The Secret Apocalypse

Veda stood in front of the pond, tears streaming down her face. She felt broken. She didn’t know that she had any strength left within her to continue. The last year of her life had been so intense, so emotionally difficult, and Veda was tired of being strong.

All of Veda’s relationships had fallen apart. She had broken up with her fiancé. Her own mother had become someone she didn’t recognize, someone filled with malice towards her, and she had lost many of the people she thought were friends.

Her closely held beliefs, the core of Veda’s faith, had also crumbled into nothing. Everything Veda had always known had now been revealed to her as a massive illusion. It was as if she had lived her whole life with smoke in front of her eyes, and a sudden, tempestuous wind had blown away the fog.

Now Veda could see the falseness of reality, how the foundations of society were rubble and ruins, yet no one else around her could see the destruction. They were still under the spell, still consumed by the illusion.

It was like a reverse zombie apocalypse. Humanity was first born undead, unknowingly asleep, until something jolted each individual into the land of the living. The zombies were flesh and blood, real living human beings with beating hearts and fully functioning brains.

They were CEOs, presidents of countries, scientists, teachers, doctors, mothers, fathers — they were in control of society. And yet, they were unaware of society’s invisible strings, the hidden masters of their distorted reality. They were convinced their clouded views were truth, and they ridiculed those who pointed out the flaws. They clung to their old ways and blocked the world’s advancement.

Veda had been asleep until this past year. Now everything was different. Life as she knew it had been transformed, fundamentally. She couldn’t even fathom going back to what she knew before. She could never “un-know” what she knew now.

As her heart ached, she remembered.

**

It started, for her, the night she found the locket. Things had not been going well with her fiancé for months. Veda knew deep down that something wasn’t right with their relationship. He used insults disguised as compliments. He criticized everything from the way she dressed to the seasonings she used in her cooking. When she confronted him, he claimed he was just trying to help.

Veda had felt more and more disconnected from him, and every time she tried to talk to him about it, he had pushed her away. Veda had only a few friends she could count on to talk to about any of it, and she hadn’t wanted to burden them with too much darkness either, so she kept a lot of her internal struggle to herself.

One evening, Veda and her fiancé had a fight over something she could no longer recall. Her memory for many of their arguments was blurry — it was her brain’s way of protecting her.

She grabbed her coat, jammed her feet into her shoes and walked out the front door, her eyes blinded by salty tears. She was always crying, it seemed. And she had tried everything to feel happier.

The ice cold wind nearly took Veda’s breath away so she ducked her head and plowed forward. She walked far, her thoughts taking her far away from the present moment. Finally, she looked up and blinked in confusion. She realized she did not recognize where she was and had no memory of how she’d gotten there.

Veda found herself on a path, mostly deserted, surrounded by wild prairie thistles and unkempt grass. She saw a little bird perched on a post, seeming to stare directly into her soul. She stared back for a minute. It felt like the little bird wanted to tell her something, like a messenger from another realm coming forward to comfort Veda.

It started to rain and Veda turned her face up towards the clouds in surprise. She let the rain wash over her face, her dampened hair clung to her cheeks and she breathed the scent of wet earth deeply within her. She felt the darkness and pain wash away from her body.

Veda smiled slightly and turned her face to look at the bird again. But the bird was gone. Loneliness zapped through her body, momentarily. She wondered why she missed the creature. That’s when she noticed the glint of light as a burst of sunlight broke through the rain clouds and hit the surface of something metal.

Curious, Veda moved closer to the post. She crouched down to get a closer look. There, partially concealed by the wet grass, was a heart shaped locket. Polished and beautiful, a detailed, vine-like wire frame wrapped in a heart shape around a deep green gemstone.

Veda blinked at the locket. It seemed out of place and otherworldly, as much as the little bird had felt moments ago. She reached out, fingers hesitating a moment before grasping the delicate piece and picking it up. She turned the jewelry over in her palm to examine it. It felt at home against her skin. She was strangely connected to the object. Her heart hammering, a thought rang in her mind, “turn it over.”

