Beautiful Warrior

Chapter One

Seven was singing. But not just any old song. He crooned an annoying rendition of
We’re Off to See the Wizard,
using warrior in place of wizard, and 105 instead of Oz
.

“Knock it off,” I said.

“I’m just having a little fun.”
 

“You’re getting on my nerves.”
  We’d been walking for what seemed like hours, and his stupid song wasn’t helping pass the time.

He shrugged and
started in again. “…Because of the wonderful things he does. We’re off to see the warrior…” 

I could have strangled him
. “Really. Seriously. Shut the hell up.”

He remained unfazed by my anxious behavior
. “I warned you that this place was a freak show.”

And he was right, considering that
I was trudging along in a vividly colored desert with a wickedly handsome musician who was a figment of my sister’s schizophrenic imagination.

No, that wasn’t true
. Seven wasn’t her creation, at least not technically. He was mine. Because the truth of the matter was, my sister wasn’t real, either.

I was the schizophrenic
.

Me:
Vanessa Winston.

I’d created
Abby when I was a kid, soon after my parents had died in a devastating car crash. And a while after that, Abby started seeing people, and Seven was one of them.

As for me, I’d never met him
until today. In my mixed-up mind, Abby used to be the only person who’d been able to communicate with him, and even then I knew he wasn’t real.

I still knew it, for all the good it did.

He started singing again, and I winced as I walked. My feet were killing me. I’d showed up to this outing without shoes. Currently, I had two squares of black fabric wrapped around my feet, courtesy of Seven. Earlier, he’d removed his tank top and torn it in half, making cotton footsies for me, binding them with strips of leather from his necklaces.

We
were in a meta-universe called Room 105, a strangely magical world, divided into past, present, and future realms. According to Abby, 105 had been created by people like her, from the use of their imaginations.

But once again, that was a twisted tale
. In actuality, it was me who’d dreamed up Room 105 and everything in it. Only I couldn’t begin to know what to expect while I was here. My mental illness didn’t afford me that kind of awareness.

Seven, on the other hand
, was supposed to have psychic abilities, with a smile that enhanced his powers. His full name was Smiling Seven. I used to worry that he was a bad influence on Abby. Not only was he an up-and-coming rock star who tapped into people’s emotions, he was rough and wild, with messy brown hair, a pierced tongue, and full-sleeve tattoos.

He was also madly in love with my sister.

That alone should’ve stopped me from worrying. I thought love was beautiful. But only in cases where the couples were going to end up together.

I had no idea if Seven and Abby were destined for happily-ever-after
. They were part of the reason I’d come to Room 105. Them and the warrior.

The warrior.

He was the man I loved. In the real world, his name was Duncan Lock, and he was an artist who lived in a downtown L.A. loft that he’d decorated with eclectic furnishings and graffiti scrawled on the wall above his bed. Here in Room 105, he was a ruggedly dangerous warrior who wasn’t going to recognize me.

In this schizophrenic land,
we were strangers.

At the moment, Seven and I were en
route to see the warrior and engage his help. He was the only person who could save Seven from being attacked by the monsters who patrolled the 105 borders. Seven had gotten stuck in 105 and was unable to return to Abby, who was in a private psychiatric facility back on earth.

Or that was the story I’d conjured in my mind
. I’d been told that I was a patient there once and had done quite well in treatment. But it never seemed to last. I slipped in and out of recovery. Obviously, I was in a state of relapse now.

But in spite of the fragility of my mind, I’d come to accept, at least to some degree, that my sister didn’t exist
. Yet that didn’t stop me from trying to help her and Seven be together.

Regardless of my loyalty to his cause, he didn’t seem to like me very much
. I wasn’t overly fond of him, either. Our personalities clashed from the start. I assumed it was because I wasn’t fawning all over him the way Abby did. My nonexistent sister was his biggest fan.

“
Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.

“I was
just wondering how you perceive Abby.”

He stopped walking
. “What do you mean?”

“
Do you believe that she’s real?” 

He blew out a breath
. “When you believe she’s real, so do I. Whatever stage you’re at in your illness, that’s how I get my information.”

“
So at this particular moment, you know that I made her up?”

“Yes
. I know. Abby knows, too, but she refuses to believe it. She’s as sweet and stubborn and delusional as she’s always been.” 

I was well aware of
what my little sister was like. I’d created her as a scapegoat, making her the crazy one so I could pretend that I was sane. “Maybe your chances of being together are better now that I’m completely aware that both of you are hallucinations.”

“
You’ve never believed that I was real.”

“
Have you ever believed it?” I was curious to hear how he perceived himself.

“No, I haven’t
. But I just told you that I attain my information from you.”

Right
. From my schizophrenic mind. I glanced down and saw a tiny red lizard race past my aching feet and scurry into the clay-tinged dirt. “I’m just trying to get everything straight.”

He chuckled
. “Good luck with that.”

I rolled my eyes
. Did he have to be such a smartass? But when I looked at him again, I saw an ache in his expression. I suspected that he was thinking about how much he loved Abby.

“You miss her,” I said.

“Yeah, I do. But I’m not sure if what you said matters.”

“What do you mean?
”

“About Abby and me
standing a better chance. I think we could be fucked regardless.” 

