The Creator

Maddy Brooks drifted in and out and consciousness, her mind trying to bridge the gap between awake and asleep.

The world was swimming, the sensation of water filling her ears. Blindly, she reached for the shore, but only blackness greeted her. Had she really seen those things? Those impossible things. She tried to shake her head but heard a ringing in her ears. Maybe she’d been hit by a car on her way home from the bus stop. Maybe she’d never made it to the bus stop. Her throat curled up, while her fingers shook. Blackness. She was awake, but she wasn’t aware. Everything was so far away that she couldn’t see. Then a voice, a voice that should have only existed in fiction, penetrated the darkness.

“I think we broke her”. That was Ariadne. Her smooth, yet sharp purr shook the water around Maddy’s mind. It was as if her brain were trying to drain itself of the possibility. But she knew what she’d seen. What she’d heard.

“She does not look broken. Her bones are intact”. Annelise Millios, first female warrior of the Kingdom of Nolous, her regal drawl exactly as Maddy had imagined. She still refused to open her eyes. She clenched them shut so tightly she thought her eyelashes might pierce her pupils.

“Are all you sexy-warrior-types always this dense?” Trust Ariadne to start flirting; she’d flirt with anything if she could.

“Did you just call me dense?” Maddy’s heart began to loosen, strings uncoiling to allow blood flow. There was a rushing in her ears, as if her very heartbeat had been holding back. Perhaps she had a concussion. Yes, of course. She just needed to sleep. If only the voice would stop.

“Yeah. And sexy. Weren’t you listening?” Ariadne was going to get herself killed if she didn’t stop. 

“Guys, this isn’t helping. Look, she moved. That’s good right?”. Her body almost shrieked, as if her skin had a voice. Adrian Deanu. The diplomat to Ariadne’s fire-starter. Perfect, undiluted twins. Half Rakshasa twins. Demonic. And they were in her house, when they should have been on her word processor, hiding from the locals in a fictionalised version of New Orleans.

“At least we know she’s not dead. That’s a start”. Ariadne’s voice soothed the aches in her shoulders, easing the possible Type 2 concussion she’d sustained from fainting on the bathroom floor.

“Let her wake up without the presence of your shouting”. Even though Maddy couldn’t focus, she could just about make out the edge of Annelise’s jewelled scabbard. Within the blackness, the blade gleamed. Her eyes fluttered.

“I’m sorry, who put you in charge?”

“Be silent. She’s waking up”. Maddy inhaled. It couldn’t be. She almost spluttered, as if there was too much oxygen in the room. The Zietghost. From the novel she’d finished over the summer. After… After her father. And then she heard him.

“I believe she is”. Ceros. The runaway God. She hadn’t seen him, or the Zietghost, when she’d collapsed. Now they were here. How were they here? How? Why? So many questions, each one proclaiming it needed answering first.

None of this made sense.

Slowly, the drifting began to ease and this time, she felt herself falling. Falling awake. Crashing into awareness. Landing, feet wobbly on solid ground that was neither ground nor solid. Breath shallow, she let herself see. Finally see them, standing there: Ariadne leaning over her with a blue cross-stitch flannel from the kitchen. Black hair, like Adrian’s, and coal-smudged eyes. Just how she’d imagined. Imagined. She’d imagined him; he wasn’t supposed to be here, sitting centimetres away from her, trying to appear human.

“Don’t freak out”. Adrian was holding his hands out, head lowered in a guilty expression. Maddy knew there was a scream building in her throat, but she gulped it down. Her neighbours might call the police. What on earth would she tell them? It would be an interesting witness statement at the very least.

“Thank you,” Adrian smiled. She would have smiled back if not for the ashen claws on his hands. Just like in the book. Her book. Her mind. Her mind. The words she had written. She would have laughed if she could feel her breath.

“Am I dead?” she asked, her voice a bare scrape. Adrian didn’t shake his head. He didn’t move like a person either, because his body wasn’t entirely human. She’d written him that way, made him glide through air and freeze when he was speaking. Even when his lips moved, he was an automaton. Seeing it first-hand made her realise how suddenly terrifying he was. How inhuman he now seemed.

