Chapter 4

Stix looks exactly how I imagined it would. The house we are in is in such a large clearing that it feels like I am outside the tangled mess of the forest that attacked me before, even though in reality, I am still in the thick of it.

According to Ian, the forest doesn't end, it's just "lets up" in some areas. The sun is slowly setting as I look around. The wood used to build the home is the same as the wood this place is made of, the same shades of brown and black camouflage the house in the rising darkness. I walk around the whole of it. It is a mostly circular building with small squares jutting out from it. One of which appears to be the room I woke up in.

I find a small garden with a very underwhelming spread of growth. The plants there vary in shades of dark-plum purples and brown. I even see the perfectly black above ground leaves of what must be Deap Plants growing beneath the soil. The tree tops curl over the clearing, almost like crooked hands reaching down to pluck you up. The forest thrives on all sides, and what looks like small paths interrupt the forest wall every few feet all the way around.

As the sun gives way to the eminent night, I take a seat on the porch of the small house. The wind whistles through the branches making the forest sound as if it is whispering. Whispers haunt me. I think of all of the voices I have heard and those that I have chosen not to, I think of how tired I am. How I want it to end. And then I think of them, just like I always do. My family's voices have seemed more poignant since my last light. I keep hearing them… maybe I am going crazy, or maybe this is the punishment Yomi always told me about. The punishment she believes comes from selfishness and making the most selfish choice of all. The choice I made. Without knowing it, I give in again. I go right back to the images of my family with lightless eyes as a tide of haunting whispers consumes me. I try to stomp out the voices of those I have loved, but they are getting louder. I close my eyes and pull my knees into my chest, pleading with some invisible being. "Please don't let this happen again. Stop. Stop. Leave me alone." Tears run down my cheeks and I think of the light that I came from. How that frozen landscape provided just enough silence and boredom for me to let them in. How their whispers consumed me, how they talked me to that edge, and how they ultimately made me jump.

The door opens and Ian steps outside, I am so distracted by my internal battle that I don't even hear him sit down. He reaches over and places a blanket across my shoulders. Hot tears burn my eyes as overwhelmed feelings surface there. Ian keeps a strong hand on my back as I give into my tears relentlessness. He doesn't say a word, perhaps he does not know what to say. I wish I could tell him what I have done, scream it at his blue eyes so loudly my voice could knock down the trees trapping us here. I know that I can't. I can't ever tell anyone. I made a lightless decision and now I am one step closer to becoming one. I heave a sob at the thought. "What's done is done," my mind whispers in Yomi's voice. And as I sit there, my memory of her eyes goes from brown to black.

Sunshine creeps through the window and tickles my eyelashes forcing them open. I look around and find that I am back on the bed. I sit up and wonder if yesterday and last night were all just a dream. I look toward my injured left hand and learn that they were not. The same white bandage clings to my skin there.

I feel a little less anxious as I kick my feet off the side of the bed. I see my boots sitting neatly in the corner of the room with the rest of my limited belongings. I walk over and sit on a large brown chair to put them on. I lace them up quickly suppressing thoughts of Yomi, my family, and my past lights. My mind longs to dive back in time, swim in the ocean of my past, but I cannot let it. Even as their voices whisper, taunting me to dive in. I know if I take that swim I will never come back up for air.

"I am here now." I think, trying to steady myself. I walk through the curtain into the living space and find it empty. Ian must be outside or in another one of these rooms. There are three not including the one I just came from. All are split off from the living space not by doors but by the same twig-made curtains. I push open the curtain nearest the kitchen and step inside. The room is completely dark and is more the size of a closet. For light, I push one of the chairs from the nearby kitchen table against the curtain, holding one side open. The walls of the closet are lined floor to ceiling with shelves, each contains an abundance of sticks and plants.

I examine the room's contents, scanning over each of the neatly written labels. I recognize a couple of the names immediately; Terror Root, Deap Plant, and others that sound just as odd as they look: Burning Timber, Black Death, Boistrom Leaf, Trip Twig, and many more.

