My eyelids flutter open and I am roused from sleep by them.
Feeling more tired than before, I wonder if maybe I was stirred by one of the women. I look back to see which one of the three might have woken me up. They’re all asleep, including Agatha, whom Ami had said she would wake. My heart is already beating fast. I begin to panic. I yell attempting to rouse them.
“Wake up! Everyone, wake up!”
They sit there, seemingly lifeless. Turning from my lantern, I shake each one of them individually but I can’t wake them. Fear overwhelms me and I grab Eve by the face. I point her head toward me and pull at her eyelid, there’s no resistance. Her pupil doesn’t dilate at the lantern’s light.
It’s killing them! It wasn’t a dream!
“Eve! Wake up!” I yell but she still doesn’t stir.
I place my hand under her nose and near her mouth. I can feel her breath, but it’s shallow. Remembering her deep sleep pattern from when I was in her room I move to Ami. Squatting on my knees, I lean forward and pry her eyelid open too. Her eyes are rolled back, but at least hers are moving back and forth rhythmically.
“Ami, wake up!”
The dull moaning stops and the united voices speak again in unison, their collective vibrations burning into the core of my essence.
“Rain. They will not wake, but you can end this. Save them! Save us!” Their tempting tone burns my ears.
“Shut up! Leave me alone!” I yell.
Louder now. “Rain! Save us! It can only be you!”
“What do you want?!” I spin around and stand up on the table to address them with anger. “How can I save you?”
“We want to be in the light! Bring us into the light!”
“You killed the light! You snuffed it out! How can I give you something you destroy?”
“We are in darkness, we are in despair! Save us from the darkness!”
“How?” Exasperation rings out in my voice. “How do I save you from what you are?”
“We are not the darkness! We are in the darkness, the despair we died in! We are souls who died with no hope! But you can change it! You can give us peace! We have seen it!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Reach into the dark and bring us into the light, give us peace!”
What happens if I don’t do what they want? Are they going to choke the women of their life until I give in? If they can do this, what would they do if they came with us? What kind of havoc would they bring on the unsuspecting world with their demented hallucinations or power over the physical realm? Will they seek out another to ‘bring them into the light’ or will they be content in causing the world misery? I can’t let that happen, but what is the cost? Will I die if I let them in?
“Why do you need me to find peace?”
“You are strong enough to be the conduit for our despairs! Then we can be at peace!”
“I am a single person. How could I possibly take you on?”
“When you reached into the dark we assessed you. You are strong enough. You must!” they cry out together.
The options are not favorable at all.
I look over my shoulder at my companions who are being affected. The presence of the souls begins to exert a pressure in the room and it feels like I am being pressed upon from all sides, despite the shadows still not being able to reach me.
I adjust Ami and Eve so they are placed against each other, and then moving the lanterns so they are still protected by the ring of light. I ensure they are in no danger. I pick up my lantern and stand at the edge of the table, holding it out in front of me to watch the shadows dance to my flame. I slide off the table and exit from the safety of our circle to stand near the island counter. Hands reach out for me from the darkness but my lantern holds them at bay.
“Let us in!” They yell.
“On my terms. I am going to exit the house and then I will allow you to do what you need to. You are not to harm the other three.”
They fall to silence, my words having appeased them for a brief moment. Out in the yard on a small visible patch of grass near the garden the blackness surrounds me. Everything else is engulfed except for the kitchen window where dull rays of light emanate. I am utterly alone in this darkness. My breathing is heavy and quickened. I’m terrified of what is about to happen. Setting the lantern down at my feet on the grass I look around and see the bodies beginning to surround me.
“I just reach into the darkness? How does this let you into the light?” I ask wearily.
“Come, into the darkness,” they chant. “You will understand.”
“Once I ‘let you into the light’, what happens?”
“Come!”
Hesitant at their lack of clarity, I cannot begin to fathom what they intend to do. But I take some comfort in knowing I am doing this to protect the ones I care about and to keep it contained from being unleashed whenever we land next.
Their luring melody of whispers pulls me away from the house. At the edge of the light being created by my lantern hands reach out for me. They grab my wrists. More light appears behind me, three distinct glows.
“Rain! Stop!” Ami yells out.
But I can’t. Gripped by the darkness oozing into my skin, my body moves by itself and I step from my safety zone. Ami yells again, but they’re too slow to stop me.
In the darkness I feel hands grasp me, clutching at me and I am drawn in, pulled away from the light. Their fingers, hands and arms surround me as they had in the dream. Fear, grief, sadness and despair begin to overwhelm me and I scream in the madness of a million voices crying out in my head all at once.
My senses are overloaded. I collapse to my knees and my body goes numb and tingly, like my entire body has been deprived of blood and oxygen. I scream out again in agony; it’s as though there is a storm tearing apart my mind and body. The voice which comes from my throat is no longer my own. It is the cries of the countless people who have become stuck in this void, sending reverberations through body and the air and creating a horrifying sound. The collective souls lost in the dark become absorbed into my body, transferring their entire essence into me. I fall onto my hands. Scream cut off, my body convulses, seizing, and I grunt and groan. I lose my mind to their voices.
