32. Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece Theatre
The Palace of Radiant Clouds was no longer heavy, but it hadn’t returned to its previous floaty, delicate vibe either…
The only way Dustin could describe it, was completely fucking chaotic.
The calm mists that usually flowed through the windows were now replaced with violent winds and heavy rains, the walls shook from the force of the turbulent gale, while thunder boomed and lightning cracked in the distance.
Dustin and the others were still kneeling in a circle surrounding Chris’s dazed and barely conscious body, but somehow Qin Shi Huang was starting to affect the palace around them.
They barely even had a moment to orient themselves before a twisting pillar of fog morphed into Sima Yao hovering before them, a mask of urgency on his face.
“We must get Master Ying into the Lotus Garden at once! I warned you that Qin Shi Huang would be more powerful on this plane, but even Lu Ban’s fortifications are not enough to keep him at bay!”
Dustin didn’t waste a second; he immediately scooped Chris’s withering body in his arms and made a mad dash for the Lotus Garden… but before he could make it across the threshold, an incredible pressure forced him to his knees, along with a splitting pain shooting through his head.
“So, this is how the Sages eluded my reach so long ago? A palace on the spiritual plane? Fusu was nothing if not innovative,” Qin Shi Huang’s voice boomed through the clouds outside, simultaneously rattling through Dustin’s skull “to bring me here, where you know my power outstrips your own is a desperate play. Desperation can lead to incredible valor… but there is a thin line betwixt bravery and stupidity,”
As the emperor spoke, the palace’s moonrock walls began to crack and buckle, and the ground shifted beneath the group’s feet.
“He can control the palace?!” Bailey shouted over the sounds of chaos, her veins shining as she stretched out her arms, attempting to hold the ethereal stone in place.
Her efforts clearly weren’t enough, as what looked like human hands made of rock began punching up through the ground and out of the walls.
The cracks widened, allowing stone soldiers wearing what looked like ancient Chinese armor to force their way inside.
“Are those… terracotta warriors? Like the ones from Qin Shi Huang’s tomb?!” James shrieked as he ducked under a swing from a heavy stone axe one of the warriors wielded, “we are FUCKED!”
“No, we’re not!” Chloe cut in, blocking a blow from a spear with her metal-covered arm, shattering the rock on impact before punching straight through the warrior’s head in retaliation, “Dustin, get Chris into the garden! The rest of us will deal with these… whatever the fuck they are!”
“What?! I can’t just leave you guys!”
“Now is NOT the time to play the hero Dustin!” Bailey yelled, squealing like a startled mouse when one of the stone swords swung too close to her gut for comfort.
She stopped it in midair with her control of earth, clenching her fists and forcing it to crumble, before throwing out her arms and causing the entire warrior who held it to explode, “if we free Chris, maybe it’ll stop all this! ”
Dustin steeled his resolve, and pulled himself to his feet, still clutching Chris’s body tight.
Bailey was right. This wasn’t the time to hesitate.
Forcing himself to ignore the sounds of battle raging behind him, Dustin charged forward into the Lotus Garden, his feet sloshing through the shallow pristine water as the wall slid closed…
The first time Dustin and the others came into the Lotus Garden, it took time and concentration for them to enter the illusory realm.
This time though, the transition was so abrupt that Dustin thought he’d ended up in Hell. Like he’d been hit from behind by one of those stone soldiers and now he was in the underworld.
And who could blame him?
The sky overhead was blood red, streaked with cracks like spiderwebs allowing light to leak through from… somewhere. The ground he stood on was little more than a floating rock in the middle of the chaotic void, while disembodied voices echoed from every direction.
The only thing that clued him into this being Chris’s particular mindscape, was the fact that those voices weren’t random.
At first he heard exactly what he expected; roaring applause alongside the squeaks of shoes on a basketball court, breathy moans and desperate feminine whimpers…
but beneath that was something different; sounds of childhood laughter, petty arguments over toys or whose half of a sandwich was bigger, bragging about emerging victorious in a 1v1 Mortal Kombat tournament.
The sounds of growing up with Chris.
“Okay, okay,” Dustin breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down, “Chris has to be here somewhere. I just need to find him, and then maybe I can help him break free… not like I have any idea how to do that,”
As if responding to him, a small glowing cinder fluttered down from the sky above, carried on the wind until it landed gingerly on the ground in front of him.
