Chapter 8 – Home

Together, the three of them plopped down on the couch, which had plenty of space. Seth rubbed her eyes. The illumination seemed to be coming from the walls with some lighting system similar to that of an office space. Marley tucked her legs up under her and Marisa stared ahead at the big black box.

Seth’s attention was instead on the dresser, the only other piece of furniture. She hopped up and sifted through it. Unlike all the other dressers, this one was packed to the brim with useful items. There were snacks with names and colors she vaguely remembered, hand sanitizers, paper products, drink bottles, changes of clothes, perishable food, and even some books. For the sake of the others, who were still seated, Seth called out each item. She paused at the first book and inquired, “Anyone ever read Neuromancer by William Gibson?”

Marley and Marisa both shook their heads. Seth turned it over a few times, remarking, “I might’ve read it, but I can’t remember. And there’s The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien…that one I definitely feel like I’ve read before…” Seth flipped the book open and paged through. The cover for the first title was gray with the words written in a generic script. The second was the same but brown. She figured there had to be more books but focused on these for the moment.

As she paged through them, she frowned. Marley, who was watching her, immediately asked, “What’s wrong?” Marisa broke eye contact with the box and glanced over too. Seth tossed one book to Marisa and the other to Marley. They opened them up like Seth had done. It wasn’t long before they wore strange expressions as well.

Marisa was the first to say, “It’s just full of gibberish. Or something. I mean it almost seems readable but just parts here and there.”

Seth immediately asked, “What can you read?” Marisa squinted at the text and tried to describe what she was seeing, “Like a T…or it could be an H. And then some round letters to be sure and then one I don’t even recognize. This can’t be English.”

Cracking her neck, Seth gazed off and asked the sort of question they’d avoided so far, “What is English?”

Marisa looked at her with momentary bewilderment as she answered, “You know…English. What we’re speaking. Right?”

Seth replied, “And how do you know that? How do you know what that word means and how can we speak despite the massive gaps we have in our memory?”

It was the unanswerable question and it just made Marisa clutch her head. She had nothing to offer and Marley was still peering closely at her book. Seth answered her own question, “I think we know it because it’s there. We have our memories, but something is keeping us from fully-accessing them.”

Marisa swiftly concluded, “Sim…”

All Seth could offer was a shrug and the words, “Could be. But could be something else. We don’t know…”

Marley glanced between them and said softly, “Actually…I can read this.” She pointed to the book she held and read a little bit. Without context, they could only listen to the stream of words. It sounded like part of a story. An odd story but one they could understand with a setting and characters.

Seth leaned over Marley and asked her to put her finger on the words as she read them. Looking over her shoulder, Seth marveled as Marley made sense of blobs and shapes that didn’t look anything like language. The same was true for Marisa. Seth could only shake her head and remark, “I couldn’t understand any of that.”

Apologizing profusely, Marley set the book down and said, “I don’t know why I can understand it…” Seth shook her head and said, “No no, this is good. It means…perhaps you might be able to see things we can’t. I mean there’s our name tags. Those must be in English or something else we can understand. And then there’s that writing on the black box over there.”

Marisa’s eyes widened as she asked, “You mean you can understand the alien script on that thing?” Seth frowned and asked her, “You don’t understand what’s written on the black box?” Marley and Marisa both shook their heads. Seth felt genuinely surprised and told them, “It’s what Sim said before he or she vanished. Never open the box. It’s perfectly clear to me.”

Shaking her head, Marisa said, “Not for me.” Marley answered the same. Seth scratched at her hair and rubbed her chin as she asked, “And this is the first time you’ve experienced something like this around us outside of a vision?” The thing they had to sign was one instance of blurred script. The others confirmed with nods that this was the first time they’d seen something they couldn’t read in this place.

Marisa was the first who wanted to blame Sim, surmising, “That jailer must be messing with us again. I mean I vaguely remember what you said about the box, but I was having my clothes changed into this odd bartender getup. Marley?” Marley remembered the words clearly.