There are so many of them!
Through blurred vision I see light in the darkness, but it’s not the lanterns now at my side. Instead it’s the white void returning as it once was. The darkness is being funneled into my being, and everything lights up again with the white light penetrating every nook and cranny. But not my soul. It becomes laden with terrible images some too much to bear.
I can see my companions beyond the haze. They appear to be yelling, but I cannot hear them over all of the voices now inside of me. Their words fall on my deaf ears.
As the last of the darkness slithers into me like a serpent, my body feels like it is about to explode. My brain burns with the thoughts of so many. I yell, but my voice fails to form anything coherent. Waving my arms I feel something building, something different than my innate power.
Trying to push the women away, they fail to heed my unspoken warning, and they advance. I muster the strength to stand and run from them. They’re startled, but I manage to run as far as the edge of the grass. When I convulse again the darkness spews from my body. A storm of black whips and tendrils swirl through the air, but it doesn’t leave me. It has anchored itself deep within. It takes sheer force of will, but I pull it back.
Collapsing to the ground again, the darkness has been contained, but not without affecting me. With my hands pressed into the grass in front of me I see I have been consumed. My skin has turned as black as the shadowy, formless despair. I am now its permanent host, if only to save everyone else from it. I can already sense that it’s going to ravage everything about me.
Finally, my hearing returns and I hear Ami call from a distance. Looking at the grass I can understand why she doesn’t approach – it’s dead. Everywhere I let the darkness
unleash its storm is dead.
“Rain! What is going on? What did you do?” Ami calls out through sobs.
I muster enough energy to stand. My muscles quiver underneath my own weight, just as my mind shudders under the weight of the burden I now carry. I turn to them and hear her gasp. Dejection runs through my mind.
“You must bring us to the light! You must change the despair which grips us! Change our fate!”
To my surprise, despite the devastation the darkness has caused in my vicinity, they run to me. I hold up my hands to stop them from advancing. They stop just before the decaying grass.
“Rain? Why?” Ami cries, tears streaming down her face.
“I had to. They had a hold on the three of you and weren’t going to let me go. They were going to kill you. I couldn’t let them, and I couldn’t let it roam free when we shift through time again.”
“You’re an idiot!” Eve yells while throwing her arms out to her sides, her lantern clattering to the ground. “You could have died!”
Despite my insistence that they stay back, it is Agatha who takes a step forward toward me. I take one back.
“Don’t. I don’t want to see you hurt,” I tell her while reasserting my hand’s position to stop her.
“You have it under control now, right dear?” Agatha asks in her soft and sweet tone.
“I think so. For the moment.”
Boldly she reaches her hand up and places it on my cheek. I flinch, not wanting to hurt her. But she insists, pressing her palm onto my skin and it’s cool to the touch. Drenched in sweat it seems more likely my skin is burning up and she’s a normal temperature.
She looks into my eyes and smiles. “At some point you’re going to have to stop sacrificing yourself for us.”
“I will never stop sacrificing myself if it’s to make sure you are all safe. You are my family and I would die for you.” I close my eyes for a moment, tears beginning to stream down my cheeks. Agatha strokes my cheek. Her palm is soft.
Seeing it is safe to approach me Ami and Eve join us, and I’m engulfed by a group hug. Though despair courses through my veins and the deaths of innumerable people haunt me, I’m comforted by the warmth. I weep. Tears flow from me as freely as a river does toward the ocean.
Overwhelmed by the despair again, it’s a struggle to focus and stay conscious. But it’s all in vain as the voices push to the forefront of my mind and I am pulled into their world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’m surrounded by a world of black, much as the void had been after the darkness enveloped everything. The same as my dreams. There is no light, but I can somehow see my body, see myself as I was before they infected me and turned my skin the color of night. In this nothingness, I drift with a sense of weightlessness.
I hear their voices calling out to me, asking for my help. They appear, no longer as shadowy outlines, but as their true forms, or what they were before they died. They are all different, all shapes and forms, all walks of life, from across the world. When I try to speak to them nothing escapes my lips. The only sound is them.
I’m forced to listen while I float, carried in between souls. The voices take turns in trying to tell me their despairs. Though they all speak at once, causing an undiscernible roar, I can sense their meaning. I understand what they want.
Each wants me to solve their problem, to break them free of the despair they died in. The reasons vary, and while some have similar problems, some are completely different, each one urgent to its owner. Without understanding how they expect me to solve their problems I try to convey that to them, but my voice continues to elude me. Their pleas become more and more urgent as if I could do something at this very moment to alleviate their woes, but I am powerless. I am at their mercy within my own body.
Time, if a conscious concept of it could exist while unconscious, seems to be completely stopped as they plead and desperately try to gain my direct attention. Unlike dreams, following what could be considered a linear flow, this has nothing of the sort. Stuck in this dark void, it occurs to me an endless amount of time could pass in the real world and I would never know.
Spinning aimlessly through this weightless space amongst the sea of people, there are countless requests made of me. In an instant, for no reason apparent to me, my mind jolts and I think I understand what needs to be done, why I was chosen and how to accomplish the impossible task of appeasing the souls.
