Stranger Skin ch 5: The Lie You Tell Yourself

The astringent smells of the med-center were the first to break through the darkness, long before sight or sound. Touch was next, reporting Xlack lay on a soft mattress, a thin, starchy sheet draped over all but his head. Sound drifted back next, as if returning on the tide.

“Let me go!” he heard in the distance amid a scuffle and running footsteps.

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up, head and heart pounding, mind racing. Twi? Where was Twi? And Stevalok?

His hands and sleeves had been scrubbed clean, but he could still smell the Lettaplexal’s blood, a heady blend of iron, mud, sugar, and the essence that was Stevalok—a mostly bitter scent, like wine.

A wave of this odor hit him just before Stevalok landed on him, fists tangling in Xlack’s lapels. “You cut off my hand!”

“It was only a nightmare,” Entrycii corrected, stopping at the foot of the bed.

“Scum-for-brains should keep his nightmares to himself!”

“A nightmare?” Xlack repeated, noting that Stevalok had both hands twisted in his jacket. Hands. “It wasn’t real.” Which meant Twi…

“You still made me live through it! My hand! And Twi with the kanaber! And Entrycii killing her! He should have killed you!”

Xlack covered his face with his palms. “I wasn’t scripting any of it.”

“But you managed to escape unscathed. I can’t ever forget that scene now,” Stevalok growled, shaking him. “How it felt.”

Xlack met his wide eyes, mind only half-present as he stretched his senses in search of Twi. She should have been somewhere near within this med-center, but the crowd of signatures blended in a dull roar and prodded at his headache.

Beyond Stevalok, the room was small and empty, light eking through a curtain that served as the door. In the corridor, Rifo leaned against the wall, the dutiful amaraq, never far.

Xlack retreated to his immediate surroundings and gathered the strings of Stevalok’s emotions. “I could make you forget.”

“No, thank you.” Stevalok threw him down. “I don’t want you messing with my head.”

Xlack’s gaze zeroed in on his teammate’s hands. The left was bandaged, the one he had seen severed, but that hadn’t actually been.

“Twi wasn’t there, was she?”

“Of course not,” Entrycii confirmed. “She can barely walk.”

“Which makes you insane,” Stevalok added.

Xlack bit the inside of his cheek, but it did nothing to quell the unease coiling inside his chest. “How did you really get hurt?”

“I think ya know,” Rifo said, shoving through the curtain. “Yer Mind Talents are frighteningly strong. Ya must be aware suggestions can kill.”

Xlack gulped. “Yes.”

“Then ya already understand the concept. Ya made Stevalok believe he’d received a grave injury, believe it so deeply, that despite all evidence to the contrary, his body believed it, too, and over-responded, creating a semblance of the injury in the process.”

“I lost a lot of blood,” Stevalok griped, arms crossed. “I almost died.”

Rifo sighed. “Stevalok, what did yer sutae tell ya about exaggerating?”

“That it’s my greatest asset.”

Entrycii let out a bark of laughter.

“What, you don’t believe me?”

Entrycii shrugged. “Last week, you claimed your insatiable pessimism was your greatest asset.”

“I can have more than one greatest asset!”

Xlack ignored their argument, eyes locked on his amaraq. “Am I insane, Rifo?”

A mote of pity rippled through the Tala’s scrutinizing stare, and a few beats passed before he replied, “No. I think that nightmare was partially due to yer proximity to the artifact. It’s known to cause strange behavior in Magni and reacts strongest to Mind Talents.”

“And the other partially?”

Rifo grinned. “Sometimes when I guess correctly, I’m told to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t come over here to answer yer questions. Stevalok, Master Qcoice is looking for ya.” He caught Stevalok’s ear and towed him toward the door.

“Ow! Don’t treat me like I’m five!”

“When ya were five, ya were a lot easier to carry.”

Stevalok’s protests and Entrycii’s jabs as he followed bounced through the halls. Nothing kept Xlack here, no restraints, no tubes, no monitors, not even Rifo to tell him what to do, but he didn’t move, listening to his own heart batter his ribs.

His uncle had tried to teach him to kill with suggestions, first on small animals, once on a Zalerit. Xlack had refused, but now he wondered. His Talents were dangerous, but if he didn’t master every aspect of them, even their darkest sides, was it inevitable that he would hurt others when he didn’t mean to?

There’s something very wrong with me.

Rifo had blamed it on the artifact, but Xlack stared at his hands. Their pale red glowed like a rising sun. The color had appeared before he ever stepped foot in that museum.

Rifo knows the real answer, and he’s not worried about it.

He wished he could trust that, but doubt slithered up his spine. To worry, Rifo first had to care.

Homesickness boiled in his chest and throat, and though Xlack closed his eyes, hot tears seeped through his lashes. His father would know what was going on and how to fix it. If Xlack could only talk to him…

Did his father even want to talk to him after what Xlack had done? If Xlack could just explain, he would understand why Twi had to be saved.

