Prison Mountain by Scott Hilkene
Give humans darkness and they will invent light. Give them pain and they will invent medicine. Give them no choice and they will act.
It was no choice, but nothing could stop us. As the dust cleared, the ship's sensors picked up the flying demon herself. Apparently, the Captain did not want me to see the creature that patrolled the Earth. He may have thought I would not be able to cope. I could do more than that.
I sat for hours on the bridge that day examining the yellowish colors of the scales and what must be a rubbery texture to an overall fleshy structure. It was like a living blimp, but more closely related to a type of floating demon. It hung there in the sky, immensely huge compared with the ship that was twice the size of a football field. Reports from the ship's computers told me it was impenetrable, but scientists that visited before were able to ascertain it to be an incubation chamber of sorts. It also radiated a type of gamma and electromagnetic energy that it also absorbed, which they guessed was used to scan the area around the Earth, making reconnaissance impossible for any period longer than a few days. After that, people would start going insane in the ships, killing each other and destroying the ships, much like they used to before leaving the planet.
What I had not told them was that I already knew it was the mountain that held all the energy to keep me prisoner. What I did not know was humans were connected with the Earth, more so than anyone of my time could guess. This creature knew that and used me to connect herself with it to draw her energy. And that is what the mountain must be, a psychic prison to hold me and focus the Earth's energy through me towards her young so they could grow. Trapped, it allowed its offspring to feed, not on my soul, but the Earth's spiritual energy through the largest power node on the planet. Every day that passed, I have grown to hate myself for allowing the beast to trick me into saving my race, but destroying our home.
I caught glimpses of what was a forgotten dream, but the evil dark ones were not her young. They were something else entirely. No one really understood, but what I read was that some guessed they were a manifestation of her energy, pawns to consume the spiritual energy of the Earth and make it ready for her.
A few hours later, the Captain Issolar returned to us, but not the same person we knew. He was a fearless spirit himself. He found each of us and called us together using the ship's computer to speak, but what I noticed more strange was the ship's attitude took on Issolar's personality. Being a spirit, Issolar was able to connect with the ship more fully than ever, opening doors with a thought, controlling the ship's navigation with a hand movement. It was truly amazing.
He gathered us in the dark living space that was comfortable for him, and he shared with me the one thing that was not shared with me since I was freed. Using his hand like the ship's console, he plunged it icily through my head and my vision went dark. All I heard was his voice and it was kind and warming with just a touch of the edginess that made him Issolar.
I saw visions of a small house, white trim on yellow. It was a secret house on the other side of the planet so far away from where we were. Someone was at that house, but so elusive that I could not spy who it was. But I remember this house and it almost resembled a dream from a time I could not recall. Issolar's voice told me the boy had given him this image through his dreams and somehow, Anton was an important part of something that had to be done.
Panting hard, my vision returned as I leaned over on a knee, shaking all over. The boy was Anton, he was the key, found on another planet far away, safe from her and the Earth. It could not be, but everything made sense and I knew what we had to do, this time driven by a way to redeem myself.
“You and I are going for a trip across a sea, to find the dream you always have.”
“What!” he said and ran away from me. Tunnels and tunnels of ship I never knew possible, and an hour later, my thoughts went to the crazy physics involved to keep a giant craft like this hovering a mile above the surface of the ocean. It gave me the idea, which I should have discovered of an hour ago. The computer told me where to find Anton. He was in a bedroom far into the living quarters. It was a dark room, only red lights illuminated the brass walls and bed. He was there, backed into a curved corner of the room, starting at me as I walked in with the two ghosts trailing behind. Fear etched his eyes and it was clear the thought of the house from his dreams was something he never wanted to actually see. Ever.
“Anton, you are the key to all of this. Everything we have depends on you, your dream, as crazy as it sounds. You, have to lead me.”
“I... I can't.” his head hanging low in his hood, hiding his face in shadow.
Taking him hard by the arms, I pushed him back enough so he would see my face. “This creature imprisoned me for over a thousand years, felt like a thousand years, using me to destroy humanity and the Earth. If there was a way to stop her, would you do it?”
“Yes, but...”
“NO! No backing down.” I could not let Anton back down from the only way I could finally have a chance to see where this could take us. It was something and since we could not flee, we had to act.
“It comes down to you and me, for the rest of the universe. If she comes for us here, we are doomed inside a metal cage. If we try to leave, she will still come and kill us before we have a chance. The computer told me she would detect us. It comes down to you. We need to take a chance on your dream showing us the way to defeat her. Humanity depends on both of us and I am depending on you.”
A deep sigh told me I had gotten through. Raising his head, he pushed my hands from him and walked towards the door, then stopped.