Can I alter time to save these people from whatever despair has gripped them? They can’t do it themselves. I am their conduit. Maybe while traveling through time I can identify events which would alter the course of their lives. Maybe I can save them. Is time not set? Is that why they reached out to me?
But how much damage will I do if I take this impossible mission on? Can I offset the bad which might occur due to my actions with the good I intend to do? What will the consequences be?
Trying to grasp a full understanding of time and changing events within time is almost as painful as the voices constantly intruding. With my mind full of ideas for changing the past, present and future, thoughts of paradoxes arise.
If I change something in the past which prevents Evalyn from using her power in death, will all of this not have happened? And then start again because none of this would have happened and I wouldn’t have changed the event…I suppose this wouldn’t be happening now if that were the case, because the event would…
I have to stop myself, stop thinking about the complex thoughts beyond my reasoning capabilities, and refocus on just accomplishing my new task.
Okay, Rain, ground rules. If we’re in the decisive past from where Evalyn died, maybe I need to watch my interactions. I don’t want to upset the balance.
A light appears in the bodies and they separate, not unlike the way the darkness shied away from the light of my lantern. They allow me passage through. I’m pulled in. The light grows larger and I feel warmth blanketing me. I close my eyes to the brightness.
When I reopen them a familiar view comes into focus, in a familiar place, with a familiar face hovering over me. I’m on the couch in the living room I know so well, and Eve is sitting next to me placing a wet and cool washcloth on my forehead. It’s soothing and I shut my eyes again.
“Hey now, don’t you pass out again,” her voice is soothing, nowhere close to her normally harsh or sarcastic tones. It’s a little surprising.
“I’m not. I’m just waking up.” My voice is hoarse.
She looks over her shoulder and yells at the swinging kitchen door, “Ami! Agatha! He’s awake!” My heart leaps.
I hear them enter the room, and when I reopen my eyes Ami has kneeled down by me. She smiles and a tear falls across her cheek. Weakly, I smile back.
“How long was I out?”
“It’s hard to tell. We’re still in the void,” Ami answers. “A day or so?”
“I thought Evalyn said the energy was building.” I rub my face with both my hands which provides a sense of satisfaction.
“It’s still building,” Evalyn responds. “However, at a slower rate than I had originally thought. Imagine my disappointment.”
“Indeed,” I agree.
“Still, it’s close. Could be any time,” Evalyn continues.
I take it slow and try to sit up, only to be aided by both Ami and Eve. They set me upright with my shoulders and neck against the back of the couch. My body is stiff, as if I had been unconscious for months. I stretch my arms and legs to try and loosen them, but when I arch my back the scar on my abdomen aches. I rub it to try and soothe it, but it doesn’t work.
Even fully awake I recall the time spent in the darkness of my own mind, amongst the souls, and my mission to help them. I choose not to share it with the women for the time being, their worry for me already high. Instead, I focus on forgetting the fatigued feeling.
“Are you thirsty?” Ami asks.
“Not at the moment, but I am going to head to the bathroom and wash my face,” I scratch
my head.
“Before you do, we should tell you…” Eve frowns and stops when Ami shoots her a disapproving glance. “What? He’s going to see anyway.”
“Rain,” Ami places her hand on my leg. “The blackness receded after a while. Your skin is normal again but your eyes are still completely black.”
“Well then, I guess you’ll never know if I’m staring at you will you?” I joke, trying to lighten the mood, but I’m actually terrified to look. It makes Evalyn laugh. Ami blushes and smiles, embarrassed.
“Anytime you’re facing me then I’ll assume you’re staring at me.” Eve runs her hand across my collarbone but is immediately smacked by Ami.
“Be serious,” Ami retorts. “You’re likely going to receive a lot of attention regardless which time we end up in. It might even cause problems.”
“You’re right.” She’s right, more than she knows because I fully intend to interfere with time more than I have, and I’ll be noticed for it. “Maybe I’ll become lore.”
She frowns, clearly not finding it funny.
I grab the towel and stand. I stretch hard again to push through the aches of my body. Grunting in satisfaction, I let out a huge sigh and move past Evalyn to the bathroom.
I flip the light switch on and move to the sink. In front of the mirror I stand and stare at the darkness of my eyes. They are completely black, but they still have a sheen to them creating a dreadful look. Unable to break away I begin to fear myself, and the darkness inside. The sheer power of their presence threatens to overwhelm me if I don’t maintain a grip on my emotions.
I’m able to finally break the stare with my reflection, and proceed to wash my face with warm water from the faucet and the towel. I leave the towel on the sink’s rim. As I move to exit, I’m tossed into the doorjamb by a tremor underneath us. The house jostles. I know full well it’s not an earthquake and rush to the living room in time to see the women run out the living room door.
The blue swirl starts around the house’s boundary. It spins, kicking up loose dirt at the edge and blurring the bright white void. Colors begin to appear as it rips us from the empty world. The quake becomes heavier under foot. To my surprise, our horse whinnies while galloping through the yard hard to believe it is still alive after pushing it as hard as I had to, and after being in the darkness.
R.E.solve (Rain Experience Book 2) Page 7
