by Logan Castle
Plum.
The name invaded my mind. In that moment, I would have done anything to feel her warmth, see her smile and hear her laughter. Anything that could distract me from the overwhelming horror of the present. I wondered if I would ever see her again. Did she even know that it wasn’t me holding her at night? The very thought that she could not discern even the subtlest of differences between my doppelganger and me brought on a wave of despair that nearly drowned me. Tears instantly welled up in the corners of my eyes and I shook my head in anger.
No! I won’t give in. I will find my way back. And when I do, I will make him pay for what he did to us!
“Who are you talking about?”
I looked up in surprise. The woman with brown hair was staring at me inquisitively. Did I actually say that aloud?! I shifted my eyes back to the floor sheepishly, embarrassed by my complete lack of self-awareness.
“Oh, nothing,” I answered, cursing myself.
Apparently unwilling to let the matter go, she carefully slid closer to me. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean to be nosy.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her, “I was just thinking aloud.”
“I understand. Well, if you need to talk,” she offered.
I looked up at her and she gave me a restrained smile. “Thank you. I appreciate that,” I said as I nodded at her.
“Of course. My name’s Rachel. Thanks for saving me back there.”
“Isaac. And you’re welcome.”
“Nice to meet you, Isaac. Quite the excitement today, huh?” She released a light-hearted laugh and I nearly did a double take as the sound of it filled the air. How could she laugh like that at a time like this?!
Lynn, who was sitting quietly on my other side, wasn’t as forgiving, however.
“Don’t be such a fool! This is no time to be laughing!” she scolded her.
Rachel’s smile fled from her face and she flashed Lynn an apologetic look. “I… I’m sorry. I always find levity a useful resource at times like this.”
“Well, stop it,” Lynn snapped back.
Rachel looked at me, shrugging her shoulders as she slid away from us. It was just Lynn and I now, so I decided some answers were in order.
“Lynn?” I ventured.
“What?” she replied, sounding annoyed.
“What are the Cyphers?” I asked.
“What the fuck’s wrong with this guy?!” A burly passenger asked incredulously. “What are the Cyphers?!” he repeated, shaking his head in obvious disbelief at the apparent obviousness of the answer to my question.
“This isn’t your concern,” Lynn responded to the man, audibly annoyed.
When she finally answered, Lynn kept her gaze on the floor in front of her. “The Cyphers have almost singlehandedly caused the death and destruction of this world. They are half-machine, half-human aberrations whose primary objective is to protect and serve Isaac Kent…and they won’t stop searching for you.”
“Me?! Why me?!” I cried. “I’m not that Isaac! You know that!”
Lynn stood up and approached me, helping me move into the far corner of the chopper where we could have a modicum of privacy. She looked up at me with a hard stare. “The Cyphers don’t know that you aren’t the same Isaac. But,” she warned, “don’t take too much comfort in that. Once they find out, my guess is they will rip you limb from limb.”
I stared at her and my mouth nearly dropped to the floor. My mind was absolutely cluttered with questions but only one stood out in my mind.
“H-H-How?” I stuttered.
“What do you mean, ‘how’? Best guess, they grab either side of you and pull,” she said with a smirk.
“No… no! That’s not what I meant,” I stammered, un-amused. “How did they come to be? Even in my own… reality, we have nothing that resembles anything like them.”
“I wish I knew, to be honest with you,” she said with a sigh. “After the deaths of his family, Isaac Kent was never the same. He descended into a deep, dark depression. Despite our best efforts, there was nothing anyone could do to console him. And then one day, he just vanished into thin air. One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t. For weeks, he was gone and we didn’t have a clue where he went. Just when we’d practically given up hope, he reappeared and, right alongside him were the Cyphers. From that day forward, we’ve had to live in fear, constantly fighting for our lives. Isaac’s sorrow morphed into an intense anger that turned into madness. He blamed the whole world for the deaths of his family and swore that he would bring it to its knees in his quest for vengeance…and he very nearly succeeded. That is, until only three days ago. We captured him in a last-ditch, highly coordinated military assault from his stronghold. We did it not only to bring him to justice but to end the war as well. The rest is as you know it: somehow, Isaac escaped and you took his place.”
