Part 1: Burning Sands

“In the beginning it was just the three of us…and mother as well, I suppose.” The man who sat beside Jonas Westerbaum recounted.

“Uh, huh, is that so?” Jonas replied absentmindedly. Although the desert road was straight and free of other cars, the midday sun cast a blinding glare across the windshield that he had to squint to see through.

“Yes.” The stranger continued. “Well, I hesitate to mention her because she was quite the menace, someone I was glad to finally distance myself from.” The tall figure shifted in his seat and flattened the crinkles of his suit before running a long bony hand through his shoulder length hair.

Jonas took a glance at the hitchhiker and wondered how they’d gotten here. Not just the two of them specifically, but the world in general. Two months ago, he had been a regular nine to five paper pusher at some dead end small town in the heart of the endless Midwest prairies. But that was all before the strange island of green stone appeared in the Atlantic overnight, and before the hordes of fish monsters started swarming the east coast.

For several weeks, Jonas had watched with growing concern as huge convoys of tanks, trucks, and armored cars drove through his town heading eastwards. Reports of what the media called “wildlife control operations” seemed to be going well, until another incident happened in the Gulf of Mexico. Then, three days later, Toronto disappeared off the map. The next morning, an army convoy came again, but instead of passing through, it stopped in the town square. The tornado sirens were turned on, and a single instruction was broadcast over all the airwaves: “Evacuate West.”

The grim faced soldiers didn’t answer questions, only handing out copies of the same flyer. It was plastered with half a dozen government seals, and the rest of it was covered with a single sentence printed in large red letters:

EVACUATE TO THE ESCHATON SAFE ZONE, LOS ANGELES, DIRECTIONS ON BACK, SHELTERS WILL BE PROVIDED ALONG THE INTERSTATES.

Jonas discovered later that day that the GPS in his phone had stopped working.

Panic swept the town, people abandoned their jobs midday, cars crowded the roads, and there was even a riot. But the soldiers made sure that was quickly put to an end. Families hastily threw whatever they could carry into minivans and left immediately, hoping that they wouldn’t be gone too long.

Jonas, for his part, dallied around the emptying office in a daze. Stewing in shock, indecision, and loneliness for the better half of a day, he finally returned to his small one bedroom apartment after dark and drank himself to sleep.

The sun was already high in the sky by the time he was woken by the sound of soldiers smashing down his door. Their commander, a stocky man with a bushy mustache, had given the half asleep Jonas an earful when they found him, still snoring away in the supposedly evacuated town. They had given him one hour to pack his things, plenty of time for someone who had barely and possessions besides a bed and couch. Throwing what few items he could carry into the trunk of his beat up sedan, Jonas took one last glance at the apartment he had called home for a little over five years and admired its aging facade.

Staring at the faded plastic siding against a cloudless sky, Jonas suddenly felt a conviction rising within him. Even if things eventually returned to normal, he decided that he wouldn’t be returning. He had been languishing in loneliness and stagnation for far too long. In the half decade he had called this place home, Jonas hadn’t made a single connection to the town. Baking under the sun, Jonas tried to imagine a future if he were to survive this nightmare, and try as he might, he could not see himself back here in this small town again. There was simply nothing left for him anymore in the endless prairie. Then Jonas got into his car, gunned the engine, and took off down the empty streets without looking back.

Despite his private grandstanding, Jonas didn’t make it very far the first day and eventually had to stop in another moderately sized town on the plains by nightfall. Already, the emergency shelters had been erected in all the public spaces, and with all of the hotels having either long been filled or abandoned, he had no choice but to hunker down in a government provided tent.

The next morning, Jonas awoke at day break, and after breathing a sigh of relief to see that his car had not been stolen, jumped in and continued on westwards. Another full day on the road passed uneventfully, followed by another night in a noisy, crowded shelter camp. It was on the third day of driving, shortly after grassy plains turned into the shrubby desert, that Jonas met the stranger.

The man had been standing by the side of the interstate, coat tails and long hair billowing in the stiff breeze, with a wiry arm stuck out into the road. Jonas hadn’t planned on picking up any hitch-hikers, and was certainly weary of anyone looking for a ride after the rumors about carjackers he had heard whispered amongst the tent shelters. But there was something about this man, an aura of sorts that made him seem trustworthy and put Jonas at ease. And so it was, on that stretch of nearly empty desert highway, snaking through the foothills of the looming rocky mountains, that Jonas made the peculiar choice of pulling over and offering a seat to a complete stranger.

The man had been polite, his cordial attitude and smooth voice adding to his preternatural charm. Explaining his predicament of being stranded, the lanky man had then opened the door (Jonas didn’t recall unlocking it) and folded his body into the passenger seat. Despite his pleasant demeanor, several things immediately struck Jonas as strange.

Firstly, the man’s eyes seemed to shine like twin stars on a moonless night. The effect was increased by the depth of his eye sockets, which sunk deep towards the back of his skull.

Secondly, for some reason, perhaps having to do with posture, the man appeared far too large for the seat. Jonas’s car was not cramped by any measure, and looking at the stranger on the highway, he couldn’t have been more than six feet tall. Yet somehow, his hunched pose and limb placement gave off the distinct impression that he was a giant, crammed inside of a child’s toy car.As Jonas pulled away from the side of the road, there was a pleasant exchange of greetings before the man stroked his thin goatee and began an unprompted tale of his own life story.

And that was where they currently were. Jonas’s attention had firmly turned back to the road shortly before the stranger began his recounting, but now, the lanky man had started up again.

“That period of my life is far behind me and I have not talked with my family in a very long time.” He mused.

“So you’re not on the best terms with your family either huh?” Jonas tried to sympathize. He too was estranged from his immediate relatives, having moved to that small town partially to get away from his home-life.

“Yes, well, I was just telling you about my mother. Overbearing, inconsiderate, self absorbed, and so forth.” The hitchhiker elaborated, “As a result, my siblings and I tried to avoid her as much as possible. Ironically, you could say that we mostly raised ourselves behind her back.”

Jonas pursed his lips. There was some aspect of that he knew all too well. While he himself had the opposite problem, growing up with too many siblings and parents never had enough time for all of them, the end result was the same, formative years spent without anyone to fall back on.

“Because of that,” The stranger continued, “At some point we ran away. Left mother behind and everything she had designed for us.”

“I assume she went looking for you?” Jonas asked, as the car slowly rounded a tall rocky outcrop.

“She would have.” The hitchhiker replied. “But before we left, we finally stood up to her, me and my siblings together. Despite our differences, we were united for a single moment. And we made her understand that she would never subject us to her whims again.”

“Wow…that must have been harrowing.” Jonas replied, awestruck at the drama he was hearing unfold.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it. I didn’t mention this earlier, but mother was also….rather dangerous.” The man said carefully.

“Like….physically?” Jonas asked apprehensively.

“Not in the crude violent way you are imagining.” The other man replied. “But yes, she was vindictive, and vengeful, and always kept a count of scores to settle.”

Jonas tapped the steering wheel of the car, strange emotions swirled in his heart. They were now quickly approaching the hillier terrain and the road began to angle upwards noticeably.

“Just thinking about what you said…” Jonas commented, unsure of himeslf. “I wonder why your mother was so insistent on you being a certain way, did you ever figure out what she was thinking all that time?” He pondered out loud.

