INFRARED – 7
Ivan is a ghost. Or he knows what it feels like to lose his body and be nothing more than the energies of his spirit. It is agonizing in his current location where his soul is inundated by the chaos of red energy, pushed and pulled by winds that swarm around him. The agony comes most from the perceived sound of his surroundings. In the months that his soul has been lost, Ivan has experienced what presents as a yell behind the sound of the red chaos that whines like winds. The yell has a deep timbre and it feels as though it rumbles everything within the bounds of the outline of Ivan’s spirit, like the entire place is quacking and causing him to shake.
Ivan has not noticed the changes to his surroundings. To him, everything is homogenous and maddening, and unless the green oasis appears, then he has no idea of any significant changes to his environment.
But since the love of his life, Clay, and his grandfather, the Don, have confronted the Red Father in the physical realm, the doorway between the two realms, the rip in time and space that connects them, is spreading and becoming wider. The rip is located in a desert in central Africa, far away from any life, and winds rush out like water flowing from a faucet.
Today, or we should say now, at this very moment, because from Ivan’s perspective there is no night or day, so right now, in the current moment, Ivan experiences real relief for the first time when the background noise of the faint scream suddenly stops and leaves only the wailing winds as the sound in his ears. It is disturbingly quietly, and Ivan looks around as he hugs himself, wrapping his arms around his shoulders.
Then, “Is what this, you are who?” Ivan hears like a puzzle from a clear voice, but he does not see a source. “Respect me have none dis only your respect,” the voice says, “son for eat me to gives you like disrespect people ful.”
“I can’t understand,” Ivan says weakly. “I need to get home.”
“Now you dead eat are I you will.”
The winds begin to settle and their whine calms to nothing. Ivan sees that he is in a red desert with a sky that is also red, but of a brighter tone, and then the red man appears in the sky. He is approaching Ivan, and Ivan decides to run in the opposite direction, but then he feels winds at his face that provide resistance against his effort and he eventually slows to a stop. He turns and waits as the red man approaches.
Clay and the Don leave his house through the front door, as Alia and Wendy leave with the young boy Rhode through the back where the voice of the Red Father had called to them.
“Do you understand what’s going on with the Wendy lady and that kid?” Clay asks the Don as they stand appraising the area for an inconspicuous spot to wait for the right time for the Don to work his magic.
“I have seen their type,” the Don says and he points to the roof. “We can sit up there.”
Clay nods and grabs the Don around the back of his torso before the man can object, and then he jumps them onto the roof. They lay flat on their stomachs staring over the middle ridge, and they see Alia approach Ivan who stands in Clay’s backyard.
“Will you turn your starlight on your friend?” Ivan asks. “Will you saw me in half Alia?”
Clay struggles to contain himself and the Don notices.
“Why do you love my grandson so much?” he asks, hoping to distract Clay long enough to avoid him spoiling their plans.
Clay is surprised by the question, but he knows the answer and he says it shakily, “I love Ivan because he loves me. I loved him before I met him, and honestly, it feels like fate. You might not like the two of us together, but the magic you respect seems to. Ivan has it and when he was hurt, it brought me to him.”
“How do you know it was my magic?” the Don asked aggressively.
“Don’t underestimate me,” Clay says. “I don’t have decades of training, I definitely don’t have the vocabulary for any of it, but I’m not stupid. I know Ivan, his power is mine too, and it feels just like what you do.”
“Well, it seems you are doing something wrong then,” the Don says.
“I don’t want to fight with you. How can I help you free Ivan?”
“Find his spirit, give him all of your strength, and help him resist the red thing as best he can. I will aim for the leech on his face.” The Don can see it from their position on the roof, the fat, and glowing red leech, pulsing like a heart.
“But where’s Ivan?” Clay asks.
“I think we have all seen the place where he is held,” the Don says. “It seems like some kind of block, like that thing is shielding his location, but I think that is just the nature of the location. Look now, it’s not so chaotic anymore.”
Clay focuses and he searches for the feeling of Ivan’s being across whatever realms of existence that he had access to and when he comes up empty, he roars across all of them, shaking them momentarily with his rage.
Unknowingly to him, Ivan and the man of the red realm did hear it and Ivan responds to him, his cries now uninhibited by the noise from the red realm that has fallen silent.
Ivan and Clay establish a mental rapport, and Clay can feel Ivan’s weakened position. He focuses and gives Ivan all of the strength that he can transfer.
In the red realm, the red man slows his approach as the form of Ivan’s body begins to reignite.
“How do I get home!” Ivan yells at the red man.
“Get you how did here?” the red man said without moving his mouth. “Not you food are, son my from?”
Ivan struggles with all of the new power that he feels and he manages to levitate and his green flames fill the area.
“Show me a way out!”
The might that Ivan shows humbles the red man and he seems to bow.
Back on the roof, Clay opens his eyes on the Don who is smiling.
“You found him,” he says, not as a question.
Clay smiles and he is obviously weak. His physical body seems smaller than its normal size.
“Meet my Ssin!” the Red Father yells in the backyard at Alia. As Clay struggles up on his elbows to watch the scene, he is almost floored to see a woman jump from the woods into his backyard. Even though he can’t see her face, he knows who she is. The yell that she releases as she lands in the backyard sounds just like his own and he recognizes her fighting stance when she stands like a hulk next to Ivan; it is just like his own, just like his father had taught him when he was a kid.
“That’s Brittany,” Clay says and he struggles to stand. “Take me down there now.”
“We have a plan,” the Don says.
“Now!” Clay yells and it is powerful despite his current state where he is drained like a prune.
The yell is the final straw. With all the commotion, the woman in a backroom finally stirs and she is angry and confused. She stumbles out of the back door and sees the giant woman and the red man as a threat and she transforms into Crude in an instant, as the Don helps Clay down from the roof and then follows.
“Kill them all,” the Red Father says to his monster and she growls, then charges Alia and Wendy who brace themselves.
“Don’t hurt her,” Clay yells, but no one has time to respond before Crude does. “Thats my sister!”
Crude and Clay’s sister Brittany, now big with red fires raging at her eyes and called Ssin by the Red Father, attack one another. They punch one another, Ssin is like a boxer, working Crude’s head and torso, and tosses her around the yard. And even though it seems that Ssin is the better fighter, Crude won’t let the fight end. When she is tossed away, she leaps back and tackles Ssin, to take her punishment all over again.
While they are distracted, the Red Father levitates and begins to toss his fireballs that Alia and Wendy zap with starlight, while the boy Rhode seems to help them avoid collision using winds that he brings on his whim.
“Scatter him!” Alia yells to the Don.
Don Luis Manuel Santana Nieto’s eyes glow bright green and he levitates to meet Ivan’s body in the air. The Red Father throws a fireball that hits the Don and makes him fall to the ground and Clay is there to help.
“I just need time,” the Don says.
Clay focuses and reaches to Ivan. “You need to take your body back,” Clay says, and even though Ivan can hear it, he is not sure how to do it.
Ivan concentrates on feeling for his physical body and it is difficult, but not impossible with the energy from Clay. He tries to fly in the direction of it, but even when he feels that he has arrived to it, there is nothing there but red desert.
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