Insentient Read online

  Scratch that. Now that I think of it, it would probably be the best wedding gift anyone gave her. Of course, having a sobbing wreck of a maid of honor at the biggest event of her life might be a buzz kill.

  My eyes scan the room once again and it appears Arianna and Patrick have found each other in the sea of well-dressed wedding guests on the dance floor.

  He’s a horrible dancer. He has no sense of rhythm, but I suppose now that she has turned her back on him and he has gripped her hips and has started grinding into her, it looks a bit more natural for him. I suppose that’s because they probably practiced this move earlier, I think with a derisive, audible snort.

  I need to get out of here.

  I stand and for a moment, I feel the need to hold myself steady. The room is a bit spinny and I blink a couple times while taking a deep breath.

  That seemed to help. As long as I can make it out of this room without making a complete ass out of myself, I count that as a win.

  I’m busy navigating around bodies, my eyes glued to the double doors before a deep voice sounds in my ear.

  “Precisa de mais champanhe?”

  Right. I have no idea, but the waiter is holding up a bottle, so I take it from him. He looks surprised for a second but shrugs shortly after.

  “Mushos grashiash,” I slur. I’m pretty sure that’s actually Spanish, not Portuguese, and as I walk away, I figure I can beat myself up for being stupid later on, if I even remember.

  I have one destination in mind. It’s a peaceful place, away from prying eyes and my scuzzy ex-fiancé.

  No one attempts to interact with me as I step out of the double doors and into the hallway. I kick my high-heeled sandals off under a chair as I near the exit when it finally dawns on me that they’ve been squeezing the hell out of my feet all night. I simply don’t have to take the torture any more. I can pick them up in the morning or maybe not. Maybe someone else will snag them up and that’s Ok, because they suck, I reason as I continue my bare-footed trek from the building.

  Freedom at last. It’s dark out and warm with a slight, fragrant breeze as I step onto the wood porch. Bugs probably the size of small babies are flying around and making loud chirping noises around me, yet I fearlessly walk toward the corner of the property, through the trees, my feet avoiding the crushed white stone until I have no choice but to use the small path to the pond that has become my favorite spot for the past two days.

  The bottoms of my feet are burning, I realize as I exchange the jagged stones for the splintered wood of the dock. I walk to the end anyway, the wood creaking below my feet, but it doesn’t alarm me. Really, nothing alarms me at the moment as I lower my body to sit at the very end, hiking my voluminous dress to my knees to dangle my stinging feet into the cool water below.

  I take a swig from the bottle and then another, because really, this stuff is delicious, I think before setting the bottle down next to me.

  The water is illuminated from the full moon above, the swirls closest to me evident, the drain in the middle of the pond is barely recognizable in the distance, but the sucking sound is definitely there. It really is the strangest thing, I think before I concentrate on opening the drawer to let out what I’ve been holding back all day.

  Taking a deep breath, I imagine the dresser I had in my room as a child. My mother painted it for me before I could even walk. Little pink and white primroses with swirling green vines and leaves adorn the drawers and the sides of the wood structure. She was a psychiatrist like me, but she had an artistic side I didn’t inherit. I was much more analytical and precise like my surgeon father, preferring numbers and logic to whimsy.

  I always thought that made me a better psychiatrist because I relied on logical patterns to uncover the root cause of my patient’s distress. Sound reasoning has always been my forte and yet, I take a bit of every patient and carry it with me. Dad always said I was too empathetic because even though I wouldn’t talk about my patients to anyone, I would exhibit physical reactions sometimes to the worst cases.

  This chest of drawers in my brain is so completely stuffed with pain and suffering that is not really mine, but it’s there. Well, except for the top drawer. That’s where I put the memories of my small family and now, the betrayal of someone I thought I loved.

  It’s open and I allow myself to grieve. I wait for the flood of emotion, the burning behind my eyes, the sadness and loneliness to overtake me and there’s nothing.

  Maybe I drank too much, I think quickly as my dry eyes dart around, waiting and wondering what the hell is going on. I pick up the bottle and take a healthy swig, the bubbles from the liquid burning the back of my throat, causing me to cough a few times before the feeling dissipates.

  Nothing. No tears, no squeezing pressure in my chest, just calm.

  This is fantastic, I think. It has to be the alcohol, or maybe…maybe Jen was right. Maybe I really don’t have feelings for Patrick. Maybe I really was going to marry him to avoid being alone? Or maybe I just couldn’t see myself with someone as manipulative and dishonest as he obviously is.

  Whatever the reason, I am more than a little amazed at this turn of events and it causes me to raise my hand in front of my face. The miniscule diamond chips in the small band around my finger are catching some of the moonlight and twinkling back at me. I attempt to pull it from my finger, but it won’t budge over my knuckle. Truly, it was never sized right, and I had vowed to take it to a jeweler to enlarge it, but I never had the opportunity.

  Now, I wouldn’t have to.

  I continue to pull and twist, twist and pull, but nothing. It’s almost like Patrick planned this too, I think as I increase my efforts to get this thing off me. The skin on my finger is chafing as I continue to try and work it over my knuckle before a thought occurs to me. I lean over as far as I can to dangle my hand in the water. That should do the trick, although I can’t quite get there.