As if his thoughts summoned her, Twi’s signature glided against his senses, smooth and fast as a river diving over a cliff. Her hobbled steps rang against the hall’s tiles, and Xlack raced to meet her.

She returned his smile and stumbled, but he was there, arms around her, careful of her wounded back. With her near and safe, joy’s wings unfurled.

“I’m not broken. I can stand on my own.”

Despite her claims, every step was pained. Her muscles shook, threatening another collapse, and Xlack held her tighter.

She felt real, more tangible than the phantom Twi he had seen die, but suspicion paced in his mind anyway. How could he know? And if this was the real Twi, what if he pulled her into another nightmare and she suffered like Stevalok had?

“It didn’t leave you unscathed,” she remarked as he lifted her to sit on the end of the med-bed, arms reluctant to release her even if she would be fine now without his support. He sat next to her.

“I saw you die,” he whispered, forehead on her shoulder, and despite how often they had told him in the past weeks that Knalcals fiercely guarded their personal space, she didn’t shove him away. She leaned toward him, even.

“It was a nightmare. It wasn’t real.”

“Stevalok’s pain was real.” His gaze fell on his hand, still bruised with that discoloration, tainted against the backdrop of Twi’s fair arm.

Her skin resembled stone, but it responded to his touch, pliant and prickling. It felt like skimming a lake full of lightning. His thumb drew a spiral, then turned it into the insignia of his home region, an abstract lamp he traced again and again.

“Chin up, Ekymé. Look at me.”

He complied.

“You cannot believe I would ever be the Twi from that nightmare, that I would attack Stevalok for no reason.”

His shoulders scrunched closer to his ears. “Your reason was Lettaplexal is good for you.”

“Then would I have had you swallow his hand like some vitamin?”

“Disgusting,” Xlack breathed, attention on the wry slant of her lips.

“When I have a nightmare, Lanox tells me to rewrite the ending once I’ve awoken. So, how would you rather the dream have gone?”

Sitting with her like this, faces less than a hand’s width apart, he had a very vivid picture of how he wanted the story to go.

She tilted closer, breath warm against his ear. “I don’t think you’ve quite escaped from the dream yet.”

No. No, please be real.

“If I could write the ending, I’d save you again, because I always will.” With the promise, he pressed a kiss to her temple. Her silver Knalcal markings were like ice, abnormally cold even considering her temperature was far lower than most Napix.

She leaned away. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because I am Tala and Knalcal, and I have enough conflict in me.”

Did that sound like he had a chance? She was so very close, heart tamping in rhythm with his. That meant something, right?

They had kissed before, but it had been a ruse no matter how much he wished it wasn’t. She had done it only to convince their audience she was someone she was not.

Or had she? Maybe, like Xlack, she had started with that intention, but she had enjoyed it, and she didn’t want to admit it.

Why? Did she fear what others would think?

“No one’s watching,” he whispered. “Do you know the legends of love’s kiss? How it can heal anything?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mention it because of that discoloration no one else can see?”

“Yeah. Want to see if love’s kiss will get rid of it?”

Her mouth twisted in a grin. He stayed still, heart skipping as she moved, but as the space between them diminished, she wedged his hand in front of his face, and her lips brushed his palm.

“Is the color gone?” Her steely gaze met his through the hollows between his fingers, crackling with amusement.

“No, try again.” He stole his hand back and brushed her plaits behind her shoulder. “The highest concentration is on my lips.”

It could be true. He couldn’t see his own face.

She held a vertical index finger between them. “Maybe I’m not your true love.”

“We won’t know until you try.”

She scooted away, and her back spasmed in protest, pain sharp and angry like the call of a predatory bird. They both winced, but Xlack refused to let his flinch relinquish his hold. Her fingers tangled in his sleeves. She needed something to cling to, and he would not abandon her.

After several seconds, she let go, but her voice was hollow and weak. “I have another theory as to the source of and solution to your imagined discoloration. Have you heard the phrase, ‘Live in a stranger’s skin’?”

No, but it sounded invasive. He shook his head, ashen curls rustling in a way he had never liked but had learned to ignore.

“It means to try to see things from another’s point of view, to learn to be someone you are not.”

He eyes narrowed, per usual, one a little more than the other. “To wear their skin and pretend to be them, like a disguise?”

“In a way. You are an Aylata, but that is not something you can be here. So, what are you? What will you be? You fear the answer to that, but nightmares don’t tell, they show. That is what your discoloration is: your mind saying it has no idea what you are becoming.”

His frown deepened. “To get rid of it…?”

“Figure out what you’re comfortable being. That will let you be you and will allow you to not only escape from the nightmare, but conquer it so it can’t come back.”

“Perceptive, isn’t she?” a voice mocked. Xlack’s own voice, but he hadn’t said anything.

