by Matt Blake
Then, I slipped into darkness.
I blinked a few times, and I realized right then that I was back.
The force was heading to me.
Orion, Saint, and Daniel were by my side.
Confusion taunted me. I looked from left to right, losing my grip on this reality. “This place. And—and my dad. What is it?”
Saint turned to me. “What you’re seeing is what will happen if you don’t believe.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Believe what?”
Saint was silent, just for a few seconds. He turned back to look at the oncoming force. “You need to believe the world will collapse. You need to prepare for it. Or the world really will collapse.”
I looked back at the force.
Only this time, I saw something in the darkness. Something I could comprehend. But something I couldn’t really understand.
There was a small, circular body of a creature. It looked metallic, like some kind of spaceship.
And shooting out of it were five long, metallic tentacles with pincers on the end, getting closer and closer and…
6
“Dad!”
I jolted upright. I was still surrounded by darkness, but this darkness wasn’t as thick and foreboding as the darkness that had been in my visions.
No, not visions. Dreams. That’s all they were.
Right?
A little moonlight peeked in through my window. It didn’t make me feel much calmer, which I knew it should do, considering it confirmed that I had been dreaming again after all.
Instead, it just made me pull the bed covers over my head and squeeze my eyes tightly shut.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, underneath the covers. I listened to the traffic passing by outside. I could hear birdsong, which meant daylight was approaching. My eyes kept on drifting shut, and I felt sickly and nauseous as hell through lack of decent sleep. But anything was better than those dreams. Anything was better than the destruction I’d seen, inside my mind.
I knew what I’d seen. I’d seen Orion, Saint, and Daniel there again. I’d been back in that awful place, wherever it was, that I’d gone to after I’d fought Catalyst. I’d seen something approaching. That dark force hurtling at me, all over again.
Only this time, I’d seen the face of that force.
I’d look deep into its eyes, and I’d seen the things surrounding it. The robotic creatures, with long, metal tentacular arms.
They were terrifying, but I’d seen what was beyond it, and although I knew I’d looked into the face of that oncoming darkness, I couldn’t remember exactly what it’d looked like.
It was like my mind was forcing it out of the forefront of my consciousness, urging me not to see.
I heard footsteps creaking outside my room. Immediately, I tensed my fists. I would fight if I had to.
But then I heard Cassie’s cough, as she walked down the stairs, clearly struggling for sleep just like I was.
I thought about going downstairs and joining her. I thought about telling her about the dreams. But I knew what that meant. Not only would Cassie take them seriously, goddammit, but I’d be forced to take them seriously too.
Taking the dreams seriously meant accepting that something really was wrong. That something was totally amiss.
I knew that Cassie and the others knew that there was something wrong about my disappearance, too. I’d told them I’d died. There was no way I could survive a thing like what happened to me.
And yet, somehow, I had, and I was here.
I pulled the covers away from my face and sat up at the end of my bed. I looked around my room. Television. PlayStation. Xbox. Laptop. All these things I used to distract myself with, and now none of them appealed at all.
I knew what my choices were. I either went downstairs and spoke to Cassie, or I didn’t, and I kept on accepting that I was going to fall to sleep, and I was going to have those dreams.
I heard water pouring out of the tap, down into the sink.
There was still time to go down there and speak with my sister.
I heard her walking up the stairs, getting closer to her room again.
There was still time to go out. To face her.
I heard her stop just outside my bedroom door, and I wondered for a moment if she knew. If she wanted to speak just as much as I did. Maybe she was having the dreams, too.
I was just about to stand up and call her name when she kept on walking past my room and disappeared into her bedroom, and the moment was gone.
But the thoughts were not.
I couldn’t face up to the dreams.
Something about them—something intangible, which I didn’t even understand myself yet—was just too terrifying.
I put a little ice on the top and bottom of my eyelids and froze it solid enough to hold them in place.
I wasn’t getting any sleep tonight.
7
“Shit, man. You look like crap.”
I pulled my hood up, covering my face some more. I didn’t want anyone to see me. As far as the world was concerned, I was dead, and I wanted to keep things that way. The second the world realized I was still alive again, they’d just find me another problem to solve. And I wasn’t in the frame of mind to be solving problems right now.
It was a bright, crisp day. There was a lot of snow underfoot, which had frozen over. I had to watch my every step to make sure I didn’t slide. If I did slide, I’d probably fall flat on my face. My hood would come back, and someone would see who I was.
Dammit. When would I start actually growing a decent amount of facial hair so I could hide my baby face for good?
The buildings of Staten Island towered over me. Okay, maybe not Manhattan towering, but towering enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I unzipped my coat a little at the neck and looked to my left, to my right, over my shoulder.
Then I felt a hand on my arm, and I flinched.
“Whoa,” Damon said. He was walking with me, Avi by his side. “Relax, man. It’s Staten Island. No one’s gonna see you, and no one’s gonna care if they do.”
I puffed out my lips. “No one will care?”
