The Trials of Myrna

By Mahashraya Sundararaman

Chapter One: Lupine Hills

Myrna Suryan sighed in exasperation as she gazed out the window. For almost the whole day, the Suryans had been stuck in the van, the last of their belongings packed tightly away in the trunk, on the way to their new house. Myrna had whiled away some of the time idly chatting with her family and Mr. Kay, an old friend of the Suryans who wanted to help them unpack as he happened to live in the same neighborhood they were moving in to. But she had lost interest in this hours and hours ago.

The morning had started off tensely as Mr. and Mrs. Suryan kept checking and double-checking that they had everything. Myrna and her family weren’t the kind of people who planned or prepared ahead. All morning, they had been scurrying around their old house trying to make sure they’d taken all their last few personal things with them. Once they’d settled into the van there had also been some excitement mixed in the air. Having said all her good-byes, Myrna couldn’t help looking forward to a new place, new people and a clear slate to start school. She had already passed through her very brief stage of anxiety and reluctance and couldn’t feel very scared any more.

A few hours into their trek, however, the Suryans began to feel less than enthusiastic, wondering, with vacant looks, when they’d reach the place. Myrna would’ve listened to some music if her mother hadn’t sworn earlier that she’d go mad if she had to hear the same song again. (Myrna had a bad habit of stretching out of her seatbelt into the front seat and skipping to her favorite tune). She didn’t speak that often in the car unless she went on a long trip. She was also one of those people who were quite content just wandering through their own thoughts. Long car rides were welcome to her. They gave her a chance to just think without anyone telling her to work or be productive. Of course, she didn’t just daydream about anything; Myrna wanted to write a story, hence, most of her latest musings were the progeny of her latest ideas.

That particular session of daydreaming had yielded no gold to her slight disappointment, just mounds of ideas she kept recycling from other stories she had liked.

It annoyed Myrna how most of the things she began writing would seem okay to her while she wrote them but when she read through them the next day, would make her cringe with embarrassment and wonder to herself, “How did I ever write something like that?” So, deciding to take a break, she let her eyes register the quickly passing scenery outside.

It seemed that they were driving under a dark, indigo-blue sky strewn with stars and hung with a radiant full moon that shone on a somewhat enchanted-looking forest (though the sky probably just looked dark and magical and the forest enchanted because she was still desperately trying to think up a premise for her story). It probably was just her feeble imagination that made the trees appear to have long slender branches and limbs that swayed gently yet ominously as if to wave visitors away. She heeded their warning for the moment (she thought she half-heard some lonely, feral beast howling in the forest).

Myrna lingered on the idea for a moment then turned away from the window in disgust and leaned back in her seat. She didn’t care if she’d be shaken awake when they got to the new house. It felt as though sleep would swiftly overcome her, but as it turned out, Myrna wouldn’t get a wink of sleep until later.

“Here we are! Turn right, here.”

“Myrna, look out the window!” Her younger brother tugged her sleeve sharply. He had momentarily abandoned his PSP game to look out the window.

“All right, I’m already looking,” she mumbled, grudgingly straightening up.

Looking outside, Myrna gasped as she noticed an abrupt change in scenery.

They were now driving past immense fields and hills that were covered entirely by strange and exquisite flowers mostly gentle shades of purple, pink and blue. Myrna pressed her nose up to the glass and upon closer inspection saw that it was a mass of lupines dancing in the breeze. As the winds came flying through the sea of lupines, they all rippled as one and send swift little waves through the land.

“This is it. Lupine Hills, not exactly tourists spot but a famous site near this town.”

Myrna took a minute to drink in the surreal sight of the many knolls covered with a smoothly changing pallet of royal purple, true blue, to sugary pink.

“Who planted this place?”

“I honestly don’t know. Never really thought about it.” Mr. Kay said absently.

“Is anyone allowed to pick a few flowers?” Half of Myrna felt the flowers to be too impeccably beautiful to even pluck a single petal from, but the other half wanted to go rampaging maniacally over the hills, picking as many lupines as she could.

Mr. Kay shrugged “I’m sure that you’d be able to take a few lupines, but don’t go running through those fields. Normally, I’d want to as well.”

Myrna briefly amused herself picturing Mr. Kay running through the field of lupines.

“But the city has placed a restriction on how far you can go into this place. It was all because of an incident a year ago when a local delinquent decided to visit the field, a teenage boy, well known in the neighborhood to cause trouble.”