Seth paced. The box still loomed. After a bit of thinking, Seth posed, “What if we try to write something? Might we understand one another?” She hadn’t seen a pen in the dresser, but they would only need to write on the margins and blank spaces of the books. Digging under clothes a few levels, Seth finally came up with a pen, similar to the one she’d been given by the man who wanted his/her signature on a piece of paper she couldn’t read.

Tapping her lip with the cap of the pen, she considered what to write. After a moment, she announced, “Let’s each write something in our own way and see if we can read each other’s script.” They passed around the book that Marley could read, and each wrote something along the edge of a page they’d picked out. Seth picked a space near the cover while Marley picked a place near the back and Marisa chose a random page towards the center (she dog-eared it so they could find it). Once that was all done, Seth was the first to check and see if the script was legible. With a pleasant smirk before she looked, she quipped, “Hopefully none of us has trouble with handwriting.” The others chuckled.

Checking her own words first, she saw something different than what she’d written, followed by Marisa’s and then Marley’s. They formed a statement.

There’s no way out, my little Jessica. You’ll always be mine. Just one question this time…do you believe in souls?

The others blanched as they read their own. Each statement ended with the same two lines but the first read differently.

As she trembled, Marley read, “You’ll never see your parents again, my little pyro.” She cupped her mouth and hid her cries. With a breath, Marisa read her altered line as, “You’ll never know the real you, my little toy.”

Trembling with fury, Marisa chucked the book across the room. It stayed there, next to the box, as she panted and cursed, despite an uncomfortable look towards Marley. She softly apologized but Marley shook her head and proclaimed, “No….Sim is….that thing is…an ASSHOLE. And I... I-I’d burn him screaming into ash if I could…” A brutal look crossed Marley’s eyes of the kind closer to the other Marley. It stayed there only a moment before she hung her head and clutched her arms. Marisa comforted her as Seth stood to retrieve the book from where it had been hurled.

Seth tried to keep a wary distance between herself and the strange, black box. She crouched down to retrieve the book. Then, she frowned. A tingling filled her like there was electricity in the air. She turned the book over a few times and flipped it open. She remarked suddenly, “My brother gave me this book because of a TV show I liked. It was a year before he enlisted. We would always watch stuff together when I came back from college.”

Her mouth open, Seth marveled at all she’d said. She’d spoken it like the clearest dream but it was there, solid and certain. She’d recovered a memory. Taking a step towards the others however, the clarity of the memory began to fade. How long ago was it? She remarked, “But when I step away from the box, it’s like it takes the memory with it…” Stepping back, she could feel it getting fresher again and relayed this news to the others. They all stood up from their couch and stepped towards Seth.

Marley spoke first with quiet enthusiasm, announcing, “A dog. I have a dog. Crumpet! Her name is Crumpet. A setter…all brown fur.” She sniffled and crouched, as though motioning to an invisible dog.

Marisa held her arms and took a deep breath. “My home growing up kept changing. We had to move because of my father. But my favorite home was a big, blue two-story house in the suburbs. It looked like a bunch of boxes pasted together. Some weird…modernist construction. I liked our storage room…” She paused and cupped her hands to her mouth.

At Seth’s urging, she finally blurted out, “It’s just like the cubes…where we found ourselves. Not white. Blue! The exact same blue. The same tall ceilings. Only packed with stuff. Old storage. New things. And a big door worn like greasy sapphire at the edges.”

Cupping her chin, Seth looked to Marisa and mulled, “That sounds familiar. Perhaps we’re related and we both know the same house.” Marley communicated, “That house sounds like a place I know…maybe. But I’m not sure.” She kept her distance as Seth stepped a little closer to the box. Marisa immediately cautioned, “Be careful.”

Seth nodded to her and gave a quick smile to Marley before taking a breath. The box reflected her only a little, like cloudy volcanic glass. Her basic shape showed with the glow of the diffuse light of the room, but she couldn’t see her face. The words loomed, blank white, and she tried to get as close as she could without touching it. She tried to breathe on it, but the surface didn’t show any changes.