“Well,” Damon said. “They’ll care, sure. But what’re you gonna do for the rest of your life? Keep your emo hood pulled up over your eyes and hope no one’ll recognize you?”
I sighed. “Something like that.”
We kept on walking along the sidewalk. There was more than one reason why I was keeping my hood up. I didn’t want to be recognized, sure, but I also didn’t want Damon or Avi or anyone, for that matter, to see how sleep-deprived I looked.
The dreams weren’t far from my mind.
But hell. I’d made the decision to dismiss them. Now, I just had to try my best to live a normal life—as hard as that was going to be.
“Hell, hoods down after all,” Avi said. “Some mean looking dudes up ahead.”
I saw a trio of guys, probably a similar age to us, walking toward us, and my stomach sank. I reflexively pulled my hood down a little more and lowered my head a little.
The two guys on either side were muscular and well built, clearly overdoing it on the protein shakes. The one in the middle was small and weedy. I wondered whether they intentionally positioned themselves like that, to try and make it look like their leader had more weight and strength than it seemed.
It wasn’t fooling me.
And yet still, I was scared.
“Hold up,” the shorty in the middle said. He was sniffing at the air. “Is it just me or do I smell a bunch of dorks?”
His two friends chuckled. Right away, I felt my stomach sink some more. My instinct was just to keep on walking and stay out of trouble. Once upon a time, I might have tried to fight, but I just wanted to get on with spending some time with my friends. I didn’t want any trouble today.
“Hey,” a deep voice said. I felt a hand hit my chest, pushing me back. “I’m speaking to you.”
I looked into the eyes of this short, scrawny little
asshole, and I gritted my teeth together.
The scrawny kid lowered his head like he was trying to look into my eyes, underneath my hood. “Hullo? Is there a real life person in there?”
Again, his goofy friends chuckled. Surprised if they had a brain cell between them.
“You should back off,” Damon said.
All of them turned to him and narrowed their eyes.
“What did you just say?”
“I said you should back off.”
Silence followed. My heart pounded. I didn’t want any trouble. I just wanted Damon to stop.
“Hold on,” the short guy said, raising his hands. “I recognize you.”
My heart leapt. For a second, I thought he was speaking to me.
But then I realized his eyes were squarely focused on Damon.
“Yeah, you’re familiar. You’re… Shit. You’re one of those freaks, aren’t you? The freaks with the powers? Holy hell, Seb! It’s one of those freaks!”
I heard their laughter and their amazement, and I felt a different emotion. This time, I felt total disgust. Disgust that these people were mocking my best friend, laughing off his abilities like he hadn’t done anything bold or grand like, oh, I dunno, saving the whole damned world.
“You should show some respect, boss,” Avi mumbled.
In my mind, I was begging him just to stop.
The trio turned their attention to Avi. They looked him up and down, a glimmer of disgust in the short guy’s eyes. “And why would I do that?”
“Because these guys saved your lives. They saved all your lives.”
There was a pause.
Then, the short guy turned to me. “These guys?”
My body went cold. I felt my muscles tightening. “Come on,” I said, grabbing Damon and Avi’s arms. “Let’s—”
“No,” the short guy said. As he spoke, the two muscular guys beside him grabbed me by the biceps, holding me in place. “You don’t go anywhere. Not without telling us your name.”
Total fear washed over me. I could feel my skin crawling, my cheeks going pale. I looked at Damon and then at Avi, but I knew I was alone in this. This problem was mine to deal with. I just wasn’t sure if I had the strength to.
“Let’s see your face,” the short guy said. He nodded at his friend on the right.
The guy pulled up my hood.
I held my breath.
There were two things that happened, then. On one hand, I saw the swift recognition in the eyes of all three of these guys. I saw them looking at me like they knew me, and then realizing how they knew me.
I should’ve been afraid. I should’ve been goddamned terrified.
I didn’t have a chance to be.
Because behind the trio we were standing off against, there was a blast.
It was loud, and it shook the ground beneath. Right away, a ball of fire rose from the crash site, illuminating the sky a weird shade of red.
There was a darkness there, too. A thick blackness that made me wonder, what if?
“Shit,” the short guy said, his voice cracking. “Let’s—let’s get the hell out of here.”
They ran away as the screams and the shouts started to rise around the crash site.
I heard Damon saying things to me.
I heard Avi saying things to me.
But all I could focus on was what I was seeing.
The thing that had caused the explosion had fallen from the sky.
The thing that had caused the explosion was one of those machines I’d seen in my dreams.
The metallic object with long, sharp tentacles by its side.
And following it, darkening the sky, there was another one, just like it.
“What do we…” Avi started.
But it was too late.
Before the thing could crash into the earth and crush us in its path, I grabbed the pair of them and teleported them away.
But even as I disappeared, I knew what was happening, and what I had to face up to.
My dreams were coming true.
They were a reality after all.
8
“Kyle, what is it? Because something’s on your mind. I can just tell.”
