Gone

monster.
    Sam’s body was numb, as if it had died and left only his brain still whirring away inside his skull.
    It’s time, a voice said.
    He knew that voice and the sound of it was a knife in his guts.
    His mother stood before him. She was as beautiful as she had always been to him. Her hair stirred in a breeze he did not feel. Her blue eyes were the only true color.
    “Happy birthday,” she said.
    “No,” he whispered, though his lips did not move.
    “You really are the man now,” she said, and her mouth made a wry smile.
    “My little man,” she said.
    “No.”
    She stretched out her hand to him. “Come.”
    “I can’t,” he said.
    “Sam, I’m your mother. I love you. Come with me.”
    “Mom…”
    “Just reach out to me. I’m safe. I can carry you away, out of this place.”
    Sam shook his head slowly, slowly, like he was drowning in molasses. Something was happening to time. Astrid wasn’t breathing. Nothing was moving. The whole world was frozen.
    “It will be like it was,” his mother said.
    “It was never…,” he began. “You lied to me. You never told me…”
    “I never lied,” she said, and frowned at him, disappointed.
    “You never told me I had a brother. You never told—”
    “Just come with me,” she said, impatient now, jerking her hand a little like she would when he was a little kid and refused to take her hand to cross the street. “Come with me now, Sam. You’ll be safe and out of this place.”
    He reacted instinctively, the little boy again, reacted to the “mommy” voice, the “obey me” voice. He reached for her, stretched his hand out to her.
    And pulled it back.
    “I can’t,” Sam whispered. “I have someone I have to stay here for.”
    Anger flashed in his mother’s eyes, a green light, surreal, before she blinked and it was gone.
    And then, out of the bleached, unreal world, Caine stepped into the eerie light.
    Sam’s mother smiled at Caine, and he stared at her wonderingly. “Nurse Temple,” Caine said.
    “Mom,” she corrected. “It’s time for both my boys to join me, to come away with me. Out of this place.”
    Caine seemed spellbound, unable to tear his gaze away from the gentle, smiling face, the piercing blue eyes.
    “Why?” Caine asked in a small child’s voice.
    Their mother said nothing. Once again, for just a heartbeat, her blue eyes glowed a toxic green before returning to cool, icy blue.
    “Why him and not me?” Caine asked.
    “It’s time to come with me now,” their mother insisted. “We’ll be a family. Far from here.”
    “You first, Sam,” Caine said. “Go with your mother.”
    “No,” Sam said.
    Caine’s face darkened with rage. “Go, Sam. Go. Go. Go with her.” He was shouting now. He seemed to want to grab Sam physically, push him toward the mother they had not quite shared, but his movements were odd, disjointed, a jerky stick figure in a dream.
    Caine gave up trying. “Jack told you,” he said dully.
    “No one told me anything,” Sam said. “I have things I have to do here.”
    Their mother extended her arms to them, angry, demanding to be heeded. “Come to me. Come to me.”
    Caine shook his head slowly. “No.”
    “But you’re the man of the house now, Sam,” his mother wheedled. “My little man. Mine.”
    “No,” Sam said. “I’m my own man.”
    “And I was never yours,” Caine sneered. “Too late now, Mother.”
    The face of their mother wavered. The tender flesh seemed to break apart in jigsaw-puzzle pieces. The gently smiling, pleading mouth melted, collapsed inward. In its place a mouth ringed with needle-sharp teeth. Eyes filled with green fire.
    “I’ll have you yet,” the monster raged with sudden violence.
    Caine stared in horror. “What are you?”
    “What am I?” the monster mocked him savagely. “I’m your future. You’ll come to me on your own in the dark place, Caine. You will come willingly to me.”
    “No,” Caine protested.
    The monster laughed, a cruel sound from that piranha’s mouth.
    Slowly the monster faded. Color bled back into the world around Sam and Caine. Orc and Drake accelerated back to normal speed. The air smelled of gunpowder again. Astrid drew breath.
    Sam and Caine stood facing each other.
    The world was the world. Their world. The FAYZ. Diana stared. Astrid gasped and opened her eyes.
    Caine was quick. He raised his hands, palms out.
    But Sam was quicker. He leaped toward Caine, stepped inside his reach, and grabbed his brother’s