“What’d he do?” Myrna asked intrigued.

“I didn’t see it happen but people said they saw him trying to light the place on fire.” Myrna frowned in disdain.

“It was actually worse for him. The whole stunt backfired. Supposedly one of the matches fell close to him.”

Myrna grimaced at this.

“He got lit on fire?”

“He’s fine now, but I don’t think that he completely deserved it. His face was so badly burnt that he was unrecognizable after that.

“But why would anyone pull a stunt like that?” Ayden asked incredulously.

“These things are always odd. You two don’t need to worry, though. It’s the only black mark on this town’s history.”

“I guess,” she said vaguely. She could feel herself drifting off. “Do you think I’d be able to get at least an hour of sleep before we get there?”

“Probably more, we still have a way to go,” Mr. Suryan said wearily. He and Mrs. Suryan had taken turns driving but he usually ended up behind the wheel more.

Within moments, even though she was rattled by the grotesque imagery Mr. Kay’s story had conjured, Myrna began yawning and felt her mind wandering listlessly into a soon-to-be dream. She uneasily leaned back and stared glassy-eyed at the moon once more before surrendering to the heavy fatigue that pulled at her eyelids.

Myrna always thought it’d be interesting if people could tell when they fell asleep and enjoy their dreams to the fullest, knowing that they wouldn’t be affected in real-life by the events in their nighttime reveries. It was so maddening to have a particularly vivid and fantastic dream and then realize it’s a dream and watch it fade away to wake up to grim reality.

Her thoughts ran haphazardly through her head and eventually morphed into an image of Lupine Hills, which was strange because she never dreamt of anything she thought of recently.

She stood poised at the very edge of the hills, a step a way from the field of flowers.

What could possibly go wrong? I could at least pick one lupine, couldn’t I?

She could feel delight bubbling inside her, a rush of euphoria and before she knew it, she was running through the flower field, over every lupine, and every grand sloping mound of flowers, almost to the end of the earth itself, to the horizon when…she tripped.

That’s okay…

It would be just as delightful to just lie there listlessly and enjoy the ethereal sea of purple, blue and pink frolic around her sending about waves.

Slowly, she got onto her feet and noticed something a lovely shade of indigo in front of her. It wasn’t a lupine, but some other kind of flower: it had lush, tear-shaped petals that curved subtly out with one large petal shaded the rest of them, like a hood. It was full of some bright integrity so that it wasn’t separated from the lupines in appearances alone. It had a slender stalk that was on the verge of snapping though and Myrna hastily reached out to straighten it up when she heard a pained groan from somewhere beside her.

Myrna craned her head toward the sound and found what she had tripped on earlier. She froze in horror.

It was the body of a teenager, roughly her own age, lying in the flowers with a blood soaked shirt. He seemed only vaguely conscious. His wavy, chocolate-colored hair was damp with the sweat that beaded his pale forehead. He was heaving slightly, and he breathed hoarse breaths.

Myrna shook herself out of shock and tried to wake him.

She called out thickly, “Are you all right?”

Of course he’s not!

Myrna gave herself a mental slap.

“Can you hear me? Please, wake up! Wake up!” She had the notion to shake him by the shoulders but she didn’t for fear of wounding him further.

He stirred ever so slightly and tried to open his eyes.

He seemed to be struggling but after great effort he managed a very feeble, “Run,”

“Run? What about you?” she asked frantically.

But the youth could only shake his head weakly and croak in anguish, “Run, please,”

“All right, I’ll go get help! Stay there!” As. Myrna began running back where she came from but found that the road had gone.

“SOMEBODY!” She yelled, but her voice was muffled for some reason, “PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP!” Despite the stress she now put on her vocal cords, the eerie silence could barely be broken. Myrna ran farther, looking back on occasion to make sure she didn’t lose sight of the youth in the clusters of all the lupines. There was not a soul in sight and she felt her only hope would be to reach the road. She had no such luck, however; the fields of lupines were endless and all of it looked almost the same, with no defining features that could point her back to where she’d came from.

It doesn’t make sense. If I had run in the opposite direction of the place I found the guy, I should’ve gotten back to the road.

No one was there; she and the young man were absolutely and utterly alone in the middle of an infinite field of pale leering, flowers. Now panicking, Myrna ran back to the boy.

