Fantasy Paradise Regained ( Syntra & whereisalice)

[Syntra]

It was supposed to her last job. Her swansong, before she bought a charming seaside chateaux and retired. A lifetime of sipping on mimosas was waiting, man! (Fine, fine, it wasn't. Still, Callisto had always wanted to say that, y'know? Made it feel that much more climactic-- infinitely better than 'aww, man, another boring Tuesday.' That being said... no, this wasn't another boring Tuesday. Not by a longshot.)

"An artifact, you say?" the blonde cast a sideways glance at the man sitting in front of her, and lit a cigarette. She blew the smoke right in his face, as was her charming custom, but the guy didn't even flinch. (Come to think of it, did he have a face? A totally legitimate question, by the way, given the crowd she usually hung out with. Some demons only bothered to put up a haphazard approximation of human appearance, authentic enough at a single glance. When you really paid attention, though? Well, let's just say that you might notice something interesting. You might also paint a pretty large target on your back, though, which made Callisto believe that the average human's cluelessness was actually a pretty cool survival mechanism.) "That's not going to be cheap, mate."

"Don't me mate me, Callisto. And besides, when have I ever not paid you? I think that, at this point in our relationship, we might as well skip the theatrics." Callisto pursed her lips. Yes, they might, but where would be the fun with that? Being a bounty hunter didn't mean that she had to sit in the corner and pretend that she was way cooler than she actually was. Like, good on the people that wanted to be a walking fucking cliche, but Callisto didn't belong to that demographic. For one, she'd been over the teen angst for years now!

"Do we have to, though? It's one of the few joys that I didn't have to give up. I mean, given the rate at which this stuff," she waved the cigarette demonstratively, extinguishing it in the process, "is getting more and more expensive, I think I'm gonna have to quit smoking, too. This is a very traumatic time in my life."

Somehow, despite his facial features being shrouded in shadows, Callisto could tell that he was unimpressed. "When are you not suffering from some trauma? You collect those like normal people collect Pokémon cards."

"Nobody collects Pokémon cards anymore, man." With her mind's eye, Callisto could see his proverbial patience-o-meter shortening, and that brought her great satisfaction. Gotta enjoy the little joys, right? Considering that she was, you know, shackled to him. (A prisoner of vow, made back when the earth had still been young. And, spoiler alert-- that had been a hot fucking minute. Geez. Time really did fly when you had... hmm, could you even call it fun? If you liked submerging your hand in boiling water, then yeah, Callisto supposed so.)

"Just go!" he snarled. "I've wasted enough time with you already, you willful child. And remember, do try to be discreet about it. I don't need everyone to know that... well." That he was making his move before everyone else, huh? Because if the rumors were true, and the boss managed to get his hands on that... heh. The whole power balance would go down the fucking drain.

***

Trentbury. The minds of those ruled by cliches called it poetic nonsense like 'the city that never slept' or 'the jewel of the north,' but Callisto knew better than that-- if you were looking for a descriptor, 'fucking cesspool' worked much, much better. With disdain, she passed by the man who was trying to sell her a 'totally not stolen watch, my dude' and put her hands in her pockets. Where was...? Ah, there. (Her fingers wrapped around the small, round object, and immediately, Callisto felt at peace. Her compass. Her promise, too. The proof of her covenant, locked in that piece of metal.) She pulled it out, looking at the arrow-- the thingie kept spinning, round and round and round, but she knew better than to rely on it. Not yet, anyway. "Show me," she whispered. "Where is it? That which I am looking for." Sometimes, a gentle word was better than a sword, and that went double for convincing magical objects to actually work. The arrow shuddered, either in pleasure or pain, and pointed... straight ahead? Towards all those skyscrapers? Alright. Not the most appropriate place for an artifact of untold power, but, to be honest, she probably shouldn't be the one to complain. After all, who would expect her in Trentbury? Definitely not those fucks who fantasy books, that was for sure.

