Ch. 1

Glimpse of Heaven.

There was a man, one who stood amidst cascading waves.

The late summer wind blew across the water, caressing both his face and ruffling his brown hair. Time stood still around him, his neck craned back to look above at the distant stars and celestial bodies that dotted far-off places. His dark, blue eyes met with the expansive universe, the twinkles of said stars resting within his irises like the reflections of a serene pond.

Behind the man in the distance, there were constant beams of light that illuminated him and the endless ocean beneath his feet. The source was an idling car from atop a nearby cliff face, one where the gentle thrum of an engine created a nice ambiance to the mood.

When his mind reached that point, all he could do was sigh.

Whenever he found his minding running amok, he found himself driving out toward this small haven of his, somewhere he found solace in. The rhythmic waves created a sense of peace in him, drowning out the many troubles of the mundane world. How could his pettiness and frustration match to such a scale? They were all so utterly small in comparison.

Alas… He could not remain here forever. Time was inexorable. It would march forward whether he wanted it to or not.

The man turned around and soon, waded back to the beach. When the water reached his ankles, he noticed another man there, one who was prone and resting on a beach towel not too far from the edge of the tide. He lied there with his eyes closed, two hands reaching behind his head as his luminous blond hair banished the nearby darkness like a small torch in the night.

The prone man’s eyelashes fluttered open, his hazel eyes looking to him in confusion for all but a moment, before he closed them once more. There were no words exchanged between the two, just a small smirk and chuckle.

“Oh? I didn’t see you there. You’re finally done with your routine, Ames? I almost fell asleep here, you know,” the blond man said, but not before letting out an exaggerated snore.

The man, Ames to his friends and Amos to most others, walked several feet away from the slothful dud, though not without a smile. He reached down for his socks and shoes in the sand beneath; the latter showing many signs of wear and tear, before he made his way back to the towel. Ames bent his knees and with a groan, seated himself next to the resting man on the ground. He threw on his lucky footwear after stealing an unoccupied corner of the towel to clean his feet, his old reliable Vans important for the coming event tonight.

‘These beauties haven’t let me down yet,’ he thought. ‘Don’t let those fools make fun of you, my lucky little stars.’

When he finished throwing them back on, Ames looked over to sleeping beauty and shoved his foot with his own.

“I know you too well, Cam. You’re about as jittery as me right now, yeah?” Amos took a moment to exhale before standing back to his feet, his sweatpants rolling back down. With a mischievous smile, he lifted his foot above the unsuspecting victim. Eyes still closed, Ames chuckled to himself before he took a step on his friend’s chest and used him as a bump to get to the other side. Ames hurried off after that, his infectious laugh in tune with the wind as it made its way back to Cam. Cam, the person in question, scurried around in the sand like a crab until finally, he rolled over to his stomach.

“Bastard! Why’d you do that?”

“The others are waiting for us, sleepyhead,” Amos shouted from beneath the towering cliff. With that, his sprint slowed to a walk as he neared a set of wooden stairs, the construct snaking its way up the cliff with the coastal road as its destination.

He looked over his shoulder and noticed Cameron running after him, grievances and a thirst for revenge written all over his face.

“You could have at least told me with your mouth and not with your foot!”

Amos’ smile widened at that. He couldn’t hold himself and said, “That’s weird. I thought I did! You must’ve been dreaming with all that sleeping!”

“Just you wai-“

As soon as Cameron voiced his threats, Amos turned and darted up the wooden stairs. When he reached the top, he noticed his friend soon cresting as well, his chest heaving as if having run a marathon minutes prior. Upon seeing him out of the corner of his eye, he could see the man winding up for a counterattack. Before Amos could catch him red-handed, however, he paused.

Amos heard them too. Soon, the duo noticed an organized formation of cars drive around a concrete barrier down the road. The various exhausts howled in the night like a pack of wolves, almost intent on disturbing the once-calm atmosphere of his little paradise.

In the lead was a cherry-red WRX at or around cruising speed, while the rest behind it followed. After some time, the vehicle in the lead drove up to both Amos and Cameron as they stood atop a gravel space meant for parking off the road. The three that came after soon drove onto the shoulders of the coastal road, finding places to park amidst the overgrown grass and gravel.

“Why is everyone here? Did you call them?” Cameron said, confusion evident in his tone.

Ames shook his head, not looking back to the blond man at his side. It was then the owner of the WRX rolled down his window.

