Stoko: Thanks for the review! As far as the first batch leaving with a cliffhanger, not necessarily; it's just where that writer left off to see where the next writer would take it. Yup, a couple of intriguingly unique writers in the group! ) LOL, yes, Marty and Doc have gotten themselves way past the point of insanely into the future!
Written by kleenexwoman42 (pen name kleenexwoman)
Princess sits in the little pink room they've given her, rocking back and forth. Eight-year-old Erik could watch his older sister sit and rock for hours. Sometimes, he'll start rocking back and forth himself, mirroring her movements. She stares at anyone who tries to touch her, lets herself go limp or screams and claws at the hands trying to place electrodes on her forehead, trying to stick needles into her, trying to pick her up and drag her down the hallway that leads to the black door, the one Erik is never to open.
It happens every week. For a few hours, Princess is gone, out of his reach. Erik paces the hallway during this time, stares at the black door. It's torture--he doesn't know what's happened to her. She could be disappeared, dead, anywhere.
But it's sweet when Princess comes back out, so sweet that it almost makes up for the torture of uncertainty. For it is only after these sessions in the Black Room that Erik is allowed to touch his sister, allowed to crawl into her room and hug her, press his beaky little nose into her thick red hair and smell her warm, comforting scent. He's the only one she'll allow to touch her, the only one she talks to. She'll bend her head down and whisper secrets into his ear, tell him stories. Places she's visited--jungles where giant lizards roar and scream, places where the sun is spitting fire and the sky is blue as ice, rolling green hills dotted with tall white columns rising like bones out of the earth, cities of smooth stone and glass jutting up into the sky. Every so often, she'll uncurl a clenched hand and show him a serrated tooth, a strange flower, an unfamiliar coin or a little piece of jewelry that she's brought back with her. "I got this from a man who wrapped himself in a sheet and spoke poetry," she'll tell him. "I want you to have it. I don't want them to take it from me. Keep it safe." He smuggles them away in his pockets and hides them in his room, under his pillow. They always fade away within a few days, but as long as he can slide his hand under his pillow and touch them, he feels his sister's presence.
One week, the session goes long, lasts through dinnertime. Princess still isn't out by the time Erik is sent to bed. He can't sleep that night, wondering where Princess has gone, where they've taken her. Maybe she's gone for good. He thinks that maybe she's finally escaped, she's gone into one of those worlds where she picks flowers and talks with poets. But...Princess would never leave without him, she'd find some way to take him. Maybe--and his stomach clenches at the thought--maybe they've taken her instead, dragged her to someplace so far away that he can never follow.
Yes. He wouldn't put it past Them.
He has to save her, he knows. Princess depends on him.
He slips out of bed and silently pads down the corridor, stopping as he reaches the Black Door. There is no handle. It's a blank, featureless slab. Impassible. There's no way he can get through. He has failed before he even started.
But there is nothing a determined eight-year-old cannot do, and Erik will not accept defeat, not when his Princess's life is on the line. He touches the door with his fingertip, and it slides open. There are things he's never seen before behind bolted doors...
They've put Princess on a table. Her arms and legs are held by restraints, and there are wires stuck to her forehead. Her body is jerking back and forth, up and down, her limbs twitching violently as seizures overtake her. She's trying to toss her head back; her eyelids are fluttering.
Even as Erik watches, too horrified to move, he can see Princess fading in and out of sight. Things move around her, leaves and tentacles and shadows of people and monsters, walls and colors and snatches of music and screams and conversation. When her body grows insubstantial and transparent, the things brighten and solidify. The wires on her head run into boxes, white and grey boxes with glowing numbers. He realizes that there are people in white coats and grey jumpsuits running around, standing and watching the boxes.
They're speaking...
"We call it Temporal Displacement Disorder, sir. It's very rare and it's only luck that we managed to catch this case before she slipped into another time entirely."
"Five thousand and counting. She's slipping backwards faster now."
"Wonderful, this is the best case I've ever seen...imagine what we could do if we could only figure out how to expand the bridge."
"Sixty thousand and counting."
"None of the serums have worked, sir. We haven't even managed to get her to bring things back yet."
"She's jumped. Four thousand years."
"I want a new drug, dammit. Give her whatever you need to. If we can figure out how to break through the barrier, we can spread the wisdom of the System as far back in the past as she'll travel. Convert all of Time."
"Jumped again. Forty billion years ago. Stabilizing."
Princess is lying still now, her chest moving up and down. She opens her mouth and lets out a weak cry of pain.
Erik can't stand it. He rushes to her side and touches her face.
"What the hell--" Erik is grabbed from behind, wrestled to the ground. "How did he get in here?" Needles are jabbed into his skin, and pinwheels of color explode behind his eyes. Things go black.