From the Dust of the Ground

The air is thick with the scent of damp soil and dying leaves. It smells so familiar. Dark clouds hang heavy overhead, but they have spent their rain and are retreating to the east. I watch them, the way they surge and roll across the sky, full of violence and power. Did I always love the clouds? I can’t remember. I’d like to think I did. I write that down in the little Moleskine notebook I found.

I love rainclouds.

Nothing much has come back to me. I know things in the world around me, but I have no idea how I moved through it before. It is as though my life started just three weeks ago, when I opened my eyes in that strange white room, lying on the stiff mattress, the only light coming through a thick-paned window—my room. That’s what the woman in the long white coat called it anyway. My room. It didn’t feel like my room. But then again, who am I? What is mine? Perhaps that was my room.

They did not want me to leave - they had barred the door to keep me from doing so. I tugged and pulled and pushed on the heavy metal door, but it would not give way. All I could see was that door, cold and unyielding, rising before me. I felt hot all over, sweat breaking out and covering me in a thin sheen of moisture that had me shivering and shaking. Then, there was the thundering in my chest, so loud I could hear its desperate, rhythmic thumping in my ears, feel it in my throat. It tasted acrid, metallic, like something I’d tasted before.

Then the woman in the long white coat opened the door with infuriating ease. The hot, thunderous thing coiling inside me reared up at the sight of her, at the sight of something long and thin and pointed in her hand. She smiled, baring her sharp teeth at me. I could smell the threat on her, strange and sweet. I couldn’t let her touch me!

I didn’t realize what I was doing until her face had gone a sickly shade of purple, and her eyes were glassy and empty. I released her throat and leapt back, staring at the woman. She smelled different then, rotten and cold. I knelt beside her and touched her skin. It was soft, covered in fine hairs. Her lips parted, and I noticed her teeth weren’t sharp after all. The thin, pointed thing in her hand lay broken on the ground, thick blue liquid oozing out of it and congealing on the ground.

It was in her pocket that I found my notebook. The first page gave me the only clues I have to who I might be.

Jane Doe - Age 20-25

Recovered from 11 Lavenza Lane - Project Genesis.

The rest was empty, pristine, ready for me. I sat, watching the woman for a while. I wished her eyes would close. I don’t like that they seemed to follow me as I stood, moving about the room and collecting my shoes. She watched me step over her and go out into the hallway. I remember that place reeked of death. I couldn’t stay there another minute. I paused only to begin my story anew.

My name is Jane?

Now, I stand before 11 Lavenza Lane. I stuff the crinkled road map into my back pocket and gaze up at the colossal structure in front of me, hiding behind a rusting iron gate. The bars spiral up into points like corkscrews. The house juts out of the land like a broken bone, all bleached stone walls and sharp angles. The windows are dark. The only movement is the fluttering of dead leaves as they lose their grip on the branches and fall gently to their deaths. I love to watch them fall. I write that down.

I love falling leaves.

I slip my notebook into my other pocket and place my hand tentatively on the rusting gate. A jolt runs through my whole body, so intense that for a moment I feel sure that it is a physical shock, that some kind of current is dancing on the surface of the gate. I step back, reeling. Flashes of images shoot across my mind’s eye, too fast to make sense of - a garden, a house made of glass, stairs, burning green eyes. Then they are gone. I am standing in front of the silent house, and all is calm once more.

Garden. Glass house. Green eyes.

This time, when I touch the gate, nothing happens. I push, and it swings open without even the slightest creak. The fallen leaves crunch under my sneakers as I take my first slow steps into the quiet courtyard. Gnarled trees with balding branches line the walkway on either side, silent and weary sentinels. In my mind, I catch an image of them, heavy with foliage and bleeding sticky-sweet sap. But then it is gone.

With every step I take, I become more and more certain that I have been here before. It is as though my muscles remember, even if my consciousness does not. My legs move of their own accord, stepping over protruding roots with practiced ease. I turn away from the main path and walk down a graveled side track, heading to the east side of the house. The sun peers out from behind a cloud for only a moment, but it is long enough for me to catch the glimmer of light on glass. I run down the trail, the gravel shifting under my feet, sharp edges pushing through the soles of my shoes.

I turn the corner and there it is, a large glass structure rising out of the remnants of a rose garden. The glass house must have once been a beautiful sight, the lustrous panes shining out of gold trim. But no more. Every beautiful pane has been violently smashed, leaving behind jagged bits of glass, glistening like teeth in some monstrous mouth. Even the roof has shattered, and vines pour out of it, new life bursting from the glass houses’ splintered corpse. A film of black soot coats the panels.

Standing there, surrounded by shards of glass and rotting greenery, I begin to shake. My mouth dries out, and I find myself swallowing repeatedly as the feeling of my throat closing grows. The thundering is back. Am I dying? Will I drop to my knees and rot here next to the wild blooming rose bushes? My knees buckle, and I fall to the ground. I feel shards of glass tear through my pants, ripping my skin. I barely feel them. I do not bleed.

After a few moments, the world ceases to spin. I rise shakily to my feet. I try to brush the shards from my pants, but they stick to my sweaty palms. The thundering is still so loud in this silent, dead place. It is hard to write with these bits of glass boring their way deeper into my flesh.

I am afraid.

I step through the open entryway into the greenhouse. The ground is littered with shattered terracotta pots, bits of charred trellis. Every single stalk, bush, and flower is reduced to crumbling black ash and soot. What leaves remain are brown and dead, curled in on themselves as if contorted in agony. The sight of them fills me with horror. Did they fear the fire? Did they feel the hot flames licking up their stems? I reach over and brush my fingers over a blackened stalk. It crumbles under my touch.

