Queen Of The Castaway Isle

There's a rotting film across her teeth.

A bad taste long gotten used to despite the disgust. The back of the jaw stained in old pungent blood and that dryness that hurts to breathe through. As if unused for as long as these caves were first formed.

"You've awakened." a low slither wrapped below, teasingly slow.

Sophie jolted at the ominous voice, unknowing where or when she was.

Darkness.

Like in the cave. In any cave really. Without their fires or flashlights, her senses were plunged into near nothing. Vague blurry shape made up in shadows in any child's nightmares. Just enough known to strike terror.

But really, there was nothing. That's the worst kind of fear, when nothing was left to kill, nothing to save.

Nothing but cold, colder, and the draining warmth that turned into that lifeless cold.

How oddly at home.

"Issssss it to your liking? " the slithering hiss giggled, half in a bastardized version of her own mangled vocal cords.

What Sophie had sounded like then, but oh so much more...wrong.

Sophie doesn't think a snake could f.u.c.k.i.n.g produce a giggle. But off it goes, in echoes of the barest of sound. Through shadow and stone. Underground and up above, space that does not make sense to mortal comprehension.

There's a lot of things one could ask in this situation.

Where am I?

Where are you?

What are you?

All that and more.

Sophie spits out the pooled blood in the back of her throat. Dry and sticky. Yet nothing comes out.

"What's it to you?" she manages to get out, through the thickness, the stickiness that melds the flesh of her mouth together.

It's too dark to see with the eyes. Too meaningless to do so.

"Ussssssss~" it slithers left, above, right again.

"Why me? And for what price?" she spits

One does not simply 'recover' from the pits of insanity. You simply live long enough with it. You let it wash over you. Swallow it down with acceptance that while your blood may still run red, you will never, never be like the rest of your peers again. If you ever were. Human, but wrong. Oh so very wrong.

This could all be a fantasy. A delusion of the sickest kind, one of hope where there was none.

Could be.

But Sophie's been living months out here, and she doesn't think her imagination is that f.u.c.k.i.n.g good, even on drugs. Too many full dare she call it, 'peaceful' moments. That's something her brain would never allow her.

Doesn't matter. She's here now and what matters is out there.

Whatever this shit is, this entire f.u.c.k.e.d up situation driving the borderline of supernatural, it isn't free. Nothing ever is.

"Lasssst one... Only one left." whispers resounded, drumming low into her temples.

Last one, Sophie finds herself repeating.

Taps into the recess of memory, fact and the sweet edge of oblivion. She was the last one to get off the island. They had found her very last. Crazy woman of the mountain. Rescuers hearing of her from the others only in smoke, screams, and curses. They got her, eventually. Took a whole trained and manned crew, like an animal shelter needs to take care of the reports of feral wounded things found in the alley.

"Lucky me. " Sophie grimaces, knowing full well it wasn't that simple. There wasn't such a lottery.

She thinks she needs a cigarette. A hit. Without any reason, she feels herself reach down, somehow pulling one out. Pristine.

When she holds it empty against her lip, lost lighters flick on around her. Dead hands gloat, flickering in the dark. Pale and green, splotches of rot and exposed bone. Corpse hands from the edges of the dark.

Nothing but an illusion, a trick of the mind. Maybe another dream. The scent of death, the foul wretched rot, was missing.

Sophie smells nothing but the cold of the cave. When she leans into the closest flame, toasted tobacco chemically drifts from the stick. She breathes it in and the bitter flavor helps.

The dead lights go out, like whisps that were never meant to be seen. Plunging her back in the dark. All except the sole glow of a burning cigarette.

Breathe in, breathe out, exhale.

Some things had no real answers, let alone simple. She's nothing but a piece of this insane game and that's fine. Sophie's life could go a lot worse than thrown back in time, with extra powers none the less. If the snake or whatever the hell it is doesn't answer, that's that.

Cut your losses. Move on. Fast.

"How do I save Leon?" she inhales. Lips and fingers starting to warm up if from nothing but the smoke and tar alone.

If the dead could laugh, Sophie imagines this is how it sounds. Distorted. Broken. Silent.

You don't, the silence answers for her.

"Will I get anything answered?" she smokes, feeling mud and grime brushing off of her with each movement.

"If you liiiiiike. When you want to~" it slithers, still unseen. Still unknown.

"What if I want to know now?" she feels herself repeating lines she heard before. She feels a deja vu in the wrong place, the wrong spot, with the wrong other party.

"You will, if you want. Make of it what you will." slow hissing, scales on gravel.