A second later, the cinder sparked and ignited into a growing flame that got bigger and bigger until it took the shape of a human child.
Another gust of wind extinguished the flames, leaving in their place…
none other than Dustin himself. The same child doppelganger that he’d seen during his own Lotus Garden trial, complete with those dorky overalls and sandals.
“You’re here!” the child said, his eyes turning into little crescents with his big grin, “it’s good you came! Can you help me get out of here? I think the way out is through there,”
Dustin’s eyes followed in the direction child-him was pointing, and suddenly there was a pathway made of floating stones, leading into a swirling vortex of flames that looked almost like a portal.
“Yeah, of course little guy. I’ll get you out of here, no problem,” Dustin assured him, ruffling his hair. Maybe his mini-me knew how to navigate this place and lead him to Chris.
The child giggled and immediately jumped on Dustin’s back, spurring him forward like a horse.
“Let’s go, go, go!”
When Dustin stepped through the flame vortex portal, he didn’t really know what to expect… so he was completely bewildered when he ended up outside of Pineridge Elementary School; a place he hadn’t seen or thought about in more than a decade.
“Ugh, you bringed me to school?” child-Dustin groaned, climbing off his older self’s back and crossing his arms, “this is stupid!”
“Hey grouchy, I didn’t bring you anywhere. I’m just following the random fire portals trying to find our way out of here,”
“Well then Mr. Duck Butt, I guess we gotta go inside!” the kid stuck out his tongue and sprinted off ahead, running through the school’s open doors without a second thought.
“Reason 457 why I’ll never have kids,” Dustin groaned, chasing him into the building.
He’d expected to walk into the lobby, past the mural of rainbow-colored train cars and hand-print paintings from the kindergarten class like he remembered.
But instead, he was in Mrs. Wilson’s class, standing over a group of 2nd graders sitting in a circle.
He immediately spotted himself and Chris, sitting next to each other and looking down at a crudely drawn picture of Batman fighting Godzilla.
“Are you DUMB?!” little Chris’s voice rang out, playfully bonking Dustin on the back of the head like a TV with bad reception, “no way Batman would EVER beat Godzilla! You just said that ‘cuz he’s your favorite!”
“No!” kid Dustin fired back, crossing his arms defiantly and sticking his nose in the air, “Batman can beat anybody dumb-dumb! He got a anti-Godzilla Batarang in his belt!”
“Boys, settle down,” the sudden deep and steady voice of Principal Lawson interrupted their eternal dispute as he stepped into the room, alongside another teacher, Ms. Lennon.
That’s when the memory clicked in Dustin’s head; this was the day he was selected for Excelsior Program, advanced placement for elementary kids.
“Hi, uh… which one of you is Dustin?” Ms. Lennon began. The twins looked at each other for a brief moment, before shrugging their shoulders and refusing to comply like they always did when someone couldn’t tell them apart. Luckily for her, Mrs. Wilson stepped in.
“The left one,” she clarified, exasperation clear in her voice.
“Ah, okay. Well Dustin, I have some good news! You’re going to be joining my class!
It’s for extra smart boys just like you, to learn new skills and make new friends.
Doesn’t that sound like fun?” Ms. Lennon continued, however her expression dropped the second she remembered that Chris existed, “oh uh, not that you’re not smart too! ”
“So… I don’t get to come?” Chris asked, his lip quivering as he looked between Dustin and the teacher. Before he could start crying, Principal Lawson put a supportive hand on his back.
“No need to be upset Christian, it’s good for twins to get some time apart. Besides, we have something special for you too! It’s called an IEP, an Individualized Education Plan. It’ll help you in some of the areas you’ve been struggling,”
As Dustin watched the scene from his childhood unfold in front of his adult eyes, he felt his heart turn to ice. He barely remembered this moment, but seeing it from this new perspective was heartbreaking…
Unfortunately, he didn’t have long to process it before the room shifted right before his eyes, now leaving him standing in the blinding sun on a grassy field.
Once his eyes adjusted, he realized he was standing on the soccer field behind Anna May Wong Middle School, right in the middle of an intense game.
