Light Bearing

by Ben Woollard

  A number of people stood in the auditorium, some of whom were lined up against the wall to my right, while others were writhing in the center where the seats should’ve been, making noises like tortured animals and gripping their skulls until the blood trickled over the cellulose of their nails. Vomit and urine soaked the floor and gave rise to a smell that made my eyes water. They lined me up with those against the wall and hissed a warning not to speak or run. I saw that more initiates stood by the doorway they had led me through, and that all other exits had been sealed off.

  I watched as a girl at the front of the line was taken onto the stage and made to sit. The Device was placed on her head. She tried to keep it off her head, jerking back and forth and sobbing, but the Singulars held her into the chair while the helmet was put on. A singular came to the front of the stage, an old woman in tattered robes, her head shaved like the rest. She raised her arms, and when she spoke all the other Singulars in the room spoke in unison with her, though her voice was by far the loudest.

  “Great am I, Proélefsi!” she said, and the entire room echoed with the sound of unified voices. Even those writhing in the center spoke along with her between their gags and moaning, interrupted by vomiting and chocking on the stench rising from the pile of them. “May the light of unification blind us all! May the world come to know the fire that is I! Stand in worship of me! Stand in awe of me! The great Proélefsi! I have become God! I have conquered Satan! I am both the prophet and the savior!” and all the Singulars laughed in harmony, an upwelling cackle of such insanity it made my entire body shake. “What is your name, girl?” the women, speaking alone now, asked the shaking figure on the stage.

  “Ky-Kylie” she said, eyes darting from the woman in front of her to those of us lined along the wall. I realized this must’ve been the girl Shiloh had come here with.

  “You will become I, Kylie. You will be immortal! You will be all-knowing!” and with that woman flipped a switch on the control panel of The Device, and the entire room was filled with light. I was blinded by it, and for minutes afterwards still saw the floating figment of its shape. When it faded I could again see the stage, with the girl still sitting in the chair. She looked the same, but her movements had changed. She was no longer crying, but appeared as if she were sick and wracked with nausea. Sweat streamed off her face, and as the Singulars took the helmet off her head she sprawled forward and fell into the center where all the newly changed lay in torment.

  “Thus we all become!” the Singulars shouted all together.

  The next person brought up was a boy who looked only fifteen or so. He was put into the chair and the whole process was repeated, with the same words spoken, and the same results. The boy’s name was Sergo, and again when the light faded he shook and took his place in the center of the floor. The next was brought up, and again the old woman came to the front of the stage and put her arms up. But this time she hesitated, and I saw lines of sweat beginning to fall from her shining head, forming waterways that streamed miniscule down her face. All the other Singulars stood silent. Then the woman spoke, and they all spoke with her, but she alone did not finish the sentence. The woman started to convulse and grasped her head, shaking it back and forth.

  “I have become God! I have become savior!” The other Singulars were shouting, repeating the same words over and over again until they trailed off into silence. The woman continued to shake her head, and began muttering something unintelligible.

  When the others had become silent, the woman didn’t move, but only continued to mutter to herself. The boy in the chair stared at her, his face scared and pale. The woman’s words got louder and louder until we could all hear what she was saying.

  “Proélefsi!” she said, almost yelling now. “I am Proélefsi! NO! Kylie? Fuck!” She acted like she was having a fight with someone, like a real argument was taking place somewhere in her head. None of the other Singulars moved, and all of them kept looking straight ahead. “You did this to me!” the woman shouted, falling to her knees. “You? I don’t know you.” Then she screamed and it was like no sound I’ve ever heard before or since. In it was the fragmentation of a thousand minds into a thousand thoughts and the breaking down of everything. All the initiates started screaming with her, and I clasped my hands over my ears to blot it out. They all began to shake their heads and cry. Those in the center beat violently against one another, and I saw heavy blood pour out of them, soaking into the filth already suffusing the floor.

  I was still for a moment, amazed and horrified by what I was seeing. The others in line must have felt the same since none of us moved. Finally I realized what was happening and jolted awake. I broke from the line on the wall and ran as fast as I could towards the door that I’d come through. I shot past the Singulars who’d been standing guard and were now smashing their heads into the floor so hard I could hear the bone crack. I ran through those tunnels calling for my brother until I head his voice faintly from down a hallway to my left. I followed it until I found the iron door and turned the circle handle of the lock to open it. Those inside looked up at me with confused and bleary eyes.

  “Run!” I yelled to them. “Get out! Everyone get out!”

  “What happened?” Shiloh asked me, “Where’d you go?”

  “Later,” I said, “once we’re out of here!”

  Chapter 8

  We ran through the tunnels, everybody splitting up. Me and Shiloh opened every door we could find, letting out the people inside, but without finding a way up to the surface. Every now and then we would see a Singular. They were all still in a state of complete confusion, but it seemed like they might be coming out of it. I saw one of them standup and run at one of the escapees and tackle him. He started to beat the man’s head into the floor, laughing manic all the while. I kicked the Singular as hard as I could but it was too late, and I ran before he could recover. Finally we found stairs and ran up them, throwing open the hatch to reveal the speckling of stars upon the night sky. We were dazed, not knowing what time it was while underground. The air felt fresh and was filled with the damp smell of soil after recent rain. I yelled back into the echoing metal of the halls, mazeways that led into deeper confines of that hell Alexei’s Grove, but I saw no one behind us. I yelled again and still heard silence. We’d been so filled with panic that no one stuck together, going all directions, desperate to find the way out.

