Foundation of All

Luke stared as Emily focused intently on her computer, typing furiously while looking almost angry as she hit the keys. His hand tingled slightly as he remembered when they had held hands last week in the theater. He had tried to press Emily on what had happened, but she was tight lipped and avoided his questions. What could it be? What had her so frightened that she was babbling and crying by the time Luke arrived? She had been so excited to see the Zeena movie before they went in.

Emily kept angrily typing and Luke sighed and turned back to his own work. Hopefully she would tell him what was wrong soon. Luke had been tense all week wondering what to do, what to say.

— — —

“Hey, Em?” Emily looked up as they rode the elevator down again, “Are you doing okay?”

She looked at him for a long moment and seemed to realize what he was really asking about, “I- I’m sorry about what happened,” She said finally, “I was a complete mess last week. We didn’t even finish the movie.”

They went outside and started walking to the train. The ride was short and they got off of the last stop in the more suburban neighborhood.

“What was it?” Luke asked Emily after steeling himself for the whole ride, “What happened?”

Emily opened her mouth before stiffening and glancing around frantically. Luke looked around in confusion and tried to see what she was looking for. There was nothing around them but the usual neighborhood streets and houses. A few people scattered around going about their business.

Suddenly Emily grabbed her head and started groaning as she leaned forward to curl inwards on herself.

“Em? Are you okay?” Luke asked in concern and grabbed her as she suddenly stumbled to the side. Her eyes were scrunched tight and she didn’t respond when Luke spoke. After a few seconds, Luke started shaking her a little by her shoulder to try to shock her out of it.

“Em? Em? Hey, what’s going on?”

Emily turned to him and stared at him in confusion as he kept trying to speak to her. Her blank face told him she didn’t understand a single word as she stood there looking at him. Suddenly her head snapped around to a point in thin air just behind him. Luke turned and saw nothing. There was nothing there.

“No, why are you back…” Emily whispered from behind him.

“What… who’s…”

“No! You’re just a hallucination,” Emily said, not seeming to hear him, “You’re not real. I read about it. Just stress, hard job, I just have to wait it out.”

A pause.

“Stop it! Stop saying that! The world isn’t going to end! What would a ghost like you know about it anyway?”

“Emily, what’s going on?” Luke asked, a little frightened now. What was happening to her?

Emily ignored him.

“No, I won’t listen. So just go away!”

More silence. Then Emily let out a sigh of relief and suddenly looked around her, confused. “Luke?” She said in horror, “Oh no. I forgot you were here.”

“Emily, what was that? You were just talking to nothing there.”

Emily looked like an animal about to bolt for a few seconds before her body slumped in defeat.

“Yeah,” She said heavily, “I’ve been seeing and hearing things. A ghost… I thought it would go away if I just ignored it. It hasn’t come back since the movie theater.”

“Was the movie theater the first time?” Luke asked in concern, “How long has this gone on?”

“A… a while. Years,” Emily said, “There have been a few times it talked to me, but I just thought it was from the stress before. It’s never grown this bad…”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“R-Remember in eighth grade, the bus stop that morning? Before our CODA class placement tests? When we were saying our history facts to study?”

“Yes?” Luke asked in confusion, “What does that…”

“I wasn’t practicing. They were trying to talk to me. The ghosts. There’s two of them. My hallucinations, I don’t know. I was telling them to go away. They didn’t seem hostile, I thought they might be friendly ghosts or something. That was the first time.”

Emily sighed, “They showed up again last year when… well, when Alice and I were having an argument. When I got that black eye at tennis practice too. They seemed to want to help me at the time. But I just waited and eventually they faded away.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Tell me?”

“Tell you what? That I’m crazy, seeing things that aren’t there? I thought I could handle it. That it would go away if I ignored it. But at the movies, just now… It was like nothing before. I think it’s growing worse… The male ghost is telling me all this crazy stuff about the apocalypse, how I can’t work at CODA anymore. It got really angry and started shouting at me.”

“Do you have any… history of this kind of thing in your family?”

Emily snorted, “No. None at all. Guess I won the lottery on that one. I don’t want to lose the CODA internship, who knows what they’ll do if they find out?”

“I won’t tell them,” Luke decided, “But we have to tell someone. Your parents? Maybe there’s some drugs that could fix this. Therapy… I don’t know. Something.”

