“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”

Lao Tzu

Matthew Porter was seventy years old, though he did not let that fact slow him down. He was one of those retired folks who could put you to shame on the pickleball court and would brag about it for days. Up every day before dawn, he would march out the door in his worn track pants and baggy white T-shirt, and head for the walking paths that meandered their way through the plentiful parks of Regina. He always took path that headed towards the university, weaving its way along a narrow creek that bisected a strip of parkland that had been spared from development.

He was half-way to the university when the sun began to light up the city. Matthew enjoyed listening to the sounds of nature coming alive in the morning. He called it the music of the world. He had been a high school music teacher in his working life, and a composer on the side, yet nothing he composed was more beautiful than the sounds of nature at first light.

Matthew took a deep breath and opened his ears to listen to the music.

He heard only silence. It was an unnatural stillness, quieter than the darkest depths of night.

It unsettled him. Perhaps there was a storm was rolling in? Unusual for the summer months, but not unheard of. Yes, there were dark clouds building in the distance, but he still had time to finish his route before they arrived.

He passed by Edward Martins’ house, bracing himself for Edward’s rottweiler, Buster. The beast had a mean streak that ran from nose to tail, and every time Matthew passed the house it would rush forward, crashing against the chain link fence and issuing a fury of barks that would frighten even the sturdiest of mailmen.

Today, Buster was sitting in the middle of the yard, his eyes fixed on the southern horizon, silent and unmoving.

Had something happened to Edward? Matthew looked towards the house and saw Edward in the kitchen window, holding his morning coffee. Edward gave a wave and Matthew waved back. Strange. "What is up with that mutt?" Matthew wondered. He was no fan of the beast, but Edward lived alone, and Buster kept him safe, so Matthew still had a soft spot for it despite the mean streak.

"Is that…fog…in the distance?" he wondered, following Buster's stare.

Edward squinted, and decided it was fog sitting below the stormclouds. Together, they formed a wall of white and black, stretching from ground to sky.

"Beautiful, but unsettling. A tornado, perhaps?" he thought. "That would explain Buster’s behavior."

Matthew gave a final wave to Edward and turned around, heading home to weigh down his lawn furniture.

* * *

Emily Desjarlais stood on the highest tower of the Regina Oil Refinery, watching the storm roll in. From here, she could see the entire city and beyond. Her stained overalls hung heavy after her twelve-hour shift, but she couldn’t bring herself to give up the view and head home to her dingy, one-bedroom apartment.

The storm was approaching from all directions, fast moving with the city as the epicenter of an impending collision. Minute by minute, the fields were being swallowed by the wall of fog that gathered below the storm clouds, like an avalanche of snow filling a valley.

It made Emily want to go skiing. God, she hated the summer. The heat gave her rashes.

The storm was moments away from striking the city when Rocky popped his head out of the tower’s hatchway. Rocky was over four hundred pounds and squat. He panted from the effort of the climb and struggled to speak through desperate gasps for breath. His balding head reflected the light of the sunrise in a way that delighted Emily. Rocky was as far from the iconic movie character as one could get, but he always made her smile.

“Hey… Emily… what… are you... doing… phew,” breathed Rocky, struggling to catch his breath with every word. He paused, pressing his hands against his knees to steady himself. “I… really need to… lose weight.”

“Just more of you to love Rocky,” replied Emily. She looked over at Rocky and saw the shocked look in his eyes. She realized what she had said and quickly changed the topic. “I’m just watching this storm roll in. It’s so weird, the way it is coming from all directions at once. And the wall of fog beneath it… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Rocky slid over to Emily’s side and peered into the distance. “Huh. Doesn’t seem to be rolling in to me. It’s just kinda… sitting there at the edge of the city, like it hit an invisible wall.”

Emily frowned, then shifted her stare from Rocky to the wall of fog. Not that she was staring at Rocky, she told herself. "I'm definitely not checking him out or anything. Even if his chubby cheeks and telltale squint made me want to… um…"

Rocky's words finally sunk in.

“Wait, did you say the storm just stopped moving?” she exclaimed. “That’s not possible.”

“That’s what I am saying,” responded Rocky. “Look. It’s not moving. It’s just sitting there, like it hit a stoplight or something. It’s eerie.”

“You scared Rocky? Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from the scary clouds,” she teased, flexing her well-toned arms.

