Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (8 page)

Carmelo plucked a feather from his wings. Blood dripped in a diagonal line that ended to a sharp tip. He kissed the purple quivers and licked the red shaft of his arrow up to its tip then shook the rain off it.

“Three minutes,” Carmelo notched the arrow, drew, and aimed for Sarah’s heart. “If you don’t do it, I’ll do it.”

“And that’s why the agency sent you,” Damian returned his attention towards Sarah’s heart, “if there really is an agency. Next question, who is Sunet? Why did you call him Boss?”

“I was stupid to make that slip. You know he can hear our conversation, right?”

“Yeah. And I want him to hear all of it.”

“What the hell; you’ll learn it anyway. Sunet is the agency, the big bosses, everything.”

“So he is the God of love?”

Carmelo’s laughter drowned the roar of thunder, “That’ll amuse him. Not really, he’s just who he is, eternal and mysterious. He doesn’t have a real name. He’s everything, life, knowledge, love, despair, dreams, destruction, growth, and death. I have to tell you, he’s enjoying this conversation.”

“Who wants to break Sarah’s heart?” Damian asked.

“I do.” Damian recognised Sunet’s voice echoing in his head.

“Why, Sunet?” Damian asked.

“To test you if you still love her. You can’t be a Cupid if you do,” Sunet said. “But don’t worry. I’ll assure you the pain of the heartbreak will not last long. I made arrangements with my Angels of Death to give her an eternal rest after a couple of months. I hope that doesn’t complicate your mission.”

Damian could imagine the devilish smile on Sunet’s wrinkled face, “No. No complications whatsoever.”

Damian’s focus had never been so intense, only a minute left until hit. He needed his full concentration to make sure he would do it right, no mistakes.

Thirty seconds, Damian’s heartbeat slowed. He could see every detail of the storm, the raindrops, the spaces in between, the amount of water in each, and the momentary crown of splashing water on the concrete rooftop.

Ten seconds, Damian could see Sarah busy with her work. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Carmelo’s silhouette tensed and poised to take a shot the moment Damian failed to do so. Below, Sunet waited for the mission’s completion.

In the last second, Damian bowed his head, lowered his arms, and loosened the sling. When Carmelo saw this, he let go of the arrow. It flew through the air unaffected by the rain and the wind’s resistance.

The arrow broke in half when a pebble struck it in mid-flight. Damian turned to face the surprised Cupid, took a sharp stone from his pocket, loaded it in his sling, aimed straight at Carmelo’s heart, and let the stone loose while he leapt backwards. The stone pierced through Carmelo’s chest.

Damian was falling head first towards the pavement. The short glimpse of Sarah’s smile was the best thing he saw before he died. She was safe from Sunet’s grasp. The pavement and death approached him. His only wish was to embrace Sarah for one last time, even for a second.

Moments before the impact, Damian saw Sunet standing on the sidewalk, and shaking his head from side to side.
This is how I want to spend forever, old man
, Damian thought.
In eternal rest.

About Recle Etino Vibal

Recle Etino Vibal (born in the Pispis, Maasin, Iloilo, Philippines) spent his childhood and currently lives in Mayondon, Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. A son of an Ilongga and a Bikolano, he is proudly Filipino. He obtained the degree of Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, but works with numbers that are zero percent chemical and 100% financial engineering. He balances reading, writing, and living, a daily juggling act on a high tension wire a hundred meters above the ground. He manages to survive such a stunt, read, learn, write, and live for another day. Learn more about him at
ibongtikling.wordpress.com
.

Dreams

Tabitha Sin

~ (New) Hong Kong ~

There is a new love in my life. When I place it inside me, its soothing touch lingers, coursing through my veins. It helps me sleep, humming white noise against my ears. I feel warm and sated, my limbs heavy, my breath even. It leaves me complacent, and when I curl into a foetal position, I start to dream.

There is a new love in my life because it helps me bring the old one back from the dead.

§

I prayed every day to one of the gods, to any of them that would hear me. I prayed to the old ones from our past that the government had tried so hard to make its citizens forget, but our parents had kept them well alive within us. I prayed to the new ones who always promised salvation. I prayed: Please, please. Do not let the sun rise.

