by Rena Mason
“It was the only way to help you remember.” “To bring you closer to us.”
We are being led through a fleshy junction, something I imagine a sphincter would be like from the inside. We have to squeeze through it. The other side opens to a large circular area about the same size as an ice skating rink. Evenly spaced around the room, are individual compartments which line the bottom of the living breathing walls. They look like cavities roughly dug out of the opalescent gelatin. No need to count them, I know exactly how many there are. The recessed spaces are as wide and long as each one of us. These must be the chambers. And the name for something has never been more appropriate.
When the twenty-seven of us are within the circular area, waves of color flow from our forms in bands and travel up the walls like ripples across a lake. The lights illuminate the slimy sucrose that covers everything, making the iridescent flecks inside sparkle. They dance to the sounds of the different tones, which I’ve also come to realize, distinguishes us as individuals—the color of light we are and the specific pitch of tone. Now that I think of it, I was right all along about the tones sounding like separate voices when their symphonies played in my head.
“Yes,” they chime.
Then one by one, the others glide to the entrance of a cavity and wait. The indigo leads me over to the chamber I assume will be mine, then stays beside me. There is a single empty space left, next to the one I’m in front of, but I wonder why the indigo doesn’t go to it. I understand immediately, when each of the others turns around then backs inside. I watch in horror as the chambers quickly fill with the sugary pearlescent ooze.
I don’t think I can do this.
“You must.” “You will see.” “We will show you.”
No. Dr. Light, please don’t make me. Anxious, I turn to him for a response and as always, there is none. His indigo may be slightly brighter, indicating he might be anxious, too but not by much.
“I will be here. I will watch for ill effects.” “We are all here.”
Ill effects? Oh, hell no! Now I’m really not getting in there.
Images of what the others see appear in my head. Their vision is clouded over except for the dancing lights. Their bodies are suspended within the gelatinous wall. They have become a part of it, like fish frozen in a winter’s pond. The slime underneath my nubs moves me, spins me around. Slowly, I’m backed into the cavity. I reach out for the indigo, and it moves just out of reach. The walls inside begin to heavily secrete the sweet syrup. I panic and reach out again to the indigo. This time it extends a limb then touches mine and sends a surge of calming blue through me. I bring my extremity back and let it rest by my side. Behind me, upward along the circular wall, ringlets of neon blue rise and disappear into the iridescent gelatinous ceiling. It is beautiful—the most spectacular thing I have ever witnessed.
The chamber continues to fill. The slime is cold, wet, and heavy. The lower part of me has already melded with it and solidified. I’m suddenly frantic again, struggling to get free as the ooze seizes my limbs. The red within me begins to pulse. Soon the entire circular room throbs with a bright red glow. My tension affects the others as well. They send their colors out to help calm me. Bright rings of rainbow hues ascend the walls faster and faster. The icy gelatin spreads over what used to be my face. A cool wet sensation envelops it. Still thinking like the human me, I open what I think is my mouth and try to gasp for air.
“No,” they tell me.
It’s too late. The sugary slime enters the hole I made. It feels like acid as it seeps into my head. Every part of what I am now is frozen, paralyzed. I try one last time to move, but it’s no use. Before what I see becomes clouded, too, I notice the indigo that is Dr. Light enters its cavity then is quickly swallowed by the ooze. The circular room starts spinning around.
My head feels like it’s in a vice, getting tighter and tighter. Any moment now it will burst. And then it does. It explodes into a billion stars of rainbow colors. I’m blown against the back of the cavity and kept there by centrifugal force as if I were on a carnival ride. The wall gives way. I’m being sucked backwards by an intense unseen power—absorbed into the very lifesource itself. The others are with me, I can sense them. Together we are fleeting through dark space, space with matter, and time. Then a brilliant white light consumes us, devours everything.
“This is white space.” “The space within time.” “Forward and back.”
Besides not making much sense, their voices sound strange. They don’t echo and cut out.
“It is a vacuum within space.” “A void.”
That little bit of information doesn’t help much, either.
“You will see.”
A sudden flash, then the white disappears. We come to an immediate stop and hover in the middle of space that has matter. I can tell because there are stars—billions of them. This is the space I’m more familiar with as a human.
“Yes.” “Now look.” “And See…”
They turn and face an open area. I follow suit. Then images begin to emerge out of the darkness. Amorphous incandescent clouds of thick gases form around an inordinate amount of floating rubble. They swirl and combine but not without pandemonium. Two bright flashes occur, creating suns. Debris takes planetary shapes around them. A massive planet, easily equaling the size of one of the suns, collides into the smaller of the two suns and causes a great explosion. When the haze clears, there is more debris. The smaller sun has moved far away from the swirling clouds of gas, and its light is dim. It looks more like a planet now. The space rubble continues to take shape, while the smaller darker sun moves further into deep space.
The planets that have formed, and debris, encircle the remaining sun. They continue bashing into each other, sometimes destroying both, sometimes making a bigger planet. In one case the planet becomes two, the smaller one orbiting the bigger. This I believe is Earth and the moon.
