It’s like I’m here and then I’m not. Snippets of what’s going on keep appearing. The darkness is complete. I have no idea where I am or where everyone else is.

The stars dot the jet black, velvet of space we seem to be moving through so much more slowly than we were before. I don’t know what’s happened to the ship or all of the people.

I feel as if I’m floating in a thick pool of some strange liquid substance. Numbness flows through me. My mind is calm. I want to know where my husband is, but I’m nor frantic about it at all.

The calmness is overwhelming, and there is not a thing I can do about it, so why bother. I don’t feel as if I could become worried or angry or have any emotion really, even if I concentrated very hard to.

“We must find the King and kill him,” some small voice in my head says.

The deep one, the loudest one, answers, “He is to stay alive until we land. The words are clear in my head. Do not question them.”

I try hard to care, but it’s no use. I just can’t seem to care about anything. It feels like I have no worries any longer. The thought I may be dead is one I’ve had a number of times.

But for some odd reason, I don’t think I am. The fact that I can look out the window for one. I don’t think afterlife has a need for space.

“I am here, Kataline,” I hear the King’s voice. “Do to me what you will, but please allow the others to live. Our oxygen could run out before the tractor beam takes us all the way to Euthenia.”

I squint into the blackness and see nothing. “Why should I care if they make it or not?” My mouth moves to say the words and I could feel that, but that was not my voice or my mind making them.

The King says, “So you no longer care about Kerr?”

“He will be fine. He sleeps as the rest do. They’re taking up little oxygen. I know we’ll get back. And even you as well. I am not to take your life until we’re on the ground. I have been told to allow those who want to, to leave the ships before I destroy them all,” that deep voice says using my mouth.

“Why am I not asleep?” the King asks.

“I was told to let you stay awake. The person you wronged wants you to be acutely aware of what’s going to happen to you. I am not even to tell you how I will kill you. Your mind will go much deeper than my words ever could.”

“Kataline, how did this happen to you? This is not your voice I’m talking to. Can’t you come out and speak with me?” he asks.

I think about trying to get out to talk to him, but the thick water around me moves a little, rocking me and making me want to stay right where I am.

The deep voice answers for me, “She’s happy where she is. She has no wish to talk to you.”

I can hear the King’s sigh. “You have good in you Kataline. I know you do. Why are you letting this evil control you, child?”

I listen as the deep voice answers to him, “Good and evil reside within us all, it’s which voice you choose to listen to that rules you. I simply chose the loudest, Sire.”

“Maybe your true voice could become the loudest. I want to confess something to you. Something I have never told anyone, save the man who did the deed for me.” The King hesitates, and I find myself listening hard for him to talk.

One of the weaker voices asks, “What have you done?”

The higher voice adds, “Oh yes, please tell us. We are dying to know what you did that has this happening to you.”

Confusion fills the tone of the King’s voice as he asks, “Do you mean to tell me, you’re doing all this, and you have no idea what I’ve done or who is doing this to me?”

The high voice answers him, “Only commands have we heard. Only what we are to do. It’s not a woman or a man, only words that run through our brain. ‘Kill the King’ is the dominant phrase, but there are many, many others.”

“Perhaps you do have some type of device inside you as Kerr suggested. Perhaps a scan will show us something that can be removed and bring Kataline back to us.”

The deep voice laughs. It’s a dark and evil sound. “We are all Kataline.”

I float in the thick liquid and wonder why there are so many voices if they are all me. Can I possibly have that many personalities?

A soft voice comes out of me. One that reminds me of a mother’s voice, though, I’ve never had one of those. It sounds like that to me. “Something has triggered each aspect of our whole, which is Kataline, to split apart. Each individual side usually combines to form the whole person. In this case, something has happened to heighten each separate part of the whole. Our powers have been heightened as well. It is I who turned back the laser beams.”

“People don’t have the powers you have, Kataline.” The King sounds frustrated.

The motherly voice says, “Yes, they do. We all have things we can do. Whatever it is that has enlightened us showed us the power we had from the very beginning. You have some too. Everyone does.”

“How can I find mine?” he asks.

“I do not have that answer. We have no idea how this happened to us. We only know we have a common directive. To end your life. It’s a thing some of us are against,” the motherly voice tells him.

“So there’s a chance I can talk you out of this then?” he asks with hope threaded through his voice.

The deep voice comes out quickly, “I am in charge, and I am going to follow the command. So to answer your question. No, there is no chance of you talking us out of it. What must be done is set in stone.”

The King says, “Nothing is ever set in stone, Kataline. Nothing!”

The high voice asks, “Weren’t you going to tell us what you did that has someone wanting you dead, Your Highness?”

“The curious part of you, Kataline?” he asks.

“I am that,” it answers.

The King’s voice goes soft as he says, “I have been a man who has made a couple of very bad decisions. I had my reasons at the time, but looking back at them, they were not good reasons. There are no good reasons to have someone killed, and another exiled for the part he played in it.”

“So that’s it then. I thought as much. You are a murderer,” the high voice says.

“I am.”

The darkness feels heavy for some reason. Or maybe it’s something inside me. Weight is taking me down. A heavy burden seems to have been placed on my body.

My voice comes out of my mouth as my mind shouts out, “Who am I to judge? Who am I to take his life?”

“Kataline!” The King’s voice sounds excited. “Kataline, stay with me, girl!”

I’m yanked back into the warm liquid. It numbs me again. It feels as if a hand runs over my brow and words are murmured around me, “Rest, sleep, do not worry. Let us do that. You rest.”

The voices are calm and soothing. I relax again and let them do the thinking, the talking.

“I am ready to accept my fate for what I’ve done,” the King says. My crime is beyond deplorable. Having my brother kill my wife is something I deserve to die for.”

He killed Kerr’s mother!

The deep voice speaks only to me. “See, he deserves to die.”

“That is not up to us,” I say.

It must’ve come out of my mouth as the King says, “It’s not. You’re right. I will confess to the other royals and take the punishment they give me, Kataline. I swear to you I will confess. Give me a chance to tell my story. I will take whatever they give me, even if that is death.”

The deep voice is back and sounds mad, “It’s not up to her. I am the one in charge, and I will do what we have been directed to do. Leave us. I tire of your talk. I tire of your manipulations for that is what you’re trying to do. It won’t work. Not with me in charge, it won’t.”

My mind fades quickly as I’m pulled beneath the thick liquid.

Can this be stopped?