"I can't do it alone. Really now. I wish I could. But no one can survive on their own. Not here, not anywhere. " Sophie admits, blowing smoke and ashes.

She hasn't lived a very long life, nor a very fulfilling one. Instead it was one that stretched in death, cracks and drugs for days. Stretched into the infinity of a fragmented mind, driven there from the edge of nowhere and dropped across a storm of time.

Sophie's too tired for this metaphorical crap.

"I need that kid alive. Mattie and June are my main goals, they're mine but Leon? I need that kid alive to f.u.c.k.i.n.g help me. He's what I can work with best. Not f.u.c.k.e.d up magic dreams, which I will use every single shit thing I can get, don't get me wrong, oh ghosts of all the snakes and dead girls. But I need to not be alone. "

Like a critical care patient. Like a convict on suicide watch. Like any god damn human, because that's how we're all made.

"You're not. You never were..." disembodied whispers, multiped over and over faintly in the dark.

"Yeah yeah yeah f.u.c.k the voices in my head. " Sophie cusses, bites and breathes.

No amount of medication would make it go away. Not unless you wanted to lose everything. That's the price of living. Every year you gain another voice. Every person you stupidly let into your life, your head, your heart. They leave their marks, art and scars. Regrets that would always bleed under the surface, evidence of growth and death.

Sophie's sick of only phantom voices. It would be better if all the regrets had simply killed her.

It's not like she doesn't know what drives Leon. Not his true thoughts, but enough. It's the same thing that burns her. Burns people like them. People better off dead.

"Sssssssoon. You're getting ssssssssstronger. More." the hiss, the laugh, it played like a broken record of static. A tape rewinding itself with too many twists and coats of dust.

"So. I get more of...this." she waves up into the darkness with one hand. A vague gesture to the unexplained, the supernatural.

"If you sssssssooooooo please. If you can ssssssssurvive. " it thankfully still answers.

"Will Leon?" Sophie asks, rocks and blood still stuck in her throat.

"Live? No." it laughs in that strange eerie and impossible way, " it's not what he wisssssssshesssss for. Your greatest wisssssssshhhh."

The cigarette instantly falls apart in her hand, nothing but ash and dying embers. Sophie closes her eyes, holding the last breath of smoke in.

This isn't the way it was supposed to go. But when did her life ever go to plan? When did it all go so wrong? Maybe it was always wrong, and a younger much more naive girl with her name and face only tried lying it away.

"It's going to get so much worse. Worse than last time. Isn't it?" she finally exhales, lets it go.

It must be. Sophie doesn't know how, but she knows it. The same way her blood still flows, and time slips through her fingers like ash. She sees it in claws and teeth through the dark. Feels it like s.e.x with a knife, either pointed at her or in her own grip.

There was something wrong with her. That was long-established, long accepted. F.u.c.k the voices in her head,she knows.

"Hey? Bite me." Sophie laughs, low and cruel.

The embers on the ground light up just enough for her to see fangs, jaws, larger than life. Right at her face.

It screams and chomps down.

--------------------------

---------------------

---------

"Sophie? Sophie aiya wake up you lazy girl! Who said you could sleep at this time? What I always tell you, bad luck. The sun give pressure, it pushes you. Not good, no good. Bad luck. Bad. "

"...ma'?"

A middle aged woman, small in stature and with a brown dyed perm, steps away from the side of the bed. She lights the whole room up from the window. The blinds open to stream in disgusting red sunlight. The glow of a polluted sunset, beautiful from gas emissions and chemicals.

She does not shake her eldest daughter awake gently, but that is exactly what Sophie needed to wake from her sleep paralysis.

Time stretches, yet condenses. Are you living through hours? Or mere seconds? Unable to move. Unable to scream.

Is there something in the room with you? Watching you? Sitting on your c.h.e.s.t, rendering you unable to breathe? Like a demon, crouching with its weight. Like a snake, wrapping around inside your delicate lungs.

That's right?

Sophie used to get sleep paralysis as a teenager.

Used to?

Wait isn't she still just a teenager right now. She needs to stop taking naps right after school. Maybe her mom was right? Sleeping at this time was bad luck, it always messed up with her senses.

"Thanks mom?" Sophie rubs her eyes, fingers still a bit numb.

Ghostly sensations all around, already inside her. It felt strange, yet relieving to finally be able to move again. To have someone wake her from the strange stillness that the occasional bout of sleep paralysis seemed to take.

It was more than a little terrifying. To believe yourself to be awake, yet be completely unable to control a thing. Not even one's own body.

