This story is by Aung Thura and was part of our 2022 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
This story, beings with a sound.
An insistent sound.
From my dark slumbers that could have lasted just a day or all eternity, I wake into oily darkness. My slumbers had not been peaceful; my dreams had been troubled, asked to recall, I had little or no collection, and all that I could recall was the memory of the terrible sadness, the wrenching feeling of unimaginable loss.
There it was.
Again.
That sound, vibrations that I could feel deep inside me. Inexorably, it pulls me from the depths of my slumber. Rhythmic, faint, and insistent. I didn’t know how long it has been going on, but I know it has been haunting my dreams for some time.
Sometimes it stops, and when I think it gone, it comes back again even more insistent. Sometimes, there would be several sources, other times, just one, and occasionally, a boom. With sleep heavy on me, I ignore it for another eternity. But even eternity ends, and since the sound won’t stop, I decide to pull my sleep heavy being to investigate.
My senses reach out into the darkness and while I can’t yet see, I knew the direction, the distance to the source of the sound; slowly I rise up from the depths, willing my being to ascend to, whatever was making that sound.
The sound compels me up from the depths of darkness, into what I knew was it’s source – of sound, light and sensations. I have not moved like this in a long time, and with renewed energy, I became fully aware of my surroundings and also that of something deep in my being. Even as I rise, I could feel that emptiness, loss follow me from the darkness like a vengful spirit that I cannot escape from.
I am not afraid of the darkness because I am more afraid of the emptiness that gnaws my being. I fear not the darkness, for I fear the loss even more. Both have haunted me for eternity.
There!
That sound.
Within my reach.
I rise with terrible swiftness from the depths and embrace it.
I erupt with light and sound.
*****
The adults had whispered to him that the city was haunted, to scare him away from the dangerous ruins, but Gabriel was not afraid. He was not afraid of the half buried buildings that surrounded him, nor of the ever-dark skies over their heads, nor the constantly falling black snow nor the flickering lighting that seemed to strike randomly.
While the empty husks of buildings that once sheltered people were creepy and he wouldn’t go inside them; he had no problems with the city streets. With a good flashlight and sturdy boots, he could walk over to the dig site from the camp a few kilometers away.
He liked to scanvage for stuff; old things, curiosities in the city. In his room, back in the well lit camp, he had a box full of them, but he knew that the good stuff was out here in the city, if only, he looked hard enough. Even the adults had set up a dig site in the city to find them. So he knew he was in the right place.
Maybe, he could even find something for Kay’s 9th birthday. His sister wasn’t interested in what was out in the city, but he knew that if he found something unusual, she would love it. He could already see her angelic smile.
In the distance, he could hear the sounds of the deep vibrations from the industrial drills and jackhammers at the next street intersection. The dig site was well lit, and almost all the adults were there; scientists, engineers and archi or was it archologians or was it archaeologist out there.
Everyone was focused on the work and didn’t see him approach, which was just as well. His father had been upset the last time, after Gabe had followed him to the site. He knew that his parents had come to this place to find things, and he wanted to help them, whatever it was that they were looking for. Lightning flickered closer this time, but the thunder was faint, still kilometers away.
“Gabe?” A man called, his figure silhouetted by the bright lamps that lit the site, where the drill was going through the soil. The drill tower rose into the darkness above them.
“Dad.” His dad was the foreman at the dig. There weren’t many children in the project team, most of the workers were either single or married with no children. Gabe and Kay were the only kids in the settlement.
“Come on Gabe, you know you shouldn’t be wandering around in the ruins.” Dad sounded exasperated, as he usually does when he thought Gabe had done something wrong.
“I got my flashlight.” He pointed at the flashlight in his hands. “It’s fully charged.”
“You are only 11.” His Dad said. “You shouldn’t be out out on your own! Does Karla known that you are out here?”
“But there is nothing out here.” Gabe insisted. He had sneaked out of the trailer while Karla, his minder was taking care of Kay. He shook his head, wiping away the black snow from his face.
Lightning flashed closer this time, and there was a thunderous boom right over their heads. Workers ducked instinctively, although Gabe knew that it was a usless gesture, the lighting strike was about a kilometer away.
“Stay here or go back to the trailer.” His father said, his face scrunched up, under his safety helmet.
“But there is nothing here Dad.” Gabe repeated. “Not even the ghosts of the dead people who lived in these buildings. Nothing!”
“I don’t like the weather today.” His father said, feeling something amiss; he called one of his colleagues over. “Shut down the site, get back to camp. I am going to walk my son back.”
Gabe reluctantly started following his father, as they headed back to camp. About a kilometer away from the dig site, his flash light caught a reflection, something that he had never seen in the city before. His father walked on, unaware that Gabe had stopped and was walking towards the reflection.
In the black snow, amidst the ruins of the lost city, was a perfectly shaped orb, the size of an egg that was somehow both reflecting and producing light. Gabe picked up the transparent looking green orb with his gloved hands.
“Gabe what?” He heard his father stop to ask.
There was something dark moving in the depths of the orb, but he couldn’t quite see what, so he took off the glove from his right hand and tried to feel it.
His father had approached him and was looking at what he had in his hands. Gabe looked up to his father with a happy smile, he had found what he was looking for on the dead world.
The adults had said that Gaddon was a dead planet; burned by the Gamma Radiation blast from it’s star a ages ago, wiping out it’s advanced civilization. Even intrepid explorers stayed away from the doomed planet. There was nothing of interest to be found here. But Gabe knew better, he had always known; the moment they landed, that there was something on the planet. Something that was not alive, but not dead either.
Gabe reached out to touch the orb with his bare hands, as his father shouted at him. “No! Don’t!” It was too late, as his bare hands make contact with the cool orb, darkness exploded in Gabe’s world.
*****
In a painful explosion; light, sound and sensation returned.
It was a pleasure that we have not felt, in eons.
With sensations; memories of what had happened, came crashing down into our consiousness.
Our past.
“Gabe, are you OK?” A being loomed over us. We could feel the smoothness of the orb with our fingers, could smell the decay of the city, feel the coolness of the wind, hear the sound of distant thunder and the salty taste of black snow on our lips.
But we could feel even more; we could feel the unimaginable gulf to our kin, the barrier of time and distance that stands between our universes, and the loneliness of being severed from all the beings in this universe. The assault of knowledge, remembarance of the severance, the pleasure of regaining some of our senses, the shock of the suddenness, made us cry out.
“Son, what’s happening?” The man over us asked; knowledge flooded our being once again; we could access all of the small being’s memories; his past, his present, his walk through the dark city, his search for something unusual. The thing that he eventually found, the same thing that now sets us free from the dead world.
We are Gaberiel.
This story, ends with a sound.
The sound of our screaming.
Leave a Reply