Chapter 12 – Alive

Marlise gave a single nod to the man’s question and hoarsely-replied, “I’ll live.” She looked back to Oswald, who rolled around on the ground listlessly.

The man folded his hands and stood between her and Oswald as he noted, “I can’t imagine doing that to anyone, even my own worst enemy…if I had one.”

Marlise gave a faint cough and didn’t say her thought that she wouldn’t mind returning the ‘favor’ on Oswald. She did say, “He shot my friend.”

The man’s smile diminished as he offered her a pained look before rubbing his chin and thinking aloud, “Want me to tie him up with something so he doesn’t hurt anyone else?”

If they had something to tie him up with, and something to tie him to, then that could’ve worked. In the meanwhile, the man stood with his arms folded, casting a protective gaze between Marlise and Oswald.

After a few quiet moments, the man blinked and gave a friendly smirk before mentioning, “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. I’m Nicolas. Nicolas Hatch.”

All the feelings carving themselves within Marlise settled to the familiar ease of questioning confusion. She bowed her head and shook Nicolas’s hand before offering, “I’ve had a few names here. It’s Marlise right now. It was Seth to start and Marley for a bit.”

Her top hadn’t shown her name lately, but she couldn’t quite remember when it had gone missing. Probably around the body swap. Nicolas, like Oswald, didn’t have one.

With a raised eyebrow, Nicolas settled on “Seth?” as a question. He didn’t get much further with it as Oswald growled to his feet and flailed at him. A punch in the nose and a solid kick returned him to the ground without further protest. Nicolas quipped, with a sigh, “Feisty one.”

Marlise bowed her head and said, “I was a guy when I first showed up here in a small cube room without any openings. The weird room which followed started twisting and confusing everything about me. I swapped bodies with someone named Marley and she with me.”

Nicolas didn’t seem surprised by her admission. He folded his arms and noted, “Seems like you’ve been through a lot. Not as exciting here but I did start out in a room like you say.”

As Marlise listened, Nicolas explained how he woke up the same way Seth did. But he didn’t have a vision like hers. The situation was more like Isaac’s. Doors slowly opening for him until he found an area to get something to eat, to which he added, “If you’re hungry…the way back should be clear.”

Marlise asked about monsters, the kind they hadn’t seen since bomb-loving Marley-Sim showed up. He hadn’t seen any but he did mention, “There are plenty of spooky areas.”

Taking a breath, she said, “I can tell you everything I know so far…”

Nicolas smiled and gestured a hand to Oswald, “Feel free. However, I worry about the company.” Marlise coughed to clear her throat and asked, “So, what do we do?”

After pondering, Nicolas mentioned, “I don’t have any rope but I have some clothes I can rip up and tie him up with where I’m staying right now.” The problem with that was obvious, as Marlise didn’t want to be left alone again, either with Oswald or to go searching on her own. The only answer was to leave Oswald for the moment, something Nicolas didn’t like one bit. He kept looking back as Oswald huffed into the ground.

Asking the question Marlise figured he would ask first, Nicolas inquired, “Why do you think he would do…what you said? Kill your friend and then try to kill you too.”

Clenching her mouth, Marlise glared at Oswald’s fallen form and quietly corrected with as much calm as she could hold onto, “I didn’t say she was dead. She’s not dead. She can’t be.”

Nicolas gave a little nod. “Right. Sorry there. So, he’s just a madman then?”

Marlise sighed softly and offered, “I dunno. I just know he arrived yelling and threatening me and my friends. We explained what we could. He didn’t believe us, and it escalated from there.”

Nicolas gave a grunt. “Shame that. People always fighting. Come on, let’s put some space between us.” He led Marlise down the hall. It didn’t look quite the same as it had when she first arrived. It was narrower but without any sign of getting smaller. There were turns in the distance which led off to the left and the right with a few changes in direction along the way.