“Fine, I'll do it. But the house is too late to get to. She is free from the mountain and will fly straight to us sooner as she senses us in the open.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, is that how your dream started out? With her on your tail?”
“Yes, every time.”
“That that is how it should be. Let's go.”
The ghosts led us both to the ship's hangar, the forward one that faced the mountain. It was the twilight of dawn on the third day since I woke. Issolar lowered the force field and a great wind howled in the direction of the floating mother. It was deafening so I had to yell to Anton, “The wind will tell her where we are.”
“I know.”
“On course then. Ready?”
I fully meant to jump the distance to the waves and row with the inflatable life boat under my arm, but the she flew in front of us both, raising her arms. Suddenly, we were floating above the metal floor and moving out of the hangar door.
It was incredible to fly with nothing visual to support us. We could not feel her hands holding us or the wind on our face, even though the wind beating against our barrier was noisy. We were ethereal and flying towards our goal on the horizon.
“You know Janus, she did not carry us in any of my dreams.”
I considered it for a moment and looked up at her. The idea came to me in a flash of inspiration and I wondered, knowing everything I did, how it could have taken me so long to put two and two together. The spirit was part of the Earth, just as we all were. It was then she looked back at me with a knowing, wonderful smile.
We saw it before she lowered us to the water. A small house on a hill with a short span of smaller hills to its back before it ended in cliffs and dropped into the sea. The house was very small. One floor, maybe two bedrooms, and pastel yellow with white trim and shutters. I half expected a sinister appearance to this house when I finally saw it, but it was the opposite and had a welcoming mood. More than that, it was even more familiar then when Issolar showed me.
The rest of the journey was quickly over, but rather than putting us down on dry land, she dropped us off so our legs were in the water up to our knees. With a smirk, she was speeding off which had to be faster than she brought us. Finally standing on our own we only had to face the treachery of the house on the hill. It looked lived in up close, wi
th a small amount of clutter on the front porch, but not too much.
Because the sun was still below the horizon, there was very little light to see exactly what was on the front yard. A slight incline and about a two-hundred foot trek to the low white picket fence was sure to be an easy trip and another fifty feet beyond the fence to the front steps. The only problem as we began our walk was various sized purple patches on the rocky lawn.
Anton led saying, “Step where I step. Don't touch the purple slime or she will come early.”
“What are they?”
“I have no idea, but I do know they hold a lot of energy and we cannot step on them.”
I said nothing else, but followed suit. This was his show after all and it was relatively easy to avoid the patches of purple slime, but as we got close to the house, the patches became more numerous and they began to move. It was an odd action, much like when a worm moved. It had to be inefficient and exhausting for the slime. But yet they moved more quickly the closer we came to the house. As we were almost to the fence, I noticed they were moving directly in our path which showed intelligence. I found it difficult to watch Anton and my steps at the same time. Then one of the slimes actually jumped into the air and landed directly under my next step. I lost balance avoiding the thing and fell sideways.
“Shit,” I said as I balanced myself above a large patch of slime below my chest while in a one-footed push up position.
Anton looked back and said in all seriousness, “What are you doing? Trying to get us killed?”
“No, I just have a thing for jam.”
“Get up.”
“How?”
“Really? Get to your knees and stand up. It's a small one.”
After feeling a bit stupid, I followed him with less difficulty, after knowing what these things were capable of. Eventually we made it to the small white porch and hurried to open the white front door with curtains behind paned windows. I half imagined it was locked and we would have to break in, but we were still in luck. As we opened the door, the sunlight that was beginning to shine over the horizon vanished.
She knew.
We quickly moved inside like the boogeyman was behind us. Immediately, I was greeted with a sense of home, a strange distant feeling that I belonged here. I knew I had never been here before, but something told me I had. The feeling was maddening and my anxiety from it was the same as when I was five years old and got stuck halfway putting on a shirt after a shower. Death could have come, but I needed to know. Anton was in the lead now and we had no time. This house was the key to unlock my fate from evil, but he would not allow me license to roam. All I was entitled to was a quick vision of a dark room with wood paneling and brown furniture. Green carpeting grabbed at my attention. Then, Anton's tone changed to fearful excitement as he coaxed me onwards through the house. I could sense the same fright as those in the past had when soul catchers came. I did not argue.
We moved to the left through the living room, then through a small dining area with the same type of paneling. Next, through a kitchen before ending up in a bedroom with white walls and the most clutter and mess I have ever seen in one room. On the far side of the bedroom, there was another door on the left that was open and led to another room several steps lower to the ground. It looked like an enclosed porch from what I could see, but without warning Anton disappeared under the bed. His legs stuck out from the end of the bed almost comically. From the noise he was making, he was searching for something. I joined him under the bed which was roomier than I had first guessed. He found an old beige suitcase and was searching within it.
