Liam Hall
Wednesday, March 30th, 2022 (8 days after the Shutdown)
The morning light streamed through the blinds, hitting the sleeping man square in the eyes. Grumbling, Liam shifted onto his side and landed on an injured arm.
“OWWWW FUCK!” he bellowed, jolting upright, a rush of pain pouring out from his arm.
Last night he’d found himself at the peak of a mountain, gray clouds enveloping the surrounding sky. A blizzard was swirling around him, concealing the valley floor from sight. A voice was being carried on the gales of wind, calling out his name.
His mother was nearby.
Running down the mountain, he tumbled down, falling head over heels, hitting protruding rocks until he found himself on the edge of a canyon. Across from him was his mother, blood dripping from her empty eye sockets.
Waving and shouting to get her attention, she didn’t see him, venturing closer to the cliff’s edge.
A rumbling caused him to stop and look around.
A tidal wave of blood was rushing towards his mother who was oblivious to the impending danger.
Screaming her name, he watched as she was swept over the edge. The tidal wave filled the canyon to the brim, lapping at his bare feet. His head throbbed as he struggled to relax.
But his tears had long past expired. Weary of it all, he knelt by the canyon’s edge when a skeletal arm sprung out and pulled him under.
Futilely fighting against its strength, a voice entered his head.
“It’s your fault they’re gone,” the Creature's voice mocked.
The skeletal hand pressed on his wrist until it snapped and he woke up in agony again.
Taking deep breaths until his heart stopped pounding from the lastest nightmare, he noticed the light outside and looked around.
Last night, Kyle offered him a room in an uninhabited house after the north end of the neighborhood had been cleared for human habitation.
Since communication had been reduced to person-to-person interactions, the council wanted to keep everyone in a certain area so important decisions would be easier to execute. Thus, Liam found himself sharing the house with other people, at least until the electricity came back.
Tenderly rubbing his arms, he picked himself off the ground and stumbled to the door. Throwing it open, he almost bowled over the child standing in front of him.
The boy’s eyebrows had comically risen so high they had disappeared into his mousey-brown bangs.
What does he— oh, he probably also lives in this house.
“Did I wake you? My… bad."
The kid remained frozen in shock. Sighing, he grabbed the kid by the collar and gently shook him.
Snapping out of his stupor, he mumbled timidly, “... Hello.”
Looking down the hall to see if this was some kind of a joke, he faced the kid. “Can I do anything for you?”
“I was just going to knock on your door. M-my dad told me to take you on a tour…”
“Okay… And who's your dad?”
“Kyle Williams,” he mumbled, refusing to make eye contact with Liam.
Liam’s plans of relaxation went up in smoke.
Sighing, he replied, “Alright, let me get some breakfast, and then show me your tour.”
His idea was to ditch the kid at the food cart and circle back to the house.
“I” — he grabbed a protein bar from his jacket pocket — “have you covered.”
Smart little shit.
Grabbing the snack, he stepped past the kid and walked down the stairs.
Liam was amazed by how different everything looked during the day. Instead of a few hundred people milling around, that number had grown by tenfold.
People were either preoccupied with tasks such as managing the food carts and medical facilities, or on break, relaxing in the sun. At the front gate, residents who hadn’t reached the neighborhood the night before were pouring in.
“Just out of curiosity, what's your name?” Liam asked the child, who was waving at the attendants behind the food cart.
"... Brendan," he replied after much hesitation.
They’d entered a house with the same floorplan of the one he’d come from, with the sole difference being the mountain of food in front of him. Stacked up to the ceiling were bags of rice, packets of beans, and every other manner of non-perishable products. Holy shit… they robbed a supermarket.
“This” — Brendan said, climbing on top of a stack of canned tuned— “is our food house. Daddy said another word like in… in…”
“Inventory,” Liam supplied, turning around to look at the food around him.
“Yes! That one. We store all of our food here.”
“That’s wonderful.”
Grabbing two cans of peaches and a chocolate bar, Brendan looked like he was about to protest but Liam silenced with a withering glare.
“It’ll be our secret, yeah? Where to next?”
“J-Just the medical tent… a-and the toilet hole,” the child stuttered.
Walking through the camp, Liam re-evaluated his opinion on its state; its reality becoming more apparent the more of it he saw.
People weren’t happily chugging along, like some well-oiled machine as Kyle had him believe. For the most part, the grime and sweat on people’s brows made it clear that they would kill for a shower.
In place of the liveliness that had welcomed his family when they first moved in, the passing faces showed signs of agitation and exhaustion. With no one to direct it towards, Liam figured it would only be time until they imploded.
His childhood friend, Jessica, would’ve said that was the paranoia inside of him speaking. Still, no matter how he saw it, there was no one to enforce the rules. He just came from their food inventory with two cans that he’d stolen, and no one had stopped him or said a word.
