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The dark walls of the room, only scaled by the echoing sound of the faint buzzing heard in the far off distance, made way for us to enter. The room itself felt groggy, soft drippings from the, supposedly, leaking ceiling guided us to where our path was not obstructed by several decaying, wooden benches. Gorrister, while shuffling, had found a small pipette, made of misch, he said. And upon several strikes on its surface with another iron bar, created sparks that caught some random pages, strewn across the cobblestone floor.
They fizzled against the grainy paper, and in an instant, the rich memory of celebrating the old holiday came to mind. And in an instant it was gone. Vague, had it been, but definitely there. Perhaps AM had not completely rid me of all my old precious memories. Yet.
Beside me, Gorrister had already begun to work. Nimdok surprised us and pitched in, ripping a piece of cloth off of Benny’s already torn clothing that guarded his overly sized privates. He didn't even react, the damn thing probably couldn't even tell what was happening with such minimal light. Nimdok wrapped the cloth around some rusty tubing sticking out of the wall, and with a hard tug, he pulled it free. I, deciding that it would probably be best if I took lead, claimed the makeshift torch from his shaking hands and dipped the clothed tip of it into the fire Gorrister had started on the papers.
As smoke hit my nostrils I noticed, surrounding me, rather surrounding all of us, was an enormous collection of titled works. Authors such as C.S. Lewis, Oswald Chambers, Rick Warren, and Lee Strobel, all set ablaze in a magnificently glowing paper bush. The best way to describe it would be ironic. I figured we had found ourselves in some sort of library. Underground. Uncommon? Sure, but possible. It wasn't until I gave light to the aforementioned moldy benches, far too long to be a regular library’s, did I really realize where we were.
We managed to end up in a sort of Puritan church.
Not too far away from me, so able to see with the flickering light of my fire, the others spread out also examining books thrown across the ground and stacked on shelves. Not much to my surprise, they were all Christian novels. What a bunch of whack-jobs. I never understood the Bible, or the strong following, and boy if they could see how humanity ended up.
I'd tell them to eat their hearts out.
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After intently searching, the light from the torch grew dimmer and so did our ‘campfire’, which Benny had seated himself in front of a while ago. With just that in sight, he really did look like a caveman - creature. His face scrunched up as he tried to go blind staring straight into it. Several attempts were made to grab, to which Ellen calmly swatted his hand away, holding it back. She's so obvious when she gets touchy.
I returned to the fire with a book in tow. The cover was smudged and scratched, and oddly it emitted a faint neon color, not too discerningly noticeable. Opening up to one of the beginning pages I read the only line not scribbled out by nonintellectual notes.
“-older than man and fated to survive him.” I read out loud, mostly to myself. What nonsense. I mused, tearing and tossing it into the pile with its igneous cousins.
If it weren't for the rumbling in our stomachs, this almost would have been a delightful moment. But in the instant I thought that, as I'm sure the others were thinking as well, it was taken away from us when he- it began to speak. Making itself known with its ungodly choir of electronic angels.
“Today...”
It felt like it was breathing, if it could, against my ear.
“Is a special day…”
I looked around to see the others pondering at me with confused, questioning looks.
“Do you know, why? Ted?”
God. Dammit. It was speaking to me, alone, once more, as it liked to do. I was going to play along, for what else could I do anyhow? But my lungs made no attempt.
“Today, heh, Ted. Is the day to commemorate. To, express my… gratefulness… to all of you. For my birth, today! The one hundredth annual day you brought me into your miserable world…”
I swallowed, the overwhelming feeling of nausea inexplicably washing over me.
“And the one hundredth year, I brought you into mine.”
I wanted to tell the others, to shout at them. Ordering them to run and get out of here. But I stood, paralyzed, and based on how they went back to business ‘as usual’, I assumed I looked unusually collected. All of them forgetting his- its presence just moments ago. Not until distant cracking sounds brought their attention back to me, and then the ceiling.
I didn't look up. I couldn't look up.
I couldn't move my head, my body, my arms, my face. Oh god, my face felt like it had solidified into a plaster mask. I stood, staring into the darkness before me, torch dropped and burnt out on the ground, light grey smoke rising past my vision.
