Chapter 46: Chapter 46

Maya “What is it with this place and you?” Ka wondered. They were standing in a ghostly version of the forest they had just left.

Maya thought about it and the forest lit up around them, the leaves and moss glowing neon green. She shook her head to try and clear it, she didn’t have time to play with colours.

“Is there anyone there?” she called out with the intention of all hearing her cry.

“Come on please, we need help!” Ka cried out, and was met with a silence so complete that only the astral plane could have presented. There was no ringing in their ears, or any of the strange noises that our brains normally produce to accompany silence. It was complete, the total absence of sound, shrouded in the cloak of death himself. It had never seemed more morbid than it did at that moment.

“Oh for fucks sake!” shouted Ka, taking Maya’s hand so that they merged into one. He pulled her through the plane, to a group of strange creatures standing talking.

“Hi,” he said, as they vanished one by one into the ether. “Nice, cheers for the help, well appreciated!” He screamed, losing his temper.

A torrent of swear words later and Ka was quite literally a puddle on the ground while Maya stood by, either unwilling or unable to invest any emotion into his state. All she could think of was Ellie, and what she was suffering.

“What is it you want?” A round green shape said from behind them.

“William. Dead. After I get my friend back. Do you know where he is? He’s also called Steve.” Maya told him, holding back little of the fury that was resurfacing.

“You are not alone. Allow me to bring you a person who might be able to help you. Give me a moment please, I’m not sure where she is.” The green blob vanished as quick as it appeared, leaving Maya standing in human form while Ka was an interesting looking yellow blob on the ground.

Maya couldn’t deal with herself, let alone Ka.

, she thought, as she gazed at the puddle that was her boyfriend. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but find humour in the astral plane’s literal interpretation of a melt-down.

The orange blob who had assisted her in finding Joe appeared just as Ka became a floating yellow blob, as opposed to a yellow coloured puddle.

“You seek William, yes?” asked the blob.

“He took my best friend and I don’t know where she is. We think he’s after us and we can’t go home,” Maya told her rapidly, while internally sliding down the slope of self-pity.

“You are not the only one who has lost someone dear to them to William of late, and you are not alone in your search for him.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” demanded Ka, returning to human form. “You won’t even show yourself, you could be him for all we know.”

Maya agreed with his sentiment but was wary of making the orange blob vanish, as it seemed very good at answering her questions. Or at the very least, telling her what she needed to know in order to find her own answers.

“You don’t, but I was more concerned about trusting you, lest he have made contact with you,” to Maya’s surprise, the blob became a human, albeit a rather tall one.

“Are you normally that size?” asked Ka, his head tilted upwards. He was normally one of the taller people around, but this woman had a good foot and a half on him.

“Yes, humans evolve to be taller, I come from a time far in the future of yours, although not directly descended. Think more convergent evolution.” the woman explained patiently.

“He knows we’ve got Joe,” Maya blurted out, wanting to know if the tall woman knew Joe, but instantly kicking herself for risking him.

“Joe as in the man who helped William commit mass genocide in many different universes?” asked the tall woman, a dangerous edge sliding into her voice.

“But he just spent fifteen years as a prisoner and is now a nice old man. He gave me the gift back so it’s mine now, said he didn’t deserve it. And I’m so much stronger now, I engulfed everyone without touching them earlier.” It all spilled out in one long sentence, , thought Maya.

“Okay, back up. Joe’s been imprisoned, by who?” asked the enormous woman with brown hair pulled back into a bun, her voice returning to a safe intonation.

“Ogres on a planet. The woman that nicked his gift left him there. I kept dreaming it, that’s how I knew who’s gift it was, and where he was.”

“Okay, and you really think he’s changed?” she looked somewhat dubious.

“Yeah, I do. He has no power now, he’s old and is with our friends.”

“Right, and did you say you engulfed people without touching them? What kind of danger were you in?”

“No danger. I just went to open a portal and then we were already there,” Maya watched the surprise take over the tall woman’s face as she eyed her suspiciously and looked her up and down.

“And this started after you were gifted the power?” she squinted at Maya, as if against some imaginary light.

“You knew it could be gifted to me? Why didn’t you tell me?” Maya wasn’t answering the woman’s question until she answered hers.

“Because I didn’t know if I could trust you not to force the bearer’s hand. These are dark times we live in,” the woman bent her head as she said the grave words that Maya wished she could not agree with.

“It was just after the gift had returned. It feels like mine now,” as she said the words she knew them to be true, though she hadn’t really focused on it until that point.

The woman looked Maya up and down again, staring particularly at her torso.

“What?” wondered Maya, what was so interesting about her middle regions?

“Nothing,” the woman shook her head. “What happened to your mirror? Has she been released?”

“I don’t know, we need to go there next,” answered Maya, having completely forgotten about her.

A green blob appeared next to the woman and presumably spoke to her, but Ka and Maya were not privy to their conversation.

“I’m afraid I must go. Please remain in the astral plane for as long as you can, and I will get back to you,” and with that, the strange tall woman was gone.

“Did we just have an entire conversation without finding out a thing?” Ka grimaced in a most un-Ka-like way.

“We do appear to have. Are we sticking around for more of her riveting news?” Maya was preferring comedy speech bathed in sarcasm to anything even vaguely serious at that point.

“Oh yes, then she can come and kill us.”

“What if we die in the astral plane?”

“Can we even die here?”

“Dunno, how bout we find out?”

“Yeah, I embrace death. That will help us find Ellie.”

“No, go and ask someone. Firstly, I can’t feel Maya. Can you?”

“No, not at all,” he frowned.

A moment later they were in the cave that had until recently been inhabited by a broken Maya, but was now refreshingly empty. Maya closed her metaphoric eyes and thought of her broken counterpart as hard as she could, but found nothing. She really was gone, released, free at last. Maya’s mission was complete, and yet she was still in it up to her neck and a long way from home.