Midnight Valley

This is what it is to die. Not from wounds nor plague nor parasitic infection. Not from torture nor accident nor exsanguination. This is death at a crawl. A burning, aching grip that loosens as the host succumbs. A plunge into madness. A shattered reality. A man is undone. Unwound and fragmented. Broken, his mind in pieces he wanders the frozen wasteland to heed a beckoning. What was it? A screaming whisper, a murmured shout. An undulating tear of tormenting tendrils. The call was shrill and bloodcurdling but angelic in its chorus. A cry of despondence and suffering that stunk of desperation. A call for action and of undying loyalty. Without warning it demanded. Unwavering, a man trudges through the snow-laden terrain. Expectancy is apparent as the brink is before him. It is around him and under him and throbbing in his mind's eye. An unknowable force which promises a unity of his scattered brain. A debt to pay for the small price of liberation. A man leaves deep footfalls in the snow. He drags a burden of 48 years and 250 pounds in his wake leaving two winding gaps in the unbroken white. Two sacks of dead weight. Dragged without thought or cognizance. Liberation for unity. The brink was closer. He felt it deeply within the two sacks. Their deed was complete and their subservience would not go without notice. Mercy was not lost in this place but rewarded in full. A man is undone, unwound and fragmented. But not lost. He understands the coming dawn and it’s promise. Bearing this mighty yoke would bring relief and with it another burden. A meaningful and worthwhile burden to bear. For himself and for eternity. No...not for himself. For the call. For the beckoning eyes and the distant scream that cracked his cochlea. Laying prostrate was not a choice but mandatory. The screaming persisted. A maddening mantra that whined and groaned with a deafening roar. Hums and shrieks which wracked the brain of any semblance of thought. It wanted him here. That is all to know. It wanted him here. But the dialect is lost. Twisted and confused with the ages of birth and death. Deformed into a confluence of shrieking chants. But it’s cadence understood, the alien inflections bent into a series of symbols and digits. A common tongue where the lexicon is dead but its meaning taken. It told him he was meant for this place. Before him was a lake. Solid was its surface but from it came a pulse. Dragging still his burden he deposited the sacks in the center of the lake. Mountains dwarfed the lake and wood, casting titanic shadows upon the gathering. Liberation. A unified will. From his pocket came a knife. He etched a thin circle into the ice 6 feet in diameter to surround himself and the sacks before carving an inhuman symbol upon it. Its meaning is beyond humanity. Its purpose is unclear and the design cryptic. Nonetheless, it was transcribed. Beneath the bags the symbol calls to the heavens in an inaudible tongue. It welcomes freedom. A man raises the knife once more and takes the blade to his finger, pricking to produce a small drop of blood. It pools and falls in steady drops onto the frozen ice. It seeps deep and spreads to fill every indention made by the symbol. A man is joyous. He is successful and sure to be noticed. Mercy is not lacking in this place. Distantly a slow whine builds in the rear of his brain. A faint scream that comes ever closer to the frozen lake. It is accompanied by a chorus of the same kind. Mounting, it cuts through this momentous achievement until it is upon the lake. A man is interrupted amidst his glorious ascension as an automobile of blue and white looks over the lake, its siren wailing.

Officer Freeman was a level head. It’s what her father told her some years ago before her academy acceptance. It’s what her therapist told her after the death of her child. She was resilient and clear of mind even in a crowd of turmoil. Her hands never shook and she could think in strategy as opposed to fear. When situations resulted in gunfire she eyed exits and steadied her breathing, allowing her mind to formulate a means for survival. But these were rational plans for rational circumstances. A man holds his wife hostage. He wants money. He wants salvation. He wants a new life. We know these things. A stranger kidnaps a child and skews the whereabouts. They mask their face and deepen their voice. They want money. They want salvation. They want a new life. We know these things. And with knowledge comes strategy and with strategy a plan of action. But today, officer freeman's mind was a chaotic table of shuffled tactics and uncharted cartography that she could not begin to map. Shaken breath escaped her lips as she gazed upon the frozen lake. One man with two bags of which the contents were assumed. And an inhuman symbol beneath that glowed vigorously with a deep red.

