Ageless Deception
Eric Sanders sat at his desk and stared at his computer. There was something mesmerizing about the screen of a computer, something that made him feel safe and loved.
�Eric you lazy cow! Get down here this instant!�
Eric sighed. His home was a different matter. He lived with his Aunt and Uncle, since his parent had vanished in the Yukon. Far from being loved and comforted, the orphaned Eric was subjugated to endless hours or emotional torture in his Aunt�s house. His Aunt was old and decrepit, a shriveled emaciated nag who belonged in the deepest bowels of Hell. Eric�s Aunt yelled at him again. Sighing, Eric got out of his chair and trudged down the stairs.
At the foot of the stairs, Eric paused to catch his breath. His room was on the third floor of Aunt�s musty house, and the stairs took a lot out of him. He walked glumly towards Aunt Hag�s lair. The old bat was breathing hard, Eric though. He waddled into the living room and blinked rapidly as the acrid stench of tobacco smoke reached his nose. He found the source of the smoke and sighed.
�You called, Aunt?� he asked.
The woman Eric knew only as Aunt looked up at him. Her face was passable as a Shakespearean horror mask. Her eyes were beads of onyx set far back into her deeply creased face. She nodded her scraggly head and glared at him with her good eye. She settled back into her filth-encrusted, blood-red armchair and took several long, deep puffs on her cigar. She gave a low, hacking cough, spat a gob of phlegm on the carpet, and began to speak.
�Yes I called, you misbegotten son of a whale. You and your ungrateful generation, making everything sound like a chore. You�re a worthless piece of cow manure.� Aunt spat again, this time with great gusto. She looked Eric in the eye, daring him to make a contradiction. When he made no sound, Aunt continued her deranged tirade.
�Look at yourself, standing there. Sloppy pile of cow dung, that�s what you are. We, your Uncle and I, took you in so that you might become something!�
Aunt wiped the saliva from her chin and gestured wildly to an empty chair. Uncle�s old chair. Eric was not disturbed by Aunt�s slightly less-than-sound wits, however. Her husband, Eric�s Uncle, had been dead for 20 years, shot down during World War III. Aunt still talked to him, wandering about the dusty house at night. Eric waited patiently for Aunt to get to the point of her speech.
�Now I�ll be dammed if I have to take care of a worthless boy. You know Uncle tries, but the men in this family are al fat slobs!�
Eric noticed the slight emphasis on �fat�. Ah that�s it, Eric thought. My weight. Eric looked down at his shoes, straining to see over the numerous rolls of his stomach. His obesity was a favorite topic of Aunt�s, a fall-back when nothing else was wrong with Eric or her life. Eric let out a long breath. After fifteen years of being tortured, Eric could feel his control slipping. He prayed for escape from Aunt�s inevitable last words.
�It�s all because of your good-for-nothing parents. What the hell were they thinking, going to the Yukon in winter? Worthless, idiotic toads. May ten thousand syphilitic she-camels defile their god-dammed graves,� Aunt finished with a relish. She looked up at Eric with a crooked grin. She shook her craggy head and muttered about worthless toads.
Eric�s blood was boiling. His chins trembled with rages. He felt like someone was playing with his biological thermostat; he was going hot, then cold, then hot again. Angry words bubbled up his throat and poured from his lips.
��How dare you talk about my parents like that you toothless hag! They were greater than you�ll ever be, you decrepit pustule of tobacco! You�re a crazy, half-witted old goat with the brain of a goldfish and the personality of an ox!� Eric let out all the grievances of fifteen years of near-enslavement to tyrannical Aunt. He finished and looked balefully at Aunt, fearing retribution.
Aunt looked slack-jawed at Eric, with terror, rage, and incredibly pity in her eyes. She clutched her left arm suddenly, and rolled about in chair, moaning. Eric, curious, knelt down next to the Old Bat. Aunt looked at him and mouthed something. Then her entire body convulsed. Foam lined the edge of her mouth and her eyes rolled up into her skull. She twitched and jerked out of the chair and dropped the smoldering cigar. The shaggy rug caught fire and Eric screamed bloody murder, running for the phone. Already he could feel the flames licking his body. He dialed 911, hacking and wheezing, all fire-safety he had ever learned driven out of his head in sheer panic. His vision blurred, and just as a sweet, feminine voice picked up on the other end, the world went black.