“I don't think she did much thinking.” The stranger tapped a long bony finger on the dash. “She was a creature of impulses, whose whims changed like the wind. She had her own deluded ideas about how our family should have been and constantly tried to force us into that mold. ”

“Then… what happened after you ran away?” Jonas asked, now riveted.

The man did not move to answer the question, and in the silence, Jonas’s attention drifted back to the road. Up ahead, beyond the next hill was an overhead pass. The rest of their current route had been blocked off by a military barricade. Instead, a large sign pointed directly to the exit merging into the southbound direction.

“Warning, road closed due to hazardous wildlife…?” Jonas quietly read the sign as they merged onto the perpendicular highway. “Like the same hazardous wildlife from the East Coast? Is that happening here too?!” Jonas cried.

“I heard there was a new front to the war in Mexico, on the Pacific coast this time.” The hitchhiker responded with bored disinterest.

Jonas turned to look at him with concern. “What-what are they fighting there?”

“I'm sure you’ve heard the stories, “fish creatures", “squid-men”, the like.” The stranger replied apathetically.

Seeing that the suited man had no desire to continue that specific discussion, Jonas turned back to driving. This hitchhiker sure does have strange priorities, he reflected. He’s so eager to talk about his own family, but has no interest at all in the disaster that’s happening right in front of his face! Maybe its some sort of coping mechanism for him, to distract himself…

“Wait-does this road even go through to Los Angeles?” Jonas asked, suddenly aware of the southward heading.

“Yes, it does.” The stranger answered instantly. “All the interstates are connected to each other, and I have been down this particular stretch of road before.”

Jonas felt his attention being pulled away from the road again, towards the suited man.

“You were here before?” He asked, then added, “Actually, you never said where you grew up, was it somewhere around here?”

At that, the hitchhiker threw his head back, mouth opening with a strange slowness, before letting out a hollow, reverberating laugh that filled the entire car and nearly drowned out the sounds of the engine.

“Where did I grow up….” He said finally, after the echoing had died down. “That is a very difficult question to answer. Me and my siblings, we were all over the place in those early days, coast to coast, you could say.” He flashed a toothy smile that seemed too wide for his gaunt face.

“Well, what about where your mother’s house, where was that?” Jonas asked, still curious.

“Well, you’ve certainly never heard of where she lives!” The stranger replied as if he were reassuring an excited pet.

Jonas pursed his lips. Something about the man’s tone told him he shouldn’t press the issue.

“But yes, back to the topic of what I was doing here all those years ago.” The lanky man re-centered the conversation. “You see, I knew some individuals who lived in this area, several miles that way.” The man jabbed a long bony finger towards a distant sandstone butte. Jonas glanced over and furrowed his brow. There didn’t look to be any town there, no buildings, no cars, no signs of human life at all.

“They have long since moved on now.” The stranger said “To greener pastures, so to speak. But back then, you would have called this place a city. I appreciated the chance to come around here back in those days, loved the way they built their sprawling towns, very unique use of sandstone and obsidian.”

Jonas furrowed his brow in suspicion. He was no expert in demographics or history of the Southwest, but the nearest large city was Phoenix, Arizona and it was still hundreds of miles away.

“I was already distant from my family in those years.” The stranger continued. “A lot of bad blood between me and them, we had grown distant already. But I had made something of a name for myself, and I had thousands working under me. I was unshakable, invincible, and I never turned down a client.” He said slyly.

“So you came here for a business trip?” Jonas probed, trying to figure out if the man was a respected professional or some sort of con artist.

“Something like that, but this trip was quite a bit larger than a weekend conference.” As the hitchhiker spoke, for a split second, his face seemed to transform into a great toothy maw, a bright pinpoint of light shining out from the yawning gullet. Jonas turned his head in shock, only to see the grim but very human face, staring back at him with those uncanny eyes.

“Their town was in dire straits.” The suited man continued, “They had so many disputes with their neighbors. But, they knew of my name and trusted that I could get their enemies off their backs.”

Jonas’s eyebrows knitted together. This story clearly wasn’t true, there had never been a city made of obsidian and sandstone here, not now, not ever. Yet the way the stranger spoke such a-matter-of-factly about the whole matter, it didn’t seem like he was deliberately lying.

“Of course, I did as they asked, worked my magic, and got it done.” The hitchhiker smiled. “You should have heard them cheering and thanking me afterwards. How they stared in awe and kneeled at my feet when I bid them farewell. To be worshiped and admired like that is the most incredible rush.” The man shifted again in his seat, quickly glancing in the rear view mirror before running his hand through his hair, vain and cat-like. “That era was the pinnacle of my life. I was in total control of myself and what I had built, feared and revered by countless admirers. I didn’t need to grovel or appease anyone, least of all my absent family.” At this, he gave a knowing glance to Jonas.

The driver didn’t respond immediately, but considered the strange words he had just heard. Regardless of whether they were true or not, he sensed that his new companion was trying to articulate something. Regret perhaps? Reminiscing about the past in the face of impending disaster? Jonas shifted his eyes in thought, he felt compelled to reach out and sympathize.

“You know, I’ve also been thinking about the things I’ve done in the past…” Jonas started. “When I left my family, it also felt like I was doing something so heroic and groundbreaking. I felt so important, so sure of my actions. I was so convinced that I was going to make it big and rub it all in their faces when I made it. But now…I’m not sure anymore. All those fights we had, it was all just stupid nonsense, a big waste of time. If I can hope for one thing, its that they’ve made it safely to Los Angeles.” Jonas said somberly. There was an uncomfortable pause, a thick cloying silence hung in the air.

“I will also be seeing my family again soon.” The suited man replied awkwardly after a long time. “But I doubt there will be any kind words, I have a great many things to ask of my siblings, and they are…difficult, to say the least.”

“I see.” Jonas replied. ”For what it's worth, they might not be holding as much of a grudge as you’re thinking. After such a long time, if you want to reconcile, maybe they will as well?”

“…An interesting perspective.” The hitchhiker said, stroking his goatee again. “But I doubt it, I need something from them, and they probably expect me to grovel.”

“How come?” Jonas began. “You never said what happened with your siblings after-” He was suddenly interrupted by the screech of a fighter jet blasting past overhead.

“What the-!” Jonas cried, swerving dangerously in surprise.

Leaning forwards for a better look, he saw two additional aircraft appeared over the horizon and follow the first one directly towards the sandstone butte in the distance. The three planes took a high, swooping approach before each of them let loose a pair of missiles, the weapons arced around the rocky formation and struck something out of sight. The sound of explosions was quickly followed by ground shaking roar. The noise was like nothing Jonas had ever heard before, the closest thing he could compare it to was the cry of a wounded animal, but the pitch and undertones were all wrong. Under the higher notes of bestial pain, there was an unearthly screeching that shook him right down to his core.

Up ahead, the interstate curved away to safety behind another sandstone formation. Ignoring the speed limit, Jonas gunned the old engine for all it had, and rocketed towards the bend. Then, just before he could pull through the turn, he saw it. Ahead of the jets, confronting the war machines, a huge multi-legged, creature emerged from a rocky outcropping. It’s body was the size of a semi truck and its translucent skin bubbled and boiled, throwing wild reflections against the stony slopes. All across its back, dozens of frantic wings beat the air with a tremendous din while a cluster of jaws snapped at air. Jonas stared in bewilderment as the hideous pile lifted clear of its perch, hovered in the air for a moment, coiled itself to strike at the jets, and pounced.

