
Cindy’s faith in the guideline was shaky after her own disastrous climb, but Jackie charged up the mountain without hesitation. She was a good few yards ahead of Cindy even though the others lagged behind. Only Nightwing was willing to match pace with Cindy. His ears were flat, and his tail hung loosely.
The path flattened as the jungle grew thick around them. Cindy clutched the spear so tightly that her hands turned white. Alex carried a wooden spear, and Diana simply hugged her stomach and held a firm expression.
Cindy told them, “I wish you’d stayed behind where it’s safer.”
“What about your safety?” Alex asked. “Don’t pretend like you know what you’re doing after just a few hours. What kind of friend would I be if I let you rush into danger alone?”
Diana added, “And I’m not going to sit around like a coward when my friends are in danger.”
“This isn’t brave; it’s stupid. You’re only in danger because of me.”
“God, can you shut up?”
Cindy stopped in her tracks and stared at Diana in surprise. Even Alex looked taken aback.
Diana scowled. “All this whinging about our safety, acting like we’re stupid for not shrugging it off and giving up on you, it’s just as arrogant and selfish as refusing to take responsibility for your actions. Everything has to be about you.”
“That’s not fair!”
“When you couldn’t keep pretending like we were being unfair and excluding you for no reason, you completely shifted gears to start acting like this is all some noble sacrifice. Now you’re whining that we’re too invested in our friends’ safety instead of letting you be the hero.”
“Enough!” Jackie stormed back down the path toward them. “We have no time for bickering! That thing out there is still listening to us, and it will weaponize anything it hears you rambling about! Stay quiet and keep walking.”
Diana and Cindy exchanged one last glance before turning back to the road. Cindy couldn’t stop chewing over the conversation, though. After all this time, Diana still couldn’t trust Cindy to be honest about anything. Calling her arrogant just for recognizing the truth of the situation? Whether Diana liked it or not, Jackie had been right about the danger they were in, and her friends tagging along was a distraction, not support.
Cindy had been right all along. Despite Terri’s pleas to be vulnerable, and Alex assuring Cindy that people would treat her differently if she changed, Diana only wanted to see the worst in her. And she probably wouldn’t be the only one. Cindy being a girl now didn’t mean getting a second chance.
No amount of admitting that she had been wrong before was going to stop people from throwing accusations at her. And yet for all their talk about safety, they still threw themselves into dangerous situations while accusing her of having a martyr complex? Alex had said that people had the right to hold onto a grudge, but really that was just an excuse for them to hold Cindy to an unfair standard.
The forest changed as they got closer. Trees around them grew thin and sparse with leaves, the soil was leached of color and reduced to a dusty gray. The slope evened out until it was no longer a struggle to walk, but their pace was slowed due to jagged rocks sticking out of the earth. In the distance, Cindy could see faint glimpses of a pale structure, and every time she did, her throat clenched.
The temple, overrun with long-dead vines, was a squat gray stone building nestled in the crevice of a much steeper slope that barely supported the thinnest and sickest of trees. The top of the mountain was visible through bare branches. The structure had an open doorway and several uncovered windows cut from the stone, but no light got inside that Cindy could see.
A stiff wind blew into Cindy from behind, sending goosebumps down her arms, and she closed her eyes to shiver. When she opened them again, she was alone on a vast plain under a burning red sun, standing on the very edge of a wide, dark pit. She blinked, and it was gone, but her heart continued to race as the vertigo made its way out of her system.
“Stay here, along the tree line,” Jackie insisted, exchanging the gun for Cindy’s metal spear. “You’ll be safe as long as it’s occupied with me. Once your friends are out, even if I’m still inside, make your way to the beach immediately. Cindy, you stay here and don’t let anything that leaves the temple get past you. We’ll leave as soon as I’m out of there.”
Cindy nodded, but she was too nauseous to process what Jackie said.
There was no hesitation in Jackie’s stride as she marched into the temple, swallowed by the darkness within. A chill immediately fell over Cindy, and the others shivered as well. Clouds passed in front of the sun to cast a shadow over the whole forest. Bugs and birds fell silent.
Cindy tightened her grip on the rifle and held it close to her chest. Diana started pacing; Nightwing was on her heels, but he would occasionally stop and glare at the temple, flatten his ears, and whine. Alex poked at the ground with his flimsy wooden stick, occasionally swinging it around impotently. As the minutes dragged on, Cindy started to grind her teeth.
Another cool wind pushed at her, this time from the front. She wrinkled her nose at the stale, dusty air. Had it come from inside the temple, reached her from half a football field away?
