Floating Ink (5 page)

“Stand back! I am warning you. I am at my
limit here!” Ruth shrieked at the creature.

The creature floated back just a little.
“Okay. That’s fair. I am not here to threaten you. I just want to
explain.”

Ruth didn’t say anything, she just raised the
rock a little higher and did a menacing step forward. She pounded
her foot forward as if that would give her strength in her
throw.

“You’re scared. I get that.” Said the
floating ink creature known as Ryan. “What do you want to know? How
can I help you?”

“Who are you? Why won’t you let me escape?”
said Ruth, using the rock to point to the wall.

“We are Xenophen. We come from very far away.
You can leave, but first we need to make sure you understand. In
the park, you hurt yourself because you didn’t understand. We want
to ensure you understand.”

Ruth touched near her eye and felt the blood
that had been trickling down. It wasn’t a gushing sensation, and
she barely felt it. Perhaps she barely felt it because of the
adrenaline.

“What do I need to know? Then I can leave?”
Ruth said, slowly lowering the rock.

“Yes, you’ll be free to go. We just need to
explain why we’ve put you through what we did,” said Ryan the
Xenophen.

“When we first arrived,” Ryan continued, “we
noticed you were behind us from a technological standpoint. If we
simply started using what we had, our collective conscious was
worried it would cause your species to grow lazy and stagnate. We
needed to slowly teach you the technology. That’s why we
implemented the caretaker program.”

“That’s why people keep calling me a
caretaker?” Ruth asked.

“Yes,” replied Ryan floating down slightly.
“You were chosen to be a caretaker. We were looking to bring you to
this setting to learn the technology.”

“What technology?” Ruth asked.

“Well, that’s the cog and sprocket of this
thing, you haven’t been exposed to it yet. I have in our records
that we tried a sleep light on you. The original plan was to show
you the technology, and you could test it in this environment. If
something went wrong with the technology, it wouldn’t be a big
deal. The only people in this town are shadow robots. When you woke
up, you had a new ability for numbers. We maneuvered ourselves to
watch you grow.”

“What was the technology going to be?” Ruth
asked again.

“A form of mild telepathy. Nothing wild. Just
enough where two people could express emotions for each other.”
said Ryan. “This town was supposed to help you train the ability.
The shadow robots could help buffer the initial use. They are close
enough to human consciousness that they would respond to your
telepathy.”

“So, what are the reality bubbles then?” Ruth
backed away slowly, leaning against the wall.

“That was another unexpected twist. Our
records indicate you weren’t supposed to wake up until we brought
you here. The best we’ve been able to come up with is that you’ve
slipped slightly out of the dimension.”

“Out of the dimension?” Ruth asked, tilting
her head.

“Yes. It’s kind of like a record skipping
when it hits a scratch. For some people, it causes a repeating. The
events of a day play over and over. For others, like yourself, it
pushes you to a different point in that record.” replied Ryan.

Ruth said nothing and just absorbed the
information.

“So,” Ryan continued, “we may not be able to
fix the record, but we can help you determine when you’ll ‘skip’ to
another dimension. Tell me, what do these dimensions look like from
your perspective?”

“Bubbles. Like floating bubbles.” Ruth
replied, letting the rock clatter to the ground.

“Ah. So it sounds like you use a bubble
analogy. That means that your consciousness uses a mix of feelings
and water. That makes sense.”

“So, how do I use this?” Ruth asked.

“I am sorry,” Ryan shifted color to a
greyish-blue, “I don’t know. It’s a slip from your personal
dimension. I am aware that this was inside you before we came,
though maybe it wouldn’t have awoken without our help. The best
solace I can offer is that you need to think of these as emotions
in a bubble.”

The other Xenophen floated away slowly until
it was only Ryan and Ruth near the wall. Ruth watched them slowly
disappear. The feeling of not being surrounded helped Ruth relax a
little. It was nice knowing she had directions to run if she
needed.

“So, what now? Can I go home?” Ruth
asked.

“I told you that you could go after I told
you the truth. I’ve told you the truth,” said Ryan.

“You’re letting me go?” asked Ruth,
skeptically, with a sneer on her lips.

“Of course.” Ryan opened a small compartment,
and a metallic tentacle appeared. It shined a light on Ruth. Unlike
in the alley, this light was hot and felt like it was pulling her
apart. She was a piece of taffy, stretched from all angles.

Realization struck Ruth. Ryan was trying to
disintegrate her. She held onto her thoughts as they tried to pull
away into nothingness. She realized that her body was made of
mostly water. She thought of a bubble popping. After the bubble
popped, her spirit would remain standing. That was the only way
these floating creatures would let her escape. They wouldn’t stop
until she was dead. She continued to focus on a bubble popping and
leaving her a spirit. Her physical form then exploded everywhere.
She was a spirit exactly where her physical form had been a second
ago.

As the metallic tentacle slid back, the
Xenophen said, “I am sorry. You were an unanticipated side effect.
We couldn’t let you hurt others. Balance before all else.” Ryan
began to float away.

The creature then spoke to someone outside of
Ruth’s perception. “I don’t know. Was that more dignifying? To know
beforehand, I mean... yes? … No, I … alright, another one. Yes,
sir.” The Xenophen continued to float away.

Ruth, or the essence of Ruth, watched as the
creature floated away. She looked at her ghostly hands and worried
about the afterlife. A thought then crossed her mind. If she could
still reason, if she could still think, then she wasn’t actually
dead. Perhaps she had used the image of a bubble popping to help
escape this dimension. Could she then go back into their reality?
She thought about this and felt comforted. If you think, you
exist.

She looked down at the desperate patch of
earth she had been digging a moment earlier. It was now filled with
her blood and gore from her physical body. She began to think of
that circle under the wall as a pool or bubble. She would dive into
the earth and see where it took her. She sucked in a breath, then
smiled to herself, letting the breath out. She didn’t have a
physical form anymore, why did she need to hold her breath? She
looked down at the hole filled with blood and saw it reflect a
bright sunlight. A sunshine of freedom. She dove into the pool.

Moments later, she felt her body, a physical
body, tumbling down sand dunes. She upended over and over again.
The world swirled like she was in a washing machine. It was a blur
of beige motion and sunshine. Slowly she came to a skidding
stop.

As Ruth breathed in and out, she wondered
where she had ended up. She slowly got up and felt an intense heat.
Sweat was nearly an instinct in this hot environment. In the
distance, a small dot bobbed up and down. It looked like a floating
ship that was sailing on the sand. Ruth could tell that it was
heading toward her by how large it was slowly becoming. She threw
her arms up to signal and started walking toward it. She needed to
know where she was and find a new place called home. Henry had his
quiet home in the woods. She needed to find where she could live in
safety and comfort. Perhaps this upcoming vessel had the answers
about her new home.

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James Livingood was born in Montana, raised
with three brothers, and provided trouble for two parents. In his
20's he fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. He moved out to
Seattle after college and started a life by providing IT
Consulting. In 2014, he started the writing adventure.