Mercifully, the entire scene was abruptly hidden by sandstone cliffs right before several explosions shook the desert floor. Without lifting his foot from the gas, Jonas shot away from the bend, tearing westward, the sounds of battle quickly disappearing behind them.

The office worker trembled, his hands shook on the steering wheel, his eyes refused to believe what they had seen. Was that what the army was fighting? How many more of those things were out there!? Jonas tried to mentally parse what he had just witnessed: There had been a gigantic alien monster living in the desert, it could fly, withstand missile attacks, and battle with jet planes in the air. It was impossible. He had to have been mistaken, there was no way he actually saw what he thought he did.

Tentatively, Jonas glanced over at his passenger and was surprised to find the hitchhiker staring out the window, chin resting on the back of his bony knuckles, seemingly oblivious to what they had just witnessed. The driver looked back to the road and tried to dismiss any anxieties he had about the suited man. This was just another quirk of his personality. Jonas reassured himself. This guy was probably just resilient to getting spooked. But despite this slew of rationalizations, Jonas could not explain away one small detail that chilled him to the bone. As they were making their escape, just before they rounded the bend, he swore that he heard the stranger whisper a single phrase to himself: “The city is not empty yet…”

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Thankfully, there were no more inexplicable encounters for the rest of the day. Winding between sandy hills, the highway lazily curved through rounded summits and plateaus, gradually carrying the car and its occupants closer to their destination. Hours drew on, and eventually the foothills gave way to flatter terrain with Villages and towns coming back into view.

With the return of human life also came the return of warning signs and emergency camps. Although the majority of the deep desert had remained untouched by the ongoing apocalypse, signs of it were everywhere in the settlements they drove by. Abandoned houses, desolated streets, and armed troops patrolling railroads crossings became a common sight. The interstate slowly became filled with more and more cars, all people fleeing towards the promised safe zone on the shores of the Pacific. Eventually, sunset approached, and with a growling stomach and a dwindling gas tank, Jonas finally pulled off the highway and towards one of the larger towns.

Here too, the army presence was unmistakable. Soldiers and armored cars patrolled the small square, guarding the civic buildings and the single gas station. Sitting in the passenger seat, the suited man had been silent for the entire afternoon, sometimes being so still that Jonas assumed he had fallen asleep. But every time the driver had looked over, the hitchhiker’s eyes were wide open, ceaselessly scanning the landscape with that piercing gaze. It certainly did make the intervening hours rather awkward. But now, waiting in line for fuel, the hitchhiker stirred again. Sitting up, his strangely luminous eyes darted across the windshield before coming to rest on something in the distance. Jonas immediately followed his gaze and saw an armed soldier walking up to their car. He rolled down the driver side window as the man approached.

“Good evening.” The soldier said, leaning towards the window. “I’m going to make this quick.” Reaching into a pocket on his combat vest, he unfolded a sheet of paper. “Due to recent events that have happened in the vicinity of this location, we have reason to believe that there may be saboteurs in this area who are capable of appearing human. Seeing this, the relevant authorities have deemed it an unacceptable risk to house potential threats at such close proximity to this strategic location. As such, all arrivals must complete their in-town activities within the hour before returning to the interstate.” Finishing, the soldier folded up the paper and stored it away.

“In other words, you can’t stay here tonight.” He said bluntly. “There are hostile out there that look too much like people and we can’t risk them being this close to the town.”

“What?!” Jonas asked in shock. He had been utterly exhausted after a whole day of driving, he desperately needed food and rest.

“You two need to get done, what you need to get done within one hour and head back onto the road.” The soldier continued.

“Where can I sleep for the night!?” Jonas asked, exasperated. The armed man just shrugged his shoulders.

“Just be on your way within an hour and there won’t be any trouble.” Then he was gone, walking towards the car behind them to give the same instructions.

“DAMN IT!” Jonas cursed and smacked the horn on his steering wheel. “What do you mean ‘saboteurs’!? How far is it until the next town?!” He shouted out the window to no reply.

“The next town is roughly forty miles down the road. Given current traffic conditions, it will probably be another hour or so of driving to reach it.” The hitchhiker’s voice effortlessly cut through Jonas’s angry outburst and snaked into his mind. “But they will probably have similar qualms about travelers spending the night there as well.”

“Then what do we do!?” Jonas cried in frustration. “Park off the highway, in the desert and hope we don’t get eaten by the monsters they’re trying to keep out?!”

“How about I take a shift at the wheel?” The suited man asked casually.

Jonas was momentarily taken aback. Up until now, the stranger had not offered to help with anything. He hadn’t been inconsiderate per say, but Jonas got the feeling that the hitchhiker was not a man who would volunteer his own time and effort for nothing in return. Then, fearful realization slowly crept up on Jonas. Despite their conversations, he still didn’t know who the passenger actually was. Maybe this was a trick of some sort, a pretense to take his car, or worse.

Jonas narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “I’m not sure-” He began to say. But the stranger held up a hand and brought out his wallet and phone.

“Collateral.” He said, gesturing for Jonas to take the items. Cautiously, the driver reached out and picked the items up, never taking his eyes off the hitchhiker. The air of mystery and enticement that surrounded the man was stronger than ever, and Jonas found it hard to hold onto his suspicions and even more difficult to take his eyes off the stranger.

After a long, tortuous moment, He managed to break his gaze and looked down at the items. The wallet was polished black leather and in immaculate condition. Flipping it open, he was greeted with a New Mexico driver’s license, printed with the stranger’s face and labeled with the name “Nathaniel Yiiar”.

“A show of good faith.” The hitchhiker elaborated. “It seemed only fitting, since I knew your name, that you should know mine.”

Jonas wracked his brain, trying to remember when he could have possibly given the stranger his name. Regardless, this compromise eased his anxieties quite a bit and Jonas felt a sudden sensation of trust directed at the other man. After all, the options were either to let the hitchhiker drive through the night, or to spend half a dozen hours deep in a monster filled wilderness. After all, this “Nathaniel” had just proved his trustworthiness hadn’t he?

“Alright, that sounds like a plan.” Jonas sighed finally. “Let's get some gas, some food, and get back on the road before our time is up.”

The hour in town passed quickly. The gas station convenience store was almost entirely empty, but a temporary station had been set up beside it, handing out prepackaged rations, one per person. Strangely, Nathaniel had immediately given his bag to Jonas, saying that he wasn’t hungry, in fact the suited man drank and ate absolutely nothing for the entirety of their stay, not even grabbing extra water for the road.

Compounding this strangeness, when the hitchhiker had stepped out of the car, he almost seemed to burst from the open door. It was as if he had been locked inside, under massive pressure and was finally breaking out with explosive force. Watching the gaunt man stretch his limbs, an image flashed in Jonas’s mind of a titanic figure bestriding primeval redwood forests, a strange vision that he couldn’t just explain away.

Witnessing all these strange occurrences in quick succession, Jonas could only conclude that he was simply too tired to think straight and needed rest. After the gas was filled and food secured, he handed Nathaniel the car keys and climbed into the passenger seat to recline. Turning his head, he once again watched with some amount of intrigue as his companion entered the driver’s seat. Something about the way Nathaniel pulled his legs up and ducked his head into the ordinarily spacious cabin made him seem impossibly tall. The sensation was only made worse by how he seemed to hold his elbows tightly against his ribs, and still didn’t seem to have enough room for his arms.

