Rift

We listened to the sorrowful, howling moan of the winter wind. On and on it droned for what seemed like an eternity. There was no way of knowing the time or the day. Even the year was fading fast from our memories. More than anything we wanted to escape from this chasm, this hell hole. The mere contemplation of this was a danger to us. They would know immediately. Within the space of a few minutes they would have their creatures and their machines down here and it would be the end of us, an untimely end. At least underground we were protected from their probing minds and their deathly stares. At least underground we were safe from The Station.

Nobody knew who controlled the station; it simply was and always will be. Many odd-looking people come and go from there but they never emerge quite the same person they were on arrival and some don’t even emerge as people, only half their former selves. It was that blank and indifferent expression on their gaunt, pale faces that gave them almost a ghost like appearance. They made their way through the town as if defying gravity, almost as if they’d suddenly lost half their body weight along with their black, withered souls.

They say that eyes are the windows to the soul yet what if one has no soul. What is seen through the eyes? Fortunately for me I hadn’t yet been in the circumstance to find the answer to that question and nor did I want to be. Though I might not have been able to answer it, I did know someone who could; my younger brother. He lay in this abyss with me now and had been for some time. He hadn’t uttered a word in the months we had been down here and to be quite honest, I didn’t expect him to. It was the reason we were here. He had gazed into the eyes of one of ‘them’ and since then he hadn’t been the same. It was as if he too had had his soul ripped out. He was not my brother anymore. He was nobody.

I knew only one route of escape and precision timing was imperative to this. It was a task I never thought I would have to face, a future I didn’t choose but it was mine nevertheless. Lights flashed through the cracks in the wood above me and I realised that this was the moment I’d been waiting for. Soon, it would all be over. The rift appeared once every few months and its arrival was indicated by the flashing lights and the ground beneath our feet quaking for hours at a time. The tremor preceded the lights and I knew I had maybe minutes before it would begin. I had no knowledge of where the rift led to but I had seen many disappear through it never to return. I, for one, felt the rift led to a beautiful place, a paradise. Somewhere safe.

I saw an opportunity and had to make a break for it; it was time to take the risk because this may be the last option we had left. We had been waiting for this for two weeks and finally we were given the chance. I screamed at him to run with me but he was frozen like a sculpture. I grasped his hand in mine and heaved and pulled as hard as I could but it was of no use. He may have been younger than me but his strength far outweighed my own. Time was getting away from us. I had to leave him, I couldn’t wait any longer. I felt no remorse. I positioned myself so I could see out from the bunker and across the great expanse that lay out there. I scanned from left to right and all along my horizon they rose, like the thickest fog I had ever seen. Only I knew this wasn’t fog. It came towards me, black and dense, like an enormous curtain of smoke and though it was far off into the distance I knew they would close in quickly.

I clambered out of the hole, all arms and legs, and half-sprinted, half-stumbled directly towards the rift. It was a glorious site to behold and for a single moment I allowed myself to be entranced by its beauty. Then without warning I felt an unexpected pull at my back. An invisible force had me in its grasp and using all the energy and power I had left I twisted and turned trying to escape it’s strangulating hold. I wasn’t moving back but I wasn’t moving forward either. It was like pushing against a brick wall and I had neither the strength nor the determination to break thought it. Fear engulfed me. They were getting nearer and I was sure one was right behind me. I would never make it to the rift in time, this was it. My ingenious plan was not quite as ingenious as I had first thought.

I began to feel my entire body stretch outwards and a tingling sensation ran along my skin. It was like a throbbing motion, each beat becoming more and more forceful. Was this the power of the rift, or of those preventing me from reaching it? They were only metres away now and one had closed in on my left lacing its spiny fingers around my forearm like tendrils. I averted my eyes as best I could but I was surrounded by them now and they peered at me from all angles reaching out and gripping onto my arms and legs. I could struggle no more. I had reached the threshold of my being. I spun my head to face them staring them straight in the eyes. I never thought it would come to this yet there it was right before me. Their eyes burned through my skull and in one moment I caught sight of my past, present and future. The fiery depths of their eyes consumed me and in a second I ceased to be.