Read Shattered: A Shade novella for Free Online

in
Glasgow in broad daylight. I’m supposed to be safe. I’m supposed to be Here .
    But
for a moment I was There again. Like in my nightmares, but with no shield of surreality .
    I
take a sip of Martin’s drink to keep from screaming. ‘Much better,’ I croak as
I start walking again. Need to move, to think.
    ‘Nothing
like regurgitating half a chippy menu to welcome
yourself back to life.’ He catches up to me and asks in a lower voice, ‘Was it
my imagination, or did you leave this world for a few moments? Ye went totally glaikit , with yer eyes out of
focus and all.’
    ‘Aye,
I was … there again.’ My voice is shaky, or at least it sounds that way in my
head. I touch my throat to still it. ‘In that place, from this summer.’
    ‘Like
a flashback?’
    I
stop short. Is that what it was? A way for 3A to touch me in daylight, with my
eyes wide open?
    No no no no no .
    ‘Maybe.’
I force myself forwards, managing a shrug. ‘I’m sure it’ll sort itself out with
my medication.’ Not that I’d ever tell Dr McFarlane I
had a flashback. She’d have me committed. ‘Don’t tell Mum and Dad.’
    Martin
scoffs. ‘I wouldnae worry them on purpose if ye
begged me.’
    I
fall silent, thinking of the things I’d beg of him, especially after what just
happened: don’t walk away without telling me, don’t fail to return my calls or
texts.
    Don’t
leave me alone.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter
Four
     
     
    Friday
night I sit at my desk, preparing for my midnight chat with Aura. It’s only
10.14 p.m., but I’ve lots to keep me busy.
    To my
right is a jumbled stack of papers and notebooks, clues to the mystery of the
Shift. It’s a bit of a mess.
    To my
left, though, lies one neat sheet of graph paper, upon which I’ve charted how
much saner I need to become each week in order to be reasonably normal by the
twentieth of December, when Aura and I plan to reunite in Ireland. My
calculations assume a continuous but nonlinear growth in mental health –
slow at first, as 3A digs in its claws and refuses to let me go; then faster,
as my medication, therapy, and sheer force of will allow me to heal from the
damage I’ve sustained.
    I
will measure my progress in quantifiable ways. Subtracting from my sanity score
will be number of nightmares, panic attacks (which each count as two
nightmares), and flashbacks (worth five nightmares, if today’s was any
indication). Adding to my score are things I can control: hours of exercise and
sleep, as well as weight gained, since eating and drinking must surely be signs
of good mental hygiene.
    So
I’ve a goal and a plan, with clear, rational variables. I almost wish I could
show this graph to my old calculus teacher, the one who told me – in
front of Aura – that I’d never be a scientist because I’m such crap at
higher maths .
    Thinking
of Aura reminds me of another task. I pull out a pad of sticky notes and write 117 on the top one. Then 116 on the next, and so on, ending with 0 . Each night I’ll discard another note
to display the number of days until Aura and I are together again.
    I tear
off the top four sticky notes, one for each day I’ve been out of 3A. There,
I’ve accomplished something already.
    The
clock reads 10.26 now, so I go to my bed and pull a large manila envelope from
under one of my pillows. Inside are the letters written to me while I was in
3A, from Aura, my parents, and Martin. Letters the DMP didn’t give me until I
was released. (God forbid I should have had proof I was remembered and loved.
Fascist bastards.)
    On
the flight home, I devoured the letters all at once, but now I reread only one
per night, the better to savour each.
    Tonight’s
is from Aura, the first she wrote me, on the fourteenth of July:
     
    Dear Zachary,
    I miss you so much. I’d give anything to
bust down your door and be in your arms again. But the world doesn’t work that
way right now. Please stay strong, stay safe, and stay there.
    Love,