I nodded. There wasn’t anything else to say. I started to track back the way I came, heading home. There wasn’t a need to linger, and the sphere begged to be figured out. But had I known this would be the last time I saw Eve alive, maybe I would have hung around a little longer.
Chapter 14: The Wasteland
I focused on the journey ahead, letting go of the strange, awkward, ultimately satisfying night. I needed to get home, to see my Olivia again. I’d spent far more time away than necessary, but at least something good came out of it: the still-dead sphere that rested in my front pocket, and I would never forget my night with Eve.
I came across the dried up river on the hike back home, trying, and failing, to jar my memories forward once more. I just focused on the walk. The sun wasn’t high enough just yet, so at least it was more comfortable for the long march. To be home again, and away from Downtown’s evil, would be bliss. My doom lingered down there, but the answers were closer than ever. The sphere told me as much.
Something slowed my pace only a few blocks from my house. There wasn’t much around here, most everything was destroyed, broken, or simply gone. Looking around, I still felt like someone was watching, but nothing caught my attention. Just an awkward sense of illusion.
I took a few more steps but just couldn’t shake the feeling. I came to stop at an intersection, Thompson and Market. It wasn’t really anything that rang any bells, not like any memories in this particular spot, but something wanted to lead me away, further down Market and away from Olivia.
Market Street held the same destruction as before, with its cracked street, nature looming over everything, and it wanted nothing else but to pull me that way.
“Fine,” I said out loud. Whatever it was, it tugged at the back of my mind and didn’t let go.
I twisted left and set forward, moving about the destruction. I was strangely tired for having slept. Maybe the nightmare kept me on edge, but then again, it wasn’t that long since I’d been asleep. Shapes were beginning to form where things didn’t exist. Waves of dizziness came and left. Voices started to linger in the wind.
Market twisted to the right and shot into a dead end, bending around a large scrap pile some of the locals had built. A great desert stretched far as the eye could see passed Market Street. The sun glared off the crystalline sands, and waves of heat rolled off the distant mountains. Winds blew the sea of sand across the valley that surrounded the entirely of our broken city, all of Uptown, all of Downtown, everywhere.
Walking into the desert wasn’t like crossing the barrier. Anyone could willingly walk into the barren region, and many had attempted it before. They either had made it to whatever other side existed and never made the return trip, or simply died in the sands without us knowing about it. No one had ever returned.
The desert was already burning hot compared to the somehow moderate environment of my home town. The sand pelted my face, forcing me to shield my eyes as the wind blew westward. The feeling pressed me forward, and I lost myself a good distance before realizing how far I had traveled. Twisting around and looking back, the city had grown to just a speck in the distance.
“What are we looking for?” I asked out loud. There had to be something drawing me out this way. A wave of vertigo nearly put me down on all fours, coughing and heaving, though I recovered. Another spout of dizziness set me reeling backwards, head crashing into the sand. My world was spinning so fast I could have been in the clouds.
It hit me in that moment. This had happened before, only twice, but in the same way. Instead of fighting it, I laid back and watched the white, billowy clouds drift by.
“Well let’s have it then,” I said before the sequence began.
It wasn’t so much a dream. I don’t think I would call it a memory either. It was more like living another life, a life that could be mine, but just maybe wasn’t. The first time happened when I was leading the group down to the city in the beginning. It happened when I laid eyes on those dark clouds for the first time.
The second time, it happened when I was shot.
Everything was black and white, washed with traces of gray. Time remained frozen as I stood in the middle of the sands just like before. But things soon changed. No longer was it the desert I stood in. Instead, a lush and vast forest careened into existence off to my right, while the desert remained everywhere else. Though the strange part was the trees were rotting, dying. One was in full bloom, leafs and flowers on the end of each branch, yet it was rotting near the base. Though frozen in time, the sands of the desert appeared to be devouring all of the woodland.
Somehow I was closer to the familiar city, but it wasn’t broken like before. Towers touched the sky, full and shining in their brilliant, garish tone. Glancing to the left, I saw myself, a mirror image as if seeing my reflection. But this was no mirror. This was a haunting realization of me watching myself and not fully understanding what I was looking at. I just knew it was me, frozen in the moment, awaiting what was going to happen next. I tried to shove the anxiety down as I moved closer.
The scene came to life. Looking away from this doppelganger and back toward the forest, I witnessed the reality of how things may have come to pass. It wasn’t a slow or natural decay that consumed the forest. This was more. The sands were eating away anything that was green, or, at least what should have been green. The sands swept quickly, with such ferocity that anything that should have resembled a forest quickly decayed into nothingness.
“Jackson! You here lad?” a voice questioned.
I whipped my head around and saw a new figure come into the scene. He walked from over a mountain, wearing glasses on a bulbous nose. He was a stocky little man, and completely out of breath.
“Over here,” my mirror image announced. This other me looked so much fuller than I was. His hair was brushed and slicked back. He had clean clothes, clean face, but his expression was something near ill. There was some kind of gadget in his hand that beeped and whistled, but it was far too advanced for my mind to comprehend.
“According to the data…” the pudgy guy said as he took a second to catch his breath.
‘I know,” my doppelganger interrupted. He was punching keys on the device while simultaneously looking at his wristwatch. He seemed to be counting down to something, mouthing numbers or calculations, but doing so in his own private world. The other man remained quiet.
“Okay, okay… okay… okay…” The second me muttered. “Fifteen minutes. It will be over in fifteen minutes. The forest will be dead.”
“We need to go, Jackson. The area will be flooded in less than an hour,” the other commented.
“I know… I know.” My doppelganger shook his head. “There just isn’t enough time. The power plant is going to take at least three hours to get up and running.” This second Jackson looked over at the other man, and appeared to be getting choked up. He kept an edge to himself, somehow, while looking downright ready to burst into tears.
An unexpected uproar assaulted my senses. Turning away from the scene, I tried to find the incoming drone. I couldn’t see much through the black and white haze of this strange, nightmarish reality.
“Well, that’s earlier than expected… ummmm, who would have flashed it this soon?” the other man asked.
“It’s close enough,” Jackson groaned. “Damn it, there just isn’t enough time. We should go. We can still make it to the bunker.”
The other guy suddenly grew downtrodden, removing his glasses and looking towards the oscillating sound.