Thesis ~ The Strangest of All Attractors || Ch. 2, Pages 59-65
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PREVIOUS SCENE (Chris' descent)
These finishes off the present day scenes for Chapter 2. The title of this chapter is "An Age of Reason."
Chris didn't feel like he was falling anymore. It was more like he was floating about listlessly. A full five minutes had passed sense he started falling. There was no sound. There were no objects. There was nothing.
From out of the dark, a loud ringing sound reverberated. The sound was high pitched. Chris covered his ears.
It dissipated quickly as strange lights, shadows and sounds swirled around him. It was impossible for Chris to make out what he was seeing. It was all blurry and out of focus. The sounds were recognizable. They were voices that sounded familiar. These lights and shadows slowly formed and took shape. The objects became clearer.
His feet landed softly onto a flat, transparent floor as the world came together. Everything remained out of focus though.
Up ahead, figures moved away from Chris, talking quietly among themselves. They moved through what looked like a large circular opening, ten feet away from where Chris stood. They all stepped through the opening just as it closed shut.
This blurry realm soon cleared up. Chris saw that he was in a large, dimly lit hallway. There was a sound similar to rain or radio static. It was hard to tell where it was coming from. The sound was quiet and peaceful, despite the tense atmosphere.
Christopher saw the heavy set of wooden doors that had closed. Behind that door were faint voices.
He didn't want to go near these doors. Chris had a bad feeling about it. He stepped away and started for the other end of the hallway.
The ringing sound came again, louder than before. This time it came with a flash of light, and more voices. Chris recognized the voices.
"...wants to wipe the memories of her out of his mind, as if she never existed. How can Chris..."
"...just a kid... happened too suddenly... can't stay like this forev..."
Those voices belonged to Allen and Ashlin. Their voices sounded like they were being pumped through faulty speakerphones.
"Clear the mind! Clear it!"
The girl in the blue dress popped into existence. She flew at him as if falling sideways. Chris reached out his hand to catch her, but she was far out of reach. She shot through a cloudy white fog off to Chris' left. After she disappeared, flames appeared outside the windows.
Chris was seeing things that didn't make any sense. He thought he was imaging them, but it was impossible to tell. They were visions. There was no other word for it. The flames lapping the outside window panes almost seemed to will them into existence.
There was a small town set under a blue sky. There was an old schoolhouse at the far end of a dirt road, and a church which was as big as the schoolhouse. In an instant, the town was up in flames. There were sounds of gunshots and shouting. The sky was black.
On top of the shouting, there was a conservation happening over it. The conservation sounded so out of place from what Chris was witnessing.
"Can I just ask one thing?" a deep sounding voice asked aloud.
"Shoot!" another voice boomed.
"Why you do need us to come with you... we needed for, especially... "
"My reasons... all have as much of a right to witness this event as any other. In fact, it's more than a right... an obligation! This is going to be...”
Everything around Chris changed. Dark clouds loomed above. In front of Chris was a dead tree with drooping branches. At the base of the tree were a stack of books lying next to a root sticking out of the ground. The forest was overgrown with weeds. There was no sign of a road or path.
Everything around Chris changed. Dark clouds loomed above. In front of Chris was a dead tree with drooping branches. At the base of the tree were a stack of books lying next to a root sticking out of the ground. The forest was overgrown with weeds. There was no sign of a road or path.
“He always had a phrase of sorts whenever he'd slip up on something, or mess something up,” a deep voice said out loud. The voice sounded feminine, but it was hard to tell. It was so warped and out of tune.
“He would always say there were no mistakes, there were only happy accidents. After that, he would find a way of working with...”
The voice faded away. They were replaced with many more voices.
Desert sands were everywhere. Red volcanic rock spotted the land. There was no sign of water at all – yet on top of a high plateau of rock stood a lighthouse.
More visions came and went in a grim, macabre presentation. It was impossible to understand what these visions were supposed to be.
