Straining Bones by Lindy R. Smith at Inkitt

Straining Bones

“Are you ok?”

“Do you think she can hear us?”

My whole body trembled in uncontrollable spasms. My heart raced like a crazed clock, pounding as if trying to burst out of my chest. My blood sped through my veins. Air filled my heaving lungs like a flood. Everything that makes me alive, I could feel it like it was screaming at me, but I didn’t know what it was saying.

I struggled to stand. My eyes burned. Everything was blurry, yet so…bright, so intense. I felt lightheaded and fought to keep my balance. I heard noises that seemed muffled and far off like I was underwater. Fuzzy blobs of color in the shapes of people shifted around me.

“What’s wrong?” another voice asked.

I couldn’t speak. My feet slipped out from under me, and I hit the ground.

“Get help!” a voice shouted.

A gentle hand stroked the side of my head.

“It’s alright. Just lie still.”

After a while, I felt hands lifting me off the ground. They carried me somewhere.

“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.”

For weeks, I drifted in and out of consciousness.

I woke up again, but this time was different. I was back in the laboratory, strapped down on the operation table. The brightness was gone. It was all dull again. I couldn’t feel my body like I did before. But I could feel my head churning - my whole insides, churning - like I was going to be sick.

After a moment, the madman stood over me. “What did you see?”

I tried to form words. But I found I couldn’t speak again.

He shouted, “Tell me what you saw!”

I just moaned.

The madman grabbed me and shook me frantically. “I said, tell me what you saw!”

Suddenly, a door burst open.

“Police! Up against the wall!” Men in uniforms poured into the room.

The madman screamed, “No!” He banged my head against the table, and pain shot through my skull. “You have to tell me what you saw!”

An officer grabbed him and pulled him away. Another officer leaned over me. “Ma’am, are you alright?”

But I could already feel unconsciousness slipping over me again.

That was all over a month ago. I was taken to the hospital, and I stayed there until I was well enough to go home.

At the interrogation, they told me all about the madman. His name was William Marson. He used to work and teach at a university hospital. He was a respectable man, sharply intelligent. But it seemed that he had gone off the deep end. One of his close friends said he talked about another “realm.” Of course, he didn’t believe him. Marson became obsessed with research, barely doing anything else. Then, he disappeared. They didn’t suspect that he would be found in a remote laboratory operating on a kidnapped victim from a small town.

After the meeting with the prosecutors, I got in my car and started driving. I passed by the bench under the streetlight where I was kidnapped that night over three months ago. I had been walking home from the movie theatre and wanted to sit down for a minute. I remember I just felt so…It just all seemed so…empty. All of it. Like a shell. What had lived in it died a long time ago and there was nothing left but empty empty empty.

I had felt the smallest twinge of it a long time ago. I had a comfortable life, a nice house, a job I enjoyed. But there was this question in my mind – light as a penny, but I couldn’t drop it. Does any of this matter?

For years the question that started out so small grew and grew until it was almost unbearable. That night, I carried that question, now heavy as lead. If I died tonight, what would my life matter?

It was then that a hand pressed a damp cloth over my face. I tried to scream. But I felt myself going unconscious, and I wondered if my pointless life was about to end.

When I woke up, I was strapped to an operation table. For weeks, Marson conducted tests on me – blood tests and body scans. He hooked me up to an IV. Every day, I could feel my body changing. Then, he put me under to do an operation on me. That’s what I told the prosecutors. I told them that the next thing I knew, the police were breaking into the laboratory just before I passed out again. But I left out an important part.

That’s why I decided I wanted to see him. The madman. Or perhaps he’s not so mad after all. I just had to know more.

At the jail, a guard led me into the visiting room. A wall with a long glass window cut through the middle of the room. I sat in one of the chairs that lined a table sticking out from under the window. Another guard led Marson into the room on the other side of the glass. He wore the typical bright orange suit. His usual scruffy beard and black hair had been cut short. His face was hard and somber.

My guard said he and the other guard would be outside the doors if I needed anything, and they left. Marson sat down across from me and stared at me with his intense eyes.

“You don’t look surprised to see me,” I said flatly.

“I’m not.”

“Tell me what you know about that place you sent me to,” I said.

“You tell me what you know first.”

“No. You first. Or I’ll never tell you anything.”

The man narrowed his eyes at me. Then, he leaned forward and began. “I sent you to a place I call the Citius realm. I met a man from the Citius who somehow came to ours. He said in his realm they call the planet Eanan. He didn’t want to stay. He said this place I called Earth was too dull and lethargic. However, he allowed me to question him and even take an MRI of his body. After the MRI, I tried to question him further, but he said he’d travelled all over our world and couldn’t stand it any longer. He vanished just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I was fascinated. I buried myself in the work of research.”

