The Resurgent

by Blake Wilbanks

  It only lasted a few moments and then it was over. Tyler sighed in relief, sucking in a deep breath of air then let it out slowly. The atmosphere around them was filled with awkward tension, now.

  Their conversation was over after that. The two of them turned back to the television and watched the movie until the end in a tension-filled silence.

  It was warm and cozy, now. The credits were rolling, it was quiet, and a wave of tiredness took over him. He fell asleep listening to the crackling of the fire mixed with Xavier’s steady breaths. It was soothing; almost like a lullaby one would sing to their restless child, but not quite.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  XAVIER STOOD OVER the stove, making the scrambled eggs and hot dogs that he and Demetria had agreed on a few hours before. He was listening to music on the radio—that either Demetria or Tyler had taken from their short visit to the school—at a low volume because Tyler and Demetria were both asleep on the couch and he didn’t want to wake them.

  When he woke thirty minutes before, he put fresh firewood into the pit of the fireplace. The whole downstairs was warm. It felt cozy like a cottage in the woods in the middle of winter.

  And for a minute the thought made him think of a time where he and his family went to a ski lodge a few winters back. He is the only one that didn’t ski. Instead, he stayed inside and read books. Until his parents dragged him from the cottage, and pulled him into the cold, just to do something other than reading. Xavier never liked those times that much. The cottage was warm; it was his temporary safe haven, and being pulled from it was something that he deeply didn’t enjoy.

  He didn’t dwell on it for long, because he didn’t want to burn the mass of eggs and cut-up hot dog that he was scrambling in a skillet.

  He swayed and hummed along to the slow tune of the song that was playing. It was an old Fleetwood Mac album that his father listened to a lot when he was younger. The song was chill, and it seemed like the perfect song to listen to while cooking. And in some instances—him cooking, swaying to the music, and humming along—this moment could be considered perfect. But Xavier knew better than to think that.

  “Do you need some help?” said Tyler from where he stood in the doorway. “I know I’m not that good in the kitchen, as Demetria so astutely pointed out, but I’d love to help in any way that I can if you’ll let me.”

  Xavier nodded. “Sure,” he said. “You can set the table. Or, if you don’t think Demetria will mind, we can eat in the living room in front of the fire, while we watch TV.”

  Tyler does as he’s told, getting plates down from the cupboard and setting the table. Then he toasted a few slices of bread and buttered them as evenly as he could.

  “Here,” said Xavier, taking a slice of toast off the plate in front of Tyler and buttering it.

  “Halloween is in two weeks,” said Tyler after a few moments of concentrated silence. “Are you going to dress up? I know that you loved dressing up—at least before everything that has happened. Which—” he let out a low chuckled. “—I’m still not sure what it is that is going on. I don’t think what has happened is the rapture. Because the rapture is supposed to bring on the end of the world, it’s been a few weeks and nothing has really happened.”

  “No,” Xavier said, setting the last piece of toast that he had just finished buttering down on the plate. “Nothing really has happened. But maybe it takes longer than just a few weeks. We don’t know how it really works. I’m scared every day about what is to come, and every day that nothing happens, anticipation builds in my chest and it strengthens my fear. But I can’t control anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen, nor do I really think I want to. I just want to live my life day-by-day, until whatever happens happens. And whatever that is, I hope that everything works out all right.”

  Tyler nodded and for a lack of anything better to say, he said, “Yeah, same. I guess you’re right.”

  There was a long moment of silence before either of them spoke again. In that time Xavier finished dinner and Tyler finished setting the table and making the toast.

  “Demetria and I kissed while you were asleep,” said Tyler. “Just thought that you should know.”

  Xavier took in Tyler’s words for a second, his face twisting into one of confusion. His eyes furrowed into slits and his mouth was agape in wonder. “You just thought that I should know?” asked Xavier in a tone that was laced with disbelief. “Why would you think that I’d want to know that? I don’t care what you do. It’s none of my business. You can do whatever you want.”

  “I thought you should know because I didn’t know if you liked her or not.”

  “Well, I don’t. She and I are just friends, have been since we were babies. I don’t see her like that if anything I think of her as a sister. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Okay,” said Tyler in reply.

  “Do you like her? Or was it just a spur of the moment kind of thing?”

  Tyler shook his head. He hesitated for a moment. “I think that it might have been a spur of the moment kind of thing. I don’t know, she kissed me. I don’t know if I like her, it feels kind of disrespectful in a way, considering the circumstances at hand. As I said, I don’t know.”

  Xavier opened his mouth to speak. To say that he understood what it was that Tyler was trying to say, but before he could get a word out, he was interrupted by Demetria, who stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

  “So you don’t know if you like me?” she said, making Tyler jump. “That’s fine. You don’t have to.”

  “No,” said Tyler. “It’s not that.”

  Demetria shook her head and held up a hand in dismissal. “You don’t have to explain. It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Well,” interjected Xavier, trying to reduce the awkward tension that was starting to build between the two of them. “Let’s eat.”

  Neither of them replied. They all sat down at the table, Tyler at one end, Demetria at the other, and Xavier in the middle. For the most part, they ate in silence. Normally, Demetria and Tyler would indulge in a bit of small talk, but that wasn’t the case this time.

