I remember when he said to me, “You made me feel so tall I could see over the trees and hear the whispers of Fall in the cold, afternoon breeze.” I remember when he said it. I remember… it was real, that it happened, that it will happen again. Even knowing what I do, I cannot change it, fate. And in this way, at the end of all things, we will all remember the truth. And in that moment we will do the only thing that seems natural. We will scream, but only hear a whisper.
I hear a horn blaring through the filter of sleep, bringing me back online. I check the clock in my car - and, shit, it’s almost time. I unlock the driver’s side door and stumble out into the dying light. Before closing the door I grab and put on my protective glasses, then look skyward. A gust of wind blows my hair back, part of a cold and frosty Canadian front that ushers out the last remnants of Summer. Despite my intolerance for the cold, I am mesmerized by the rare overhead spectacle, and barely register the discomfort.
“Well, I’ll be, “ a man to my right said to no one in particular.
I look on as the moon collides into the sun while Johnny Cash sings Ring of Fire over a distant radio. I traveled three hours to this spot to witness this event - it will help craft break through my mental block and gift me a recipe to set me apart from the bland masses. Most of them are content with living in their gingerbread house and marrying a gingerbread spouse, but not me. The creative process requires a catalyst to bridge an idea from its cocoon to taking flight, so I keep my eyes pried open and wait for the sign to appear.
The chilled air keeps most of my fellow solar eclipse spectators huddled inside their heated cars, but I refuse to dampen my experience, so I step to the edge of the cliff that provides a panoramic view of the landscape. I imagine the fire-breathing dragon that curls around my right arm keeps late Autumn’s icy touch from the skin underneath. I named him Lord Nafagen - he was a gift for my 19th birthday, though I’ve come to regret its lack of originality.
All body art fascinates me – tattoos, piercings, and even unique modifications like a forked tongue that bring out the inner reptile. The last is not my thing, but I respect anyone willing to do that while on speaking terms with their parents. In the years since I sat for my first tat, I’ve added new chapters to my narrative. Sir Ian McCellan stands on my left thigh, his arms spread to warn evil that it shall not pass. A large praying mantis wearing a Buddhist shawl pops out on the other side and represents my spirituality – though no one understands it.
Bringing my son Oscar into this world changed my carefree nature. I realized I had to get my act together. Abandoned by his wretch of a father when he abruptly packed his bags and left for Guam, I’m Oscar’s only rock in this world of quicksand. He will never know his grandparents, a pair of adventurous volcanologists - both killed in an eruption that left their bodies encased in burning ash. He would have loved them both, and one day I’ll tell him the story of how I got my stomach design. I chose one of the most sensitive areas of my body so I could suffer for them. That’s where they live now, smiling and embracing in the moments before the tragedy, alive through me.
My phone’s chirping alarm breaks my concentration to let me know it’s 5 PM. I turn it off and prepare. Only 11 more minutes until the reveal, then I’ll know what fate has chosen for me. There is an itch across my back, a blank canvas from my shoulder blades to waist, the unfinished composition in need of an inked centerpiece to complete my story. But this must be special, a symbol in perfect harmony within and beyond.
In the dull interlude my patience evaporates, so I tap on my phone’s gallery to watch a video from last night. I often record myself brainstorming, and I forgot to turn it off. All I can see from the camera’s angle is the glow of the computer screen reflecting off my face. After hours of searching for an epiphany, my narrowed eyes were burdened with anger and empty of reason. The video shakes briefly as I slam my hands on the keyboard in a fit of frustration, spamming a flurry of gibberish into the search bar. I snort and laugh like a dying hyena when I notice the active recording, now acting as a brief window to past and present. I pick up the phone and aim it at the screen:
enkht dha0l 5’rndur ẙOR lyht
The words are nonsense, but somehow exactly what I was searching for. I speak them as the video counts down into its final seconds. A pair of creeping shadows stretch across the bedroom wall. Did that really happen? The last frame of the video freezes on the gathering darkness behind my head. It appears to take the form of an unnaturally old face and a spectral hand reaching for my shoulder. A chilling rush of emotion washes over me when the video stutters forward past the end mark. The dark being elastically snaps out of the phone and materializes as a truncated shadow on the ground, split in half by the cliff’s edge. I snap my head around to look, but it’s just an illusion created by the dying light outside. Nothing is there. I look at the phone, but there is no shadow resembling a face. The rush of fear is flushed from my body as it regains a hold on the real.