“Where is it?” he asked to no one, but with clear anxiety.
“What are you looking for?”
“There was a key. I need it so we can get into the next room. Ah, got it.”
He then tried to operate a small metal box within the suitcase, but it did not appear to be working. We were both on our stomachs under bed with tons of dust and more clutter.
“This contains a message from the owner of this house. It's not working.”
“Have you heard it before?”
“Yes, but it has to work. It has to. You need to see it to explain the truth.”
“No, I don't. Let's find the next thing.”
Before he responded, an unbelievable scream from very close outside jolted my bones and I could see the real fear in him. No surprise, only raw fear.
“You have seen this before?”
He only nodded his understanding to me and would not explain himself. But, he did not need to. It all made sense and thoughts became clear. Issolar found this boy on a desolate planet far from here. No contact with anything or anyone, his memory, despite being apparently damaged, was not all his own. I knew then he was retracing his dreams to get me through to the end of this, whatever end was intended. He may not even know, a potential problem given the state of things, but what was clear was that a connection existed between Anton and myself, perhaps even all of us, the spirit and Issolar; a strong connection that crossed the universe.
As he continued to fiddle with the box under the bed, a vision came to me. The evil creature shared her vision and showed me inside her great flying fortress and the young that were slowly dying because they were not fully formed and needed the spiritual energy of the Earth to grow strong and stay alive. I could feel her pain.
She had changed herself since last we met, but was still horrible to see her offspring dying without me. I betrayed myself as a pang of remorse hit me so hard it shook my nerves and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. She needed me and I deserted her and her young.
I had to forcibly recall the reality of this relationship once again. She killed everyone I loved. My father, my brother, everyone was all dead because of her. Billions of people were gone, never to be replaced and so many of their souls devoured by her. Nothing could ever be changed. No one could avenge those who were lost.
She was pissed and I saw her body in the sky floating with her young. The mountain was definitely the key to transfer the energy of the Earth to her young and I was the catalyst. So alien was this that I knew then she was not from the Earth itself. Not even hell. Perhaps she came from another time and place and the Earth was a prime place to reproduce.
After I came out of it, Anton was shaking me and yelling that we had to move on.
“I've been saying we need to go,” I argued, but it did not matter. He had played this so often in his dreams that the box did not work any longer. I did not need the truth Anton wanted me to see, but I believed him. His dreams were real. The box had to be meant for him, not me.
We moved quickly into the next room which was a decent sized finished porch, enclosed from the elements and turned into a recreational room. It was fixed up with the most human of treasures from what had to be a time before the soul catchers arrived. So familiar and friendly, it was like something out of one of my own dreams.
That room also had wood paneling with small lanterns or lamps in various places around the room. The soft light gave the room character and purpose. The windows supplied a view to the back yard that was bare before the small hills that dropped into the sea. The door had a paned window that let some light in from a lamppost outside. It was all so familiar, but I did not know for sure if I saw the room before or it was filled with memorable items from the era that I last walked the Earth.
Then she came. Not the dark, shadowy creature cloaked behind a mask of nightmares, but a full-fledged flying monstrosity. The years have created a hideous creature that resembled a spider's body with a dragon's legs and head. A strange, but frightening evil so great that as we looked upon her, we froze with the feeling she intended. She wanted us to know she was there and was going to kill us rather than allow us to escape. All in revenge of her dying young, the narcissistic beast could not understand what she destroyed to create.
In the evil voice she has used only once before to
me, said directly to my mind, “You will never leave the Earth alive. You will wish you never left me. I loved you despite being human, you were better than the rest. You were willing.”
“She's lying,” said Anton in a calmer voice, one much more relaxed than I felt. We shared a look before acting together. Surprised he could also hear her, I took a back seat to the young man. I no longer saw the boy, but a man, a leader who took to it naturally, and as he laid out instructions, I followed each carefully.
I used the key he handed me in a panel on the wall where the light switch would normally be seated in the wall. It lit up the first button in a line of four on the same panel. Then he said I had to follow the signs, but it was hard as she was flying by the windows and began pounding on the house. For some reason, Anton knew that the house would resist her and it was our destiny to save ourselves here, in this very room. But there was one problem.
“How do we get out of here? We are trapped,” Anton said.
“Didn't your dream give any hints?”
Again he shrugged and I could tell he really had no idea. Immediately, I saw another flash of images showing us where we were from another perspective, but then the images faded with the beast almost breaking down the door as Anton woke.
Pushing the first button, mechanics within the room came to life. A lamp on a dresser flipped backwards exposing another lighted button. Pressing it, a small mantle on the wall with a preserved fish and a model car shifted down to eye level and moved no further. Then the walls vibrated loudly and I saw a large claw and several talons scrape along with windows and I was sure they would break under the pressure, but obviously this was no ordinary house.