“Maybe… It really isn’t going away, is it?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll help you all the way, Em. That’s what friends are for, right?”

Emily looked up at Luke, “Right. Thanks, Luke. You’re a good friend.”

— — —

Emily sat uncomfortably in the chair across from the psychologist. She had taken all their tests, answered all the questions they had. And now here she was doing the interview part with the actual psychologist. Her parents had taken it surprisingly well, just arranging things without questioning her too much when Luke backed her up.

“So, Ms. Stenson,” The psychologist said with a little notebook and pen held in her hands, “How about we start with why we’re here today? I think it helps to hear you restate things in your own words.”

It isn’t working! I don’t get it.

I was as clear as I could be,

And she just refuses to believe that I’m real.

You came down too hard on her.

The bridges are already burned

When you started yelling at her it was hurting her.

She won’t believe anything you say now.

She wants to work at CODA, work with Peter Rose.

That was her, my, lifelong dream at the time.

She won’t give it up.

Then what do we do?

I… I thought it would be simple.

We’d just tell her what not to do and she could change things.

But now we’re nothing but ‘hallucinations’.

She won’t listen to us, it’ll just be hurting her more for no reason now.

I’m just fucking useless again,

not even able to do this much…

Sean… You’re not useless. We can still fix this.

All those things you think of as failures, it all turned out alright.

Even if it wasn’t you doing it, the people you care about were still saved.

What does it matter if you personally did it or not?

They’re all safe now and that’s what matters most.

Back to little Emily, She knows that there’s two of us.

You gave her the information on what will happen,

She still remembers everything even if she doesn’t want to believe it.

I’ll have to go next and try to be more gentle with her.

Maybe she’ll trust me and actually listen to some of what you said,

if I ask her to after building some trust.

And you’re right. She won’t believe we’re anything but hallucinations

Without some kind of proof, and I don’t think that’s something we can give her.

When I talk with her I’ll go along with her assumption.

Best not to confuse her with time travel.

With how spotty my memory is of this time is,

I doubt I could even prove that part either way.

At least enough to prove without a doubt that we’re time travelers.

And ghosts somehow. And Immortal before we came here.

Yes, far too much to explain.

And how will you gain her trust?

Us entering reality is not exactly pleasant for little Emily.

That’s half of why she was so frightened of me in the first place.

It’s a problem.

This is our last chance.

So I have to be careful when I talk to her.

If she becomes hostile to me too, then we won’t be able to get through to her at all.

We’ve been set in our roles. I’ll try to explain to her and be as friendly as I can.

If she starts working on the virus,

Then you be the hardass and come in to scare her off.

Deal?

Are you sure?

I wasn’t trying to be the bad guy,

I was just frustrated that she wasn’t listening.

I really didn’t mean to hurt her,

I thought just a hard push would get her to accept what was happening as real.

Yes, I’m sure.

You were right even if you rushed too much.

It might have even worked, so you weren’t even wrong to do it.

Time is passing fast, I was pushing off what we have to do before.

I don’t remember the details of when exactly I started working on the project.

Or when things all went wrong. I wish I could, but even when I’m here it was so long ago…

I’m surprised I even remember as much as I already have…

We can do this, just follow my lead and we can pull this off.

I’m sure we can.

Okay.

Wait, I just had a thought. If we’re time travelers,

What if we erase ourselves by changing the past?

We shouldn’t. I thought you already realized.

When we first spoke here we should have already changed things.

Our smallest change to the past reverberates far into the future where we’re from.

Since that didn’t happen, we’re either immune or we haven’t changed enough to erase ourselves yet.

I’m not sure how it works exactly.

But I don’t think we can prevent ourselves from being erased,

If that’s something that might happen.

May as well as assume that we’ll be fine and keep doing our best.

Well, that’s comforting.

I was perfectly happy to be ignorant a few minutes ago.

Hey, you asked.

I assumed you had already figured that out.

Well, back to little Emily who is currently having to deal with our voices.

At least we’re giving her some solid evidence to the doctor.

I think they’ll take her diagnosis seriously now at least.

I hope everyone else is doing okay.

Lira, Ash, Roger… Asuta for you.

I don’t know how long we’ve been gone,

But I don’t want us to be stuck here for so long,

only to come away with nothing to show for it.