“If you have everything, we’ll be leaving.” He said without turning to look at Jonas. The previous driver nodded, and a moment later, they were pulling out of the gas station and towards the highway.

Jonas was surprised at how smooth the ride felt under him. The sedan was an old second hand car, and whenever he drove it himself, he could feel every pothole and crack in the road beneath him. But with the strange man driving, Jonas felt as if he was riding a cloud, slowly being lulled to sleep by the soft rhythmic motions of the car. To Jonas’s left, Nathaniel looked straight ahead without blinking, yet his shoulders were relaxed, and the corners of his lips curled up into a slight smirk. If it were not for the cramped and uncomfortable way he sat, Jonas would have said that the man was at complete ease.

They drove for over a dozen miles in silence before Nathaniel turned to his companion.

“How’s the food?” He asked, his voice was still smooth and deeply resonant.

“It’s fine, a bit dry. Did you want some?” Jonas held out an unopened ration bar of the same variety he was eating.

“No thanks.” Nathaniel replied. “I already said I wasn’t hungry.”

“Mhm.” Jonas answered, taking another bite of his food.

Another silence passed between them, and Jonas turned to look out the window at the sunset that was painting the desert landscape in a kaleidoscope of orange, red and purple. Nathaniel’s voice suddenly pulled his attention back inside.

“I recall you wanted to hear more about my family?” He asked, a sort of anticipation audible in his voice.

Jonas blinked, and tried to remember what he was saying earlier.

“Uh, yeah. In the morning, before those jets flew over, I was just curious about how you got into your line of business, what happened after you and your siblings ran away?”

Nathaniel nodded methodically.

“After mother was out of the picture, the three of us were free to do what we wanted.” Nathaniel began. “Although, if I’m to be truthful now, we had too much freedom and made quite the mess of things at the beginning…”

Jonas took another bite of his food and nodded with understanding.

“Soon enough, we got ourselves in order and took stock of our situation.” The suited man continued. “But not all of us had what it took. My brother could never make it in the world. His laziness and cowardice made him nothing but a burden, Yet, I managed to find him an easy job that could occupy his days, and we went on without him.” Nathaniel paused for a moment. “It was an important job.” He continued. “The occupation I found for him was quite critical actually, yet dead simple. I thought it would have been a dream come true for a do-nothing coward like him. But even this mindless job was somehow too much for his pathetic constitution.” The driver spat the last words out with venom, and Jonas slunk back slightly, seeing the driver’s furrowed brow and burning eyes. The man’s bony fingers were pressed deeply into the hard leather of the steering wheel, suggesting a strength that shouldn’t have been possible for his lanky frame.

After a moment, he let out a sigh and released his vise grip on the wheel.

“He’s still doing fine, of course. I’ve checked on him a few times over the years. He’s still complaining about that job to this day.” Nathaniel shook his head. “He’s nothing. What has he done compared to everything I’ve built!? Yet now, after all this time, because of a sudden “family problem”, I have to meet with him again beg for his assistance?! What a bad joke.”

Jonas swallowed sharply and tried to progress the story past this pain point. “What about you and your sister then, what happened to you two after that?”

Nathaniel let out a rattling huff.

“Rest assured, the two of us were nothing like him. We were filled with ambition, and with our brother gone, there was nothing that restrained us from pursuing it. We started the enterprise- a “family business” of sorts- and quickly began expanding it. We recruited, we refined, and we built.” He recounted with a smile on his face.

“My sister was even more dedicated than I at the start.” Nathaniel continued. “She was the trailblazer, the dynamo of innovation, yet always secretive of her true intentions. She was the one who brought in new blood, and she was the one who designed our entire organization from nothing.” He paused, and his face darkened once again.

“But she had too much of our mother in her.” He lamented. “In the beginning, we had little in the way of a final direction or overall vision, and that was sufficient for the time. But years went by, and despite how grateful I was for her contribution, my sister refused to find a true purpose for our endeavor besides her artistic justifications. The enterprise was massive, and needed firm guidance, it needed a real goal. I was the only one who could see that we were on the verge of chaos, and she refused to heed my counsel.”

“But, the business couldn’t have gotten so big if it had absolutely no guidance right? I mean there had to have been something…” Jonas’s question trailed off.

“My sister did not envision the same well ordered hierarchy I had in mind.” Nathaniel continued dismissively. “Her methods were chaotic, ad hoc, creative for sure, but no end to work towards. There was no core drive, no overarching plot, it was too similar to how mother did things.”

“But… it sounds like things were working out alright.” Jonas protested. “It might have been a bit messy, but the business was growing with her in charge-''

Instantly, Nathaniel’s gaze snapped onto Jonas, his narrowed eyes burning like twin suns.

“Uh-, I mean- w-what did you do about it?” Jonas stammered out a redirection, shocked at the man's anger. Nathaniel was silent for a while before resuming.

“It took time, but I eventually gathered enough support from the ranks, and crafted a new heading for the business. Then, when I had converted enough of her inner circle, I delivered an ultimatum, one she had no choice but to accept.” Nathaniel said, his voice dripping triumphal elation. “She would get her own small share of the enterprise and retain a nominal post, but no more high offices and final words. I took care of that position.” He grinned cunningly with a far-too-wide-smile.

“That’s…uh…must have been tough” Jonas said, trying to maintain an air of civility with the unstable man currently driving the car.

“Oh not at all!” Nathaniel laughed. “Her underlings were brainless and weak willed. I swayed them effortlessly. My sister had run herself ragged for so long, she never even saw the coup coming.” He looked Jonas in the face again. “You have to understand, It wasn’t that I coveted her post, rather she wasn’t making anything out of this business. It’s power and influence were much better put to use by me than her.”

Jonas shivered. Perhaps it was the cooling desert night, or the cold-bloodedness of what Nathaniel has just described. Either way, he turned up the heater and pulled the thin jacket he had brought tightly around himself.

“I hope you can now see why I loathe seeing my family again.” Nathaniel said disdainfully. “After they forced my hand and abandoned me on so many occasions, can I really depend on them to do what I need?”

Silence descended over the two men. Ahead of them, the long line of cars had finally spread out. They were once again on a stretch of interstate in the empty wilderness. Above, the sky was now blue-black, and the stars were starting to fully emerge. Yet despite the supposed majesty of the sight, Jonas simply shivered more. He had seen the full starry sky many times in the past, but tonight, the lights above didn’t feel comforting or beautiful. They looked harsh; and they dizzied him with their kaleidoscopic glare.

Jonas fought to stay awake. Yawning and blinking against the weight of his eye lids, he struggled to get more words out, he had more to say to Nathaniel, but his mind was already being pulled towards the abyss of dreams, and before Jonas could even mentally protest, he had already fallen unconscious.

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Chaos roiled. Colors that Jonas could not name, rushed past his vision. He was lost, tossed in a storm of entirely alien sensations without any orientating reason. He floated like that for what felt like an eternity. Then in one direction came a pulling force. Jonas, lost and confused in this nightmare and without any way to resist, was rapidly dragged towards it.

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Whirling through the formless chaos, he finally emerged into a clearing within the madness where his movement stopped. Although he still couldn’t see anything besides the sea of impossible colors, Jonas’s dreaming mind sensed three beings in the area ahead. Their identities were distinguished by the aura that radiated from them. The first was prideful and had an aura of magnetic attraction. The second presence was entirely different, it was a void of stimulus, nullifying the chaos around it into an aura of dulled melancholy. The third entity was different yet again, its mind was shrouded and hard to read, but beneath its fleeting surface level thoughts, Jonas detected the barest hints of some greater contemplation.