Callisto walked, emptying her head of unnecessary thoughts. Just focus. Listen, and there's no way you'll miss it. It's definitely-- ah. Was it there? Did someone in that crowd have it, somehow? Alright, now that was a first! Not that Callisto judged people according to their appearance, but it definitely seemed as if a) they were your average party-goers, b) one of them had come into possession of concentrated death. The contrast was, uh, something. Alright, time to see which one of you won the fucking lottery. Once again, the blonde reached into her pockets, and pulled out one perfect snowflake-- she pressed it against her lips, too, and, surprise, surprise, time itself froze. It didn't for a certain girl, though. Bingo.

"Hey, you there!" Callisto shouted, waving at the lone figure. "Have you got a minute to talk about that priceless artifact you have stolen? 'Cause the rightful owner would like it back." ...what? Might as well try being nice! (Blah blah blah, something about good karma. Plus, killing civilians was also plain embarrassing, and Callisto didn't feel like dealing with blood on her new shoes.)

 

[whereisalice]

Adaliah Joann Finch, or Ada Finch to friends and family, had never in her thirty years and five been a stranger to stranger things. ‘Strange’ was the word that came to be her permanent descriptor ever since she learned the meaning, and to everyone but her it came to mean a sign of hidden danger. She was estranged, too, as much to herself as to others, whether by will or circumstance it’s hard to tell, if not due to her eerie talent then the bad luck that followed suit wherever she went, and whoever she met it afflicted like a seasonal flu.

Brushing her teeth with an ordinary toothbrush on an ordinary Monday morning, she would on occasion catch her extraordinary reflection in the bathroom mirror – the sickly pale face and dead grey eyes a stranger would think malnourished; the arms so slender one could probably break them in half like twigs; the frame disgustingly gaunt – the thing looked like something sucked all life out of it. Then her fists would clench and face tremble with frustration, and she would toss her toothbrush against the mirror, hoping deep down for toothpaste splatters to cover the reflection. They never ever did, and the memories of victims to her ‘seasonal flu’ would spring to mind. Like…

Like George Sr., and surnamed Esther or something along the lines. He was a family man with an easy-going attitude, and first to knock on the door of Ada’s newly-rented apartment, and shake his newly-moved-in neighbor’s hand. As the tradition went, they hung out at one another’s, did each other little and big favors, and talked taxes. Then early in the chill September morning, riding down in the elevator together, him and her –

Junior, she muttered, He’s gonna drink something bad.

To that comment she heard a reasonably confused ‘Okay’, and thereafter there was just awkward silence and periodic small talk between the two, until in the evening of that same day, Ada heard a blood-curdling shriek come from across the hallway, just at the hour when father Esther came back from work. True to her word, as she found out approaching the source of the shriek, Junior was pronounced dead on the spot, his little body ravaged from within. Household chemicals. Parental neglect. Mother asleep at the time of the accident. Nothing anyone could do.

They never spoke again, The Esthers now a collective victim of her ‘seasonal flu’. One of many, likely not the last, but definitely heartfelt.

Walking a slow and lonely pace to work down the Maddison Avenue, she would every now and again take a shortcut through the local cemetery, and think back to George’s condescending thick-browed stare, and the many grieving stares she had suffered years and years prior. She would turn her eyes in retreat to the graves scattered about as she passed them by, and listen closely as the dead whispered their tragic tales one after another:

James Fitzgerald Morrison would always be the first of the deceased to speak. Of his youthful enthusiasm and dreams of glory, and a chance to prove himself. He died a doughboy in the trenches, aged 18, never kissed or ever cherished.

Buried beside was Frank Lennard; he loved driving, and driving drunk on an Interstate he bit the dust. His schtick was always to mention how, in life, he had left his wife that night with a promise to give rehab a shot. His idea of rehab was a little off.

Next one belonged to Evie Chapman – her tale was about morally bankrupt insurance, unfair pricing, and one nasty strain of blood cancer. She would every time insist that Ada check on her elderly mother, and report on the old woman’s well-being next time she paid the cemetery a visit.

