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The elixir was scary.
It came in a heart-shaped bottle that could fit in the palm of a hand. If that was all there was to it, it might have looked like an innocuous storybook potion. Though, come to think of it, storybook potions were rarely innocuous. I thought of Wonderland, where up was down, left was right, and potions changed people and put them in dangerous situations. If this place was Wonderland, then the Red Queen herself was the one doling out the dangerous potions.
The decidedly not innocuous elixir was delivered by a black-hooded believer. The misleadingly cute bottle contained a shimmering bright-blue liquid. It was rather entrancing to gaze upon, but anything that glowed like that could not possibly safe for human consumption.
But my boss consumed it. Most of the time, he’d pocket it and send the deliverer on their way, to take “at a more convenient time.” Despite my curiosity, I missed him taking it a lot. After a while, I realized he was purposefully waiting to take it until I was asleep or showering or so engrossed in work that he thought I wouldn’t notice.
When I finally saw him take it, I realized why he hadn’t wanted me to see. He gulped it down quickly, like it was painful to keep in his mouth any longer than he had to. His entire body shook slightly, but his clenched fists and red-faced grimace told me he was trying hard to prevent more violent tremors. He would hold very still, fighting those tremors.
When he came out of them, he would need water, and a lot of it. Sometimes he resorted to drinking straight from the bathroom sink if there wasn’t enough on hand to quench his thirst.
Then he would go back to his computer and act like nothing happened. But I could tell he was different. His eyes were wilder, both more dilated and more…desperate looking. He pushed through his work aggressively, with a maniacal sneer on his face. For the most part, he would ignore me when he was high from the elixir, which suited me fine, because quite frankly, I was afraid of him during these times. I had been afraid of him a lot when I had first been brought to Magenta, but after settling into work with my boss, the only time I was still afraid of him was when he took the elixir
When he came down, his face would go pale and he would start to sweat. He would glower at his computer and pull at his bleached hair with slightly twitching fingers. I tried to get him to eat or drink during this time, but it seemed putting anything in his stomach did not do anything to help, nor did my distractions. The best thing to do was to allow him to work uninterrupted until he returned to his baseline level of irritability, the drug’s affects buried under hours of code.
Furthermore, my boss didn’t give me much information about the elixir. Any answers he gave were vague and defensive, and if I pushed for more details, he’d scream at me to mind my own business. So what I knew came from what I’d strung together from him and my own limited observations and speculations.
“The Savior makes it.” His leader is drugging him.
“It’s medicine to make me stronger.” It makes him hyper-focus on his work. It makes him what she wants.
“The Savior decides when I need it, so I don’t have to worry about it.” She’s brainwashed him into taking drugs without question.
“Without it, I’d be weak.” He’s addicted.
“I don’t need it as often as others, because I’m the strongest!” Doses are based on rank; the higher-ups take less. It might be a shame to need too much. That had answered another question I’d had, whether everyone at Magenta took that Elixir or whether it was just him. It looked like everyone took it, except probably the Savior. If that was the case….
“Will I have to take it?”
His entire body stiffened when I asked. “That’s not for me to decide. Don’t ask stupid questions that I can’t answer.” When he turned his chair away from me and began harshly pounding the computer keys, I knew the discussion was over. I also realized that something about me taking the elixir scared him.
I didn’t know which scared me more: that I might have to take the elixir at some point, or that taking something that was just supposed to be medicine scared him.
I had suspected for a while that I might be expected to take the elixir at some point. If I had been an official believer of Mint Eye, then I no doubt would already have had to take it. But my status here was not so clear-cut.
I was not like most everyone here, recruited by the Savior and sworn to follow her. I was not a member of this place. That’s why I was confined to this room, and to my boss’s supervision. He brought me on as his assistant, after he had failed to involve me in one of Mint-Eye’s projects. It was unclear why he had brought me here, since I clearly lack skills in his field of work. His having to teach me everything as we went along probably slowed him down more than helped. Even after all the time I’d been here, I could only handle the most simple tasks by myself, though I took comfort in the fact that my tasks were long and tedious, and my doing them freed him up for other work.
Because one of my theories about the elixir was that she made her followers take it as punishment if they didn’t do what she wanted. I’d started thinking that way because usually his doses were preceded by believers asking for status reports in hushed voices, and by an aura of irritability and mutterings of being behind schedule.
For the last week, that is exactly what has been happening. He had already taken elixir twice this week, where he usually only took it once or twice per month. The demands for status reports were coming in multiple times per day now, and the boss was more on edge than I’d ever seen before. I gathered that the task at hand must be important, though I did not understand what it was, because I was just reading strings of numbers to him or copying them down.
Then the Savior herself visited. I knew it was her from the way he immediately bowed and stepped aside to allow her in. She had been impressed with how well I had become accustomed to the place, knowing to bow, to greet her with “for eternal paradise, my Savior, answering with “yes, my Savior,” or “no, my savior” when addressed. I did not trust her one bit, but I knew pleasing her could only help me and the boss.
I trusted her even less when I overheard her parting words to my boss as he saw her out:
“Such a cute little pet, and so well-trained. Continue to work well and I’ll let you keep her.”
