The Undead Pool

The room was both pitch-black and bright as day as mystics glowed in my mind’s eye. Madly moving silhouettes between me and the glass darted, and the Goddess danced within me.

That is, until the first few thoughts of her failure reached me. The mystics were not responding, even the ones she’d just sent out to bring the others in.

“Increase it!” Ayer shouted. “Get out of my way. I’ll do it myself!” he snarled, shoving the dazed man out of his chair and taking his place. I couldn’t see him in the dark, but I knew it was him by the sparking of neurons in his brain. “I want all of them!”

Elation dimming, the Goddess seemed to hesitate. They’re not my thoughts, she said, turning inward to me, her sole guide to this madness of mass. They won’t become!

The rapid shift of emotion was draining, and I staggered, going down before the windows. “I told you they were changed,” I whispered, and she snatched control back.

“They corrupted and stole my thoughts,” she said aloud through me, and Ayer met our eyes in the emergency lights now flickering on. He was pleased. His mystics had escaped, and he was thrilled. Something was wrong, but she wouldn’t listen to my one thought among her thousand. “These singulars will no longer be dreamed!” she shouted with my voice, and I found myself standing, unable or too sick at heart to stop her.

“You will die!” she raged, my body shaking with her anger. “I am all! Everything! You are one singular! You can’t make me become!”

This is a mistake, I thought at her, but with a primal scream, she drew her thoughts of anger into one point and exploded the room.

“Now!” Ayer shouted, and I gasped as the room flashed white.

“No!” I screamed as the Goddess’s power was pulled through me, out of the spaces and into their control.

“Secondary storage full!” someone exclaimed. “Third online!”

Stop! I howled into my thoughts, but she didn’t hear, continuing to funnel her frustration and anger into one act of violence that Ayer pulled to him like a master taking in a soul. With an unheard shatter, the windows blew out. I fell, my hair hiding my vision—but I could see it all from a thousand different angles as her eyes filled me.

“They are mine!” the Goddess raged, my throat becoming raw.

Looking alien in the emergency light and the smoke, Ayer smiled. “Do your worst,” he taunted. “I’m going to bleed you dry, bitch.”

Wild magic sang in me, heartbreaking in its singular intent of revenge and justice. I could only watch as the Goddess filled the room with her intent, not listening to me, ignoring my single voice among her outraged thousands.

They’re killing you. I begged her to listen as I felt the sensation of being sucked up from the inside. Stop! Just stop!

I . . . I . . . She faltered, only now noticing that she was failing, that we were slumped to the floor, the acidic bite of smoke stinging our eyes. I am . . . failing? she thought, a new idea born. She found my own memories of loss, and pain, and failure, learning from them, and I took a deep breath as the sting of a dart found me.

What . . . she seemed to mumble as I plucked it away, but it was too late.

“I told you not to do that,” I said, muscles going slack.

But inside me, the Goddess abandoned her new emotions of failure, fastening on an old one. You knew this would happen! she accused me. You betrayed me!

I curled into a ball. I could hear fire extinguishers and smell the outside. Wild magic pricked my skin, but it was the escaped mystics. “It was Landon,” I whispered, eyes clamped shut. “Not me. I tried to warn you! You didn’t listen.”

Your thought was too small! she said as men whispered in fear over us. Only thoughts with many agreements should be followed.

“Not when they come from a singular,” I whispered. The drug was taking hold, making it easier to think as the Goddess began losing her grip on me, and I moaned at the wild magic they pulled through me, lessening her bit by bit. “My single voice is the sum of a thousand thoughts. Listen to me!” I said, and another dart hit me. “You have to leave,” I breathed, eyes closing. “They’re destroying you. Go!”

But you have only one voice, she thought, trying to understand. How can it be correct?

“Storage unit three full, Ayer.”

“Go to four. I want everything this bitch can dish out.”

And with a sudden implosion of understanding, she understood. Making a sob that would make angels cry, she vanished.

“Wave complete!” someone said, and I gasped at the sudden silence in my mind.

Oh God. She’s gone. It was what I wanted, but I felt awful. Bleary from the drug, I turned my head, my cheek sliming in my own drool. Hands fell from me, and I welcomed the stark emptiness of nothing.