Twentysix. 6. 'Thirdeye x 3rd-I' (pt. b)

My mind was racing as I tried to remember what it was that I had to do exactly. Where was it I was trying to get to? While in Megan Strange's embrace everything slid away and I found myself lost in her darkness.

My hands caressed her skin, fingers massaging her back, lips kissing her neck. With each shudder she let loose I fell further into her narcotic elegance. I ran my fingers through her hair and looked up into her eyes, locked in her magnificent, stellar stare.

I was growing weaker as my will melted and time flew past. Nothing meant anything, submerged in her oblivion. I had a glimmer of hope that someone would come and save me from this pleasure prison that she called home.

I thought of all the girls that were about to pummel me when Megan Strange had delivered me from them and brought me here. Where was I? Brooklyn, I think. I opened my eyes and glanced around the apartment. It was ordinary, so I thought, except upon further examination I noticed several objects of power, totems of containment.

A bound lower half of a mannequin was on one side of the room and a phallic flower in a vase on the other. I began to sense the pollen of this flower as it wafted over and crept up into my nostrils. The deeper the breath, the less I cared, the more I slept.

When I awoke next, Megan was gone. I could hear her making something in the kitchen. All sorts of arcane smells trickled into the room and sparked my conciousness. The breeze from the windows swept through the room, twirlling the aromas into a furious ballet, causing hallucinations and delirum.

Pitting my body against my heartsick soul, I rose from the bed, closed my eyes and felt the spinning unknown into etheric umbilical chords. The music spun me to sleep. For so long. I've slept. Soundlessly. Kept asleep.

No! Wake up! Something shoots my eyes open and the hypnotic particles of Megan Strange's botanical spell crash into my senses. I see them all, sweeping about the room, universes of splendid narcoleptic addiction. I grew sleepier with every second.

I snatched my sunglasses from the bedstand. An infinite barrage of particles smashed against the lenses, and I imagined myself as a starship about to carve its way through the galaxy. I dressed and slipped on my sneakers without making a sound.

The purposeful clattering from the kitchen meant she was still working on something, possibly even more potent than this pollen storm. The door was a ways off and the window was already open, so out I slipped and up on to the roof. I jumped the rooftops, pausing once to look back as I cleared Lorimer St.

Megan came riding the fierce night winds, tearing apart the tops of trees, a scowl across her cutie pie face. A brief flutter causes a stutter and I'm nearly flattened as she hurls debris at me. She concentrates and tornadoes a wave of pure force smashing into my torso.

I wake up, again, looking up from the sidewalk.

"Is this Bedford? Shit, I think I dreamt this..."

Megan Strange walked into view, looming above him. His vision was blurring, my personality slipping. Skipping...

"Deja vu. Our first date. The blizzard. I remember."

Megan Strange began to change shape, and spin around, or maybe that was me swirlling down and away. The girls stepped into view one at a time like a roll call of valkyries. Raptor, goddess of the birds. Luna, pixie of imagination. Eve, mistress of deception.

I swiped away my shades and watched as they all became Megan, and Megan became ordinary. No elemental witch, seducing me into slumber. A girl.

A girl who held her hand out to me. Deception...?

I swatted her hand away.

"What are you doing to me?! Who are you?"

I didn't listen as she said something, yelling over traffic as I tossed myself among the speeding automobiles ranting and crying like a mad lunatic, schizophrenic dreamer awakened to hell.

Subway. To Manhattan. Odd looks. Just one more stop. I stumble off the train, senses rippling back as I step onto the platform. The scene warbles and sheen slides into everything. I'm gripping my forehead as if holding in my psychic guts, my third eye jutting outwards like a giant knife wound. My mind is bleeding.

As I walk down the platform, each step dries the dripping ether from the spike stabbing into the air before me. It lives in the moments, the worlds before and I use that to be more. To heal. And I feel the rush of living coming back to me.

Suddenly, I have the sense of deja vu as I glance over at the people on the other side. They're still playing the game, their minds plugged into the iWorld, device diabolique. McAllister, mad inventor, menace to mankind's mental state. Emergency!

Scent of strawberry lingered about me as I picked up where I began. About to battle, again and forever more, against evil and injustice.

I found myself back.

Buried inside.