The Mirrorverse
Chapter 60

Maya

Maya was still lying on the floor when Xhisara came for her. She had mulled everything over in her head so much that she was no longer able to tell one emotion from another, nor to separate cause from effect.

“Hey, your body is ready, they’ve fixed it up and made it work properly,” Xhisara said gently.

“Why can I engulf and others can’t?” asked Maya suddenly, the words escaping her lips without her knowledge.

“Not now, it’s time to go,” Xhisara touched her, instantly portalling her away from hospital world.

Maya blinked and looked around at the golden surfaces around her. She saw a familiar pair of feet approach and sure enough, Ka scooped her into his arms in yet another claustrophobic embrace. Maya struggled free, getting to her feet unsteadily. It was the first time she had stood up in that body.

It felt like hers, but the muscle mass had vastly increased since the last time she had inhabited it. Too far, she thought, as she felt her solid bicep. They’d certainly done a good job. Whoever they were, she never saw them, and never got to thank them.

Maya turned around in a circle, looking at the large metallic room she was stood in. It was curved, like they were on a platform in a tunnel.

“What are you doing?” Maya demanded of Ka, exasperated. He was circling behind her. Ke was sort of half laughing half trying to stop himself, seated at the large table in the centre of the room.

“Baby,” Ka started, leaping around the back of her as she suddenly pirouetted on the spot. “You’re wearing a hospital gown.”

Maya looked down and realised it was a bit draughty around her nether regions.

She squeaked, turning to face Ke, Ka moving with her. A laughing Joe appeared out of her peripheral vision, clearly having just been given a free show. Giving up, she backed into Ka and looked up. He was quite a lot taller than her, towering over her 5′4” frame. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were serious, having lost their twinkle.

“You all have clothes in your quarters, I had to get children’s clothes as you’re all so short,” Xhisara announced without mirth as she entered the room.

Relieved, Maya backed out the door, Ka behind her, the defender of her dignity. She marvelled at the ship as they walked down a central corridor, the ceiling becoming flat and no longer resembling the top of a ship. It was a short walk to a wide doorway on the left, one of many identical doors on both sides of the circular corridor, which curved back to where they started.

Maya pulled on the plain black clothes that were laid out on the large bed in the spacious room. The walls were a similar golden metal to that throughout the ship that she had seen so far. It wasn’t gold, nor was it brass. It had a hue to it she had never encountered, with an interesting sheen.

Ka pulled her to the side as she tried to walk back out the door. She just couldn’t handle him right then. Rob was dead. She was dead. She only knew where Ke, Joe and Xhisara were. Maya knew she was being unfair, but she needed some space.

Maya stalked back to the mess hall, Ka trotting at her heels like an overgrown bipedal puppy. Ke and Joe were sat at the table, munching on a large bowl of crisps and drinking beer.

Maybe if we weren’t such a bunch of piss heads we would have had the meeting the night before and wouldn’t have been there to get slaughtered, thought Maya bitterly. This was abruptly followed by the idea that if you can’t beat them, join them; so went to get a beer.

“So where’d the ship come from?” asked Maya sipping her beer.

“Ka and Xhisara used gold to buy it,” Joe informed her, somewhat wearily.

“It’s pretty cool, it can break in half and still function in the two parts, see these doors?” Ke motioned animatedly towards the doors at either end of the tunnel. “They can keep space out the two end bits, seal them off!”

Ke seemed genuinely impressed, and looked to Ka for confirmation. Ka just looked down, giving Maya a pang of guilt. It was time to go again, and she made to leave through the nearest door but got prevented by Xhisara calling her.

She wheeled on the spot, wanting to be anywhere but there.

“Maya, you need to face what has happened,” Xhisara said in her apparently soothing way, it just got Maya’s back up.

“Has Les faced what has happened?” she demanded, glaring at her.

“The only thing Les is facing another bottle of whiskey,” said Ke heavily, breaking the silence that had followed her question.

“I want to go outside,” she announced, causing everybody to turn and stare at her like the madwoman she was.

“It’s space!” the Ka’s were incredulous.

“I can hold my breath and then portal back in,” she qualified. She hadn’t really thought it through, she just needed to get away from everyone.

“No you can’t. The radiation will kill you if the cold doesn’t. I’m serious, even half a minute will kill you.” Xhisara was the voice of reason, causing her wings to wilt, which only aggravated Maya further. “There are however, suits down in the cargo hold in which you can float around in space quite safely.”

“Which way?” asked Maya promptly, as Xhisara walked past her through the door opposite the one which she entered through.

