The Other Ring.

Close To Breaking

SATURDAY 11:50 A.M.

Jane: Come on, Daria, after last night, you have to admit something unnatural is going on.

Daria and Jane sat across from each other, sitting at a booth in a pizza place near the hotel. Daria welcomed the familiarity of the situation; it felt like the last support shoring up the increasingly shaky construct that was her life.

After last night, her skepticism had taken a nasty blow, and she was struggling to find some kind of rational, ordinary cause that could explain it all. The bandages on the tips of Jane's fingers were mocking her, challenging her for an explanation; she made sure to keep the long sleeves of her own jacket all the way down, completely covering her arms.

Jane: That girl you saw in the mirror, has to be the same one I drew in my book; the woman with the long hair. She has to be the spirit behind it all. Why else would she be trying to scare us? Why else would you have dreamed her?

Daria: Probably because I saw that picture you drew.

Daria trying to maintain her normal monotone in the face of rising doubt and frustration. Causing her to become louder and more shaky.

Daria: I will admit that the picture disturbed me, but that's all the more reason my mind would have included her in my nightmare.

Jane: Do girls in pictures do this?

Jane demanded, and pushed up Daria's sleeve to reveal the brown handprint. And, of course, that was the clincher, the thing that Daria could not explain, the fatal flaw in her argument. But that didn't mean she was quite ready to concede the war.

Daria: Just because I don't know how it happened. Doesn't mean there isn't a rational cause. There are a lot of weird things in the world that I can't explain! That doesn't mean I'm going to blame them all on ghosts and goblins! If we did that, then hundreds of years of science would be worthless! We might as well start making offerings to the rain gods in the hopes of a good harvest!

Daria voice was filled with different emotions angry, sad, and sacred. Jane held up her fingers.

Jane: Daria, this doesn't just happen on its own. We both know there is no way something like last night could just happen naturally. If it could, then people would wake up wounded from nightmares all the time. She did this to us. She's just as real as you or I are. And I don't think we are going to be able to stop her until you acknowledge that she exists.

Daria: It's not that simple!

Daria final snapping from that has been happening, almost losing her temper at her friend's insistence. Her voice being filled by fear by the seconds.

Daria: This isn't a movie, Jane, where the lifelong skeptic can just see a ghost and be magically transformed into a believer! I've lived my entire life under the assumption that this is all there is, that if I can't see it, hear it, feel it, or test it, then it doesn't exist! There is no god ruling over us, no angels guarding us, and certainly no ghosts haunting us! The possibility that there might be, that there is a reality beyond what I have always known, is not just a new piece of information I can stitch on to my worldview and go on as before! If I believed that, I would have to reevaluate every aspect of my life, rethink every important decision I have ever made! It would completely revolutionize my outlook on life. So, before I make such a staggering change, I need to be absolutely certain of my reasons for doing so.

Jane pierced her with an assessing gaze.

Jane: So it's not really that you can't believe.

Jane slowly, piecing it all together,

Jane: But that it would be a lot of trouble to change your mind.

She paused; Daria knew she was waiting for her to contradict that statement, to explain that she had it all wrong, but though Daria thought that Jane was putting too much of a negative spin on her position, she was essentially right.

Daria: But the Daria Morgendorffer I know would never allow inconvenience to stand in the way of truth; she would believe it if it was true, no matter what the cost to her might be, or prove it to be false. What are you going to do?

Fortunately, the waiter chose that exact moment to arrive with their pizza, sparing Daria from the necessity of an answer to a question she had yet to be able to solve, despite having turned it over and over in her head continuously the entire morning.

Or maybe the arrival of the pizza was not so fortunate after all, for as soon as it was set down on the table, its accustomed shape sprang out at both of them; they couldn't see the greasy cheese or the steaming toppings, just the ring formed by the outer crust.

Jane: Daria, do you see . . . ?

Jane's voice was small.

Daria: Yes, I do. Maybe we should have rethought our meal choices. I think I've lost my appetite.

Jane: Me, too. You know, when this thing interferes with our pizza time, it really has gone too far.

Daria: Or maybe it's just trying to save us from an early, cholesterol-induced death.

Jane: So she's sort of a Casper the friendly ghost type of thing.

Daria: Except for the visions and horrible nightmares.

Jane: Are you going to eat this?

Daria: I don't think I can. You?

Jane: Nope. Let's get out of here.

Leaving their money on the table, they walked out of the restaurant and started the short walk down the street to their lodgings. An inescapable feeling of futility overwhelmed Daria.

Daria: We're never going to find Wind this way. Not unless we get very lucky, and I think we've both seen the extent of our luck. There must be another way to go about it, some clue that we're not seeing.

Daria tried to think of something they might have missed, some heretofore un-thought-of method of searching that might produce Jane's elusive brother, but couldn't think of anything other than to just keep on doing what they were already doing, and hope that they stumbled upon him in the next two days.

Jane: I'll call Trent when we get back to our room. Maybe Wind showed up and he forgot to call, or just never got around to it. (Jane shrugged.) It's worth a try, at least.