I walk through the wreckage, the graveyard of ruined life, until I hear a hollow thump under my feet. I pull away a singed, soot-stained rug to reveal the brass handle of a small square door cut into the stone floor. I am not surprised to see it. I think I might have been looking for it all along. When I lift the door, I’m met with the familiar smell of wet earth and the electric scent of rain. The fire did not reach whatever lies beneath. A set of stone steps winds down into the gloom in front of me, illuminated by fluorescent lights, jarring in their artificiality.

The stairs spiral downwards in a dizzying coil. The stone steps are slick with moisture and patches of dark earth. In these spots, pungent mushrooms sprout, their soft, spongy bodies a sickening yellow. I try to avoid stepping on them as I make my way ever downward. With each step, my pulse quickens. I feel the itch to pull out my notebook. I pause on a slightly wider step.

I am getting closer.

The last step gives way to a short passageway, the walls thick with sticky green algae. I step, blinking, into a cavern carved into the very stone. The walls are lined with steel tables, shining metal instruments, and monitors, dark but humming with torpid life. Overhead, more fluorescent lights flicker, struggling to keep their brilliance in the abandoned space.

I walk along the wall, running my fingers along the cold metal. It feels so familiar, and the hum of the monitors is, to me, a lullaby heard and half remembered from the shrouded memories still locked in my mind. I pause in front of the larger monitor. A small red light blinks on and off rapidly, as if the monitor is dreaming, eyelids fluttering. I reach out and press a button at random. There is a soft click, a brief moment of silence, and then the soft whir of waking machinery. The monitor lights up.

I stare at my face on the screen. It is rotating steadily, offering the viewer a 360-degree view of my head. My digitized eyes stare out, dead and unblinking. I feel the familiar coiling in my chest. I press the button again. This time, lines of text begin to materialize across the screen. My eyes flick back and forth. I grip the edge of the steel table tighter and tighter.

EVE 1

HEIGHT: 5’7” WEIGHT: 135 lbs.

COMPOSITION: LOAM AND CLAY - pH 7.35

FIRST SUCCESSFUL SPECIMEN. EVE 1 WAS CREATED FROM A 70/30 MIXTURE OF LOAM AND CLAY SOIL, ORGANIC MATERIAL, AND WATER. EXPOSED TO GEOTHERMAL HEAT AND CODED SONIC PULSES

TOTAL PROCESS - 3 MONTHS

CONCERNS - UNPREDICTABILITY, HEAT FLUCTUATIONS, HEART PALPATATIONS

TERMINATION MOST LIKELY NECESSARY - TOO VOLATILE.

Under the monitor, there is a scrap of paper taped to the screen. A single sentence is written there in spidery letters.

“Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

The shroud over my memories is ripped off, and it all comes flooding back to me. The agony of lying on those steel tables, the heady smell of earth and electricity, and the never-ending pulses shooting through my skull. Memories of someone leaning over me, green eyes alight with triumph, with violent elation. His hands mold me, shape me, every touch an agonizing pressure on forming skin. I hear his voice.

“You are the first, Eve! My child! Woman of clay! I breathe life into you! You will live, you will learn.”

I look down at my trembling hands. I see skin that is rough and patched. There are lines and smudges along its surface, as though hands have tried to smooth it. Not skin. Clay. Dirt. I think of the burnt and dead plants sitting in their charred pots many feet above my head. I think of how they crumbled at my touch, from dust to dust. I step away from the monitor. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. There is a steadily growing horror within me as I continue staring at my hands.

A soft moaning sound catches my attention. There is an open doorway to my right, and from it, humid, sour air wafts. Once more, I’m moving forward, willing my legs to stop but unable to. I pass through the entryway and find myself in the dreaded chamber. I know this place in my bones. Do I have bones? The sharp smell of electricity and dirt, the unbearable warmth from the steaming vent in the earth, the cursed pulsing. I stop at the edge of the vent, staring down into the crater.

She lies there in agony as I once did, a pile of molded clay and earth, strange growths forming into arms and legs. Her skull is fully formed, and skin and tissue are starting to grow. Green eyes roll madly in their sockets as she turns to look at me, her newly formed mouth twisting and opening in a silent scream. Only a moan slips out. She reaches for me with a three-fingered claw. Eve 2. New and improving.

I remember now what I have done before. This time, I will make no mistakes. I turn away from my sister and walk back to the main cavern. My legs are no longer trembling, and I am no longer overwhelmed with heat and sweat. Even the thundering in my chest is quiet. It does not take me long to find the matches, sticky, stinking oil. I anoint the cavern with it, this heinous, blasphemous place, and strike the match. The flame leaps to life, and I shudder. When I drop it, the blaze roars.

I retreat to the edge of the stairs, watching as righteous fire steadily burns. When I am satisfied that it will not stop, I reach into my back pocket and pull out my notebook. I stare at my sparse ramblings and add one more.

It is finished.

I rip out that first page and toss it into the flames. They eat at it hungrily, and within seconds, it is gone, and Jane with it. I march up the stairs, clutching my pen tightly in my hand. I try to ignore the sound of cracking and hissing fire. When the trapdoor thunders down behind me, the sound is mercifully muted. I breathe full for the first time. A muddy tear slides down my cheek.

I sit on the scorched floor of the glass house, ignoring the faded, gleeful snapping of the fire. Outside, the sun has come fully from behind the clouds. It is warm on my face. In this new light, I notice something I missed before, one splash of green and yellow. A single daffodil, its dainty trumpet wilted but blooming. It sits in a soot-stained pot. I pick it up, breathing deep of its verdant scent. Together, we sit on the stone floor.

I take out my notebook and begin again.

My name is Eve.