The sounds of the city night erupted all around her, but Valerie was oblivious to them, lost in her own thoughts. She had been forced to stay late again at work, slaving away at the Duncan-Lucas project. Excelling at her school in Graphic Design, she had landed a choice placement at one of the best advertising firms in city. But now the demands of the job were beginning to weigh on her. The Photoshop program she used all day had started figuring prominently in her dreams at night and she almost regretted her career choice anymore.
Valerie had wanted to be an artist, but she had been more sensible than that. It was why she had chosen the G & D path as opposed to traditional arts back at school. It had also, she thought, been what had eventually driven her and Ben apart. Ben the painter, the activist, the dreamer; she had fallen for him in her second year at the university and they had been together for the next three years. Up until graduation, up until Valerie's internship.
Walking down the busy city streets, Valerie's thoughts were overwhelmed by the past. She dipped back into memories that she had purposely pushed to the edge of her mind for months now, ignoring all the activity around her. She could dream just as well as her former lover and now she let them as she returned to her apartment, those dreams rushing in.
Ben had wanted to go to Europe, to wander the countries there and study art. The fact that he had no money, a sizable financial debt in fact, didn't seem to be an issue. He wanted Valerie to go with him and he couldn't understand why she had more serious minded things lined up. They had fought for months about it, fought hard and said terrible things to each other. Then one day, Ben had left just as he said he would, off to have his European adventure and Valerie prepared for New York on her own.
She wondered what Ben would think of her situation now.
Probably find it just, she thought. He could hold such a grudge. His temper could be brutal, the way he would attack a canvas was legendary back on campus. But he had never shown that anger towards her, not until the end. Even when they were falling apart, it was only words he had hurled at her, never his fists. And yet, their sex had somehow been even more exquisite then, as if they were loving as hard as the fought, trying to find a balance.
Valerie thought more about Ben, more about how alive she had felt when she had been with him. She came to the edge of the park, and without really thinking about it, cut through the trees along the pavement. She had never ventured into the park at night before, even with the proclamation of a safer city, she knew the parks weren't exactly the best havens. But it would cut a few minutes off her walk and Valerie just wanted to get home.
Yes, she thought, get home and call Morgan. He had been a mutual friend of Ben and hers all through college. If anyone had been in contact with her ex-boyfriend, it would be Morgan. Morgan would know where Ben was, if he was doing okay, if... if he was back in the states. Maybe if he had returned home, he could come for a visit?
Valerie tried to shake the thoughts away. She was getting way too ahead of herself. It wasn't like her to spin down roads of fantasy like this. She was the pragmatic one, the reasonable one. That was how she and Ben had worked so well together. Ben. Why had he crept back into her thoughts so strongly the last few days? She had been so mad at him at the end, felt so truly finished with him. Why this nostalgia had...
Movement. A rustling in the bushes behind her.
Almost freezing in fear, Valerie remembered what she had learned about such situations and managed to keep walking, picking up her pace. She tried to go in brisk, confident strides without breaking into a terrified run. Her purse had been swaying at her side, now it was pressed tightly against her hip. Thoughts clear except for a blank, unknown dread, she kept her eyes locked forward.
The cement path took a slight turn and her destination, the street, came into sight. She could see cars and buildings, people in the distance standing on a corner waiting to cross. Repressing the urge to shout out or to flee, Valerie continued as she had been, feeling more confident in her escape with every step.
Then, from her right, hands pushed her off balance. So concerned with what lie ahead, the freedom of this fear, she hadn't been aware of a presence coming up beside her. Valerie tumbled sideways, falling down hard into a large patch of thick, soupy mud. It splashed up on to cover her arms that shot out to catch her spill, splashed up on to her face. It immediately began to soak into her clothes.
Valerie's head spun towards her attacker, expecting to see... well, she wasn't entirely sure, but the image that presented itself was a surprise.
It was a woman, no... a girl. She couldn't have been anymore than sixteen, thin, almost gaunt. She was dressed in mismatched old clothing, most of it worn and dirty. The girl's hair hung in two loose ponytails at the sides of her head unevenly.
'I'm being mugged by a homeless, teenage girl,' thought Valerie.
Then the girl stepped back, stepped away from Valerie and nodded.
"My Queen," said the girl, it little more than a whisper.
Valerie stared at the girl who had taken another step backwards. Then Valerie heard the sounds of more rustling in the bushes, more people coming out of the darkness of the park. Fear gripped her, fear of this strange, deluded girl and the whole park itself.
She pulled herself from the mud and fled into the city.
