The Fractured Fallen (A Dark Fantasy Horror): The Edge of Reflection Book 4

by Carver Pike

  “You are not The Haissem,” Oddity informed him.

  Gabe met his stare straight on, but then the strange seer looked at each of them in the room before settling on Lisa.

  “Gabe is not The Haissem,” he repeated. “His son is.”

  “Vincent?” Hawks asked. “He seems to have some sort of power.”

  Oddity whipped his head to the left and sneered at Hawks, as if he’d just asked an absurd, blasphemous question.

  “No,” he thundered. “Of course not! Far from it. Vision is The Haissem.”

  The room was silent for a moment. Gabe looked over at Lisa and saw that she’d placed a hand over her mouth. She looked like she was fighting back the urge to sob, and Gabe knew how she felt. What did that mean? His sons wouldn’t have the chance to grow up like normal boys?

  “Vision’s power,” Gabe said quietly to himself.

  He looked up and saw that Oddity was leaning forward, nodding his head, smiling.

  “Yes,” he said. “He has great power.”

  Gabe thought back to the time that Vision healed his leg, and his ability to heal Emma when she seemed to be hopelessly gone.

  “Lisa, please come here with the rest of us,” Oddity said.

  Lisa left her place at the column and walked over to the couch. She stood beside it, next to Gabe.

  “This is something no mother would ever want to hear, but it’s important,” Oddity continued. “Lisa, Gabe, you need to understand one thing, and you need to start believing it right now. Vincent is evil. Pure…relentless…evil.”

  Lisa snapped. “Vincent is a baby!”

  She rushed at Oddity as if she were about to let her fists go crazy on him. Gabe jumped up and grabbed her. He pulled her back and forced her to sit down on the couch. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  “Vincent is just a baby!” she repeated. “He’s a baby. Gabe, he’s just a baby.”

  “That he is,” Oddity agreed. “But not for long.”

  Gabe was trying to comfort Lisa, but she was fighting to free herself from his embrace.

  “Gabe, we need to get the boys and get out of here. I don’t trust this…this thing!”

  “Lisa, please,” Gabe begged.

  “Gabe, she has the right to be angry,” Oddity said. “They are her sons. However, what I say is true. How do you not see it, Lisa? The signs have been right in front of you.”

  “See what?” Lisa cried. “That everyone over here is jealous that we’ve created innocent little children? In a place where children aren’t supposed to exist?”

  “You are not understanding,” Oddity said. “Let me try to explain this a different way. You, Lisa, had an image once. Her name was Ivy. Gabe, you had an image once named Cutter.”

  Gabe looked over at Hawks, who was rocking back and forth a little on the couch, in deep thought.

  “Savage Bear,” Hawks whispered. “Bronc said my image’s name was Savage Bear. Are you saying Vincent and Vision don’t have images?”

  “Close,” Oddity said. “But I’m afraid that’s not it at all. They absolutely do. Vincent and Vision are the images of each other. Vision has all that is good inside of him, while Vincent has all that is evil. There are even a few supernatural elements thrown into the mix. If you held either of them up in front of a mirror, you’d notice they don’t have a reflection. That is because they are the reflection of each other, and they are both here, on this side of the mirror.”

  Everyone was silent. Gabe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. How could this be true? They were his sons. How could one be the reflection of the other?

  “So what? Ayana and Tact are images,” Lisa said with tears flowing down her cheeks. “They control their evil tendencies. We can teach Vincent to do the same. If you’re right about all this, we don’t have to just give up, as if the situation were helpless. Hopeless. He’s my son, and I’ll teach him. Gabe will teach him how to be a good man. We can beat his evil side.”

  “You still don’t understand,” Oddity announced. “Vincent doesn’t have evil in him. Vincent is evil. He is the antichrist, for lack of a better term. What you’ve read in your Bible? He is that one, the one to end all life as we know it.”

  Lisa stood and marched away.

  “I’ve heard enough!” she yelled. “You!” She turned next to Oddity’s chair and pointed a finger in his direction. “You stay the fuck away from my boys!” She stormed into the guestroom.

  “What happens now?” Gabe asked.

  He was angry too, but somehow, he didn’t disbelieve the way Lisa seemed to. He felt like he’d known all along something wasn’t right, and this made sense. Still, Vincent was his son. What was he supposed to do, throw him off the roof? He would never harm his son and no one else would as long as he was around to protect him.

  “The battle will soon begin,” Oddity said. “Image against image. Brother against brother.”

  “Battle for what?” Gabe said, and he felt out of breath, like the wind had been knocked out of him. This was all too much.

  “The Jewels of Eden, of course,” Oddity said.

  “Of course,” Tact repeated in a smartass tone.

  “The Jewels of Eden,” Oddity repeated. “The right to return both worlds to one, either good or evil.”

  “Return both worlds to one?” Ayana asked.

  “To understand, we must start at the beginning,” Oddity informed them. “But to see, you must lie back and allow yourself to be enlightened.”

  “Like you’re gonna put us in a trance or something?” Tact asked.

  “Something like that,” he replied.

  “No thanks,” Ayana said as she stood and made her way over to the window.

