The Anima App (Part Six)

You know, sometimes when someone's attempting to burn down your home for the second time, you want to relax and let off some steam. Rant a little, punch a wall, and then swipe through your phone.

And that's what I end up doing. Vedette runs up the stairs, screaming curses as she readies herself, slipping on her silver gloves again. Carson stands there, and honestly, I've never seen anything more relatable.

"You're a wizard, Caddy," I mouth to Carson, trying to get a laugh out of him. He stares at me, silent.

"Did you even read Harry Potter?"

"No," I yawn back, annoyed that he's not reacting. I'm the one who should be mad. Why don't I get to be?

"Caddy," Carson draws out from the shadows, holding his arm as he stares back at me. "Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah, almost died"

"I'm fucking serious"

I cross my arms, mimicking him, but he doesn't react like he normally does when I tease him. "I don't even know what you're talking about. I mean, Anima's a thing. Want to talk about that?"

Above us, a scream echoes, probably coming from Vedette. "She's fine," I assure him, but I don't know. Do I even want her to be fine?

"When you bro..." Carson drifts off, trying to correct himself. When he finally regains composure, he stands taller, looming over me. Thin shadows dance across the wall, keeping us company. "When you decided to visit me. Why'd you come back?"

"Why'd you come with me?"

"Because we're friends," Carson nods, leaning closer to me. "Is that why you came back for me?"

No, Carson. Obviously, I really wanted to be charged for breaking and entering a maniac's house.

"Yeah..." Carson mumbles. "If you die, then I'll blame myself"

"Don't," I caution, but he doesn't seem to hear me.

"I mean, Mayweather used me to get to you. If you never met me, then we wouldn't be like this. She told me to be friends with you... I almost forgot about that. I assumed she said that because I didn't have any friends and you were so popular. Now look at us"

"Well," I snort. "Exactly. Look at us"

'What do you mean?"

"Mayweather never thought we'd get this close. Or, at least she didn't care. We defied her. You defied her"

"Huh," Carson takes it all in slowly, a thin smile stretching across his face. "I guess you're right. I never thought that I'd leave that mansion"

"What about your parents?"

"I'm fine," Carson manages to sputter, even though I know he isn't. He's putting on an adamant expression, but I can sense the hate and fear behind his mask.

"What she did was despicable," I lock hands with him as we sit against the drafty wall, not even caring about the dirt. "It's us forever, Carson. We're against the world"

"I thought we were supposed to be saving it," Carson manages a weak laugh, but I can tell he's worried about Vedette. What did that bitch ever do for him? He doesn't even know her.

"Well, that's Vedette's job. I doubt we'll do anything"

"Unless she dies because of Mayweather"

We both sit in silence, thinking about the repercussions. "Shit," I pull out a cigarette, but Carson slaps it out of my hand.

"Could you stop? We might die today; wouldn't you rather die healthy?"

"Carson," I stand up, brushing off all the dust from my jeans. "One, we are not going to die today. Vedette is going to perform some time magic voodoo again and save us"

"Didn't she say that she had to use that time god guy to do it?"

"Uh..." I mutter, trying to work through Carson's interruption. "Maybe not? Hoesntly Carson, I'm trying to be an optimist here"

"You literally just had to work through the fact that you wanted to die. How are you an optimist?"

"I'm a depressed optimist," I explain, gently pushing my finger up to his lips to stop the interruptions. "And that leads us to my second point. Carson, I am wearing a ratty t-shirt from the bottom of my laundry with a grey stripe on it. Grey is a shitty color"

Carson looks down at his sweatshirt, offended. "Present company excluded.

"Anyway, I am not looking to cleanse myself in what could be the last hours of my life. I don't want to live a lifetime in an hour; I want to live life the way this depressed optimist would always do it. And if I want to smoke, I'm going to fucking do it, consequences be damned. Don't you want to be free too?"

Carson shrugs. "Freedom has a line that can't be crossed"

"Ah, yes. But that's the fun part. Some lines are meant to be crossed.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go torture my lungs"

And I do. The smoke scratches my throat and burns the air around me, but I'd rather it be that way. I'm no ice queen anymore; I'm the entire volcano, waiting to erupt.

"Should we go help her?" Carson pipes up from the ground, punctuating another scream.

"I think she's fine," I whine, annoyed that I have to repeat myself. Why doesn't he get it? Maybe she's already won.

Why do I even need to convince myself? Why do I want to?

"Besides," I lie, turning away from Carson. "She told us to stay down here. For our safety"

"She never said that," Carson replies, twisting me around. "You're lying. I can see it"

"Well, fuck"

"Caddy, do you really want her to die?"

"I mean, I've already broken your heart. Why not shatter someone else's?"

He shakes his head and crosses his arms, pouting again. "Caddy, something's wrong"

"I'm fine,"

"Your hands are shaking," Carson points out. "Caddy, I don't know if I love you anymore...but I do know that I know you. And you can't hide this stuff from me. You're afraid.

"Vedette said that you wanted to die. How much of that is true?"