“Yes.”
They are two balls of twisting fire and ember—hostile—spinning wild and variable on their axes, revolving around each other in a hellish, high velocity dance. They continue to spin and form. The other planets and their moons do the same under the constant bombardment of debris. The images begin to slow—cool. The Earth is surrounded by a thick cloud layer impossible to see through. And that is when they come.
“Yes.”
The lifesource—dark and invisible, it moves toward Earth then projects an enormous amount of the sweet waste toward the planet. The comet of sugar hurls through space, smoldering and leaving behind a long trail of white smoke. It breaches the cloud layer then disappears. The sucrose substance! It is important to life and not just alien life, but all life—human life. That is how it all began—they did it.
“Yes.” “We.”
Why?
“You will see.” “There is more.” “We will show you.” “Look.” “See.”
The cloud layer vanishes, revealing vast areas of milky green oceans. Then there is more fire and smoke, the Earth is twisting and churning on the inside, but then it clears again and the areas quickly change to blue, brown, green, and white. They are the familiar images of Earth as seen from space. This cycle happens repeatedly then abruptly stops. We seem to be in some kind suspended animation. Suddenly, the others and I fall straight from outer space in a blur. Then we’re hovering again just a few feet over shifting sand in a vast area of high desert dunes. A wind gust carrying millions of sand grains whirls straight through us.
I don’t think we are really here. This is something they are showing me.
“Yes.” “See.”
Just beyond the crest of dunes is a big river valley. Primitive dwellings surround the area. We speedily float toward them, dripping sugar as we go along. The slime disappears when it touches the sand, validating my theory that we are not really here. The others don’t tell me one way or the other—even though I know they can hear my thoughts.
When we get close to one of the buildings, I notice two others there—li
ke us—more than the twenty-seven. But their forms are more human than ours. They have backs, butts, arms, and legs with fingers and toes. They’re not covered in the wet alien sucrose like we are; however, the outer part of their gelatinous bodies does appear to be melting. I’m not sure how long they will last out here in the scorching desert sun.
The extra two, peer through an open window. One is red like me inside, the other indigo blue. I don’t understand why we are here. My slimy gelatin body glistens in hues of red to my tonal thoughts.
“Go and See.”
I was already on my way.
I drift closer and closer until I’m directly behind the other two. They carry on in a conversation as though they don’t see me. I speak to them and ringlets of red move through me, then away without a reaction from either one. I am just a bystander then, here to watch what happens. I move forward to get close enough to understand. Their communication seems heated—for these aliens, anyway. They are rather calm for the most part, from what I’ve seen, nonviolent. Then suddenly I understand or maybe, just remember…I’m not sure exactly, but the red one is me and the indigo, Dr. Light. I turn around and face the twenty-six behind me. I want them to know I remembered something.
They all nod yes, sort of, which makes their heads jiggle like gelatin.
I refocus my attention on what the two See through the window.
We were here to examine and observe life on Earth, Dr. Light and I. Our kind have never been able to procreate and we do not know why. We were created as twenty-seven, and that is all there has ever been of us. There are things about our past we cannot explain or can’t remember. It could be because of the alien sucrose or because of the way we travel through space and time. To always exist and continue existing…it is not natural in light space where there is matter. Forgetting could be a way of keeping soundness in the dark. All the life forms we have bestowed upon and observed in light space eventually evolve. We wonder if this is how we came into existence—not from dark matter, but evolving from light matter to survive in the dark. We want a successful experiment. For all of the travel we have done through dark space, we have found no other life forms like ourselves. That is what drives us—it is so rudimentary and fundamental—we want to know how it is we came to be.
“Yes.”
But then something happened…
Within the dwelling there is an indigenous woman birthing a child. I remember being astounded by the whole nature and idea of birth. We have rarely had the opportunity to view live births so closely in our observations of these newer life forms. The next time we return, these life forms may no longer exist. A relentless yearning overwhelmed me. I wanted more than to watch. I longed to be a part of the experiment. Experience it firsthand. The indigo is opposed to my thoughts. He does not think it’s a wise decision and makes a strong case against it. He argues that we are here as mere observers—evolutionists—sent by our kind to study in brief encounters, then return with our collective findings. His other main concern involves the possible disruption in our means of communication. Something like this has never been done before, and if I was to transfer—project my energy from a dark biological being to a light one—the outcome for the other twenty-six would be uncertain. The risks would far outweigh the benefits of any knowledge gained.
I wouldn’t listen, grew furious. Didn’t think, then entered the room through the window and made my presence known. The indigo tried frantically to call the others, but the Sun’s solar radiation that day was at its peak, and our telepathy was discontinuous. The indigo turned away to get help, and then there was a bright white flash behind him. When he returned to the window, I was gone. I had somehow projected my dark energy life force into the female child. I do not remember how I did it, and the others don’t know, either. That is why I’m still here—there.