I heard Ellicia’s voice, but I couldn’t respond to her words. I was sat on her sofa, holding her hand. The television was on; the volume turned up to the max. Every channel was filled with the same news report: the strange object that had crashed into earth in New York. The devastation it had caused.
There were all kinds of speculation. Talks that this was an alien invasion. There were reports that this was some kind of fallen satellite. There were even rumors of government experiments, and some talk of ULTRAs.
But really, nobody knew. And that’s what stirred up the fear more than anything.
“Kyle?” Ellicia said, squeezing my hand. “What’s wrong?”
I swallowed a lump in my dry throat. My eyes stung, my body crying out for sleep but my mind begging for anything but. I turned and looked at Ellicia; the first time I’d looked away from the television all afternoon. “It’s just… this. It’s pretty scary. Don’t you think?”
Ellicia narrowed her eyes. “I know when you’re lying to me, Kyle. You’re hiding something from me. What is it?”
I turned away and sighed. I should’ve known better than to lie to Ellicia. She was becoming almost as good as my sister at telling when I wasn’t being completely honest.
“I mean, you come back here out of nowhere. And all of a sudden you’re acting all weird. You clearly haven’t been sleeping. The whole world thinks you’re dead and now…” She pointed at the television, the rolling news of the devastation caused by the fallen craft. “Now this. What’s happening, Kyle? And don’t tell me you’re just interested in this because you think it’s a little weird.”
I lowered my head. I knew I had a choice. I could tell Ellicia what I’d seen in the dreams, or I could keep those dreams to myself. Neither choice was easy. If I told Ellicia, again, it was the same-old problem of facing up to a problem I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to fight. If I kept it to myself and things got worse, I was going to be forced to live with the knowledge that I could have done something to prevent it; I could have acted.
But could I?
What was I supposed to do?
Outside, I heard sirens, which just made me feel sick because they reminded me just how close the chaos really was. I looked back at the screen, where various news reporters from around the world were all talking and discussing this craft.
“We’ve got sources in China suggesting that this really could be some kind of intergalactic threat.”
And another report: “It’s clearly a satellite. You can tell from the antenna that it’s a satellite.”
And another: “What if this is Saint? What if there’s someone out there—someone worse than Saint—and who is here to defend us now?”
I heard all the panic, all the confusion, and I knew that I was doing the world a disservice if I just sat back.
“If you know something,” Ellicia said, “then you have a right to do something about it. I know you might not like the sound of that, but it’s who you are. You’re Kyle Peters. You’re Glacies.”
I felt my toes curl when Ellicia said my name, and the word “Glacies.” That name didn’t have the might that it used to have, at least not in my mind. Because Glacies was me, and I wasn’t strong enough.
But she was right. I did have a right to do something about it. I had a duty, even.
I put my arm around Ellicia and I pulled her close. “I’m gonna be okay. We’re gonna be okay.”
She moved in closer to me. “I hope so, Kyle. I really do.”
Ellicia fell asleep on my shoulder. I kept my focus on the television.
But when she was snoring, I gently moved her aside, resting her head on the pillow.
The police might have set up a perimeter around the fallen object.
The army might be securing the area.
But I
had to know what was happening because it felt to me like something terrible was unfolding.
I stood up, took a deep breath, and looked down at Ellicia.
Then I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth together, and teleported out of here.
I didn’t want to face up to what I’d seen in those dreams.
But I was going to that fallen object, whatever it was.
I was going to find out what it was doing here.
9
I hovered above the crash site and waited for the perfect opportunity.
The moon shone brightly in the night sky. There was a chill in the air, as Christmas fast approached. I knew more snow would be on its way. The snow always hit New York hard, causing havoc and chaos for residents and tourists alike. Had to admit, it was kinda funny how much havoc it caused tourists as soon as they realized “New York snow” wasn’t the romantic thing the movies and television shows made it out to be.
But this year, I figured there’d be way more focus on some other object that’d fallen from the sky than a bit of snow.
The crash site was just as weird and as amazing as I’d expected. There was a crater, that must’ve been about fifty meters deep. Protruding from that crater, a perfectly spherical dark metallic object. By its side, there were long, metallic arms, like tentacles, with pincers on the end. The first one of those objects that’d fallen was smaller, but this was massive. A pincer alone was enough to pick a person up and throw them right across the New York skyline.
I was afraid of this situation. Of course I was. Who wouldn’t be? But I was Glacies. And I knew that meant I had a duty to the whole world to investigate this craft, if that was indeed what it was after all.
I ignored the fact that I’d seen this craft before, in what I believed were my dreams. I didn’t know what to make of those visions.
I just knew that right now, I had to get on with investigating, for the good of myself and the good of everyone else.
There was a line of armed guards standing in front of the crash site. They were wearing military gear and were armed to the brink. Beside them, there were water cannons, as journalists scrambled around them. There was another line further in front of them, too—a line of police officers, who were trying to calm people down.