“Why? Why didn’t you just leave things alone?” I asked.

He got a wild look in his eye. “Because I couldn’t leave it alone. There’s a whole world out there science hasn’t discovered yet. How could I possibly leave it alone?” He leaned in so close to the glass, I could see his breath on it. “Think of all the wonders of this world. The technological advances – from electricity to medical expertise to mile-high cities. And he called our world ‘too dull,’ ‘too lethargic.’ What must this place called Eanan be like that he would say that?”

“Then, why don’t you go and find out yourself?” I said.

“You think I’m afraid? I’m not. You don’t know how terribly I wish to go there.” The anger, the passion, the obsession seemed to pulsate in his eyes. “But if anything were to happen to me, what would come of my research? Perhaps no one else would ever reach that realm.” He leaned back away from the glass. “Besides, I can’t very well operate on myself, can I?”

“No, you can’t,” I replied. And I knew he wasn’t crazy, just obsessed. I looked him in the eye, and said, “Tell me about your research.”

Marson gladly told me, as if he were thankful that someone would finally listen. “The Citius realm seems to be a sort of faster dimension. There, the people’s bodies are slightly different. For example, their hearts beat faster, and the physiology of the retinas in their eyes is different. I don’t know how that man came to our realm, but I could come up with only one possible way to send a person from our realm to theirs – by altering the body. Modifying the eyes, quickening the heart rate, and whatever else it took. Once that is accomplished, the person’s body exits this realm and enters the Citius.

“I planned that you would remain there for several weeks. At first your body would naturally be discombobulated but would adjust temporarily, just enough to function. According to my plan, if I completed the operation correctly, and I did, then your body would eventually begin to undo the effects of the operation. It’s homeostasis, the process of the body to restore a normal, stable state. Your body altered itself until it could no longer stay in that realm, just as I planned. When you came back to our realm, you returned in the exact same place as you were when you left, just as the man had told me would happen. That’s all I know.”

“Now, what did you see in the Citius realm?” He leaned forward again, his face practically dripping with anticipation.

“I think I know why that man you met called this realm lethargic. But I don’t think it’s what you think it is.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Proceed.”

“At first when I entered the world, everything was a blur and I couldn’t keep my balance.”

“That’s to be expected.”

“Some people took me to some sort of hospital. I kept going unconscious. But my body started to adjust like you said, and my vision cleared up. The realm and the colors were so – vivid. So alive. When I felt up to it, I was allowed to move around and sometimes they let me out of the hospital…”

“But what was it like? What did you experience?”

“The thing is that I can’t remember much. Every day, I can only remember less and less.”

Marson nodded. “Well, keep talking,” he urged. “That might help you remember.”

“Yes. I know I will never forget this. When I was there, I could feel everything that made me alive. I could feel my heart beating, my blood flowing, my lungs breathing.”

“That’s to be expected because of the operation,” he said with an edge in his voice. “I already know that everyone in that world experiences that. Tell me what the world was like.”

“I’m getting to that. With everything that I was feeling, the thought occurred to me…” I stopped.

“Go on,” he said.

I took a deep breath. “My heart won’t be beating forever, my blood won’t be flowing forever, my lungs won’t be breathing forever. Everything that made me feel alive – it was a constant reminder. A constant reality. I mean, forget not knowing about making it to tomorrow. I knew that I might not even have another hour.

“And the people there know it too. And they live like they know it. They love each other without holding anything back. There’s no petty arguments or stupid drama. Lying is considered a waste of breath. They share everything they have with each other so that no one – and I mean no one – goes without. They all live in this wonderful harmony. They’re joyful. They’re not lazy or too busy, but they’re full of peace. They don’t make every effort to make themselves comfortable like we do. They know you can’t grow inside a comfy, little, secure box. They live like every minute is their last. And they…” I paused and looked upwards.

“Don’t stop,” he said.

I struggled to find the words. “They believe in…a God, who created all places. They said he…loves us. That he has a unique purpose for each one of us. That we might not know what that is, but if we let him, he’ll carry out that purpose through us, and…It all made me feel—” a smile slipped across my face, “full.”

“Okay, I got all that. But what is it that makes our world so pathetic in comparison?”

I looked at him surprised. “You don’t get it?”

“Get what?”

“That is it.”

“There has to be more than that!”

That’s when I realized. “You feel empty, don’t you?”

He drew back, startled by the question. “What?”

“That’s why you’re so obsessed with this. You think finding an amazing new world will satisfy you. But it won’t.”

“You’re talking nonsense. Now, tell me more about-”

A door clicked open.

“Ma’am, there’s a prosecutor here to see you,” the guard said.

The prosecutor stepped into the room. “We’re leaving, now.”