The UNSPOKEN

I awake after what feels like hours to a burning sensation on my sternum. Opening my eyes and looking around, and through my blurred vision I find I lay in a set of blue hospital scrubs on a bed of rocks.

I climb to my feet, eyes adjusting to the lack of light, and look around me. I am underground in what looks to be a massive abandoned facility. Small fires are set around the landscape, illuminating the cold and damp world as rock formations and caves split between the large sections of industrialism. Hunks of metal and machinery litter the area, some taking the shape of pillars stretching up as if they were trying to escape. Fog from a seemingly endless ceiling blankets the landscape, blocking my vision of any horizon in sight. The world is screaming at me with its silence; the occasional echo of a crow or rock tumbling are the only sounds I can hear. I am alone.

“Where am I?” I think to myself. I reach for my pockets, they are empty. I have nothing with me but my mind, the skin on my bones, and the clothes on my back. A small fire ignites to my left, startling me with an obnoxious crack. Through its illuminating saffron glow a long metallic tunnel on my left is revealed. I cautiously step towards the tunnel, just tall enough for a person to walk down its claustrophobic path. I take a look inside with the light from the fire radiating down the tunnel like thick molasses. The tunnel stretches for miles.

I rest my hand on the rim and take a deep breath, the smell of rust, concrete, and dust filling my nose. I take a glance at my surroundings once more and notice a large drop off a few meters away. I look around a bit more only to realize I’m on what essentially amounts to a plateau through the fog. There is no bottom, there is no other way. The tunnel is my only choice. I stare back down the claustrophobic tunnel. I take a deep breath before setting foot inside.

Through the tunnel are numerous graffiti artworks, depicting what looked like a large assembly line with mostly unrecognizable items along a conveyor belt. A large face is depicted on the wall made up entirely of the letter “N” in a more ancient style of writing. A depiction of a large tree growing on top of a robotic industrialized building holding a city, an ocean, and a vast black landscape with a black sky. Various designs repeat through the tunnel, some overlapping and some becoming distorted.

As I walk through the tunnel it the artworks become more and more distorted. Some, as expected, seem to be from their age, with fading color and chipping paint. Others are almost fresh to the touch or still dripping wet, but smeared and undecipherable. The further I walk the more distorted the repeating artworks become, until they are eventually unrecognizable compared to their original depictions. As the smearing continues, the artworks begin to start to form coherency once again. As I continue down the tunnel, many seem to begin to fuse together into something new, but not with diversity among them. Every artwork begins to form various depictions of the letter N in the same ancient font from earlier on. I walk further, with more and more of the artworks converging, eventually covering the entirety of the tunnel walls into an indecipherable mess once again.

I continue walking for hours upon hours, losing track of time as I go. Strangely, I feel no fatigue or soreness. In fact, I don’t feel the same concept of energy as I normally do, I feel empty. Unwhole. I feel like I am drifting through the tunnel as if it were routine. I feel unthinking and I feel nothing.

The glow from the fire has stretched much farther than conceivably possible. I can’t tell which way I came from outside of the progressive distortions of graffiti around me. The ember glow hasn’t hardly faded at all, but I feel as if my sanity has. I stop walking and look back behind me. I feel hopeless and confused, as if I were sprinting in a hamster wheel trying to move forward. My body may not succumb to exhaustion, but my sanity has begun to.

The glow from the fire begins to slowly dim. I stare down the tunnel, panic beginning to set in as the tunnel darkens. I look around frantically as it becomes dimmer and dimmer until there is complete and total darkness. I hear the faint click of a light switch behind me and whirl around to see a small dimly lit room at the end of the tunnel, about 2 meters away.

The room is just a bit taller than the tunnel, with an antique desk and chair in the center. 50’s era wallpaper is spread across the walls, with a ceiling light emitting a dim yellow glow. Upon the desk sits a small wax candle, a quill and ink, and a small sheet of parchment.