But gods never listen when you want them to. As the sun chased the moon from the sky, its rays peeking through the pale blinds of her hospital room, I knew she would be lost to me forever. She had never shown any improvement, but still I stayed with her, separated by the oblong glass case that held her deteriorating body. I tried to tell her of a story about everlasting love because that’s what she enjoyed best.

“The ghost and human,” I said, “had loved each other very deeply. But their love for each other was against the rules of nature. They tried to fight against those higher powers, but in the end, they had to say goodbye. The only way they could be together was to hope that one day, their reincarnated souls would find each other.”

“Did they find each other?” she asked me.

She turned her head to face me, and the skin from her scalp laid limply on her pillow, black tendrils left behind. Nothing on her face registered pain.

“Of course,” I said, steadying my voice.

She had lost half of her hair when we realised something was wrong with her.

The corner of her pale lips rose, her eyes rheumy. “You were always a terrible liar.”

§

The designer drug offers a way for users to control their dreams. We slip into an almost catatonic state, one where nothing can hurt us, and we feel as warm as we once did in our mother’s womb. It is the elixir of dreams that our country could never really let go.

I had navigated the streets of the floating city to get just a small dosage. The place that deals the new strain of opiate is as close to the edge of our world as we know it. The seedy building looks like it has been shabbily constructed, almost keeling into the waterfall that marks the edge. The boats are tethered to the ports of New Aberdeen so that it won’t float down the waterfall and into what was the original Kowloon Bay.

I once looked out the window from their apartment and had felt sick. The building was built so high, trying to relive the glory of its past, that I could see the wasteland of the Old Territories. Almost nothing survived the Flood that took over a quarter of the world. The old skyline looked dead and charred, a city that housed hundreds of thousands of ghosts. Hong Kong was one of the first cities to construct a floating city with a protective dome against the poisonous sun. We hung in the clouds, building replicas of the once grand buildings from below.

The Ah-ma who gives me the elixir of dreams shakes her head at me as she opens her spotted hand revealing the vial. Her gnarled fingers and light eyes indicate her age and also lack of wealth. Someday, and I do not know how soon, but I will look like her. When I swipe the vial from her palm, her mouth twists in disapproval, but I don’t care. The drug brings me one step closer to
her
, the only one I will ever need.

When I get back to my apartment, I pull the yellow moth-eaten shades down to avoid the blistering sun. Even with the tinted windows, I can still see dust motes rising and swirling. I unbutton my cheongsam, my fingers lingering over the flower stitching. I remember how she used to pull down the zipper slowly past my waist, her lips ghosting my neck and every expanse of skin exposed, helping me out of the dress. I bury myself into the bed, straightening the cotton sheets over my chest. With the drug in my system, my limbs become heavy, and with one last effort, I curl onto my side. I close my eyes and wait for her to appear.

§

On her last night, she said to me, “I wish I could feel your hand again.”

Like a lovesick fool, not knowing that promises should never be spoken unless they could be kept, I said to her, “You will.”

Still, there was the barricade between us. Not only did her glass cage keep her away from me, but Death and Start Labs had already claimed her as theirs.

§

Before I give into the drug, I always remember her the best way I can. I make sure she looks healthy like the first time I ever locked eyes with her. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I marvelled at her slightly darker skin, like the sun had kissed it graciously. I kissed it lovingly from her temples to the rounded tip of her nose, from her prominent shoulder blades to her hips, from her knees to the smooth insides of her ankles. Her eyes were smaller than the large ones that had become so popular, and her teeth were slightly crooked. She had thick and long black hair, usually piled high, and always smelling like roses.

When I open my eyes, she is here, lying next to me. Her fingers are soft and delicate like flower petals brushing against my skin. She is wearing a thin camisole, her collarbone straining against flesh and looking like it will break through. Her eyes are bright and her hair is loose around us. In this small sanctuary, we are perfect just like before.

“I’m not the only one,” she whispers against my brow.