“You two done with your romantic picnic yet? We have a race to get to, man! I shouldn’t have to be the one reminding you of your own meet up.” In the driver’s seat was a young, Asian man with about as much pomade in his hair as one of those K-pop idols he sometimes saw online, though not as good looking.

“We were leaving now. You couldn’t wait several more minutes, Kian?” he said with amusement. Amos watched as Kian climbed out from his car. The man before him donned baggy black sweatpants like him, with an oversized blue tee shirt with the motif of an exhaust and a lion on his left chest area. “Besides. I thought you and the rest would be waiting for us at the place. Why are you here? And don’t tell me you missed me because I know how full of shit you are.”

“Eh. We just wanted to see our dear leader and boss before we had to meet with Allan and his goons. You know how he is,” Kian said with a grimace before continuing. “All he’ll do is bark and bark until you show up.” When Kian finished, he placed one of his pinky fingers in his ear before looking behind him, the trio now watching as the rest of the crew walked across the road, their destination set.

“Ames! How’re you feeling, boss man? I can’t wait to see you smoke Allan. It’ll teach him to shut the hell up.” Amos looked to the far right and noticed the one who’d spoken. He was the tallest of the crew, a black man with several dreads dancing along his jaw, with the rest of them tied above. The few dreads drifted toward his face as he sauntered forth, but none could hide his glee. The man wore a similar attire to Kian and him, though, this time he wore the white variant of the shirt.

“Oh shush, Dante,” said a feminine voice. Dante found himself stumbling to the side as a steadfast short woman walked past him from behind, her short brown hair swaying back and forth along her neck and ears. Her hazel eyes were dead set on him, her freckled nose wrinkling too. There was a hint of concern on her face, but nothing Amos found too concerning.

‘She’s worked up more than usual,’ he mentally mused.

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you Ames? I know it’ll suck, but we can call it all off if you’re too worried about your run-in with the cops. The last thing we need is for you to be locked behind bars. You worked too hard growing up to avoid that, more than the rest of us combined.”

“Natty. I’ll blush if you keep making that kind of face,” Amos said with a chuckle. “I didn’t do anything wrong to warrant that stop. You know how they are with cars that look even slightly modded, much less ours. Besides, I have you lot to worry about. Who’ll pay your checks when I’m gone?”

With a smile, Amos addressed the rest of them. “Cam and I were about to leave but since you’re all here anyway, let’s just go together, then. Cameron’s baby is still back in the shop, so even though it technically isn’t the full crew, it might as well be given how that maniac drives so far ahead.”

Amused, the four newcomers all looked to the person in question in jest. As if remembering something, the blond man reached over and pinched him before he could even react, his face as mischievous as a fox.

“What the hell! Mercy, man!” He spun around in place, attempting to dislodge himself from the pincers of the walking sand crab. When he was free, he took several steps back and gave Cameron the side eye as he heard him snicker. “Jeez. You didn’t even deny it, so why are you attacking me?”

“That’s payback for using me as your potty training stool earlier, of course!” he said with a knowing smirk.

It seemed the rest of them found the whole affair nothing unusual as they looked to one another, sighing. Some looked on at the two of them in exasperation, while others smiled as well.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“As long as you’re sure. Let us know if you need something, brother.” Amos came to a stop in the middle of his little chaotic dance with Cam and noticed the one who had talked to him. It was the ever-stoic Declan. He was about was expressionless as usual, but he knew the man enough to know he was the kind of person to show his affection through action, instead. Amos could even remember when the kid had first come into his foster care home. The silent kid was alone and traumatized after his experiences, but soon started to follow him around like a chick once he confronted the kid and befriended him.

With a shake of his head, he looked around at the crew as they talked among one another with his hands in his pockets.

It was time.

“I’m fine. You see? And before you ask, I’m here because I needed to do some thinking, but nothing related to that, okay?” he said, before flashing them a wide smile once more. Then, Amos turned around and started to walk toward his dark blue NSX, the car still idling with the headlights beaming off toward the distant horizon. It seemed the problems never stopped coming, even after he came all the way out here.

‘I hope it’s the damn battery and not the alternator. I don’t have time for that.’ Amos’ expression soured at the thought, but he kept moving forward. His car had a weird habit of dying out of nowhere lately, though for some odd reason, the rest of his friends experienced the same issue. ‘Must be some kind of faulty part we ordered in bulk. This could become annoying, real fast.’ There was no doubt in his mind that if this was the issue, he would be looking at recalling at least a dozen cars from the last few months if it was a manufacturing issue. At the very least, they didn’t deal in high volume, so it shouldn’t be that bad.