It wasn’t long after that that the day finally arrived for me to take the elixir. Like always, it was delivered by a black-hooded believer. But this time, as I waited out of the way like the boss always instructed me to do, I heard him ask:
“Am I to take two at once this time?”
“One of them is for the girl, sir.” I froze in my place, and for a moment there was silence while I wondered how the boss would react.
“Pfft. She’s not even a Mint Eye member. She’s just my toy. Why waste elixir on her?” His words sounded confident, but his voice was not quite as harsh as it usually was. That further confirmed my suspicion that he did not want me to take the elixir.
“Savior’s order’s, sir.”
“Fine, we’ll take it later.”
“Sir, my orders were to confirm that you have drank it with my own eyes.”
My boss chuckled. “Tch. Like she doesn’t even trust me anymore. Guess I’ll have to fix that, won’t I? You, get over here.” He called to me and I hesitantly approached.
“Come on now, hurry it up, that’s a good girl.” He was tense, but he was speaking to me much more softly than he usually did. That made me want to do what he said. This wasn’t his fault. I’d just have to suck it up, or he would be in more trouble. Besides, he did it all the time. I’d be okay…probably.
“Take a deep breath,” he instructed me as he uncorked one of the bottles. When I did as he had told, he tilted my head upwards and pinched my nose shut. Then he poured the liquid down my throat.
Immediately my hands rushed to my throat and tears sprang to my eyes. It burned, oh god it burned! My mouth, my throat, my stomach, everything that liquid touched felt like it had a searing fire ripping the flesh apart. I felt suddenly feverish and broke out in a sweat. I couldn’t see from the heat and the tears; was the world swaying, or was I?
My boss’s angry voice cut through the burning fog around me. “There, we took it, now get back to work!” The door slammed shut. I felt the boss’s rough hands on my shoulders and tried to steady myself.
“Oi, quit it! You’re gonna be fine!” He sounded angry, but also frantic, like he was trying to convince himself just as much as me that I would be okay. He had taken the elixir too and he couldn’t be much better off than I was right now. Was this what he felt every time he took the elixir? He made it look relatively easy! He was so strong. I wanted to be strong too, so he wouldn’t worry about me. He had enough to worry about.
“Boss…I’m sorry…” My voice came out a raspy whisper as I tried to bow out of his grasp so I could stand on my own. My head spun more, but I fought to stay upright. “I’ll…get stronger.”
“You are fucking strong! You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t, damn it! I have no use for weaklings!” His voice was becoming clearer to me as the fog started to lift. I focused on his voice and the floor beneath my feet to ground myself. “You’re mine! So you’re strong! So you better fucking fight!”
My vision cleared, and I could see his face. His eyes were dilated and wild, and his face was covered in sweat. I remembered being afraid of him when I saw that look, but now he was the one reminding me I was safe.
I stood up straighter, and he let me go hesitantly. I swayed a bit but stood my ground. He scrutinized me before finally forcing me back into my chair and going into the bathroom. When he returned, it was with a cup of water and a wet towel. “Drink.” When I did, the burning sensation started to ease, and I felt a little bit more stable. I felt exhausted. It must be taking a lot out of me for my body to be fighting this. But I started to feel like I’d be okay.
The boss was still standing over me, a scowl on his face. I shouldn’t be troubling him like this. After all, if my theory was correct, which I was sure by now it was, the entire reason for the elixir was that we were behind schedule. I turned back to the files I’d been looking over, doing my best to hide my weariness. “I’m sorry for the trouble, Boss; I can go back to work now.”
As the lines of code made my vision swim again, the boss pulled my chair away from the desk. He reached down and picked me up! He then settled into his chair with me in his lap. He had made me sit in his lap before, facing the same screen he did, trying my best not to move or ask why he had me there. This was different. This time, he had me sideways against him, my legs draped over the arm of his chair. His arm reached securely behind my back, and he pushed my head into his shoulder. I was definitely confused and flustered, but those feelings were numbed by the warmth and softness of his body. It felt comforting, and the burning in my body seemed to have been replaced with a tingling all over. I felt…light, free? I’m not sure how to describe it, but I was quickly becoming lost to this feeling.
Wait. That’s the elixir talking. I can’t lose myself. The boss, I need to stay with him! I struggle to raise my head and look at him. “Boss.” My voice comes out sluggish and slow, and I don’t know what to say. My thoughts, everything I think I need to say, are escaping before I can catch them and I’m losing control of my mind. All I can choke out is, “what’s happening?”
He pushed my head back into his shoulder and put something cool on it. That wet towel. It felt soothing, and it called me into darkness, into slumber, into peace. My boss’s voice was there, unusually soft sounding, but maybe that’s because it was so far away? Wait, why did it sound so far away when it was right here next to me? Never mind, just focus on what he’s saying.
“…useless like this. Just rest. Keep quiet while I work.”
Useless. I should have been stronger. I want to help him. But the darkness was still pulling me. A single tear fell from my eye, and I hoped he didn’t notice.
“You’ll get stronger. Rest and get stronger. You’ll be okay. I’ll fucking make sure of it.”
The elixir was scary.
It made down feel like up, heaviness feel like lightness, burning feel like tingling. And it hurt. Oh god did it hurt.
And it made my irritable and unstable boss seem like the safest and gentlest person in the world.
And that was both comforting and terrifying.