The Hole in the Sky

Lieutenant Colonel Marshal woke up to the sweet smell of hay. He was hesitant to open his eyes as the scent transported him back to the stable he’d worked at when he was 16. He loved horses and didn’t mind the messy labor involved in caring for them. Thinking about that time seemed to bring him a sense of happiness now but he hated that job and the rich assholes who took lessons there.

Dale Marshal had the opinion that horses didn’t enjoy being ridden and probably also despised the privileged kids who directed kicks to their rib cage. He remembered quitting that job for a variety of reasons including lack of consistent pay and uneven delegation of responsibilities, but especially because he couldn’t watch those beautiful animals be used as props for some millionaire’s kid to assert his dominance.

He guessed these memories brought a smile to his face simply because it was from a time before the war. When was the last time he’d seen a horse? Or any animal?

As Dale looked up, he could see the night sky through a large hole in the ceiling of the barn that he found himself in. The little specks of light in the darkness also brought a smile to his face.

The old barn was not very big and certainly not secure. There were random piles of hay and empty wooden storage containers strewn about. Dale could also see the rusty frames of what used to be tractors, probably.

He was laying on a brown blanket which seemed to be covering a thick mat of some kind. His knapsack and another bag were next to him

When he looked behind him, he was surprised to see Mark Johnston. He looked exactly the same as he remembered him. Johnston was asleep, Dale could see his chest rise and fall. He also had clean bandages wrapped around his chest with fresh blotches of bright red blood soaking through.

Dale noticed he had bandages of his own on his chest and both legs. He also had a make-shift splint on one of his ankles. He didn’t feel any pain.

Mark Johnston was also a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. He and Dale had reluctantly enlisted at the same time and had kept in touch although their paths separated and they never saw each other in person up until now. While Dale was involved in bombing missions and sometimes training civilians to be pilots, Mark had gone into intelligence. Dale wasn’t really sure what they did anymore.

The world had already been in turmoil when Dale and Mark joined the military. Before the Big War became an actual, defined military operation using conventional weapons and tactics, there were shows of force and active destabilization on the part of various enemy contingents. Supply chains had been interrupted and anonymous EMP devices had been deployed to create eventual civil unrest.

Fighting a traditional war had taken on unpredictable layers of complication. Communications were frequently disrupted and electronics couldn’t be relied on. Even worse, there were shifts in global alliances and opposing forces could become allies in a matter of days.

“Hey stranger,” said a sleepy LC Johnston. “Long time no see…” He moved around in apparent pain and Dale noticed the circumference of one of the red splotches grew wider.

“Maybe you shouldn’t move around too much,” said Dale pointing to Mark’s chest wound.

“Oh yeah, that,” said Mark but he didn’t elaborate further.

“Do you know what happened or where we are?”

Mark gave Dale a curious smile that confused him. Perhaps he was disoriented. After a few minutes Mark asked Dale how much he remembered.

“I don’t even remember getting into the plane,” said Dale. “Where did you come from? I thought you were on the other side of the country.”

“I guess the short answer is that I came to get you,” said Mark. He waited few more minutes before continuing. It seemed he was trying to figure out where to start. Before doing so, however, he reached into a bag that was next to him and took a swig of water out of an unusual canister. It was clear and extremely flexible.

“Man, that’s amazing,” said Mark. “Try this.”

Dale took a swig and he had to admit, Mark was right. It was the best tasting water he had ever had in his life. He almost forgot what regular water had tasted like once. It had been so long before they could drink liquids that hadn’t gone through an extensive filtering and treatment process.

“Who’s that Commander you guys were working under over there?” asked Mark.

“Philips?” said Dale. There had been so many in the last few months.

“Yeah, Philips,” said Mark. It looked as if he had to consider something. “Well that guy, he kinda decided to go out on his own. He wasn’t taking orders from the government anymore; he was just destroying things.”

Dale was aware of this. He also agreed with Philips on many of his targets which he wasn’t going to say out loud there and then.

