Today’s story is inspired by Going Place by BoFeng
“I forgot my shoes,” Eric said. We had slide through the door with the wolves at our back. Jennifer was right. They can’t cross over. I don’t even know if they can see the doors. We didn’t wait to check as I slammed the panel behind us as quickly as we were over.
“I need my shoes,” Eric said in a low tone. The boy was distant, unsure, and I couldn’t really blame him. We had found him four doors ago, wandering here and there in mute confusion. Jennifer asked if we could leave him but Kathy had already started to approach him. It was good we did. He’d been the one who noticed the wolves before any of us although I wish he’d have more tack than to scream about them.
We had been in the water. I had already bathed and was sitting on the dock. Kathy, a mother before she ended up here, hadn’t been shy about getting Eric cleaned up. He had seemed oblivious to the nudity but I felt weird about it and Jennifer wasn’t even comfortable with me or Kathy around when she undressed. Kathy just took care of him with a mother’s hand.
He had screamed when he saw the wolves, and it had been enough warning for me and Jennifer to gather up Kathy’s and Eric’s things. She pulled Eric to the side of the water and started to get on her cloths while I shoved Eric’s shirt over his head. We had already known where the door was and so we bolted straight to it. Between the lake and the strange world hoping frame the two of them finished getting dressed, except for the pair of shoes Eric dropped.
“I think, I think we’re okay,” Jennifer said. She had the spear in hand again, holding it towards where the door had been. We each knew a little about how they worked. Whenever someone opened a door on one world, it appeared in the destination. Before then, there’s no sign of the exit. We had learned that one when Bradly tried to hunt us. He almost had, with that spear.
I paused a second while I thought about Oscar. Most of what we knew had come from him. Originally an old professor before this place, he had seen so much and been through everything before getting dumped here. He sacrificed himself against Bradly. Bradly had stabbed him, but Oscar still managed to get close enough to cut the mad boy with a knife. After the fight we found Bradly unconscious by another door, bleeding horribly from the wound. Jennifer used her own spear to gut him. I think that’s when she went cold.
“I need my shoes,” Eric said again.
“Shut up,” Jennifer spat. “Shut up about your damn shoes. Why the hell did you scream about the wolves? We could have gotten away faster if you had just come on shore first.”
“Are you joking?” Kathy said.
“What?” Jennifer asked.
“I said are you joking? You really think anyone would have kept quiet about seeing wolves bigger than a linebacker?”
“Especially an invalid,” I said.
“Don’t you dare,” Kathy said, pointing a finger at me. “He just needs attention.”
“He’s just going to get us killed,” Jennifer said. “He’ll just pull hunters onto us instead of being one. Why don’t we just take his essence now and be done with it?”
Kathy and I both stared in horror at her.
“I didn’t mean that,” Jennifer said. She let the spear’s tip lower down to the ground. “I’m sorry.”
“We don’t do that.” My words were deliberate and hard. “Never. I don’t care what the maesters want with us. I don’t care what they’re doing with us. We don’t kill unless we have to. Only for defense.”
“Oscar killed,” Jennifer said. “Not often but you know he did.”
I did. Of course I did. I had been the one to touch him first when he was down. When he died. His essence and the sixteen boys and girls he killed entered me. Jennifer had Bradly and the boys he killed, but only because he didn’t kill girl. “I like them; I like you,” he had said when he held the three of us at the end of his spear before the fight. The essence made us stronger, faster, keener. We could see things and experience them at a pace I had never experienced in my fifty-four years. Even when I was a developing teen, as the body I was in now expressed, I could never move like I do now.
I looked to Eric, “Eric. How did you see the wolves?”
“Shoes.”
“Right, new shoes. We’ll get you some new ones. I’d give you mine but your feet are too big for mine or any of the others.”
Eric looked down at my feet and nodded.
“Too small. Need to find new shoes.”
“I don’t know how he saw them,” Kathy said. “When he started screaming I had thought the soap had gotten into his eyes.” She rubbed her shoulder. “But he seemed to know. Just like how Oscar was nervous when Bradly was following us. Before we knew.”
“But I’ve got Oscar’s danger sense,” I said. “I didn’t feel a thing until I knew about them.”
“Maybe the beasts can take essence too,” Kathy said.
“And maybe his innate gift is, what? Ultra-danger sense?” Jennifer said. She had the spear back up but was looking around the forest we had found ourselves in.
“Well, I mean think about Oscar and me,” Kathy said. “I can see the other side of a closed door. Oscar could too but not as well. And Bradly could summon a weapon, but Jennifer, yours is far more impress of a weapon. Maybe if it’s your native gift.”
“It’s stronger. That makes sense,” I said. “Okay Eric, tell me, what do you see around us? Any shoes?”
Eric looked about the forest, and nodded.
“A bunch of shoes. Three pairs big enough for me. One pair your size, Izzy.”
“Three pairs? Four? Wait, is he saying we’re surrounded?” Jennifer asked just as my danger sense started to kick in.
Trying out some longer pieces. Not quite breaking out of Flash Fiction but getting closer.