A man sees a woman upon the hill. She exits the shrieking beast and looks upon him. She is not meant for this place. She will succumb to the wake. This is not the will. But it will occur all the same. He pulls a pick from one of the sacks and begins to indent the ice. He will ignore the woman. From a deep place inside a man weeps for her. He shivers and shakes for her inevitable loss. She has experienced such pain and will succumb all the same. She is not meant for this place. He lowers his head as the pick continues to rise and fall against the thick ice. Tink tink tink. Sweat glistened on his skin even in this frozen land, falling with soft plops upon the dented ice. Tink tink tink. Accompanying them were tears. Tears from a man inside a vessel who understood the repercussions of the coming deed. Tears from a soul trapped inside a slave that screamed and begged for freedom. Each drop filled with the maddening hope of liberation. Each salty stream let loose a chorus of distant wails that echoed across the mountains and through the frozen streams. The trees shook as the burden carried through their snow-laden branches. The winds cried as they bore the meaning of such sorrow. The natural world was aloof and alive. Altogether they ran from the source of the tears. They ran from the genesis of such damning cries. The ground shook with their growing displeasure. It reeled and screamed as it longed to excise the growing tumor within it. I am a failure, a prisoner moans. Trapped within a shell he can only gaze. And witness.

__________

The ice caved in. Black and murky were the tendrils which seized it. A man provided only a push to catalyze its fall. He is startled but hopeful as he watches the open breach. The water beneath is an inky black. It pulsates and churns as the ground rumbles. Water is thrown out of the opening as the wind mounts to a furious zephyr. The quaking ground topples trees and throws the man to the ice. He is awestruck and joyous. Glory is inevitable. This is the will he thinks. This is what it is to live for purpose. He does not notice the tendrils arise from the ice and snake their way across his arm. He only watches the growing chaos. The seismic eruption mounts but the ice remains intact save for the breach. Water is thrown outward, shooting from the hole like a geyser. It continues this way as the quaking persists. A glorious display. A man smiles at his work as the world breaks around him. “Glory”, he says but the words are lost to the chaos.

__________

The elements had ceased their beratement leaving only silence in the aftermath. Voices indiscernible and alien murmured at the back of Freeman’s brain. She put her hand to her head and squeezed her eyes hoping to excise the whispers. They grew louder in their chant as she stumbled from the shock of their cries. She began to weep as they shrieked and screamed an unknown tongue. A malicious and deafening susurration. Aggressive and violent, the calls were wrathful. She was not meant for this place. She accepted this and the chorus of a thousand tongues regressed. Falling in their volume until whispers remained once more. Eventually, the voices ceased leaving a dull whine. Freeman righted herself, using the hood of her cruiser for support. Her breathing was unsteady and the vertigo she felt was nauseating. Still, she made an attempt at focus. She straightened and looked. Gazing once more at the frozen lake she witnessed what it meant to be dust. What it meant to be a pawn in the cosmic field. She gazed deeply at the end of the world and the reduction of Earth to atoms. She watched as hands seized the opening in the ice from beneath. They pulled to reveal a man. A man is the closest rationalization to what the thing could be but in truth it was no man. It was a humanoid of black but much deeper than black. As if crafted from the void itself. The figure stood, lurching as it placed its head in its hands. The murderer shuffled backwards on the ice staring hard at the emerging thing. She could see him entranced even from this distance. She watched with trembling hands and quaking breath as the thing stumbled, head in hands, attempting to maintain balance. Like an infant awakened from a lifetime of sleep. It reeled and rocked hoping to seek equilibrium. It dripped with a murky liquid. Black and thick it seeped into the ice to spread its abyssal fingers into the lake. The thing was tall and slender without an organ or appendage to mark its sexuality. It had no face nor hair or ears. It was the abyss molded into life. It steadied and adjusted, looking out to its surroundings. It’s faceless head shifted, slowly turning in Freeman’s direction. It passed over the murderer without thought before landing its gaze on Freeman. Her hands shook as she held steady her pistol. It’s hand reached forth. Slowly it rose, palm outstretched. A beckoning. An invitation. From its hand came a wave. A wave that screamed and shrieked, roiling with life unknown. A wave so black as to swallow the surrounding light. The wave was upon her. Inexorable in its flow. She was too slow to avoid it and too small to know how. It engulfed her. The lake and surrounding terrain disappeared. Replaced by a world of black in every direction. Midnight had enveloped her wholly. From horizon to horizon only the void was present. But somewhere deep in the distance was a light. A kindling of life. A beacon of hope. To this, Freeman's mind would walk. Hoping, searching for a gate to salvation. Forever her mind would tread this sea of black as the distant glimmer remained out of reach. But her body was not so trapped. It would walk three days and three nights after encountering the wave. Frostbitten and aimless it would trek through the snow until exhaustion took hold. Collapsing, her body would meet its end. Lifeless as the surrounding wasteland. But her mind would carry on. An endless journey. An eternal prison. Towards a light unreachable.