After several turns down the path, they came to a larger area which reminded Marlise of somewhere she’d seen before, although the name of it eluded her. The walls were high, though typical of the kind she’d seen so far. The floor space was handsomely decorated with a flat-panel TV to one side, some cabinets behind it, and a small kitchen area along with a couple of beds and an adjoining bathroom with a nice-looking tub and toilet. It was so strangely normal that it could nearly convince Marlise that they weren’t in the prison-like environment they were in. She settled on a nearby couch carefully. Nicolas noticed and asked, “Afraid that all this will vanish?”

Bowing her head, Marlise replied, “It’s happened before.”

Nicolas gave her a sympathetic look and softly said, “I can’t imagine what sort of shit you’ve been through but I hope things get better for you. Would you like something to eat?”

Marlise gave a little nod as Nicolas opened up something she soon realized was a ‘fridge’. Seeing it opened, it clicked for her and she wondered how she could ever imagine what she was seeing as anything else. She marveled and relayed to Nicolas, “That’s a refrigerator.”

Nicolas held the door open a little wider for her and remarked to the bounty within, “And fully stocked. All pretty fresh but that’s just going by smell and looks.”

He retrieved two fruits that Marlise recognized as apples and gave her one of them while biting into the other. After turning the flame-toned apple around a few times, Marlise took a tentative bite before indulging in a bigger chomp.

Nicolas, still eating, searched around the drawers and came out with a couple of long, soft fabric pants in weird and garish colors. He tore them into long strips and moved back towards the opening. Marlise rose to follow but he waved her off calmly by saying, “I can take care of it. Will be right back.”

Marlise watched the opening after Nicolas left. A kitchen was sure to have knives. She wanted one in easy reach in case Oswald managed to overwhelm or evade Nicolas and wanted to finish what he started. She looked through all the cabinets until she came across a large cleaver. Not what she had in mind, but it was sharp enough that running her finger across it nearly cut her. She sat back on the couch and kept it to her side, hidden.

She scratched at her hands. The sense she got from Nicolas was to make herself at home, but she didn’t want to take any other food without asking. She slipped the cleaver into her dark pants, which Marley once wore, and peeked around inside whatever would open for her.

When she was done, she rested against the wall and glanced up at the ceiling. She didn’t know if Sim was there or in any direction in particular, but she addressed him, “So, what’s next, asshole?…What’s next to try to hurt me and my friends?” She folded her arms, no answer received.

Eventually, she went to the bathroom, where she used the facilities and washed her hands. Brushing back a bit of Marley's hair before it slid back to cradle her eye, she looked herself over. Or rather, she looked Marley’s body over.

The goggles were long gone to the same ether as the name tag but the outfit she’d seen on the Sim replica of Marley was the same. She wondered over herself. Out of the blue, she had an impression of a punk rocker with dark photos and strange manipulations posted on a gray and black website online. It was an island of perception and understanding rising out of a voidless ocean of blank thoughts. She reflected on this to herself, not knowing exactly what an ‘online’ was nor a ‘punk rocker’, with only vague feelings beyond that.

The black accent around her eyes was pleasant. And, by any sense of Seth, she was gorgeous. At the same time, she knew this wasn’t her body. It was borrowed from Marley.

“You’ve certainly adapted to being a girl.” The voice was in her head with an impression of herself standing beside her. It was Marley but neither the quiet one nor the violent one. It was more a Marley she might’ve been if she’d been born like this. She dabbed at her nose with some paper and focused on the other Marley.

The image and words faded. It wasn’t Sim. It was her own thoughts. She noted this to the presence beside her.

The other shrugged and said, “Makes sense but who knows…”

When Marlise was ignoring her double, it went away. It was something of her own creation standing nearby. She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than having Sim screw with her.

She mused, “Maybe I’ve gone mad.”

Sympathetically, her imaginary friend other-self offered, “Everyone needs to talk to someone sometimes. This Nicolas seems nice but what happens when he knows what Oswald knows?”

Marlise continued, “Never mind whether he has any dark secrets…”

The other rubbed at her neck. “Let’s not think too badly of him. Although Sim’s interference could be making him look like your brother…he might be someone else entirely.”

