Chapter Five

There was very little conversation on the way home.

Threading through a tangle of inner-city streets, Ami watched as stray dogs nosed bin bags stacked like boulders after an eruption. She glanced over at her daughter, half-awake and staring out of the window, those dead grey eyes glassy and blank.

Silky murmurs painted the vehicle with gentle breathing, a quiet lullaby to the world outside.

Peaceful, at least for now.

Five years ago, Ami remembered how it felt to be free from pain, until reality twisted it into a cruel joke. The shock of losing half the family still burned, where it would catch her in the quiet moments and pierce through any calm.

Ami leaned forward, hoping to catch a glimpse of Apep, while the other half hoped to leave it in darkness and fog.

Turning onto the new exit, she drove past the eighteen-foot concrete barrier that hid miles of abandoned motorways, left to crumble into ruin.

The Deadlands.

The 'Deadlands' were a ravaged, pitted, and desolate scrap of earth. For most of the country, it had become an irradiated wasteland, cordoned off by thick, anti-climb walls, with ‘nano-wire’ so sharp it made old razor wire feel like soft cheese. There had been mutterings about a plague blamed on secret societies, underground deals with visiting aliens, who had supposedly offered cancer-curing medicines.

These Aliens promised to give humanity everything they could want and more.

***

As time passed, the novelty of an Alien Mothership on the horizon soon wore off. Relatives of the missing turned the outer walls into memorials. Plastic-wrapped photos were plastered around the length of the wall until the miles of concrete became a grim tapestry of bereavement.

There was an element of heavy acceptance; even if they had survived, would they have joined the ranks of the raging cannibal hordes? Would anyone want to carry that knowledge around?

For what the survivors became would have haunted the worst nightmares of anyone. They were known as 'Moargs', a chaotic horde of cursed beings that defied any known biology.

Baby blue in colour, their faces were made up of three button eyes on either side of a vertical maw that parted the head into quarters, releasing a nest of tentacles from which they could lash at their prey before feeding it into the glistening well of teeth.

The Moargs stalked around Apep like an infestation. To look upon them was gut-wrenching, and to encounter a group meant certain death.

The one solace Ami found was that her husband and son would not have suffered. There would have been no time to process the horror, just a quick death without warning, along with the rest of the city and its population.

Mego had suggested moving into Auntie Benika’s old estate in Hokkaido, but her mother stubbornly refused. It was the principle of the thing. Why should she relocate? ‘They’ attacked first.

Endless fields slid past, blanketed in a stygian void of night. Ami leaned forward and tried to get a good look at the tower known as ‘Apep’. Part of her hoped to catch a glimpse, while the other wanted it buried in darkness and fog. She turned onto the new bypass, around the giant wall encircling Coventry and outlying villages. The concrete megastructure was hard to miss, rising eighteen feet and closing off miles of abandoned highways left to memory and ruin.

***

Upon arriving home, Mego bolted upstairs to her bedroom.

An over-cluttered vanity table and a chest of drawers were among the usual furniture. A framed poster of the first Doctor Who, played by William Hartnell, hung above a 2014 calendar.

A spherical red lamp in the corner made the white bed frame look dirty. The dirty white frame made the picture frames look rusty. The concentric rug was dangerously psychedelic, causing the room to spin if one gave it enough time to take effect.

To the side was a large bookshelf containing several fantasy sagas near a hutch containing a mottled rabbit named Robinson Burrows.

Some posters were for ‘Calcutta Pharmacy’, a Midwestern Emo band, and ‘Conestoga Medicine Show’, one of those Diet-Folk bands that crept up toward the 2010s with their waistcoats and banjos, playing a processed form of Bluegrass (Yacht-grass).

***

After a long shower, Mego sat hunched over a desk and sketched out a creepy red tree with coloured pencils.

Ami knocked on the door and wandered in carrying a cup of coffee, which he set down on the desk. Her gaze fell upon a purple belt (for Black Eagle Eskrima) next to a line of trophies for Judo and Taido tournaments, none of which were first place.

Picking one up, she said:

"I still think you held back.”

Mego shook her head.

"Martial Arts is not about destroying the opponent, but maintaining balance in the face of adversity."

“Except, when it comes to a tournament, it doesn’t pay to be magnanimous.”

“Maybe I’m just too nice.”

"Maybe you lack the killer instinct."

"Killer instincts are for killers, Mother."

Ami smiled and nodded, placing the trophy back.

"Weird day, huh?" She said.

"Well y’know, not many people have this much fun on their birthday.”