I moved the model car forward and another light illuminated from the direction I moved the car. Closer to the back wall of the room, another panel exposed itself along with a red button. I pushed it and it turned white. Behind me, the original panel then had three of the four lights lit. I walked over and hit the third light and a single panel console raised from the floor with another button and I hit it, but nothing happened.
“Really?” I asked. “This all seems childish for a dire emergency like this.”
“This is a dream, remember?”
Anton raised his hand and held up the key that we originally used for the panel and he put it in the slot and turned it. Hitting the button, a drawer slid open on a night stand and an old Chinese Checkers game fell on the floor, marbles flying everywhere. I searched around finding nothing. Looking at Anton, he shrugged his shoulders (again) with a wild look in his eyes and said, “my dream never took me this far.”
“Great,” I replied, but still determined. So far, I felt an old man's personality in this house. Envisioning the last living person on Earth was not difficult, I could have known him; felt I had known him.
Reaching under the drawer, then up and inside the wooden insides, another button revealed itself. I pushed it and the room began to sink. Not just the floor, but the entire room, ceiling and all, lowered slowly into the Earth.
Outside, she completely lost all reservation and began pounding away at the house in an effort to reach us. She flew away, then charged each and every window, crashing into it hard and fast, but still was unable to break the glass. We could see her flying in all directions and heard her claws as they scrapped against rock and metal.
Her wails of failure and pain were excruciating and knowing nothing but her for so long, I felt sick to endure her agony. It was her after all who kept me safe in spite of my resistance. But then she gave me one last glimpse of her fate and showed me that without all the Earth's spiritual energy, she would too die because she grew too large and powerful to be without that constant source of power. Inside her, she would generate her own energy to travel the stars, but she needed more to become self-sustaining. Her body was a skeleton of what she would become.
She really did need me, but in a satisfying and reckless last gesture, I opened my mind and gave her words of my own.
“Die then, your hollow existence will have been for nothing.”
Watching myself from outside through window, I finally felt free of her. By a simple gesture of confidence and power, I was able to release a small amount of the guilt. As I finally regained myself, she felt defeat and lost control. Her claw reared back in the shape of a fist and crashed through one of the windows, glass flying towards Anton and myself. We guarded ourselves, but still bore cuts from the glass on our faces and arms. As she was rearing back for another attack, the room sank enough that ground outside was above the bottom of the windows. Lower and lower the room sank and then a passage below the Earth was slowly revealed. We dared not travel down or even look at it too long to make her aware of the new exit we had. Finally, the windows revealed only dark soil and rock and after what was forever, the room stopped along with her attacks.
Almost immediately, she screamed a great cry of despair. We both knew she flew back to her young to see the destruction she made for herself. Before long, she too, must die from despair and starvation.
After sharing one final look at the young man, who looked newly free of his torture, we both confirmed this was it. His nightmare was over and my life was no longer tied to darkness and guilt. All that I had become was in resistance to the evil of this world and I could finally move on.
My fears raised questions I shared with Anton and he was gracious enough to share his own with me. Where do we go from here? Will we find light in the dark? Questions unanswered then, but for the moment, we rested in the room that was our savior and as the sounds of evil from above died out forever, we reveled in the thoughts of where the tunnel below would lead.
~
Walking downward through the black tunnel was easier than we thought. It was dark and unknowable, but it was there, a path that led us from nothingness, to where we were going. Days passed and we still found ourselves walking. As I recounted the tale of resisting the beast for Anton, talking about our lives, and laughing at the small things that made our relationship wonderful, the tunnel into the Earth smelled more dark and familiar the further we tread. Slowly, the euphoric mood, triumphant in all its glory, began to fade away. Our laughter became less and less. Though the terror of the past few days was gone, there was a new terror, unknown and possibly unsafe. Walking further to our destiny, that tunnel was taking us to another place, a familiar place, back to a time when I remembered what it meant to be human.
Looking back at Anton, he was gone. The dream he had I recall now as my own. The visions of the past flooded back. Dark soul catchers were around any of the corners up ahead. The reality of where I was hit me hard, but Anton was there with me and had been all this time. He was a part of me, and as I reclaimed my life of the past anew, I also claimed the small boy who was my innocence and the one who I did not permit myself in my prison.
Walking forward, I smelled the dusty earth in my nose and heard screams of those almost gone. Inhaling the air, I was home. Pulling a silver flashlight from my pocket, I walked again on the Earth, making a stance against evil one last time.
###
About the Author:
Scott Hilkene lives in Maryland with his fiance. He has two children, a son in the Army and a daughter in high school. Both have, whether they know it or not, made him very proud. He works full time as a manager in the transportation industry, enjoys photography and movies, and spends whatever time he can writing.