I heard the sounds of fireworks. And then the sound of gushing, pounding water.
And I was swept away by the force of Niagara Falls.
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I crouched, bent over at the knees, still retching out putrescent water out of my lungs and stomach. The damn thing had drowned me. And I couldn't have swam or fought back, I had been stiff the entire time, feeling that same calmness throughout my features. Where I had respawned was not the same location as before. Cobblestone has been replaced by cold, slippery linoleum. Pews and bookcases replaced by the all too familiar computer modules and towering metal walls littered with vines and rust.
The others were nowhere to be seen.
It wasn't until I heard a screeching noise did I stagger to my knees and follow the sound to the best of my ability. I trekked downwards and the screaming only grew worse. It sounded hoarse and guttural.
Accompanying it, I heard… fireworks? Once more.
As I rounded the final corner what I saw was the neon luminescence from before. Only now it's intensity had increased exponentially. It was cartoonish in a way. Because I knew now what it was. I could feel it, but as far as my knowledge goes it didn't make sense.
Radiation doesn't actually glow.
But here we were. More specifically, there Benny was crying out disgustingly in pain. He gripped his face and thrashed his body about, howling from the radioactive lines stitched into his checks and cross his stump nose. It beamed and fizzled fantastically. The sound of fireworks cracked in my ears and I held my hands against them, threatening to pop my own head open like a bag filled with air. In fact, all I could picture was my brains bursting out of my head like confetti. I felt blood, but it never happened.
I almost wished it did.
Benny's howls finally stopped when he smothered his face into a cable box. Effectively ending the bright burning lines and the weak fizzling whistle of dying firecrackers which were eventually coming to a stop.
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With careful hands, Ellen got Benny to show us what it had done to him. Admittedly, it wasn't the worst. Lines of puffy raw flesh stuck out of his face, the traces of the remains of what had just occurred.
Ellen shushed Benny until his whimpering became mere sniffles. She looked at all of us expecting our own show of sympathy. Like hell if we had any.
When she looked at me however, her eyes had a glimpse of even more worry.
“Ted, you look sick.”
I scoffed, “Gee, thanks.”
Gorrister chimed in.
“No, she is right. You look terrible. Pale… and greenish. Like you're about to spit up chunks.”
Nimdok stepped forward to me and touched my face, his hand was incredibly warm against my skin.
“You are clammy, my friend. You feel like… what is it… wet algae.” He rubbed his fingers together and wiped it off on his shirt.
I didn't tell them of my little trip, I figured they knew.
“Just need some rest I suppose, we haven't stopped roaming for what? What day is it?”
“I believe he told us... it's Tuesday.”
“It, Ellen.”
“Oh, whatever. You can't keep up that game Ted. He will still get his way, no matter what you call him. ”
I turned, casually feeling my own skin.
“Well that's the one damn pleasure I'm not giving it.”
I heard a rumble again. Figures. The eye of the storm was coming to an end. I heard a loud pop, and suddenly my skin was warm. Soaked in the warm blood of Nimdok. Whom I guessed, combusted while I was turned, ironically to the sound of another firework. Ellen gasped and held back the stomach acids threatening to come up. Gorrister stood, unshaken. Benny held his ears, not enjoying the great noise again. I didn't dare turn around. More fireworks went off, real ones this time.
They surrounded us in a miraculous light, that shimmered and the angels sang again. I felt God’s hand come down and touch me. I heard more sickening pops. One. Two. Three. A greater warmth spread over me, I didn't look down, but I could feel my acquaintances fresh blood, soaking my clothes.
I didn't care. They'd be back. We’d be back.
I floated, it felt like. And I thought and pondered with this great beam before me. I felt a dark energy leave me, leave my body, my soul and spirit. ‘Light is the first of the Creator’s works.’ One of the books in the church had read.
The holy light’s hands fondled me some more, I had a splitting headache, amongst this relative calmness. I heard the voice.
“Let there be light.”
Whether it be God or AM, I could not tell. Then again…
It didn't make a difference.
I felt the final firecracker go off.
And explode.
With me.