You could tell yourself to move. Move move move oh please move.

But the connection between consciousness and the body isn't quite there yet. Isn't quite fully awake yet. Caught between deep REM sleep and something else. That's what causes sleep paralysis. She googled it before after too many odd frightful episodes.

It was almost bad enough to stop sleeping entirely.

But insomnia was a bitch.

Wait....Sophie never had a problem with insomnia? In at 17 years of her life? Right? Where did that come from?

"Such a lazy girl! What I do with you? When I your age I was work day and night on housework! Because I no marry yet, your aunties go first. Before the draft came. Then it was nothing but running and jungles and-" the woman tuts, picking up tossed laundry on the floor.

With her feet of course. Because that's just how Asian her mom was. Grip and toss up, into the basket in her hands.

"Got it, mom. "Sophie rub her head, trying to right herself up from the heavy disorienting grogginess.

"Of course you don't, ah I crossed three country by foot with your youngest uncle! One Two Three. He only thirteen then, so annoying ayia. Cry cry or army he goes. Go through Tailand an Cambo-, not so nice no vacation. When thirsty we find cow and-

"Heard it a million times mom, I got it"

Sophie understood perfectly, for she definitely heard all the stories told over and over again. In multiple languages spoken at home, some better than others.

Wild as they were, they were all true.

"Ah you spoiled children here, we run all this way to give you good life. All three of you?! You no study after school but sleep like lazy cow. I say bad luck, you no listen. Now look at you. " the mother nagged.

"Yes mom," Sophie wasn't stupid enough to tell her the nagging was not helping with the headache.

"And no more coffee, you too young. Then you no sleep! You tire after school because you don't sleep right time."

Sometimes the words spoken weren't even in english. Sometimes it was not two but three or 4 parts of the world, dialects and languages. But Sophie's mind translated it just fine into the coherent intent and expression that it was.

Something any young night owl has heard before.

"I had a strange dream..." Sophie reached around, looking for a water bottle to chug down.

There was a dryness to her mouth that sticked together awfully. A certain pressure in her nose that made it difficult to comfortably breathe. This sense of nausea, despite the hollow in her stomach. The way it growled, burning lightly was acid, yet feeling all the sicker. She tried to drink down the stale tasting water. Maybe it was left out on her bedside for too long? Maybe that awful taste in her mouth reactivated with moisture? It tasted thick, like snot caught in her nasal passages, sliding it's ways slowly down to the back of her throat.

She tried to ease the naseua. Burp it out.

"You dream. You forget. No good nonsense. Wake up now." her mother rudely started throwing things in the trash. From random trash to somewhat finished and snuck food.

Bad habits, not allowed to eat upstairs in their rooms. But they did it anyways.

Somehow Sophie feels very off. For one normally would she be more upset about her mother bursting into her room and just start mass cleaning?

"Mom it's alright. I got it." Sophie tried to stop her. The cold in the air increased sharply as she fully got out of bed, from under the heated covers of her blankets.

Snot ran after a sneeze. Thick. Heavy in the head. Grogginess still made everything blurry.

"Of course you don't. Or I no be here. Stupid girl. Put jacket by bed, no cold so fast. Aiya clean up for dinner, no skip not goodd. Then do all homework. No skip! Not good."

There is a strange manner of speaking in their household that's oddly warm and familiar. It's riddon with idioms and insults that don't translated well, or mean much of a thing. Sometimes it was downright cruel and insulting. Sometimes it was a core of shame and a weight if something long sacraficed, stubbornly held on to. Sometimes, always, it was filled with an undercurrent of care that borderlined painful.

I love you is told in many different ways.

'Did you eat yet?'

'Put on a jacket?'

'I cut you some fruit.'

It is language not always based in words.

"Don't keep these dirty things here. It's no good for you." her mom continue to clean, throwing trash and random boxes.

"I was going to get to it eventually mom. " Sophie w.h.i.n.ed.

"No. You won't. Or I no be here. You like your father. Always keep keep keep things no need. Trash. You keep like old memory, old open wounds. Metal pieces in the bombs they drop on us. Chemicals that burned, still in the blood. You keep like ugly scars that don't go away."

"Mom," Sophie w.h.i.n.ed, not understanding the odd tone through her naseua. Just that something felt off, this contrasting feeling in her head and too cold limbs.

"Lazy girl. Stupid girl. I tell you so many times. You no listen." her mother turned at the doorway, tossing her an old knitted sweater. It was a somewhat ugly and old fashioned thing but she slipped it on for warmth none the less. Besides it was at home and who cares? Like old comfy pajamas.