  We waited there for a moment, hoping that some of the others would appear and climb the stairs with us, but still we heard nothing. We exited through the small hatch and stood, feeling near dead, exhausted beyond belief. From behind us, down the hatch, we heard the echoing of gunfire. A ways away we heard the sound of another hatch being opened, and saw the silhouette of a figure scramble up from beneath the earth, followed by a second who grabbed at the first. Me and Shiloh ran towards the pair rolling in the mud and fallen leaves. The one on top was laughing and banging his fists into the downed figure. Between his laughter he spoke quickly to himself; the only word I caught was “vermin”. We pulled the attacking form off the prostrate man, and recognized the face of Theo. The Singular shook and tried to tear himself from us but we held him tight.

  “Knock the bastard out!” Theo yelled, “he’ll tell the others where we are, they’re already coming! Come on!” I looked at Shiloh and then kicked at the shaved head of the initiate. We threw him back down into the tunnels the two had just emerged from and shut the door. The three of us ran as fast as we could in a straight line, no concept of direction or purpose or anything besides the mad impulse to escape from the horror at our backs. We ran for a long time, until the sun began to crest at the line-edge of the horizon, broken by the frayed tree outlines and movements of the illuminating clouds drifting unconcerned.

  We said nothing, each of us staring ahead, eyes growing reddened veins and our mouths becoming dry to remind us of our lack of water, our stomachs clenching for our lack of food. When the sun had heaved the greater portion of its body into the sky we stop
ped and sat down beneath a group of hedges, hoping to rest for a moment in a place that would remain unseen.

  “Sam,” Shiloh said to me, “what happened in there, how’d you get away?” I shook my head, the memories still forming, trying to find a place to fit within my mind.

  “They had everyone lined up, were taking them onto a stage and hooking them up to that machine. They were unifying people against their will. It turned whoever went beneath it into one of them, only they didn’t take it well at first, and just flailed and vomited in the center of the room while they kept unifying.”

  “You saw The Device?” Theo asked, his eyes wide.

  “Yeah,” I said, “it just looked like a box with a helmet attached to it, really. But what it did to those people…” I trailed off, remembering the face of the girl Stephanie who’d been forced to sit in the chair and have that thing put on her head.

  “But how come they didn’t do it to you?” Shiloh asked.

  “Something went wrong. I… I don’t know what, but it was like, that thing, Proélefsi, couldn’t handle that many minds becoming part of it. I can’t explain it, the Singulars started losing it and screaming like the personality was splintering, giving rise to fragments that couldn’t hold themselves together.”

  “That’s what it was like when we were coming here,” Shiloh said, his face pale. “Like they were hearing voices, or their thoughts were in total chaos, taken over by paranoia.”

  “Couldn’t handle the darkness,” Theo said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Think about it: every person’s got some kind of evil, or jealousy, or anger stored up somewhere in ‘em, and it releases pressure now and then and makes all kinds of trouble in our lives. So this Proélefsi was collecting minds, adding to itself, but it didn’t count on all that darkness, welling up and building pressure just under the surface. Eventually it must’ve just been too much. I’ve seen it happen to people by themselves, now I know what it looks like when a thousand minds drawn together drown under that shadow breaking through the walls we try and put around it.” We all got lost in our own thoughts for a while at the idea of this, and the sun had climbed near its zenith when we all laid down and fell asleep, no blankets or anything to rest our heads upon, just the billowing need for rest.

  Chapter 9

  When I woke up I was covered in dirt and my throat was screaming for water. Shiloh and Theo were still asleep, so I walked in expanding circles around the area, looking for anything to drink. After a while I found a creek, and stooped to drink from it, gulping down as much water as I could fit into my mouth, my body absorbing it with greed. When I had my fill I dunked my head into the current and rubbed my scalp and face as hard as I could, trying to clean off any evidence of the last few days. I scrubbed until my skin was raw and then continued with my hands and arms, taking off my boots and doing the same with both my feet, which had starting sprouting convex blisters and red spots from the night spent running.

  I was about to walk back to where we’d been sleeping when I heard the sound of horse’s from the other side of the creek. I jumped over and went to see where the noise was coming from, doing my best to stay hidden in the trees. A little beyond where I had been washing I came to a place where the woods gave way to a flat open meadow, rippling like waves spread out over the hills. A ways away from the tree line I saw a group of Gov soldiers chasing down a person dressed in Singular robes, uninitiated judging by their newness. He was trying to run away, but the horses had surrounded him. They came to a stop not twenty yards from where I hid. I could hear him pleading with them, saying that he wasn’t one of them, that he’d been imprisoned there, and now only wanted to go home.

