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Science Fiction story
Ila floated thinly above the ground, no conscious, no body. She just WAS. Nowhere. Everywhere. Her conscious was spread across the world, her body far behind on the ground.
“Ila,” soft-spoken words pulled her down to the ground. “Ila.” A hand lifted Ila’s chin. A face folded by wrinkles smiled down at her with crinkled eyes, sparkling with old wisdom, skimming her up and down. “You’ve grown.” The man said sadly. Part of Ila thought she should be scared of him, but an odd sort of familiar kept her rooted down.
“Who are you?” His face fell and he slowly removed his hand.
“Of course you wouldn’t remember.” He whispered, more to himself than to her. “But if you’re here, then…” He trailed off as horror lit his eyes.
“Then what?” Illa’s throat tightened. Suddenly, she felt cold and empty. The longer she stared at the man, the more she saw through him.
“Come quickly, Ila. There isn’t much time, and there is much to explain.” Wrapping his hand around her wrist, Ila let him pull her behind him as he ran through the rocky terrain, surprisingly quick for an old man.
“Where are we going?” Ila pulled her hair away from her face as it slapped her cheeks. More importantly, where were they? Despite the familiarity of it all, Ila was certain she’d never been there before.
“To see the one person who can explain better than I. Your mother.” Ila stopped dead in her tracks and wrenched her hand free. She folded her arms and glared, demanding an answer.
“You know my mother?” Impossible. Ila’s mother abandoned her in India, on the steps of an overcrowded orphanage and never showed her face again. As far as Ila was concerned, her mother and father were an American couple who couldn’t conceive a child, and chose to save one from a life in the system.
“Knew would be more appropriate.” The Elder stared off into the distance with a blank stare. He danced around her questions absent-mindedly. He was off in another world, reliving moments he couldn’t show Ila.
“That isn’t funny.” Ila wanted to wake up now. She chanted it over and over in her head as if her words could jump-start her mind. I want to wake up now. I want to-
“I’m afraid your dreaming trick won’t work here. This isn’t a dream.”
He motioned for Ila to follow him to the crest of a large hill. Reluctantly, she climbed to the top. Pebbles and blobs of ash crumbled under her feet. She stared out to the world below her. The rocky terrain smoothed out into an endless gray sheet of nothing. Translucent blobs moved ungracefully through the air, some alert, some weary. They resembled nothing, mear specks of illusion. The man turned to Ila and waved a flourished hand across the landscape. “Welcome, Ila, to the Vorus afterlife. Your mother is waiting.”
Slowly, the blobs took shape. Ila’s eyes sorted them into humanoid figures. “They’re ghosts.” Ila whispered. If she stared hard enough, kept her eyes focused on one figure, staining not to see through it, Ila could make out the shape of a human.
“We’re ghosts,” The elder corrected as he caught the eye of one of the ghosts. A sharp flicker of recognition passed between them, and it floated obediently to Ila’s side. When it drew closer, the form materialized. A small, curved nose hooked over a patch of freckles. Narrow eyes glimmered behind long eyelashes. She looked strikingly like Ila, faded as she was. Her pupils and irises were merely pale glowing orbs, whitish blue. Skin and hair alike was a pale contrast to Ila’s. Faded. A person who had been bleached into translucency.
“My precious child.” She spoke gently, a floating voice, thin as it passed through the hollow air. She wrapped her arms around Ila’s shoulders. They were cold. “Why are you here?” Her voice turned into one of heartbreak. Was this Ila’s mother?
“I don’t know.” Ila pleaded desperately. “I was asleep. I dreamed I was fighting monsters and I didn’t win. I want answers..”
“Was it of other-worldly hideousness?” The elderly man asked. “Claws and scales and talons?”
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