“What is it?” Jackson asked.
“I’m going to the city,” the man in the glasses replied.
“What, why…” Jackson trailed off. “No, no, how? I thought you were immune?” Jackson could barely maintain himself. This other me was mystified and broken.
“Contracted it back… ah hell, you know what? It doesn’t matter. The medicine did its job, slowed it down long enough.” The man grabbed Jackson by the arm and shook a little bit. “Lad, I know you’ll figure it out. You’re the only one who can.”
The two hugged.
I couldn’t help but watch in shocking, muted horror. I needed to understand this, but it wasn’t coming to me. Whatever this man had contracted it was something awful enough to warrant an embrace. Time froze again, the two caught in a never-ending hug.
This always happened when this altered reality came to an end, and I knew I would wake up soon. Instead of drawing my attention to them, I shifted back towards the direction where that crazy sound was coming from. Even in this black and white universe, the cityscape was just a bit darker on the horizon, like something had exploded with an unnamable darkness.
What was less than an hour away? What was a power plant? Why transform the surrounding forest into an impassable desert, and just how the hell did someone do that? Soon the vision started to blur, as it came back to life once more.
This hadn’t happened before. The vision always ended and never came back. But now my world was spinning on a slight tilt.
Jackson and the other were saying words I couldn’t understand over the loud buzzing coming from the city. My sight was either fading or drawing to something unholy, a darkness that hovered as if alive on the horizon. It was coming this way.
I took a few steps forward and strained to make out shapes on the neutral colored skyline. It looked like a swarm, a shade against a dark background. Whatever it was, it was screaming towards us incredibly fast.
“I think it’s going to be here quicker than your estimation, lad,” said the other man, his voice somehow resonating over the noise. The deafening sound seemed to die away, or the dream wanted me to hear the interaction of these two men. The other man wiped away a few tears and looked toward the black clouds.
“So it would seem,” Jackson replied. He started to shake his head, and sighed deeply. “Why?”
“Why what, my boy?”
“I shouldn’t be immune. I just, shouldn’t be. It’s a cruel joke.” The mirrored image of me cried.
The conversation between the two drowned out, and the billowing black cloud of noise was close enough to see. Whatever it was, it didn’t make sense. I closed my eyes to think, just for a moment. When I opened them again, I was caught within the storm. Black particles swirled and spun around. I couldn’t quite explain it. The sound was too much, but I ignored it.
The blackness wasn’t totally engulfing like it was around the center of this broken city. This was more of a wind, a pitch-black gust alive with purpose. It breezed past us in an instant, and screamed away from the shining city. With that, the noise settled.
“Feel any different?” Jackson asked.
“Can’t say that I do, but that’s the point, isn’t it?” the other said and managed a smiled.
“I’m so sorry, Adam. I didn’t mean for any of this,” Jackson started.
“No lad. This wasn’t your fault. But you will fix what they broke. Well, my journey’s at an end it would seem. Have as good a life as possible. I know you’ll figure it out. Goodbye Jackson.” Adam hugged Jackson again.
It was gut-wrenching to watch, feeling so disconnected as I did. From what it looked like, I should remember this Adam somehow, someway. I knew he was dying, knew that something was happening.
“I promise I will,” Jackson called after Adam, who was already walking toward the city. Adam didn’t turn around, just continued marching onward. Jackson sighed loudly, and froze in place as the dream seemed to have ended.
I was left with the absolute feeling of loss. And, somewhere deep in my wounded memory, knew exactly what had happened to this city, because I had a hand in its breaking.
Chapter 15: Ploy
Coming out of the nightmarish vision, dream, or whatever it was, left me spinning and sick. My head felt heavy enough to fall off. The back of my eyes hurt, and pin pricks sparked across my skin. The feeling didn’t leave as I tracked back toward the city. It felt like my life had unraveled before me, an inescapable logic that, somehow, I had a hand in all of what happened.
We were living in ruin, fighting for life, and dying in the middle of it all because of something I should remember. The black wave of hovering particles was a beginning, a strange, unanswerable question. All I knew for sure was that this Adam, whoever he was to me, contracted something, maybe an illness, and marched himself to this city.
It took only a few minutes to backtrack to the city, but the vision remained alive. The conversation between Adam and myself, that younger me, kept replaying before my eyes, kept repeating what Adam was saying. But it begged another question: why would Adam march himself here, into this city? I stood on the edge between pavement and sand, thinking.
“Twenty-eight days,” I said out loud. My turning loomed in the not-too-distant future, screaming closer with each new day. With every second that passed, the center of the city called louder and more distinct. If I failed to understand all of this soon, all of these questions weren’t really going to matter. The turning didn’t care who I was or what was going on. It would come, it would grab me, and take me away.
“Just how the hell…” I trailed off. An odd sensation overcame me as I stood there staring at the ground, something that I had never noticed before. It seemed so weird, but strangely right. The wind in the desert was strong, and powerful enough to blow sand into our city. Yet it never crossed the threshold onto the pavement, hadn’t for years.
The edge between sand and city formed a perfect border. It was a flawless line that ran all the way down, as far as the eye could see. Testing a theory, I bent down and picked up a handful of sand. I threw the sand hard and fast towards the city. It flew back almost instantly, chucking the lot back into my face.
I spat out the grains and picked up another handful to test the hypothesis again. The same result occurred, though I wasn’t foolish enough to have it come blasting back at me and stood off to the side. Whatever was causing the particles to fly back was keeping the entire desert out of the city, almost magically. Something else was at play here, something scientific and capable of being answered, but I couldn’t grasp it.
I picked up the last handful and cupped the grains with both hands, creating a tight ball with my fists. The second I walked onto the pavement the sand tried to break loose. As I pushed further in, the grains dug into my skin, the pressure increasing exponentially as the sand tried to escape. After a few more steps I couldn’t hang on. I turned around and released them. They flew with ferocious speed back over the threshold, and came to a rest just outside the line of pavement.
This was insanity. This was the definition of my life right now, everything compounded in such a way I was going to fall into madness. The insomnia, the timer, the dreams, visions, or whatever they hell they were, all built questions I couldn’t answer. And I had a fucking sphere that managed to break all the theories, and let me go where I shouldn’t be able to go. But I had no memory to answer what I was supposed to do, and guessing might take too long to get any solutions.
I pushed back towards my initial destination: home. These thoughts bounced through my mind, lingering even though I had no clue what they meant. The sun did it’s best to pull my attention away. It was plenty hot now with the sun nearly at its peak, but I remained trapped to my own ideas.