by David Beers
29
Days Past
Alex & Maux
Alex lay next to two bodies. One still breathing, the other no longer holding life. Alex looked only at the ceiling, his hands burning from the lactic acid that had flooded them. His face felt hot and sticky; veins crisscrossed his eyes from the tears he shed.
He committed murder, and beyond. The woman, the God, disappeared—leaving him to his bodies. It had watched first, though, as Alex strangled his doctor; both a murder and sacrifice, all of it brought together by the God with the strings It pulled. Alex didn’t want to move, at all, because he would have to see the body that he stole life from. Was it death he wanted now? Had he finally reached that point? He came here to stop this, and now through his own sacrifice, had helped further it. His wife now beaten—her brain perhaps swelling, and he on the floor in tears, unable to cope with what he allowed to happen.
Was he ready for death? If so, if he was broken, then the world was lost. Alex didn’t know how many more sacrifices were needed to bring It back full, but he didn’t think many. So in a cliché ridden way, that’s what it came down to—his death would allow the world to collapse.
Brittany would die too. That thought held more weight than the world and all the people in it. He couldn’t die here because he couldn’t let her die here. That was all that mattered when he found the core of it, the reason for him coming here: his wife. The woman he swore his life to. Everything else, even Daniel’s death, could be shoved aside. He couldn’t be ready for the end because then it ended for her too.
He rolled to his side, then his stomach, and crawled the few feet to Brittany. He put his hands to her face, avoiding the shut, swollen eye. He buried his head in her shoulder as more tears came.
“I won’t leave you,” he said into her shirt.
She didn’t move, but breathed slowly. Alex held her with his eyes closed, unwilling to move without her, to leave her lying here and go on.
“That won’t be necessary.”
Understanding came to Alex first, followed immediately by panic. Alex groaned, unable to control the sound escaping his lips. He didn’t need to roll over or open his eyes to know the voice above him. As sure as Daniel had known, so did Alex.
His mother stood in the hallway, or her likeness if not actually her.
“You’re not real,” he said, still holding onto Brittany.
“I am real, but the point you’re trying to make about your mother is true to an extent. I am not her, although parts of her are me. I could change this form, but I don’t think I will—it might give you comfort where we’re going.”
The sound was the same, but her cadence and words were different. His mother’s vocal chords spoke, but his mother didn’t. This image was only a tool to frighten or comfort—it didn’t matter which. What mattered was that Alex could look at her without feeling either because his mother wasn’t there.
He pushed himself up, rising to his feet, and turned to her.
She stood in the hall, which was clear now—the blood and brains disappearing with the other ghost. She wore jeans and one of Alex’s father’s faded Van Halen t-shirts, like she used to on weekends around the house. The logic he had felt on the floor fled as he felt himself wanting to run to her. Years had passed since he saw her last, since the actions that took both of them from this world. Yet here she was, a dozen feet away. He could go to her and hug her, cry to her. He could be her son again.
“Calm yourself. This is her body, but no more. Fawning over it, or trying to reconnect with a past that doesn’t exist, will only cause you disaster. That is not what I want right now.”
Alex swallowed, trying to gain control of himself. His eyes weren’t lying; his heart was. He saw something essentially wearing his mother, but not her. He had to understand that.
“We’re going for a walk, of sorts. Are you ready?”
Alex said nothing, realizing the God wanted to speak with him. Had his mother ever faced this?
“There are worse things than what you’ve seen,” the God said, glancing at the dead body. “Worse things for both of you. I can’t compel you to come, but there are things I could show you here, too.”
Alex looked to Brittany, her face a mess of swollen flesh. What more could she handle? If he stayed here, what would they go through next? Would they find her past or run into his?
The God moved to a door and turned the handle. The door opened and the God pulled slightly, leaving the door cracked. “Come. I give you my word you will return here.”
He would have to step over Daniel’s dead body to reach the door. Things worse than what you’ve seen. Alex believed it. He had murdered already; what else was possible?
Alex walked over the body, only thinking of saving his wife.
He looked into the doorway that the God held open; his mind resolved, once again, to put an end to this.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and such.
Alex’s sense of self remained; in this eternity though, the rest of him no longer existed. Here, only he could exist, his soul or essence—whatever spark defined him, stripped of all the hats and masks life forced upon him.
He saw darkness, if sight existed without eyes. The other, the God, what the Aztec named Huitzilopochtli, felt near—if one could feel without nerves. Silence ruled, that and the blackness that extinguished everything except the two beings here. Alex and this God, which felt massive, almost as imposing as the darkness surrounding them.
Where am I? Alex asked.
I’m going to show you the beginning.
Of what?
Of everything.
Why?
Quiet now.
He had no argument, no stance to be taken. Alex fell silent.
A light, something so small it might have only been imagination, appeared in the distance. Alex stared at it, trying to decide if the point existed or his mind was simply trying to find something in all this darkness.