Connect with me online:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scott.hilkene
Cover designed by Jessica Gabree.
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It was no choice, but nothing could stop us. As the dust cleared, the ship's sensors picked up the flying demon herself. Apparently, the Captain did not want me to see the creature that patrolled the Earth. He may have thought I would not be able to cope. I could do more than that.
I sat for hours on the bridge that day examining the yellowish colors of the scales and what must be a rubbery texture to an overall fleshy structure. It was like a living blimp, but more closely related to a type of floating demon. It hung there in the sky, immensely huge compared with the ship that was twice the size of a football field. Reports from the ship's computers told me it was impenetrable, but scientists that visited before were able to ascertain it to be an incubation chamber of sorts. It also radiated a type of gamma and electromagnetic energy that it also absorbed, which they guessed was used to scan the area around the Earth, making reconnaissance impossible for any period longer than a few days. After that, people would start going insane in the ships, killing each other and destroying the ships, much like they used to before leaving the planet.
What I had not told them was that I already knew it was the mountain that held all the energy to keep me prisoner. What I did not know was humans were connected with the Earth, more so than anyone of my time could guess. This creature knew that and used me to connect herself with it to draw her energy. And that is what the mountain must be, a psychic prison to hold me and focus the Earth's energy through me towards her young so they could grow. Trapped, it allowed its offspring to feed, not on my soul, but the Earth's spiritual energy through the largest power node on the planet. Every day that passed, I have grown to hate myself for allowing the beast to trick me into saving my race, but destroying our home.
I caught glimpses of what was a forgotten dream, but the evil dark ones were not her young. They were something else entirely. No one really understood, but what I read was that some guessed they were a manifestation of her energy, pawns to consume the spiritual energy of the Earth and make it ready for her.
A few hours later, the Captain Issolar returned to us, but not the same person we knew. He was a fearless spirit himself. He found each of us and called us together using the ship's computer to speak, but what I noticed more strange was the ship's attitude took on Issolar's personality. Being a spirit, Issolar was able to connect with the ship more fully than ever, opening doors with a thought, controlling the ship's navigation with a hand movement. It was truly amazing.
He gathered us in the dark living space that was comfortable for him, and he shared with me the one thing that was not shared with me since I was freed. Using his hand like the ship's console, he plunged it icily through my head and my vision went dark. All I heard was his voice and it was kind and warming with just a touch of the edginess that made him Issolar.
I saw visions of a small house, white trim on yellow. It was a secret house on the other side of the planet so far away from where we were. Someone was at that house, but so elusive that I could not spy who it was. But I remember this house and it almost resembled a dream from a time I could not recall. Issolar's voice told me the boy had given him this image through his dreams and somehow, Anton was an important part of something that had to be done.
Panting hard, my vision returned as I leaned over on a knee, shaking all over. The boy was Anton, he was the key, found on another planet far away, safe from her and the Earth. It could not be, but everything made sense and I knew what we had to do, this time driven by a way to redeem myself.
“You and I are going for a trip across a sea, to find the dream you always have.”
“What!” he said and ran away from me. Tunnels and tunnels of ship I never knew possible, and an hour later, my thoughts went to the crazy physics involved to keep a giant craft like this hovering a mile above the surface of the ocean. It gave me the idea, which I should have discovered of an hour ago. The computer told me where to find Anton. He was in a bedroom far into the living quarters. It was a dark room, only red lights illuminated the brass walls and bed. He was there, backed into a curved corner of the room, starting at me as I walked in with the two ghosts trailing behind. Fear etched his eyes and it was clear the thought of the house from his dreams was something he never wanted to actually see. Ever.
“Anton, you are the key to all of this. Everything we have depends on you, your dream, as crazy as it sounds. You, have to lead me.”
“I... I can't.” his head hanging low in his hood, hiding his face in shadow.
Taking him hard by the arms, I pushed him back enough so he would see my face. “This creature imprisoned me for over a thousand years, felt like a thousand years, using me to destroy humanity and the Earth. If there was a way to stop her, would you do it?”
“Yes, but...”
“NO! No backing down.” I could not let Anton back down from the only way I could finally have a chance to see where this could take us. It was something and since we could not flee, we had to act.
“It comes down to you and me, for the rest of the universe. If she comes for us here, we are doomed inside a metal cage. If we try to leave, she will still come and kill us before we have a chance. The computer told me she would detect us. It comes down to you. We need to take a chance on your dream showing us the way to defeat her. Humanity depends on both of us and I am depending on you.”
A deep sigh told me I had gotten through. Raising his head, he pushed my hands from him and walked towards the door, then stopped.
