Lady Nemesis and I talked until the wee hours of the morning. When I started yawning from exhaustion, my former mentor and leader escorted me to the elevator. My floor was just above hers..
It’s nice to know she’s not far.
“Are you sure you’re going to be alright, Adrestia?” Nemesis asked gently.
“No, but…but I have to try.” It was useless to play the tough girl around my teacher. She knew me almost as well as my immediate family members. Better, even, because she could read thoughts. Lying just wasn’t an option.
“No, you don’t. You don’t have to do or be anything you’re not ready to do or ready to be. Take your time and do what makes you comfortable, including sleeping in the comfort of someone else’s company.”
“Okay, I don’t have to try, but I want to try.”
Lady Nemesis shook her head.
“Your father’s pride runs through you. I hope it doesn’t lead you astray.”
What could I say to that? It wasn’t really a compliment, even though there was no intention of insult. It was a warning made with love and care. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel a sting. Partially because I admired my father so much, and the comment about his pride did not seem to be a compliment. Partially because I didn’t feel like I was as similar to him as Nemesis implied.
“Goodnight, Lady Nemesis.” I stepped into the elevator to my apartment, not bothering with raising my hand in salute as I had when I reunited with Lady Nemesis. I was too tired and too troubled to keep up with the formalities.
“Goodnight, Adrestia. Sleep well.” With that, the elevator door closed, cutting me off from Lady Nemesis.
I was alone in the elevator. I was alone.
…
I flicked on the light switch, bathing my living room and kitchen in warm light. I scanned my new home slowly, lingering on every shadow cast about the room.
The blinds.
I rushed over to the wall of windows, quickly pulling the blinds down until not a shred of night could penetrate my new corner of the world.
I checked behind the couch to see there were no unexpected guests hiding about. I did the same with every door and cabinet in the place. Anywhere a human could reasonably hide, I checked. And not one spot housed a single other soul. But that didn’t stop me from drawing the blinds on all the windows in the apartment. I also locked my bedroom door before stripping off my sweaty party clothes and pulling on my comfortable pajamas, boxer shorts, and a tank top.
I slipped into the sheets of the comfortable bed Eros and Clio had picked out for me. While I found it comfortable, it was my first night in the God Complex, and I couldn’t stop myself from tossing and turning. Everything was too soft and too light. There was no weight, no cocooning protection, no hardness to ground me in reality.
To make matters worse, every time I closed my eyes, images from my alternate life plagued me. I saw Kimmika and her smiling face. I saw the rage in Lieutenant Colonel Arnold’s eyes. I saw the graves of my dearest friends. I felt the absence of my right leg. I had to keep my hand perpetually connected to the limb to remind myself I hadn’t lost it, and that all was right in my world.
Except for that butler, he was still the loose end, the unknown quantity. So long as I didn’t know where he was or what he was up to, all was not right in my world.
I have to find him.
I threw the covers back and dropped into my meditative seated position on the carpeted floor. Taking deep breaths, I cleared my mind and allowed myself to fall into a trance. I focused on the dark hair and attractive face of the butler, willing my senses to seek him out.
The vision from my third eye was thrown out of the God Complex, straight into the atmosphere. My gaze did not stop until I was looking down on Earth with the same view as the International Space station. I could see what parts of the world were about to be blanketed by the night’s uncertainty, and those lucky souls who were still basking in the sun’s warm comfort.
Where is he? Where is he?
My vision lingered in the sky longer than was typical of this trance. I’d never experienced a delay like this in all my time honing and using this power, not even when I had been a novice under Lady Nemesis’s guidance.
From my stationary view, I was sling-shotted into a flying orbit around the planet, watching it speed by beneath me. It was reminiscent of that Superman scene where he flies around the world so fast it and time moved backward. That sixth sense of mine usually propelled me to my target quickly like that, but it was usually over just as soon as it began. That time, I kept speeding through the cosmos as the earth spun beneath me.
It seemed to go on forever until I came to an abrupt stop and began plummeting back to Earth. My sight crashed through the roof of a familiar skyscraper, taking me floor by floor until I was thrown back into my body. The violence with which I returned to my physical form actually threw me out of my meditative seat into a prone state.
I lay on the ground, trying to collect my bearings. It took a moment for the room to stop spinning and for my bleary eyes to focus. By the time I could think straight again, there was only one question on my mind.
What in the actual Tartarus just happened?
Two thousand years of living, most of which I’d spent being able to always find my targets, and nothing like this had ever happened before.
Kelsey Anne Lovelady was born in Billings, Montana and grew up in Bozeman. At fifteen her family moved to Shawnee Mission, Kansas. She stayed there from her Junior year of high school up until she graduated from Johnson County Community College with her Associate of Arts Degree in Arts and Science. She graduated from the University of Wyoming with her B.F.A. in Musical Theatre and her Minor in Writing. She published her first book, "STAFROGED: Orion" on the day she graduated, and is in the process of rewriting it. She has also dabbled in writing for the theatre with her 10-Minute Play "How Are You?", which was produced by the True Troupe of Cheyenne as part of their 2019 Wrights of Wyoming Playwrighting Festival.
- How a Movement Began - September 3, 2022
- One Last Job - June 23, 2022
- Weaknesses - February 8, 2022