"Brendan," he called out to the kid who was lagging behind him like a wounded dog. "Can we check out the wreck?"
He wanted to see it, to imagine what had happened when it came crashing down and killed his parents.
Hearing his name, Brendan came scuttling over. "But Daddy said that we can't go near there."
He slipped Brendan a chocolate bar he had snatched from the community's inventory.
"Will this change your mind?" he asked as he handed him the chocolate.
"Make it two and you have yourself a deal," he smugly replied, pulling confidence from his childish arrogance.
Raising an eyebrow, Liam took back the chocolate bar and began opening it.
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"No!" he yelped, his confidence faltering. "I was joking!"
Grumbling as he took the chocolate, he led Liam to the remains of the plane, the path marked by the loose bits of metal scattered here and there that hadn’t been cleared away. Furtively looking around to see if they were being followed, Brendan waved him over towards an area that was taped off. Ducking beneath the tape, Liam stared at the horror Death had left in its wake.
The aluminum body of the plane had been severed in half, the front half sliding almost a football field away.
An entire block of new houses had been destroyed leaving only twisted cars and charred wood as a reminder of the families that once lived there.
Grimacing as he looked around, he realized that Kyle had lied again about the fallout from the red sky.
It was worse. Much, much worse than he had let on.
Closing his eyes, he imagined their screams starting to fill his head, smoke filling his lungs, their fear becoming his own…
“Brace for impact.”
Liam's head snapped up and he gaped at the scene around him. People were screaming, clutching the seats in front of them as the entire… plane? Why was he on a plane? With the weightlessness he felt as the plane nosedived, he fumbled to take off his belt and floated to the top of the plane, his back gently bumping against it.
A mess unfolded beneath him. Suitcases flew out of the overhead cabins, food stuffs smashing against the faces of terrified passengers. Hearing a whistling sound by his ear, he craned his neck to see an orange handbag hurtling towards him. It smacked him across the face, sending him tumbling towards the window. The ground rushed forward to meet them.
“Stop,” he said, raising his hands above him, praying he could pause this nightmare. "Stop! STOP!"
It was useless. The nose of the plane crumpled inwards, crushing the front row passengers in pulp, spraying Liam with gore.
The wails of agony threw the rest of the cabin in a frenzy, as the plane slid, the bottom grinding against the road outside. Outside, a wing had snapped off and flown into another part of the neighborhood. Mom.
Crashing through houses and cars alike, bits and parts of the plane were peeled off. Groaning to a stop, the plane exploded around him, consuming rows of passengers who wailed in agony.
FEED, a raspy voice cried out, blanketing all other sounds.
Liam, still glued to the aisle, looked for the origin of the voice. As the fire stretched to cover the plane, a smile formed in the flames around him. He stood there as its reflection danced in his eyes. Its smile stretched wider, a forked tongue flickering over its lips. The fire reached out to claim him…
He blinked and the scene around him changed as a churning black hole swallowed the entire plane.
The fire was replaced by a dank cavern, the abrupt change leaving him fumbling in the dark. His heavy breathing echoed off of the cavern’s walls and his knees gave out from under him. Bile rose from the back of his throat and he promptly heaved out his stomach’s content onto the floor.
Flames flickered in sconces around the edge of the cavern, bathing him in their verdant light. Laying there for a few minutes, he finally forced himself to move.
This was different from the Creature’s typical psychological torture. Its modus operandi was pulling a memory from Liam’s mind and manipulating his emotions until all he felt was regret. But he was certain that he had never visited this place before.
Snatching one of the torches out of it, he waved it in front of him, giving light to new details. He was standing in the center of what looked to be a sacrificial circle, a 6-pointed star painted on the floor with something that looked unnervingly like blood.
So… a cult. I’ve joined a cult… Great.
Stepping away from the circle, he traversed the edge of the cavern. It was small, around the size of a petite house like the one he grew up in. Symbols from a language he didn’t understand were engraved on the walls, as if recounting a story.
Gaelic or Celtic maybe?
Stopping in front of a particular section of the wall, the runes changed from their tangled inscriptions to outline what appeared to be a door of sorts. Running his fingers across the patterns, he remarked on their smoothness and intricacy, flawless as if made by a machine.
He began investigating the symbols, fascinated by their seemingly chaotic nature, but yet, if he stepped back they seemed to form the segments of a larger pattern.
After spending almost an hour of vehement studying, Liam sat in the center of the circle, his irritation practically palpable.
“GET ON WITH IT, YOU COWARD! Kill me already!” he roared at the cavern.
The only answer he got was his voice echoing around him.
One hour grew into many and with nothing but his own thoughts, he grew agitated. Scooping up his torch, he walked around the perimeter of the room, letting his finger fly over the smooth walls in case they picked up details his eyes didn’t perceive.