Emily clutched her head and groaned as the voices assaulted her from all sides. Then they faded away. She blinked and looked around. No ghosts crawling through the portal. No eerie silence. The ghosts had just gone away.

“Ms. Stenson, Ms. Stenson? What’s happening?” The psychologist asked in concern.

“It- It just happened,” Emily managed to say, “Another episode. Sorry.”

“I… I see. That looked rather horrible. Can you describe exactly what happened? You didn’t seem to be able to hear me when I spoke.”

“Yes, it is… It starts with a wind with no source and the whispers. It grows and grows until I can’t hear anything else and I start to understand what the voices are saying…”

— — —

“Great job, the both of you,” Barbara said, “Now, this may seem a little sudden. But next week Peter Rose is going to visit our labs. Big inspection for next Friday. So freshen up, maybe put on something nice. Maybe think about what you’ll say if he asks you about what you’ve been doing around here… ”

“He is?!” Emily asked, “Peter Rose? Uhhhh…”

“Sounds great!” Luke cut in as Emily’s face flashed with a variety of complex expressions.

Barbara gave the two of them a strange look, “Well, no need to worry. You’ve both done plenty to impress him as you work here. Just make sure to freshen up a bit to prepare, thought I’d warn you…”

“Thanks, Barbara,” Luke said, “We’ll remember.”

“Well, okay,” Barbara said skeptically, “Really no need to be so nervous. It’ll be fine. Peter Rose is rather charismatic, a real charmer and he’ll be understanding if you mess up a little. Plus, you’re interns. Most of the time the rest of us will be entertaining him for the tour. You can feel free to come here to hide after we introduce you to him in the beginning. Okay, back to work. Got to go centrifuge some more of those samples…”

Emily started quietly panicking.

“Hey, you’ll be fine,” Luke said, “It’s just an introduction, right? You’re seeing that doctor, I’m sure…”

“But… but I’m not diagnosed yet,” Emily whispered, “I- I- don’t have any meds that would fix me. What if I have an episode right when he comes? Oh no, I’ll be ruined. It’s caused by stress, and I’m stressing out if it’ll happen, and that’s stressing me out more, making it more likely, oh no…”

“Hey! Snap out of it!” Luke barked and Emily looked at him, “We’ll be fine. I’ll cover you if something happens. Just stay still and ignore it as best as you can if it happens. I’m sure no one will even notice if you nod and smile when he says something.”

Emily considered it then relaxed considerably. “Okay. That works. Thanks, Luke. I’ll try to keep it together.”

“You’ll be fine, Em. Completely fine.”

— — —

Emily lay in her bed, staring with her eyes wide open in the darkness. She had been trying to fall asleep for over an hour now, but she just couldn’t. Tomorrow was Friday, and she would be finally meeting Peter Rose. And the doctors still hadn’t decided what drugs would help her condition.

According to all of the tests she was normal except for the moments where she wasn’t. She had thought that in over a month they would have come up with something, but no. They didn’t think that it was too important because she hadn’t had any more episodes since then, apparently.

There was a sudden gust of wind and Emily froze as the voices started growing louder. The female’s this time. She gritted her teeth and held her breath to stop herself from crying out as the noise grew louder and louder around her. She didn’t want to wake up her parents or Sean in the middle of the night, it would only make them worry about her more.

Suddenly everything grew to a crescendo and Emily let out an involuntary low moan before everything popped and the world went silent. Emily looked up into the corner of the room and saw the ghostly figure crawling out of her signed Zeena poster, barely visible in the dark room. Only the moonlight shining in through the window gave Emily enough light to see anything at all.

Emily ducked under her covers and curled into a ball. If she just ignored it, it would go away. If she just ignored it, it would go away, if she just ignored it…

“EmiLy? I’m SoRry abOut ThAt. How aRe yoU feELiNg?”

The voice was different this time, and Emily quickly peeked out from the covers before gasping and covering her face again as she saw the feminine distorted figure standing over her, right next to her bed.

“I unDeRstAnD. We rEaLLy like tO hiDe frOm tHe WoRld, doN’t we?”

Emily felt anger at the ghostly woman’s words, “What would you know about me?” She said from inside the covers to muffle her voice, “I just have to wait and you’ll go away. What did I ever do to deserve this, to have you here bothering me?”

