by David Beers
He heard no response.
“Sister Claxton!” he screamed into the office. “Is there—”
He’d been prepared to finish the sentence with something wrong with our side? But his words simply ceased as his eyes focused outside the window.
Gray static filled the sky. There was no blue. There were no clouds. There was no atmosphere other than gray light.
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
The Pope’s hands relaxed and his hunched shoulders fell back some. He stood slowly from his desk and walked across the room, stopping in front of the window.
A bolt of gray shot down from the sky, striking the ground somewhere outside of the Vatican. It looked like lightning at first, only the bolt didn’t die nor return to the sky. It remained firm, gray static now connecting the earth to the air.
Yule stared, unable to speak. If there were words to describe something so unfathomable, the Pope didn’t know them. Only that quote from Revelation, the one describing Christ’s return. He looked at something that he didn’t understand, that shouldn’t be possible, and thought Armageddon was perhaps upon the world.
Slowly, his knees creaking as he did, he knelt on the floor. He stared out the window for a few more seconds, then closed his eyes. The Pope began to pray.
“Nicki!”
The word repeated itself over and over, her name calling out repeatedly across the room in front of her. Nicki now recognized that if she wanted, she could have her father shout it forever, one right after another. Her name was currently echoing off the walls, it being shouted so many times that it sounded like it would never end.
“Nicki!”
“Nicki!” “Nicki!” “Nicki!”
She remained in that single moment, because she didn’t want anything to move forward. She had effectively stopped time … at least everywhere that her gray light touched. Nicki didn’t want to let time restart, because she didn’t want to see the results of what she’d done. Her father had been here—and she hadn’t known. She had reached inside her to that well of gray static and when she flung its contents on the world, she heard her father’s voice.
It’d been too late to stop.
“Nicki!” “Nicki!”
The sweetest sound, her father calling her name.
Nicki dropped to the floor, standing inside the box she had hung in for days and days. She could move freely now, and there was nothing to stop her. The last time she’d done this … it’d been different. Back in the motel. She hadn’t understood as much as she did now—though she didn’t know where such understanding came from. She was again walking in between raindrops, able to control even time.
She thought time was actually still moving forward, only she’d slowed it down drastically. If she went closer to her father and watched him, eventually she would see her gray outburst take its toll.
But it didn’t have to … not for a long time.
Nicki stepped outside of the box, moving by the fat man as she did. She crossed the floor, the thin man staring forward with his mouth open, a ripe vein bulging from his forehead.
Her father was behind the thin man, just having entered the long room. A gun was in his hand, and his mouth was open.
“Nicki!”
Her name echoed off the walls, though her father’s mouth had stopped shouting it. Nicki reached him, then looked to her left, seeing …
Him? she wondered, oddly calm in this gray light.
It was the man that had come to her house to kill her. He was holding a gun as well.
Nicki looked back to her father. She could see him changing, though almost imperceptibly. His jaw was moving, his body going forward. Eventually, the gray light would take him, just as it would everyone in this place.
Nicki reached up to her dad’s face and touched his cheek.
He could feel it—could see her—though he couldn’t react to any of it. Not at any detectable speed anyway.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.”
Calm, but sad. Infinitely so.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I let this all go again. I only … I just knew I had to do something.”
She stretched on her tippy-toes and kissed her father’s cheek, holding it for a second.
When she bounced back to her heels, her eyes were full of tears making the gray static around her hazy.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said again, though not to her father.
The other voice was silent, whoever it had been.
“Now you leave me? After you set this loose?” she cried, louder now and turning around as if it might be hidden somewhere around the room.
Only the calls of her name answered her.
She silenced them and then stood in the stillness of her gray creation.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she said. “I don’t want it.”
Only silence responded, its answer forever and unchanging.
At the motel, she’d been able to pull it back, allowing everyone inside to live. She couldn’t now, though, and she knew it. It had gone too far; there had been too much fear inside her when it happened and now …
Nicki wrapped her arms around her father and leaned her head against his chest. She cried, her tears soaking his shirt. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.”
The Prophet stood on a sandy beach and stared into the sky. The gray light above had been there for a long time, at least an hour, and now David gave it his full attention. He had been diverted at first, working as quickly as he could to ensure Rhett’s safety. He felt reborn into this world, barely understanding what was happening, and only knowing that he had to move quickly if his loved ones were to survive.
Now though, gray static hung above his actions. Gray static he did not create.
Out of everything in this world, it was that he didn’t understand the most.
Rhett and Christine were safe now, and David was left wondering about what was happening above.
A gray bolt struck down in the ocean, far away from where the Prophet stood. He looked at it, expecting it to pull back up, but it remained plunged downward like an electric dagger.
David’s own eyes lit gray again.
He sucked in a deep breath as he connected with the power above.
