She was in a cave made from damp black walls slick with the beginnings of moss. From unseen caverns a drop of water would drip and echo towards her, vast and ominous. Her hands struggled to grip the sides of the rocks, knees scraped when the path would narrow or a non-eroded jagged edge would jut out. Her fingers were stiff and cold, so cold they were going numb and she couldn't bend them. Then a shiver. And a shriek. A shriek so cold and raw, and it bounced and ricocheted against the small spaces and the wet walls. Allison she heard, shrill and cracked, and only after its reverberation twenty times over did she realize it was her own voice.
And then she felt it. Like she had felt a hundred times before. The blade. Like new every time. The saying is it cuts through flesh like butter, but it wasn't true. Lydia felt every tear of flesh and muscle as it went through. She felt it pop and puncture and slice. It was the same every time, just like the night Allison died. She felt everything Allison felt when the Oni's blade tore through her. But sometimes, bitterly, Lydia thought Allison was the lucky one. Because God willing she only felt it the one time. Lydia had to relive it in her dreams day after day, night after night. And when she woke, she was always hoarse from the screaming even though her mother never heard. And her clothes were drenched in a cold sweat.
.
.
Disheveled and unnerved from a troubled sleep, Lydia stumbled into school with her hair piled on top of her head in a big mess. She was pretty sure she had worn her tiny flower patterned dress earlier in the week, but attempted to cover it up with a denim jacket from the eighth grade that she fit in again. And flats. Her dreaded flats. But she was so tired and her feet were swollen and sore, yet she didn't know why.
She was late. Way late. Like twenty minutes into second period late. She rushed through the peacefully empty hallways to her locker, and hoped she wouldn't be subject to too many eyeballs on her when she entered art class.
"You look like hell."
Her stupid flats skidded on the tile and made a horrible squeaking sound as she stopped and turned.
"You really know how to charm a lady, Isaac," she said with a tight smile.
He was leaning against a locker, hair mussed and shadows cast from his cheekbones. His t-shirt was wrinkled and jeans streaked with dust. He pushed off from the locker with his shoulder. "I'm still catching up."
She nodded, smile still wound tightly on her face. "Okay then…" she started and nearly gave an awkward thumbs up before twirling on her heel and hooking her thumbs around the straps of her backpack. (She couldn't find her messenger bag).
"Wait-" Isaac called after her and she resigned to looking at his sunken cheeks with a sigh. "I know a place outside of town that opens at 10 and doesn't card. You look like you could use a drink."
The blue and purple circles under her eyes weren't really in a position to argue. "You're not wrong," she said.
.
.
The bar was a shabby inland shack serving the blue collars and truckers off the interstate. It was decorated with a thick layer of dust and pliable plastic chairs that bent when you sat in them. But they didn't card.
"Gin martini. Extra dirty," Lydia said to the bartender and added a "Please" when he stared at her blankly.
"What do we look like the Four Seasons?" the gruff old man behind the bar bit back. She rolled her eyes and was about to begin barking orders when Isaac stepped in.
"Tequila shots. Extra lime. And keep 'em coming, okay?" He slapped a twenty on the bar, which was etched with signatures from pens and pocket knives. Isaac grabbed Lydia by the elbow. "Come on," and led her towards a quiet corner table.
Lydia shuddered through her first two shots before they got easier to down. Soon the bored waitress just brought the whole bottle to the table and left them in peace.
"So is this what you do now?" she set the bottom-weighted shot glass down with a clunk on the table. Number three.
"What do you-What do you mean?" Isaac asked, eyes stinging from the liquor.
"Well you're not around. Ever. You're just-"
"Yeah."
"What?" she asked.
"Yeah," his voiced dropped. "What am I supposed to do? Move on? Like everybody else."
His shoulders were slumped and his tall frame shrunk as much as it could. Elbows on the sticky plastic tablecloth and now his eyes weren't just stinging from tequila.
Lydia ran her finger around the rim of her empty glass, looking at his shoulder, not his face.
"I haven't," she whispered.
"I feel her sometimes," he blurted out.
Her eyes widened and she snapped up. "You what?"
Isaac looked down for a long moment, completely still. When he looked up, irises blazing, she felt herself jump and hoped he didn't notice.
"It's like a long rope. And sometimes…sometimes when I'm slipping up, or I'm falling down, there's a tug. It's so soft. But it's there and I know it's her…" Isaac's voice had grown husky and cracked. He sniffed and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Ever feel her?" Isaac's eyes were searching, making small movements that tracked back and forth along her face. He felt alone. She knew that feeling. But they weren't alone in the same place.
Lydia didn't think she could speak. If she did all she could imagine coming out was a strangled, half-sob. No, she wanted to tell him. No I only feel her dying. Over and over and over again. In my dreams. And then she's gone, always, upon waking.
But she didn't say any of it. She couldn't.
Isaac poured them each another shot, ones that were so full they sloshed over the edge and dripped down their fingers.
.
.
"Of course I can drive don't be ridiculous," Lydia exclaimed on the way to her car some hours later. The light of day burned their eyes.
Isaac held up his hand. "Look, fine by me, but I'm just saying…alcohol doesn't affect me so…"
"Not for lack of trying," she called saccharinely as she opened the driver's side door. "Come on. I know a short cut."
Though Lydia didn't know a short cut. In fact, she had no idea where she was. But she'd forgotten all of that because a very clear, very sure, and very determined calm had settled over her so that she didn't even feel drunk anymore. As she drove it was like the car was steering her, but she didn't feel out of control, just purposeful, like the current of a river rushing in the direction it was meant to follow.
But when she pulled the car into the lot of a long abandoned 1950s style diner and shifted into park, Isaac tensed beside her.
"Lydia," he said tentatively.
"I'll just be a minute, going to see if there's a bathroom," she said simply as she hopped out.
Isaac followed suit, shadowing two steps behind her determined yet easy stride. "Lydia, I don't think...I mean why would there be a working bath-" his voice fell off when the door creaked open and they were met with a stale, rotten smell and a dust that took the streaming sunlight from the windows and diffused it into a gauzy haze.
As she turned the sharp corner from the hostess stand to the singular hallway that divided the read leather booths from the old fashioned ice-cream bar she stiffened, all calm lost. "Oh no," she croaked and gasped in air and tried to hold it but couldn't. She let out a shrill scream that ripped at her throat and hurt her cheeks but she couldn't stop it. Her knees buckled under her but before she hit the tile Isaac's arms hooked under her armpits and held her up.
Shaking, nearly convulsing, and suddenly cold, Lydia took in every detail before her. Bodies, maimed and bloody, propped up around the room like a display. Children, families, teenagers by the jukebox, an elderly man at the bar. Even a server. All dead and strung up with wire like puppets. Some were missing limbs, parts of their faces or heads. Some were stiff and bloated and blue. Most were crusted with dark black blood. One little girl's hair was burnt off of her head, her eyes wide and face half melted off, and reminded Lydia of a little doll that a sadistic little boy would torment and torture.
When Isaac carried her outside she held on with tiny iron fists to his jacket and leaned into him with all of her weight. The sobs finally came, and they wracked through her so violently that she couldn't stand. "Please," she strangled out. "Please make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop please," she repeated over and over until she couldn't speak anymore.
Hi hello hey, hope you guys liked this chapter and the Isaac/Lydia dynamic. Ish got dark. Let me know what your thoughts and feelings are! xoxo Air