Symbiosis

by Anastasia Lyn
The girl:

The cell is all I know.
The cell floor is cold, always cold, and so am I. My bare flesh against the metal makes me shudder, but I cannot hold myself for warmth no matter how much I pull on the chains. I bite my lip hard, holding back a sob, the metal cuffs digging deeper into my wrists. The skin has already been sliced open and healed over many times. More than once I’ve reached a point where I’ve dug deeper and deeper, to bleed long enough. But no matter how much blood flowed down my arm, no matter how hard I’ve tried I did not die.
I do not die.
I do not know why.
The chains hold me in the center of the cage. I can reach the bars with my hands -- hands covered in blisters and calloused from pulling on the bars -- yet my strength faded some time past. I cannot move any part of the metal; even the circular rings holding the chains to the ceiling and floor of the cage are unbending, solid.


When I awoke here, my first instinct was to call for help; any answer would do. I screamed until my throat burned, until tears were streaming down my face. No one came. I am surrounded by this darkness, shackled in this cage. If not for this lone light shining dimly above me I would exist in a never-ending night in this nightmare.


The pain was overwhelming at first – the hunger and the thirst. This terror does not end. I wait for someone to appear. Time has lost all meaning in this darkness. I’ve come to believe it is this darkness that feeds me, that sustains me. Pain and darkness are my constant companions, like loyal friends they stay close to me, keeping me in their grasp.
I’m crying again. I can feel the tears rolling down my cheeks, falling from my chin, dripping onto my thighs. I’m half-crouched, trying to keep my skin from touching the metal. I try to think of some happy memory, but it is as if my mind has been taken by the darkness. 

My fingernails and hair are very long; time must be passing, though the moments seem endless. My hair is the one thing that helps blanket me from the cold – this cold permeating through me.
In this position I can cover my entire back and bottom. It spills across the floor when I crouch, a good six feet of dark flowing hair. My fingernails have curled in on themselves. I’ve tried a few times to chew the ends into sharp points, see if I could reach one of the cuffs’ locks around my hands, a futile effort but it gives me something to focus on. They’re almost long enough for another attempt.
I shudder again, but this time it is not the cold that shakes me. Down my spine the chill ripples, I snap my head up, eyes wide and searching into my darkness. The change is subtle, the feeling overwhelming. Something is happening, finally happening!
Yet I see no difference, the light above me illuminating the interior of my cage and not a bit beyond. But I can feel it; the darkness is getting heavier around me. Goosebumps rise all over my body – I shudder again. A third wave hits me, then another, in rapid succession. I lose my balance, teetering backward against the cold metal floor. The light above me blinds me momentarily.
Am I dying? Is this finally the end? 

But the light does not fade, nor brighten, and I feel the remnants of body heat seeping from me further with the contact with the floor.
I am not dead.
Why am I not dead?
Confusion overwhelms me. This is what I have always thought dying would feel like; lingering aftershocks of pain ripple through me as confusion melts into anger.
I grip onto the bars of this cage and rise to my feet, opening my mouth to scream. Before I can make any noise I see something move inside my darkness. Part of me wants to dismiss this as a side effect of staring too long into the lone light above me. I almost laugh at such pathetic desperation – until I see it again.
No mistake. Something is out there.
Something is with me.
I almost call out to who must have put me in this cage, in these chains, stripped bare and bleeding. That put me in my darkness. I stare ahead at where I last saw motion and catch this ripple of black-against-black. I cannot make out any distinct features despite its perceived approach to my cage. Perhaps my darkness is that thick, that dense. It is no illusion – I can see it approaching, and as my darkness shimmers next to this cage the fury engulfs me.
Like a hurricane, tornado, typhoon, I fling myself upon the bars of this cage, stopped only by the chains and bindings encasing me. I reach out for the figure, but my fingers brush through my darkness.
“Let me out.” My voice is deep, harsh from screaming. I growl out the words, and lunge out again, the cuffs cutting into my flesh.
“I said, let me out!” Only darkness in my grasp, a darkness changing form. The movement comes into the range of my light, a wraith of black smoke. I should be frightened.
I watch the darkness as it moves to the top of my cell, to the bindings holding my left arm to the cage wall. My left arm jerks downward as the chain clatters to the floor of this cell. I cannot help but gasp from the pain tearing through my shoulder. I give no room for hope or joy, holding still as my right arm is released from the wall and that arm falls to my side, the heavy chains hanging still from my wrists. The shadow moves to my ankles, freeing them next.
The chains hang off me, impeding my movement but no longer stopping it. My limbs are lead as I move to the cell door, the wraith with me as part of it envelops the lock securing the cell door. The lock clatters uselessly to the floor, the wraith beginning to melt back into the darkness. I nudge the cage door open.
The chains feel like they’re getting heavier, the more I try to exit the cage door the more difficult it is to move. The light around me is getting brighter as the chains get heavier. I am sinking. The cage is not letting me leave; it is pulling me down into it, the floor turning into a glowing pit underneath me. Quicksand, yet no sand is below me, only light.
The wraith continues to move away from me as I hook my elbows around the bars of this cage. I have to try something, my anger quickly morphing into panic. My elbows are straining, and I can feel my weak muscles burning with such effort.
“Little one.” My voice is suddenly welcoming – I am running on instinct.
“Come here, little one. Come help me out of this, so we can play. You do want to play, don’t you?”
I suppress a grunt from the pain – the light is strong and soon I will not be able to fight its pull any longer.
“Come… play….” I can barely whisper now, my remaining strength quickly depleting. The shadow comes toward me again. It begins to surround me, a traveling pressure, an encompassing second skin. The light is fading, the pull weakening as the shadow stretches itself over me. 


