The Phoenix Part 2

The Phoenix

By Brian Salkowski

Part 2

Earlier That Day

Rain lashed against the grimy bus window, blurring the neon glow of strip clubs and fast-food joints along Flatbush Avenue. Inside, Brenda pressed a hand to the throbbing ache in her temple, the fluorescent lights like needles against a brewing migraine. The late-night ride home was a stark contrast to the sterile, beige confines of her law firm just hours ago. There, she wielded legalese with practiced ease. Here, on this rickety bus, she was a tangled mess, the carefully constructed facade ripped away.

The memory, a nauseating montage of faces she didn't recognize, laughter morphing into something sinister, clung to her like a shroud. Yet, there was a blank space, a chilling absence where the attack itself should have been. No struggle, no pain, just a void and a terrifying sense of violation.

"It's called a psychic block," the woman at the occult shop, Madame Zoya, had rasped, the words laced with Eastern European lilt. "Trauma buries itself deep, but the body remembers." Zoya had been Brenda's last resort, a desperation fueled by a potent cocktail of fear and denial.

Brenda clutched the worn leather pouch Madame Zoya had pressed into her hand. Inside, a single silver amulet, cool against her palm, pulsed with a faint, rhythmic warmth. "Ancient Elven metal," Zoya had explained, her eyes glinting under layers of kohl. "It will help you pierce the veil."

Ridiculous. Fantasy belonged in weekend marathons of Lord of the Rings, not on a rain-soaked Brooklyn bus. Yet, the warmth was undeniable, and Brenda couldn't shake the feeling it was more than just metal reacting to her body heat.

The bus lurched to a halt with a sigh of overworked brakes, the doors hissing open to reveal an empty stop. A shiver snaked down Brenda's spine as the bus driver, a burly man with a shaved head that gleamed under the harsh overhead lights, barked, "Last stop, folks. Ends here."

This wasn't her stop. Panic clawed at her throat, a physical sensation that constricted her air passage. She fumbled for the emergency release on the window, the plastic snapping under her frantic fingers. But the rain was relentless, the wind whipping it into icy needles that stung her exposed skin.

She stumbled off the bus, the deserted street a canvas of inky black asphalt and flickering streetlamps. The city that hummed with life just hours ago was eerily silent, the only sound the rhythmic drumming of the rain. The familiar comfort of towering apartment buildings and late-night bodegas was replaced by a desolate stretch of abandoned warehouses, their skeletal frames stark against the bruised purple sky.

Then, a voice, silky and strangely familiar, echoed from the shadows. "Lost, little one?"

Brenda froze, the blood draining from her face. The woman who stepped into the meager light of the nearest lamppost was breathtakingly beautiful, her face sculpted with an otherworldly perfection that held a faint echo of Brenda's own features. Her emerald eyes, however, were unsettling – swirling with an unnatural luminescence that seemed to pierce Brenda's very soul. It was the face from the memory, yet somehow different, ethereal.

"You," Brenda whispered, her voice trembling like a leaf caught in a gale. "Who are you?"

The woman's lips curved into a knowing smile, a smile that sent shivers down Brenda's spine despite its chilling beauty. "I am the memory you seek, child. And I am more than human."

The amulet in Brenda's hand flared, the warmth searing her skin. Panic morphed into a terrifying clarity. The rape wasn't a random act of violence. It was something else entirely – something her logical, lawyer's mind couldn't even begin to comprehend. The implications hung heavy in the air, a suffocating weight that threatened to crush her.

Suddenly, the woman's form wavered, the emerald glow flickering. Her once perfect features contorted in pain, revealing a glimpse of something monstrous beneath the surface. "No!" the woman shrieked, her voice morphing into a guttural snarl. "This isn't right! This wasn't supposed to happen!"

Before Brenda could react, the woman dissolved into a cloud of shimmering emerald dust, the last vestiges of her unearthly light swirling around Brenda's outstretched hand. The amulet, once cool to the touch, grew unbearably hot, forcing her to fling it onto the wet asphalt. It sizzled like a dropped ember, the leather pouch smoldering before dissolving into a wisp of smoke.

Brenda stood there, alone in the deserted street, the rain washing away the remnants of the encounter. The city lights flickered back to life, the distant hum of traffic a comforting reminder of normalcy. But the world had shifted on its axis. The familiar was unfamiliar still.

She needed to sit down. She crossed the street to a park bench.