Hidden in Plain Sight

The headaches had been getting worse. Over the last few weeks they came one after another.

These last three days had been a change; the headache just never went away.

Emily had tried everything: painkillers, coffee, food, water, sleep—although that seemed to make it worse somehow—music, ice, heat... nothing made it go away.

Music helped a little, but mostly the pain would dull for a few hours and then resurge violently.

Tonight she decided to hell with it and went for a drive, hoping that the drive would help her relax enough to fall asleep. Maybe it was the stress from finals.

Normally Emily made it a point to only drive if she had plenty of sleep and was in the right headspace to do so. She had learned early the consequences of emotional driving.

Seeing her mother in that wheelchair burned the idea of consequences into 8-year-old Emily's consciousness. She remembered it as though it were yesterday, holding her father's hand. He smelled like paper and ink. He had been working overtime at the office to try to cover some of the extra medical expenses from her mother's accident. Emily associated that smell of paper and ink with that time.

She remembered the night of the accident. She had woken up to their voices raised and the sharp sound of glass breaking. Her mother had screamed something at her father as a parting shot, followed by the slam of the heavy wooden front door of the house. Next came the squeal of tires on the concrete driveway and the car speeding off into the night.

She had climbed out of bed to go check on her dad and found him sitting on the couch looking utterly exhausted. His hair was all messed up, and his clothes were rumpled. He sat with his head in his hands, and Emily could tell he was trying hard not to cry.

"Daddy?"

—

I felt like someone was narrating my life... like I was looking at everything through glass.

At the memory, the pain in my head spiked and I blacked out.

—

"Honey, I need to go see Emily. I think something is wrong."

A slender man of medium build with a quiet demeanor, Emily's father was never one to be overly emotional. He was, at his heart, a very solid person—very grounded.

Holly looked over at her husband as he stood from the couch, completely distracted, and muttered something about there might be something wrong with their daughter. She knew he needed to leave right now.

Hank was never prone to flights of fancy or impulsiveness. But where Em was concerned, he always had such an odd connection with her.

Holly had often felt a little left out, as if there was something she just couldn't reach within her daughter that her husband connected to as easily as breathing. It hurt, but she was also thankful that Em had that with her dad.

"Hank, go. I will be fine. Wheels and I are good. Go take care of Em."

Holly inclined her head toward the wheelchair beside the couch. It was a newer model, but she had had time to get used to it. Hank had always blamed himself for her accident and had always stayed by her to make sure she was alright.

Holly never blamed him. It was just a consequence of life.

Hank gave her a long look. He was clearly worried about her, but then his head snapped up and his eyes flashed gold.

"I have to go."

He grabbed something from the fridge and was out the door quicker than you could blink.

Holly watched him go with worries of her own. Then she sat back, sinking into the couch and switching from Jeopardy!—Hank and Em were fanatics—to one of her favorite supernatural romance shows.

—

Hank drove for the next two hours straight.

He had to be there when Emily woke up.

—

When I came to, the pain had gotten so much worse and had the unpleasant sensation of my hands being frozen painfully in place on the steering wheel.

I realized my eyes were closed, I was at an unnatural angle, and there was this thumping sound.

I could barely make out a voice. It sounded so far away.

I swear it sounded like my dad.

I forced my eyes open and picked my head up. I felt something liquid dripping down my face. Prying my hand off the steering wheel, I ran it over my face to check for the horrors my mind was attempting to dream up.

A bit of blood was running from a scalp cut over my right eye.

But otherwise the liquid was tears.

I looked in the rearview mirror and blinked.

My hair was a mess, but other than the blood and what would probably end up being a black eye, I was no worse for wear.

My car, on the other hand, was slammed into a telephone pole, and there was steam coming out from under the hood.

Damn it!

Great! The blackout couldn't have waited until I pulled over?!

I sighed.

The pounding sounded louder now, as did the voice.

I blinked, and sure enough there was someone pounding on my driver's-side window.

It was dark and I couldn't make out the person's face.

Then I heard,

"Baby! Are you hurt?!"

I reached for the door handle and jiggled it. Once loose, it was promptly yanked out of my hands.

It pulled me out of the car.

My butt almost hit the dirt, but the door-yanker caught me.