“Fine, I'll do it. But the house is too late to get to. She is free from the mountain and will fly straight to us sooner as she senses us in the open.”
I put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Well, is that how your dream started out? With her on your tail?”
“Yes, every time.”
“That that is how it should be. Let's go.”
The ghosts led us both to the ship's hangar, the forward one that faced the mountain. It was the twilight of dawn on the third day since I woke. Issolar lowered the force field and a great wind howled in the direction of the floating mother. It was deafening so I had to yell to Anton, “The wind will tell her where we are.”
“I know.”
“On course then. Ready?”
I fully meant to jump the distance to the waves and row with the inflatable life boat under my arm, but the she flew in front of us both, raising her arms. Suddenly, we were floating above the metal floor and moving out of the hangar door.
It was incredible to fly with nothing visual to support us. We could not feel her hands holding us or the wind on our face, even though the wind beating against our barrier was noisy. We were ethereal and flying towards our goal on the horizon.
“You know Janus, she did not carry us in any of my dreams.”
I considered it for a moment and looked up at her. The idea came to me in a flash of inspiration and I wondered, knowing everything I did, how it could have taken me so long to put two and two together. The spirit was part of the Earth, just as we all were. It was then she looked back at me with a knowing, wonderful smile.
We saw it before she lowered us to the water. A small house on a hill with a short span of smaller hills to its back before it ended in cliffs and dropped into the sea. The house was very small. One floor, maybe two bedrooms, and pastel yellow with white trim and shutters. I half expected a sinister appearance to this house when I finally saw it, but it was the opposite and had a welcoming mood. More than that, it was even more familiar then when Issolar showed me.
The rest of the journey was quickly over, but rather than putting us down on dry land, she dropped us off so our legs were in the water up to our knees. With a smirk, she was speeding off which had to be faster than she brought us. Finally standing on our own we only had to face the treachery of the house on the hill. It looked lived in up close, wi
Because the sun was still below the horizon, there was very little light to see exactly what was on the front yard. A slight incline and about a two-hundred foot trek to the low white picket fence was sure to be an easy trip and another fifty feet beyond the fence to the front steps. The only problem as we began our walk was various sized purple patches on the rocky lawn.
Anton led saying, “Step where I step. Don't touch the purple slime or she will come early.”
“What are they?”
“I have no idea, but I do know they hold a lot of energy and we cannot step on them.”
I said nothing else, but followed suit. This was his show after all and it was relatively easy to avoid the patches of purple slime, but as we got close to the house, the patches became more numerous and they began to move. It was an odd action, much like when a worm moved. It had to be inefficient and exhausting for the slime. But yet they moved more quickly the closer we came to the house. As we were almost to the fence, I noticed they were moving directly in our path which showed intelligence. I found it difficult to watch Anton and my steps at the same time. Then one of the slimes actually jumped into the air and landed directly under my next step. I lost balance avoiding the thing and fell sideways.
“Shit,” I said as I balanced myself above a large patch of slime below my chest while in a one-footed push up position.
Anton looked back and said in all seriousness, “What are you doing? Trying to get us killed?”
“No, I just have a thing for jam.”
“Get up.”
“How?”
“Really? Get to your knees and stand up. It's a small one.”
After feeling a bit stupid, I followed him with less difficulty, after knowing what these things were capable of. Eventually we made it to the small white porch and hurried to open the white front door with curtains behind paned windows. I half imagined it was locked and we would have to break in, but we were still in luck. As we opened the door, the sunlight that was beginning to shine over the horizon vanished.
She knew.
We quickly moved inside like the boogeyman was behind us. Immediately, I was greeted with a sense of home, a strange distant feeling that I belonged here. I knew I had never been here before, but something told me I had. The feeling was maddening and my anxiety from it was the same as when I was five years old and got stuck halfway putting on a shirt after a shower. Death could have come, but I needed to know. Anton was in the lead now and we had no time. This house was the key to unlock my fate from evil, but he would not allow me license to roam. All I was entitled to was a quick vision of a dark room with wood paneling and brown furniture. Green carpeting grabbed at my attention. Then, Anton's tone changed to fearful excitement as he coaxed me onwards through the house. I could sense the same fright as those in the past had when soul catchers came. I did not argue.
We moved to the left through the living room, then through a small dining area with the same type of paneling. Next, through a kitchen before ending up in a bedroom with white walls and the most clutter and mess I have ever seen in one room. On the far side of the bedroom, there was another door on the left that was open and led to another room several steps lower to the ground. It looked like an enclosed porch from what I could see, but without warning Anton disappeared under the bed. His legs stuck out from the end of the bed almost comically. From the noise he was making, he was searching for something. I joined him under the bed which was roomier than I had first guessed. He found an old beige suitcase and was searching within it.