They came and spent time with me as I grew—in this place called Sumer—one of Earth’s earliest civilizations. They hoped I would remember how to change back. That is how Dr. Light, the indigo, knew I was seeing Sumer in my visions and not Egypt.
Raging spots whirled on the face of the sun, and a rare cycle of intense solar storms ensued. The others had to go or be destroyed by the electromagnetic radiation. All communication with them was lost after that. I survived—protected within the confines of a human body. When my host died after having a child, I jumped into another and then another. By the time the twenty-six were able to return, I had forgotten what I was. They had to be near in order for the telepathy to work. Sometimes, they were able to get random images and those were the ones they remembered, like Sumer, and the Victorian woman, the Colonial woman, and the 50’s woman. They were always women because I wanted to be a mother.
The others were not able to pinpoint my location until now, because the Vegas strip is such a distinct place in the middle of a desert. They searched heavily in the suburban areas, teeming with families. I See it. I See all of it. But why now, I wonder. It has been so long. They should have gone on without me. Why come back now?
“You will see.” “We will show you.” “Come back to us.”
I leave poor indigo staring into the window alone and return to the others.
Those people—the villagers, they saw what happened. They must have known or suspected something.
“You were revered.” “We taught them what we could.” “They were primitive.” “We helped them build.”
Build?
“Places.” “Cities.” “Pyramids.” “We would return when and where we could, to resume our search for you.” “Always teaching.” “Always building.” “It was futile.”
Futile? No, far from it. They learned quickly. They worshipped you as deities. They did evolve—are still evolving.
“Not enough.” “It was all for nothing.” “It will end.”
And with that, we shoot straight up into the bright white light again, moving forward into space with matter. We come to a stop and hover.
I’m guessing you’re going to show me the future now.
“You are right.” “See.” “It knows.” “It doesn’t.” “It will.”
Earth is far, far away, but we’re still in our own galaxy. Very close to the dim star that was booted out of our solar system when it was first being formed.
“Yes.” “See.” “Look beyond.”
Look behind, is what they really mean. On the other side of the dead star there are two enormous blue-white stars coming together in a spin. They rotate faster and faster until they collide, causing a violent explosion. Beams of light blast from its center. One disintegrates the dim star then continues its path through the galaxy. The shaft of light—pure radiation—is headed straight for Earth!
“Yes.” “Now you see.”
The light passes through the Earth, stripping away layers of atmosphere. This is my nightmare, isn’t it? It is real.
“Yes.”
Everyone will die.
“Yes.”
Including me?
“Yes.”
And the alien me?
“The amount of radiation is too powerful.” “You will disintegrate into nothing.” “We may be destroyed with you.”
That’s not possible. You have the ability to go far away—deep into dark space.
“We are all connected.” “Always living.” “Always together.” “Destroyed as one.”
I understand. The possibility exists, but I don’t think—
“We are most certain.” “You will be our end.” “You must come with us.”
Yes. Now I understand, completely. You need me to go away with you to survive, but I can’t. I have a life on Earth—a child that is mine.
“He is no longer a child.”
He will always be my child.
“You have had many children.” “Lifetimes of experiencing humanity.” “It is time to go.” “There are other ways.”
Other ways?
“Other places.” “This is not the only one.” “Yes.” “There are more.�
� “Come with us.” “See.”
Couldn’t we take some of them? You can’t just leave them all to die.
“No.” “Nothing of light matter survives in the dark.” “We have tried.”
It is always the indigo that speaks last. His words are the most heartfelt compared to the others. He comprehends what I’m thinking better than the rest.
“We all understand.” “We are twenty-seven.” “We are one.” “We all know.”
Yeah, I guess you would, but it doesn’t change my mind about anything. I can’t go with you—I won’t.
“Soon it will be too late.” “All communication will be lost.” “You will be our end.”
The sun storms have been causing all the static, the squealing in and out, and searching for the right frequency. Then I remember…the news…something about intense solar flares and disruptions in signals.
“Yes.”
Suddenly, in a violent rush of light, I feel a pulling sensation from inside me, like I’m being yanked back. The others remain still and calm as I fall away. What is happening? Help!
“It will be our end…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I’m surrounded by an electric blue haze, but it’s not the cool wet indigo of Dr. Light. It is hard, warm, and not alive. The harmonic tones have been replaced by resonating mechanical ticks and swoosh sounds. They remind me of the noises a Hula-Hoop makes, only a hundred times louder. My throat feels raw, and something is inside it. It is choking me. I can’t breathe! Every attempted breath leaves a raspy sting in my lungs. There’s an acrid taste on my tongue and something stuck to my face. Whatever it is down my throat, it’s also coming out of my mouth! I reach up to move it away, and my hand knocks a solid surface just above my face. Something catches my forearm, pulls, and there’s a sharp twinge. Icy fluid trickles down and pools in my armpit. I’m trapped in a tight space—like a coffin! Maybe back on Earth, they thought I was dead. Tubes are coming out of me everywhere—I could be in the middle of some kind of embalming process. I panic and struggle to get out. Pitch a raucous fit by banging my feet, knees, and hands against the hard surface.