I blinked up at the person with a half-formed thank you that turned into a shriek.

The "person" holding me had scales and glowing golden eyes, clothed in human clothing.

Actually, it looked like my dad's old blue windbreaker, his slacks, and his gold-rimmed glasses.

The thing sighed and gripped me tighter.

I wailed and fought to get away. The car crash had knocked most of my strength out of me, so I couldn't put up much of a fight, but I was damned sure not going to become lizard food!

My father's deep voice—the one he used when something was serious—sounded from the creature's mouth.

"Emily! Stop!... It's me. It's Dad."

He held me at arm's length and looked me in the eye.

I looked at the thing that had hold of me, and oddly it was familiar.

The mannerisms.

The voice.

And there was only one person in the world who could have that much consternation on his face for me.

"DAD?!?"

He gave me a searching look.

Then hung his head.

"So that's how it is then."

"Huh?"

He adjusted his glasses and took a steadying breath.

"Let me guess. You see a tall anthropomorphized lizard in your dad's clothes, right?"

My eyebrows drew together.

"Yeah... how did you know?"

He nodded.

"Sweetheart, we need to have a conversation. First, here. Drink this. You will start to feel better in about five minutes."

He extended a well-loved silver thermos to me, the same one Mom used to pack Dad's soup in during the winter.

When he let go of me, I sagged to the ground.

He crouched down beside me while I popped the top off and drank the fluid inside.

It was good.

Really, really good.

I drank the whole thing in one go, and my mind started to clear.

"What is this?"

He arched a scaly eyebrow.

"Feel better?"

I nodded and stared at the container, wishing there was more.

"Beef bone marrow soup. Kind of like chicken soup for humans... but it has a much more dramatic restorative effect for us."

I side-eyed him.

"Humans?... Us?"

He sighed.

"Yes. We need to talk, and it has to be now. You can see past the psychic suggestion of our appearance now, which means your brain chemistry has altered. Have you had anything happen out of the ordinary besides the car accident?"

"Meeting a giant talking lizard?"

"Emily, this is serious."

I saw his lips twitch, though.

It was funny, and he knew it.

It was Dad, alright.

"I've been having horrible headaches. It's been going on for almost a month. This last bout has lasted three days. I thought it was the stress from finals."

Dad nodded.

"Oh dear... yes. It probably was the stress. Your other half just took over to try to keep your mind and health from breaking down. Kind of like a latent gene."

"This would make sense."

"Huh?"

My Thoughts(and a little bit of background):

This particular story was spawned a little over a year ago by a discussion on the vodcast The Psychic Roundtable. AngelLynn, the clairvoyant psychic medium, was chatting about the urban legends of lizard men in the Los Angeles sewers. She is a California native and grew up out there.

As soon as she mentioned it, my brain immediately went, "Oooohhh... that would make a great story for Alicia's Desk Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Magazine!" We were putting together our Cryptid-themed issue, and the idea simply would not leave me alone.

I let it rattle around in the back of my head while everyone kept talking. As soon as the show ended, I hurried to my notes and started typing.

I could see the whole story in my head—characters, scenes, reveals, and even pieces of the artwork. The opening came quickly, and I was excited to see where it was going.

Then life happened.

I had to put the story aside for a while.

When I finally came back to it, something had changed.

The story hadn't disappeared, but it no longer wanted to move. Every time I sat down to continue, it felt flat. I tried approaching it from different angles. I wondered if it was an editing problem, if I was trying to fit too much into one story, or if I simply needed more discipline than inspiration. None of those explanations quite fit.

The frustrating part is that I still want to tell this story.

I still know the world. I still know the characters. I even have artwork for it sketched out. But instead of feeling alive, it feels like a dead battery waiting for a charge that never quite comes.

This challenge gave me a reason to take another look at it instead of quietly letting it gather dust.

I'm going to keep pulling at the loose threads hidden throughout the story and see what ideas unravel as I tug at their edges. Sometimes a story isn't finished because it isn't ready yet, and sometimes the writer isn't asking the right questions.

I never give up on a story—or much else, honestly—and I'm determined to get this one right.

Sometimes stories have to find their voice.

I think this one is still looking for its own.

Wish me some luck!