He kept his eyes closed. Chris didn't want to see anymore.
There was another disembodied voice. It was the only one that wasn't distorted. It was Michelle's voice.
“That weird shit with the old blood stains that were discovered all over Alburnwood is the smoking gun right there,” her voice said aloud. “No bodies accounted for, except for the Alburnwood massacre that took place in the nineteen-sixties. That event is just as mysterious as-”
Her voice abruptly stopped. The sound of flames, shouting and screaming stopped. None of this made any sense, but Chris was more than ready for this to end. He was short on breath. His heart was pumping furiously.
The crazy visions ceased. All that was left was a dull roaring sound.
"In every man and woman is a child!" spoke a voice. "In every child is blissful ignorance! Blissful ignorance is not forever! The child must take with him what he learns! These cycle's may be never-ending, so either keep the peace or don't! There is no other option!"
This voice sounded familiar to Chris. It sounded like his own voice – but Chris couldn't speak. He was frozen in place. He was terrified and confused beyond words.
"Open your eyes, Chris," said the voice. "I'm gonna open them for ya!"
The voice was getting closer.
"Who are you?" Chris sounded. His voice was a mere whisper.
"A old riddle – older than time itself, I suppose," the voice stated in a strangely careless fashion. "'I am whatever you think you are not, whether it be by the elided, but incarnate has-mian letter of I or of J, currently present only by M but not of B.' That's the line I'm contractually obligated to say. All this will make sense to you someday, or it won't. Doesn't matter to me. You're only here to see the truth! We'll make sure you do."
The voice was inches away. Chris could feel the hot breath of the other person on his face. Chris opened his eyes slightly.
"You're gonna see it all, cause there's nowhere else to go but further down the hole," said the dark, opposing figure that looked like Chris.
It was such a brief glimpse of the figure. Chris had no time to take in the details before it popped out of existence! Before everything changed! He was forced back to those set of doors again, but something here was different. The windows were gone. The wooden doors were metal.
This wasn't mom's funeral home, thought Chris.
No. This wasn't the same place at all.
These metal vault doors loomed over him. The air acted like an invisible ocean tide on Chris' body, thrashing him around while keeping at bay the crazed voices in his mind. He didn't want to do it, but there was no choice, it seemed. Chris reached out towards the doors. His sweaty palms rested on the chrome finish. The doors slid open. There wasn't any noise.
The room past these doors was massive. Wires of all sizes hung from the ceiling. There were mechanical contraptions everywhere Chris looked.
Through it all, he saw Ashlin. She stood at the edge of a giant, gaping hole in the center of the room. There was a boy about the same age as Ashlin. He stood in front of Chris' sister.
Ashlin and the boy talked to each other. Chris heard nothing.
Christopher gasped at what he saw next.
Ashlin tipped herself back, through the gaping hole and into a blinding light far down below.
Silence set in. Moments later, a loud roaring sound came from below. Sirens blared. A loud voice boomed out loud overhead, echoing through all of existence.
"Warning. Transmission error one-four-seven. Breach of unknown origin or type detected. Object in unknown state or location. Automatic object retrieval protocol initiated by system."
Chris could see the boy freaking out, as if he was ready to pass out.
A massive roaring sound shook the floor, followed by a metallic screeching sound. Chris covered his ears. He couldn't take this any longer.
"Warning. Transmission error one-five-one-eight. Physical matter dispersed or lost beyond retrieval. Automatic object retrieval protocol failed. Emergency close of gate initiated by system."
From out of nowhere, the girl in the blue dress appeared. She flew up to Chris and tackled him. She tightly wrapped herself around Chris. The look in her eyes was that of frantic terror.
"When this has befallen," she screeched. "The Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that god who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will slay the disorder by the counter-working of his will, which is the good!"
The screams came roaring back. The floor was shaking like an earthquake. The girl continued rambling and shouting over all of it.