He instinctively flinched when a soccer ball came flying at his head, but before it made contact, something stopped it with a satisfying plunk.
He opened his eyes to see none other than Chris, now about thirteen years old standing in front of him triumphantly, his black locks fluttering in the steady breeze. He looked over his shoulder at Dustin, who had unknowingly reverted to his pre-teen self as well.
“You good little bro? Almost took a nasty hit.”
“Y-yeah, I’m good. Thank you,” Dustin mumbled without even meaning to, like his mind was naturally following a script; truly reliving this memory instead of directing it.
“Don’t even mention it. Now excuse me while I get some payback on that ass-dick for almost hitting you on purpose. Hey Spinner! DON’T RUN FROM ME BITCH!”
“Wait, Chris don’t! You’re gonna get in trouble again and…” but before Dustin could even finish that thought, Chris was sprinting across the field and tackling the much taller boy to the ground, forcing his head into the sod to the point that he was literally eating dirt.
“When you’re finished with your lunch, apologize to my brother!”
The abrasive sound of a whistle cut through the air.
“Christian Ying! Damn it, this is your third strike!” Coach Boles stormed over, dragging Chris off Spinner by the back of his collar, “we’re calling your parents, and you won’t be lucky enough to avoid suspension this time,”
Dustin hung his head as Chris was escorted past him… and he was trying so hard to avoid eye contact, that he almost missed Chris’s pleading glance. Silently asking Dustin to say something, anything to defend him.
Dustin didn’t. He couldn’t form the words. He never could.
When he finally looked up again, the soccer field was gone. He was now inside the familiar walls of Kochiyama High, but the banner on the wall was welcoming students for the 2002-2003 School Year… freshman year.
“Hey, focus!” a deep voice and a dainty hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his daze.
He turned and saw Logan, wavy golden hair and freckled skin that no one had ever seen on an East Asian kid, smiling widely and holding up a flyer that read “COLORFUL TRAUMA” in letters that looked like a ransom note, “we’re supposed to be hanging up flyers for our first gig, remember?
My big sis said she’ll play with us but only if more than thirty people show up,”
Right… they were playing at Tony’s Pizza that Friday, and Lola had promised to be their drummer.
“Go easy on him Lo,” Bailey said in her sweet timbre as she fell in step with them, adjusting her neon purple frilly skirt, “you know how easy he gets distracted. Especially when his brother’s around,”
Bailey nodded toward where Chris was standing, in front of the sign-up sheet for basketball try-outs on the other side of the lobby.
He looked completely different than the last memory, and Dustin was forced to recall the growth spurt they both hit.
He was much taller now, with a head of bleached golden blonde hair and broad shoulders.
Usually, they’d be attached at the hip on the first day, but it seemed like Chris had been going out of his way to avoid Dustin since they got to school that morning.
After he was done signing up, Chris turned and briefly made eye contact with Dustin, offering him a nonchalant nod before slinging his backpack over his shoulder and heading off to find his locker.
Dustin remembered that moment vividly, much more than the other memories he’d been forced to relive.
That was the first moment he truly noticed the distance that had grown between him and Chris.
It wasn’t permanent, there would still be intermittent moments of warmth to come, they could never hate each other after all…
but things definitely weren’t like they used to be.
Seeing all these things back to back made the message abundantly clear; while Dustin had been focused solely on the ways he’d been made responsible for absorbing Chris’s impact, he never truly realized how much Chris had felt…
left behind. Abandoned. Treated like a human bomb instead of a person with feelings.
No, it didn’t make up for all the shit he’d put Dustin through, but it certainly made it more… complicated.
“Hello? Excuse me, Mr. Duck Butt, are you even paying attention?!”
The sudden child’s voice caused Dustin to turn around, seeing the kid version of himself impatiently tapping his foot.
“Hey, there you are. Sorry, I lost you in, well, all of this,”
“It’s okay, I think that’s the way out!” the kid pointed past him, where the high school lobby had now been replaced with yet another swirling portal of flames, this time pulsing a brilliant blue instead of hellish orange.
Chris had to be on the other side of that gateway.
“Alright little guy, hop on. We’re getting out of here,”
The kid hopped on Dustin’s back again, and he took a deep breath.
It was time to end this once and for all and finally pull Chris out of this hellscape.