A very skinny table just about the length of the room takes up much of the limited space in the middle. I work around it through awkward shuffling. Wood blades, bowls, and mallots stand post in the middle of the table and rock ominously as I accidentally bump into it.

I pick up one of the knife's and inspect it closer, the blade is sharp and looks just like metal. A simple tap against its solid surface proves that like everything else here, wooden. I sit it down and turn to exit.

I forgo the center curtain knowing that it leads to the room I have been staying in, and instead approach the two that are nearer the living space and the couch. The first is a small toilet room, complete with a large basin in place of a sink. The other leads to two small steps down to another curtain, I push past it and find myself in an outdoor shower. Three thick walls and the curtain mark out the rather large space free of a ceiling. A plump brown bag hangs in the sun and is connected to an intricately carved wooden shower head. On a shelf near me I find two wooden bottles, both filled with sweet smelling soaps. My mind whirls at the fact that any of this stuff would be possible with such seemingly limited resources? I sit the bottle down and turn to exit the shower. I open the curtain to reenter the living space and am startled by Ian who is standing right at the entrance.

I jump back and almost fall down the two small steps leading to the shower. "Oh! I am so sorry!" Ian reaches forward to stabilize me as he exclaims. "I had just gotten in and couldn't find you anywhere, the last place I was going to check was the shower but I didn't want to just barge in. I was debating on what to do when you came up!" I walk forward and let the curtain drape close behind me. I smile, thankful for his respect. "Oh. oh. No. You are fine. Just scared me a little. I guess I am still on edge." I laugh trying to ignore the anxiety creeping up inside of me and the wave of whispers that has grown in volume.

"Ya well, you know transferring can do that to ya. Not to mention the Terrorroot still lurking in your system. I actually have something that could help. Wanted to wait till you were conscious, before I just started ya know.. Drugging you.. Or ya know, just like you gave you stuff--" He looks down clearly embarrassed. "Sorry. 73 years is a long time alone… I haven't really talked to another person in a while."

I help him recover with a smile and a question, "you have antidotes to the plants?" He springs to life the same way he did last night, "oh yes. Well, not all of them. Really is just a process of trial and error and self testing isn't the funnest of things to do. But ya gotta learn!" He pushes into the storage looking closet and continues to talk excitedly. "I have forced myself to experience every reaction each plant could cause." He bursts out of the curtain with armfuls of supplies only to turn back around to get more. He keeps talking the entire time, "felt the anxiety of Terrorroot, thought that Barney the friendly dinosaur had transferred here to live with me thanks to Trip Twig," His hand shoots out of the side of the curtain exposing a missing pinkie finger "even lost my pinkie finger to Black Death." It retreats back into the room with the rest of him as he continues, "yup. Felt them all. And some of them had to learn how to spare myself from their effects. Black Death? Got to remove the infected part, cut off your finger even. Trip Twig? Drink Deap and lay in a dark room. Terrorroot? Ingest Boistrom." He reappears with yet another armful.

"Boistrom Leaf?" I ask, remembering seeing it labeled on the shelf in there. "What does i----" He cuts me off handing me another sketch from the wall, he turns his back and starts dumping steaming water into a wooden bowl as I read. The picture looks like a brown flower with a small potato at its center. In cursive handwriting the paper reads, Boistrom -causes intense laughter and giddiness- a small arrow points to flip the page. On the back the handwriting continues: perfect antidote to Terrorroot. Consume 2 Boistrom bulbs for each single barb of Terrorroot.

I look up at his broad back, "So I just have to eat the Boistrom and I won't feel the Terrorroot effects anymore?" I let out a sigh of relief, surely the Terrorroot is what is making me hear the voices of my loved ones! He turns back around with what I recognize to be the center of the Boistrom plant, the center of the flower- the bulb maybe? "Yes and no.. Eating it does help. But the minute your body digests it the effects of the Terrorroot will resurface. Sure you can repeat this process over several days until the side effects of Terrorroot subside but it takes time and a lot of patience. The other option is to introduce it into your bloodstream." I look up at him in disbelief. The thought flips through my mind and tumbles out of my mouth sounding a bit more sarcastic than I would like, "and how are we going to do that? You gonna stab me with that bulb? Cut my skin and drip it in?"