"He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray! He will cleanse the world from evil, washing it away with water-floods, burning it out with fiercest fire, expelling it by war and pestilence! He will bring back his world to it's former aspect! The cosmos will be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence! God, the maker and restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing! Such is the new birth of the cosmos – a making again of all things good, a holy, awe-striking restoration of nature! It is wrought in the process of time by the eternal will of God, for God's will has no beginning! It is ever the same, as it is now, ever so it has been, without beginning, for it is the very being of God to purpose good!"
Her arms were gripping tightly onto Chris' chest. Her hands covered his eyes. There was the feeling of drifting upwards along with the sudden absence of gravity. They both leaned back, facing the approaching sky.
Her hands loosened her protection over Chris' eyes. He saw the sea of bricks and buildings above them. A segment of the large room they were in moments ago was drifting upwards to the surface. It was now scrap metal. To their right, a church pew was rotating in midair. Beyond that were mounds of dirt, metal planks, wires, sand, rocks, burnt splinters of wood, the schoolhouse, the desert lighthouse and the white church. It was all floating up to the surface.
The girl in the blue dress drifted towards the church. It was the closest thing to them. She grabbed the front wall and continued forward, crawling along as best she could without drifting away. She held onto Chris' wrist. She soon managed to arrive at the front door.
With all her strength, she kicked the door in and tossed Christopher in through the busted entrance. His right shoulder hit hard against another door inside. This was a small, compact box they were in, with a small window to the right and two other doors leading inside the chapel room. A rope was hanging from the center of the ceiling. Chris reached out and held onto the thick rope to stable himself. The church's bell started to ring wildly as he pulled the rope.
In an instant, the girl flung herself forward and pinned Chris back against the opposite door. Fire was in her eyes. She was breathing heavily. She was using every sense of reason not to punch him in the face.
Chris could only stare back. He was out of breath also.
The girl took a moment to calm herself. Her breathing slowed, but her eyes kept staring intently back at Christopher.
"I do not wish to go back down there again," she uttered. "It's good I got you out of there when I did. The demons of this realm are subjected to those lower depths. We will avoid those regions, Christopher!"
"You know my name?"
"Of course... but I do not know your full name."
"Blithe-Havins. Christopher Blithe-Havins."
"Blithe-Havins, is it?" the girl huffed. "Despite the circumstances, I am grateful you are here."
Their attention turned back to what was happening outside. The steady acceleration upwards started to slow. They were approaching that same stratosphere where wreckage and debris was sent to aimlessly float about in the middle of an invisible, slow-moving ocean. Chris felt his body weight return to him. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to go. The massive up-spring of new debris was shuffling the whole mess around. All the while, the church they were in creaked and groaned under the bizarre forces that pushed it up to the surface.
The girl in the blue dress sighed. She looked back at Chris.
"My baptismal name is Mary-Anne Rutherford McGalland. Informed ear would say I am an explorer. Like the great Lewis and Clark. Well... I was an explorer. Once. You can call me Mary, if you prefer."
Christopher woke up in a cold sweat. He felt terrible. He woke up on the bathroom floor with stiff muscles. It was dark. The bathroom was cold.
He had to throw up in the toilet. Chris washed up in the sink. He had woken up with sweat pouring down his face.
It wasn't clear why he felt so detached from himself at the moment. It was as if his soul was hopelessly extraneous. There was now this feeling of nothingness – not hell-bent anger. No deep depression.
The silence within the room took hold. A cold shiver ran down Chris' spine. He was still breathing heavily, even though the beating of his heart was slowing.
The more he stared back at his reflection in the mirror, the more things became apparent. Chris was oddly accepting of such thoughts, although this was likely attributed more to his current mental state.
Nothing about it made sense. Trying to think through the events was pointless. However, the deepest roots of his soul told him this dreamworld was not something that was a mere product of dreams! Whether insanity or not, this realization was like the thunderous striking of a bell. There was no doubt Christopher was the bell, being rung.
NEXT SCENE (Coming Soon)
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