Maya followed Xhisara down a similar corridor to the one leading to her room, then down some stairs into a cargo bay the size of a warehouse. In the middle of the floor there was a large trunk made of something that was neither wood nor metal. It was more like an animal hide than anything else.

Curious, Maya opened the trunk to replace some strange small hard lumps of something. It was most disappointing as she had been hoping for something to distract her from the uneasy churning in her gut caused by the absence of Rob in the multiverse.

Xhisara beckoned her over to some Xhisara sized suits, and assisted her into one. Maya felt like a baby being slid into an adult sized romper suit, her feet standing on the knees of the black rubber-like material.

Before she put the lid on, Xhisara informed Maya about the voice activated communications system. She had to say Rabbits, as chosen by the others as the key word. Apparently they wouldn’t have been able to pronounce it in the pre-programmed language.

Xhisara also informed her to only reappear into the cargo bay as shunting into someone’s insides can be very painful for them, and can cause them serious injury. Maya was unimpressed to discover you could just appear inside of somebody.

Maya concentrated on space outside the ship and was immediately floating next to a stunningly beautiful golden ship. It was framed in a black nothingness, and spattered with more stars than she knew could exist.

It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen, but its beauty was soon marred by the free flow of tears that threatened to drown her at the rate they were coming out. She half laughed at a vision of the tears filling up the inside of the helmet.

She grieved for her friends, lost and dead. She grieved for herself, believing that it was all her fault. If she had have believed that she was mad and in the psychiatric hospital none of it would have happened.

The what ifs returned thick and fast, going back to never walking through that portal to London’s mirror. Rob and Ellie would be alive if I had committed suicide because of the craziness with the worlds.

She cried until a beeping noise told her she was running out of air, and seriously not wanting to return to the ship, she hailed Xhisara and asked her to refill her with oxygen.

Returning to the cargo bay, Maya waved an oversized arm before going back outside for more crying and nothingness.

She couldn’t wipe away her tears, nor could she scratch her nose, and it was the latter that ultimately caused her to return to the ship.

After she struggled out of her suit, she could feel that her lips had swollen, as had her face in general. It was a spaceship not a fashion parade, she told herself, as she continued sniffing.

Maya walked back the old fashioned way, largely because she wanted time to herself, not because she was worried about shunting someone. Instead of heading back to the mess hall, she went on a magical mystery tour of the ship. She located several engine rooms, two command decks or whatever they were called, two separate cargo bays and what seemed like miles of corridors with doors identical to their bedrooms.

While wandering down one corridor, Maya heard something smash, sounding like breaking glass. She went to the door that seemed to correspond to the noise, and knocked hesitantly.

“Bugger off!” Les’s drunken voice called out.

Maya waited a moment before replying, “It’s me.”

There was a loud scuffling in the room, then the door swung open. By the time she looked in, Les was already perched on the edge of the bed.

Slowly, she walked into the room, not meeting her friend’s eyes. Les patted the bed next to him, indicating for her to sit. Maya did as she was instructed, wondering why he wanted her near him.

“I’m so sorry,” she gurgled, breaking down into tears again. “So sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, why are you saying sorry?” Les was more coherent than he looked.

“It is my fault,” she countered, leaning into him as he put his arm around her.

“How do you work that out? Were you there with a gun?” he demanded.

“If you had never met me, this wouldn’t have happened, Rob would be here,” she cried, desperately wanting him to understand why it was all her.

“If I’d never met Rob, I’d never have lost him. Does that mean it’s his fault?” Les’s logic was strange and Maya didn’t feel able to defend her corner properly.

“Evil, I am evil. Ellie is gone, Rob is gone, it’s all my doing, all my fault,” she sobbed into Les’s chest.

“I regret nothing,” Les declared suddenly. “For regret would change who I am, and it would change the years I had with Rob.”

“I want to take it all back, have never got mixed up in this,” she argued.

“Nonsense. You saved a soul from hell, and are going to fight to save many people. I am going to fight. I am going to kill that bastard who sent those murderous fucks after us. We will fight.” Les grabbed a new bottle of whiskey from the side and opened it, drinking from the bottle.

“You should hate me,” Maya whispered into Les’s lap.

“Bi-pardon?” Les replied.

“Hate me,” she said louder. “Hate me please.”

“Why didn’t I move over and let him sit behind the tree with me? He would be alive then.”

“But, no!” she cried. “How can it be that, that’s nothing to do with it, you couldn’t have controlled that, couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known. I know that. Time you did. Nothing is your fault. Get over it. Get drunk. Do something. I just want this pain to go away,” Les got up unsteadily and indicated it was time for her to leave.

Maya gave him a bear hug, and confused, she resumed her pacing of the beautiful ship.