Without hesitation Ian pops open a small case he brought with the rest of his supplies from the storage. About the size of a brief case and etched with the letters HQBGA, the case sticks out awkwardly in the wooden room. It is filled with medical supplies, suddenly the bright white gauze on my hand makes sense. "I was a doctor in my last light. Died with it in my hand…." I nod, doubting the possibility of that being true, but shrug it off as soon as he pulls out a butterfly needle and an IV bag.

"With an IV for the rest of today and throughout the night, I believe the Terrorroot will have vacated your system by early tomorrow morning." I nod again, understanding being replaced with fear. I have to think about this. Do I really trust him enough to let him pump some random drug inside of me? Yomi would be flabbergasted that I am even considering it. The thought of her makes my heart leap into an anxious trill. Her voice seems to scream above the others in my head now, I look down panicked trying to get it to stop. Ian stares at me, seeing my discomfort. "No pressure. Either way will work, one will just take a bit longer and be a little more taxing." He looks at me as he speaks. I take a deep breath noticing that my hands are clamped onto my knees in a painful way. I am so anxious and I can't stand feeling insane. I make my mind up in an instant. Either way I am ingesting it.

"Okay." I breathe out as I say the word. "Okay. Let's do it." Ian springs to action. First grabbing antiseptic and cleaning a small portion of my inner elbow, he then dumps the brownish liquid from the wooden bowl into the bag and connects the tube to it. At the end of the tube is the needle that he leans forward and presses into my vein. The sting is nothing compared to the initial ache of the Boistrom entering my system. "I know." he says as I wince in pain, "it will pass I promise." In a couple of minutes it does. I watch as he secures the needle with some tape. "You can move around and change locations, just be careful about bumping it." I nod. "Also, you read what Boistrom does so be prepared to feel really happy and laugh a lot. I have a few things I need to finish up outside, but then I will check on you and if you need anything just yell my name okay?" I smile and let out an inadvertent giggle.

"Okay!" I basically scream it in his face. I feel so thrilled. So excited to be in a place called Stix. At the thought of the name I burst out laughing uncontrollably. I talk through my laughs even though Ian has gone outside and can't hear me, "Stix!! What a funny name! Stix!" My laugh is louder than I remember it being and that makes me laugh even more. "Stix… like sticks because of all of the sticks… but Stix because… wait why again?! I don't know!" I laugh to the point that I feel like I can't breathe.

My bladder aches as I realize I have to pee. I spend a good twenty minutes standing over the brown toilet bowl and laughing about how pee is yellow. I even spend a moment marvelling at how my laugh echoes when my head is in the toilet. And I only leave because Ian grabs me and walks me to the couch. I never stop laughing though, the entire walk back to the living space is spent with me half talking- half laughing about yellow pee, sticks, stix, and how Ians hair is gray. I even call him Pepper which turns into Old Spice, which makes me laugh more. The day passes like that, Ian comes in and out checking on me, everytime I see him I scream with joy "Old Spice" and then laugh even more.

I wander around the house finding new things to laugh at. The anxiety in my chest has turned to pure joy, and I can't hear their voices anymore. I even tell Ian about it. How I can't hear them talking. He seems surprised but I ignore him, laughing harder now than ever before. Everything is funny including the Iv bag and the noise it makes when I pick it up to move, a small twig that had to have fallen from one of the curtains, my bright yellow coat, and how my hand is smaller than my foot. By the time I wake up the next day I am wearing weird brown pants that are way too big for me and my bright yellow coat. I have one boot on my foot and the other on my hand, and I am covered in soap from the shower, I find the wooden bottles inside my coat pockets. Ian is sleeping in the chair in the corner of the room and shoots up as I start to move. We make eye contact. I recognize my hand writing immediately, the name "Old Spice" is written across his forehead. Without a word we both break into uncontrollable laughter.