_ _ _ _ _
Valerie burst into her apartment, sobbing and covered in filth. She wasn't harmed, she knew that and knew that she was lucky. Really it was the shock of the attack, the suddenness of it and the sheer... strangeness... of the event that had bothered her so.
Unable to the stop her flow of tears, she made her way into the bathroom, oblivious to the small trail she was leaving behind. Once inside, Valerie began to strip off the spoiled clothing, the thick wet mud had seeped through portions of of the thin spring cloth and made it to her skin. She wasn't all that particularly attached to the outfit, but she was still upset that it had been ruined and her sobs increased.
Reaching in to turn on the shower, she happened to take a glance in the mirror. A moment of terror overtook her as she looked at a person she barely recognized staring back at her. Dark brown mud lay sticky and caked all through her hair and splattered on her face. It streaked her arms and sat it wet patched where it had soaked through her jacket onto her naked torso. Valerie stood frozen there, eyes wide.
Without thinking, without making a conscious decision to do so, her hand came up and began to manipulate the mud. Her fingers dragged through the filth on her left arm and brought it up to her face. She had just smeared it across her forehead when she realized what she was doing. Letting out a shriek, Valerie leapt into the shower to scrub away the offending matter, to attempt to wash away her fear.
_ _ _ _ _
Work had not been an option the next day. Valerie had called off, simply telling her supervisor exactly what had happened. The older woman, Helen, had been most upset, telling Valerie to go to the Police. Valerie didn't see the point, but told her supervisor she would.
A major factor in Valerie's decision to call off that day had been her lack of sleep the night before. It had taken her a long time to find slumber and when she had, she had been plagued by horrible dreams. She couldn't recall them now, now that she sat by her window sipping earl gray tea, but somehow they didn't seem as nightmarish to her broken memory here in daylight of morning. Valerie supposed they had dealt with the park, the episode of the previous night.
The previous night.
Even though Valerie knew that the situation was one that should has been feared, that she reacted just as anyone would have, she looked back upon the incident with a frown. She should have been stronger, more confident. It had been a teenage girl for Christ's sake, not some deranged sociopath. Well, the girl had obviously been a little unbalanced. After all, she had pushed Valerie down in the mud and called her what? "My Queen?"
_ _ _ _ _
She did not call Morgan about Ben. No, Valerie went back to work the next day, but her duties suffered. She couldn't wrestle the image of the girl from her mind. The gaunt face, the mismatched pigtails, the filthy clothing, the words that had seeped from her lips like the mud that had...
Valerie went home early and tried to take a nap. There she was bombarded by nightmares; not ones of the so-called attack, but by visions of the city in ruins. Animals and vegetation come back to claim the metropolis in abundance, while people ran wild through the broken streets akin to a pack. Valerie was assaulted in her dreams, all her senses cranked up to accommodate what was playing out. Men hunting deer in ancient office cubicles, women giving birth in doorways, families building huts from cars, children playing in a forest of asphalt and shrubbery. There was a madness that danced in the eyes of all of those she saw, a madness that was primal and complete. But there was something else there, something that Valerie thought looked like freedom.
As she attempted to continue on through the work week, Valerie continued to have the dreams. She no longer considered them nightmares. No, they weren't necessarily terrible visions, they were merely of something else, something almost alien. The lure of the sensations she felt during these REM journeys grew, and she felt like there was something perhaps... missing. Like there was some she was suppose to see, something she was suppose to understand. Something...
Then, that final night:
Valerie awoke. She slipped into her bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror for a few minutes. An attractive young woman with short brown hair stared back at her, but it was not her face and she knew it. She knew what her real face was to look like now. Peeling off her nightgown, she quickly dressed in thick clothes, even though that autumn had been warmer than most. Beauty products, purse, identification; these things were not needed. Valerie did take her keys, though. She had a thought...
To the park. To the park and deep into the trees, into the parts where her dreams had led her. All around her she heard the rustling, the murmurs. She accepted them all, welcomed them all. They were the whispers of the damned, the lost, and the undesired. They were the sounds of people who had been caught by the park, cast out of the city in the recent months. Their numbers were growing, swelling beyond the proportions that anyone else realized. They were seeking freedom inside, seeking a truer purpose, but lacked the insight to know it. Instead they were succumbing slowly to madness. No, they needed a guide, a prophet, a speaker. They needed a queen.
Valerie kept going until she found the long forgotten metal archway of a collapsed art project commissioned, but never finished by the city. She climbed to the dais in the center and sat cross-legged, sat and waited. She waited in the dirt and the moss that had overcome the rusted metal and finding a small bit of mud, she painted it upon her face in victory. Valerie sat and waited to speak to her subjects.
And they came.
rating: 2
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