“NotHinG. None of this is becAuSe of you. And woUldn’t your halluCinaTions know aLL about you? Maybe taLkiNg to us would help? There’s no one HeRe to JuDge you. It’s juSt us.”

Emily lowered the covers and saw that the distorted figure had sat on the side of the bed and twisted her torso and head towards Emily. Emily’s perception of the figure was only blurrier through the dark room, but she could see what must be long hair running down the woman’s back as she sat there staring at Emily.

“What do you want?” Emily eventually asked as she pulled the sheets towards her in a ball and sat up to rest her back against the headrest of her bed. She kept the sheets and blankets over her so only her head was exposed.

“Just to tAlk. My frIEnd was only tRyiNg to help. He just was FruStraTed. SoMetHing bad is going to haPpen and only you can pReVent it.”

“What? Some kind of virus is going to end the world?” Emily said sarcastically, “I’ve heard of that movie plot before. How would I even build something like that? I can barely even build single proteins, let alone something that advanced.”

“It’s iMPorTant,” The woman insisted, “I know you won’t leAve CODA. It’s yoUr dreAm. He was wRonG to AsK you to do tHat. But, If anYonE asks about building a viRus or anYThing similar, reMeMber this, what he toLD you. You must not be inVoLveD with the projEct at all, even if you muSt refuse Peter Rose to do it.”

“You’re crazy,” Emily said stubbornly, “I’m crazy. I’m just an intern, Peter Rose wouldn’t need me for anything.”

“You’d be suRpriSed. But I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow is an impoRtant day to you, isn’t it?”

Emily nodded reluctantly, “Yeah, Peter Rose is visiting the lab and we’ll be meeting him finally…”

“PrOmiSe me you won’t work on anything even sMeLLing like a virus in the fUture,” the woman said with intensity, “And I pRomiSe me and my friend won’t bother you for that whole day. No matter what.”

Emily hesitated, “You’d really leave me alone? Not even the faintest whispers?”

“Nothing for a whole day,” the woman confirmed, “And we’ll try to be moRe caReFul in the future. We’re here to help, little Emily. We never wANted to hurt you, just to make you unDeRstAnd. Can you do that for me? We- I- Just want to prEvEnt you from being hurt by what will happen. That’s all we want.”

The woman moved her ghostly hand and rested it on top where Emily’s leg sat under the sheet. It fazed slightly through the cloth and Emily felt a faint chill on her calf. But the woman’s calm and understanding tone let Emily relax slightly. Even if it was only in her head, maybe it would work? Like a form of self hypnosis?

“I promise,” She said, “And you’ll leave me alone? For the whole day?”

“Yes,” The woman said, “We wiLL.”

The woman reached out with her ghostly hand and Emily felt oddly unthreatened as she put a hand to Emily’s cheek. It felt like a cold breeze, nothing solid as the distorted hand and arm were sitting right on her face.

“I’ve lived so long pining for the past,” the woman said, her face still pointed directly at Emily and her distorted voice shifting into melancholy and becoming clearer for a moment, “I’d put it on a golden pedestal. Something perfect I had to get back to. Living with the guilt of it all. But things are the same even now, aren’t they? I’ve always felt lonely, even back then. Sean, Luke, Mom and Dad… They all love you as you are. Don’t let yourself convince yourself otherwise. Cherish the time you have with them, you never know how much time with them you’ll have left.”

Emily felt tears well in her eyes, “I… Thank you. I know.”

“Sometimes it’s best to hear it again, though,” The woman said before her voice turned up slightly in amusement and became more distorted again, “EvEn if only frOm youRseLf.”

“Now,” The woman said as her hand left Emily’s cheek and patted at Emily’s head, her distorted intangible hand feeling like it was made of ice as it hit her head.

“It’s tiMe to go to sLeep, little Emily. You hAve a biG day toMoRRow.”

The woman stood and walked back to the door before turning around.

“GooDniGht, Little Emily. SleEp well.”

“Good night…” Emily said, suddenly feeling a wave of exhaustion as all the pent up stress she had felt released at once. With a soft pop, the ghost disappeared and the normal sounds of the world disappeared. Emily felt herself slowly drifting off to sleep as she rested her head back on her pillows.

“If you’re just a hallucination then at least a good one…”

Emily closed her eyes and before she knew it she was asleep, her body finally relaxing from its tense state it had been in for the whole day.