by Luke Walker
What’s left for me to write down? What’s left for me to say?
Not a great deal. Only that if anyone knew I’d been involved in what happened that night in Ashton Hall, I would be rich beyond imagination. I would be lauded. I would be considered one of the greatest men who ever lived. People would call me the man who saved the world.
But I didn’t save it despite what people might think happened that night. Or despite things improving for all of us due to people working together, coming together to achieve things, to make our lives better as Makepeace hoped. They’re rebuilding cities; there are jobs; there’s hope.
There’s the best of humanity at work now. And all because we don’t live in fear.
Except we should.
I live alone. I don’t work. I know I drink too much and that’s fine with me. It’s easier to drink than eat. Easier to get a hold on things when I don’t have to think clearly.
I’ve lived off my savings and it doesn’t matter now they’ve run out. Nobody comes to see me and that’s exactly as it should be. The Little Naz brought me home that night and said he would come back at some point, but he hasn’t. That’s fine with me. He knows the truth just like I do. He’s either killed himself or gone into hiding.
Because he knew that I knew he was right. It would have been better if we’d stayed away from the hall and the mirror. If we’d left our world to its petty gods, things would be much better.
It’s coming, you see. The Nameless. The real god who lived beyond the mirror. It doesn’t matter that Segoth, Naz Yaah and Gatur haven’t been seen in six months, that they’ve left this world and left people thinking it’s all over. It doesn’t matter that the people infected with Gatur’s influence or the bodies ruined by a god’s dead flesh dropped and decayed into muck as soon as the gods vanished. And it doesn’t matter that Segoth and the others were playing with Tom and me during our mission, amused by our attempts to go against them.
Nothing matters.
Least of all that the mirror is destroyed. It was smashed into countless pieces by my daughter’s body flying into it, her body launched by my gunshot, hitting the glass, breaking it and destroying the way into another world.
There are other ways through. The Nameless knows. The things we called gods knew that, which is why they ran. They’ve gone into hiding. Better that than wait for the real god to arrive and consume them, us, everything.
Because that is what he will do. He knows where we are and while he doesn’t know what we are, I don’t think he cares.
People can rejoice that our rulers have gone. They can talk about rebuilding the world, making it a better, kinder place. They can plan and hope all they like.
It doesn’t matter. I’ve lost Ashleigh. I’ve lost Tom. I’ve lost myself.
I am going to jump from the roof tonight. My story is told. The words are on these sheets of paper and maybe someone will read them one day. Maybe they will hide when they reach the end. Maybe they will kill themselves or maybe they will believe they have a chance.
They do not. None of us do.
We are all finished.
The Nameless is coming.
About the Author
When he was around nine or ten, Luke Walker got hold of his elder brother’s copies of the Pan Books of Horror. Those books, along with his dad’s collections of James Herbert and Stephen King novels, ensured his love of horror and fantasy fiction started early and would be a life-long affair.
Luke began writing his own stories as a teenager, working his way from short fiction to novels. He hasn’t stopped since. After having several short stories published online, his first novel, The Red Girl, was published in 2012, and his second, ’Set, was published about a year later. Luke spends what little free time he has with his wife or watching horror films. And if he runs out of films, he hurls abuse at the news.
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About the Author
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