Veda turned the locket over. It nearly slipped from her fingers, still wet from the brief, unexpected downpour. Carved on the back of the necklace were the numbers 1234. She didn’t know at the time why those numbers stood out to her, but they did.

She stood up and tucked the locket into the pocket of her jeans.

It was after that day that her world fell apart. Every aspect of her life changed drastically within a few months of picking up that little trinket. It was also when Veda had started seeing the numbers. Everywhere.

She’d see repeating numbers on clocks, on her speedometer in the car, on her bill at the checkout line, in the number of likes or comments she saw on social media, on car license plates and house addresses. The same numbers popped out at Veda everywhere she went. She didn’t even mean to see them, but they were always there.

911, 1234, 1111, 1010, 222, 555… they were everywhere, always the same ones. Veda couldn’t remember when she looked up the first number set, but she had somehow discovered that those numbers were messages from the universe, or some energetic source. She had gotten so used to seeing them that she almost expected them now.

Yet, along with the number messages and the locket came a complete destruction of everything in Veda’s reality. She had had more emotionally painful days than she could count. Everything felt dark, everything was a struggle.

The old world no longer made sense. She saw the twisted systems of modern life, the destructive institutions, the injustices, the corruption — all of it — for what it was.

**

As Veda stood beside the pond in that moment, she realized it wasn’t so much that she wanted to quit. It was just that she was so tired of fighting. She wanted the battle to end, and she wasn’t sure she could hang on much longer. She had been so beleaguered by the pain of the world, as well as her own internal struggle, that she had nearly been defeated.

A sudden flash of heat flooded through Veda’s body. It blasted her out of her existential misery in the moment and she furrowed her brow in confusion. She glanced down and realized she was wearing the locket she had found months ago. Now the metal seemed to burn her skin. Puzzled, she held the locket out in front of her. The stone in the centre was glowing.

Veda glanced around her. Her whole body was vibrating on high alert, anxious and excited at the same time. There was no one nearby. She was alone as the energy from the locket expanded, a light glowing rapidly from its centre.

“Don’t jump,” a voice said, “your fight is almost over. She is almost here. You must wake the others. Stay strong.”

The disembodied voice faded. The light from the locket disappeared and the heat faded just as quickly as it had arrived. Veda sniffled and ran the back of her hand across her eyes to wipe away her tears.

Veda didn’t know if the voice had been herself or from some other source. She did know she trusted and believed the words. All seemed lost but her fight was almost over. She was on the verge of a breakthrough.

All those numbers meant something. They were messages with a purpose and she had a purpose too: she had to wake the others.

She looked at the pond once more, its waters choppy from the wind. Veda felt a shudder of resolve go through her. It was time to keep fighting. She glanced down at her watch to see what time it was, wondering how long she had been standing there. 1:11pm. Another synchronicity. Veda said a quiet thank you to the air, and found herself wishing she could send a message in return.

Veda returned slowly to the path. She walked in a daze until a shadow fell before her feet. She looked up, seeing a person in front of her who seemed to have dropped into existence from the sky. A beautiful woman, dressed in green, with long, deep red hair flowing against her shoulders in gentle waves, stood in front of Veda.

“Oh!” Veda gasped and laughed nervously. “I’m sorry. I almost walked right into you!”

The stranger smiled, looking into Veda’s eyes knowingly. She seeemed familiar somehow.

Veda felt strange. She resisted the strong urge to run from this person. “Well… you have a nice day…” she said, hoping the woman would move along.

But she didn’t. She didn’t move out of Veda’s way. She just kept gazing at Veda and smiling with her otherworldly smile.

Veda glanced over her shoulder, trying to figure out how she could escape this person if the situation turned dangerous.

Instead, the red headed woman extended her hand towards Veda. “Come. We have work to do,” the woman said, her voice rich and deep.

Veda started to cry again. Just when she had been ready to give up, tired of fighting the zombies who tried to force her back to sleep, the universe had sent her the next step.

She nodded and took the woman’s hand. “Who are you?” Veda asked in wonder.

“I am you. I am your light,” she replied.

They stepped forward together. Veda knew it was finally time. This world of living zombies had been asleep too long. It was time to wake the others. Her inner battles were over, and a new battle for light was just beginning.