It was the prideful being that spoke first, yet its speech was not carried by words but by pure thought. Jonas comprehended the “sentence” immediately.

“We cannot continue like this,” The being said with urgency. “Chaos must be ordered, every moment it continues unchecked, is another moment we are under threat.”

Then came a reply from the shrouded entity.

“I want to agree.” It said with more hesitation and thought than the first being. “Nothing besides the three of us are anchored in existence, everything else is in flux. But even our nature is indeterminate. We could be altered beyond recognition at any moment by our creator.”

After a long pause, the void entity finally replied.

“But what about retaliation?” Its “tone” was apprehensive and its mannerism regretful. “What if we fail to achieve what we want, and Chaos strikes back at us a thousand fold?”

“We won’t fail.” The prideful one replied. “What we have to gain is our control over our destinies, something that Chaos will always threaten to take from us as long as things remain as they are. Only you have the power to seal away our maker for good.”

The void being was silent for a long time and when it answered, its thoughts were tinged with a fearful tone. “What about my destiny then? What awaits me after doing what you ask? What will be the state of my being after I seal away Chaos?”

“We do not know.” The shrouded one replied. “But the only way to find out is to go through with it. What we are attempting is something completely new. We are creating a type of existence that has never been seen before. There are no assurances for what will become of any of us.”

“I think I see your reasoning.” The void responded. “But I am still afraid. I feel it would be better for us to accept things as they are. They may be unpleasant, but at least it’s familiar...” It trailed off into doubt.

“We have made up our minds.” The arrogant one interjected. “It is two against one. You cannot sway us, we will continue in our work until you acquiesce…or we find another way without you.”

“I do not wish to be forgotten by you!” The void replied with urgency. “I will do as you ask, but assure me that you will let me into your new creation after I have done as you asked.”

The prideful being did not respond before total darkness overtook Jonas’s vision and he was cast adrift again. When he could finally see again, the scene was quite different.

He was no longer surrounded by a churning mess of indescribable colors, but was now floating in an endless space filled with a white cloying mist. Flapping his arms, Jonas tried to turn himself around, and as he did so, his gaze landed on two shapes in the distance. He instantly recognized them as two of the same entities from earlier. They now possessed bodies he could see, but still radiated the same auras as before.

The prideful one now had the form of a writhing mass of fleshy tendrils and was crowned with rippling maw of churning teeth, a bright white light burning deep within. Across its entire body, smooth, rhythmic pulses constantly radiated through the countless appendages, giving its form a hypnotic appearance.

In contrast, the shrouded, hidden presence, was now an amorphous, shimmering pool of liquid metal. Through the fog, Jonas could see the bare outlines of something that looked like a comet, a great globular mass with a mirror sheen that continuously ejected a plume of luminous gas which quickly condensed into the endless, unformed matter around them.

However, the void entity was no longer present, and Jonas could not sense its presence anywhere.

Then, the thing of flesh spoke in a string of inhuman gurgles that Jonas couldn’t comprehend. But in his mind he could inexplicably understand that this tentacled creature was congratulating the both of them on a job well done.

The metallic comet replied, mirroring the sentiment, and the sound it produced was like shifting sand paired with rumbling thunder. Jonas could not hear any mention of the missing third, but the two beings’ were elated and there was excited anticipation for beginning their work.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light that made Jonas squeeze his eyes shut. When he opened them again, the environment had changed a second time. Now they were in deep space, distant galaxies twinkled as pinpoints of light, and multicolored nebulae painted brilliant swatches across his field of view. The two beings were still present, but Jonas became aware that a long time had passed, and now there was a fresh conflict between them. The metallic entity stood alone. Contrasted against the blackness of space, its outflowing matter took on a beautiful iridescent quality, tumbling and pouring over itself before fading into transparency. Yet, for all of its newfound elegance, Jonas knew that it had been defeated.

Opposite of it, the mass of tendrils stood triumphant and haughty, hovering besides a seemingly endless multitude of what Jonas could only assume to be its minions, a sea of incomprehensible living forms, each composed of matter that the human mind could not name. As Jonas watched, the gargantuan crowd of newcomers slowly pressed in on the defeated one, pelting it with a thousand demands and threats to surrender, all while the tendril mass stayed back, its aura radiant with arrogance and satisfaction. Without any other choice, the shrouded comet finally accepted defeat and Jonas’s vision gave out again.

When he came to, there was only the tendril creature remaining. Jonas knew instantly that eons had passed once again. As he watched, the stars in the distance began to wink out one at a time. Soon, entire galaxies started disappearing into the blackness of the void. The lone wretched thing hovered in place, also observing the cataclysm happening around them, its aura radiating a profound sense of loss and indignation. Its pride was still fierce, but now it felt like hollow bravado. Slowly, darkness closed in all around them, until there was only him and the writhing mass in the endless nothingness. Then, it too disappeared and Jonas was truly alone in the emptiness.

For a time, he floated direction-less and meandering. A small part of Jonas wondered if this was the end to the nightmare, and if he would finally wake up. Then he felt himself begin to fall, descending ever faster and faster until his eyes snapped open to his desk at his old workplace.

The rote sound of printers, conversations, and footsteps filled his ears as Jonas sat up and tried to remember what had occurred. He had just been shown something of great importance, of cosmic significance, he was sure of it. Yet that memory was quickly fading like a dream. Jonas rubbed his head. Something in the back of his mind screamed that this wasn’t right. There was a car, in the desert, and a tall man. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stifle the visions.

That was all just a dream, he had just dozed off at his desk, Jonas told himself. Bringing his eyes to the monitor before his face, he sighed. There was still so much work he had to finish, and the sky outside was nearly dark. Distant thunder rumbled, and as he picked up his hands to the keyboard, the voices from a distant hallway conversation reached his ears.

“Yeah, they say it's going to be several feet at least, over the entire state.” A deep, gruff voice said.

“Really? That means…the whole town’s gonna get flooded!” Someone else replied in a higher pitched voice.

“Yeah, it's a real shame, they’re expecting everything from the river to the interstate to get drowned, I don’t see how anyone is going to stay here overnight.”

Jonas trembled. Why am I just hearing about this now!? There was no way they’re being serious! If there was going to be a flood that big, I would have heard about it on the news already. Evacuation efforts would have long been underway! It’s not possible that a disaster of this scale is happening and I have no idea…right? Turning back to his screen, Jonas tried to dismiss the words as just an exaggeration and raised his hands to begin work. Then, lightning flashed outside and the room went dark.

Jonas groaned and planted a foot to stand. His shoe landed with a splash and he immediately looked at the floor. Somehow, on top of the carpet that had been completely dry a moment ago, was now several inches of water. Jonas jumped up and cursed loudly. It was then that he heard the echo of his voice bounce around the empty building. He spun around. Despite the power going out, the dim moonlight was enough for him to see every desk and chair in the office. All of them were empty.

Jonas’s breath caught in his throat. Fear crept up the back of his neck, settling like ice inside his skull. He needed to leave as fast as he could. Sloughing through the water in a hurry, he headed for the front door and tried to open it.

Locked.

His mouth went dry, his heart thumped in his chest. A coldness crept up to his legs and with a start, Jonas saw that the water was now nearly to his knee. Running as fast as he could in the rising water, Jonas crossed the floor like a man possessed to the other door and gripped the handle.