She sat next to Marlise when she returned to the couch with her legs pulled up. A floating hand passed through Marlise’s shoulder as her other said, “But that’s not the worst thing on your mind. It’s leaving Semara all alone…and Marisa.”

Both of them reiterated together, “She’s not dead. She’s alive.” Marlise bowed her head and muttered, “Saying it twice doesn’t help as much as I hoped.”

Her other passed her hand across her hair despite the fact she couldn’t feel it. “You felt nothing in the mirror as you looked at your body. Either as a man or a woman inside.”

Glancing down at her breasts, Marlise passed a hand through her hair and noted, “Not sure how much of either I am now or which I’m supposed to be. Right now is just a stopping place till the next thing happens to my body.”

The other gave a rising smirk. “Girl or boy. You still like the body though.”

Marlise held onto the rudimentary elements of a giggle without letting them form together into a full one. She returned to the mirror with her other nearby. Slowly, purposefully, she felt her body. Her hands were a little rough after washing and scratching. She caressed them carefully before cupping her neck. Her other faded with the loss of attention.

She moved all over her body, giving her chest and other soft areas a slow but not lingering exploration. When she was done, she calmly looked at herself in the mirror. It was close to Marley’s body, but it was hers for the moment. She was Marlise, in affirmation of her choice, and this was her body.

Feeling more familiar, she considered the tub nearby but without a change of clothes and with the feeling of Sim gazing from the ceiling above, she put off that indulgence for the moment and instead returned her attention to Nicolas’s absence.

Pacing along with nail-biting didn’t help to hasten his return. She touched her stomach. Despite using the restroom, she still felt uneasy within with a gurgle. Marlise softly asked the empty doorway, “Please come back…” But it remained empty.

Just when her fears felt ready to overwhelm her, she heard a distant sound. A soft and careful sound. Footsteps with a bit of dragging. She may have imagined a grunt and some muffled words, but she knew the sounds as shuffle and drag. Shuffle and drag. Emerging from the ear-blanking static of her own heartbeat, above the sounds of her body, it got loud enough she knew it was approaching her.

Hope filled her at first which was then twisted into an image of Oswald dragging Nicolas’s corpse behind him. Cleaver discretely hidden, she stood and placed herself so she could make a run and slash for her survival if she needed to. She thought she heard a woman’s voice speaking but couldn’t be sure. She questioned to herself if she’d actually heard it at all.

Then, the sounds became unmistakable as they echoed down the hall and then just a few feet away. The cleaver was finally forgotten when she saw Nicolas shuffling backwards with Oswald’s restrained but squirming body dragging behind. He waved and chuckled, “Took more than I thought…and check this out!”

Someone was holding the other end of Oswald enough that his head wasn’t dragging across the floor all the time but she wasn’t strong enough to lift him all the way up. She puffed as Nicolas finally set the cloth-strips-wrapped, mummy-like shape of Oswald to one side and they both looked to Marlise.

Marlise hadn’t moved her eyes from the woman who dragged Oswald’s head. She gulped with tears twinkling the sides of her eyes before they streaked down her cheeks. She was looking into Marisa’s face, her female face with her bartender outfit a bit scuffed up in places but much the same as she’d worn when they’d been pulled inside the black box.

Openly weeping, Marlise didn’t move towards Marisa at first. She’d seen enough of Sim’s deception to watch out. But the playful way Marisa brushed her hair and then the sympathetic frown as she noticed Marlise’s tears were enough to break through the doubts. Marlise wrapped her arms around her friend and said, “I was afraid you were dead. I can’t believe…I can’t…you’re okay…” She touched Marisa’s arms as she hugged her and whimpered.

Marisa took a moment to put her arms around her in turn, remarking, “I think I’m okay. I’m glad this guy here found me. And umm….I’m glad you’re happy.”

Tension and anxiety flowed through Marlise as she finally let go of Marisa and looked her over. There was something in her eyes. Marlise braced herself and asked, “What is it?”

Marisa took a breath and gave a little frown. “It’s just…the way you look at me. It’s like you know me. And I’m so sorry to say this…but I have no idea who you are.”