I just stared blankly at her, unable to speak or move. I was numb all over. While I could understand her words just fine, all the compassion I once possessed left me. Nothing could compare to the sheer shock and horror I now experienced.
Lynn’s hand darted out without warning and reached for mine. Taken by surprise, I tried to recoil but she was too quick. She grabbed my hand and turned it over so that my tattoo, still bandaged, was visible to her. “This! This is the key. Both of them, actually. I know what power they possess. Isaac had them too. During his depression, he spoke often about them to me. At the time, I dismissed them as just the ramblings of a tortured man. However, after he disappeared and returned with the Cyphers, I knew there was much more to it. And then I saw you and I heard your voice as you pleaded with us. I instantly knew you weren’t him.” She glanced down at my arms again. “And, what’s more, you’re missing a mark.”
“A mark?” I repeated, growing curious.
“Here,” she answered as she brushed my wrist with her fingertip. “It was the first tattoo Isaac ever got,” she continued. “A tattoo of her name.”
“Plum,” I replied, and my stomach dropped down to my toes.
Lynn nodded. “And you don’t have it.” She glanced up at me, “That’s how I knew you weren’t the same person.”
“For the sake of argument, I could’ve had it removed,” I offered with a shrug, wanting to point out the obvious.
But she shook her head. “Isaac would never have removed it. She was his center, his whole world. And when she and his boys died, they provided the reason for why he became the monster he did.” She sighed again before bringing her gaze back to my arms. “Once I realized that you were missing the tattoo, I knew you weren’t him. When I saw that you carried identical tattoos, I knew I had to get you to Renaissance. It’s the only way to buy us some time to discover how to tap into the power those tattoos possess. Call me crazy but I have a feeling that without that knowledge, we’re all dead.”
“How… How do you know all this?” I stammered.
“What do you mean?”
“You just… you seem to know so much about… him, Isaac. More than you should, actually. How do you know so much?” I pressed her.
“That’s none of your concern,” she snapped back. “You just worry about finding out what makes those tattoos tick.”
“But,” I sputtered, “they’re just tattoos… they can’t do anything!” Of course, there was absolutely no conviction behind my words. I knew they were false and frankly, I wasn’t even sure why I bothered denying it anymore. Prior to this moment, the close-to-nothing that I knew about the power that was activating my tattoos or what they were really capable of was a lot easier to accept when it was just floating around the back of my own head. Now, having been put on the spot to acknowledge their significance to another living person? Well, that was still slightly out of my comfort zone at the moment.
Lynn’s eyes narrowed to mere slits as she spoke. “We both know that isn’t true, Isaac. Before this is over, you had better know the answer,” she said. While her voice remained calm and st
eady, goosebumps rose over every inch of flesh on my body.
“What is that?!”
My head spun at the sound of a woman’s voice. She was looking over the edge of the cockpit, pointing wildly at something that I couldn’t see. I glanced at Lynn who just sat there, still glaring at me but otherwise unconcerned by whatever Rachel was looking at. I averted my eyes from Lynn and moved carefully to join Rachel. What I saw nearly drained the blood from my body.
We were flying over an ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. Beautiful blue water. Any other time, the sight would have taken the breath right out of me. But that wasn’t what Rachel and I were both now gawking at. Smack dab in the middle of the ocean, spanning as far as the horizon was a giant, gaping hole! At its outer edges, clashing currents of water furiously swirled around at blisteringly fast speed. As I watched in stunned silence, everything that was pulled in its direction was just as quickly swallowed whole. Things were disappearing in a mad flurry of spins, never to be seen again. It was as if someone had taken the stopper from a filled bathtub.