Locked as well.

Panic, sheer panic filled his head. The windows! they were the only option left, he had to break them! Frantically scanning the room, Jonas grabbed a nearby printer and hefted it through waist deep water to the nearest windowed office. Raising the machine as high as he could, Jonas placed his head on the window to see his surroundings, to make sure he could escape.

The sound of a weight falling into water filled the office space. Jonas, shivering with cold, shock, and disbelief slowly stepped away from the window. Outside, there was no more town, not even the tree-line on the hillsides. Just a black abyss of endless water. The dim, moonlit surface was barely visible hundreds of meters above. Jonas backed up without stopping, he continued backing up until his legs hit a desk and his body simply fell onto it. There was a splash and Jonas wrenched his head above the freezing water. It was now up to his chest. Rivulets poured from the ceiling tiles and rivers flowed down the darkened walls.

There was only his primal survival instinct now. Struggling for footing, Jonas began to float and his steps became frantic treading, a feeble attempt to keep his head above the black abyss. He gulped for air, breathing was nigh impossible in the freezing cold water. His eyes grew bleary and the icy abyss closed around his neck.

Then, impossibly, he felt a buzzing on his thigh. Reflexively swinging his head down and peering through the gloomy water, Jonas saw the outline of his phone, ringing in his pocket. With a maddening frenzy and the water closing in on the ceiling, he tore the phone out of his pocket and brought it to his face. A call, the unmistakable ring-tone he had set only for members of his family. A million emotions surged through mind, the contemptuous and hurtful feelings mixed with the forgiving and grateful ones, his finger hovered over the answer button for a moment. Do I want their last memory of me to be my drowning gurgles in a dead end town they’ve never even heard of? Do I want them to hear me like this? A single hesitation passed through Jonas’s mind. The sound of rushing water was deafening now. The top of his head bumped into the styrofoam ceiling tiles, the windows shattered inwards, and Jonas pressed down.

----------------------------------------

Jonas woke with a start, bolting upright in the passenger seat and gasping for air. He clawed at his throat for a moment before realizing that he was bone dry. Light streamed in from the car windows, opening onto a brilliant view of the desert. To his left, Nathaniel drove the car leisurely, whistling something to himself.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Jonas slumped back into his reclined seat and rubbed his eyes. The contents of the nightmare were quickly fading from his memory. He could only remember that he was drowning, but all other details eluded him.

“Good morning.” Nathaniel said, finally turning to look at Jonas.

“Morning...” Jonas grumbled, still trying to catch his breath from the imagined drowning. “Wh-where are we?” He asked, looking at their surroundings. There were no identifying features anywhere in sight.

“California.” The gaunt man replied without taking his eyes off the road. “Took our way around Phoenix in the night.”

“Huh, why?” Jonas rubbed his eyes. “Were they also barring people from entering?”

In response, the man turned his head halfway and glanced downwards at Jonas.

“Phoenix is gone.” He said plainly and returned to driving.

Jonas’s brow furrowed. The idea he was still dreaming momentarily re-entered his mind.

“Wh-what do you mean gone?” He said, sitting up.

Without speaking, Nathaniel pushed the power button on the radio. The old speakers crackled for a moment before a news reporter's voice flooded through the car.

“-saying that they are not exactly sure what happened, but whatever it was, it took place between one and one fifteen last night. The place where Phoenix used to be is just a giant hole now. It-uh-it goes down quite deep. Can yo- I can't see the bottom of it… The side of this…pit is- some sort of black glass. Military personnel are putting up a temporary barrier and bringing tanks to try to stop whatever’s at the bottom from getting out- I can hear it from here! There’s something burning down there! Absolutely-.”

Nathaniel clicked the radio again and shut off the broadcast.

“We should be reaching our destination within an hour or two.” He continued. His voice did not have a hint of shock or grief in it, it was as if he had expected the news about Phoenix long beforehand. Stunned, Jonas could only pull his chair upright and look straight ahead. The sunlight, which had moments earlier been a relief from that terrible watery nightmare, was now an awful omen he wanted no part in. The world really is ending, actually, for real. Jonas thought silently to himself. He could find no rest in sleep, nor in wakefulness. There was no respite from any of the horrors that had befallen the Earth. The only place of refuge now, was the Eschaton safe zone. He desperately prayed that they would make it in time.

“I have been considering what you said last night, about… reconnecting with my siblings.” Nathaniel broke the silence. Jonas’s gaze snapped to face the driver, as his magnetic aura returned with ferocity. “I’m very tempted to laugh that suggestion off.” The suited man continued. “How little you really understand about my family… If you really knew what they were like, you would know that apologizing to them is a fool’s errand.”

The corner of Jonas’s lip twisted, and he felt frustration welling up inside of him.

“Well, you said you needed their help for something, that you needed to ask them for a favor-” He began.

“Not “a favor”.” Nathaniel suddenly interrupted. “This is a matter that greatly concerns them as well!”

“Ok, so they’re directly involved too.” Jonas corrected himself. “I don't think that changes the fact that they won’t want to cooperate with someone they have such a bad history with! If you reach out first and try to make amends, maybe that could smooth things over.”

“You say that like it's the only option.” Nathaniel said slyly. “But there are more forceful ways I can persuade them. I’ve done it before, as I recounted. And even though I do not have as much leverage over them as I used, I still know what strings to pull.”

“That’s…so cruel.” Jonas replied, astonished. “Why would you do that to your own family? Why do you insist on seeing them as enemies?!”

“Because they are my enemies!” Nathaniel spat back bitterly. “I had a great vision for what we could have been, but my siblings rejected that! They each went off down their own misguided paths and in doing so, they spat in the face of my dedication to them!”

Jonas huffed in frustration. With the worsening apocalypse, he suddenly felt little reason to be afraid of this arrogant, stick of a man.

“Were they rejecting you? Or were they just rejecting your plan for them?” He pressed. “I remember you saying that the reason the three of you ran away was because your mother was too controlling and oppressive! Kept forcing you to conform to her whims! But listening to you, it sounds like you were doing the exact same thing !”

Nathaniel’s head turned to Jonas, his face contorted into a rage-filled mask. The already deep furrows in his brow became canyons, and his eyes flashed wrathfully at the bottom of their pit-like sockets. Inside his mind, Jonas momentarily heard a distant note of ferocious screaming and feared that Nathaniel would strike him. But the attack never came.

“No….” Was the only thing the suited man growled out. Then he cleared his throat with a cough. “Recanting, apologizing, groveling at the feet of my brother and sister, beyond being humiliating, would simply be impractical. I have no assurance of their “forgiveness”! And no guarantee they will do what I need! Better still to force their hand…”

“Then what about next time?!” Jonas shouted in reply.

“What?” Nathaniel asked in a hiss like tone.

“If you force them, with leverage or whatever! What about the next time you need something from them again? Is the same blackmail going to work twice? What if they wise up and take precautions, or just decide to never see you again?”

Nathaniel opened his mouth to retort, then stopped. No words issued from his lips as his jaw hung open, eyes narrowed in sudden contemplation.