  I enter, examining the room and its unusual wallpaper accents briefly, and pick up the paper.

The Last Will and Testament of Narciso Dale Mortar.

I, Narciso Dale Mortar, of Sandpoint, Idaho, revoke my former Wills and Codicils and declare this to be my will.

Article I : Identification of Family

I am married and my wife and any referral to “my wife” or “my spouse” shall refer to Susanne B. Mortar. I have no children. I have no other family. I have no pets.

Article II: Payment of Debt and Expenses

I direct that my just debts, funeral expenses, and expenses of first illness be first paid from my estate.

Article III: Disposition of Property

I direct that my scientific research, along with any and all accompanying works, be donated to various scientific research organizations for use and study to further modern science. I direct that all other property that I possess be gifted to my spouse if she is alive. If my spouse has passed or is unwilling to receive my assets, I direct that all other property be donated to charity.

I wish for my body to be donated to science, as it has been my life’s mission to further science and humanities’ progression.

At the bottom there is a small line for a signature. I examine the paper closely. The ink is not only fresh, but after touching it slightly smears along the page. Nobody was here to write this, and nobody else was in the tunnel. Who wrote this? Who is Narciso?

I glance around the room and examine the details closely. The wallpaper has small, dull stains littered throughout it on the side opposite of my entrance. I examine it closer and notice it seems to be slightly moving, as if wind were pushing it from the other side. A faint glow can be seen flashing from behind periodically, the colors varying and its frequency random.

I place my hand onto the wallpaper and gently push into the void behind it. The paper bends and stretches until screeching as it tears from the surrounding walls and exposes the doorway that was previously hidden.

I gaze through the doorway. On the other side is an empty alleyway with moderate rain splashing down and blotching the pavement, blanketed by the darkness of night mixed with an ambient spectrum of neon color. Small pools of water have gathered in sections of chipped and broken concrete, reflecting the bright whispers colors of neon from outside of the alleyway. Out of the corner of my eye a larger puddle just beside the doorway catches my attention. The puddle does not reflect the surroundings. The puddle almost looks like a window, and small details can be made on the other side.

I gaze into the puddle, trying to make out the image within. As I continue to gaze, the surroundings seem to fade until eventually my entire field of view is that of the puddle, as if it were to wrap itself around my head. I am in a dark room with various medical equipment laying on a small bed. I hear a faint steady beeping sound to my left, but I cannot move or feel anything. A man in scrubs walks past the door, and glances into the window. He stares for a moment and walks off, before returning with another man, this time in a white coat, and walking off again. The door opens and the man walks in holding a clipboard. His mouth begins to move and strange sounds leave his lips. He stops and pauses, and begins moving his mouth again, this time making similar sounds but meaningless gibberish to me. He pauses again as I blankly stare at him and begins writing something on his clipboard.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice oddities in the room. Bits of the room seem to be distorted and smeared, inconsistent with the rest of it. Sections of the room from my limited view seem to be moving. The hallway from the window is shifting up and down slightly. The room then violently begins to shift and distort as a loud screaming drone hisses into my eardrums. The man jumps and babbles loudly, as more people rush in. The room flips and spins and I snap back to reality.

Disorientated, I find I am now standing in the puddle I was previously staring into. I look behind me. The room and any trace of it is gone, replaced by the brick wall of a building.

A voice calls behind me, I turn around and see a woman sitting against the wall of the alleyway. I examine her. She is short and pale, with messy and ragged dark hair. She is sitting on top of a small quilt and appears to be homeless. She begins to emit the same sounds the man in the coat was making from her lips with a smile on her face. I stare blankly at her in confusion. She sighs and the smile disappears. She pauses for a moment and points at the brick wall behind me. I turn around. The brick wall now has a giant mural of a factory, complete with massive gears, pillars, and the same fog I had witnessed what feels like centuries ago. The woman lets out a slight chuckle and pulls out a small piece of brown cardboard. She pulls out a small black marker and draws a question mark on it, pointing to me and then the question mark. She is asking who I am.

