The Mantis Continuum - Book Four - 31. Chapter 31 - The Little Girl & the Little Girl

In a grey world of nothing, a little girl was all alone. She was squatted down, hugging her knees, and she was whimpering.

“Hi,” said a voice.

The girl looked up and cuffed the tears from her eyes.

There was nothing.

All around her, the ground stretched out flat until it faded to grey in the impossible distance.

“Hi,” the voice said again, this time, from over the girl’s shoulder.

She stood and turned around. The girl was young, no more than 12. Her hair was red and curly and her cheeks were freckled. She was dressed in a plain shirt and trousers, and her feet were bare.

Walking up to her was another little girl; the girls were identical.

“Hi!” the new girl said brightly.

“Why do you look like me?”

“Why do you look like me?” the other girl repeated with a giggle.

“Where’d you come from?”

“Where’d you come from?”

The girl was immediately irritated with the annoying game, and she declared, “I don’t like this place, and I don’t like you messing with me.”

The second girl’s expression fell. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to play so we could be friends. I’m a Bio-Shift, like you, and I just want to help.”

The little redhead’s curiosity piqued. “A Bio-Shift…”

“I don’t like this place the way it is either,” the other redhead added.

“What do you mean? Is it sometimes not like this?” The girl looked around at the blurry grey horizon. “It makes me feel unhappy.”

“Yeah, sometimes it’s… I don’t know, different than how it is now. This isn’t how it should be. Do you wanna leave?”

“Can we do that?” the first girl asked.

“Not exactly,” the other girl answered, “there’s no way to just leave this place. We’re gonna have to make this place not exist, so we won’t be here anymore.”

The girl did not like the sound of that. “I don’t want to not exist,” she replied.

“But this place shouldn’t exist, and together we can make it go away so it never bothers you or anybody again.”

“How do we do that?” the redhead asked hesitantly.

“By letting it go,” the other redhead answered.

The girl paused and said, “That sounds scary.”

The second girl sighed. “It is, a little,” she admitted. “I don’t want to be here anymore, and I think you should go, too.” She reached out her hand.

“I don’t wanna just go.”

“It’s gonna be scary, but then it’s gonna be better.”

For a moment, there was no sound.

The first little girl gazed at the vast emptiness, and she tentatively reached out to take the identical hand of the other girl. Their fingers connected, and the blurry grey horizon slowly began to close in on them from all directions.

The girl looked around in panic. “I changed my mind! I don’t like this at all!”

The faded distance drew closer and closer.

“Don’t let it get me! Stop this!” she pleaded with the other girl, who remained silent.

The grey was almost upon them.

“Please, don’t! I just want to stay! I can stay here! No!” the girl screamed, as the grey enveloped them both, and they were no more★