“Where is it?” he asked to no one, but with clear anxiety.
“What are you looking for?”
“There was a key. I need it so we can get into the next room. Ah, got it.”
He then tried to operate a small metal box within the suitcase, but it did not appear to be working. We were both on our stomachs under bed with tons of dust and more clutter.
“This contains a message from the owner of this house. It's not working.”
“Have you heard it before?”
“Yes, but it has to work. It has to. You need to see it to explain the truth.”
“No, I don't. Let's find the next thing.”
Before he responded, an unbelievable scream from very close outside jolted my bones and I could see the real fear in him. No surprise, only raw fear.
“You have seen this before?”
He only nodded his understanding to me and would not explain himself. But, he did not need to. It all made sense and thoughts became clear. Issolar found this boy on a desolate planet far from here. No contact with anything or anyone, his memory, despite being apparently damaged, was not all his own. I knew then he was retracing his dreams to get me through to the end of this, whatever end was intended. He may not even know, a potential problem given the state of things, but what was clear was that a connection existed between Anton and myself, perhaps even all of us, the spirit and Issolar; a strong connection that crossed the universe.
As he continued to fiddle with the box under the bed, a vision came to me. The evil creature shared her vision and showed me inside her great flying fortress and the young that were slowly dying because they were not fully formed and needed the spiritual energy of the Earth to grow strong and stay alive. I could feel her pain.
She had changed herself since last we met, but was still horrible to see her offspring dying without me. I betrayed myself as a pang of remorse hit me so hard it shook my nerves and I wondered if I was doing the right thing. She needed me and I deserted her and her young.
I had to forcibly recall the reality of this relationship once again. She killed everyone I loved. My father, my brother, everyone was all dead because of her. Billions of people were gone, never to be replaced and so many of their souls devoured by her. Nothing could ever be changed. No one could avenge those who were lost.
She was pissed and I saw her body in the sky floating with her young. The mountain was definitely the key to transfer the energy of the Earth to her young and I was the catalyst. So alien was this that I knew then she was not from the Earth itself. Not even hell. Perhaps she came from another time and place and the Earth was a prime place to reproduce.
After I came out of it, Anton was shaking me and yelling that we had to move on.
“I've been saying we need to go,” I argued, but it did not matter. He had played this so often in his dreams that the box did not work any longer. I did not need the truth Anton wanted me to see, but I believed him. His dreams were real. The box had to be meant for him, not me.
We moved quickly into the next room which was a decent sized finished porch, enclosed from the elements and turned into a recreational room. It was fixed up with the most human of treasures from what had to be a time before the soul catchers arrived. So familiar and friendly, it was like something out of one of my own dreams.
That room also had wood paneling with small lanterns or lamps in various places around the room. The soft light gave the room character and purpose. The windows supplied a view to the back yard that was bare before the small hills that dropped into the sea. The door had a paned window that let some light in from a lamppost outside. It was all so familiar, but I did not know for sure if I saw the room before or it was filled with memorable items from the era that I last walked the Earth.
Then she came. Not the dark, shadowy creature cloaked behind a mask of nightmares, but a full-fledged flying monstrosity. The years have created a hideous creature that resembled a spider's body with a dragon's legs and head. A strange, but frightening evil so great that as we looked upon her, we froze with the feeling she intended. She wanted us to know she was there and was going to kill us rather than allow us to escape. All in revenge of her dying young, the narcissistic beast could not understand what she destroyed to create.
In the evil voice she has used only once before to
“She's lying,” said Anton in a calmer voice, one much more relaxed than I felt. We shared a look before acting together. Surprised he could also hear her, I took a back seat to the young man. I no longer saw the boy, but a man, a leader who took to it naturally, and as he laid out instructions, I followed each carefully.
I used the key he handed me in a panel on the wall where the light switch would normally be seated in the wall. It lit up the first button in a line of four on the same panel. Then he said I had to follow the signs, but it was hard as she was flying by the windows and began pounding on the house. For some reason, Anton knew that the house would resist her and it was our destiny to save ourselves here, in this very room. But there was one problem.
“How do we get out of here? We are trapped,” Anton said.
“Didn't your dream give any hints?”
Again he shrugged and I could tell he really had no idea. Immediately, I saw another flash of images showing us where we were from another perspective, but then the images faded with the beast almost breaking down the door as Anton woke.
Pushing the first button, mechanics within the room came to life. A lamp on a dresser flipped backwards exposing another lighted button. Pressing it, a small mantle on the wall with a preserved fish and a model car shifted down to eye level and moved no further. Then the walls vibrated loudly and I saw a large claw and several talons scrape along with windows and I was sure they would break under the pressure, but obviously this was no ordinary house.
