3105-06-21

It grew quiet one night, and not even the propeller sound could be heard dancing on that rasp of wind. There was a different sort of sound, a primal, frightening roar the likes of which none of us were accustomed to. It was the sound of nothing, the sound of silence, the sound of goose pimples raising on the back of your neck, the sound of a stranger’s hands gripping your shoulders, a sound of the end and the beginning. We thought—I thought—that the island must be falling, dipping into the bright green abyss of the clouds and air and sea below, finally tired of its burden of carrying us all across the world, of cradling us in its rocky embrace.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Yet, we never stopped flying. The island kept on. Those strange turbines must have still held fast.

Maybe something shut them up. Someone couldn’t take them anymore and shut them out of sight and mind, their will so strong it set up cotton wool around us all. They must know how to get down below. They must have a way, which they’ve hidden from us all.

There aren’t so terribly many of us. It shouldn’t be hard to figure which of them it is.

I feel a chill down my spine.