The Next - Chapter 1

It wasn’t Hell, but it was most definitely not Heaven either. Tor awoke with a gasp as if emerging from some deep sea. But his mind was still swimming, disorientated somewhere between dream and reality. The ground, cold, hard and dry dug into his palms as he raised himself to his knees. Dirt and gravel clung to potholes in his face while a breeze stirred up what remained on the ground. The surrounding landscape was desolate with nothing, not even a tiny molehill to signify any difference in the terrain. Although under his feet was a drab grayish mix of gravel and dirt, the sky above glowed with a ferocious orange tint. Gazing up, it stirred a profound dread within Tor, who had always seen a sky like that as a threat. His grandfather had an old saying about an orange sky. A warning perhaps, but before Tor could catch the memory, it was gone. The way a dream can sprint away from you in the early stages of waking. Tor pushed against the ground to lift himself to a standing position but a sudden stabbing pain jolted up his leg, nearly putting him back on his ass. He clasped the leg with both hands, putting immediate pressure over the pain, steadying his leg, and feeling the wet, squishy skin underneath. Pain again ripped through to his groin as he gave the tender spot a test squeeze. Blood pulsed its way through his jeans and turned the gravel a foreboding shade of red. Tor swore as he unbuckled his belt and with extreme care not to aggravate the wound, dropped his jeans. A gaping hole, oozing blood right out of his body greeted him. The edges were jagged and messy, but it seemed to be an in and out wound. Whatever had punctured him had gone all the way through, hopefully leaving no foreign objects inside him.

The smell of burning rubber assaulted his nostrils, The feeling of losing everything. First the control, then her, and finally himself. And the scream. That scream worming its way deep into his soul, as he took one final look at her.

Rubber, loss, that god-awful scream. As he gazed upon his injured leg those three thoughts circled his mind. The way the previous thought of his grandfather had. Tor tried to focus his mind but the pain and an ever-growing puddle of blood hindered his progress. He needed serious medical attention but doubted his leg was up for what could be a miles-long hike to the nearest point of civilization, assuming he could even figure out where he was. If Harriet was here she would know exactly what to do. Probably fix him up with some painkiller cocktail and wind some cloth around the wound to stem the bleeding… Harriet! Just thinking her name brought up a feeling of shame. How had he only just thought of her? They had been together mere moments before. The scream! It had to have come from her, he was sure of it. But there had been an utter terror in that scream. And pain. Tor was suddenly sure he was going to be sick, but after a couple of dry heaves, his stomach settled to an achy worry. He could remember being with her. Could almost feel her soft skin under his hand.

They had both been in his car. She was speaking ecstatically about something but Tor’s mind had been elsewhere. His palm was resting on her lower thigh, the way she secretly liked to have it when he drove. One of her hands rested atop his while the other drew figures on the window. He couldn’t quite remember what drawings she made but was sure they had nothing to do with whatever she was talking about. Not that he paid much attention to either. He was tired and a little irritable, woken by an excitable Harriet. They were getting away for a while. A holiday, to recharge their batteries, and their relationship. But Tor was distracted. His thoughts drifted off into another space. A space he had been frequenting more often than not lately. Especially around Harriet. And so he did not notice her frown as she glanced at him. The frustrated wrinkle between her brows as she realized, yet again, her boyfriend had been paying her no attention. He would not have noticed the speedometer creeping forward, every inch increasing his stopping distance drastically. He definitely did not notice the major pothole that would soon strike his front wheel, sending the car veering off course. He was not to know the local government board had warned their constituents to slow down around this street until it had been filled in. He was also not to know this pothole would cause three deaths in total before it was fixed, two happening very shortly. He did, however, notice the loud bang as his front tire exploded on impact with said pothole. And he definitely noticed the great elm tree that took most of the brunt of the crash. As Tor’s car began its embrace of the elm, its windshield shattered, spraying shards of glass throughout the vehicle. Had anyone been able to witness the crash in slow motion, they may have been surprised to discover the windshield only broke into exactly seventeen pieces. And out of these seventeen pieces only two hit flesh. A large pane speared Tor’s upper leg, pushing right through and pinning it to the seat below while a much smaller shard struck Harriet across the neck, fortunately missing any veins or arteries. However, while neither passenger had time to notice the intricacies of a broken windshield, both witnessed the tree. As the front bumper folded in on itself, an overwhelming feeling engulfed Tor. He would not make it out of this car. He barely had a microsecond to comprehend the enormity of this realization before his body inherited some of the force of the crash, throwing his brain against the front of his skull. The last thing Tor ever heard on Earth was the blood-curdling scream. Her scream. And then all went dark, and to Tor, the world seemed to end.