“I get it,” said Mark. “These elites, they’ve had us chasing our tails just running around trying to figure out who was the bad guy, who was doing the bad things. I know, they’ve got no loyalty to any idea, any republic, nobody but themselves.

“For a lot of it he was correct. He rightfully picked people working against our efforts. But then he had you go to Greenland. You were supposed to drop a payload that was on a monumental scale and we’re not sure what he was going for but it was wrong. Do you remember any of that?”

Dale was being honest when he said he didn’t.

“You wouldn’t have survived the drop. It was some scary next-level science. Philips had stolen it from a warehouse he had no business being in. It should have never been made and it sure as hell should never be used. Ever.” Mark stopped to take another swig. “Man, I can’t get enough of this.”

“What was it?” asked Dale.

“I can’t even tell you. I’ll tell you where I think we got it in a minute.

“You see, we had something to disarm it, thankfully. I had to get it close to the device so I was supposed to follow your flight path and do that. But then you flew into that … that thing. It was like a cloud. Do you remember that?”

“Not at all.”

“You should have seen it. I hope you remember it eventually; it was amazing. It was like flying into cushion, like the world folded around your plane, and mine because I followed right behind you. Inside it was like a multicolored electrical storm, flashes of light everywhere. I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

Dale shook his head.

“Probably all those drugs I’ve been giving you,” said Mark. “They’ve got great painkillers out here.”

“Where is ‘here’?” asked Dale.

Mark ignored his question. “They call it a vortex. They’re familiar with them here.”

Dale had no idea what he was talking about. Mark started digging around in his bag again.

“There’s a couple that live in a house nearby,” he continued. They saw our planes appear out of a hole in the sky, said it’s happened before.” He handed Dale a few pages of thick, glossy paper.

“A calendar?” asked Dale.

“Open it!”

Dale opened the thin book to July of the current year. The photo was of a young man and a woman in front of a waterfall. Rocks surround the waterfall were strangely pigmented, richer in color. All the colors in the photo were bright and deep. It almost hurt Dale’s eyes to look at them. Mark saw that Dale was looking at the photograph.

“That’s the couple,” explained Mark. “Look at the date.”

Dale didn’t see anything unusual. It was the current year, at least he thought so. He had no idea what month it was. There was a red X on the 24th, but other than the photo it seemed like a normal calendar.

“Those people live here. They look like us, they speak our language. That sky out there, can you see the moon from where you are? That’s the same moon.”

Dale didn’t really understand what was going on.

“There is no war going on over here. There’s been no warfare, anywhere on this planet, in 40 years, according to the woman.”

“What planet are we supposed to be on?”

“Earth! Were on Earth, but a different one. Like another dimension. The woman says they believe there are thousands, maybe millions of versions, all existing simultaneously!”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know but if you got out of here and looked around, you’d know you’re not home. Look at those pictures.”

Dale looked at them and not one of them showed anything he was familiar with until he got to the October photo. There was a picture of a horse, a black one. She was standing in a big field of the greenest grass Dale had ever seen. Her mane was being blown in the wind and she was looking directly at the camera. In the background there were two other horses. Dale started to cry. He couldn’t hold it in.

“It’s ok, I did the same thing. But don’t worry. You see those red X’s on the calendar, those are dates when the hole in the sky opens up and we can go back. There’s no guarantee we get back to ‘our’ Earth but they think they know how to pin it down…”

Dale looked up at Mark with a strange expression.

“I don’t want to back.”

Mark slowly smiled. “You haven’t taken a step out of this barn…”

“I don’t care. I don’t care what it’s like out there. I know I don’t want to go back where we came from. You see those people in the pictures? You say they look just like us? They don’t. They look happy. They look free. They don’t look like they’re being manipulated every day by all kinds of other assholes who couldn’t give a damn what they’re doing to us and the world around them.”

Mark nodded and smiled. “I don’t want to either.”