I moved the model car forward and another light illuminated from the direction I moved the car. Closer to the back wall of the room, another panel exposed itself along with a red button. I pushed it and it turned white. Behind me, the original panel then had three of the four lights lit. I walked over and hit the third light and a single panel console raised from the floor with another button and I hit it, but nothing happened.
“Really?” I asked. “This all seems childish for a dire emergency like this.”
“This is a dream, remember?”
Anton raised his hand and held up the key that we originally used for the panel and he put it in the slot and turned it. Hitting the button, a drawer slid open on a night stand and an old Chinese Checkers game fell on the floor, marbles flying everywhere. I searched around finding nothing. Looking at Anton, he shrugged his shoulders (again) with a wild look in his eyes and said, “my dream never took me this far.”
“Great,” I replied, but still determined. So far, I felt an old man's personality in this house. Envisioning the last living person on Earth was not difficult, I could have known him; felt I had known him.
Reaching under the drawer, then up and inside the wooden insides, another button revealed itself. I pushed it and the room began to sink. Not just the floor, but the entire room, ceiling and all, lowered slowly into the Earth.
Outside, she completely lost all reservation and began pounding away at the house in an effort to reach us. She flew away, then charged each and every window, crashing into it hard and fast, but still was unable to break the glass. We could see her flying in all directions and heard her claws as they scrapped against rock and metal.
Her wails of failure and pain were excruciating and knowing nothing but her for so long, I felt sick to endure her agony. It was her after all who kept me safe in spite of my resistance. But then she gave me one last glimpse of her fate and showed me that without all the Earth's spiritual energy, she would too die because she grew too large and powerful to be without that constant source of power. Inside her, she would generate her own energy to travel the stars, but she needed more to become self-sustaining. Her body was a skeleton of what she would become.
She really did need me, but in a satisfying and reckless last gesture, I opened my mind and gave her words of my own.
“Die then, your hollow existence will have been for nothing.”
Watching myself from outside through window, I finally felt free of her. By a simple gesture of confidence and power, I was able to release a small amount of the guilt. As I finally regained myself, she felt defeat and lost control. Her claw reared back in the shape of a fist and crashed through one of the windows, glass flying towards Anton and myself. We guarded ourselves, but still bore cuts from the glass on our faces and arms. As she was rearing back for another attack, the room sank enough that ground outside was above the bottom of the windows. Lower and lower the room sank and then a passage below the Earth was slowly revealed. We dared not travel down or even look at it too long to make her aware of the new exit we had. Finally, the windows revealed only dark soil and rock and after what was forever, the room stopped along with her attacks.
Almost immediately, she screamed a great cry of despair. We both knew she flew back to her young to see the destruction she made for herself. Before long, she too, must die from despair and starvation.
After sharing one final look at the young man, who looked newly free of his torture, we both confirmed this was it. His nightmare was over and my life was no longer tied to darkness and guilt. All that I had become was in resistance to the evil of this world and I could finally move on.
My fears raised questions I shared with Anton and he was gracious enough to share his own with me. Where do we go from here? Will we find light in the dark? Questions unanswered then, but for the moment, we rested in the room that was our savior and as the sounds of evil from above died out forever, we reveled in the thoughts of where the tunnel below would lead.
~
Walking downward through the black tunnel was easier than we thought. It was dark and unknowable, but it was there, a path that led us from nothingness, to where we were going. Days passed and we still found ourselves walking. As I recounted the tale of resisting the beast for Anton, talking about our lives, and laughing at the small things that made our relationship wonderful, the tunnel into the Earth smelled more dark and familiar the further we tread. Slowly, the euphoric mood, triumphant in all its glory, began to fade away. Our laughter became less and less. Though the terror of the past few days was gone, there was a new terror, unknown and possibly unsafe. Walking further to our destiny, that tunnel was taking us to another place, a familiar place, back to a time when I remembered what it meant to be human.
Looking back at Anton, he was gone. The dream he had I recall now as my own. The visions of the past flooded back. Dark soul catchers were around any of the corners up ahead. The reality of where I was hit me hard, but Anton was there with me and had been all this time. He was a part of me, and as I reclaimed my life of the past anew, I also claimed the small boy who was my innocence and the one who I did not permit myself in my prison.
Walking forward, I smelled the dusty earth in my nose and heard screams of those almost gone. Inhaling the air, I was home. Pulling a silver flashlight from my pocket, I walked again on the Earth, making a stance against evil one last time.
###
About the Author:
Scott Hilkene lives in Maryland with his fiance. He has two children, a son in the Army and a daughter in high school. Both have, whether they know it or not, made him very proud. He works full time as a manager in the transportation industry, enjoys photography and movies, and spends whatever time he can writing.
Connect with me online:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scott.hilkene
Cover designed by Jessica Gabree.