It’s 5:11 PM. A final burst of light streams across the lunar limb of our moon, its 93-million mile journey complete. All of the onlookers focus their gaze upon the unfathomable. As the eclipse approaches its full totality, the gradually dimming world plunges into the abyss. I open my eyes full to absorb this galactic moment and imagine its energy is full of the answers that promise me a new sense of purpose.
A shrieking woman jumps out of her car and throws a wine glass into the air as she lets her excitement take over.
“Rachel, get back in!” a man yells from the driver’s seat.
In that kaleidoscope moment, all their voices fade as if I’m under the ocean and sinking, but without fear. The tension in my shoulders relaxes and melts into a pool of euphoria, then evaporates like a cold steam sublimating to every nerve in my body. Ahead of me by only a few meters is the cliff’s steep drop, yet I step forward assured that I am protected from any danger. I edge closer to the precipice, hundreds of feet above the flats below. As my left foot leaves the safety of Earth and moves forward, it comes even with the eroded ground behind me. A rush of air envelops my body and my clothes balloon as they are caught by the shear current of the drop.
Suddenly, I am back in my room sitting at my laptop. I see the words from last night baked into the screen, while the browser churns to resolve the requested address. The lights falter, abruptly filtering my vibrant pink walls into an uneven tone resembling flesh, while the air streams out the bedroom window into the cold vacuum of night. A ladybug is struck by the turbulence and falls from its ceiling perch into one of my slippers where it twitches and rolls onto its back, then curls its legs inwards.
Despite the graven shift in atmosphere, I turn back to the screen, my virgin eyes transfixed by the immense gravity of a sphere cloaked in the blackest, deadest shade of red, like an extinguished rose. I mouthed an unintelligible compliment and slowly pulled my hands back into my lap. Though its shell was featureless and smooth, the dark energy underneath its rosewood hull spoke to me. It promised a glimpse of the design I sought - the final stroke of brooding genius, and an indelible note to complete my ensemble.
Hunched over my laptop with only inches separating my face from the screen, I ignored the intensifying need to blink, forcing tears to form to flush specks of dust from my eyes. A message appears over the object and breaks me from my trance. It states:
You’ve finally arrived after your long journey. I’d like to help you with your centerpiece, Gina. This fine piece of work was crafted by the Ben ‘Zaa, the people of the ancient Zapotec civilization. It maintains its perfect shape even after a millenium. Meet me, tomorrow at this location in the city. 139-32, Crescent Dawn Avenue. It can be yours forever.
It knows my name!
My curiosity piqued, I made my way down the winding roads that seemed to go endlessly deep into the backalleys of the city. After a while I realized that my navigator was taking me in a loop, so I turned it off and parked my car. There were very few people on the sidewalk and none responded to my request for directions.
“Over here,” a man said, then coughed into his grimy hand. He was wearing a tattered leather sports coat and had his back to a wall. A rolled cigarette was nearly extinguished, and it smelled of something stronger than tobacco. When I approached, he flicked the cigarette onto the damp ground, extinguishing it completely in a puddle of rainwater, then locked eyes with me. “You look like you’re searching for something…irreplaceable.”
Upon hearing the man’s words, a shiver crawled up my spine; they echoed the sense of urgent incompleteness that had led me here. “Follow that alley until you find a red door. Knock three times,” he said, lowering his voice to whisper, and pointing with his nicotine-stained fingers. I nodded, a peculiar mix of trepidation and excitement pulsing through me.
I ventured deeper into the alley, my heels clicking sharply against the cobblestones, breaking the stillness of the dimly lit labyrinth. I felt wholly alone on the city streets. In my periphery, vague human shapes scurried like roaches into the splintering maze of corridors that bent away from the sunlight in sharp contrast. I imagined everything here to be the sickly antithesis of a sunflower, seeking only the shadows in defiance of nature.
I tried to recall if I had seen any signs identifying my surroundings, but I could not. The navigation app noted I was on an unknown road, the software refusing to hazard a guess on my current bearings. Unsettled and weary of my foray, I felt an urge to retreat to the comfort of a graveyard - anywhere but here. Then, something caught my attention ahead. The crest of a red door appeared in the wake of an incline, its crimson shade markedly more vibrant than the gray webwork of condemned buildings and concrete shantys nearby. As if the silence were alive in this moment, I realized there was a complete absence of the sounds I was accustomed to. No sirens, horns, or deep murmur of the daily grind penetrated into this foreign wilderness, and even my footsteps seemed to be absorbed into the absolute quiet.