The point engulfed him.
It expanded faster than his eyes could keep up with—one moment, a possible hallucination, and the next having filled the entire distance between the beginning point and himself. It filled him too, intertwining itself with his essence—making escape impossible. If time wove through this place, then this light wove through time as surely as it had Alex. He didn’t watch the light, but lived in it and could tell the God next to him did as well. Everything that was or would be existed in this light—nothing would escape, perhaps nothing could even begin without it.
The light faded, not back to its starting point, but into the fabric it illuminated. It grabbed onto strings that only became visible as the light stuck to them—an infinite number of strings or wires, stacked and overlaid against each other. The light contracted into tiny balls, each one finding a space on the chords that apparently built this place. The tiny round lights sank into the strands; the illumination dying as the fabric of this place absorbed them.
Darkness took over again.
I slowed that down so you could comprehend. Now, things must speed up.
The balls of light began seeping back out, lighting the place once again. Not all returned that had disappeared, but enough to give the space a faint glow. They moved down strings, across them, congregating in different spots. They flowed into each other, tiny balls growing into large orbs of light. The number of them looked almost infinite, but still they grew as more light melted in. They looked to be miles wide, enormous fixtures of glowing beams, but yet no single one was near another.
When all the lights had been collected, they scattered with speed that should have been impossible given their size—the bright orbs shooting into unlimited directions, all moving at once. Only one remained in front of Alex, now a lone light in the darkness.
Your universe. One small area across a few intertwining strings that your species calls the space time fabric.
More tiny lights began bleeding from that fabric. Much less than before, maybe a few hundred—th
ese didn’t move to congregate, but began changing colors. They shined with different hues, any color Alex had ever seen plus countless more. Some pulsed, growing dim and then brighter at both regular and irregular intervals. Others would have blistered eyes to look at, such was the brightness—while some looked like dying embers. Alex could see those that grew briefly before shrinking to their original size, like breathing.
What are they?
The Rulers. Us. Me. Part of the light that began all this, just as your universe is. An extension of that light, like you, but we are direct descendants.
The different colors began disseminating, moving slowly into the directions the larger universes had ventured to. Quite a few circled the light in front of Alex, as if considering the place. They eventually drifted off, deciding other spots might be more habitable. One stayed a dark green—looking at the bright white light in front of it, considering.
Is that you?
It is the beginning of me—not my current entity, but the seed of that entity. The universe before you is the same concept—it is not the planets, stars, or people you know, but the energy that will lead to them all.
The green light started traveling towards the universe, finally stopping inches in front of the orb. It hovered and then moved forward, the white light overtaking its green.
You chose us?
The universe of light began dimming and Alex felt momentary panic, like the dimming meant the end of life. As it blackened, Alex saw shapes inside the outline of light—an abundance of them. He saw the universe as it would be: stars, planets, asteroids, moons. All of it packed into a bag.
Alex heard it, like a gust of wind somewhere inside all those objects—something extending from nothing, or maybe just another extension of the light. The shapes began to move outside the dimmed ball that held them. Slowly, randomly, moving outward. Alex watched as planets circled suns and stars hung themselves in the sky, always moving outward, but so slowly. He watched moons become trapped in gravitational arcs around planets and the same planets collide into others and break into asteroids that flew through space at speeds great enough to end worlds. Here though, in front of Alex, they looked small and inconsequential amongst the black universe they inhabited.
He couldn’t keep up with everything; as he focused on one piece of this place, any uncountable number of things happened somewhere else. He came across the green orb —its color dulled considerably. Suns shown brighter now. It didn’t float randomly, like most of the other objects. It moved with slow purpose, watching formations and moving away from exploding stars or drifting planets. It stopped periodically, as if watching without eyes, to understand something happening around it. Studying the universe. Preparing to make a choice. The planets and stars dwarfed the tiny light, but it seemed unconcerned as it darted around them.
Finally it found a row of planets, all of them circling a single star. Alex understood this was his solar system—the third planet, Earth. Did the green traveler understand what would happen here? That this planet possessed traits which would eventually be imperative to its survival? Whether or not that was true, the green orb headed toward the planet. Headed towards Alex’s future home.
Until this point, Alex witnessed everything from a view that allowed him to see these objects as child sized toys; even the mile stretching lights were small to him.
Now, the other planets, the blackness of space, all whisked away—and Earth, in all its uninhabitable beauty, came into view. Huge in its scale. Alex stood at the edge of the atmosphere, looking down on what appeared to be simply a large rock exploding from the inside. He saw massive volcanos, some that appeared to be whole continents, spewing lava and ash into the world. Nothing walked on the land, flew in the sky, or swam in the sea in this prehistoric place. The air hung dark, polluted not by man but by the Earth’s own forces.