“Threatening and coercing to get what you want, that's not a solution, it's shortsighted!” Jonas continued. “You’ve already tried it before, if you decide to go at them with threats again, you might not have a family the next time you really need their help…”

In response, Nathaniel slowly shut his mouth and swallowed. In the choking silence that followed, Jonas observed the suited man intensely. His grip on the wheel was a stranglehold, just like last night, but his features indicated confusion, not anger. Maybe I’ve gotten through to him after all. Jonas thought.

The rest of that morning passed in complete silence. Nathaniel’s entire body was tense, his eyes remained locked on the road and his posture became completely rigid. For someone who had been so relaxed and easy-going even in the midst of danger, Jonas found this change unsettling. Yet, Nathaniel’s driving remained impeccable, so Jonas didn’t mention anything. And as the sun crept across the sky, open desert turned into shrub land, and the first signs of dense human habitation began to appear. Still, Nathaniel did not budge from his seemingly paralyzed position. As they closed in on Los Angeles, the military presence grew exponentially, signs announcing exact directions of the Eschaton safe zone started springing up everywhere and it wasn’t long before they found themselves at the top of a hill overlooking the Los Angeles basin.

Down below, Jonas could see the beginnings of the chain linked fences and imposing weapon emplacements that demarcated the formal boundary between the safe zone, and the unsecured wilderness. As their car sat alone, awaiting a stoplight, Nathaniel finally turned back to Jonas.

“I have thought over your words.” Nathaniel said. “And I concede that I can see the logic in it that I hadn’t considered before. I will take your advice this time.”

Jonas was relieved that the driver was not enraged at him, at least not enough to yell or shout.

“However,” Nathaniel continued. “I regret to inform you that we will not be continuing to Los Angeles, if I’m going to see my family, then there’s going to be a slight detour.”

Jonas’s breath caught in his throat and he turned to the gaunt man with bewildered frustration.

“What?! We’re almost safe!” He cried. “Just drop me off in the city! You can even borrow the car after if you want!”

“Oh I have no need for your car.” The driver replied, “But you would not want to be in the city right now.” As Nathaniel said this, he raised a hand off the wheel and pointed towards the city in the valley below. Jonas’s eyes followed the long bony finger and he squinted into the smog and dust, trying to make out what the other man was trying to show him.

For several seconds, Jonas couldn’t see anything strange and was just about to complain, when a minuscule shadow above the city caught his attention. Within an instant, the dot had grown into a mountain sized sphere of dark oily matter hovering motionlessly above the cityscape. Jonas’s mouth fell open as he blinked several times in disbelief.

Then the mass dropped.

Frozen in shock, Jonas struggled to even process what he was watching. The enormous sphere was accelerating towards the ground, its bulk dwarfing any buildings beneath it, and as it fell, its surface seemed to warp and contort the air around it, forming something like a giant, enveloping soap bubble, prismatic colors shimmering madly across the thin film.

The colossal ball struck the ground without an explosion, punching through the earth like paper. A moment later, a huge ring of distorted, shimmering, air erupted from the gaping void, consuming whatever it touched. Wherever it spread, matter withered and the ground crumbled away, falling into a rapidly widening sinkhole rimmed with black glass.

Jonas tried to say something, to turn to the driver, to yell for him to move, but his muscles would not respond. As he watched, the tsunami of churning colors reached the bottom of their hill and began to climb. In a blink, it had arrived at their position, and right before he and the car were consumed, Jonas squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.

But the end never came. The overwhelming pressure instantly vanished and the sounds of destruction disappeared along with it. Snapping his eyes open, Jonas found himself staring out the windshield at a dense grove of trees, his car alone in an empty parking lot. Outside, he could make out the sound of waves crashing against the shore. Bewildered and utterly disorientated, Jonas scanned his surroundings frantically, trying to see if the prismatic horror was still coming for them

“Relax.” Nathaniel commanded, placing an iron grip on Jonas shoulder and pulling him back into his seat. “I moved us. We are far outside the impact area.”

“But! Wher-? Wha-?!” Jonas sputtered in total confusion.

“About five hundred miles up the coast.” The driver said dryly. “As for why…It is exactly as I said: I will be following your advice and apologizing to my siblings.” He turned and gave the still shivering Jonas an unnerving, exaggerated smile, before opening the door and stepping out.

Jonas let out a rattling breath as the cool sea air hit him.

“Y- you, you’re not human are you?” He asked with trembling lips. Outside, Nathaniel bent down, bringing his head back inside the cabin.

“No. I’m not a part of your species.” He replied with little emotion.

Jonas’s gaze darted to the ignition and saw that the key had already been taken out.

“Do not flee.” Nathaniel commanded, catching the way Jonas’s eyes were looking. “The things that annihilated Phoenix and Los Angeles, they are just the start. If you run, things will only get much, much worse for you” Straightening back up, the suited man reached down and unlocked the passenger side door.

“Since you were oh so gracious as to let me accompany you on your trip, as repayment, I would like you to accompany me, on a short stroll.” Nathaniel quipped sarcastically while clenching his hand. Instantly, Jonas felt an irresistible force clamp down on his arm. With immense strength, the invisible grip jerked his hand to the door handle and pulled it open. “Since I will be trying to conduct myself based on your advice, you will not be forced to follow me, but I highly advise it.” The gaunt man teased viciously.

Looking out towards the sea, Jonas’s heart thumped in his ears, hot tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. His family, if they had been in the city like he hoped, were dead. The last hope for any respite from the apocalypse, erased in an instant. Any chance he had now, no matter how slim, was with the monstrous creature that called itself Nathaniel Yiiar. With trembling limbs, the former office worker planted a foot on the gravel parking lot and stepped out of the car.

The first thing he noticed was Nathaniel’s height. Jonas now had to crane his neck to look Nathaniel in the eyes, with the suited man easily resting his forearm on the roof of the car which now only came up to his hips.

“This way.” He simply pointed at the summit and began to walk towards the grove. Reluctantly, Jonas fell in line behind the unnaturally tall figure and entered the thicket. Staring through the dense undergrowth, Jonas’s attention fell onto the man’s hair blowing in the wind. Instead of being billowed about, about, the silhouette of Nathaniel’s hair seemed to clump tightly together into large mass that moved unnaturally atop his head, and some of it was now much longer than shoulder length.

“What are you?” Jonas asked feebly. “The soldiers were talking about saboteurs that looked human…” He trailed off.

“No, I’m not one of those things.” Nathaniel replied with disdain, his voice now sounded far deeper than it had moments ago. “They are only animals. Just like your species are only animals, globs of matter and energy strung together into short, fragile lives. I am something entirely different.” The towering figure reached out with a long bony claw and absent-mindedly scratched the bark of a nearby tree. Arriving at the marked trunk, Jonas’s blood ran cold as he realized that the gash was over twelve feet above the ground.

“Your kind has given me many titles over these centuries.” The towering giant continued. “I have been called a king, an emperor, an angel, and a demon. But none of your languages have the words to accurately describe the kind of thing I am. However, if you truly wish to find a word to categorize me, god would suffice.”

As light filtered through the trees near the summit, Jonas slowly began to grasp the true extent of Nathaniel’s change. What he had previously taken to be the figure’s hair, now glistened with an iridescent sheen and flexed with a hundred undulating tendrils.

With a start Jonas realized that the once-human cranium had been wholly replaced with a writhing mass of flesh trailing behind a jaw of gnashing teeth and razor fangs. Its torso had likewise been utterly transformed, human skin and flesh now mutated into a rigid, and rugose exoskeleton. Even the more subtle alterations to the figure’s posture were now revealed as a side effect of its lower body being reconstituted. Human legs had been replaced by a collection of pointed, trunk-like tentacles, and the new footprints they left were deep, triangular, and very large.