I smile and begin recalling my identity, but the smile quickly fades as I begin coming up with blank answers. It dawns on me that I have no clue who I am.

The woman notices the puzzled look on my face, and begins drawing again. She slips the cardboard around again showing an arrow pointing from the question mark to a crude stick figure. She then points at me with a smile on her face.

I look at the cardboard then at her with a slight smile before diving back into deep thought. I scan as deep as I can through my memories, but I can’t recall anything before my rouse on the rocks. I begin to panic a bit as I grow more and more concerned. I dive deeper, as if my mind were a large library of empty shelves. I don’t even remember what I look like.

The woman’s smile fades and grows into concern on seeing the panic in my face. She stands up and walks over to me before giving a small hug and a slight smile. I smile and after a few moments blink. When I open my eyes she has disappeared along with any evidence of her existence.

I look to my left towards the end of the alleyway and begin walking again. Despite the rain and my poor attire for the current environment, I remain dry and warm, almost like a blanket that was perfectly tailored to my body was wrapped around me. I exit the alleyway and look around.

I stand on the side of an empty street in a vast city, the block filled with beautiful clusters of bright neon lights that stretch miles upwards alongside vast skyscrapers. Each building is filled with marvels of technology and electronics. I’m not just standing on a street, but a valley in a maze of technological and scientific imagination, with engineering and architecture centuries past my time all cloaked in the darkness of midnight.

Yet the streets are void of life.

Every store, building, shop, and sidewalk is empty, not even the rustling of sewer rats. There are no cars, no buses, absolutely nothing, but the city lingers on.

I hear the same strange sounds the people earlier had made, and look up. There is a large screen with an advertisement, its light shining down the alleyway. The man is holding a small bottle reading “Memtex” with other text on the screen describing it as the “ultimate memory supplement.” The commercial begins listing use cases, the text describing waking up in a large underground factory and forgetting your identity. I chuckle nervously at the creepy accuracy of its accuracy and begin walking down the desolate street. 

I walk for hours aimlessly, passing various small stores and buildings. I stop to look into a few but find little inside. A small shop with various pieces of technology for sale, a grocery store, a pharmacy, all stocked with products but void of people to purchase them. Restaurants with no guests, bars with no tenders, offices without workers, clubs with music but no dancing, nothing. The eeriness of the place begins to settle in as I continue my trek through the cold rain.

As I continue through the city, eventually reaching what looks to be a housing area with apartments, I notice a single car parked on the side of one of the streets. Could there be someone else here? I begin heading towards it only for my ears to be pummeled by the loud squeal of rubber tires against pavement to my left. I jerk my head towards the sound and gaze down a small gangway, glimpsing a black sedan slamming into a smaller white coupe, completely destroying both vehicles and sending the driver of the sedan flying out of his front windshield. The man slams head first into concrete, a loud crack being heard from his skull as he then tumbles and slides to a painful agonizing stop, his clothes having done little to nothing to protect him. His mangled body lies motionless on the ground.

I rush through the gangway towards the man, but just before I can make out details about him the black sedan explodes. I am launched back and slam into the concrete, debris flying everywhere. As I slowly pull myself together, I notice every bit of evidence of the cars and the man is gone. No property damage, no blood, no trace, except for a small leather wallet.

I pick up the leather wallet, the brown texture slightly charred from the heat of the explosion. I carefully open the fragile wallet and begin investigating its contents.

The wallet is, for the most part, empty. There’s a couple of dollar bills inside as well as a membership card to a store named Costco which I do not recognize. I notice the driver’s license and take it out. The edges are slightly charred and the license is scratched to the point of obscurity. The picture and the face within is indiscernible and many key points of information are scratched out. Through the scratches I manage to make out the name Narciso Dale Mortar. I return the license to its place inside and continue investigating the contents of the wallet, finding a small paper with a train logo protruding from the side.