With a small grunt, he pulled the latch open and swung his behind into the bucket seats. With a swift shut, Amos glanced out the window to his left, noticing something. His index finger ran down the many buttons on the door console before lowering the windows a moment later.

“Well? I have some ass to kick. Where’s the enthusiasm now?” Amos shouted from his car, his friends turning as soon as his words reached their ears. With that said, Ames reached for his shifting stick to wiggle it out of neutral when out of nowhere, he felt his car begin to shake more than usual.

‘Don’t tell me this battery issue is worse than I thought?’ Grimacing at the thought, the man looked out the window and noticed the rest of his friends crouching low to the ground, confusion and concern etched into their faces. Cameron was somewhere in the middle of Kian and Amos as he crab walked his way toward him.

Amos spun his head in realization, looking out the passenger windows and noticing the few scarce trees on the hills swaying more than normal.

‘Earthquake? Now of all times?'

His arm reached for the stick and pulled it into reverse, backing his car away from the metal barrier separating him from the beach below. Amos didn’t trust his luck in not losing his baby in a sudden landslide. Before he could reverse more than a few feet, however, there was a flash of ominous lightning in the skies above, the arc white as bone. It was something he’d never seen before in all his 27 years of life and soon, panic started to settle in. The situation was too sudden, too… abnormal. Clouds didn’t become overcast and dark in a matter of seconds.

Quakes shuddered the ground underneath the car, causing him to become unbalanced as he held the steering wheel for dear life. Soon, his ears picked up on a loud, audible crack, luring him into turning his head back out the driver’s side window. There, a small ravine was forming as crumbling stones and asphalt fell within. Dante’s car was closet to the crack, the continuous tremors causing the growing ravine to expand toward his black corvette.

Amos cursed to himself. ‘And now there’s a damned landslide. Fuck.’

BOOM.

Thunder shook the atmosphere. He lowered his head to peer out the windshield, his pupils turning into mere pinpricks as constant white lightning caused his blue irises to glow. It was as if someone had enraged the heavens above, inciting the very skies to smite the mortals below. There were no longer intervals between one arc of lightning and the next.

No. It was constant now.

Then and there, Amos decided to act. It wasn’t in his blood to sit there and gawk. Once more, his foot reached for the clutch as he shoved the stick into first gear. Muscles strained under the demand as he forced them to hold the steering wheel with a wicked twist, forcing himself out and away from the metal barrier in full. Then, he drove parallel with the divider to reach Cameron and pick him up. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed the rest of his crew running toward their own vehicles, the painted metal all reflecting the ethereal light from above.

Before Amos could reach the blond man, however, he slammed his foot onto the brakes as he saw an unbelievable sight.

Above him in the skies stood a lone figure, its form shrouded behind an odd blur, miles above the earth. It reminded Amos of someone looking through an old barn window that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Amos wasn’t even sure how he could even see this person, let alone understand the rest of the mysteries surrounding them.

It was almost as if the man existed there, but at the same time, didn’t.

The situation soon went from unbelievable, to downright insane as behind the unknown person, a massive human eye bloomed out from behind the being like a flower during winter’s end. The person stood in the middle of the dark, abyssal pupil in the center, with the eye expanding out for what had to be miles.

The molten gold iris peered down at the Earth, the emotionless apathy causing Amos’ heart to shudder. As he looked above, it was then a name somehow wormed itself into his mind. It was as if the eye was unwilling to remain unknown to the ignorant masses.

“Glimpse of Heaven,” Amos muttered. There was a certain presence of the words, something metaphysical. He could somehow feel the impact the name had on the world around him. It was like summoning the eye of God to look down upon you and all the pressure that entails. It made him feel like an ant, someone whose sole existence was to look up and survive the fallout of greater beings.

The phenomenon above had somehow attracted the dense arcs of bone-colored lightning to itself, the flashes soon swirling around the outer perimeter of the ocular specter like a whirlpool of liquid electricity. Clouds nearest to it had dissipated as soon as it’d appeared, with the rest soon joining the ever-growing swirls around it.

Then, for all but a moment, the eye became radiant to the point of blinding him.

When he opened his own eyes again, the eye, or Glimpse of Heaven as it called itself, was no longer there. The skies were still a mess, but all that remained was the humanoid being standing high above in stark contrast to the overcast clouds. Around them was some kind of golden glow, almost like an angel coming down to save humanity.