  “You are an enemy of civilization!” shouted one of the men on horseback. “Your words are hollow to us, we see through your deceit.” The man dismounted and struck the boy with a baton, then began to tie him up with a rope he pulled from his saddle. “Tell us what you know or we’ll drag you through this field until there’s nothing left of you!”

  “I don’t know anything!” pleaded the boy, and even from a distance I could see the desperation in his look. “Please, I’ve been wandering, I wouldn’t even know how to get back there. Please!” But his begging did no good, and the soldier mounted his horse without a second word. I saw him look behind at the hunched form, his hands bound in rope held fast by the horse’s saddle. The soldier gave him one last chance, and when the boy only repeated his ignorance, he kicked his horse and dragged the robed figure through the dirt. I turned away and covered my ears to block out the screams that accompanied the sound of human skin scraping over earth. Turning to make sure that none of the soldiers were looking at me I fled back into the trees as fast as I could, jumping over the creek when I came to it. I found where Theo and Shiloh lay and shook them awake.

  “We have to go,” I said frantically, “Gov soldiers are close, hurry!” The pair rolled awake, bleary eyed.

  “Gov? Good they can tell us how to get to the road,” Theo said.

  “No, they’re out here hunting Singulars, if they find us they’ll kill us! I just saw them drag a Singular by their horse!” Panic was grabbing at my bones and vocal chords. “Hurry, we have to go!” They heard my words and we moved through the trees in the direction I was hoping would allow us to reconnect with the creek upstream. We walked until I thought we were far enough and then headed towards the creek. We came upon it and all drank deep. Looking at our situation I became more and more worried. No food, only this small creek for water, no idea where we were or where we were heading, and now we had the Gov to hide from on top of it all.

  “We need food,” Theo said. Me and Shiloh both nodded, our shoulders sunken and rounded with hunger. “When was the last time you two ate?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “days ago, not counting that meager bit of bread they gave us in the cell.”

  “Same for me,” said Shiloh, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry.”

  “Lucky for us my family has always prided itself on our botany skills. I’ll go see what I can find to forage,” Theo said, and meandered off into the woods. He came back an hour later with his arms full of roots and vines, the edible body of the forest. We sat around drinking creek water and eating the plants, dirt still on them, too tired and hungry to care. Nothing had ever tasted so good to me. Everything was fresh and crunched between our teeth, releasing aromatics and the slow but growing sense of being filled. While we ate, we sat and talked a while.

  I learned that Theo was from a settlement far north of Columbia. He said a woman with a shaved head, wearing tattered robes had shown up one day and started preaching unification. He was a member of the council that received her. They’d all been skeptical at first, but the woman carried herself well and spoke with eloquence unheard of in those parts. She quickly had a mass of followers, with Theo among them. Before long he was wearing the robes and helping the woman run meetings. Eventually they asked him to go and help recruit from other settlements. He had wanted to be unified from the beginning, but they told him everyone must earn the privilege. Theo knew the Singulars wanted to combine all the human race, and in order to do that they had to spread their message as far and wide as possible. Proélefsi had a plan, and it meant conversion first, and only then unification.

  “Looking back, that was probably the only thing that kept Proélefsi operating as long as it did. Seems like things started going to hell once they began unifying lots of people. So I went from settlement to settlement,” Theo explained, “helping to run meetings and trying to convince people that unification was the future, that it was pointless to resist it since it was mankind’s natural course. Or so I thought. Some did resist, but more than a few didn’t, especially the younger ones. After a while they told me I should head to Alexei’s Grove, that I’d earned finally earned the privilege to join the ranks of Proélefsi in bliss and godhood, as they put it. When I got there, though, things were already starting to get stra
nge.”

  “How long were you there before me?” Shiloh asked.

  “Not long, maybe a week or two. They were already starting the process, and at first everything seemed to be going well. They said they had a list and they could only do a few people a day, so we had to wait. The more they added, though, the stranger the initiates started acting. Nothing severe at first, just weird things here and there. Sam, you saw what happens to a person when they get unified, all the shaking and vomiting. Well, that didn’t happen at first, but it started to after a while. Those of us who hadn’t gone under The Device yet got worried, but Proélefsi eased our concerns through its growing set of mouthpieces. But then things started to get really bad, and the initiates kept unifying more and more people each day, and each time they seemed to get a little more unstable, talking to themselves, having emotional meltdowns, and acting like they were individuals, but not the one they had been, and it would change, too, like one moment they were one person, the next they were someone else, and then they were back to being Proélefsi. Some of us started to have second thoughts. Well, that didn’t sit right with Proélefsi, and it started locking us up. By that time there were more and more converts coming into Alexei’s Grove, and they locked everyone in those cells. Who knows how many of them made it out, or what happened to those who didn’t.” I saw the picture of the Singular bashing in the man’s skull as he tried to run.

  “Maybe they escaped when we did, maybe they’re still there, still being unified one by one to join that insanity, maybe Proélefsi killed them all” I shuddered at the thought of that madness in the theater hall still happening, all the writhing bodies at the center of the room, soaked in their own sickness, every flash of light from The Device sinking the collective mind of Proélefsi into further reaches of its darkness.