“No, you’re not dead. I’m sorry we frightened you”. He placed a clawed hand to his heart.

“Frightened? Kind of an understatement. You’re not real. I wrote you. This is insane, this is crazy. You’re not real. What’s happening?” Maddy scrambled up from the sofa, wincing as her head rocked forward.

“Careful Creator,” said Annelise. Annelise who was here, in her living room, hand permanently poised on the crimson hilt of her sword. A sword gifted to her by a dragon. A dragon, from her book, who wasn’t supposed to exist. Maddy doubled over, trying to force her lungs to thaw. She was going to vomit.

“Are you sick? Are you upset? Can I get you anything?” Adrian leant toward her, but she raised her hands. If he touched her, Maddy wasn’t sure she could keep herself from breaking.

“I’m not upset. I’m freaking out!” Wisely, her characters all took a step back, even the Zietghost. His face, with the silver crow’s feet and sea-spray eyes, were so much like her father’s that she could hardly bring herself to look at him. She’d written him a week after her Dad’s death, written him at a time when her memories were fading, and her mind was a mist. Now here he was. In her living room.

Back to the freaking out.

What’s happening? What’s going on? Mum will be back any minute. Oh my god. Mum will be back. What am I going to say?  

“Madeline”. That voice again.

She looked up.

Leaning on the arm of her mother’s tartan chair, set against a colony of kayak paintings, was Ceros. God of Flora, God of Oceans. The Young God Milieu, who’d forsaken his power after his human mother was killed by his deity father for her emotive weakness. In the story, which wasn’t even finished, he’d fled to the human world and locked his power away, afraid to touch even a single a drop of his energy. She hadn’t figured out what would happen next. Now that he was slouching in front her, she didn’t want to know. Did he hate her, for the past she’d granted him? For the burden which weighed on his soul. No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t because this wasn’t real and any minute now, she’d wake up in a hospital bed on a cocktail of heavy medication. Any. Minute. Now.

She blinked. They were all still there.

Ariadne was frowning at the plasma TV, while Adrian picked up the soaking flannel. The Zietghost had retreated to the corner of the living room and seeing him standing next to her mother’s assortment of teal dreamcatchers and cream candles made her want to laugh. Or cry. Annelise had given her space, and was milling about by the bookcase, smiling respectfully at the framed photographs. Real. This was all real.

Ceros slumped into the armchair, his golden webbed feet gripping the white carpet like metallised string. Every movement, every dip of their heads, was real. No, no, no. This was real. Her characters, even when she wasn’t writing, had never been too far away. But this was a different kind of intimacy; this was suffocating. This was hard-lined, veritable reality.

Ceros cocked his head to one side. In her mind, he was thin and pasty, with unnaturally blonde hair carved by seashell ears. His skin dominated her mind the most. It was a landscape of golden runes, arising in rivers across his face, his arms, his toes. Against the flannel shirt and denims, he looked more than out of place. When his stormy eyes met hers, she looked away. Went back to staring. Staring at her feet. Or anything else that was supposed to be real.

“She’s got that vacant look again. Do you think we should slap her?” Ariadne began fiddling with the buttons on the TV remote, ignoring the warning stare from her twin.

“Why?” said Adrian.

“That’s what they do in the movies.”

“What movies? You’ve never even seen a film”.

“I have now. She just told me that I did”. Maddy fought the panic in her stomach, trying to focus on the words, on the bleakness of the carpet beneath her. On the clay model of a boat she’d made for her mother in reception class. On the unfinished Maths homework strewn across one of the chairs. But Ariadne’s words wouldn’t leave her mind. Who’d just told her? Apparently, Adrian was thinking the same thing.

“Who?”

“Maddy. Our Creator”. All eyes turned to her. Her own eyes almost turned to her. She wanted the ground to swallow her up, nearly pictured it. A great wide abyss, opening up, and catching her as she fell. It was as if the very essence of the world was famished, as if it needed the vitamins in her bones.

