Merge
By Chris Owen
Chapter One
Finn Cormag knew all about headaches. He was
an academic, a scientist and a researcher; he was a man who
had spent the greater part of his adult life buried in notes,
well into many sleepless nights.
He knew about the headaches that radiated from the back of his
skull from stress. He recognized the ones that were like fire
across his forehead from eyestrain and the ones that crossed
the p class="stdp"idge of his nose when his body had simply gone too long
without sleep or food.
But Finn had never had a headache quite like this one. It didn't
radiate from any particular point, expanding outward. Instead,
it felt like his whole head was being squeezed from some external
torture device that was simultaneously blasting noise at him.
He could feel the pain extending down his neck, slowly engulfing
his whole body, and he tried to force himself to relax. Tension
in all of his muscles would only make it worse, surely.
He rolled his head from side to side and kept his eyes closed.
After a moment, he unclenched his fingers and made them straighten
out, feeling the carpet under his hands. He could still hear
the TV, but the sound was way down, the words flowing together
like a single, low-level hum. And over that hum was the more
familiar sounds that he was used to filtering out without even
thinking about it. If filtering out the sounds of emotions was
work, Finn was pretty sure that this was no ordinary headache,
by any definition. Behind his eyelids, somewhere in his mind,
he saw a weird yellow-orange color that felt like worry and
anxiety.
That was new.
"Here, take this."
Finn opened his eyes and looked up. He was still sitting on
the floor of Ari's bedroom, his back propped up against the
bed. "Thank you." He reached for the small pill and
the glass of water Ari was offering him.
Ari sank down onto the floor beside him. "Drink it slowly;
you're still pale, and I'd really hate for it to make you sick."
"It's just water." Finn peered into the glass, knowing
that Ari was looking just as carefully at him. "And you
don't know if I'm pale or not. I'm probably less washed out
than I was before I came through."
"That's how I know you're pale," Ari corrected him,
his voice low. "You're pretty much the same color as always."
Finn nodded, slowly and carefully, agreeing that if he appeared
that washed out he probably was pale. He took the pill and sipped
the water for a moment before leaning his head back against
the bed again, his eyes closed. "Headache," he said,
knowing that it was probably unnecessary to point it out but
wanting to say something. It seemed like a good place to start.
Ari laughed dryly. "I would think so, yes. I assume that
you don't normally react like this when you go from Between
to your own... uh, dimension?"
"Nope." Finn started to shake his head but stopped
immediately. "This is all new."
"Lucky you." Ari's voice was sympathetic, and Finn
could feel him shifting slightly, settling back against the
side of the bed.
Finn grunted and waited for the pain to recede a bit. His stomach
churned, but only for a moment, and after a few long minutes
he opened his eyes carefully. The room no longer seemed to be
swimming. "You have fast acting pills over here."
"It helps when they're prescription painkillers, which
is why I only gave you one. So, are you ready to tell me what
the hell is going on?"
"You first. Give me a couple of minutes." The odd
color show was settling down a bit; he could still see the wash
of orange, which was smoothing into a nicer yellow, and he could
sort of tell that it was coming, somehow, from Ari.
Ari let out a long p class="stdp"eath. "Well, I'm not exactly sure.
I just know what was on the news. The reporters are running
it as a weird kind of freaky occurrence thing, so it's not the
top story yet. I think it might become p class="stdp"eaking news soon, though,
since people are vanishing." He waved his hand in the air.
"Like, disappearing. And it's a lot of people, a couple
hundred, over a few hours. They all seemed to be linked to some
cult at first, but now the reporters are saying it's not a mass
suicide or anything like it, so they're starting to speculate.
I mean, with no bodies, it's kind of hard to know what's going
on."
Finn made a noise of agreement. "Are there any witnesses?"
He rubbed his forehead, hoping to diminish the pain even more.
"Not yet." Ari tapped the glass in Finn's other hand.
"Drink. Tell me what's going on. Why are you here?'
Not ready to explain one or two of the varied reasons why he
chose to jump dimensions, Finn sipped the water again. "It's
a long story." He sighed and rolled his head slightly to
look at Ari's face. "But I suppose that doesn't matter,
does it? I'm betting we have a lot of time."
"Yep. It doesn't matter at all how long the telling of
the tale is." Ari almost smiled at him, the corners of
his mouth twitching before his forehead furrowed again. "Come
on. Off the floor."
Finn waited until Ari got to his feet and took the offered hand.
He pushed, Ari pulled, and in a moment he was standing, his
head a little swimmy again.
Ari watched him carefully, and the yellow flared orange for
a moment. "Okay?"
"Not horrible, but I'm not going to run out and do anything
requiring balance. "
"Right, so we're not going far." Ari pointed at the
bed. "Lie down. Or at least sit."
Finn didn't even bother arguing, as there was very little point
in p class="stdp"avado after he'd hurtled himself through dimensions, not
sure if he'd survive the journey. As far as Finn was concerned,
he was p class="stdp"ave enough by his own standards, and sprawling on a
bed to deal with the unique kind of jetlag he had was completely
acceptable.
"Better?" Ari asked, stretching out next to him and
propping his head up on his arm.
"God, much." Finn helped himself to a pillow and looked
at the smooth surface of the ceiling. "So, I had kind of
a rough day."
"You don't say." |