He looked to the unknown form, goosebumps cascading down his spine. Gone were the buzzing thoughts. There were no longer constant questions that rang out from his mind, worried about whether or not the rapture was happening in real time. God, Allah, Buddha, even, or whoever could manipulate such natural laws of the world was here, and all he could do was watch.

“How… Interesting.”

The voice was inhuman. Ames was certain of that much. There was doubt in his mind on whether or not he should consider it a voice, however, as it was almost as if someone had shoved an image and textbook in his mind, yet at the same time, spoke behind him in a whisper. His brain was weirdly dissociative at the words, his consciousness still aware, yet his he found himself unable to move his arms.

Ames could no longer move at all, in fact. He quickly found himself a prisoner within his own body. All he could do was watch in the driver’s seat, his foot not even able to press the brakes.

In response to the words uttered, the earth increased in severity almost as soon as the being finished speaking them into existence. The new quakes created even more fissures along the road, with stones and boulders now beginning to fall from above.

Would he die like this?

Amos walked the line between life and death often enough that it didn’t bother him as much as it used to. It took a certain kind of person to willingly drive a death machine as fast as possible, after all. Somehow, time had come to a crawl around him. He wasn’t sure if it was the common experience seen in movies and books, or if the being above had somehow literally controlled time. Suffice to say, he watched as his car neared closer to the beach below.

Shaken out of his meandering thoughts, the… God spoke once more.

“The Spire will be in upheaval… It… has been a while since one of us discovered inhabitants. To think… some still survived in the Forsaken Darks.”

Amos could feel the vastitude of time from the being—the otherworldliness and presence as it stood there and talked as if nothing else in the world mattered. There was no method for him to discern the being’s face, but for some reason, an image appeared in his mind of Rufus, a middle-aged man who lived several doors down from him who was a retired veteran. He was unsure how, but it was as if he could feel and understand certain concepts of the very being as they spoke.

“There are few humans… in this shard. Shame… Shame. Alas, the world outside the Spire is kind to no one… Not even the dead.”

In his mind’s eye, he saw the God reach a hand down toward… something. Amos couldn’t see, but he assumed the Earth. Then, the God opened their palm, as if grasping toward something.

Chaos.

That was the Earth’s response.

The ground beneath shook even worse, to the point where Amos had never felt an earthquake this bad. Rather than something localized, he almost felt as if it was bad enough to reverberate all across the world. Hairline fractures raced through the asphalt like lightning all over, his and the rest of his crew’s cars finding themselves atop unstable ground that could give way at the slightest provocation. There was even a boulder that fell down on Declan’s hood, the frantic expression on the man’s face enough to cause Amos to doubt himself for a moment.

Amos could hear the waves crash against the cliff he and the road was on with unprecedented power. His car was moving in slow motion, but the world around him was not. Boulders, stones, grass, flowers, and even shattered glass soon rose from the ground, hovering several feet in the air as if gravity all but disappeared.

“The Heavens are… eager… for its lost children to return. This will be an opportunity that mustn’t be squandered. Treasure and relish the time, for it could give your worlds a fighting chance in the trials to come.”

Snap.

Amos’ mind snapped back into place like a rubber band. His mind recoiled from the shock, the car outside suddenly feeling much faster than before. Thankfully, he was used to forcing himself through uncomfortable situations. With a guttural shout, Amos twisted the wheel, the rear end of his NSX soon swerving into the barrier. Soon enough, the car was dangling from the edge, the rear wheel drive not able to find ground to contact.

“Fuck!”

His head twisted like a swivel as soon as a rumble made its way to his ears. When he looked above through the windshield, he saw the inevitable. It was a landslide. One intent on swallowing him and the rest of his friends whole.

The stars above twinkled above the churning waves of the seas, the moon’s rays permeating the water to make it look almost magical. The tumultuous world around him etched itself into his blue eyes, his mind coming back to those historical paintings he saw of Rome on the internet; it was chaos captured in a moment of time, detailing the fall of a civilization. It was beautiful in its own way.

“Good luck… humans. The other races of the Spire… will not be so enthused as I with your return to Heaven’s… embrace.”

And with that, Amos felt a sudden lurch as his chest caved in under the pressure of the avalanche of dirt. He was breathless, his lungs wheezing as his diaphragm worked in overtime to coerce the much needed oxygen back in his chest. It was futile, however, as he found himself tumbling within his new grave before a rock smashed into his skull.

His consciousness was gone an instant later.