Leaning back, she scratched her neck and asked the others, “Any new memories?” They both had to shake their heads as Seth added, “Same here, unfortunately.” Rubbing her arm, she watched the words again and said, “It doesn’t say anything about poking it. So long as it doesn’t open.”

Proceeding carefully, Seth threw both books at the box a few times. It didn’t give off a hollow sound or much sound at all as they thudded against it. Next, came chucking a shoe or two. Finally, she gently placed her palm upon the surface of the box and had a moment to reflect, “It feels like obsidian or something volcanic maybe…”

Then, she tried to pull her hand away from the surface. It held fast. She leaned to look at her hand, to see what it was stuck on, when she gasped softly before screaming, “MY HAND!”

Seth’s eyes trembled, wide and bleak, as she looked at her hand stretch like reddish-pink putty. Her fingers curled with the grip of the surface and her flesh flattened like her bones were being dissolved. She screeched and struggled to pull her hand away. A knife. A fucking knife! She called for one from the dresser. Marisa wrapped her arms around Seth’s stomach and tried to pull with all her might. Marley bolted for the dresser. The grip on Seth’s hand seemed to tighten.

Digging into her heels didn’t help as the floor was glossier than it had been. Seth screamed, “SIM! YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” She didn’t hear laughing but she could imagine it. The torn sections of her wrist looked like a claymation horror. They weren’t bleeding but the insides showed with angry muscle. Seth grunted and cried with all her might. Marisa sweated and strained, but the box held tightly.

Marley ran towards Seth with something in her hands, yelling, “This! Please hold on!”

She rushed to Seth. Then, suddenly, her entire body bent like she’d been slammed. Her cries went up and Seth and Marisa could only watch as Marley flew head and neck first into the surface of the box. Seth covered her eyes with her free hand.

The silence lasted for far too long. Finally, Seth unmasked her view. For a quiet instant, she hoped that maybe Marley had just rebounded off and was fine. But, as she looked, she stared on in horror. Marley’s face had become stretched taffy with her hair in a tangle. Her shoulder had been changed into long, strand-like crimson swiss cheese. In a horrifying moment, Seth thought of a licorice candy, Red Vines, from some otherwise blank moment of her childhood, unraveled.

Quivering and with muscles fighting one another as she lifted her hand, Marley held out a stainless steel butter knife for Seth, saying a gurgling, “Heeeerrrrrreee….heeeeelllppp.”

Marisa sobbed and tried to seize the knife as the same invisible force pressed them all into the wall of the box. She screamed as her leg melted into the surface. Seth and Marisa were the only ones facing outward and only they managed to see Sim, in Seth’s male form, sitting on the lone couch, dressed all in gray.

Marley’s head looked like a scrambled balloon. She said nothing else.

Putting a finger to his chin, Sim grinned as he remarked, “Addendum. You probably shouldn’t touch that particular box.” Then, he leaned his head back and unleashed waves of laughter. Marisa crunched her teeth and tried to spit as far as she could in his direction.

Seth turned away from the box, twisting her free hand under herself. It just trapped her further, but she had enough leverage to press against the surface. Half of Marley had been eaten as Marisa strained to cradle what was left of her friend. Seth could hear her retching. Staring ahead at Sim, Seth said only, “You are mine, fucker.”

Before Sim could quip, Seth pushed off from the box. She tore away from the surface, ripping her body and flesh away. It shifted back to its normal shape with just her fingertips still entangled. At that moment, Seth watched and saw a sudden flash of wide-eyed horror cross Sim’s gaze. Seth seared that moment into her memory.

Then, Sim put on a vicious look as the box swelled to take hold of Seth again. This time, no amount of pressing would let her slip free and, along with Marisa and Marley, she dissolved into the surface of the black box without a trace left behind.