There was nothing in the room aside from the sconces, torches, and symbols he couldn’t be bothered to learn. A cold draft might give it away. After scanning high and low, the walls gave nothing away.
Crumpling against the wall, he threw the torch in frustration, watching it land with a dull thunk and roll into the center the 6-point star.
This place is sealed up.
Just as he was about to accept his fate a thought struck him. The sconces. In caper films, the villain had a secret hideout that he accessed with a hidden lever.
There’s no way that’s going to work.
Grabbing the extinguished torch he’d thrown, he placed it back in its holder and pulled. Nothing happened. Not to be discouraged, he moved on to the next, then the next, then the next, until finally on the sixth one, the sconce rattled like it was loose.
Jumping and pulling the sconce downwards with all his weight, a cold gust flowed out, extinguishing the remaining torches in the room. Spinning around nervously, a humming drew his attention to one of the door-like diagrams on the wall.
The etchings on the wall were glowing with a golden light that permeated throughout the room. Spiraling lines decorated the door and the symbols along the frame softly pulsated. Walking towards it in a trance, he placed his hand on the smooth wall.
Instantly, the door responded to him. Golden light swam through the stone and converged at his hand, illuminating it.
Marveling at it, he softly gasped as the glow left the stone and entered his body, forming into an orb. Liam could feel it within him, brushing against his vital organs but it didn’t feel hostile, just curious. The orb left his body through his foot and into large stone slabs, disappearing.
…That was anticlimactic.
In that moment, the entire cavern lit up blue, with the 6-point star painted in the middle glowing a faint indigo. The doorway behind him clicked open.
Silently swinging outwards, a gust of air issued forth, as if beckoning him forward. Tentatively shuffling forward, he stared at the descending stairs, the bottom hidden in darkness. Debating whether descending the stairs was worth the risk, the door swung inwards, slamming into his face, and launching him down the stairs.
Crashing onto the bottom step, he lay spread-eagle, his entire body bruised and battered.
Why does this keep happening to me?
Groaning, he managed to push himself to his feet and take account of his new surroundings. Wiping the blood trickling from his nose, he realized that he was in another room very similar to the one he just came from, but glowing orbs were situated around the edges instead of torches.
Looking back up the stairs, the top was hidden by an inky black cloak.
Guess I won’t be going back up…
Walking to the center, he scrutinized the 5 metal doors, each indistinguishable from the other, forming a loose hexagon with the stairway forming the sixth side.
Reaching for the closest one to his left, the fourth door suddenly disappeared. That’s not suspicious at all...
Cautiously stepping through, the droning of a machine filled the room and before he could react a field of pressure fell on his head.
Staggering under the sudden force, his knees buckled and he felt his mind go numb. Crumpling onto his knees, his blood rushed to his head, leaking out of his eyes and nostrils. The pressure began to intensify until he felt his spine was touching his ribs.
In a last-ditch effort, he dragged himself towards the only rune glowing near him and managed to swipe at it. Upon contact, the pressure immediately stopped.
Panting as he lay face down in a pool of his own sweat, he struggled to twist himself onto his back.
Heaving for air, he soaked in the coolness of the surface beneath him. Peeling himself off the ground, he glared at the door he came from.
“Fuck… you,” he cursed at it.
Turning around, he stared at his new environment.
“It’s black” was the first thing that came to mind which he realized was a stupid first impression.
But the marble floor to the decor around the room were all crafted from obsidian, black granite and marble, and black sapphires. Even the torches held black flames, its peculiar ethereal light allowing him to make out his surroundings.
The second thing was its size. The largest place he’d ever known was his college campus, a vast place meant to house around twenty-five thousand students.
This place made it look like a dingy little one-bedroom apartment. From his position at the back of the hall, he couldn’t tell where the adjacent walls were on either side of him, both of them being shrouded in the gloom. Even the far side of the room was cloaked, with only a pin prick of yellow hinting that the room came to end.
Mindful to not to leave the path, Liam made his way down the center. The path was bordered by soaring columns, the tops of which were hidden within gray clouds as if this place was large enough to justify its own climate zone. Past them, a collection of random objects were displayed on pedestals.
Stopping to inspect one near the path, he found himself staring at an ordinary pile of sand, its grains an unassuming beige.
On cue, the sand rose to form a three-dimensional image that looked uncannily like Half-Moon Bay. Again, the sand morphed into another image that Liam recognized. It was him and Brendan standing in front of the plane crash. Then he stared at himself, as the sand changed again to take on the shape of his face, his eyes closed as he lay on a cot. Liam watched attentively as the sand began to move again, forming two figures. One was him.
That much was obvious.
But the other…
“... You. Who summoned you here?”