  Xavier and Tyler only said a few words to one another. The silence was beginning to be a little too much when a loud crash sounded from outside.

  Xavier jumped to his feet and ran for the front door, throwing it open. There was a car outside his house, rammed into a streetlight. The front end of the car was smashed in, damaged to hell and back. It must have been going pretty fast to have amassed the damage that it had caused.

  He ran to the car as fast as he could and threw open the driver door. There was a woman hunched over the steering wheel, blood trailing down the side of her head. With a groan, she raised her head slowly, looking around at her surroundings. She was disoriented, looking anywhere but at Xavier.

  He tried to get her attention, but there was something in the distance that caught her eye, and when he looked up a shocked gasp jumped from his throat.

  “What the hell is that?” said Tyler. He was standing a few feet away from where Xavier was, and beside him stood Demetria, looking up at the sky with an almost terrified look in her eyes.

  He hadn’t even known that they had followed him out. He, being the naturally curious person that he was, couldn’t resist running outside and checking to see if the woman that had rammed her car into a streetlight was okay.

  She was. But she would still need to be put somewhere to rest for a little while, the impact from the crash and where she hit her head, could have caused her to have a concussion. None of them knew if she did. But it was always better to be safer than sorry.

  Xavier couldn’t take his eyes away from whatever it was that was in the sky. The ripple danced around it like a heavy current and the stars seemed to shine brighter for some reason. Then there was a long glowing beam of green that stretched down from it, blanketing a small stretch of the ground below it in a deep green color.

  “What
is that?” said Tyler, once again.

  Xavier fumbled for words, stammering on them until eventually, he gathers the wits to force them out. “It – it looks like a—uh—a UFO. An alien spaceship.”

  His words made everything that was happening before him seem more real. And a shiver ran up his spine as a sliver of fear and anticipation gathered in the pit of his stomach, taking up sanctuary there and threatening to never leave.

  The light was there for a few long seconds and then in the blink of an eye, it was gone. None of them made to move. They all stood in shock, except for the woman, she lied in the driver seat of her car with her head thrown back, taking in deep breaths of air. The atmosphere was one of still silence, then everything that had happened recapped in Xavier’s mind, and hesitantly he took a step forward, toward the woods where the light had once been.

  The UFO was still showing in the sky, all steel-like and menacing. But at the moment all of Xavier’s commonsense had been pushed to the back of his mind, and with that, he was deprived of the ability to properly think. Instead, he acted on impulse, his feet doing all the thinking, pushing forward, and running into the woods where an unexplainable light had once been, an Alien Spaceship towering over its many trees.

  There was no time to think, just do. With each stomp of his feet, he could feel jolts of pain running up his legs from the sheer force of them hitting the ground. He powered through the pain, desire and curiosity fueling him and clouding his ability to coherently register the jolts of pain coursing through his legs.

  It didn’t take him long to reach the woods, and it didn’t take him long to find whatever it was—he wasn’t so sure himself—that he was looking for. He followed the very prominent source in the sky, it acted as his GPS, his North Star, and soon he was standing in the very center of the woods where a clearing was settled.

  It was then that he stopped, taking in deep breaths of air. His heart was pounding heavily against his chest, almost as if it were trying to break free from the confines of his ribcage that acted as its prison. He closed his eyes, and the image of the deep green light appeared, he was imagining that it was there again, to relive the moment before he forgot it.

  He opened his eyes a few moments later. His breathing had evened out, and the beating of his heart that was once a chaotic orchestra in his chest was nothing but a steady beat now. The image that he saw was gone, but he knew where the exact placement of where the light once was.

  He moved, tentatively, to the center of the opening, watching the bottom of the Spaceship as he walked, he was a few steps away from the center when he stopped, the low sound of muffled hums halting his movements. He looked down, a few steps in front of him there was a bundle of something in a mess of white sheets left in the place of where the gleaming light had once been.

  There were still muffled sounds coming from it, and from what Xavier could see, thanks to the pale glow of the moon, there were small movements coming from the bundled mess.

  He lowered himself level with it, his hand hovering just a few inches above it. He was contemplating whether he should throw the sheet off and see what was under it, but just as he was about to the sound of Demetria and Tyler yelling from behind him, halted his movements.

  “Stop!”

  They both yelled the exclamation in unison. They weren’t that far from the clearing, but they were far away enough that if he threw off the sheet, whatever it is that was under it wouldn’t be able to hurt them if it just so happened to be dangerous. And with that in mind, fueling him onward, he jerked the sheet away from whatever it was and threw it in a bundled up ball away from him.

  He was prepared for the worst. He really was. But what he saw wasn’t dangerous, not in the slightest sense of the word. Demetria’s parents—Denya and Legan—laid flat before him. He hovered over them. They looked afraid, restrained with tendrils of rough twine that cut into their skin every time they tried to move. Their faces were streaked with tears and black and blue bruises. They looked malnourished, their skin clinging uncomfortably tight to their bones.

