Mad Rooster Marketing

Chapter 39 (Emily) - The Burning Dream

While we were waiting for mother to find something to wear, Harry wanted to make sure that I was 'special'. This he did with an ornamental rod that supposedly was part of a Jotun Dream Catcher. He asked me to take firm hold of it with both hands while he connected it to some kind of voltage meter via a conveniently located USB port. It showed that even when awake, I'm dreaming. To gauge the 'debt of the Burning Dream penetration', he asked me to close my eyes and do the Jotun Fire Meditation. That, together with the dream catcher rod, amplified my natural glow so much that even Harry was able to see the waves of yellow and orange sliding up and down my skin. He called it 'Fox Fire'.

Apparently, these 'scientific' experiments proved once and for all that, somehow, I had become part of the Burning Dream. Something never meant to be part of this world was living inside me. It's funny how no one had ever noticed, or thinking about Sunitha's reaction in the hallway, maybe they had. When things got really bad, I did tend to drift away, and often the situation did magically improve.

I stopped at the bedroom door to look back at mother giggling on Harry's lap. He had confirmed my worst fears. But after what had happened, it was too late to turn back. I hadn't yet decided what I would tell mother. Luckily it didn't seem to matter because she had fallen in love with Harry, and he would gladly take us with him into the cult of Mad Rooster, where I would finally get the bottom of what had been done to me.

Retrospectively thinking, there probably would have been a better way, or at least one that was not totally insane, but how was I supposed to know what Harry and his mad cult were planning to do to set my soul free?

I decided to start packing. My suitcase was on the top shelf of our wardrobe, and when I pulled it down, the shoebox filled with father's letters dropped to the floor. When looking at the picture of the haunted rooster, I realised how disturbing the letters were. Why had he written something like that to a child? I nearly dismissed them as a sick attempt for him to vent his own anxiety about being imprisoned, and burned them in our stove then and there. Sealing away that part of my life felt right, so I wrapped multiple layers of transparent packing tape around the box and probably would have never given it another thought without the incident at the Overlord Academy two days later. No part of what happened was my fault, but I still got tased while multiple students had to visit the school nurse.

'I should have guessed that father's letters are the first thing you want to take with you. We don't have a lot of valuable things.'

Mother and Harry were standing in the doorway. Both of them were gawking at the box.

'You sure know how to seal a box. Did you draw that picture yourself?'

'It's from Simon's letters.'

I hid the box under my spare pyjama before they had the chance to gawk at it some more and offer other helpful comments.

'I have some clothes and other things ready for you at the Community, so you don't really need to take anything with you. We might need to hurry because Robert seems to have found out Force of Terror's identity. He has given orders to bring Emily in, dead or alive! The first units just arrived at the gate. Our people are ready to help Scottish Liberation Army to defend this compound, but as soon as the police have the numbers they need to feel brave, this will turn into a war zone. Get ready to go.'

Harry disappeared, and a moment later, I could hear a rumbling fart echoing in the toilet.

'Dum, da, dum, dum...'

'After all that, he just went farting in the toilet?'

'Shh, Emily. When you gotta go, you gotta go.'

Mother dumped all of our clean clothes on top of the bed and dove to the floor.