She heard Alex and Diana talking, but it was super distant. The world at the corners of her vision began to darken, and the atmosphere around her felt heavy; Cindy had to consciously straighten her posture. Every few seconds, a whisper would tickle her ear, and she’d have to scratch it to get the itch out.
Both Diana and Alex made more frequent glances toward the temple, and Nightwing’s whining was interspersed with the occasional frightened bark.
A tightness grasped Cindy by the chest as nausea ran up her throat. She doubled over and started coughing up black phlegm that sizzled when it hit the ground. Her friends screamed—but they sounded so far away—before grabbing onto her shoulders and helping her up. Somehow, Cindy managed to spit the foam from her mouth and wipe her eyes, but she was shaking. Nightwing barked loudly. Her head was spinning as if someone had shaken it violently.
“Something’s wrong,” she choked out, looking toward the temple.
The shadows inside had begun to crawl out of their frames, creeping from the open windows and doorway like a vaporous mold. She managed to get to her feet, but nobody else was looking at the temple. They were staring at her.
“You look like you’re going to throw up again.”
“What even is that?”
A loud screech burst from the building, so inhumanly loud that it forced them to cover their ears while birds scattered from the trees. Cindy’s stomach dropped. Jackie was going to die in there! Her and everyone else!
She took a deep breath and picked up the gun, then took off running.
“Cindy!”
“What are you doing?!”
She ran as fast as she could, but Cindy only made it halfway to the doorway—a gaping maw open wide and ready to receive her—when she felt Alex grab her forearm in an iron grip.
“Let me go!”
“No, you can’t–!”
“I have to try, Alex! No one else can! Take Diana and get to the beach!”
“I’m not–”
“I know you’re not cowards, but it’s the only thing to do that makes sense.”
They held each other’s gaze for a long second before Alex reluctantly let go of her. Cindy stood still for a moment, though she could feel the darkness swelling behind her. She glanced over at Diana, who looked scared—for her or of the situation, Cindy couldn’t say—before turning and running into the building.
As soon as she was through the door, footsteps echoing across dusty stone, the shadows receded enough to let sunlight peer through the windows. She was in a rectangular room big enough for a few dozen people, barren of furniture and too dim to make out details on the wall. Against the far wall was a statue surrounded by bowls and abandoned wood torches.
There was no sign of Jackie anywhere. Stiff, mouth dry, Cindy inched closer to the statue, peering closely to discover that it was a weathered wooden figure that vaguely resembled the six-armed goddess from the mural. The deep holes of its eyes looked to be leaking black phlegm. The sight sent a shiver up Cindy’s back.
A laugh rang out behind Cindy like a sharp crack. She spun around just in time for sickness to overcome her, knocking her to the ground to vomit more bile everywhere as the rifle fell from her hands. The world spun around her as she coughed up thick tar. It pooled around her hands, sucking at her skin like it sought to pull her in deep.
Cindy climbed to her knees, frantically wiping the goo from her mouth and spitting out as much as she could. Someone placed a foot on her shoulder and pushed her down with so much force that she heard her nose break on contact with the floor. She cried out in pain, seeing stars and grabbing around for the gun only for someone to slam their heel into her hand and pin it.
As she raised her head, the stranger hit her square in the back of the head. Her vision returned in brief flashes of other worlds–vast empty plains and still, dead oceans; towers of bone that pierced the sky and let alien matter drift through like gaseous glitter; gangly human limbs that stretched for miles to hammer against glass walls, demanding to be let through.
Something was breathing down her neck. Crying out, Cindy spun over and grabbed the discarded rifle, pulling it close to her and pointing it at the empty space where a person must have just been. She scanned the room, eyes wide and breathing haggard, but everything was still.
Then a death rattle echoed from across the room, and the statue stiffly moved its rotting legs to come down from its pedestal. The stumps of its arms jerked toward Cindy while it cocked its head to the side. Screaming, Cindy pulled the trigger, but the rifle did not fire.
The statue fell forward, and Cindy continued to scream as she rolled out of the way. It hit the ground with a thunk and stuck to the foaming tar.
Cindy was shaken, her breathing ragged. Hair was in her eyes. A slow clap started off on her left, but she refused to look. Footsteps brought the figure closer, until Cindy could see that it was Chris.
“If you’re really too stubborn to leave,” he cooed, “you can at least give up already. What is this token resistance, Cindy? You’re not going to stay here and turn out like that kook.”
Cindy grit her teeth as a sharp pressure built in her temple.
From behind her, Winter added, “What kind of life would you even have if you left? Look at you, so distracted by fear that you’ve forgotten none of this is normal. There would be questions you can’t answer, not without sending more of them here to find Her, to give Her more of the reach she’s been patiently waiting for.”
The pressure doubled as the truth of those words sank in.
