Lit eZine Vol 8 | p-16 | FICTION | The Other

SHORT STORY

THE OTHER
by Souad Zakarani

“Different,” Souad said. Leigh read pain in Souad’s eyes, but Souad did not move away from her touch.

“It’s a good different, though,” said Leigh, shifting closer. “Like sometimes, I think you can see the wind. Not just the way it bends the trees. The actual wind. And sometimes when you’re talking, I’m almost positive the birds stop to listen. When you are playing barefoot outside, I swear the grass grows right under your feet.”

Souad blushed and shook her head no, but said nothing. She was looking down at Leigh’s hand resting on hers. Souad felt the thrum of energy she harnessed in her fingertips, always there and waiting. She thought about how long she had wanted to share it with Leigh, to let her best friend feel the pulse of the universe run through her like Souad did. Souad’s mom said that humans were not ready for that kind of power yet. That they needed more time to evolve, to ascend the trap of their corporeal form as her mother had put it.

“I’m just like you,” Souad finally said. “But not.” She wiggled up out of her sleeping bag until she was sitting cross-legged atop it. Leigh mirrored her and the girls sat face to face in the darkness with just the peripheral glow of their flashlight illuminating the room. 

“Let me show you.”

Souad grasped both of Leigh’s hands in both of her own. She felt down into the tips of each of her fingers and probed at the energy there. She whittled and refined it until it was only the size of an atom and she passed it into Leigh’s possession.

Leigh felt the energy enter her body slowly, as if the energy itself was unsure. It belonged there. Her eyebrows furrowed at the strange new sensation, and then she smiled at Souad. It felt pleasant, slightly warm and tingly.

“You feel it?” Souad asked. “Hold it in your hands.”

Leigh tried to focus her mind on the location of the thing that had entered her, but it no longer felt like one thing at all. It felt like many, many things crawling up the inside of her arm.

Her first thought was ants, but her second thought was wasp stingers, and her third thought was scalding knives. She looked down at her arm and it looked perfectly normal, but she did not seem able to do anything with it. She noticed she was screaming.

Souad’s eyes widened in horror as Leigh’s screeches filled the house. She grabbed back on to Leigh’s hand and tried to pull back out the grain of energy she had given her, but it wouldn’t come. Instead, Leigh’s arm splashed out of Souad’s grasp as her friend began to twitch and flail with uncontrollable spasms. Souad screamed for her mother, who was surely already hustling to the scene, drawn by Leigh’s cries.

Then Souad simply watched helplessly in absolute terror while the person she loved most in the world exploded into a fine red mist that painted every inch of the loft an unnatural crimson.

Souad sat motionless, her jaw slack, as if the hinge had broken. The mist of Leigh’s essence was so fine it did not even drip off her skin, just clung in a sticky film to every inch of her. She could taste Leigh’s blood in her mouth, she smelled it in her nose. The silence of Leigh’s absence was thick, like oil all around her.

“Oh, no!” Souad heard a faint sound from a distance. “Oh, God! Souad, what have you done?” It was the sound of her mother’s voice.