She starts to ashen, and I see flakes forming against her jutting bone.

“What do you mean?” My words fall flat as I try to hold onto her disintegrating body.

She isn’t supposed to be like this. In these lucid dreams, I hold her and keep the promises I make.

I hear her laugh, the one that she was embarrassed about because she snorted like a pig. She palms my cheek and presses her mouth against mine. I feel her rubbery gums mash against my lips.

“There are others who are suffering from this, too.”

We are no longer together in my bed. Instead, she is standing at the edge of New Hong Kong, her feet above the water. I try to reach out and grab her, but she is out of reach. She goes through the phases of her disease, the one that had caught everyone by surprise. The one that wasn’t supposed to exist. The one that Start Labs products had promised to fight but instead accelerated the process.

Her skin turns bone-white and her eyes look bloody from popped capillaries. Her once healthy, red-and-pink muscles become grey. Her hair falls out, clumps floating in the air. The water spray from behind her doesn’t get her nightgown wet. The skin I had once adored sags from her bones. It drops into the water unevenly like pale slugs losing grip. Her mouth gapes open, her lower mandible shifting lower and slowly dipping. I scream and scream because this isn’t supposed to happen. Before her jaw disappears into the bay, I see her mouth form a word.

I wake up hours later, my throat raw, and my body clammy from cold sweat. My room is dark and filled with shadows, and I feel like the loneliness in my heart will kill me. I know she will never appear to me again, not the way I want to dream of her. I keep the empty vials on the window ledge. As I walk amongst the masses or when I am alone, staring into the darkest corners of my room, I hear her final whisper, like the way she told me she loved me:

Help.

§

“What happens when the souls are reincarnated again?” she asked me once.

I could hear air rattle in her chest as she pushed out the words from her mouth. Her ribcage looked fragile like if I stroked the bone, it would turn to dust.

“They spend years looking for each other,” I tell her. “Since she was a ghost, she was able to deceive Meng Po. But he drank the Five Flavoured Tea of Forgetfulness that was offered. A sip was all that was needed for him to forget his past lives. But the ghost was determined that her human would remember the only life that mattered to her.”

I was looking into her glass cell as I told the story. My hand pressed against the bottom. With obvious effort, she strained and lifted her half-bone, half-muscle arm and tried to press her decaying palm against the glass. She didn’t have much skin left on her fingers at that point, but I tried as hard as I could to have her feel my warmth. My breath fogged the glass. I wished I could hold onto whatever was left and clutch it against my heart.

“I won’t drink the tea,” she said; one of the last things she ever said.

About Tabitha Sin

Tabitha Sin enjoys stories that make her skin crawl. She has been published in Moonroot zine and Thought Catalog. She is currently working on a speculative fiction YA novel set in the same world as “Dreams” while occasionally dabbling in hybrid fiction-memoir pieces. You can find her at
http://tabithasin.wordpress.com
or follow her thoughts on Twitter: @tabithameep.

Bumbye! Said the Candelarios

Ailia Hopkins

~ Hawai‘i ~

The change was so innocuous and most were too busy to notice it, but the beach had grown over twenty-two feet that night, and if Chandel Reyes, under the influence of a heady mix of beer and bootleg psycho-pharmaceuticals, had not been driving down a deserted strip of coastal highway that subsequent afternoon, she might never have alerted the town in time. Of course, this fact was soon forgotten.

She had dozed off, the beer cans on the passenger floorboard rolling out from under the seat, the automotive receipts on the dashboard flying, the Ocean-Air air freshener in the rear view mirror twisting like a breathless scream. She was slammed forward and awake, then back down and unconscious. She awoke to the sound of Spanish guitars. The hood smoked as the radio played on and Chandel, instead of sighting, or maybe because of sighting, the scarlet stream dribbling down the dashboard of her corvette, found herself mesmerised by what she was certain the foreign tongue over the trill of the band was singing.
You pursue me as if I were a dove you want to devour!
She peeled her face from the steering wheel and felt her head spin. The chorus faded and the voice resumed its inscrutable Spanish.