Rising Shards

For months on end, I woke up in a sea of days that were all the same, blending together, repeating. The same routine, the same dull, draining events that happened over and over and over.

The artificial sun rising out of the window in my room put a glare on my mask no matter where I put it. My prison of a mask. Its shape was effectively a reflective globe with a box around it. I thought that even if I hid it in my closet for the night it still would have found some way to make its presence known. Even breaking one just meant I’d have to wear another from the stockpile stored in the lab.

6:45AM.

First alarm goes off. I sit up, stretch, yawn. Send her a text. She doesn’t respond to that or my messages from the prior night.

7:00AM.

Bury my face in a pillow and scream.

7:10AM.

Take a blood sample and send it through the pneumatic tube system in the lab.

7:15AM.

Practice bass. The only thing that keeps me sane.

7:30AM.

Look at myself in the mirror before I have to cover my face up for most of the day.

7:40AM.

After a brief breakfast, the mask goes on.

7:50AM.

Before leaving for class, I stop by a log in the corner of my room. One might find it strange to keep a chunk of wood like this around, but I found it was the easiest and best way to handle the task I bestowed upon it. A picture of two people was taped to it, and a knife wedged into it as well. Before I left for class every day, I stabbed the picture, alternating between the two depending on whose face pissed me off more that day. I had a stack of copies of the picture ready for when I completely wrecked it, taping another on top of it.

Beside that was a notebook. I had been filling the journal just with my name. Every page, over and over and over I wrote my name. It was some kind of declaration for myself, maybe I was afraid I’d forget. A reminder who I was while I went by the P.D. moniker at my mother’s request.

For a time, I’d check where I was in the world when the facility moved around, but it had been in the same place for a while, so I had no need to.

Whichever school I went to, it didn’t really matter, it was all the same. That routine had gone on for so long that the shift from one school to another barely registered.

That endless malaise repeated itself over and over, with only slight changes, nothing fixing what was wrong, nothing stopping the grind looping over and over and over.

Some nights I could escape, even just a little. Usually at a dingy rock club where my band played. I found Nikki getting ready, tuning her guitar. While I tuned my own bass, I thought about asking her straight up why she didn’t respond to my messages, but I had learned long before that that was a fruitless path to chase. She was in her own world all the time, for better and worse.

I had some good news for her, though. The treatments were working, and Mother said I wouldn’t have to wear the mask anymore, that I could just be me without the prison on my head that kept me from getting thrown to a random dimension. I wasn’t sure I would believe it until the day actually came, but it was a glimmer of hope in my doldrums.

”Nikki, guess what?” I asked. I might not have to wear the mask anym—”

”Hey, sorry, the manager just said we got bumped to first so we gotta be out there in a minute,” Nikki said.

”A minute, are you serious?” I asked.

”Yeah, sorry...someone cancelled last minute, so...” Nikki said. She shrugged, a gesture matching the nonchalant energy of her response.

I growled. ”Fine, whatever.”

Barely anyone had arrived for the night when we stepped onto the small stage. For an audience of about thirteen people, we attempted to play a few of our songs. Our band desperately needed the warmup time, and it showed immediately that we didn’t have it. I kept glancing over to Nikki, who played on like our band wasn’t four musicians barely in sync. She just grinned and kept going. I tried to match that energy, because even in a bad performance my soul was freed, even if the place was at an eighth of its capacity, the notes in my heart were able to reach someone. Those were the brief moments I felt free. I wondered how much better it would be if I was in a band that actually practiced, or had a lead that wasn’t in her own world.

”So...” I said, not sure how to sum up that performance when we got to the back. Our drummer Bree and lead guitarist Kyra didn’t have much to say, just getting on their phones immediately, slouching into big bean bag chairs. The backstage felt particularly blah going from the colorful lights of the stage, feeling like life was drained from us the longer we stayed there.

Kind of alone with Nikki, my stomach fluttered like it always did around her.

”What did you think?” I asked. It wasn’t a great show obviously, but maybe Nikki could inspire me like she used to about my playing.