It’s a maelstrom! I knew because I’d seen one before, not in real life but in pictures. However, the one I saw was not even close to something on this scale. Indeed, the one staring back at me with its giant eye of a center could swallow anything and everything in its path.
“What is that?” Rachel shouted to Lynn.
Lynn just looked up and frowned at her. “Where the fuck have you been, you stupid girl?! Living under a rock this whole time? It’s a wonder you’re still alive!”
“Lynn, stop. Tell us what it is!” I demanded.
She stared coldly at me. “As I said, the Cyphers have almost singlehandedly caused the death and destruction of our world. You are looking at the other source.”
“Stop speaking in riddles and answer me!” I yelled at her.
“It’s a maelstrom,” she answered curtly.
I shook my head. “I’ve heard of maelstroms but never anything as big as that! How did it happen?!”
Lynn shrugged her shoulders. “Again, no one knows for sure but there are…plenty of theories,” she started.
“What do you mean, ‘plenty of theories’?! Tell me!” I approached her until I was basically nose-to-nose with her.
Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. Rachel was still too busy staring out from the helicopter to pay attention. “I know where Isaac Kent brought the Cyphers from. Not the exact place, but I know he manipulated time and brought them from somewhere…and from somewhen. In extracting them, he changed the course of our world’s history irreparably. If there’s one thing to be learned about time, you don’t mess with it. It always wins. What you see down there is a physical manifestation of time’s vengeance at someone having fucked with it. That’s just one of many maelstroms that have formed around our world after the Cyphers’ arrival. They appear suddenly and at random, swallowing everything in their wake. We have no defenses for something like that. All because Isaac Kent messed with time and reality! Now, ours is slowly crumbling around itself.”
I shook my head vehemently, unwilling to accept what she was telling me. “And…you think I can help you?! How am I supposed to help you against something like this?!”
She grabbed my face and turned it towards her. I stared into boundless, blue eyes that pled her case and begged me with every fiber of her being.
“We’d better find a way or you, right along with the rest of us, will die. Whether at the hands of the Cyphers or from that down there;” she indicated the maelstrom, “it doesn’t matter. All I know is that any hope we have left lies entirely with you.”
I stared dumbly at her for a moment, suddenly exhausted and not wanting to talk anymore, before looking outside again. As we flew higher, the clouds in the sky rushed in, swallowing us up before the maelstrom vanished completely from sight. We were flying towards something, a place called Renaissance. A place Lynn hoped would buy us enough time to learn some answers. I couldn’t help feeling like we were only going to have more questions no matter where we went. Completely spent both mentally and physically, I placed my head against the steel wall of the helicopter and forced my eyes shut.
As I drifted gently into sleep’s warm embrace, I vaguely registered a tug on my forearms before the gold and copper gears sprang to life. Naturally, the hour and minute hands began to turn.
To Be Continued in Maelstrom,
Book 2 of the Skypunch Chronicles
Coming Soon!
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About the Author
I discovered at a very early age that my playground of preference was books—the types of books that took me to far off destinations, setting my mind free and allowing me a glimpse into fantastical worlds.
After falling in love with my very first “grown-up” book, “Basil of Baker Street,” I buried myself in the works of such authors as Isaac Asimov, Terry Brooks, Lloyd Alexander, Piers Anthony and Robert Jordan to name but a few.
My love for reading led to an interest in writing and I wrote my first novel when I was fourteen. I was enamored with the process of creating a story and, specifically, the feeling of being able to lose myself to a scene…that magical feeling when everything just…flows.
That passion never left me even though it lay dormant for a while. Fast forward a couple of decades and I found myself circling back again, returning to taste the waters from a literary stream which first captivated me so long ago.
I reside in Southern California and when I’m not writing, I’m busy being a father to two amazing boys. I also have a very unhealthy obsession with comics and movies.
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