He could feel her, just like he had before. David knew he had to go to her, but he didn’t want to. For the first time David could remember, he was scared. Not hesitant. Not cautious. But actually frightened. Because this was something he hadn’t dreamed possible. Looking upon the static filled sky had been one thing, but feeling it …
Unformed, be with me, he prayed.
David went to the young woman he was supposed to kill.
Nicki held onto her father, but she felt the change. It was a displacement, as if someone had stepped inside a box filled with water, one where there was no way for the water to spill out.
It only grew more dense.
Nicki stepped back, already knowing who was here before she saw him.
The dark man.
She pulled away from her father and looked behind him.
The dark man stood there, his outline perfectly black. His eyes were blazing gray and Nicki thought, That’s what I look like, isn’t it? My eyes are just as gray.
Nicki didn’t feel scared standing in front of him. For the first time, this man was on her territory, a gray that she created and controlled. She stepped further away from her father, presenting herself true to him.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The dark man remained quiet and unmoving. He only stared at her, his gray eyes wanting to blend in but unable to because of the blackness surrounding them.
“You can hear me. I know you can. What do you want?”
Still, nothing, and Nicki felt anger rising in her.
“All of you, you all want
fucking something. And now look, look around you! Is this what you had in mind? Time stopped and everything around me about to be completely destroyed!” She choked up for a second, found her strength again, then screamed, “MY FUCKING FATHER!”
Silence and stillness from the dark man.
“Do you want to kill me or use me? Because that’s all any of you want. That’s all everyone but my father has ever wanted.”
Nicki walked forward, meeting the dark man eye to eye. She saw that while a three dimensional body stood in front of her, it was made up of the blackest smoke to ever exist. Nicki knew that if she touched it, her hands would sink right through.
Except for the eyes. Those were his, and they stared right back at her—that endless gray which said it knew everything and cared for nothing.
“Go on then. Let’s be done with it all,” Nicki said, and she quit holding the gray back, letting it do as it wanted.
The First Priest saw the girl pass by him, listening as her name somehow echoed repeatedly all around him. He stared at her as she moved, not understanding how it was possible. Her body moved, but it left … traces behind. Entire ephemeral bodies frozen in time.
She went past him, though three bodies stood in a line in front of him, and one right next to his shoulder. Past versions of the girl.
Gray light filled everything, and she was the only thing the First Priest could see. Static covered everything, from the High Priest to the floor beneath his own feet.
Only the girl was visible. Only the girl was able to move.
The First Priest stood for a long time, listening to her speak to her father—at least the First thought that’s who he was. She kept saying she was sorry, and the First wanted to scream at the dumb bitch: “THEN STOP IT IF YOU’RE SO SORRY!”
He could do nothing, though, except listen and wait.
More time passed, and the First suddenly felt pressure increasing on him—another thing he couldn’t possibly understand. It was as if more gray static had somehow poured into the room.
The girl was talking again, though the First didn’t think it was to her father.
“All of you, you all want fucking something. And now look, look around you! Is this what you had in mind? Time stopped and everything around me about to be completely destroyed!”
Corinth, the First prayed, if you hear me, please deliver me. Deliver your faithful servant. I’ve always loved you. I’ve always wanted to be perfect for you. Please, please, please …
He continued his prayer, trying to block out the words behind him. He didn’t want to hear any of them. He wanted to hide in Corinth’s love and be protected and be safe and not have to deal with anything ALLAROUNDHIM.
He heard the wind first, a massive movement of air that ripped him from the panic gripping him. He heard it before he felt it, almost deafening in its oppression. He could think of nothing else; his ears popped and he felt blood leak down his neck.
The gray static started to move, slowly at first, but he saw it pulling by him. Heading to the girl behind him. It was the only possible place it could go.
Oh, Corinth, no! Have mercy!
The gray static grated against his skin as it moved, increasing in speed and feeling like sandpaper brushing rapidly across his entire body. It moved across his eyeballs, spraying pain over his whole face. The light picked up speed, the scraping worsening—yet the First couldn’t move nor scream. He could only stand inside the pain, the monstrous sound of wind whipping by his ears.
Gray static everywhere, and his skin feeling as if it were being peeled off layer by layer. Each second lasted 100 years, and the First finally understood hell. It was this, unending and forever. He had finally reached Corinth’s Punishment, and there was nothing he could do.
Please! PLEASE, MERCY! his mind shouted, but none came.
Only pain for the First Priest.
The ten seconds it lasted was unbearable, but yet he had no other choice.
And then, as if it had never existed at all, the gray was gone.
The First Priest breathed in, blood leaking from his ears and his flesh like raw meat. He screamed, and though he stared at the High Priest’s back, he saw nothing—no gray, no Priest, no room around him. He simply screamed, letting all the pain inside of him out into the world.
