I reacted the only way I instinctively could. I wrapped my teeth around the vines, fought off my case of Zombie-jaw and bit down, mimicking attack dogs that I have seen on some BBC documentary.
She screamed, and loosened her grip. The rest of the mob advanced around her while she spoke, holding her hand in pain, "Chadam, we need your HELP, that's why we are helping YOU!"
"You're insane! You're not fucking helping me! You're hurting me!"
I slithered around the grasp of Tab, who lunged at me, and I barged through the crowd, which was easier to do than I thought. They were clumsy. I made it to the ladder and at least I could fend them off from there, I hope, while I try to get Sandy to really explain what the Hell is happening to me.
I hurried up the ladder, which was fucking hard to do with one arm, but I practically floated up there on determination alone. It was higher than it looked, about 30 feet above the rooftop. I turned around and looked down. The entire roof was packed solid with people. Or not-people, I don't know. It looked like a deleted scene from Dawn of the Dead. My world is ending. I am more deformed than before, I am more confused than before, and although there are a thousand people all gazing upon ME, I am more alone than before. I have nowhere to go.
Sandy was in the middle of the crowd.
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!!?" I shouted in her general direction, keeping my eyes on the people at the bottom of the ladder.
"You're the only one who cannot see, Chadam." She was shouting back from the middle of the mob. "You never sleep! But you're the only one who needs to wake up! We need you."
No one was attacking me. No one was attempting to even climb the ladder. They were just staring, anticipating what was going to happen, no doubt. Most of them looked like they were begging for something. For the box, maybe? For ME to DO something? I couldn't tell.
"Open your eyes, Chadam. Let go of the box. Let it…work."
"WHAT!?" I was shouting louder than before, the rumble coming from the amount of people infesting the roof was overtaking my voice. "I CAN'T let it GO! It's a PART OF ME!"
The wind picked up, and my shirt and my tie were forcefully pressed against me, the extra fabric dancing among the low clouds that were hovering right above the building. Nothing was making any more sense. I still didn't know what to do. I began to cry.
I looked over the crowd of people. It was surreal. Regardless of height, everyone looks the same when they are packed together, staring in one direction. Is this what it felt like to be executed? Probably. I noticed the crowd begin to part a little at a time, like a small ripple, starting from the door to the stairs. When the part reached the bottom of the ladder, I saw her. It was Ripley, staring up at me. I could barely hear her little voice over my tears and the sound of the wind. "Don't cry Chadam. They told me. The pigeons did. They didn't tell me before so I didn't know. But I know now."
"What do you know, hon"? (She liked when I called her hon, because her Mom said that her real Dad used to say that)
"That you need to help us."
"How? What do you mean?" I was getting tired of asking the same question over and over, but for some reason, I believe the innocence of a child over a hardened adult any day. Even a day like this.
"Let go, Chadam. Let go of the box. And just…let go. You can fly."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted this to end.
I looked her in the eyes and she smiled. I saw that same smile every time I let her take over the storytelling duties on the MANDA adventures. I believed her smile that she threw at me as I stood alone, stranded on a platform on the top of my crumbling universe. That was the smile of a proud Pegacorn owner and reciever of all of the chocolate in the land.
I calmed down. I looked at the box that was grafted to my arm. I think it looked back at me. I wiggled my left fingers, or, rather, where my left fingers were supposed to be. I saw a little movement. The box separated a tad from my skin, but not much, then it fused itself back together.
I looked back down at everyone, then at Ripley. She nodded. I formed the best possible smile I could muster in return, which wasn't much.
I turned my back to the crowd and I looked up in the sky, almost directly into the sun, as if the answer lied in it's lava. It's a natural instinct in most animals to escape to higher ground when they feel threatened. I don't really know why that is because you always have to come back down to face it again. Maybe that's what they mean when they say "life's full of ups and downs." We spend our lives running from something that we eventually have to fight…or join.
The sun didn't tell me anything.
I wasn't expecting it to, really, but hope was one thing I will never let go of. Hope is the main ingredient when you're cooking imagination. I hoped for some guidance.
And I got it. But not from the sun.
The same flock of pigeons flew over my head again, silhouetting themselves against the sun. Once again, their bodies moved to form what looked like letters. But this time, they made sense:

FALL

I closed my eyes and, in my imagination, I kissed my Bus Queen on the forehead and thanked her for things I could never tell her. If I ever wrote a book, I would want nothing more than to see it in her arms on the bus, knowing that I filled at least one of her days with memories in return for the months of voyeuristic happiness she had given me. I tilted my head back, outstretched my arms, and I fell into the crowd….