"I know mom. Tell it to June too. Or Mattie, your favorite. " Sophie at least rolled her eyes. Hearing it already millions of times.

"You the eldest." her mom said plainly.

"Yes mom. That's kinda obvious. I did pop my head out first."

"You take care of them."

"Yes yes mom, I have my whole life. "

"They take care of you back."

"Doubt it, but suuuure mom. I know."

"Stupid messy girl. What I do with you?"

"Mom?"

The sniffles in her nose lightened, but the air was no warmer where her b.a.r.e legs and toes touched the ground.

"You wake up now. No good, sleep wrong time all the time." her mother complained.

"Yes mom I got it." Sophie shivered, yawning.

"I can't clean for you forever." she took out the trash, the laundry, airing out the little cluttered bedroom instantly to that whirlwind of domestic magic.

"I know mom. Thank you mommy." Sophie teased, waving her off like a spoiled little brat.

"Wake up already. Any more and bad luck. I tell you many times. And don't keep so much dirty trash, bad air. No good " her mom nagged, walking off down the hall.

"I'm already awake." Sophie complained back, like hearing an annoying alarm that kept ringing.

"Get up! Or I kill you till you dead and kill you till you more." her mother shouted back and forth, a typical angry sounding mother.

Their halls didn't echo? Too small and carpeted for that.

"Mom that one doesn't make any sense in translation. Trust me." Sophie said, walking out the hall. Everything seemed normal? Huh?

"You wake up now." her mother's voice disappeared. Out of sight. Directionless.

Sophie can't move.

Her limbs freeze, from toes to top. The darkness of the unlit hall a vast contrast to the sunset lit bedroom she just came from. Her head felt light yet congested again all at once. The back of her mouth, where wisdom teeth sat still unpulled started to bleed. It tasted stale.

She can't breathe. She can't scream.

Oh god.

She was still paralyzed, and still dreaming in something. Her entire existence here, in the moment, was all wrong and as fake and fragile as a dream.

"Wake up and come to dinner. "

For some odd reason, she could cry. It's snot and tears that pour out of her. Scream less. She sobs in the numbing cold. And the world turns inside out.

--------------------------

------------------

------

It's pitch dark inside and out.

"Oh thank God! Sophie! Sophie?!" her sister does not shake her gently. Not with how much June was shaking herself.

But it works in brining Sophie back to the world of the concious. The present. As much as she feared it was nothing but an illusion for so long. She doesn't have good experiences with that.

Reality and something else long blurred for her, even in a time of innocence.

"Sophie? Do you need anything? Water? Painkillers?" June already had out for her.

Sophie accepts the water, washing away the painful dryness of it all.

It tasted fine. It tasted...not stale....present.

"I'm fine." Sophie breathes out.

Recollecting herself, seperating her mind and this world's version of events. It doesn't all come at once but even if it did, it would hurt even worse in the head. Her body tingled and growled in weakness, in need. It hurt.

And that was an indication of a physical will to live if nothing else.

"Cool cool. Sudden fainting and more snake bites in addition to your cold aside. I need a little bit of help, like controlling that. Out there. " June pinched out two fingers in just barely lit darkness when Sophie showed signs of waking back up.

"...." the eldest didn't waste any more words, testing her weight in a fumble to jump out of her bed.

"Wait wait wait not so fast, " June tried hopping after her, though no use in catching up with her surprise at Sophie's speed.

She jumped and ran the short distance out from the make shift barriers, the space inside this limited cave

Darkness. But not damp and not all that cold despite the night chill outside. It had too many breathes inside it, living in it.

There is something rummaging in their kitchen storage. Not a wild beast though, too organized, to clean for that. Definetly too small to be her brother.

"Leon?" Sophie tears out of the silence.

Holds it in her mouth, like it has a real taste. Like it was actually worth something. Holds because sometimes when she speaks, it like all her mother's unspoken silences come crashing out. Like the tides that hides just as much as they l.a.p the shore.

A crouched boy, with lithe limbs and unseen sharp brown eyes, turns to her. Human. For if he really were a wilding of any sort, his cat eyes would have reflected that shine that humans do not posess.

Almost lazily, absolutely arrogantly, like nothing and everything had happened between them at all, he sat back in the grand mess that he made.

None of the careful, cautious grace. None of that stalking posture from before, the kind that keeps him ready for fight or flight, the kind that kept everyone questing. He sat like he already owned it all, every damned cell.

"Got any banana wine, bitch?"