NOVEL WEB Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Panic has set in fully as my mind races to figure out what’s going on. I seem to be looking through Juliet’s eyes. It’s like the shared sight we experience in our knight, only more focused as I don’t have my own senses competing. Her eyes are my eyes. But why am I seeing through her but not myself? I try to call out her name. “Juliet! Juliet!”
“Doc, I swear I can hear someone calling my name,” Juliet’s voice echoes through me. “Are you sure you can’t hear that?” She shakes her head in response and moves closer to me… or I guess moves closer to Juliet. It gives me a good view of her name tag.
“Do you recognize the voice?” Doctor Perkins asks. There’s an odd feeling of confusion that I can feel as almost external to myself. It must be Juliet’s.
“Sort of. It sort of sounds like Gordon,” she explains. “But more like their mental voice,” she clarifies after a thought. “Could, could he still be alive?” Her voice is laced with the flickering flames of hope.
Doctor Perkins lets out a heavy sigh and puts a gentle hand on Juliet’s shoulder. “I’m sorry dear, but that’s not possible. Dreamer Gordon’s body was recovered. He’s gone.”
The heavy weight of despair threatens to crush me under its unbridled force. It all but smothers the last embers of Juliet’s hope. But I’m not dead. At least, I don’t think I am. “Juliet! I’m not dead! I’m here! Inside you!” I shout as loudly as I can, desperate for her to hear me. Desperate for her to not give in to despair.
Those last few sparks build up some heat, like a stoked campfire. “Doc. I can hear him!” she practically shouts. “He’s inside me! I don’t know how but he’s not gone!”
Perkins gives her a sad smile. “Juliet, I’m sorry. It’s not uncommon for Dreamer’s who lose their co-pilot to experience… echoes of their partner’s mind. It’ll fade in time.”
And like that, the hopeful flame dies out again, leaving only the barest hint of light. “No! Don’t give up! I’m still here!” I’m desperate for her to believe, but she closes her eyes tight and shakes her head.
“If you’d like, I can give you something that should help mitigate the echoes.” Juliet nods in response to the doctor’s offer and I feel a pinprick in her arm.
I start to feel a little foggy and it gets harder to think. Am I really just an echo? A lingering trace of my soul just waiting to pass on… I guess… I guess if it makes it easier for Juliet, then that’d be the best, wouldn’t it?
Everything starts to fade away as the sensations of Juliet’s body become more and more faint. It’s a funny thing though; I actually didn’t hate being a part of Juliet. Though, to be fair, I always did feel more comfortable when soul bonded with her. Well, at least after we got over our initial hang ups.
****
Juliet and I were brought before the High Smith. Despite being the cornerstone of our people’s defense against the Underlands, nobody actually knew that much about the enigmatic woman. She was notoriously reclusive and despite the many attempts by the press to interview her, nobody even knew what she looked like aside from being a woman. So when I first laid eyes on the person responsible for building the largest weapons in the history of ever and realized she was less than five feet tall, I may have let out a chuckle, just a little one.
High Smith Constance Hearthshire quickly put me in my place. The diminutive woman jumped up and grabbed me by the collar, yanking me down roughly. “Something funny?” she demanded of me, her face mere inches from mine. I’d sort of expected her to have a rough accent like your standard blacksmith stereotype, but her diction was crisp and refined. I suppose it made sense given her noble lineage and the fact that she’d been trained as a mage as well.
“N - No ma’am!” I stammered while Juliet bit back her own chuckle. The High Smith let me go, and I nearly fell on my ass.
“Right, so you two are the special case I was warned about, hm?” Constance confirms. I nod as I reassert my balance. “What a peculiar case,” she muses as she started to look us over from top to bottom.
She hummed to herself as she took notes without ever explaining what she was doing. Eventually Juliet got impatient and cleared her throat. “Ma’am, is there something we could do to assist you?” she offered, it was clear from her tone she was getting bored. The High Smith fixed her with a withering glare which failed to make my brash partner back down.
“You know what, you got guts,” our examiner chuckled. “Now that you mention it, there is a way we can speed this up. Go stand over there,” she ordered while pointing at a large red crystal. Juliet and I exchanged a glance before going where we were told. “Now, put a hand on the crystal.”
Another glance and we followed the instructions, our hands touching the cold red surface at the same time. Within an instant every feeling, every sensation is doubled. I could see through two sets of eyes, I felt the crystal with two hands, I heard the world with two sets of ears. It was overwhelming but also comforting.
I could easily discern which set of sensations were mine because they were duller, more restrictive and uncomfortable compared to Juliet’s. Through her eyes the world had a spark of joy and color. I almost felt myself drawn into her as my soul craved the comfort she had, but I lacked.
It all ended too fast as Juliet pulled back her hand, locking me within my own form once more. There had been a sense of completion that I’d never felt when we were connected and with it gone, I collapsed to my knees and wept.
Both Juliet and the High Smith stared at me in confusion. Neither seemed to know what to make of my outburst. I mean, how could they have? There was no way they could grasp how hollow I felt after that brief taste of wholeness.