"I wouldn't be a good mum if I didn't arrange to have my daughter beaten half to death, lured to a creepy part of town and teleported hundreds of miles away."

"As you do."

"Next year, I'll just get you a clown."

"Now that's just mean," Mego said. They shared a quiet laugh.

Ami focused on the artwork filling the bedroom wall.

Some sketches were in pastels, with maniacal strokes almost tearing through the paper. Other sketches were drawn with a calm, measured hand, as if two alter-egos were competing for attention.

Half of the artwork was placed on top of the other, until it layered like the feathers of a demented paper bird.

For some reason, every scrap was of the same subject: a blood-red tree with black spots dotted about its trunk. Needless to say, there was an overwhelming sense of wrongness to it all.

"It's called 'Gonipatoma, '" Mego said, not looking up.

"Go-nip-what?"

“Go-nippoh-toe-mah. The blinking tree."

Ami shot her a puzzled look.

"A tree that blinks?"

Mego blew on her mug.

"The great tree of creation,” She said. "Every leaf represents a single universe. Once shed, that universe is extinguished, only to be replaced by a brand new one."

"Frightening."

"How we could be blinked out of existence in the next five seconds? I'd say."

"Why? I mean, why have a tree at all?"

"It's the will of the cosmos. Who's to say we aren't just a mistake? Created out of a series of random events? Weeds exist for the same reason."

"That sounds bloody depressing, Mego."

"According to my teachers, I'm something of a pessimist."

“Not you of all people,”

Mego snorted in response. “I know, right?”

Ami squinted at one of the recent artworks. "None of these trees has any leaves on them."

"I know, it doesn't make sense."

"What are you talking about? You're the artist."

"I draw what I see, but don't have all the answers."

"There's a first time for everything," Ami said. She didn’t mean it to sound sarcastic, but there was a weight in her tone. "It's a bit full-on."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not exactly subtle, love. Why not put up some posters of celebrities? Normal girl stuff."

Mego slurped her coffee.

"Celebrity worship is overrated." She said. "It’s an immutable reality, where the fan is locked into a hallucination, unable to escape the daydream which has become their whole life."

"You kids and your...immutable realities," Ami said.

She stopped at a photo of the smiling family, and felt her cheeks prickle with regret and longing.

Mego felt sad for her Mother. It was not in her nature to express emotions openly, since there was always a need to go on living. 'Do not fill your head with useless things.' She would say. Mego couldn't tell if it was a Swedish thing, a Nordic thing or just how her Mother dealt with loss.

In this case, grief was just another thing to tie a bow around and stick in the family album.

Although sometimes Mego would catch Ami playing the final messages from Pickford, who was holding onto five-year-old Saizō;

“People are running in the street, screaming in panic. Some are looking up. We’re…we’re in a café. Saizō is looking at the big shadow. He wants to see what it is. I don’t know; I don’t want him to get scared. He’s starting to cry. Gotta go. I’ll tell you when I get home. Love you.”

No last-minute goodbyes. No closure.

Closure. Mego thought bitterly. A fancy name for putting trapping spirits into the attic. It never leaves: the fog, the hurt, the headaches. 

Upon hearing the tragic news, her first reaction was to tidy up: to clean clothes never to be worn and remake a child's bed never to be slept in, almost as if the shock had triggered an innate need to spare the mind the reality of loss.

A handful of photos remained on a single mantlepiece.

Ami was not the kind to turn the house into a shrine to the departed. She saw no relief in nostalgia, and hoarding a collection of artefacts to remain in the past was a distraction and took up space.

"I still miss them," Mego said. "Every day."

"I know, just don't miss them too much," Ami said. "Corny as it sounds, but life is for living, remember that. Even if that means drawing cosmic chickens in the sky, so be it. "

"Where are you getting chickens from? Do you see any chickens?"

“Whatever, you know what I mean," Ami said, yawning. "Just don't lock the door when you have a bath."

"Mum."

"Only until you get to college."

"I'm not a cutter," Mego said, showing arms. They were bare except for the tattoos of Nightingales on a single branch. "See?”

“You’ve never been tempted?”

“I’m not suicidal, just fatigued.” Mego leaned back in the chair and stared at the well. “Every day I’m tired; tired of this small sky and a world without meaning.”

"I guess that’s the best I can hope for,” Ami said, brushing her hands on her thighs.

"So, I'm going to college?"

"Your grades seem to think so."

"Cool," Mego said.

"You did well, Bab, I'm proud of you."