Metro-South Railroad

To Infectsicco, Ruiocea, Grand Sario Station  

From Encephalon City, Futurbs Post-Traumnesial Station

Taking note of Post-Traumnesial Station, I place the ticket back into the wallet and take a last look at the surroundings of the crash before noticing the same man from the crash staring at me through a second story window of the apartment building. He is unblinking and his skull is still damaged from the wreck. His eyes pierce me and begin seizing, before his head begins to dull as if looking through a blurry camera lens. He screams and as I blink vanishes completely. I hastily leave.

After ages of walking aimlessly through the city I finally stumble across a large train station, the sign in front reading Post-Traumnesial Station. I start heading up the steps, drenched in rain and soaked. I ponder how the city manages to clear out all the water from such heavy rain, but it then dawns on me that nothing has seemingly made sense here thus far. I try to ponder further as to where I could be, but I reach the same walls as I did with recalling my identity.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs and entering the station, I am hit with a wave of the evocative smell of tile with a hint of aged metal, concrete, and dust. The building is well maintained with no one in sight and is mostly empty aside from a few benches, a small ATM, a ticket kiosk, a gate in front of a small set of stairs leading down, and a large map in the center of the room.

I make my way over to the map and begin to examine it. Above the map reads “Encephalon City welcomes you!” with text below stating Post-Traumnesial Station. The map shows the city taking the shape of the human brain full of intricate patterns made with streets, routes, and buildings. Multiple names clutter the map with small bits of text with both usual and unheard of names. There is a small dot saying “You are here” just above the temporal lobe.

I walk across the room towards the kiosk, its screen springing to life with a quick subway animation. A prompt appears with a distinct tone asking for my name and an option in gray text below saying “I already have a ticket.” The machine spews the same noise I heard from both the lady and the billboard from ages ago as I tap the bottom option and the machine whirs as a small slot opens just below the screen. The gargled mess returns as text displays on the screen prompting me to enter the ticket face up. I take out the wallet and place the ticket into the machine, waiting patiently as it eagerly swallows the paper. The machine whirs before gargling again and displaying the text “Have a safe voyage, Narciso!” before returning to its previous inactive state. The gate in front of the stairs swings open as I hear an approaching train.

I walk down the steps to the small boarding area, the subway car before me. The musty scent of the subway mixed with salt fills the air, and only worsens when the doors opens. The empty subway car almost smells of seawater. The doors close behind me as I step into the car, and as I look around I notice small patches of water on the ground with empty reflections. I walk down the car, gazing past the yellow posts and black seats with the ugly mucus-like color of the light bathing everything inside, and settle in a small seat towards the center of the cramped car. As if the train were waiting for me, it jolts forward and begins to accelerate.

I stare out of the disgusting window of the car, watching the walls of the underground move past at an ever-accelerating pace. I begin to ponder how fast the train could realistically get before realizing it seems to be slightly shaking as it accelerates faster. The shaking goes from slight to turbulent to violent in a matter of seconds as the wheels begin to screech. My worries slowly rise as a feeling of nausea settles in.

The subway keeps accelerating, rattling to the point where its ability to stay on the tracks is less of a question than an imminent failure. The wheels go from screeching to screaming against the rails, piercing my ears, and as I glance out the window the once solid underground on dark concrete has completely disappeared, replaced by an endless expanse of trillions upon trillions of dark blue water. The subway jolts back as it crashes into the water, still accelerating forward. I begin to panic as I watch water slowly crawl up the exterior of the windows, sloshing and slapping as the train continues barreling through as audible cracking sounds began to emit from the thin glass of the car.

I quickly scan the car and rush towards the door at the front, peering through the small window and seeing the numerous controls on the other side. I desperately jiggle the locked handle to no avail as one of the windows in the back of the car explodes, the sound echoing throughout the car as it invites in the vast barren undersea. I begin punching the glass over and over in desperation as water begins to flood the car, another window exploding with every punch to the control room window.