Premonitions, as Ada called these visions, they struck her every time she looked at any John or Jane, alive or dead, like George Sr. or James Fitzgerald. Like a morbid instinct, they urged her to speak up; to let the people in question know when Death would come to collect their souls, how to welcome it in some degree of dignity, or what never to do in life that brought upon them untimely demise. She did not have any control: they came and went as they pleased, and she couldn’t do a thing to make them stop. Worse yet, they called for her; nudged her in the right direction to people due to meet Death themselves or by mutual acquaintance. Like a smell round every passerby that Ada just couldn’t ever resist.

Still, it helped her find employ as a nurse, as difficult as she was to interview, at a private hospital a few blocks away from her favorite cemetery. No matter where in her assigned ward of deathbeds she went, there was always a delirious patient drawing the last breath. ‘The smell’ there was strong, premonitions clear, and opportunities to spread the ‘flu’ came in droves.

Somehow, in all the years she spend there tending to the terminally ill, she never once drew suspicion to herself, even as her colleagues reported the eerie apathy in her conduct as they rotated out of the ward to parts a little less soul-crushing. More so, she was soon assigned as a personal caretaker to one centenarian hotel tycoon battling heart disease around the clock. Having rejected hospital premises, he invested fortunes into the hospital that bought him Ada, who did not object to any one clause signing the contract, driven by the loud call of premonitions. She reasoned, one more man was ready to contract the ‘flu,’ and there was nothing she could do to hold back the temptation.

***

Never in her thirty years and five she imagined that she was about to contract her very own case of ‘flu’. On a Friday evening, October 23rd, around 11 in the evening, just to be precise. It poured outside Hotel Trentbury, and the tenants who left the windows ajar hoping for a meditative rainy slumber instead covered their ears in pain as the cacophony of mechanical beeps and human words assaulted them hour upon another from anywhere and everywhere; a goddamn traffic jam as hard-working employees rushed back home, who would have thought, and a spontaneous banquet to celebrate the old atelier’s twentieth-something recovery from a stroke – that one was an obvious surprise.

Ada was not invited. The old man she tended to was too close to the afterlife not to see through her disguise, not to connect the dots and see what role she was really there to play. Death. Death–

“Death!” he screamed and screamed, the monitor beeping louder as his blood pressure spiked. “You won’t have me you sneaky bastard!” he screamed again and laughed as fellow nurses escorted Ada out of his penthouse, then apologized on behalf of the old man citing delusion, and recommended that she leave home early. The hospital will provide a little extra for the trouble, they said, but chances were old hotel magnate would never in the remainder of his life want her cold eyes anywhere near.

Fists clenched and eyes red, just like so many times in front of that mean bathroom mirror, she sobbed heading for the exit when something happened that she for the first time in forever felt tempted to call strange. First the hall fell silent and clocks slowed. Then all motion there was in the hall – people gesturing, lips moving, champagne being poured – all of it ground to a halt. Ada stopped, too, right in the middle of festivities. She looked up, wiping the tears rolling down her cheeks, and looked around. Everything appeared frozen in time, suspended in some unnatural stasis, everything and everyone but herself. Yet she stood paralyzed with shock.

"Hey, you there!" she heard someone shout, and her own self-inflicted stasis came undone. She stared wide-eyed in the shout’s direction, but dared not to move. What followed the shout was a weird accusation: Ada Finch stole an artifact, shoved it in her greedy pockets, and the owners wanted it back. Understandable in her mind, as she would never steal or let steal, but what the hell that artifact was and how she apparently whisked it away from whoever – that was a mystery. But she had no time for mysteries, just for the very reasonable questions:

“Wh-” she muttered. “Wher-”, “Why-”, “What are you on about? Where the hell am I?!” she went on and on. Where, why, what, who. Brief, panicky questions fired in a bewildered tone she tried not to raise (Maybe just a notch to make herself heard), but all she wanted to know at that moment had to be answers. Kill her, put her under arrest, she absolutely had to know what had just happened, and whether she had finally lost the last vestiges of her fragile sanity.

Never in her thirty years and five did she expect for the clock to stop.