”S’good,” Nikki shrugged, pulling out her phone as well. She sent a message, and Bree and Krya’s phones binged a moment later. I wasn’t sure if she was sending something to them that she wasn’t sending to me, but I swallowed any suspicion, tried to hide the bitterness.

”Maybe we can go out for food or something after this?” I asked.

”Sorry, I got plans tonight,” Nikki said.

”Right, sure,” I said, biting my inner cheek.

Nikki was one of the dearest people in my life, if not the most important. But it hurt when the most important person barely had a word for me after our set. Whatever the state of our relationship was, it was textbook ”it’s complicated.” We had been like frayed fabric for a long time now, splitting more and more each day and I wasn’t sure how many threads we had left, but I desperately wanted to hold onto them.

I didn’t feel like hanging out in the backstage area, so I went out to watch the other bands. A few familiar faces were waiting in the crowd, which unfairly had filled out just in the brief window after my performance ended and me walking back out. Though maybe it was for the best that so few saw such a rancid performance.

”Oh, I didn’t realize you were here,” I said.

My fellow devils, Cani in the same lab as me that received the same treatment to keep us stable, had joined. It was Sai, Esther, Myles, and Ash, the others in our group apparently not making the journey. They stood out with their horns and spiked tails, though not too much as a rock club with lots of Cani featured people of all types. I probably stood out the most with the giant box on my head.

”We just got here, have you gone yet?” Sai asked.

”Just missed us,” I said.

”Damn,” Sai said as the others groaned.

”Trust me, it’s for the best,” I said.

We still had a good time watching. For as bad as I thought my band did, at least we were better than the second and third that night, one of which was a group of Cani trying to play their instruments just with fangs somehow (they were not very good at this gimmick), and another that started shoving each other around and fighting before they could play a single song. I wondered if there would be anything decent performed tonight just before the fourth band arrived.

With the motion of the crowd, we’d somehow ended up front and center, so it felt like the lead singer of the next band was looking directly at me as she approached. She was an Echela girl with reddish hair with a streak of dyed green in it. Without an introduction, they started playing, and it felt like a shockwave of energy ran through the crowd.

Every band member perfectly in sync. The lead singer’s voice was so beautiful, the lyrics enchanting. The way she sang, the way it felt like she looked directly to me, the way her eyes looked like they sparkled with stars....it made me feel like it was just her alone in the club.

I felt a strange longing I couldn’t remember ever feeling before when she left, but I was energized. The rest of the bands that night were great, but none struck me like that one. Nothing helped me feel like I’d escaped it all like that one.

The mask’s glare didn’t feel as intense the morning after. I even skipped some of morning routine regulars, not needing to scream out my frustrations just a few minutes into the day. It was silly to think after one concert, but it felt like my fortunes had been altered somehow. As though a new fate, a more hopeful one, now waited for me.

Before I could even send the day’s blood sample in, someone knocked at my door. It was my mother. She rarely arrived in mornings unless it was very urgent. She wasn’t one to get very overtly excited, always keeping a professional, composed state even around me, but I could tell by her body language that it was good news.

”Your samples from the last few days...” Mother said, paging through printed out charts and data. ”The readings were excellent. I think our next step is a day out without the helmet.”

I nodded, feeling a rush of emotion I wasn’t expecting. Maybe in addition to my own feelings, I felt everything my mother kept in.

”O-OK!” I said.

Mother explained the plans for the day, but I was buzzing too excitedly to hear it. In my excitement, I remembered something I couldn’t skip. I rushed back to my room, looking at the notebook with my name written over and over and over. Soon, I wouldn’t have to hide behind being P.D. I could go by the name I missed so dearly.

I could be Anastasia Kathron again.

I could give up looking over a notebook with my name written over and over in it once I could openly be myself in the world, but there was one part of my routine I couldn’t part with. I picked up the knife, looking down at the picture taped to the log. My excitement joy didn’t fully douse the rage I felt to the two as I drove the blade down twice, one stab for each of my estranged sisters, Zeta and Stella Faleur.