  I lean a bit more and my fingertips are almost there before I straighten up and scooch to the very end of the dock. I bend over once again and am now able to dangle my entire hand in the cool water, bringing my other hand in to pull and twist and…free! I think as I feel it pull off before gravity decides it has other plans for me and I feel my body topple over into the water.

  All at once, my limbs are moving, my legs hampered by the fabric of my dress, my screams muffled by the water rushing into my mouth. Nothing works right, I think for a fleeting second as my body is forced further from the dock, something sucking me under the water as I continue to flail uselessly against the force pulling me.

  One moment I am a mess of movement the next I am blanketed in darkness, no sound, no sight, and finally, no thought.

  Chapter Two

  The Beast

  My eyes struggle to open, the lids heavy and sluggish so I squeeze them shut and take a deep, fortifying breath because I can. I almost expect a feeling of weightlessness, but I can tell instantly that my body is laying on something cool, smooth, and…

  Fragmented, I realize quickly as whatever I am laying on gives way into many pieces and I am tumbling end over end down a mountain of …something. Tinkling sounds surround me as I try desperately to stop my momentum but there is nothing to grasp onto, just the small, hard, moving pile beneath me. My body jolts abruptly as it hits something completely unyielding and my eyes finally pop open. It’s dark, but there is a flickering golden light that is causing the small objects around me to shine brilliantly.

  Coins, millions of them, maybe even billions of them piled high in a gleaming mountain towering next to me. I blink hard, then squeeze my eyes shut before opening them once again.

  I push up cautiously, my eyes roaming around the cavernous room. Sconces line the dark walls casting as much light as shadow between them. I look up, only to see unending darkness above me.

  Before my mind can conjure a list of possible reasons why I am seeing what I am seeing, I hear something. It sounds like coins scraping against each other but there is something else, a wh
isper, a giggle. I swear I heard that.

  “Hello?” I ask and there is more movement and it sounds a bit closer this time. My back stiffens, and my eyes scan the area I can see.

  “Who’s there?” I whisper as I turn my head as far as it can go before repeating the process in the other direction.

  All I can see is dark floor, dark walls, flickering light and shiny coins around me.

  I swivel back around, and I gasp as my heart stops for a second. My body immediately scoots backward as my body hits the mound of coins and they scatter around me.

  There’s a…thing in front of me. Its eyes are huge in its brown shriveled head. It’s as tall as I am sitting down, this tiny, gnarled creature. My mouth works but no sound comes out, my gaze is glued to this thing, my heart is now pumping wildly. I have no explanation ready for this. He has no nose, only a couple nostrils in the middle of his face and a tiny mouth. He looks like a raisin and a man. A raisin man. I’m looking at a raisin man and I can’t get even the slightest of sounds to come out of my mouth.

  “He’s not going to be happy,” I hear a soft feminine voice somewhere beyond raisin man, and my eyes shoot past his shoulder.

  A small face peers from behind his back, this one equally strange, yet completely different. This one reminds me of a bird. Small eyes, a protruding gnarled beak of a nose and small black lips. They both have bodies with arms and legs but that’s about the only human characteristic I recognize.

  “He’s never happy,” the thing says, and I can tell he’s of a masculine persuasion.

  “You can talk,” I finally manage, and they both peer at me closely.

  “Of course, we can talk. Why wouldn’t we?” he asks as she steps next to him. They are both clothed in little more than rags.

  “I…where am I? Who are you? How did I get here?” I ask in quick succession and they look at each other before looking back at me.

  “I don’t know,” they answer at the same time with matching shrugs.

  “But…this is impossible,” I say more to myself than them. “I must have been drugged, I’m hallucinating, that’s it. This isn’t real. You can’t be real,” I breathe out before squeezing my eyes shut once again.

  I will open my eyes and I’ll be laying on the dock. I had a dizzy spell, I passed out and this is just some crazy shit I conjured in my brain, I think.

  I pop one eye open slightly but all I can see is flickering light and shadows and two tiny creatures standing before me.

  No. Make that three now. This new addition is slightly taller but rotund. Shocks of frizz protrude from its head that really appears to just meld in with the rest of its body. Beady black eyes assess me from the floor up to my face.

  “Pretty,” he mumbles. “She’s pretty. Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he says from a mouth that is really just a slit in his face.

  “What won’t be so bad?” I ask before I can stop myself, both eyes now fully open.

  Something loud bangs and the echo reverberates throughout the space, causing me to jolt.

  “And, he’s back. I guess we should get this over with,” raisin man states on a sigh.

  “Yes, yes. You come with us,” bird-face says, and I think no-neck is nodding, but I’m not quite sure, his whole body is bobbing up and down.

  “Come,” raisin man says, flicking his wrist and causing my eyes to attach to his extra-long, bony looking fingers that remind me of twigs.

  “I…umm, who is ‘he’? Where are you taking me?”

  “Maybe we should wait,” bird-face pipes up before the other two turn and eye her.

  “That never helps. It only delays it, but it never helps. Come,” raisin man orders in my direction and impatiently flicks his wrist again.