  “Yeah, I’ll let you go on this ride,” Tact said. “I’m not too into the whole brain tampering thing. There was this dude back in the gypsy camp who did that shit, and he fried some peoples’ minds.”

  Tact got up and joined Ayana by the window.

  Gabe was alone with Hawks and Oddity. He looked over at Hawks.

  “What do you say?” he asked his friend.

  “I think for the sake of our future, it would be safer for more than one of us to see,” Hawks replied.

  “Good, then come closer,” Oddity ordered. “Kneel down next to me and each of you give me one hand.”

  They moved to Oddity’s side and reached out for his hands. As soon as Gabe touched him, he felt a jolt, like he’d just stuck a fork in an electrical outlet. It hurt for a second, but then he just felt dizzy, like he was spinning on an amusement park ride.

  Then everything went dark.

  Giggling, like that of innocent school children, filled the air, but everything was dark. Gabe felt as if he were floating through a dream world. Then the darkness lightened from black to storm cloud grey to foggy mist to a warm sun shining down on a beautiful, colorful field of flowers and vegetation.

  A naked man and a naked woman, both beautiful and flawless as if chiseled out of a perfect piece of granite, ran around the field, looking as happy as could be. The man was blonde and muscular; the woman was brunette and angelic.

  Gabe knew, without a doubt, that he was seeing Earth’s original couple, Adam and Eve. He watched as Eve hid behind a large bush, and Adam squatted down, trying to sneak around and catch her. They were like carefree children, playing hide and seek. Adam raced around the bush and grabbed Eve by the arm. She squealed and they both laughed.

  “In the beginning it was all about one,” Oddity’s voice called out from somewhere beyond, narrating Gabe’s vision.

  At first it scared him, as he’d forgotten why he was there. He’d begun to enjoy the happiness of the vision, forgetting that he was there to see how it all began.

  “There was one man, one woman, one world. No evil. No negative thoughts existed.”

  Gabe found himself next to a pond, watching from the bushes like some sort of peeping tom, as Adam and Eve swam. They splashed playfully. Both were entirely naked, yet there seemed t
o be no sexual thought in mind. They only wanted to play.

  “In the days of the beginning, the one true Lord spoke to Adam and Eve often, because back then, their hearts were opened up enough to hear him. There was no question of faith. Believing wasn’t even up for question. It occurred naturally. The Lord was the father and Adam and Eve were his children.”

  The scene switched again and Gabe sat on the grass watching Adam and Eve, who stood in the center of the Garden of Eden. A deer pranced by, unafraid. Rabbits and squirrels danced around the field, hopping this way and that, completely at ease with the two humans. Adam and Eve both smiled as they looked up at the heavens. They listened intently to their father’s message; a message Gabe was unable to hear.

  From where he sat, he noticed movement in one of the trees behind the couple. He knew what the movement was before he even saw the snake come into view. He’d heard the stories, he’d attended Sunday school, and he’d even read Genesis a time or two. It was the damned snake, the serpent that had ruined everything.

  The snake, which looked a lot like a very long lizard with four small legs, moved stealthily out onto a branch and watched the couple. Gabe should’ve been sitting too far away to see the serpent as close up as he could, but somehow it was like he was having an out-of-body experience. He could see all things at once. The snake, the squirrels, and Adam and Eve; he could see them all so clearly.

  His concentration remained on the snake. Its tongue whipped out, grabbed a small rodent sitting peacefully on a branch, and swallowed it whole. It snacked while it listened to the message God was giving to Adam and Eve.

  Gabe wanted so badly to shout out and tell them to turn around and see the imposter, the evil serpent that would end up destroying the world as they knew it, but as he opened his mouth to call out, he heard Oddity’s voice again.

  “Calling out will do no good, Gabe. You are not really here. This is only a vision, like a film on a movie screen. The characters cannot hear you.”

  So Gabe watched, quietly, wishing he had the power to change things. He’d never seen anyone as happy and innocent as Adam and Eve. Even though he’d read the story, to experience that innocence was something altogether different. It was beyond belief and more than any words could describe. The couple had no fear, anger, hatred, doubt, depression, or any of the other negative feelings that plagued Gabe’s world, on both sides of the mirror.

  As Gabe watched the story unfold, he saw Adam and Eve happily nodding their heads, taking in all their Father had to tell them, but that dastardly snake was also taking in those words, and if Gabe didn’t know better, he’d swear the serpent was grinning. Suddenly, Adam and Eve both turned to the apple tree the snake was hiding in, and they nodded, understanding the rules their father had laid out. They were not to touch the fruit from that tree.

  The scenery changed again, and now Gabe watched as Adam covered his eyes with his hand and mumbled something. Far away, Eve cautiously made her way through the garden, trying not to make a sound as she searched for the best hiding place. She saw the apple tree, so full of fruit, and such a great place to hide. She giggled to herself as she dipped behind the large trunk of the tree.

  Gabe’s location changed, and now he was sitting on the other side of the tree, where he could clearly see Eve in her hiding spot. Above her, the snake creeped through the tree branches, headed right for her. This time Gabe couldn’t handle it.

  “Hey, look out for the snake!” he yelled.