Chameleon:

Shrouded, unsettled, it remains out of notice or importance to its surroundings – chameleon. Too close; it feels the bone-tremoring shudder make way down the body before it. It had approached a bit too quickly to not affect this shell, this casing of fragmented hopes and sorrows before it. Although failing to enter her without notice, this wisp of smoke and mirrors offers no resistance, allows the merge to occur.
Perhaps now I'll feel something, it thinks. Too young to have a name of its own yet, Chameleon is not wise, but instinctual – thus unpredictable, dangerous.
Feeling full of energy surges, the casing hardens more and more with each pulse until it(she/they) could interact properly with the lower dimensions.
A female shell. Excellent.
A hint of a smirk slides over her lips. Chameleon feels sturdier; the pain is noticeable but not debilitating and work will be necessary to strengthen this new form for maximum synchronization. Her eyes flash toward the opposite side of the room, a click – the soft sharp sound fills her again with a shot of energy. Different than before… I could get used to this. Feeling an alertness settling in, she breathes in her surroundings. A prisoner of shadow no longer, instead control and feeling returns to her. Chameleon is eager to play with its prize, this once-girl, and slowly flexes her fingers to better understand the movement.
Chameleon notes a spark from inky depths as it integrates itself fully into the female-thought-empty. Will and resolve had been stripped away long before, and the chameleon – in its eagerness after being noticed – failed to search this once-girl fully before beginning the merge. Something lingers, shut away in a desperate attempt to save this female from herself and Chameleon registers an echo of a long-deadened host. It checks to make sure the shell is seated before plunging deeper, losing some connection to physical control. The female's body merely settles into the couch, staring ahead into nothing.
Can't be much left here, she was too easy to subdue, Chameleon thinks as it reaches deep into the once-mind of this once-girl.
While the customary darkness hangs fog-heavy, clinging to Chameleon as it moves, there is something in the distance – a far-off gleam of light. Chameleon approaches, more cautious now in these uncharted territories of what it thought was a once-girl. The light grows in intensity as distance lessens, and Chameleon pauses in its path, unsettled. Before it stands a large metal cage, a spotlight shining directly over the gleaming bars and chains. A mass huddles in a far corner of the encasement, and Chameleon's wariness is overtaken by curiosity as it slides in for a better view.
The mass turns tornado, hurricane, typhoon - flinging itself upon the bars of the cage, stopped only by the massive chains and bindings encasing hands, feet, stomach, neck. Dark eyes, lidded and glaring, meet Chameleon's startled gaze, and a low hiss emerges from the figure. Chameleon, noting the secure bindings, peers back. What struggles before it is not a once-girl at all.
A female voice, harsh and throaty, emanates from the dark figure. "Let me out."
Chameleon, shocked, attempts to formulate a reply in this space that is hers, when the voice resonates through every fiber of Chameleon’s essence. "I said, let me out."

This young chameleon, unprepared and unaware, had already connected so deeply within this body, feels her words so completely they become its words as well.
Arduously, the chameleon focuses on the bindings. Each corner of the cage has a metal chain attached to both the corners and the huddled mass and Chameleon moves to the closest shackling. As the first chain falls from the ceiling of the cage a moan escapes the figure now heaped upon the metal floor. The next chain falling to the cage's floor produces another, more audible sound – the bottom corner chains follow the top.
All the while the mass upon the cage floor is moving, arms stretching toward the bars, hands clenching round them. The chains still hang from her, heavy metal tendrils that clank with each movement. Chameleon cannot produce such a manifestation of itself inside this space – her space – and appears as if a wraith, a shadow. Chameleon-shadow moves toward the padlock securing the cage's door, manipulating its shape to create a shadow-key. The padlock clatters to the ground and Chameleon-shadow shrinks back from the slowly-opening door.
A the padlock falls from dark hands the crouched figure becomes swathed in a bright light, a gleaming pool of white forming on the floor of the cage. The figure, the girl, shoves the cage door open with shackled hands. The light continues to brighten beneath her. Chameleon is a shadow flickering on the wall of this light, this painful light, and it begins to move away – unable to lend aid, Chameleon attempts to retreat into the darkness as the girl continues to sink. Violet eyes lock onto the shadow flickering just out of reach, and a soft laugh escapes the girl.
“Little one,” she says. “C'mere, little one. Come help me out of this, so we can play. You do want to play, don't you?"
The voice fills Chameleon's shadow-self, playful and alluring – Chameleon feels a pull toward the girl greater than that of the darkness. The shadow lengthens on the walls of light, the girl keeping her gaze steady, coaxing, urging. Her voice, the light, those eyes command Chameleon, and it obeys.
“Come… play." She manages a soft hiss as she and the shadow coalesce.
The light fades more each moment as Chameleon touches her, clings to her skin. The girl is no longer sinking. The darkness that once was Chameleon becomes a second skin, until to it(her/them) the light is just an echo, a memory.

08/03/2012

Author's Note: either a stand-alone or an excerpt for something more...

Posted on 08/04/2012
Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Lyn