 

[Syntra]

It was safe to say that, despite the odds, Callisto mostly enjoyed her job. Not having to do anything at all would have been ideal, but given the capitalist hellscape they lived in? Yeah, not bloody likely! (Curious, really, how quickly her brethren had adopted the system. It had been all 'human inferiority this, not respecting the old ways that,' right until the moment they had invented something that legitimized the suckers' lust for power. Couldn't they have, like, chilled instead? Literally everyone would have been better off, but noooo! They'd just had to go and ruin everything, and for what? For a few gold coins? A few electronic numbers in their bank accounts? Pfft, how stupid.) Anyway, being a bounty hunter sure beat telemarketing, waiting tables, or - gods forbid - programming. Just, all those ones and zeroes? Callisto honestly didn't get how all the endless sequences hadn't driven those people mad yet. Trying to force some order into the very DNA of chaos... oh, they were the scary ones, not demons. Demons, at least, didn't fight against the very nature of their world before their first morning coffee.

The one thing Callisto didn't like about her job, though? Humans. Human reaction, to be precise. All of them seemed to be born with the same script, and they followed it religiously-- they tended to go through all the stages of grief within five seconds flat, and that got super old super fast. Couldn't she ever meet one of those weirdos who thought aliens were real? With those, at least, she could skip the awkward 'nooo, you aren't supposed to exist' phase. (Which, by the way, was pretty rude. Like, she obviously existed? They could think whatever they wanted, of course, but not voicing those thoughts was the least they could do. They wouldn't pull that nonsense with her boss, so why, on earth, did they try with her? A fucking mystery, considering that she could erase them from existence much faster than most human bosses could.)

"Are you done having a stroke?" Callisto raised her eyebrow, entirely unimpressed. (Why did most humans insist on their perception of reality? All it did was, you know, prevent them from seeing what was actually there. Ridiculous. Pathetic. Ridiculously pathetic.) "Yeah, yeah, the truth is out there. Congratulations, you are the chosen one. You are to save Narnia from the Death Eaters... or something, I guess." (What? If the woman was going to be like that, then Callisto might as well have some fun with this! Then the face of her boss emerged in her mind, though, and she decided that maybe, maybe it was time to stop fucking around.)

"No, I'm kidding. What part of 'return the shit you have stolen' don't you understand?" Like a predator might circle its prey, Callisto walked in circles around Ada, measuring her with her glare. (Hmm. It really seemed that she didn't know what she was talking about! Not entirely unexpected, given that humans had the attention span of the average goldfish.) "Maybe you didn't steal it," she allowed. "But, the reality is that you have something powerful that you shouldn't own. Have you had... hmm, strange experiences with death recently? It following you, maybe? Think long and hard about it, and try to remember whether it didn't start occurring when you bought that pretty new necklace. Or shoes. Or anything, really. Try thinking outside the box, sweetie." And, because humans generally needed a motivation to do well? Callisto pulled out a pretty silver dagger, and began to play with it in fairly... hmm, suggestive ways. 'Fuck around and find out,' the gesture said, without words. "Well? It's something that you have on your person now, too. Tell me about those curious, curious correlations. And don't worry, either! You have all the time in the world."

 

[whereisalice]

She thought it stupid in that moment not to turn right around and make a run for it. The accuser taking threatening steps her way did not strike Ada as the sort to bargain with. In her stupor, all she could muster was an occasional tremble in the arms and in the legs; in her stupor, she paid more attention than ever in her everyday life, keeping company to the dead more so than the living. “The Chosen One,” she heard, and deep down she felt a sense of purpose tingle, for a flash, until her momentary fantasy came crashing down with Callisto’s words of businesslike indifference.

