The Soulmate Curse

Sojourner - Part 3

"Argh! I hate this!" Zhen said, pushing her chair away from her screen table.

Zhen was in her room working on the Keynote Challenge and failing to come up with anything truly cohesive. She had the framework of what she wanted to design, but the details were elusive. She just couldn't nail anything down. And there was only one more day left before submission. Her mind suddenly felt too full. She pressed the button on her desk chair that transformed it to a comfortable lounge chair where she could nap for a few minutes. Napping almost always cleared her mind.

Zhen sighed as she closed her eyes. "Pearl, I think my muse has deserted me."

"Maybe if you weren't so distracted you could get a bit more done," said her AI.

"Distracted?"

"You sketched Finnegan Darrow's face twenty-seven times in the last five hours."

"That was just me disassociating from the subject at hand," said Zhen. "Taking a break and clearing my creativity cache."

"Or being distracted," said Pearl.

"I'm going to ignore you and take my nap."

"When should I wake you up?"

"Ninety seconds after I complete my first REM cycle, please," said Zhen, getting comfortable on the chair.

"Yes, Zhen."

"And please play the new 'Rabbit Hole' playlist I made last week. I think it gets me to sleep faster."

"The 'Rabbit Hole' playlist will begin in five seconds," said Pearl. "Sweet dreams, Zhen."

But she didn't have sweet dreams. Zhen felt her chest constrict and her limbs lock up as she watched the nightmare play. A nightmare that she hadn't had in years. The last time she'd seen this scene play in the currently inescapable prison that was her dreamscape had been a year after her mother's death. That was two years ago. For a long time after, there'd been fear that the nightmare would haunt her again, but after months of sleeping through the night, Zhen was sure she was past it. Now – hearing the screeching, seeing the flying glass, feeling the paralysing fear, tasting the blood – Zhen knew she'd been wrong. Even worse, it had never been this bad. This visceral. This detailed.

The slow-motion action was expected. Just as she'd experienced it all those years before when it was really happening. What wasn't expected, however, was her mother turning to face her in real time. Zhen's heart felt like it was pumping molten lead. Every beat hurt. Every tear slipping from her eyes burned. Her mum smiled.

"You're on the right track, honey," she said to Zhen, oblivious to the chaos around them.

"I miss you, mum," specks of blood shot from Zhen's mouth as she spoke the words. They suddenly hang in the air around her, moving as slow as everything else.

"I know," said her mum. "You're brilliant, my little one. Follow the rail design. It'll get you where you want to go."

"Dad," Zhen choked on the word, more blood sputtering the air in front of her face. "He's broken. I can't... I can't fix him."

"I love you."

"No! Wait."

Time shattered. Everything sped up. Faster than possible. Zhen's eyes widened as she watched the glass shards rush towards her. She jerked awake.

"Zhen, you're in distress," said Pearl in the background of the fading dream. "Should I call for help?"

Zhen was breathing hard, holding her aching chest, half sobbing. She rubbed furiously at her eyes. "No. No help, Pearl. I'm fine."

"Are you..."

"I'm sure," said Zhen, getting off the chair and trying to calm the hurricane of thoughts ruthlessly thrashing every corner of her mind, blinding her to everything else. "Pearl?"

"Yes, Zhen?"

"Please put up the design with the rail system," she said. The images that had followed her from the dreamscape and swirled into real life began to drain away. Her room came into focus again. The aching pain was still there. In her chest. Making it hard to breathe. She whispered, "I love you too, mum. Thank you."

It took Zhen all day after that to complete her design. She submitted her work with only 5 minutes to spare and crashed after, sleeping away most of the next day. She didn't want to admit it, but she was looking for a portal to her mother. But this time when she fell asleep, she only found a blank, dreamless void. She woke up with just an hour left to prepare for the last camp party, but she didn't care. She arrived at most parties late anyway. It took a while to stitch her shredded thoughts and feelings into something that resembled poise. One thought acted as the thread that held everything together, even if it was gossamer thin.

She took time to get herself ready, picking a classic black tuxedo with bowtie and custom, handmade Italian shoes made from luxurious lab-grown leather. She didn't feel all that rested and pampered after being asleep all day, but she was happy to find that her skin didn't reflected that at all, so she ditched the makeup this time and let her hair fall simply around her. Her nerves were too frazzled for a steady handed makeup session anyway.

Walking into Elk Grove's gymnasium was like walking into outer space, which made sense, as that was the party's theme. The flexible screens covering the walls projected the image of stars and floating space chunks flying by as they wined and dined on an asteroid's surface. The artists had done an incredible job with the holograms and the programmed lights that littered the ceiling and floor. The piezoelectric dancefloor was already full, the lights dancing along with the tempo of the songs blaring though the speakers. Zhen reached out to pick a glass of champagne from a roving robot, but the glass didn't budge.

"Sorry, you are underage," said the robot before sliding away.

"Orange juice for the lady?" It was another roving robot, handing her a glass with the orange drink.

Zhen accepted the drink. "Thank you."

She was sipping on her drink, one hand in her pocket, her head carefully searching the crowd, when she finally saw her. She choked on her drink, which made a robot rush over to ask her if she was okay. She handed her glass to the robot and tried not to draw too much attention as she tried to clear her throat, which stung, but not nearly as much as her wounded pride.

"I'm fine," she gasped at the robot after a few coughs. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Please be careful with your drink in the future, miss," said the robot, sliding away, but not before it had quickly dry cleaned a few specks of orange juice from her blazer.

Zhen's attention went back to Finn. The thought of seeing her again had been the delicate thread of reason that had kept her from falling apart for a few hours now. Finn had on a fitting back-lace-up dress. It cinched at her waist but had a large section of the left side of her torso left bare. The fair, exposed skin was tattooed. Phases of the moon, running up from next to her navel, then spiralling up and back towards her left scapula. The dress fell to her ankles in a draping circle around her. It was made from a mix of glow in the dark and colour changing fabric, creating a dazzling effect with each movement.

Finn danced alone, moving slow and sensually as her clothes changed from one iridescent colour to the next, making her look like she was a shimmering angel who'd just walked out of a dream. Zhen's insides clenched, her legs went rubbery, her palms were drenched in sweat and she knew then that she would never feel as she did at that moment for anyone else.