Eric�s eyes popped open. Bracing himself on the floor, he got up and abruptly fell off a table. He looked around, suspicion surfacing behind his daze. He seemed to remember calling 911, then blacking out. If so, this should be the hospital. He had seen enough TV shows to know what a hospital should look like, with beeping monitors and bustling doctors. This eerie silence certainly was not what he had expected. Where was he? A cold, clammy feeling swept over him. Clambering to his feet, Eric slowly looked around the white, sterile room. No�it couldn�t be. Eric looked at the table he had fallen off of and cried out in dismay. Lying on the table was the corpse-white form of Aunt, and next to her was his own body. Eric had never been vain, but he cried when he saw the flame-scarred form of himself. Its skin was wrinkled and slightly charred, a lot like burnt fried chicken. Mind numb with shock, Eric stumbled out of the hospital morgue. In his mental turmoil, he barely noted the fact that he had passed through solid doors. Staggering blindly, Eric walked towards the main desk. Suddenly, he heard footsteps and solemn voices coming his way. Panicking, Eric ducked into a supply closet. A shadow blocked the light streaming in from under the door. Eric contemplated escaping further into the closet, but stopped when he heard his name.
�Did you hear about the emergency call we got?� It was a female voice; light and pleasant, but with an undertone of sadness.
�Yeah, apparently this woman had a heart attack, a Mrs.�,� the other nurse coughed, and Eric cursed mentally at his botched chance to hear his Aunt�s name.
�Sorry. Anyway, she accidentally set her house on fire with a cigar. Her nephew, Eric Sanders, called and then passed out, right?�
The first nurse sighed. �Yes he did. Poor boy. I was with the paramedics. He was moaning terribly. He�� the nurse choked. �He asked me to �take care of Aunt� for him. He didn�t even know his aunt�s name! Then he looked at me and�died.�
Eric sat down hard. He held his head in his hand and whimpered softly. How�how could he be dead when he was sitting right here? Eric felt like rushing out of the room and yelling at the nurses. He sprang to his feet and reached for the handle. He put his hand on the knob�and it passed right through it. Eric stared at his hand. It shimmered slightly in the darkness. Worse than that, his hand was actually glowing. He was a ghost. He walked through the door, ghostly tears running down his face. He looked out at the empty corridor and cried out.
�Please! Release me from this endless existence! Let me die, not wander this plane forever, never finding peace. Come and get me!!�
Eric fell to his knees. Somehow, he managed to bypass the floor altogether and crash to the basement of the hospital, his ephemeral body creating no damage. He coughed, belatedly realizing that he hadn�t raised any dust and that he did not have any lungs to get dust in. Trembling, Eric stood up and brushed himself off. He peered into the darkness, trying to decipher where exactly he was. Then he froze. In the glom, a figure could just barely be made out. It was dressed in black robes and a cowl. Eric carefully edged behind a cardboard box. Slowly, he peered over the box. The figure was staring right at him. Eric whimpered and ducked, pressing his body against the floor. From the figure�s direction, a low, rattling his sounded.
�Errric Ssssanderrrsss��
Eric bit his tongue to keep from crying out. His chins shook violently with the extent of his fear. I may be a ghost, he thought, but that thing looks like it could destroy anything. Let alone a fat 15-year-old boy/ghost. Eric curled up into a ball.
�Errric Ssssanderrrssss, commmme herrrre��
Eric shook his head fervently. Although he was hidden from view, Eric had the feeling that the figure could see his refusal.
�Yyyyouuuu cannnnott rrrunnn frrrommm ussss. The Fatessss havvvve decreeeed yyyourrr punnnishmentttt��
Eric could not hold back his response.
�What punishment? Why should I respond to some ambiguous Fates?�
The figure hissed in annoyance.
