Chapter 3: The Weeping Child
"So, not-Matthew, how long have you been here?" I asked, flipping my sonic screwdriver around in my fingers. Before he could answer, I dropped it with a clatter. Graceful."About nine years." Not-Matthew said raggedly, considering. "All alone. With a million illusions of things swirling around me. I never know where I am, or how I am. I just keep going."
"You can't be more than fifteen," I observed, running my hands down the slim metal of the screwdriver to check it for damage. "That means you were only a little kid when you came here."
"I can't remember anything before being here, though. It's like everything before this is erased." Not-Matthew added emptily, his eyes wide and doleful. He slumped down, suddenly, to the flat, cold metal of the unknown ship's hallway, his large gun slipping on its strap down his despairing shoulder and to the floor. I sat down beside him, drawing my knees to my chest and twisting my sonic screwdriver between two hands. There was something bothering me about all this. The hidden portal-thing to the ship was unsurprising. In fact, it was absolutely elementary. But the dazed guard? The empty halls? The lost memories?
It's like everything before this is erased, Not-Matthew had said.
If it's gone, though, how do you know it was ever there? I wondered to myself, averting my gaze from his.
"Llamas." I muttered.
"What?"
"Inside joke."
I patted his shoulder and spun to my feet clumsily, then took off down the long metal hallway, my dark coat flapping around my knees. "Well, Not-Matthew," I declared grandly, taking his limp hand and swinging him rapidly along. "It's time to find out who put you here, and why...and why there's a portal to this ship smack in the middle of 21st century London."
"These things do happen to appear in London..." I added to myself as I swept down the hallway.
***
Halfway up the hallway, we met the first ghost.
It looked like a guard in mysterious green armor with the initials 'D.A.P.' on each shoulder and the emblem of a dark metal sword embossed upon its chest. Clinging to my shoulder, Not-Matthew cowered. The greenish guard hefted a large metal boxlike thing. Squinting, I could see the words 'Enemy-Melter 3000' printed on its rim, along with 'Made in China'.
"Halt!" screeched the guard in an overly-automated monotone. "You are not authorized to be--"
"Yes yes, save the nonsense." I sighed, holding up my hand.
"You will state your name and--"
"No I won't." I retorted. Before the green guard could protest, I said, "Well. You're an illusion, according to Matthew here." I glanced back at him.
"Hey, my name's not--"
"You insolent people have GOT to stop interrupting me." I snorted. I turned back to the guard, who squared its large, imposing green shoulders at me.
"I'm not an illusion." The guard said, a bit annoyed. "I'm a--"
"What did I say about the interrupting? Anyway, if you won't admit you're a hologram...hmmm..." I noticed that my sonic screwdriver was catching the thing's eye, and quickly secured it in my coat pocket. "So," I began, switching tactics--flawlessly, I must say. "Dap. What does it stand for?"
"Death and punishment! Death and punishment!" screeched Not-Matthew suddenly, hyperventilating. He ran his hands through long dark hair, his screams echoing off of the polished metal walls thrumming with flight.
"No, actually," said DAP-man, nonplussed. "It stands for Daises And Pansies."
"You do know you're not supposed to use articles in acronyms, right?" I muttered.
"Actually, it's a matter of preference." Retorted DAP-man quietly, shifting his Enemy-Melter 3000 into his other arm.
"I knew that." I snapped. "Wait. Not-Matthew, you said this guy is an illusion, right?"
"Yes." Not-Matthew whimpered, peering at me through his fingers. It was peculiar, but as he became more terrified, the once-seemingly-fifteen-year-old soldier looked younger. His hair was soft and glossy dark, and his was impossibly small in his horror, crouched down on the cold, unforgiving metal floor like a child afraid of the dark.
"And what do you say, DAP-man?" I asked, whirling to face the green grammatically opinionative guard.
"I say, this ship's illusions are getting kind of wild. What next?" He gestured...to the dark-haired boy, cowering on the floor. What?
"But of course..." I murmured, running my hand through my hair. "Oh, Not-Matthew," I said sadly, in a small, empty voice, "I am so, so sorry."
"What?" Not-Matthew faltered, and I looked at him, flinching. The soldier who had been stiff and stolid and fifteen-ish was now a quavering ten-year-old boy, sobbing dryly, and glaring out at me with large, dull eyes in startled fear.
"Because you're the illusion. You're the hologram. You're all in my head."
"And mine." said DAP-man. "That's how it works in this ship. It's part of the engine. I knew I shouldn't have taken this job..." He moaned. "There was a perfectly nice one at the puppet theater, but no, I had to go for the dangerous, potentially life-threatening gig, now didn't I..."
I watched, captivated, as Not-Matthew moaned one last time and dissipated into a silver mist. I shook my head. Why had the ship's mechanism shown me him? What did it mean?
But I knew. I knew what had captivated me the whole time, and I knew that I couldn't escape it. The loneliness.
And even though there was no way to outrun it, I would run. I would run forever. I slowly, methodically set my not-a-wristwatch, fumbling with the screen's password and trying to keep my hands from shaking.
"Teleportation commencing. Don't panic."
***
The strange, lonely girl in her stolen trench coat and tie was gone, leaving the ship's hallway desolate save for the guard in the green suit mumbling to himself.
"Puppets." He said, and the ship was no more.
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