“By the first Knight, what happened there?” Constance demanded as she finally came to check on me. “In all my years as the High Smith, I’ve never seen anything like this,” she muttered while looking me over.
“Maybe it means there was a mistake,” Juliet suggested. “That we weren’t meant to be bonded, that we aren’t compatible.” My heart fell as I saw the look on her face. She didn’t want me. She was ashamed of me. I didn’t blame her, not if she felt what I felt normally.
“If you weren’t capable of bonding, nothing would’ve happened when you touched the heart-stone,” the High Smith explained as she shook her head. “What did you two experience?”
I couldn’t respond, the emptiness I felt just swallowed all my words before I could speak them. Fortunately, at least Juliet could describe her end. “It was like I could share his senses, but only barely. They were so muted. He felt… hollow.” I cringed at the word, but couldn’t even summon the courage to deny it.
“And for you?” The High Smith turned her gaze back on me. She seemed worried, but more than that, she seemed curious.
“I - I…” I tried to take in a breath, but it just felt like nothing. My whole body felt wrong. It felt like it was a poorly fitted suit. “Everything felt so bright and meaningful. Is… is that what everyone feels like? What’s wrong with me?!” I demanded as I struggled to my feet.
“That is certainly the question, is it not?” spoke a familiar voice. The Archmage had just entered the room and was crossing the distance between us. “I felt a strange pulse emanating from down here. I caught enough of the conversation to assume something happened when they bonded via the heart-stone, is that correct?”
The High Smith nodded and helped me to my feet. “The boy here collapsed after the girl pulled her hand off the stone. They got a full connection, but like you heard, the boy’s got something wrong with him.” She spared me a pitying look before proceeding to try and shatter all my dreams. “I don’t think these two should be allowed to be dreamers. It’s too dangerous.”
Juliet sneered at me as she stomped off to another corner of the room while the Archmage observed me with a strange pair of glasses he’d pulled from nowhere. “How peculiar. There’s nothing wrong aetherically with you,” he mused, seeming to not have heard the High Smith. “Your soul seems perfectly intact, though there is a strange disconnect with your body. How odd.” He pulled out a different set of spectacles and continued to inspect me until he let out a huff. “Simply fascinating,” he muttered before looking around. “Ah! Miss Juliet, could you please come here. I want to confirm something.”
My would-be partner reluctantly returned to the group of us, prompting the Archmage to repeat the same tests that he did on me. Mostly just looking at us with different glasses. “Absolutely astounding! If we could find a way to safely harness this interaction… by the gods. You’d be the most powerful dreamers of our time!”
“What in the world are you talking about Kelvithor?” High Smith Constance demanded. “They’re both clearly negatively affected by the experience, and you’re talking about harnessing that?” She shook her head. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Right, yes, perhaps I should explain,” the Archmage began as he waved his hand, pulling up a magical blackboard. He began drawing diagrams of myself and Juliet. I couldn’t help but wince at how unflattering his depiction of me was. “Now normally, when two souls form a bond via a heart-stone, they share their sensations, but their souls remain in their own body.” He made a little picture of two souls in the bodies to reinforce his point. “But in your case Gordon, your soul, ever so briefly entered into Juliet’s body. Don’t worry though, your souls are back where they belong again.”
“Wait, so he was literally inside me?” Juliet demanded, sounding absolutely pissed. Why wouldn’t she be? I’d be pissed if I was inside me too if I were her.
“Oh yes, and what’s more, I suspect that by sharing a physical body, your souls can achieve a higher level of synchronicity than any other Dreamers. You’d be in perfect harmony in a way no other has ever been! Isn’t it amazing?” From the look on Juliet’s face, I doubted amazing was the word she’d have chosen. “We must begin your training at once. High Smith, I presume you have all you need to get started, I shall take these two and see to their training personally!”
Both Juliet and I were practically swept out of the forge and ushered up into the tallest tower where we were to receive tutelage under the Archmage himself. An honor most would say, but those early days were a challenge to say the least…
****
Things start to get clearer as Juliet comes into focus. For a moment I’m filled with joy that it was all a dream and I’m not trapped in my partner’s body, but it all fades when I realize she’s looking in a mirror.
“Juliet?” I ask, quietly, hoping she doesn’t ignore me. She blinks in the mirror and lets out a weary sigh.
“You’re not real… That’s what they’ve been saying,” she whispers softly. “But… even if you’re not, even if you’re just the echo they claim you are… I still miss you.”
That glimmer of hope still flickers in her soul, just barely holding onto life. I smile, or at least feel like I’m smiling and Juliet’s face shifts to match. “I don’t feel like an echo. It feels like we’re in our knight, just… without the knight. M - maybe because I was mostly sharing your body when mine died, I got pulled the rest of the way in,” I suggest hopefully.
It’s as if I poured black powder onto the embers of Juliet’s hope. Her eyes light up as her resolve becomes a blazing inferno. It’s then I notice she had a syringe in hand and had clearly been considering whether to take more of the medicine, but she drops it before staring into her own eyes. She searches her own gaze until her expression lights up. “I see you,” she whispers.