Mahemet and Hasani

10127 BC - Arabian Desert - Middle East

It was well past midnight when Mahemet and Hasani reached the top of the largest dune in their vicinity in search of a good vantage point.

They currently were experiencing mixed feelings when it came to their journey across the desert.

On the one hand the bright full moon and mostly cloudless sky made it easy to navigate the individual dunes, but on the other hand the moon’s bright light obscured the stars meaning they had little in the way of orienting themselves.

Another element to their feeling was they would not always be able to see as well at night time, they would gladly put up with this disadvantage to conserve energy and water, not to mention the current conditions were reasonably, under the circumstances.

They both were somewhat thirsty but knew they had to ration their daily catch of water and it wasn't time yet for another sip.

While each of them took out tools to attempt to triangulate their position, a loud and deep rumbling came over far away.

"That wasn't my imagination, was it?" Mahemet hesitated to ask Hasani.

Hasani shook her head before feeling a cold chill down her spine, which she saw Mahemet felt too.

"I heard it too," Hasani replied, "It was as the oracle described 'the roar of a mighty beast where there is none’, followed by the ‘touch of God in your spine'. "

"We cannot be far then," Mahemet said as he pointed vaguely in the direction the 'roar' came from, "We must head in that direction post-haste."

Both of them started walking down the sharp edge of the dune they were on, attempting to stay the course towards the ‘roar,’ which happened to be westward, as they tried to circumvent the endless sea of sand hills that stretched out in every direction.

It would be several hours of wandering vaguely westward for them to make any more progress in relation to the Oracle's mission.

Mahemet and Hasani were missionaries of sorts. They belonged to a small band of nomads called Al-Baharish. They were a reasonably small religious sect from near the end of the Tigris river leading into the Persian Gulf.

Their prophet and oracle had predicted a sign from the Gods above would reveal itself within the next few moons. Amongst the community the rumours spread like fire and before long many missionaries gathered to hear the words of the prophet. The prophet said that his nights were plagued by images of a tear in the world, from which would emerge the voice of God, first, and later would spew forth angels of destruction onto the earth. The dreams led him westward and northward and this was to be the directions several small teams would leave Al-Baharish in search of God's mark.

The prophet could neither pinpoint the location nor the time it would appear but assured all those who would brave the journey that were they to come upon God's window into the world, no one would have a single doubt of that which stood before them.

Armed with nothing more than the prophet’s word to guide them, Mahemet and Hasani had left 13 days prior on this insane journey.

Two hours later, while the pair was reaching the top of a dune several kilometres further west than they had been, another rumble and roar came over from further west still. It was much louder this time and the air felt different. As the sound grew louder and closer, the air began to press upon them, even going as far as to give them small static shocks as the roar passed through them.

Their bodies felt heavy and the vibrations of the air were blending into them, so much so that they could no longer feel where their bodies ended and the air around them began. All the while the roar was deafening.

The pressure of the moment held up for a few more seconds before the roar dampened and the air cooled back down. Hasani and Mahemet both fell to their knees and while it was not a conscious choice, found themselves praying.

"Protect us in our hour of need O Great Wise Ones, for we are but humble creatures of your menagerie, unable to fend for ourselves…"

They both noticed by now that the frightening roar had passed and they were free to move again, yet didn't stand up until they had finished the prayer.

"... By your whimsy and by your pleasure do we entrust our lives to you.

Our love for you and servitude in abundance."

Neither of them dared to move for several moments, they weren’t sure they could. Eventually, however, they found their body free to move and both rose from their prayer position, immediately preceded by embracing each other.

"Under the watchful eye of our creators," Mahemet began while holding Hasani, "I do solemnly swear that if we are to meet our makers on this day, a man couldn’t have asked for a better wife, friend and companion."

Hasani gripped him slightly tighter before letting go slightly and raising her head to look him in the eyes before smiling softly.

"As I feel for you,” Hasani said, "If it is our time to go, regret will not be an emotion weighed upon my judgement."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

While Mahemet and Hasani were joined in a moment solidified by the prospect of death, the air swooned and swelled into gusts around them. The sky was still clear and the air was stale for as far as the eye could see; they just couldn’t make sense of the gusts. There was nothing at all to see but at one point high in the sky, a tiny shiny speck, clearly visible in the dead of night. Up there floated something, they weren’t sure what, nor how to describe it, but without a moments hesitation both Hasani and Mahement thought the same thing in that moment: the rift that the oracle had spoken of was beginning to appear.

They had to walk down the side of the dune to get as close to the anomaly as possible.

The two travellers were interrupted during their trek and revelation, not only by the sudden flaring of wind coming in from all directions, but also by the light of the singular speck in the sky slowly growing stronger, pulsating long smoky tendrils and vibrantly permeating outward. It started out as a single point, bright, hot, white, radiating hues outward across the sand in rhythmic waves.

The two looked up in awe, paralysed at the sight before them.

The light was radiant and made the everything its illumination touched feel out of place; that was to say, serene in a way that was not reminiscent of a desert at all, but closer to a blissful oasis conjured only in the most desperate of dreams.

The hues slowly turned from warm yellow colours to cooler blue shades, giving the sand below a liquid appearance. The blue tinted light, most reminiscent of the moon light behind them, ebbed like the surface of a calm ocean.