Outside the atmosphere, screaming through space at speeds scientists millions of years later would only dream of attaining, came the green light. Except it wasn’t the light Alex had thought of—the two kinds he had seen his entire life, light bulb filaments or flame. Liquid flowed across the egg shaped thing—liquid that burned as hot as any fire ever seen and glowed a dark, forest green. It broached the atmosphere without slowing; Alex felt the heat that this green liquid gave off, filling the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere. A heat that would have killed any wildlife living anywhere.
Alex could not see inside the liquid fire. Metal, rock, or just more fluid, Alex could only guess.
It hit the water.
Steam rose, filling the already darkened sky so that he could see nothing else. He heard waves, what must have been tides hundreds, thousands of feet in the air. The total crescendo of waves made Alex think they might be crashing over every beach in the world, perhaps washing over entire continents—covering everything in boiling saltwater.
I was here before any humans winked into existence. I will live when your species is gone and your world has collapsed to dust. I will exist when those same dust particles collide with others and form different planets, and if life springs up there, I will outlast it as well.
The world changed beneath Alex with such speed that he understood billions of years had passed in seconds. He saw fish circling the falling capsule—and could it be? Were they purposefully swimming into the orb, smashing their brains on the outside? Dying right there? Animal life Alex never knew existed killed themselves on the outside of this capsule. Whales and sharks dying in the same spot. All ending their own lives.
Time sped by and Alex saw the ocean swimmers climb onto land and the slimy walkers turn to beasts and the beasts to man. Perhaps fish still sacrificed themselves to the shape below the ocean’s surface but Alex could no longer see it. The thing was lost to the world that appeared to be moving on.
It came up from the water though, impossible but so. Alex watched whales push and crabs walk under the thing, many of them being crushed by the weight of it—but the entire ocean worked together to bring the orb out of the sea.
Dark green liquid flowed over the surface of this thing. It seemed to be in constant flux; always moving. Shapes formed: circles, crosses, partial moons and a number of other things Alex had seen in religious dogma through his life. Animals came and animals died, just as those in the sea had. Wars occurred—as much war as possible with sticks and fists for weapons—in front of the egg shaped orb. Death always near it, the green ripples across its exterior witnesses to everything.
Time moved, humanity advanced, continents shifted—the orb held constant. Always death around it. Shrines were built to it. More death. Civilizations fell. More death. Civilizations rose. More death.
The orb sank into the earth slowly, over millennia, but still people came, bringing death with them.
Eventually dirt covered the ancient spectacle and humans built over it. Great buildings that were destroyed and rebuilt time and time again; all the while death hung over the area. Alex watched as modern civilizations appeared and built a fucking hotel over an object that existed since time’s inception.
Do you see now? I am what I am; both of us from the same light. Both of us with purposes, or fate. Mine is sacrifice.
And the others? The others that were born with you?
Curiosity is not part of my purpose. What purpose others have does not concern me as long as it does not conflict with mine. You’re allowed to see this because you fight my purpose, as your parents did, but perhaps even harder. You’ve seen the world bend to me, from the smallest fish in the ocean to the smartest men of their time—they felt me and gave themselves to me. The world has moved on, the people who called this place the new world killing off all the believers. They killed thinking it was for their god, but always because of me.
Silence fell between them as Earth and everything Alex had seen disappeared—the blackness returning.
Curiosity is not in me, but I do learn. I learned then that without death explicitly for me, I fall to a state you associate with hibernation. A
ll the creatures until then had taken life willingly for whatever name they chose for me. The new humans took life in another’s name, and I discovered the world would pass me by. Until your parents. They remembered and shed the first drop of blood in centuries for me. It is good I learned this; I will never need to relearn it. My hibernation is over, Alex, and you will fulfill your purpose soon.
What response could he have? To the birth of the universe and the demands of an original son? He could think of nothing, nothing except that he didn’t care. Not about the demands or other beings who had given their lives to it. His life was his own, and if he had a purpose, it was simply to love his wife. The rest of this shit, all of it, could go to hell. He wouldn’t sacrifice himself, wouldn’t do a damn thing for this God. That was his only response.
Take me back.
First there is something else to see.
The hotel hallway replaced the blackness. Brittany still next to Daniel’s body and Alex in front of the door he thought he had walked through—breathing but showing no other life.
Alex watched Brittany open her eyes and had no way of getting to her.
30
Days Past
Brittany & Maux
Brittany understood pain before anything else. No questions of why or how, only pain so magnificent that she didn’t want to blink. From the floor, she could see only out of her right eye and breathe only from her mouth—whatever happened to her face affected her sinuses too. She wanted to know why her face hurt and why she looked at a ceiling she didn’t recognize, but the pain hurt so fucking bad.
She moved her head, turning her right eye—her good eye—to the side. Daniel was there; his eyes open and glazed. His tongue lolled from his mouth and his skin was a pale shade of purple. He stared, unblinking, at the floor.
“Daniel,” she whispered. Her voice felt like sandpaper moving over her windpipe.