I had to wrestle with the idea that it was simultaneously further away than it looked and very, very big. Especially for a face.
It could very well have been as large as a mountain. The area between it and me was empty of anything, vast, a chasm as wide as the gap between countries, maybe.
It rested at an angle, leaning against a distant solid surface I couldn’t make out, surrounded by cracks that cities could have been built in. It was cracked as well, with gaps running along its pale features, almost to the point that it looked like it might shatter any moment. The eyes were open, and a light radiated from the eyes, as intense as the sun.
The noise it was making, the size of it, I couldn’t comprehend it, not cognitively, but in my would-be heart? I felt something swell.
Light shone from the open mouth, too, and the drone emanated from the mouth, deep enough to touch me in the core of my body.
The size of it, the sheer base… I wasn’t even sure how to phrase it. The simpleness of it? No, that was wrong. The appearance, the light, the utter monotone of the sound it generated, it was more like it was at the heart of simplicity, at the heart of something from which more complicated things could emerge.
A lesser god?
Forgotten, fallen through the cracks, swallowed up by this place that had existed before the Drains were Drains?
But… if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, this place and the area around the face had become Drains, only to break away. The face, presumably, had been buried.
It had been revealed now.
It came back to the same question I had just faced.
Why?
I looked at the wall where the light was shining.
Where there was light and water, there was life. Plants grew, scraggly, weedy, dangerous looking plants that probably had thorns or poisonous oils. Because I doubted anything else would grow here.
Where there was light, however, there was shadow.
In that deep shadow that remained where the light couldn’t quite reach, I saw something move.
I saw darkness move.
My ‘heart’ beat its mad panic beat inside my chest.
I knew the name of that particular darkness.
“Ur,” I murmured.
It was working its way into this place that lay through the cracks. Into the Drains. The only thing that had stopped it, cutting it off from the heart at the source of it, was the accidental uncovering of this ancient forgotten god.
The panicked movement within my chest only got worse as my thoughts turned over, grasping the import of this.
■
Alexis, sitting in the bathtub, using the drain to put out her cigarette, a book on her knee, her other hand on her head, fingers in her hair, pushing it back.
■
Ty giving Evan a push, sending Evan fluttering off to where they’d stowed the video game console. Evan was slowly dying, even his flight faltering, and he didn’t remember our bargain, he wouldn’t know to keep it, to move on. Ty was too weary to even move away from the door, too stressed to even want to.
■
Tiff, nose crusted with blood, blankets pulled up around her on the couch, where she was so still she looked dead.
■
Carl, sitting in his living room, smiling at two of his friends. One had a cup of tea, the other a joint.
■
I swayed, the battery of scenes leaving me virtually unable to put two thoughts together.
I didn’t even have time to contemplate the fact that Carl existed.
“I get it,” I said. “I get it. The abused becomes the abuser. It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
Only the scouring light and jet blackness answered.
“I made a cabal, just like Carl made his cult. The world was worse off for having me in it?”
I took a step back.
I stared at the chasm in front of me, the light that lit up the motes of dust that were thick in the air, the waiting tendrils of Ur.
“And I have to go out the same way I came in?”
If my heart felt like an animal in bondage, thrashing to escape, I felt like it was crawling its way to my mouth, ready to flee.
“Through Ur?”
Another step back.
I ran.
I leaped.
Ground gave way underfoot as I planted my foot down. I still leveraged it into a jump. I crossed the chasm.
I’m so light.
I hit with my ribs taking the brunt of the impact. Masonry broke away, deep gouges cut into it by Ur’s devouring tendrils, and I fought to keep my place. I climbed a small avalanche of falling brick and stones that disappeared almost as quickly as I could grasp them.
No fucking way was I leaving it at that.
I saw tendrils move, escaping the cracks they’d been hiding in, reaching.
My climb slowed. I lost headway.
Clawing with my hand, I tore away a section of brick that was blocking the light. It flashed across the gap, and the tendrils disappeared.
I found footing, leaped once more, almost straight up, grasping a handhold.
Again, I tore at brick to kill the tendrils.
I leaped to one side to put myself in the light, to catch a breath.
Metal gleamed in the dark. A rod, radiating with spikes.
I grabbed the rod with my damaged left hand, letting the spikes impale flesh.
It would, if nothing else, keep the two halves in place.
I pulled the Hyena free.
This is the place for lost things.
And I was close to the place that served as entrance and exit both.
But not quite there.
Tendrils were breaking free, clutching for me, using the same shadow my body cast.
I wasn’t going to make it like this.
Tendrils seized me around the middle, and they bit into my sweatshirt, consuming it, finding gaps in my flesh.
I couldn’t even look to see the damage it was doing. I had to avert my eyes.
I had to…
Ask for help.
I screamed.
I screamed guttural, as close to the same tone as the god that shone its light into this dark chamber, fighting Ur for as long as he lasted.
I worshiped that lost god for just a moment.
The light grew more intense, and Ur burned away. Even the pieces in my arm.
I found the gap, unable to see, and clawed my way through, fighting through the shadowy places Ur had just occupied.
The light faded.
I was in the factory, lying in a heap, the dim morning light streaming through the windows, basking me in everything that was ordinary and warm.