Stale light particles slowly danced melancholically down from the sky while the the light continued to bathe them with a muted glow which reflected upon the sand.

The singular point of light started pulsating, slowly at first, getting more rapid until the pulsation was no longer visible and the light was blinding. The blinding light started to elongate and formed a bulge first, then extended into a bright and fuzzy line of light. The line started pulsating regularly and speedily until the pulsating became erratic and seemingly random.

It was at this point that the line contorted itself into a constantly crumpling crinkled shape in an attempt to meet itself at both ends, before exploding from a flash of light into nothingness. The flash of light enveloped the area around the rift in what seemed like a solid bubble of blue-tinted light twenty meters in every direction and a strong roaring shock wave was flung out simultaneously.

The shockwave threw Hasani and Mahemet several meters backward into the side of a dune.

The noise was terrifying. They both felt like the noise all around them, pushing them deep into the sand, was going to implode their brains.

Luckily this didn’t happened. Mere moments after they were flung backwards the air halted, frozen in time. In this moment the world was silent.

The illuminated area looked serene, with specks of light like hanging snow, but the ways in which it was deafening was far worse that the wind had been, there was now an ever increasing bell sound which overpowered all senses.

Mahemet was the first to rise back up to his feet and looked up to where the ball of light had appeared before. The area up in the sky was devoid of said light, though particulates were still there, still in their frozen dance about the air.

"The sky, Hasani," he began saying as he stood in awe, unable to move, “It…It’s being sucked into nothing."

From his perspective, no matter how he looked ahead, the sky seemed to lead his sight into the absence that was left when the light disappeared. The clouds seemed to be contorted and curving round and converging onto a single point. Something seemed to be pulling not just the clouds but what seemed like the sky itself into deviating out of existence only several meters up in the sky above him.

The sound of Hasani screaming snapped Mahemet out of his paralysis.

“The light won’t stop!” Hasani shouted in panic as an invisible force was dragging her through the sand away from Mahemet, “Help me!”

Mahemet tried to run towards her but his legs were so heavy that he couldn’t quite lift them out the sand and almost tripped. Out of reflex he extended his arm out towards Hasani despite it being obvious he was never going to get close enough.

Hasani was slowly being dragged away from him as she tried to swim back, attempting to dig her arms into the sand in the hope of offering any resistance she could.

“Hasani!” Mahemet shouted as he grabbed for his backpack as quickly as he could, “Extend your arm towards me!”

He took out a rope, wrapped one end around his wrist and tightened his grip before throwing the roll of rope with all his strength towards Hasani.

The rope landed beyond Hasani, which Mahemet hoped she would give her the opportunity to grab onto it.

“The rope!” He shouted like his own life depended on it, “Grab the rope with everything you have.”

Though the rope wasn’t exactly alongside her, Hasani managed to drag herself close enough to grab onto it with all her might. Mahemet felt a sudden pull from the rope which tugged on him with enough force to drag him off his feet. Unfortunately for him, his feet were heavy and dug in the sand so hard that he instead got pulled face-first into the sand. The pull on Hasani had slowed but it hadn’t stopped; now Hasani was being dragged with Mahemet in tow.

Hasani was now being lifted off the ground and Mahemet could feel the lift in the rope which prompted him to tighten his body, he tried to make himself as heavy as possible. No matter how hard he tried, though, he could not prevent the rope from picking him off the ground; all he could do was hold on with all his strength.

“Hasani!” He cried out in frustration, “I’m so sorry, and…” before he could continue however he felt himself floating freely and his heart skipped a beat as it took a dive into his throat.

The next thing he knew he felt his body reject momentum, he felt his entire body sink deep into the sand while his entire back was both numb and on fire at the same time.

He had to try very hard to open his eyes, but once he managed he could see Hasani floating and writhing around in midair. He had trouble breathing after falling down on his back so no sound made it past his lips as he saw Hasani float higher and higher out of his reach. He couldn’t help but reach out his hand in desperation.

“Mahemet…” He heard Hasani shout from above him.

The area above Hasani begun to be visibly diffused with light once more, making her difficult to see and forcing Mahemet to avert his eyes.

“A star will fall,” She said as the light became intensely blinding around her, obscuring her, swallowing her, “There will be darkness, and cities of light…”

The light became solid and enveloped everything as far as Mahemet could see or hear. There was silence again.

Not only was the silence overwhelming his senses but the light was pressing him into the sand. The weight of the solid light so was excruciatingly heavy on his entire body, to the point that for only a moment no longer felt connected to his body.

In that moment a tiny speck of darkness gleamed into existence high above and swallowed Hasani out of existence.

Mahemet shouted but made no sound, there was no sound of any kind inside the envelope of light.

The gleaming speck of darkness pulsated rapidly before imploding back into nothingness. A minuscule moment of time standing still was interrupted by the bubble of light popping and dissolving instantaneously, releasing small gust as the air settled back in place as if nothing had happened.

The night had returned to normal, the only light was the moon once more. Mahemet looked up to the sky which was still slightly converging to a point above him though it seemed to be shrinking away. He had only a moment to notice it before the rope fell and thumped down on his chest, coiling around and whacking him in the face, nearly knocking him unconscious.

As he felt himself dozing off he looked through tear-filled eyes as the sky uncurled itself completely. He passed out as the first rays of sun shone overhead, painting away the night as well as the last remnant of the rift in bright orange hues.