“Creator!” Adrian reached for her as she began to fall, but Annelise caught her first. Her tanned wrist caught Maddy’s just in time, pulled her onto the carpet where she lay panting, sweat pouring down her brow in waves.

“Maddy. Close it,” the Zietghost was saying. She pushed herself up, trying to breathe again. It was as if the ground had opened beneath her. She peered over her shoulder. Where a swirling black hole had ripped through the sofa. The sunken furniture had been gnawed away by a snarling bottomless circle. Maddy fumbled for nothing. Stopped breathing for a few seconds. Choked on the absence of air.

“She’s going to freak out again,” Ariadne observed. That was entirely possible.

“Give her some time”. The Zietghost edged forward, calloused hands reaching out for her shoulder. Maddy sat back, staring open-mouthed at the vortex in the sofa.

“Did I do that?” she asked. Breathed. In. Out. In. Out.

“Yes. Now imagine it closing. Imagine a door in your mind closing, or a drawer. Whatever works for you. Imagine it closing. Now close it”. The Zietghost spoke softly, like when her Dad had helped her with her homework late on a Sunday night before school. Or when he’d demonstrated how to fix the clock or pour water into the car or hang shelves on the wall. Ceros watched her with curious impassivity, as he watched everyone else in his story. Indifference, yet intrigue. She stared at him, using his golden runes, his pale skin, to draw her mind into a river. Closing the river, drying it up.

“You can do it,” added Ariadne. So, she did. Picturing a door, an open door, she carefully pulled it shut. Slowly, the portal in the sofa drew closed, the slash in the atmosphere knitting together until the world was whole again.

“She did it,” Annelise breathed, more with surprise than relief. She stood firm, but her hand gripped the hilt of her sword like a vice. Ceros didn’t say anything. He sat back, biting his lip. His nervous tick, Maddy remembered. Something she’d written for him, picked up from his years living in the human world. He didn’t care for battle training or harnessing his energy. He feared himself, feared what he could do. She didn’t blame him. Power like that… Maddy couldn’t imagine anything worse.

“What’s happening to me?” She hugged her arms to her sides. Her characters continued to stare. It was as if a page from a storybook had been ripped out and soldiered into her life. To no avail, Maddy Brooks tried to breathe again.

“What you were saying about me, before… Before I”. Maddy choked on her own words.

“Before you ripped a whole in time and space, yeah?” Ariadne interrupted, smiling merrily. There was no hint of sarcasm in her voice. Probably because Maddy had written her to be used to this kind of thing. Part of her wished she could re-write her own mind to calm herself down.

“Were you saying that I… Altered your mind? Gave you knowledge?” Ariadne thought for a moment, but it was Adrian who answered.

“You can re-write us. I think that’s how it works. If you say we know something, we know something. If you say we can juggle, we can juggle”. Maddy clapped her hand to her mouth.

“That’s impossible, and horrible. Can’t you stop it? Override me or something?” Annelise knelt beside her, armour slicing off the edges of the carpet. She was a bronzed coin, rolling towards her.  

“You are our Creator,” she said. Maddy bit back another scream.

“I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean”. Her voice came out as a cracked shell.

None of them answered.

They stood in silence, each with their own atmosphere, drawing her into their orbits. Her fingers twitched, and she had the sudden urge to write again. To open her laptop, to email agents, to plan plot twists. Her gaze dropped to Ceros. To finish his story. To perhaps, give him a happy ending, something, she realised with a twist in her gut, none of her characters had. Annelise would be forced to relinquishing her title, her standing, because of a mistake her parents made. Adrian… She bit a cry. Adrian was going to die. In Chapter 34, he was going to die.

Shakily, she climbed to her feet, ignoring Ariadne’s hungry gaze. Out of the two of them, Ariadne would be the one to try and ruin her life, to kill her. Just for the fun of it. Maddy could’ve laughed. Killed by one of her own characters. Now that would be an ironically perfect ending. Almost poetic. As soon as she found the will to breathe, a set of keys turned in the lock, opening the front door. Her breath vanished as soon as it arrived. Her mother.

Mum. She’s back. She’s here. What on earth was she going to say?