  Eve covered her mouth with her hand, fighting back the urge to laugh, as she peeked through the branches and saw Adam looking for her on the other side of the garden. She hadn’t heard Gabe.

  “Don’t listen to him!” Gabe yelled.

  She didn’t hear, and that was obvious by the way she looked up into the tree and said, “Why, hello.” The snake crept forward on its four little legs until it was staring at Eve, face to face.

  “The most serious warnings can sometimes pique the curiosity of the warned, especially with a little bit of persuasion,” Oddity’s voice echoed through the air.

  Gabe watched as the snake’s mouth moved. Whatever it was saying had Eve enthralled. She’d stopped watching Adam and had focused all of her attention on the serpent. She giggled, but then her face went blank, very serious, and she shook her head.

  Behind them, in the background, Adam continued his search for Eve. He pounced behind a large bush, thinking he’d found her, and then scratched his head when he realized he’d been wrong. He laughed out loud at his own goofiness and then continued his search.

  Back at the apple tree, the snake was nodding its head aggressively, laying it on thick. Eve didn’t seem convinced, but hadn’t walked away, either. Whatever the serpent was saying still held her interest enough to keep her in place.

  The snake climbed up to a tree branch and grabbed an apple in its mouth. It brought it down to Eve, and stretched its neck out so that the forbidden fruit was just in front of her nose. Eve closed her eyes and sniffed in the aroma of the fresh apple, savoring the scent. She blew out her breath, which tossed a wisp of her hair, and laughed as if it were all a game. She smiled at the snake, but shook her head again. The snake nodded and dropped the apple into her open palm. It spoke to her again, but Gabe was too far away to hear its words. Eve moved her head from left to right slowly, without the same conviction. It seemed to Gabe that she might be considering what the snake was suggesting.

  “Eve, where are you? You’re getting too good at this game,” Adam announced from somewhere in the garden.

  Eve laughed as she peeked around the tree and saw him still searching for her. She gripped the apple in her hand, held it close to her nose again, and breathed in the sweet scent. Black clouds suddenly rolled across the sky. Gabe could only watch as Adam noticed Eve hiding behind the tree and raced to catch her. He stopped when he saw her with the apple in her hand. With her eyes closed and a big smile on her lips, she bit into it.

  “Nooooooooooo!” Adam screamed, his face twisted in horror, as fear hit him for the first time.

  The snake smiled.

  The crunch of Eve’s bite echoed through the air and turned into thunder that shook the sky. The ground began to tremble beneath them while the sky sounded as if it were being ripped in two.

  Gabe covered his ears and struggled to stay on his feet as the soil beneath him bucked. The thunder turned into an all-out earthquake. The ground split and a jagged seam shot across the ground, splitting the world in two, right down the middle. Gabe leapt to his right and rolled, narrowly avoiding the gash in the earth’s surface that went on as far as he could see. The snake fell to the ground, its feet gone, and it writhed around in pain.

  Eve stood on Gabe’s side of the ravine, this new line that now split the garden in two. Where Eve stood was light, but on the other side, all was dark. Eve and Adam looked dumbfounded at the world around them. Adam ran to join her, yelling something at her, but Gabe couldn’t hear over the whoosh of the intense wind that had suddenly whipped up on both sides of the world.

  Gabe looked around him and at the beautiful flowers, the flourishing trees, and then he looked beyond Eve, at the other world that had just been created, a mirror image of the real Garden of Eden, but the dark side had no beautiful flowers, only weeds. The vegetation had shriveled away, leaving nothing but charred, scorched, ashy, and muddy earth. While the sun shone on the bright side, dusk had taken over the dark side, with black clouds overhead.

  Suddenly, the dark images of Adam and Eve stood across from them, on the other side of the cracked earth. Eve’s image sneered at her, her wild, unkempt hair and beautiful face twisted in rage. Her naked body looked scarred, as if she’d been beaten many times in the past. She was the complete opposite of the innocent Eve.

  Next to her stood Adam’s image, with long, shaggy hair, unlike Adam’s naturally short cropped hair. The image’s face looked mean, and his body looked stronger, more powerful than Adam’s. Blood was smeared all over his chest and arms. In his ri
ght hand he held a black dagger, and clutched in his left was the hoof of a deer; the body was being dragged behind him.

  The biggest difference, and one that the real Adam and Eve both seemed to be staring at, was the erection Adam’s image had. He looked at both versions of Eve with incredible lust in his eyes. And his cock was as hard as a rock.

  The dark Adam swung his dagger out, trying to swipe at the good Eve’s neck, but the good Adam yanked her out of the way, and pulled her by her arm far from the dark side. The good Adam and Eve crumpled to the ground and stared in disbelief at the new world in front of them. They watched as the dark Eve straddled the dark Adam, grabbed him, shoved his cock deep inside of her, and rode him right there out in the open.

  Gabe was shocked. It was like the orgy of Genesis, the part that had been left out of the Bible. As Gabe watched on in horror, there was a change in the good Adam and Eve. Instead of holding each other like innocent children, they watched the live porn going on in front of them, and Gabe was shocked to see the real Eve stroking Adam’s erect member.