  The sight was almost unbearable and it left Xavier with a strong feeling of nausea and shock, but he pushed it back, swallowing down the acidic bile that crept slowly up his throat, and forced himself not to think about it. With gentle hands, he untied the both of them from their restraints. When he was done Tyler and Demetria had finally reached them.

  Xavier turned to look at them. Tyler’s mouth was agape in confusion. And Demetria’s was laced with confusion, but it vanished when the sound of Denya croaking her name danced through the air.

  Demetria surged forward, falling into her mother and father’s arms. Sobs wracked through their bodies. It was a happy reunion, and the tears that fell from their eyes were happy tears, no doubt, but the situation at hand didn’t allow for them the luxury of being able to fully enjoy it.

  Tyler and Xavier stood a few feet away from them as they finished their little reunion. They stood awkwardly, side by side, waiting for it to be over. Which was sooner than they thought that it would have been.

  Demetria stood to her feet, pulling her mother up with her and then pulling her father up as well. They were a little unsteady on their feet, but it didn’t take long for them to adjust.

  “Xavier,” croaked Denya.

  She was going to say more, but Xavier didn’t give her the chance, before he was surging forward himself, and wrapping his own arms around her. He could feel the burning prickle of tears threatening to form in his eyes, but he blinked them back. He didn’t want to cry, and it took a lot of will-power for him not to, he was just so relieved to see them. And the feeling of being able to hold someone and have someone hold him back was an amazing feeling. He felt safe. It was something that he hadn’t felt in so long.

  He relaxed into Denya’s arms, tearing down the walls that he had built up to keep strong, relieving himself of the tenseness of strength. They came tumbling down one by one, dissipating into nothing but piles of debris and rubble.

  And then after that, nothingness.

  Though he let down his walls, he still fought hard to not cry. He had given up his strength, and tore down his walls for the temporary feeling of safety, just to have it for a little while—even though he knew that it wouldn’t last. He still refused to let himself cry. That was a release that he would have to hold onto till the end. It was for some time when he was alone. Whenever that would be.

  After a minute, he pulled away from Denya’s embrace, and did the best he could at piecing together his walls, and gathering what little there was left of his strength. But even as he tried to rebuild them, he knew that they wouldn’t be as strong and steady as they had once been.

  The renovated walls were patchy and missing a few slabs of brick. There were holes in walls where there once hadn’t been. The architecture wasn’t as great as it had recently been. And it was fragile. So fragile that if a big bad wolf were to come along, it would be able to tear the whole structure down with a single huff and puff.

  He gathered his wits. Shaking out his hands, he turned to look at Legan. “Hey,” he said, moving forward, wrapping his arms around him. Legan’s was different than Denya’s. His was stronger and rougher. Hers was gentle and softer, more nurturing and caring than his.

  He was just relaxing into the hug when he felt like he was being pulled away from it, and when he opened his eyes he was being pulled off the ground. It was then that he noticed the menacing eye above him at the bottom of the Spaceship had opened up again; the deep green light was gleaming down from it again, surround him, and was pulling him up.

  “Xavier!” yelled Tyler, surging forward and grasping him by the hand in an attempt to try and pull him away from the light, but it didn’t work. It just started pulling him up, as well.

  Demetria called their names from below. It became a distant murmur as they were pulled further and further up. They were coming closer and closer to the eye and neither of them knew what to expect. They look
ed each other in the eyes, bracing themselves for whatever it was that was coming. The sliver of fear that Xavier had felt before was now beginning to take over him, and once again, he could feel the sad excuse for his walls start to crumble.

  The fear had become the big bad wolf and without any warning, it had huffed and puffed and blown his walls into nothing but shreds of debris that had no hopes of ever being mended. He was broken. His strength couldn’t be mended. And the fear and anxiety that had once been confined by the prison that was known as his walls, was now nagging and prodding at him from within, begging to be released into the core of him and his bloodstream.

  As they neared the eye, everything began to be too much for him, and then everything was taken over by darkness. He could no longer see Tyler. He could no longer see anything.

  The darkness had swallowed the light. It had swallowed everything whole.

  * * *

  Xavier opened his eyes slowly and then closed them, just as fast as he had opened them, with a low groan. The room that he was in was white, and the light shining down on him was bright. So bright that the intensity of it could be compared to that of the sun.

  He waited a few moments, preparing himself for the bright light that was sure to come. He opened them slowly and let them adjust to the light. It burned his eyes and made them water a bit. He blinked them away, then turned his head to the side and confusion consumed him. And then everything, like a whirlwind everything came crashing into him and realization of everything that had happened just hours before. And the sliver of fear that he had felt before coiled up in the pit of his stomach again.

  He knew that he was on the Spaceship, or at least he thought that he was, everything was still a little fuzzy for him.

  The room that he was in was pure white and looked almost like a Lab. The room was vacant, save for the metal hospital-like bed that he was laying on. He hesitantly pushed himself upward and into a sitting position, willing away all of the thoughts of what had happened before, and looked around. There wasn’t much to see, but it didn’t stop him from surveying the entirety of the area. His eyes stopped on the doors and he pushed himself off onto his feet, treading forward, slowly, and stopping a few feet away from them.