His leg had stopped bleeding. In the time it had taken him to recall what had happened to himself and Harriet his leg not only ceased its bleeding, but it had also scabbed over. Tor pushed his mind to recall how long ago the crash had taken place but there seemed to be some mental block stopping him. It must’ve been some time for his leg to have healed. But he had seen it only mere seconds ago, an open wound caused by a pane of glass that was now nowhere to be seen. His leg felt better too. The pain had eased to a dull throb and was starting to regain normal feeling again, the way a numb limb does through pins and needles. The first hint of clouds started to appear on the horizon, reminding Tor that no matter what else was going on he was still stranded in the middle of an unknown plane with no indication of when night would arrive. There was no sun to even tell the time. There was no sun! The realization washed through him, increasing the pressure that had been building in his stomach. He tried to justify this by saying it had just gone behind the thin sliver of clouds at the horizon. A very thin sliver. So many questions ran through his mind. He had to focus on one thing. Something important. Something he could answer. Something that would help him. Where the Hell was Harriet?

Hari had been much more alert than Tor at the moment of impact. She had tried to warn him of the pothole, although gently at first. He had been on edge more than usual lately and she was certain she knew why. But approaching Tor with such a confrontational question was one way to ensure you never got an answer. He was a delicate man, more than he ever let on. And she hadn’t felt up to asking it yet. She wished she had. That was one of the many regrets Harriet Falls faced while she lay there dying. Blood flooded her lungs as she tried filling whatever was left in them with air. Tor was dead. She could see his limp body, hanging out of the car. Mercifully he had been knocked (or killed instantly) by a direct hit to the tree. Hari had not been so lucky. She was acutely aware of everything. From the smell of gas, now free of its tank to the immense injuries she had sustained. Fortunately, there was enough adrenaline pumping through her system to dull the pain. A scream rang out into the cold morning air. It might have been hers but her mind had started to shut down by then, sense by sense, organ by organ. Still, the screams continued, strained and haunting. Fading and fading. And that was how Harriet Falls died. Alone and screaming, her lifeless boyfriend only meters away. But if her death was bad, what was yet to happen was much, much worse. You see, just before Tor had passed on, his skull had smashed into the tree, knocking him unconscious the split second before his death. This in turn caused him to miss the beginning of his next journey. Hari, on the other hand, suffered through all of it. The feel of grass was suddenly ripped out from under her broken body. Now, something coarse and sharp dug into every inch of her skin. Her senses, once fading, had now returned to her in painstaking detail. The smell of gas had vanished, along with the horrific corpse of the car. More importantly, Tor was nowhere to be seen. The sky burned as if a great fire raged just out of sight, filling Hari with a deep unease. And with that thought, the adrenaline that had once been her only protector vanished. Either running out of steam or unable to handle this pain that should’ve never been. It roared through her entire body, highlighting every defect that caused her death. Her neck slashed deep now burned as some unknown feeling crawled across her wound. Her arms, which lay broken and deformed started a dance of pain as the bones scraped and moved against one another. Her ribs ripped themselves out of the once punctured organs as they untangled themselves. Her body cried out in agony and Hari followed suit. This time she recognized her voice even less. She did not even sound human anymore. If there had been any life in hearing distance at that moment, they would’ve sworn they had just landed in Hell itself. And the other four lives that had landed on the same plane, although all out of earshot, felt a strange tingle in their spine at that moment, and all felt suddenly very scared. The noise escaping Hari’s body was that of pure animalistic pain. A scream that transformed into a growl and eventually some sort of mad snarl. Her body was fixing itself. Righting all the wrongs caused by the crash. But she would’ve given anything at all to end it right there. 'I’d rather stay broken for eternity than one more second of this' she thought to herself perhaps even screaming it aloud. Everything outside her body came to mean nothing to her. All that mattered was the pain. But her wants seemed to matter not, as her body took all the time it needed to mend all that needed mending. And eventually, like all terrible things in this world and the next, it did end. Many factors in life cannot be controlled and the only way through is perseverance. But sometimes that perseverance is forced. And forced or not, Hari had persevered. Her neck no longer drained her of her lifeblood. Her limbs lay proper and straight, not a single crack in her bones. Her organs operated exactly how they had for the 21 years prior, her ribs protecting them once again. Still, she lay in gravel, panting and sweating, wondering if anyone on Earth had ever endured pain like that. Perhaps childbirth? Never mind, that was still a very distant duty for her, if at all. Naturally, this brought her thoughts to Tor. Hari had come to accept the fact of her death surprisingly easily. This was some sort of afterlife, of that there was no doubt. After all, she had been present at her own demise. But she was worried about how Tor would react. He was a troubled man, unpredictable as of late, but she still loved him. And the thought that he may have gone through the same suffering caused a pain in her stomach as if her ribs had fallen in again. Mustering all the strength she had remaining, Hari stood, proud and tall. After a few shaky steps, she felt all her previous energy return to her, as if her soul was now healing too. Mercifully painlessly. The pain of the last hour or so could be forgotten, she hoped. Now she had to find her boyfriend. Make sure he is okay. And then, just on the very edge of her vision, she saw a silhouette. A smile crept on her face in what felt like the first time in a long time. She broke into a run. A new determination had sprung into her. A determination that may not have been there if Hari knew this figure was not Tor. But someone who was still going to play a large role in things to come...