I slam the glass harder and harder to the point the crack of the bones of my fingers is audible. My head begins to ache and eventually scream in pain as the water rises further and further in the car. My body stops responding to my commands and begins to seize uncontrollably as the water begins to sweep me towards the ceiling. My eyes strain and vibrate, my muscles tearing themselves apart, my nerves screaming messages to my brain, the intense burn of pain in my head building as I gasp for air. The car fills completely with water, the comforting safety of its ugly lights now gone. A fog begins to cloud my mind as the violent seizing and intense pain become worse, and as my vision blurs I slowly begin to drown. My vision darkens and the pain subsides. An uncomfortable peace begins to settle as my surroundings fade into nonexistence until a subtle medium-pitched drone is all I hear, until that soon fades as well.

There is nothing. I feel nothing. I think nothing. There is nothing to observe and nothing that could observe. I have no thoughts, I have no being, I have no existence. I do not comprehend because comprehension does not exist. I do not fear because concepts no longer exist for me to fear. There is no darkness, there is no light. There is no sound, there is no hearing. There is no touch, there is no pain. I am unborn and complete.

An ear piercing screech screams into my ears and I scream in pain and agony, every neuron firing at once, every nerve flooding me with information, every sense overloaded and dialed. I become aware of a darkness that surrounds me, and a garish of immeasurable pain begins to slowly blur through the darkness, its increasing brightness numbing my mind in a fire fight of understanding. My screams grow louder and louder as I feel muscles tear in my throat as if it were the first time, the audio of my screams only worsening my condition. I feel my skin dialed to a maximum and further, every hair, cell, light movement, touch, current, all screaming at me through my nerves. The pain is too much and my screams cloud my entire being as the world blurs into existence. I blink.

My eyes are closed and my senses are returned to normal. Over an announcement system I hear the same garbled mess of sounds from a person’s vocal chords. I feel cool, but almost silk-like. Something is surrounding my skin in a soft slippery way. I inhale and a slippery substance flows down my trachea and fills my lungs. I hear the sound of a subway train gliding along tracks behind me, and heading away from me. The sound is muted but audibly in a strange way, as if it were dulled.

I open my eyes to see nothing but a blurry mess of different shades of blue, brown, and tan, but as my eyes adjust to the environment I realize I am staring at the vast ocean floor from an ancient styled station made of sandstone.

I exhale and continue breathing. The water is the cleanest substance I have ever inhaled, like a purified air with nothing but pure oxygen. I continue gazing at my surroundings and turn around to see an endless city of ancient stone, each building different from the rest with windows devoid of glass but interiors of color and events, some dark and brooding, others cheerful and bright. There are billions of them stretching to a vast infinity on either side of me and in front of me, complete with a sandy path leading into the maze-like architecture, but yet still devoid of life other than the building's strange interiors as the wave rays of the sun shine from the top of the ocean hundreds of thousands of miles upwards.

I begin to walk down the path when a hand grabs my shoulder and spins me around. The woman from Encephalon city is behind me, and as she smiles hands me a small folded note. She wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly, mumbling something nonsensical to me as she did so. I embrace her and close my eyes before opening them to find her gone again.

I unfold the note and read “Do not disturb the memories” with a small heart at the bottom. I fold the note back before beginning my journey down the path.

The city isn’t much of a city but more of a maze of corridors with buildings as its walls. As I walk in I begin hearing more of the garbled mess of sound and vocals, but this time they are coming from the buildings themselves. It is easy to see into them, whatever ancient civilization made it clearly did not enjoy privacy from the abundance of windows and lack of a door, but the contents of the buildings are what matter most.