"No, I'm kidding. What part of 'return the shit you have stolen' don't you understand?" she heard the accusation. Again, no answer. Just the regular blink of her terrified eyes that followed Callisto’s every motion as though she was prey trying to deduce the predator’s next move. To no avail, at that, the accuser concealed her intent behind the indifferent stare. Until…

The dagger. She caught the silver flash in the light of a lamp on the ceiling, and all of a sudden her own life flashed before her eyes. Like a movie, one frame at a time, past to present. Never in her thirty years and five had she ever found herself threatened, her life walking along the razor’s edge, maybe a time and another with an ill wish or a petty swearword. Never the real deal, except now. Watching her very own biopic, she put the two together: The clocks, they slowed, and everyone around her slowed. Except for the Miss. The Miss walked unabashed, and judged the accused of a crime she had never so little as conceived.

Clock. Dagger. Miss. Judgement.

Dagger. Clock. Miss. Judgement.

Time. Judgement.

Judgement. Time. Miss. Dagger. The biopic stopped abruptly. The hall went silent. Ada stood up and headed for the exit holding the key.

“You,” she spoke up in the present, her voice still shaky, eyes fixed upon Callisto’s. Tears on her cheeks had long dried up, leaving darkened trails. “You came here to judge me. Like,” she began fidgeting her thin sickly fingers. “Like in that book. To enter heaven or hell?” her voice gained a minute rasp, ever closer to a frightened whisper.

“I did not steal anything. I would never, I swear. There were a couple times when I was tempted, but the dead always told me not to. And I listened. I can hear them, you know, when I’m close to their graves, some of them are really nice to me. I also…”

She pointed at her face. Stricken with the same sickness as the rest of her body, but young.

“I do not age. Or I don’t think I do. I always thought I got lucky that I still look like I’m in my twenties. Or something. But I’m actually entering my forties soon.”

Tears, again, began to roll down her cheeks.

“I’m drawn to death. That’s literally-”

She sniffled quietly.

“That’s literally why I’m here. I was a nurse to a dying man and he didn’t like me very much. So I went back home. Then this happened. I-”

Another sniffle.

“I didn’t do anything. I swear. I got enough stuff on my plate as is, please, I wish I could tell you where to find whatever you’re looking for, but I don’t know where it is. I didn’t do anything.”

 

[Syntra]

Blah blah blah, more excuses. It was nothing Callisto hadn't heard before, really-- like, of course that nobody had ever stolen anything! Everyone was as pure as freshly fallen snow, and she was the big meanie head for even daring to suspect them. That all the evidence was pointing in the fucking direction? Yeah, to hell with logic! Callisto should instead believe this... this girl, and her pretty, pretty eyes. (They kind of were pretty, she didn't fail to note. So fucking what? Just an observation.) "Yeah, yeah, like heaven and hell," the woman waved her hand, as if it was the most boring question she had ever had to deal with. "Though, in reality, that's more of a fanfiction concept. You don't want to end up where the dead go, kiddo. Not before you're dead, anyway. By that point, I promise you that you won't care." (Did Callisto actually know anything about that? No, but the beauty of this lie revolved around the fact that her target didn't, either! With no easy way for her to confirm anything, she could just... shitpost. Verbally. The humans were honestly an odd bunch, but she did appreciate them for coming up with that concept. Just, fucking with someone for the sake of the said fucking? Wonderful. Groundbreaking. A trickster god, someone like Loki, maybe, would have paid good money to anyone able to summarize his entire life's experience so succinctly.)

With a sigh, Callisto raised her hand and checked out her nails. "Look, darling. Did I give you the impression that I care about your tragic backstory? I just wanted to know whether--" --oh. Fucking oh. Were you familiar with the feeling when the metaphorical dots in your brain connected, and shone brighter than a whole constellation? For Callisto, it was kind of happening now. The realization hit her like a sledgehammer, too. If this girl was speaking the truth, and the mechanisms of the instinct of self-preservation demanded that it really was happening, then... my, my! Then she had an interesting case to deal with here. Interesting, as in 'totally fucked up'. (Death didn't cling to mortals like that. You see, mortals were ultimately boring-- mayflies, when compared to the lifespan of the universe. When compared to literally everything else, if Callisto were to be honest. So, why would it make an exception for an ordinary woman? It wouldn't, duh. The answer, of course, was that she wasn't fucking ordinary. Far from it. Ding, ding, ding! Got my artifact, I guess. Callisto... hadn't exactly expected it to be alive, much less a person, but she also hadn't expected for her life to devolve into the shitstorm it did. Oh well. (The pang of guilt, somewhere in her stomach? Yeah, going to ignore that. Life wasn't a fucking fairytale, and the sooner you learned to fuck people over, the easier it got. No biggie here.)