"I can go to Art College."

"Or a real one, if you're lucky. We’ll sort out your courses over the next month.”

“I was thinking feminist studies.”

Ami scoffed.

“That’s like trying to keep warm with a photo of a campfire. No cheesecake degree is gonna pay the rent; we’ll do it together.”

“Can’t I enjoy the summer?”

"Hey,” Ami said, “If my Mum can give me the big speech, you're getting one as well." She paused in the doorway. "You want this open or closed?"

"Open, I don't want to be alone."

"Night, Bab."

"Night, mum.”

***

That night, Mego dreamt of Godwin's Knock.

For as long as she could remember, Godwin's Knock was a place so vivid that it became a second reality. She could see the wind-blasted town nestled in the cliff-face from her bedroom window.

Most of the lower half lay scattered by a terrible flood.

On the blackened beach, ruined houses were on the verge of collapse. The pungent smell of stale water permeated the buildings, as the sea seeped through the gaps in the doorways.

Only the vacant hotel remained, leaning to one side.

In this dream, Mego always woke up in the same room, which overlooked a gun-metal sea, and was big enough to accommodate a single bed, a small chest of drawers, and a corner table with a chamber pot underneath.

This dream avatar stood clad in a full-length robe of moss and bones, its features obscured by a brass cage and the thick folds of its hood.

What passed for hands were gnarled wooden fingers formed from the branches of a tree. Mego had no idea why the dream played out this way or why she wore a cage. It was one of the few things she had no control over in the dreams.

The other was that she could only communicate in feral grunts, not that there was anyone to talk to, because the world was utterly deserted.

Mego stooped into the old hallway.

The walls were wet; the portraits, streaked with water damage, rendered the subjects' faces featureless; all perfumed with a salty desolation.

Mego made her way to the empty reception room, fashioned in the distinctly Victorian interior of the double-front detached hotel.

As always, she sloshed through two feet of murky seawater, surrounded by bobbing furniture. The Hotel was always quiet, except for the mournful sound of a piano playing behind the overgrown conservatory. It was never in tune. Inside the kitchen, red roots snarled around worktops, creeping through the back door underneath, framed by a sliver of honeyed light. It seemed to branch out like the bronchioles of an exposed lung.

Opening the door, Mego entered a forest of breathtaking beauty. Towering trees with leaves of purest emerald arched overhead, forming a natural cathedral and spires.

Delicate wildflowers carpeted the forest floor in sparkling hues with petals quivering ever so slightly in a breeze that carried the scent of honeysuckle and fresh rain.

A meandering stream flowed gently through the centre of the clearing, its crystalline waters reflecting the soft filtered light filtering through the leafy canopy above.

Fish darted lazily among the rounded stones, sending tiny ripples dancing across the surface.

At the edge of the stream sat a weathered wooden bench, adorned with lush vines and delicate purple flowers spilling over the sides.

As if drawn by an invisible string, Mego began walking purposefully toward the bench, feeling an inexplicable sense of belonging and peace with each step.

Slowly untangled from a grasp, her muscles felt relaxed as drizzle-wet Gardenias cascaded off a leafy bough, her sudden yawns cut misty veils like a ship through resting fog.

Mego stretched out, feeling the comfort of wet grass between her toes; an involuntary sigh scattering like dried seeds upon parched earth. With a weary look, she eyed the point ending on the edge of a cliff, crumbling away into the abyss of space.

In the distance, a distant universe formed a majestic backdrop with molten swirls of cyan, yellow and purple. Drawing back her hood, she stood over a blood-red altar; both a wonder and a horror to behold.

The tabletop was a blighted composition of waxy, red wood which seemed almost alive. Foul, shiny black eyes bubbled like pustulating sores, disappearing and reforming on every inch of the unsanctified bark.

A hefty book sat in the centre, locked down by an immense pressure, seemingly reluctant to expose its secrets.

Mego wanted to know, however, and managed to wrangle the eldritch forces, which buckled to her will.

Compelled to oblige, the leathery tome unleashed its arcane knowledge, turning Mego’s eyes into burning pits of purple vapour.

The book turned its pages, stopping on a diagram containing impossible geometric shapes, and a series of numbers filling the pages in block passages.

Something inside her felt a giddiness, unmatched by anything found on Earth.

Mego knew Gonipatoma was watching her every move despite being less than a nucleon in its presence. Now wounded by her presence, it regarded her as entropy itself, sent to upset the grander mechanics of the universe. Even the cosmos wanted her gone.