The note she left at first was way too ambiguous, but as I continue walking through it seems to make some sort of sense aside from her delegation of them as memories. Each building’s interior seems to be having an event or scenario going on inside of it, with each one being vastly different from the rest and all of them seeming to bend reality. I learn fairly quickly why she warned me not to disturb them as I gaze into one of the buildings. The room depicts a Christmas family event, with a window able to be seen on the other side of the room and falling snow. A tall man with black hair is lighting a large brick fireplace as a large pine tree is being decorated by a handful of children. Multiple adults sit in couches and other pieces of furniture in what I assume to be a living room. I smile as I look on, the room feels great even from looking through the window, until I notice a man in a recliner wearing blue hospital scrubs staring directly at me. His gaze is cold, unnatural, unblinking, disturbing. The room freezes and I blink. When my eyes open every person in the room is standing and staring at me the same way as the man in scrubs is, even the children. They do not feel human. I begin to back slowly away from the window and blink again, but this time the tall man with dark hair stands in the window, staring me down. I jump back, tripping and stumbling. As I regain my footing he pulls a curtain over the window as one of the children slams a wooden door shut, sealing the once empty doorway. I quickly continue along the path.

Multiple buildings have people in different roles, but some interiors don’t depict rooms at all. One contains a park with two men sitting on a bench, one wearing the same blue hospital scrubs. One has a science lab as the same man in blue scrubs works meticulously. They each contain a place and always contain the man in blue scrubs, but as I continue down the path the interiors begin making less and less sense. One building has a scene depicting a family having to put their dog down, but instead of a dog being put down it is a person and the family is depicted as dogs. One building depicts a man walking across a school campus, but the sky and the world are inverted; with the sky now being the ground, the school, the trees, and everything but the sky; and the sky being turned into a projection of what once was the ground.

I continue walking down the path, watching as a distorted scene of the same man in hospital scrubs receives a degree of some sorts, but with the stage and people being replaced with otherworldly and disturbing distortions. Faces melted and bent into impossible shapes, illogical geometry, and confusing garbled messes of sound. I take care not to stare too long into each building, as just like the first the man in scrubs would eventually notice me. The buildings only become more disturbing as one depicts a seemingly deadly crash of sorts with the body of the man in scrubs flying through the air, tumbling, and slamming into the ground, however the scene is too distorted to make out exactly what happened. Even still, there is no time to investigate. The more times I peer into a building, the quicker he seems to notice me and the angrier he seems to be.

After hours upon hours of walking I finally turn what seems to be the final corner of the path. It leads down a long corridor of buildings with each containing a scene, that is except for the one at the very end of the path. At the end of the corridor stands a building slightly taller than the rest with nothing inside of it, almost as if staring into a black hole. I begin walking down the path before hearing a loud scrape behind me, only to turn around and find the buildings behind me have shifted to block the previous path. I hear a garbled mess of words come from one of the buildings to my left, seemingly calling out to me. I look inside and see the man in scrubs laying on a pile of rocks and panicking in what looks to be a large underground factory, the same one I woke up in hours earlier. Uttering incoherent gibberish from his mouth he begins to scream before suddenly stopping entirely. He stands up and turns towards me. I stumble back away from the building’s doorway, and in the blink of an eye he is standing just outside the doorway, staring me down. I slowly back away before realizing that every entity in every other building of the corridor had done the same, all standing in their doorways staring at me, into me. As I begin backing away from them down the path I notice the ones at the now sealed end of the corridor begin to unnaturally walk, accelerate, and eventually sprint towards me with the rest beginning to follow suit. One by one they begin to moan, groan, and eventually scream an unnatural, impossible guttural lurch as they charge at me. I sprint down the corridor towards the building at the end as men, women, children, animals, and distorted messes of the aforementioned pursue me, each of them maintaining their gaze. I sprint down the corridor and slam my body through the few that stand in front of me, and as I dive through the doorway of the empty building I tumble and roll through what feels like black sand, the screaming disappearing the moment I fly through.

