Two-souler
I woke up on the beach, my body stiff and stinging from the salt. As I rose on my elbows, the crystal shell encapsulating me began to fall off. The core of each crystal flashed metallic blue, then died. The quanta of my other soul locked within perished as well. The language of the ocean disassembled in my brain, and though the memories persisted, they stopped making sense. My connection to the Current was lost. I wondered whether my imprint scattered through the myriads of sentient molecules would be kept, or whether the ocean had regurgitated it together with my body. Could I still call myself a two-souler?
I got on my feet, stretching, the body acutely aware of the past transformations it went through, the foreign male features finally morphed into subtler and proper female ones. This experience gave me the plasticity necessary to merge with the ocean. But unlike that surgery, being cut off the Current felt more painful. Yet, it had to be done. My other soul might be scooped out, my second heart wilting inside my chest, but the feeling of poison was no less strong. The toxins that rained from the skies, where our huge metal homes drifted on nuclear power, still ravaged my body. The ocean molecules could do nothing but absorb this filth. The human mind was needed to stop that. I mourned just as I searched for a plan to preserve both of my homes.
Written by Nadya Mercik
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The Hall Of Fathers
I brush the non-existing dust off the skirt of my pink tulle dress and scratch my left wrist. My small, glittering shoe finally crosses the line. The scanner in the floor reads my approach and the tall doors of riveted, lacquered wood spread open. I enter the Hall of Fathers.
Graffiti Ghost
I arrive in the street cramped with huge lit signs of various shops and restaurants. There is a wrapper stuck to the sole of my trekking boot already. My shoulders ache – the trip from the airport included a lot of walking. A smell of hot bibimbap comes from the nearest door, enticing me to go in, take off my backpack – which is heavy with everything I own – and order a bottle of soju on top of everything.
The Shifting Tattoo
I feel it before I manage to see it and almost drop the coffee cup into the sink. I could nearly mistake it for the scald of the too hot water if it didn’t run up my forearm instead of down. It is rather precise as well, like tiny piranhas biting their way along the thin paths, very artistically. And when I look down – there it is. Or better say isn’t. Parts of my tattoo gone, vanished without a trace.
Ye and I…
The crack on the glass of the observation deck was branching fast, turning into a cave painting. Panic seized my heart, and my legs wouldn’t move to reach for the alarm button. There I was, glued to the floor in my customary observer’s position, knowing what awaited me and yet doing nothing to prevent it, to save myself.
Through The Hole
I can feel the layers of threads, but behind them the outer envelope is rock-hard. Each time I try to get through, my thin legs are sucked into the silk of the cocoon. Each time I pull back in horror, scared they would get trapped inside. Yet I cannot stop. It gets more and more cramped in here, and the air is stale, sparse. My new body wraps around me too tightly.
Karma On Pause
Yrid was escorted down the long white corridor by a lovely blonde-haired man. His features looked even more perfect when she tried to put her own face next to his in her mind’s eye – the aligned symmetry, the enhanced colours of the irises, the glow of the smoothest skin she’d ever seen. Not that she was very much surprised – every publicity material about Karma Inc. mentioned the high clinic standards, not only when it came to R&D and equipment, but the whole aesthetics.
Hobble Forward
I tense the muscles in my right foot and half-hop, half-skitter forward. Quick pause, then repeat. After a few steps I get the rhythm and the speed, and manage to climb the ramp with only a little bit of help from my wings, which too are clipped. This is an extra measure, because I am attached to a kid – they don’t want to traumatise her by having to use the disintegrating button. I have a few words to say about that, but my programming blocks them.
Phantom Heist
The things are finally quiet, and I glide down the corridors to the Egyptian room. I feel a bit nervous, so at one point I stop minding the cabinets and the walls and simply go through them. The benefits of being a ghost!
Switch
From my vantage point I look for any moving shadows, but they are always twigs or bushes, not even a stray cat. When I hear a rustling, I turn one-hundred-eighty degrees, but it’s just a chocolate wrapper carried around by the ecstatic wind, which seems to enjoy the empty streets. I wait and keep looking. They must be somewhere.
#FFA500
Their skin was a terrible orange colour. Still. If they could, they would peel it off and dump into the nearest trash bin.
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