“Shut up!” She cried, clutching her head. “Shut up, shut up, shut up–!”
Someone grabbed her by the hair, causing her to shriek.
It was Roberto, who said, “They don’t even like you. Why are you trying to save them? All they did was abuse you for a few simple mistakes.”
“I know what I did was wrong!” Cindy yelled, crying in pain from a pressure so bad she couldn’t see. “I’m not a bad person! I just want people to treat me like a human being!”
A shadow fell over her. Through tears, she could see Terri, who told her, “You believe that now, after being backed into a corner. But if, once I’ve killed the woman keeping you prisoner, you return home to spread Her influence like a good little girl, you’re just going to throw them away for new people instead of taking their ‘perfectly unbiased’ criticisms to heart. Everybody takes the path of least resistance in the end; they didn’t even make the hard decision to be honest with you.”
Like a balloon, Roberto’s head emerged right beside Terri’s, and he suggested, “Or you can stay here and feed Her directly, if you’re sooooo determined to make them feel sorry for you,” before popping and sending bile everywhere.
Terri wiped the tar from her face, looking annoyed, and finished, “But honestly, I’d prefer you leave. Hoping to hitch a ride back with you, myself. Haven’t seen the shore in…” She trailed off, looking thoughtful.
Cindy spat the goo from her mouth and bit the skin of her arm, hoping that the pain could keep her tethered to sanity.
The Terri specter picked up the broken rifle and looked absentmindedly into the barrel before pulling the trigger and making a “pew!” sound with her mouth.
Then she fixed Cindy with an angry glare. “Time’s up, Clay. Are they right about you, or are they just assholes?”
Every bone in Cindy’s body screamed for her to run, to throw herself out the mouth of the temple and sprint all the way to the beach, to climb on board that boat and not look back until she was safely on the mainland. And it would probably let her, too. But she could also feel the specter’s grimy fingers scraping at the edge of her consciousness, waiting for her defenses to fall so it could sink them right into her brain. No matter what she decided, it gained and she lost.
Cindy let go of her arm to find the skin broken by teeth marks, and she spat out a glob of blood.
“I just wanted them to like me for who I was,” she admitted. “I didn’t really care about being likable.” She felt it hammer against her mind, a ringing sensation that made her vision blurry, but she grit her teeth and took a deep breath. “But fuck them, right? I can’t make them like me, and I have a right to be upset at them too. We all fucked up, and maybe we can’t fix that, but we can go our separate ways. I’ll meet new people, and I’ll be the kind of friend that everyone else was to me when they first met ‘Cindy’; a good friend, not just a presence that people tolerate.”
“You’re a fucking liar!” The specter grabbed the barrel of the gun and swung it around to hit Cindy in the side of the face. She went sprawling, and then Terri knelt down to look her in the eye. “Be the bad guy or don’t, let me in or go home, but cut this wishy-washy bullshit! Are they right about you or not?!”
They held for a full minute as Cindy’s breathing slowly returned to normal. The specter was unnaturally still, not breathing or blinking or making any adjustments to its posture. The longer Cindy stared into its eyes, the less and less she recognized it as a person at all.
“I apologized to them,” Cindy said, climbing to her knees. “Some of them accepted it, some of them didn’t. All I can do is try to be better toward people I meet in the future. I don’t have to like how they acted to understand why they feel like they do, and I don’t need a second chance to be forgiven.”
“You sound like a fucking coward, you know tha–?”
With a roar, Cindy leapt at the specter, knocking it to the ground and slamming her fist right into its face. It yielded like a soft spongy cake to reveal more bile beneath. Swiftly, the rest of the body dissolved and Cindy scooted away, dragging the broken rifle alongside her. The force pressing down on her was gone, and Cindy felt lighter than she had since… ever.
It was dead still in the temple for a moment before a faint whistle started to rise. Cindy cocked her head to the side and inched closer to the origin of the noise: a hairline crack in the stone floor. As she stared at it, the crack fractured, then grew deeper as the whistle turned into the whoosh of rushing air.
Cindy scrambled back as the floor before her started to collapse in on itself, air rushing down the sudden gaping and growing hole. It was hard to get traction on the wet floor, and Cindy felt herself being dragged forward with the bile as it was sucked into the hungry drain. She only barely managed to outpace the growing maw in the ground, bracing herself in the open doorway as from deep inside the pit emerged the wails of innumerous voices.
Then she blinked and everything was as still as it ever had been. The floor was unbroken, and the black goo had disappeared, leaving Cindy covered in mere dirt and dust. Scattered around the temple were the unconscious bodies of Jackie and her friends.
I like the speechifying, honestly. I love a good conflict, and the switching perspectives of the island's influence really works.