"Congratulations, congratulations!" she clapped sarcastically, ignoring the girl's distress. "You won the genetic fucking lottery. Ever wondered about the existence of the supernatural world? You're a part of it. The chosen one, indeed. Had I known you'd be joining us, I'd throw you a fucking welcome party. It seems we'll have to fast-forward through this, though. Come with me?" Technically, it was a question, though anyone with a iota of emotional intellect could tell that Callisto wasn't actually asking. See, the choice between obedience and death wasn't much of a dilemma, now was it? To emphasize her point, Callisto grabbed her by the wrist. "Now, I mean. I know someone who would love to meet you."

Except, unfortunately, it seemed that her boss wasn't the only one who wanted to meet the newest addition to the city's monster roster. Dark winds blew, sending a chill down her spine, and... oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! Callisto knew that move, and it didn't fucking please her. Like, a thorn in her eye might have made her happier. "C'mon, girl. We gotta bolt." Saying all of that aloud might not have been the smartest choice, Callisto realized now, but how the hell should she have known?! Paranoia was never her best fucking friend. It wasn't, but maybe it should have been!

Because the asphalt in front of them cracked, and red mist, blood-colored, began rising from the earth's crooked entrails. "Ada, Ada, Ada," a voice whispered, as light as a dream. (A dream, or a nightmare? Functionally the same thing, Callisto thought. That humans even bothered to differentiate between the two showed some very obvious bias.) "Ada, come home. Don't you finally want to belong? I can make that happen for you. That, and so, so, so much more."

"Fucking run, I say!" Callisto grabbed her by the shoulder, intending to shake her, but... uh, her hand passed right through. Hey, hey, hey, what the fuck?!

 

[whereisalice]

Ada, come home.

Ada stood still at the call of the Voice. Cold and hostile to the onlooker, it sounded soft and gentle to her ear, inviting her home in a tone that was calm, but every other word gained a degree of stern; the mother's tone. Ms. Finch, it must have been, or so Ada reasoned as the memories of her late and restless parent came flooding back. There they were now, at the little cottage on a warm summer day, munching on what Ada remembered to be a home-made sandwich; talking school and college and career and prospects in life, and all such things a soon-to-be adult had to bear in mind. Few times Ada cherished as much as the sweet memories from before she heard her first voice in the head.

Suddenly, the blood-red mist pouring from the cracks smelled to Ada of that very same cottage: old wood beside seaweed, and the sweet perfume Ms. Finch had made her lifelong companion. The display that sent chills down Callisto's spine had shown Ada its true colors; warm colors, warmed up ever more at the sound of the Voice. Afterlife or eternal damnation -- in that moment the risks mattered very little to Ada as she felt intoxicated by the thought of rewards:

Come home, Ada. Don't you finally want to belong?

Conscience called for her to disregard the whispers; begged even. Pulled gently on her heart to come out of the stunned and melancholic trance, turn around and run from trouble as fast as she was so used to. But the longing for belonging pulled twice as hard, and the dream to love and to be loved, there was nothing on this earth or any other that could stand in the way.

Ada turned to see Callisto's hand coming right through her shoulder, as her supernatural captor tried to yank the victim away from somewhere, Ada believed, somewhere she could be protected. Her eyes had lost all color; they were grey, missing within them the troubled soul that the Voice lured out and closer to the cracks.

"I'm coming, mom," she whispered, her lips curled into a smirk. Her captor had come so close to claiming her prize, and yet it slipped somewhere safer.

Ada went closer and closer toward the cracks, welcoming the mist's enveloping warmth, and the Voice's motherly guidance. Home. She was coming home.