With hesitation, I knocked three times, as instructed. The deaf environment reacted with an alarming shudder that warped the air surrounding me outwards and sapped my breath. I strained for oxygen, feeling lightheaded and dizzy at the sudden birth of motion in frames of giant buildings, their steel girdings hidden beneath aged concrete howled in displeasure at my intrusion. At this point, everything seemed conjoined into a megastructure of Brutalist architecture, and I could sense eyes from every dark window inside this towering fortress gaze at me, the outsider. Once the air finally returned to my sphere it was accompanied by a foul odor that permeated it like the byproduct of sour milk and goat vomit, intensifying by the second. As I fought my weakened stomach, I heard the a guttural hiss sieve through the cracks of a nearby wall, then the skittering of hundreds of legs racing towards me. The hiss abruptly segued into stuttering pulse without any rhythm, but in its absence I still felt it somehow continued below my natural range of hearing, instead it twisted through my nerves like a vine. I begged myself to not look behind me, though I’m not sure I could have managed if I wanted to, equally paralyzed by fear and disgust.
My mind was bordering on full revolt when the tumblers of an ancient lock turned over and the red door creaked open to reveal a man dressed in an antiquated library filled with towering shelves. The air was thick with the scent of old leather and parchment. Sebastian greeted me warmly, his eyes twinkling behind wireframe glasses.”
“Ah, you’ve made it! Please, let me show you something extraordinary,” Sebastian said, leading me through narrow aisles that opened into a large foyer.
My eyes traced the cracks in the floor until I saw it - the sphere sat atop a solid marble pedestal in the center of the room, gripping the environment in its deep red aura. Sebastian’s wide smile nearly cut into his ears as he faced me and pulled a square object from his front pocket. “You may want to stand back.”
With a graceful maneuver, Sebastian keyed the square peg into several invisible slots in the sphere, producing a loud snap as each inner tumbler rolled over. Then, like a bird’s egg at the cusp of birthing new life, the sphere began to fracture along previously invisible fault lines. The cracks widened, and the dark, blood-red exterior slowly gave way. Sections lifted and folded outward, akin to petals unfurling or fledgling wings stretching for the first time. The sphere had hatched, revealing an alien creature with wide, dull eyes that caught our reflections in the light.
To my unending astonishment, it spoke. “Enkht dhaol s’rndur ẙor lyht! Enkht dhaol s’rndur ẙor lyht! By the stroke of the lunar bell, you will either ascend or become bound in Hell.”
The creature returns into the cracked sphere and it closes around it, a jet of red flame spews out towards me as it seals the creature back in. I pivot to avoid it, but cannot move quickly enough to avoid the inferno. I scream as lashes into my back and burns through my clothes, leaving an intensely acrid smell of burnt flesh.
Across the room Sebastian folds his arms while maintaining an upright posture, then clicks his tongue in admonishment. “Take heed!,” Sebastian shouts while looking above me towards an unseen audience, “the Lozadil has chosen the vessel, the dhaol. She will bear the dratch wight so that it might see again.”
“Dratch wight will see their sins, dratch wight will seize their senses,” the garbled voices chant in unison from above.
My mouth is dry and parched and the surrounding environment seems ready to expand towards me. I clumsily reach for the nearest shelf to steady myself while biting my tongue to redirect the agony. I see a nearby mirror and turn my back towards it to see what has become of my body. Yes, the charred skin has rapidly healed and revealed something. It is an image of me, or something that has my appearance, but not quite the same.
“Now she sees her purpose. Now she sees her sins,” Sebastian continues to narrate.
“Her sins, sees her sins. The dratch wight sees her sins.”
Horrified, confused, and weakened by the assault, I build my legs slowly into a stride, then run towards the nearest egress, while knocking over a pedestal holding a ceremonial tome. The rush of air against my face is the only respite from the intense agony crawling through my body. So much pain was mixed with an inexplicable sense of hate deep in my heart, and slowly consuming every inch of my mind.
“Now, o dhaol,” Sebastian raises his voice, “you may return, it is your right. Spread our message over this fertile world. Be Did you not wish for this gift? For now you see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
I ram into the door and cast it open as the voices deepen into a hum, then fade away…