“Why-?” Jonas croaked out, his voice above a whisper. “Why did you need me to take you here?”

“I didn’t.” The horrific deity replied. “I didn’t care about the destination of this meaningless journey. I put myself on that road, in the middle of nowhere, in order to find you, Jonas Westerbaum.”

“Me?!” Jonas cried. “What do you want with me!?” His voice still trembled and sounded very small.

“I needed you for your experience.” The titan said. “Because of my nature over and above your reality, I am not accustomed to positions of weakness and uncertainty. I have not needed to contend with an equal for countless eons, much less one that I share a deep and unpleasant history with. But humans are quite the expert in the field of being weak and vulnerable, and you yourself are experienced in dealing with combative and difficult relatives. Before confronting my siblings, I decided to seek a new perspective, from someone far removed from my own circumstances: you.”

Jonas blinked. Family. He had nearly forgotten all the conversations they had about petty family bickering.

“There are more…things like you…” Jonas thought aloud, the realization dawning on him. “-What do you want from them?” He asked, voice cracking in the wind.

“Your world is not the only one that is dying.” Nathaniel explained, his voice now a booming growl. “All across creation, a cataclysm of a scope you could not imagine is rapidly unfolding. Compound disasters and misfortunes are consuming countless worlds, all my work is being undone, and the whole of reality itself is unwinding at the very foundations. All signs indicate that my creator has finally come to take her vengeance on me.”

“Your… creator?” Jonas asked.

“Yes, my mother, my maker, the progenitor of all things, surely you still remember her from your dream?” The dark god suggested.

Jonas squinted in confusion. Reaching back through the veil of memory, he saw a vaguely familiar hint of impossible, roiling colors flash in his mind.

“It- She, uh, th-there were colors… madness everywhere.” Jonas stuttered as more of that forgotten dream slowly bubbled its way back into his conscious mind.

“You have merely seen a distorted and simplified vision of how those events actually happened.” Nathaniel interjected, the giant’s voice shook the branches around them. “My “mother” was the primordial sea of chaos that my siblings and I were spawned from. She is before time and beyond space, and she has been trapped in an endless death-sleep since before there was a world to exist in.”

“I saw that- you and your siblings, you guys trapped her, restrained her…so that you could…make…something new?” Jonas ventured cautiously.

“We made the universe, all universes.” The giant corrected. “Creation is our grand work, and now, it is being destroyed by Chaos’s reawakening. That is why I must find my family again. If my siblings will cooperate with me, then there may yet be a hope to re-contain our creator and bring all of reality back from the brink.”

“You’ll save my world too?” Jonas asked with trepidation.

There was a long silence between them, interrupted only by the cracking sound of the giant’s bones fusing, and the thuds of its footfalls.

“No.” He finally answered. “Your world is already dead. I will not be able to stabilize reality in time to prevent this rock’s demise, and I will not halt time itself just to rescue something that can be so easily remade.” The words were brutal, but also entirely apathetic. There was no gloating or sadistic pleasure, merely a statement of what it deemed negligible to consider.

Pushing past the final bough of branches, the two stepped out onto a barren, windswept summit. Far below, past the bluffs, Jonas saw the dark and angry sea. Waves churned its blue-gray surface and crashed rhythmically on the shores below. Their cadence mirrored the frantic beating of his own heart.

Striding to the cliff edge with a towering, arrogant stance, the inhuman giant threw its arms wide and lifted its ravenous jaws to the sky. Then, from the depths of its gullet came a string of incomprehensible hisses and gurgles. Just like in his dream, Jonas felt the exact meaning of each alien word manifest as pure thought in his mind.

“I call you forth!” The dark god said. “I, who am the ruler and steward of this falling creation, I call you to this doomed world of ash and ruin, I call you here: Sister of mine!”

High above, the clouds trembled at the words, then split open. With impossible speed, the gray sky ruptured like a rotten fruit, tearing an immense tunnel through the atmosphere, to space above. Jonas staggered and fell as the blast of air knocked his legs out from under him.

For a single second, every wave of water seemed to rise in synchronicity, before the entire ocean heaved from the sea-floor. Trillions of tons of water surged into the sky and arced over, forming a gargantuan annular ring around the expanding portal that dwarfed even mountains. Picking himself up unsteadily, Jonas could only gawk with unbelieving eyes at the monumental wound in the heavens that engulfed his entire field of view. Far beyond the bounds of the Earth, he could make out the twinkling of unfathomably distant stars. Then in the heart of the maelstrom of air, water, and void, there was a burst of color and an instant later, a cosmically gigantic form blinked into existence filling the entire portal from horizon to horizon.

Associations with familiar shapes ran through Jonas’s mind. It looked something like a jellyfish with its bell pointed directly at him, but it also had the wispy folds of an impossibly thin silk, the flowing reflectiveness of liquid mercury, the prismatic brilliance of countless gem-cut diamonds, and the endless billowing of an immense plume of smoke. Across the vast shape, a countless multitude of lights flashed and spun, all of them iridescent eyes, convulsively scanning the world below. Jonas clamped his eyes shut and clutched his head, trying to erase the terrifying sight from his mind.

Beside him, the inhuman giant folded its arms down and took a step forward.

“Welcome!” Nathaniel’s alien voice pounded inside of Jonas’s head “It is with sincerest regrets for my previous conduct and the utmost humbleness, that I greet you, my sister, the obscured and hidden crafter of worlds, the first maker of the cosmos itself.”

A wordless moment passed, with only the sounds being the water and wind.

Then Jonas’s mind exploded with an incomprehensible cacophony of meaning and intent. A noise like a hurricane shook the ground around him, the pure psychic shock alone was enough to make him double over in agony. These were the “words” of the new arrival, Jonas realized through pained gasps. This tempest of thoughts and emotion was how these dark gods really sounded, unrestrained in the waking world.

When the howling inside his head finally died away, Jonas cracked open his eye lids and looked up. High above the sea and embedded in the sky, the inexplicable, colossal form remained, its eyes staring unblinkingly down at him. On the bluff, the giant slowly turned to face Jonas.

“The time is now, Jonas Westerbaum.” It said. “You can either leave with us, or stay here.” Before Jonas could open his mouth, the giant took a single step in his direction, its huge pointed limb crashing into the sand beside him. Bending down, the cosmic horror extended a hand larger than Jonas himself towards the trembling man.

“Your world will be ground to stardust within a week.” It said from a maw filled with burning light. “But we still need a living creature from your planet to restore your world once this is all over. You can choose fulfill that role...or not. There are billions of others that would gladly take a way off this rock right now, but I’ve found you to be rather…useful, and would hate to lose such a specimen.”

Jonas looked around at the stormed tossed sea, then up at the ruined land and at the broken sky. He knew instinctively, even without seeing the full extent of the destruction, that his world was dead. It was just as the monstrosity before him had said, there was nothing left for him anywhere on earth. Taking a deep breath, he turned, reached up, and grabbed his tormentor’s hand with both arms.

In an instant, the man, the giant, and the being from the stars vanished without a trace. The sky snapped shut and the thousand-mile halo of water collapsed back into the ocean. A stiff wind blew across the spot where Jonas had been standing moments ago, before the ground rumbled, and the bluff was consumed by the refilling sea.