Gaze darting to every corner of the dark room, he slid off the med-bed and stood in front of Twi. “Show yourself!”

A too-familiar form flashed in the doorway—a tendrilled staff like an Aqkashi but longer and thicker. An Ier, signature weapon of the Aylata.

It hummed like a distant gale as it devoured the air, its glow highlighting a figure that looked more like Xlack than he currently did. Identical face, hair, physique, but this one wore the clothes of an Aylata, the very outfit he had carefully folded into a bag and left in the hrausq room. The Ekymé clan pattern was displayed proudly on his right pant leg, the Tsira insignia on his collar.

The double grew a cocky grin, the kind Xlack always gave right before he deliberately annoyed someone. “Recognize me?”

Fear slithered through Xlack’s gut. Was he watching through someone else’s eyes, stuck within a stranger’s skin like Twi had said?

No, this was his body. His hands, though discolored, had his scars. They pulsed with his life-signature, but so did the figure in the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Twi questioned as Xlack scooped her up, an arm beneath her knees and another bracing her shoulders.

“We might have to run.”

“From what?”

“From…”

She can’t see it. He’s real only within my mind. This is the beginning of another nightmare, and I can’t pull her into it.

Her inquiring gaze scoured his face, and his eyes caught hers, bottomless, silver seas dropping to the depths of her soul.

“Sleep, Twi.”

Her mind was reflective, and most suggestions were lost in its maze of mirrors. Yet, this time she fell limp in his arms, head lolling against his chest. Either her medication made her more susceptible or his desperation made the suggestion that much stronger. Perhaps it was some combination of the two, but Xlack was grateful. He would protect her, even if it was from himself.

He shifted his weight, searching for an exit and ready to sprint, but how could he run from his own mind?

“Clever.” The apparition in the doorway chuckled.

“You aren’t real.”

“Oh, I’m very real. I am the lie you tell yourself, the façade you put on so others won’t see your doubt, fear, or regret.”

“And I can see you because…?”

“I’m here to destroy this sniveling version of us that is you, holding me back. So come.” He flicked the ghostly Ier, holding it level with his shoulder, sharp tendrils pointed at his opponent.

“If you become me, then I’ll become a lie,” Xlack shot back.

“Without you, I’ll become exactly what you need to be”—the doppelgänger shrugged—“but you won’t be you. I said come.”

With this second summons, pain fell in Xlack’s mind like a rain of stinging needles. Darkness clouded everything, clarity’s flashes like lightning, too bright and too brief. Stumbling under the onslaught, he found a mote of comfort in Twi’s weight in his arms, a root tying him to reality, solidifying his determination. What had she said he needed?

The clone was too close, translucent Ier swinging.

Xlack ducked. “You can’t hurt me.”

The double laughed, striking again, and the monsoon in his mind grew fiercer. “Because you declare me not real? Don’t you know the power of your own Mind Talents?”

“I can’t use my Mind Talents on myself.” Xlack dodged as the ghost flowed through a well-practiced routine of attacks. “You are me. You can’t use Mind Talents on me.”

“Then it would be wise for you to ask whose trap you’re caught in.”

Xlack paused, recalling one of his mentors’ favorite mantras.

Your subconscious always knows more than you do.

The Ier shot forward, endpoints level with his eyes, a straight thrust as swift as thought. His view lagged, watching in slow motion. He couldn’t move.

“Fight back.” An order. It wasn’t said loudly, but it held all the gravity of a star.

A tendrilled staff appeared in his grasp, smaller than the Ier it blocked. Everything stilled.

Twi had disappeared. Xlack faintly felt her in his arms still, but he couldn’t see her. Instead, he held a crimson Aqkashi, eyes wide and drowning in its light.

He saw it for himself, not filtered through someone else’s memory. Red. The color was bold, like the thrill of arguing with his teachers or leaping off a roof. It was loud—the roar of an engine; the feel of brambles scraping one’s skin while racing through the woods; the warm, dangerous scent of flames—demanding acknowledgement of its existence. Undeniable. Unignorable in its blatant beauty.

It was awesome.

Twi pushed him. She hadn’t simply accepted the sleep suggestion. She had formed some connection, allowing her to stand alongside him in his mind and hold an umbrella against the storm.

He took her shove and spun around another slash of the Ier, sweeping the Aqkashi low. Twi whirled in the opposite direction, and the red staff divided in two, both weapons somehow still whole as she swung high.

Two sets of ruby tendrils sundered his double, and the doppelgänger vanished.

As the vision faded, Twi stood across from Xlack. This projection of her mind was uninjured and lithe as ever, a half smile quirking her lips.

“If my therapy has taught me anything, it’s that one’s mind, one’s will, is one’s most powerful component.” Her words dulled to a mere gasp, quieter than the whisper of the wind. “There’s a reason I believe in you, Xlack Ekymé.”

Continued in Chapter 6: What Do We Believe In

Thank you for reading!