"She's a liar," I tell him, gritting my teeth. Did he hear all that?

“Caddy, I'm not stupid. I know you're going through stuff. Let me help you fix it”

“I'm fine!”

“You're not!” Carson screams back. “Oh my fucking god, you're not! For once, can you just listen to me?”

“Why is it about you now?”

“It's about me? You're the o-”

“Children," a chilling voice spreads across the room, freezing Carson. "Naughty children..."

Mayweather steps out from the stairs, a grimace on her face. Vedette lies on the ground, strapped in her clutches. "Naughty children deserve to be punished"

She kicks Vedette's body down the stairs, her stony face barely changing as her illegitimate child coughs up blood. Carson runs to her, only to pause as a soft click reverberates through the room.

"Take one step and die," Mayweather croons, holstering her gun.

"You'd kill your own nephew?" I scream back at her. Her hand shakes, but she just stares at Carson, steely and dark.

"If someone stands in my way," Mayweather adjusts her glasses so her eyes become concealed by the gleam in from the dim light. Suddenly, the room feels massive, like I can't even tell where I am. Everyone feels so far away, through glass. "I won't hesitate to eliminate them"

Her finger tightens on the trigger as a bead of sweat runs down her pale face. "Carson, I won't ask you again. Would you live forever as a disappointment? Or will you one thing correct?"

Carson stands, covering my body. "You won't kill her"

"Oh," a smile sneaks up on Mayweather's face, sick and conniving. "I doubt that"

He falters for a second, losing composure. "No..." I whisper to Carson. "I don't deserve this!"

"You could rule by my side!" Mayweather screams, desperate to move her nephew. Was there more love in the relationship to be seen? Or can she not stand to lose more?

"You're making the wrong choice!"

"I will not move," Carson grunts. "I cannot"

"Then you die"

And just like that, he does.

"NO!" I shriek, falling to the floor, cradling his head in between my knees. "You will not die!"

He just smiles up at me, so stupid, even at the last moment. "I'm sorry"

Mayweather holsters her gun once more, aiming it straight at my head. "You'll die too. Don't worry; I'm sure it'll hurt"

"Caddy!" Vedette screams, her throat hoarse and shaky. "Anima!"

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Use it!"

Before I can scream back for more instructions, a pink glow explodes from my phone, throwing Mayweather across the room. Her jaw explodes in a pool of blood, but she just gets back up again.

"How do I work this thing?" I scream, tapping incessantly on my phone. "What do I do?"

"I don't know!" Vedette screams back. "I never thought I'd get this far!"

Great. The all-powerful time traveler knows as much as I do, Carson's dying, and Mayweather's getting back up. We're doing great all around.

So, of course, nows the time I have to check my phone.

"Please," I pant, staring down at my home screen, swiping back and forth. "Please show me something"

"What the hell are you doing on your phone!" Vedette shouts over the noise upstairs, where screams echo down the hall. I need to help them. I don't want to be loved, and I don't want to be seen as a hero.

But I don't want things to change like this.

"The Anima App," I breathe out, staring down at a small pink icon covering the left corner of my phone. "Do you think this could be it?"

Vedette's eyes snap back to me. I can tell she's worried about Mayweather; she's still struggling to get up, but that doesn't mean she'll be down for very long. "What are you talking about? Anima's never been inside a phone; it needs a proper vess-"

She stumbles on her words at the end, staring at the warm pink halo around my phone. "Did you tap on it?"

"Yeah," I mumble, staring in awe at the small glow. "Maybe a bit more light?" I ask aloud.

"It doesn't work like that," Vedette explains. "Anima used to mean soul, an unconscious part of you. Literally, it was to breathe. You have to hone your unconscious to be able to work around the magic"

"Yeah," I snort. "The tutorial would have been appreciated earlier"

But how do I do it? I can't wave a wand or repeat an incantation. And I've never even thought about my subconscious, let alone trained it.

"You need to focus on the little things," Vedette tells me. "Try to take those things that seem impossible from the back of your mind and put them up front. Does the app say anything?"

I rotate the screen, showing her the faint pink glow from the app. "It's blank. Maybe I should turn it off?"

"Try thinking of what you want to happen," she offers, warily glancing toward Mayweather's huddled mass. "Quickly"

Do I just have to wish? I have to stoop to my least favorite level, the most pathetic I can get?

Maybe I should share a little bit of full disclosure; I don't wish. When I was younger, that wasn't the case. I used to wish on four-leaf clovers, on satellites, on dreams, and good luck. Anything that I could see. I thought hope was something we were allowed to have a lot of, something that was real. I ran on hope, instead of badly burned cigarettes, fake parties, and a mess of social life. Where did I go wrong?

Well, where didn't I go wrong?

I stare down at Carson's barely moving body, bringing forth all those memories of wishes that never came true. Karma became my new source of hope, the driving source of my life. Did it have to turn out like this? Did everything have to go wrong?

A single word covers my screen, pulsing in the slowly dimming light.

Vita.

"Vita," I hum, trying the word out. "What does it mean?"

