. Dirt, sky, people… Well, I don’t know if I can pass through people, but I doubt there’s a wall of people blocking me in…”

            He leans against the wall, the knowledge hurting him.

            “This isn’t… our world.”

            “Whoa, whoa, what?” I question him.

            “Where are we, Talith?” Aanya asks.

            “It’s not… our realm, our world. Not Earth.”

            “Honestly, you’re kind of freaking me out,” Aanya comments.

            “So this is all there is? To this, whatever this is, realm or whatever?”

            “I’m not an expert. I just kind of know this stuff. But I don’t really know.”

            “Talith!” I yell.

            He gives me an odd look.

            “The spider-carriage is on your arm!”

            Aanya peers at it. “That thing survived all this?”

            “What’s a spider-carriage?” Talith asks, looking at his arm.

            I point to the spider and he looks at it. “It’s just a spider… But wait, that’s not what you see, is it? Is this spider something else?”

            “Yeah, a carriage with leg-ropes.”

            “See anything else around here?” I enquire.

            “Not at the moment, no. There’s not much in here. ”

            “No offense, but I’m kind of glad about that. Just wait ‘till we get to… wherever it is we’re going,” I assert. “I bet you’ll see a ton of stuff.”

            “Any idea where we’re going, Talith?” Aanya asks him.

            “No idea, but I do know this: this thing isn’t a ship. This room isn’t taking us anywhere. My guess is that we have to go through a door.”