“I’m sorry, but there’s no one there!” She looked wildly around, her throat and mouth parched. She put her hands on his moist, pale face. “Please, you have to get up. I can’t find anyone here.” He didn’t move. “Get up! You have to get up!” But the boy didn’t move or speak.

Cursing, she got up howled louder for help and. It should’ve been a loud, long and clear call but the sound f her voice seemed to be absorbed by the air itself in this surreal world consisting solely of an endless span of ghastly blossoms that now careened violently back and forth in the powerful gust now blowing about her.

Myrna squeezed her eyes shut and bent here head in toward her chest, letting her long, loose, black mane cover her face, and tried to put her hands gently around the youth, as if to protect herself and him from whatever fiendish entity that conducted the loathsome hallucination they were trapped in.

Then, without warning, the wind stopped, the lupines ceased their jeering. Lifting her head up, she shook her hair out of her face and looked around to see what had caused the standstill. With great relief, Myrna could see a faint pink and orange glow appearing behind her, near the horizon. She could’ve laughed for the relief the sight of the dawn induced in her. Myrna turned back and tried to wake the teenage boy.

Only, he was gone and in his place was a patch of crushed stalks of lupines and drops of blood spilt around where he was lying just moments ago.

How could he have run off in that condition?

Perplexed, Myrna tried to catch a glimpse of where he’d gone, wondering how and why he snuck off even though he was in such a critical condition.

Crunch, crunch

Someone was walking towards her.

“I was wondering where you went, are you all ri-” She was going to say to the handsome youth, but broke off because the boy behind her wasn’t the same one that lay in the lupines she’d seen on the brink of unconsciousness. This was also a teenager but with a face like none she’d seen before. Every bit of skin was burnt and much of the flesh and bone were showing, and shiny spaces of skin could be seen about his neck where he wasn’t as badly burnt. He leered at her.

Myrna opened her mouth but nothing came out this time.

He’d already taken out a knife and stabbed her, and she could feel hot blood pouring onto her right side where it had struck…

“Oh, sorry!”

“Huh? Wha-”

Myrna struggled for a moment in that transient phase between waking and dreaming. The hills vanished slowly to be replaced first by the inside of her eyelids, hen the blurred into what looked like the inside of the Suryan’s van.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Ayden apologized rapidly. He was usually not too rude when he made a mistake and was willing to say he was sorry without whining. Her little brother didn’t often try to irritate her purpose.

The pieces fell into place slowly.

“Myrna, wake up!” Ayden tapped her shoulder incessantly.

“I’m awake, I’m awake!”

Where’s the hill? The boy?

Ayden was handing her a handful of napkins. The van had stopped at a rest area and Ayden had spilt hot chocolate on her shirt but she didn’t really care. “Thanks- It’s okay, Ayden! I’ll get it.” She began scrubbing briskly, trying to get rid of the stain as best she could.

“A nightmare,” Myrna shook her head disbelievingly, already forgetting some parts of it, even though it was the most vivid dream she could ever remember having.

“Would you like something to perk you up?” Mr. Kay asked proffering her a bag of chips. The Suryans were all nibbling on the various snacks they’d gotten out of a vending machine at the rest area.

“No, I’m fine. I think I’ll just go back to sleep.”

“Just have a hot chocolate, Myrna, so you wake up hungry at night.” Mr. Suryan held out a Styrofoam cup with marshmallows in it to his daughter.

“No, it’s okay Dad. I don’t think I’ll wake up even if I do get hungry,” she yawned loudly, “I’m too tired.”

“All right.” He took a gulp of coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

Myrna pressed her face up to the window once more and looked to see whether it was dawn yet. She was surprised, however, to see stars but the moon gone to some other side of the sky. How long had she been asleep?

According to the little digital clock in the front of the van, it was 10:30 P.M., so it hadn’t been more than half an hour. Whenever you took a nap, the time always surprised you when you woke up. The dream had felt much longer. Maybe it only felt like forever because it had been so wearisome.

Soon, they’d pulled into the new town they were going to live in. The last few tendrils of dread from the nightmare had lifted their grip. Myrna found a measure of comfort in the familiarity of the little squares and plazas they passed by, some of which were still open and had lit neon signs, the few customers still there finishing a bit of last minute shopping.

This isn’t too different from home…

She finally felt herself drift into a serene sleep full of vague, relaxed dreams.