"Life," Vedette repeats. "You..."

But she doesn't need to finish. Carson begins to cough violently as his body absorbs the pink light, lifting him off the ground. Dried blood seeps back into the ground, evaporating into thin air. His face turns to me, glowing bright pink for only a second before he turns back to normal.

"I knew I made the right choice," he grins, peering down to the place where Mayweather's bullet plunged through his chest. His shirt is the only reminder of his short-lived death, where the fabrics pull towards each other, held together by only the stress of a few stray strings. A sickly sweet scent plagues my nose, burning my nose.

"Chrysanthemums," Vedette explains, heaving herself up. "More likely known as mums, a flower native to East Asia and North-Eastern Europe. It's known for the symbolism of death in countries such as Italy and France. Also, Anima's signature"

Before I can ask her what the fuck she's talking about, a single sharp flick explodes through the back of my mind.

"You..." Mayweather manages to shift herself up, standing above us on a stack of boxes. A plume of fire erupts around her, waving dizzy shadows across her maniacal smile. "Naught children"

"No!" Carson shouts, spinning back from the fire. A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead as he freezes, staring at the malicious shell of an aunt he never knew. "What are you doing?"

"This is all for Aman's ascent!" Mayweather screams, staring straight up at the ceiling, her ceaseless smile melting through the flames. "I will kill you if it's the last thing I do!"

She whips off the box, slamming the exit shut with more speed than she should have been able to muster. "We will all die in here"

"This is strictly against regulation!" Vedette screams, rattling off and screaming. "Time travelers aren't allowed to mess with timelines like this! We are never supposed to engage in any form of malice or spite!"

"Ex time traveler," Mayweather reminds her, rolling her eyes.

Way to go, Vedette. Maybe her superhero name could be 'neurotic girl'.

"Caddy!" She shouts back at me, preparing a new deck of cards. "Use your Anima!"

"Oh yeah," I mumble. "Because I obviously knew how to use it earlier"

"Caddy," Carson whispers, still edging away from the growing flame. "Please"

"Ugh," I yawn, stretching out. "Fine. Mayweather, wanna die?"

"Oh," she puts a finger absentmindedly to her temple. "I don't seem to have any slots open in my calendar today. Maybe tomorrow?"

"Good enough for me," I growl, lunging at her

Okay, so maybe 'neurotic girl' is probably better than 'stupid teenage addict flinging herself at an all-powerful agent working for an unknown god'. Anyway, that's not even a good name.

My phone's screen glows once more, shimmering with a halo of pink energy as I fall to the ground, looking like the world's biggest idiot. Before Mayweather can inevitably die from laughter, a bubble shines up from the ground, hovering a few inches off the ground. I reach out to grab it, but it slides up past me, dissipating into the ceiling.

"That's all?" Mayweather laughs, holding herself. "Really?"

"Caddy," Vedette warns. "Stay back, please. Clearly, I'm the only one who can deal with Mayweather"

Oh wow, so I get to be even more useless.

A jet of fire streams out of Vedette's cards, hitting Mayweather square in the face. She roars in pain, doubling over.

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?" Carson shouts over the fire.

Vedette rolls her eyes, crossing her arms. "My magic takes preparation. If Caddy had been able to pull off some real magic, then we could have swapped out back and forth. Too bad she's a literal fucking idiot"

"Hey!" I protest. "It's a little hard!"

"What did she do?" Carson asks, staring back at Mayweather and the fire.

"Summoning spell," Vedette hisses. "Anyone with magic in a mile radius will be immediately alerted of our location and dilemma. Of course, it's not like there'll be anyone to answer her call"

"What's the chance that I could have summoned someone useful?" I grunt, feeling even more worthless. I'm probably just as useful as Carson right now. Except that I'm not supposed to die. So I guess I'm just a liability.

Vedette opens her mouth to report a probably depressingly low number, a pink shimmering bubble hovers over the room before popping revealing the last person I'd expect.

"Ms. Trachard?" the name feels raw on my tongue. "What..."

She doesn't turn back to look at me, only drawing out a gun. "Sometimes, saving someone's life is better than explanations"

"You," Vedette mouthed. "You were the time travaler Nœl told me about!"

"About time you figured it out," Ms. Trachard's mouth draws up in a thin line as she stands over Mayweather's crippled body. "Of course, I prefer good old fashioned brawling to magic. His army never worked for me. When I was told to protect Caddy with my life, I knew it was my best option"

"Heh," Mayweather stares up at Ms. Trachard. "Try to shoot me. Unlike you, some of us learned how to use time magic"

"Oh," she shakes her head. "I'm not playing your game"

Ms. Trachard kicks the door, knocking it over. "Escape!" she screams. "Now!"

"What about you?" I choke on the last word, already knowing the answer.

"Caddy," Ms. Trachard smiles at me, faint and distant. "We all get to be heroes one day. Today is not your day!"

"Run!" Vedette heaves us past the door and up the stairs as a crash echoes through the room. "Don't you dare look back!"

And I don't.