“You could do it too. You're crazy strong,” replied Rocky, and an awkward silence fell between them.

They stood there, leaning against the railing, just watching the storm. Emily was hyperaware of how close her hand was to touching his. Why wasn’t she pulling it away?

“Hey Emily,” started Rocky, sounding nervous, “This is completely the wrong time, but I was wondering… do you want to…maybe…um…”

Rocky did not get to finish. At that moment, four beams of bright light – one from each corner of the city – shot out from the fog towards the sky above the downtown office towers. The beams joined together where they met, their light billowing out across the city. A sphere made of light began to form where the beams intersected and quickly expanded. High in the sky above city centre, the sphere of light grew until it was the size of a football stadium.

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Emily shielded her eyes from the intense brightness, dark spots dancing across her eyes as if she had just been staring at the sun.

The sphere’s light began to fade, changing to a pale white until the sphere resembled the harvest moon.

“Emily, are you seeing this?” Rocky asked, his voice shaking.

Emily could only nod. Her hands gripped the rails of the tower so tightly that all her knuckles had turned white.

The beams of light stopped their projection, the last traces of their light absorbed into the orb. The orb began to shift, its light taking on hues of green, brown, yellow, black, and white. A rainbow kaleidoscope shining down on the roadways and rooftops of the city far below.

A crash from the road that ran parallel to the refinery jarred Emily from her fixation on the orb. Two semi-trucks had just collided, and smoke was starting to rise from their crushed engines. Shouts of anger and fear began to rise up all across the city, and people were stopping their cars in the middle of the road to gaze up at the sky.

There was another crash from the street below as the city erupted into chaos.

“We should go help. People might be hurt,” said Emily bravely, as she turned to march down the refinery tower.

Rocky let go of the railing and grabbed her hand before she could reach the ladder.

“Are you nuts, Emily? We don't know what is happening,” Rocky protested. Doomsday scenarios began to play through his mind, and all he knew was he needed to keep Emily safe.

The kaleidoscope of colors within the sphere suddenly went still, and Emily and Rocky watched as the colors of light began to form into rings and solidify. A few moments later, the sphere had transformed itself into a massive, floating eyeball, with a green iris around a pitch-black pupil. Its outer shell was green and white, and potmarked like the moon. It bathed the city in a faint glow as it stared, unblinking, at the city below.

“What on Earth…,” Emily started to whisper, but her words were cut short as the world around them began to rumble. The refinery tower beneath their feet began to shake violently and Emily fell to the floor, dragging Rocky down with her. They held on for dear life as the tower threatened to hurl them away like a bull at the rodeo.

And then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped.

Emily dared to lift her head and stare out at the city. The storm clouds were gone. The fog was gone. And what remained chilled Emily to her core.

“What the hell?” Emily whispered.

* * *

Anjali Kapour held her infant daughter, Jaya, to her chest as she took shelter under her mother’s old dining table. The house rattled around her. Was this an earthquake? There were no earthquakes in this part of the world. She recalled being a small child in India, before her family had immigrated to Regina, crouched under this same table during an earthquake as she listened to their possessions smash against the tile floor.

The shaking stopped, and Anjali peered out from beneath the table, expecting the worst.

The house was as she left it. The decorations adorning the shelves remained upright. There was not a single book out of place. No picture hung askew, and every drop of tea remained within the confines of her cup. It was as if the earthquake had never happened.

“Sasu ma?” called Anjali, her voice shaking. She could not see her mother-in-law, Priyanka. The earthquake had struck too quickly for Anjali to find her.

Anjali hoisted a squirming Jaya into her arms and left the safety of the table. How was everything left untouched? Were they just lucky?

She sped around their two-story home, peering into each room. Every room was untouched, but there was no sign of Priyanka. After placing Jaya in her crib, she grabbed her cell phone and headed out the front door.

“Please, let her be safe,” Anjali prayed.

The sight that greeted her took her breath away. A giant eyeball hung above the city, floating over downtown. Its pupil moved back and forth rapidly, as if scanning the entire city below.

Her mother-in-law stood in their side yard looking north, away from the eye. What was she doing?

“Sasu ma?” Anjali asked, rushing over to her side. Priyanka did not acknowledge her presence. She did not even blink until Anjali waved her hand in front of her face. What was she…

Anjali followed her mother-in-law’s gaze north, and nearly fell over in shock.