I
understood his pain. But I couldn’t let him discourage me from continuing my mission. “I’ll make it work. I promise I will.”

“
You can’t promise something like that. If you stop having hallucinations, Abby and I are toast. You’ll stop caring about what happens to us.”

“No I won’t.”  I couldn’t bear to
lose my affection for my sister. Or give up on her and Seven.

He frowned again
. Clearly, he didn’t trust me. But why wouldn’t he? His relationship with Abby hinged on me being sick. That was a dilemma for me, too. In order for me to better manage my illness, I wasn’t supposed to cling to anything associated with my hallucinations.

We came to a fork on the dusty road we were on
, and I asked, “Which way should we go?”

“
That way.”  He gestured to the left.

Once we took the path he su
ggested, the terrain changed. The desert morphed into a forest, with acres of gnarled trees. As if on cue, the sun slipped behind clusters of leaves and twisted branches, and I got an immediate chill.

I wished that I’d brought a sweater
. The wind kicked up, riffling my white blonde hair. I was a fair-skinned girl with blue eyes and long flowing locks. I stood about five feet two inches tall. Seven towered over me, but not compared to the trees. They dwarfed both of us.

“This i
s creepy,” I said. Shadows danced across the sky, creating ominous shapes.

“Y
eah, it’s kind of like the part where the trees throw apples at Dorothy and the Scarecrow.”

I shook my head
. “Will you quit with that movie? Besides, that was child’s play compared to this.”

“You’re right
. This is more like the Dark Forest in
Oz the Great and Powerful
. Personally, I thought James Franco made a pretty cool wizard.”

I shot him an annoyed look. I could
only take so much of the Oz stuff.

Seven
laughed and resumed his silly warrior song. He was full of himself, enjoying his own wit. But I was beginning to appreciate him, especially now that I knew how truly sensitive he was. His smart aleck remarks were his way of seeming macho. I was glad that I had his company. I wouldn’t want to be doing this alone.

Who was I kidding
? I
was
alone. Seven wasn’t really here. None of it was. Everything was in my mind.

“Where are the rest of Abby’s people?” I asked
. Aside from Seven, there were three others she’d created. Or I’d subconsciously created or whatever. For now, I’d yet to meet them.

“They’re lying low.”

I merely nodded. They were at risk of being attacked by the monsters, too.

Seven stopped singing, thank goodness, and we continued to twine our way through the forest
. When we came to a familiar copse of trees, I gasped.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

For a psychic, he wasn’t as informed as he should be. But psychics didn’t know everything, so I cut him some slack. “This is a scene from one of Duncan’s paintings.”

“That makes sense, I suppose
. Because we’re getting close to where the warrior lives.”

Already I was missing
the real Duncan. The warmth of his kisses. The passion. The comfort. If I clicked my cotton-bound heels together, would I be able to go home and return to his arms? Somehow I didn’t think it would be that easy.

Nor was I going to attempt it
. I needed to see this through. Curious, I gauged our whereabouts. “Is it safe to assume that we’re in the past?”

“Yes,
and I hate this fucking realm.”  Seven dragged a hand through his untamed hair. “It can get rough, like it was in other centuries, and the farther back you go, the worse it gets.”

Another shiver sent goose bumps racing along my skin
. “How far back in time are we?”

“Hell if I know
. We don’t have actual dates here. But if I had to liken it to a timeframe, I’d say somewhere in the eighteen-eighties.”  He struck a long, lean pose, showcasing his tight black jeans and trendy combat boots. “I’d rather go back to the
nineteen
-eighties
.
”

Of course he would
. He was a throwback from that era. My late mom had been a huge Mötley Crüe fan and Seven’s bad-boy persona was inspired by their bass player.

He
paused, jerking his head from side to side. “He knows we’re here.”

My heart s
lammed against my chest. “The warrior?”

Seven nodded
. “He senses that someone is approaching. He’s mounting his horse now. Pretty soon, he’s going to be headed straight for us.”

“What should we do?”

“Stand our ground and tell him why we’re here.”

Suddenly I was scared of the warrior
. Afraid that he would reject me or hurt me or scoop me up and toss me over the back of his horse like a sack of flour, hauling me off to parts unknown. “When I first saw Duncan’s painting, I imagined him thundering toward me like this.”

“Well, you imagined right.”
  Seven grabbed my hand. The ground beneath us was beginning to rumble. “He’s getting closer.”

“I know.”  I could hear the hoofbeats of his big black stallion
. I knew what his horse looked like because Duncan had painted an image of it, along with himself in war paint. There was also the matter of me formulating details about the warrior when I was young, which was a whole other story.

Seven squeezed my h
and. “If he kidnaps you, there isn’t much I’ll be able to do about it.”

So much for standing our ground
. “Gee, thanks for the encouragement.”  Not only were we discussing my possible abduction, a sudden whoosh hit the air, and we both started. In the next instant, rain pelted down on us, making the moment more riotous. Would thunder and lightning soon follow?

“
If he nabs you, I’ll come back and check on you later, after he gets you out of his system.”

By now I could barely breathe
. I was getting drenched, and so was Seven. Attempting to stay strong, I released his hand. “Chicken.”

“Damn straight
. I’m not going to get in the way of the warrior. He’s legend in these parts.”