�Yyyyouuuu willl commmme with ussss nnnnowwww!�
Eric felt a jerking sensation and suddenly found himself next to the figure. He tried madly to scramble away, but the figure�s power held him fast. A green tinge colored the air in front of him. Suddenly, a portal opened�dark and menacing and completely devoid of color. The figure grabbed his hair and shoved him through. Eric screamed. He felt himself spiraling downward/upward/ sideways through an endless abyss. Eric screamed his heart out and his vision once more faded to black.
Eric woke up and spat out a gob of blood. Groggily, he levered himself up. He was sitting in a field of brittle, metallic-looking grass. He slowly got up, wondering why he felt so light. He looked down to brush the dust off his legs. Wait a minute, he thought. I can see my feet!! Eric ran over to a tepid pool of water. It was, however, clear enough for his purposes. He was tall, slender, and best of all, completely solid. Jubilant, Eric spun about and stopped dead in his tracks. For, standing in front of him, was none other than Aunt. Except this wasn�t the Aunt he knew, but a young, tall, and extremely pretty Aunt. Although it felt intrinsically wrong, he felt himself intensely attracted to her. He walked closer to her, and as he stepped closer, so did she.
�Hello Eric.� She batted her eyelashes coyly at him.
�A-aunt? Is that you?�
�Now silly, call me Llandra.� She walked closer to him, until she was pressing against him. She grabbed his arm and pulled him down into the grass, laughing wildly. Very soon, Eric didn�t even notice how brittle and uncomfortable it was.
Eric woke up several hours later. Llandra, the woman he had once known as merely Aunt, was standing above him. Remembering what they had done, he rolled over, smiled, and reached for her again. She easily swayed out of the reach of his questing arm. Her eyes, which had been so alive while they were together, were now cold. He frowned.
�What�s wrong?�
Llandra looked at him. She smiled, and he felt a little hope return, but her eyes remained dark and cold, a great deal like the abyss he had taken to come here. She stepped back a little further from him, as if to distance herself.
�Your fate is decided. You and I, we had our fun Eric. And I will cherish it forever. But now you must pay for your sins.�
Eric started violently. �What sins?�
Llandra smiled.
�You have always been stupid Eric chehara. You have never been human, you know. You have always been a Shade and an evil one at that��
�What? What�s a Shade?�
Llandra looked annoyed at being interrupted. �A Shade is a spirit, inseted into the body of a stillborn child upon its birth. The more evil the Shade, the less desirable body it gets.�
�But,� he said, uncertain, �How does one become a Shade?�
�Your ancestors defiled one of my ancestors. As punishment for their crimes, they were brought to Earth to become slaves to my family�s will. That debt for defiling my family has yet to be paid in full. Yet, I did not want to destroy you without giving your own Family a chance. After all, after you are punished, you Family record will be expunged. I will carry on your family honor, and my own.� She caressed her stomach gently, and in that instant Eric knew what he had done.
�But, you will have your child grow up fatherless?�
Llandra smiled wickedly. �Yes. You are an abomination, and thankfully the last of your wicked line. I feel no sympathy for fools; our son will be better off not knowing his father.�
Terrified, Eric stumbled up and started running, pulling his clothes on as he ran. He heard Llandra�s laughter behind him, echoing on the odd metallic planet. He ran as if he had wings on his feet, praying his new body to push itself to the limits. Then, inexplicably, he slowed. He lifted his feet higher, trying to unstuck himself from the planet�s suddenly sticky surface. Nothing worked. He stared down at his feet and saw, to his horror, an odd metallic ooze creep up his leg. He felt a presence and saw Llandra stading beside him. There was true pity in her eyes, making them seem almost human.
�Don�t look so sad Eric. I cannot help what the fates have decreed; were it my choice I would have made the end faster. I promise you one thing though, I will visit you, and so will your son.�
Llandra walked away, head bent. As she walked, she said one last thing, almost too softly to be heard.
�Be careful Eric. The creature of this world eat organic metals. Metals such as the one you are tuning into. I am truly sorry.�
Eric watched her walk away, head held high. He felt his mind begin to slip away, like sand through outstretched fingers. His body shuddered, and the organic metal consumed him, making him one with the planet of his birth forever.