A giant stone wall, more than a hundred feet high, rose into the air behind their home, stretching across the city as far as she could see. It was composed of grey and worn stones, covered with moss, with tall towers rising out at equal intervals, as if they were living within an enormous medieval castle.

Beyond the wall rose towering mountain peaks, reaching high into the sky with sharp peaks piercing billowing clouds. Anjali counted a dozen sparkling waterfalls flowing down the mountain slopes. The smell of Pine filled the air, and felt the cool, damp breeze on her bare skin.

“Anjali, what's happening?” her mother-in-law pleaded.

Anjali had no answers to give. “Let’s get inside, Sasu ma.” She put her hand on Priyanka’s shoulders and lead her towards their house.

As they turned, a three-toned chime echoed across the city, emanating from the giant floating eyeball. When the final tone faded away, its pupil suddenly vanished and tens of thousands of smaller eyes, each with a set of bat-like wings, poured forth from its depths and descended upon the city. They flew in all directions, spreading to every neighborhood and into the lands beyond the wall.

Anjali hurried her mother-in-law inside as she spotted five of the winged eyes flying towards them. Priyanka was slow, agonizingly slow, but they made it through the door just in time for Anjali to slam it shut before the first eye could get through.

The door thumped as the head-sized winged eye struck it hard.

Anjali struggled to control her fear. She helped Priyanka into her favorite chair and handed her the cell phone.

“Stay here,” ordered Anjali. “Call 911. And Ajay and Appa. Gods, why do those two need to be away in the oil fields right now?”

Priyanka just nodded, her shaking fingers unable to grasp the phone from Anjali’s hands. Anjali placed it in her lap, then sprinted towards Jaya’s crib, her heart racing.

She could not contain the gasp of fear as she rounded the corner into their living room. Floating above Jaya’s crib and staring down at her with an unblinking gaze was one of the winged eyes. It fluttered back and forth, watching Jaya from all sides. Jaya giggled and reached up to grab it.

Anjali panicked and sprinted forward, reaching into the crib and grabbing Jaya by her armpits. The eye floated towards the ceiling, as if to get a better view of this unexpected interruption. Jaya blinked in confusion. Then, robbed of her new plaything, she started to cry.

Holding Jaya close to her chest, Anjali dashed back to Priyanka. The winged eye following close behind.

“Anjali, there is no signal. I couldn’t call 911. I couldn’t call Ajay. What will…” Priyanka stammered. Then she spotted the winged eye following Anjali and she froze.

Anjali thrust Jaya into Priyanka’s arms and stood between the winged eye and her family. She pushed aside her fear. Her family needed her now. She balled her hands into fists and raised them threateningly.

“Leave us alone!” she shouted, her voice shaking with a cocktail of fear and anger, “I won’t let you hurt them!”

The winged eye stopped and gently flapped its wings as it hovered in place. Its pupil was mechanically shrinking and growing, as if it were trying to keep their image in focus.

“Wait…it is…?” thought Anjali. She took a cautious step forward.

The eye floated back an equivalent distance, the pupil shrinking slightly.

Anjali took a step to the side, away from Priyanka. The eye moved in the opposite direction and rose slightly, as if to keep her entire family in frame.

“Anjali, what are you doing?” asked Priyanka, clutching the crying Jaya.

“I…I think it is a camera,” responded Anjali, sounding more confident than she felt.

The three-tone chime sounded again. But this time it came from the winged eye hovering before them.

A call to attention.

And the voice that came from the eye chilled Anjali to her core.

* * *

Bethany stayed in her dream, listening to the waves crashing against the shore.

But all dreams must end, and Bethany felt herself being pulled back to reality.

She struggled against it, and for the briefest of moments she felt as though she might succeed in staying on that peaceful beach. But then the beach began to fall apart, little by little, until all that was left were fragments floating in a void.

A three-toned chime reached her ears, and Diana’s warning was whispered on the absent wind.

The Contest is not fair. It is not kind. It will stretch each of the participants until they break, and only the strongest will pull themselves back together again.

“I don’t want to go,” pleaded Bethany.

Be brave, little Bee.

The final fragments of her peaceful beach faded into nothingness.

Her dream ended.

And her new life began.