  I have no clue what’s happening here and I’m not entirely sure I should follow them.

  “You’ll be all right, lady. Just please come,” the female says.

  “Can he help me get out of here?” I ask, my hopeful tone probably matching the expression on my face.

  “Dunno,” no-neck answers and turns to walk, er, more like waddle, toward the wall. Two large doors open as he approaches, and I can see more firelight flickering in the room he just entered.

  “Come. He sees you now, he knows you’re here,” the female voice beckons and I push my body to standing. I feel completely sober and I look down to notice I am also completely dry. My dress looks exactly the same as when I put it on earlier, my hair – well, it appears some of the strands have come loose from my previous up-do, trailing down my chest in soft waves, but they too, are dry.

  None of this makes any type of sense to my logical brain, I think as I follow closely behind the small creatures in front of me.

  Bird-face looks back and it almost appears as if she’s giving me an encouraging smile with her little black lips. I can’t smile back. I can only wonder what I was slipped to make me hallucinate this badly.

  The floor beneath my bare feet changes from craggy and uneven to smooth and cool as soon as I enter the large room behind them. My eyes are glancing everywhere, but the only thing I see are more sconces fixed on dark walls, their light shining on the dark smooth floor beneath me.

  Stars, or rather small, shiny pieces embedded in the smooth surface below me wink in the firelight as I walk, and my eyes are mesmerized by the strangely beautiful sight.

  “Sir, we have a…visitor,” I hear raisin man announce toward the front of the room.

  I can’t see anything, only darkness. No sconces adorn the wall in the direction he just spoke as I look up.

  The three of them have stopped, prompting me to stop also and my eyes search the black void at the end of the room for anything discernible.

  There – two small pinpricks of light within the blackness. I can see them as I squint to focus.

  “Sir -”

  “Quiet,” a male voice interrupts him. It surrounds me, this voice; almost beckoning, deep and resounding. It’s a voice any movie trailer company or newscast would love to employ, I think for a moment.

  I wait. I wait some more, but nothing is forthcoming from the opposite side of the room causing my nervousness to increase. My hands clasp in front of me before I start to fidget.

  I look expectantly toward those small, unwavering lights before me, and I clear my throat. My mouth opens to speak but I gasp instead as a multitude of creatures step from the shadows, crowding the perimeter of the room.

  I glance around quickly, noticing they are all different sizes and shapes – some as tall or taller than me, some not even reaching my knees, and yet they are all, every one of them, different from the other.

  “What is this place?” I whisper in awe as their features become more pronounced as I study them.

  “What are you doing here?” the harsh voice asks, and my eyes return once again to the direction of the small lights in front of me.

  “I don’t know,” I answer automatically, my voice sounds so small and unsure.

  “Yes, you do.”

  I look around me, my eyes catching on a small, fuzzy looking…thing with what appears to be a flaccid penis in the middle of its face.

  “That’s weird,” I mutter before I can stop myself.

  “I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

  My attention snaps back to the small lights.

  “I…” my mind works frantically, cataloguing the events leading up to my arrival in this place before I clear my throat.

  “I was on a dock, and I was sitting on the edge, on the pond – the toilet pond that swirls in the wrong direction and I…put my hand in and I fell. I think I fell in and then I woke up and then these strange little creature things told me to come with them and here I am. But…I’m not really here, am I? I’m drunk or drugged and I’m just making this all up in my head, right? Because this isn’t real. I’m not really standing here in a strange place with strange creature things talking to two tiny lights in a weird room.”

  I take a deep breath and wait.

  I lo
ok around to see narrowed eyes all fixed in my direction.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I believe you’ve offended them, these, strange creature things, as you call them. Who’s to say what’s strange around here? Maybe you’re the strange one with your little nose and your perfect face. Maybe we’re all normal and you’re the strange one,” the voice says.

  My eyes must be adjusting because I can see shiny black boots and legs clad in black pants. Nothing else is visible beyond that.

  “She is strange looking. I don’t like her,” that from flaccid penis nose, I notice. I shoot him a quick glare.

  “So, you’re telling me that you stuck your hand in a toilet and you woke up here, correct?” the man in front of me asks.

  “No! Ugh,” I scoff with an eye roll. “I put my hand in the pond, not a toilet. I mean, it swirls like a toilet, that’s what I meant.”

  “Right, of course,” he answers with a distinctly dry tone. “And why did you put your hand in a pond?”

  “To get the ring off,” I answer quickly.

  “What ring?”

  “My engagement ring.”

  “Oh,” the collective group drags out, causing my eyes to span the masses once again. Whispers erupt between them, and I swear their numbers grew from only moments ago.

  “You can’t stay here. You don’t belong here. You need to go,” the voice in the front of the room states and the rest of the group quiets immediately.

  “Yes! Yes, that’s exactly what I want. If you could just tell me how -”

  “Ugh,” he grunts out, cutting me off. “Why do you people all say that?” he scoffs.

  “You mean…other people have…come here?” I ask in a small voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, are they still here?” I look around, scanning the oddities around me for something remotely human-looking and finding nothing.