His voice finally trailed off and he began to see the room around him again. The High had turned and was looking at him—no, that wasn’t right. Looking past him.
“Where is she?” he asked.
The First didn’t know what he was talking about, nor how the man could even speak. The First’s mouth was frozen, the pain fading but still radiating across his body. His eyes felt like a needle had punctured them 1,000 times.
“WHERE IS SHE?” the High’s voice bellowed.
The First Priest started shaking his head in tiny, short turns—wanting to tell the High that he didn’t know. He didn’t know who she was nor where she had gone, nor anything else the High might ever want to know.
The High walked forward, his steps huge and unstoppable. The First moved out of his way, but only barely—the High’s mass caused him to stumble back as the man passed.
The First saw two men at the end of the hall; he didn’t know either of them, but both held guns.
The High stopped in front of the first. “Where is she? Where did she go?”
The man was bending over, his hands on his knees, clearly feeling pain too. The First looked to the second man, an extremely thin person, and he was leaning against the wall, barely able to stand. Everyone in the room felt the same as the First, everyone but the High Priest.
The High grabbed the man by his neck, ripping him up into the air. The gun clattered to the ground and the man looked down at his attacker, incomprehension across his face.
“WHERE IS SHE?”
“Put him down,” the thin man said.
The First’s eyes darted to him, shocked to see how close he’d gotten to the High Priest. The First hadn’t seen him move at all, and his hazy mind pulled up the image of an underwater eel. Slippery and black, traveling undetected wherever it went.
The High looked at the thin man.
“Put him down or I’m going to kill you.” He raised the gun, holding it straight out from his shoulder, and pointing it directly at the High’s temple.
The High’s face slowly changed, and the First felt his own mental powers coming back to him. He hadn’t noticed the High’s face, but it’d been a mask of unrighteous anger. Now though, staring at a pistol, it relaxed quickly. Scarily so. One moment he’d been ready to kill the man he held in the air, and the next, his face looked as it always did. Unperturbed. Uncaring.
He sat the man down slowly; the First didn’t understand where such strength had come from. The High was an old man, and flabby. Yet, the stranger landed on his feet with a thud.
“Move back,” the thin man said. “Back there with your friend.”
The First realized he was the friend, his mind still not fully up to the task of interpreting reality.
The High did as he was told, retreating slowly.
“Get your gun,” the thin man said to his partner.
The First looked at him and understood that this was the woman’s father. He’d seen the man’s picture in the dossier he’d put together.
“Now,” the thin man said. “I think I know who you are, and so killing you could cause a lot of problems. What I want you to do is get Pope Pius XX and let me speak to him. That’s first, and if you don’t do it, I will kill you. It might cause me problems, but I think I already have those, so another won’t be that big of a deal. Understand? Pope Pius. Now.”
The First looked at the thin man, seeing the High Priest’s preternatural calm matched in him.
A second passed and then the High’s eyes lit green. The thin man turned to the father who was picking up his pistol.
“Point it at him,” the thin man said, meaning the First Priest.
The father did so. The First didn�
�t move, only looked at the metal object that held death inside its barrel.
Everything holds death, he thought, perhaps his first coherent one. It’s amazing life goes on at all.
A minute passed in silence, everyone holding their position, and then a voice filled the room.
“This is Pope Pius.”
Rachel Veritros
The world’s historical record of Rachel Veritros ended at the Nile River. She was officially declared dead by all four Ministries 10 years later, but for the world, there had been no sign of her since she dropped below the river’s boiling waters.
Rachel did not die, however. Over the millennia, humans have believed a multitude of things about what happens when the body ceases creating cells. Heaven and hell. Simple nothingness as consciousness is extinguished. Reincarnation. The list could go on, but our purpose here is not to recount all religious beliefs, but rather to understand what exactly happened to Rachel Veritros.
She did not die, though her body did cease cell creation. And if that is the case, that the body no longer lives, but the mind does—is there such a thing as death?
That’s what Rachel wondered when she first crossed over … as she came to think of it.
Despite the absurdity of such thoughts, an entire stream of them came to Rachel the moment the Nile River exploded.
In that same instant, her mind expanded exponentially, so deciphering exactly how Rachel Veritros thought is not quite possible, although a basic understanding may be had.
Is there such a thing as death? If consciousness goes on, do we only have such fear of dying due to our cells? Our actual, individual cells. For it is them that do not continue, dying off and becoming one with whatever world they fall to. Are they the reasons we fear this so much, because they innately understand that when the body ends, they end? Are we so driven to keep living by organisms that aren’t us, but something separate—something that merely helps our consciousness move around in a physical reality?
The thoughts continued and it took Rachel a while to get a hold of them. They came at her rapidly, almost drowning out her ability to focus on any one thing. Eventually, though, she was able to focus and then realized …