I climb to my feet, dust the sand off, and look behind me to find nothing but an endless landscape of black sand dunes and utter darkness, an inescapable limbo. A large dead tree stands in front of me with a large full size mirror peering out of its trunk, its image faded in a cloud of darkness and its intricate golden edges being the only color in the environment. I run my hand along its edges and note the text etched into the top of the frame: “Seek revelation, ask and an answer you will receive.” My thoughts race as my first question bubbles to the surface of my mind and the mirror responds. Its image fades and transforms, revealing a map of what looks to be a brain similar to Encephalon city and a dot near the central regions of it.

After hours of asking questions, and the subsequent incoherency of the mirror’s responses, I reach my final question. The simple thought bubbles into my mind as my mind asks for my identity. The mirror goes dark as a figure on the other side walks closer and closer before revealing myself. The mirror shows only a reflection of me, with dark hair, pale skin, and my blue hospital scrubs. I become frustrated at the nonsensical answer and ask again. The mirror does not change. I ask again and again but nothing changes. I slump to the ground and sit in front of it, frustrated and trapped. As I stare at the mirror an idea pops into my head. I begin asking questions not of who I am, but who my identity is. I ask my name, to which the mirror replies with text reading “Narciso Dale Mortar.” I blankly stare at the mirror until I begin making connections in my mind. The text begins to enlighten as my head begins to ache and eventually sear with pain. My vision blurs and darkens as the world fades until I heard a voice.

“Narciso” it calls out. The voice is from a woman with a hint of worry and sorrow. My vision begins to brighten as I begin to relive my once forgotten memories. Memories of my mother and father, my accomplishments as a scientist, the wedding of my beautiful wife and I, and many more. I relive years and eventually decades of my life in a flash until my final memory.

“Damn it,” I mutter. I look at my phone and read the time. I was supposed to be home with Susanne 15 minutes ago.

The streets of New York City are overcrowded with rush hour traffic. Multiple cars, and people all crossing in the endless gridlock. At this point I’d be surprised if I even made it to our anniversary.

I ease through traffic as fast as I can, the loud purrs of the engine being useless in a crowd like this. If there is some shortcut I could take, some opening I could use to weave through traffic and rush home to her. As if the universe is listening to my prayers, a small opening to a back alley through the traffic opens up for me. I rush to take advantage. I slam on the gas, cutting off the fancy mustang as I fly down the alleyway. The side street on the other side is empty for the most part. Many either consider it to be slower or a sketchier part of the city, but if it means a faster route it doesn’t matter to me.

I turn out of the alleyway and floor it, the raging power of the exotic sports car being unleashed. The speedometer climbs higher and higher as I weave through the small number of cars on the road. I can only imagine the look on her face when she sees the gift I got her.

I blink for one moment as a thunderous boom slams into my eardrums. Glass shatters, slicing cuts along my body as I fly through the windshield. I soar through the air, catching a glimpse of the crash as the two cars crumble. Airbags deploy almost in slow motion as I soar past the small sedan I hit, the driver being crushed between the seat and the steering wheel as the scene transforms into a mangled mess of metal. I slam into the hard pavement head first, immediately cutting my vision as I slide across the ground and into complete darkness.

A monotone beep rings out as I float in a void of darkness.

I hear the sobs of a woman as a man produces garbled vocal nonsense. I try to move and open my eyes but my body refuses. My head aches and the rest of my body pulses in pain, synced with the beep of what I assume to be the heart monitor on my left.

The beeping begins to slow and the sobbing grows into wails of sadness. The garbled mess becomes hastened and panicked as many more voices join in. Something begins pumping down onto my chest as the heart monitor’s steady pulse turns into a deep fading drone. The sounds of the world begin to fade away as if I were falling asleep. A blissful peace begins to set in as I no longer feel, hear, or think. As the last sob fades away, I too fade away into a deep everlasting slumber.

I jolt awake after what feels like hours to a burning sensation on my sternum and look around. I lie upon a pile of rocks in what appears to be a large underground facility with impossible geometries and proportions. Small fires litter the landscape, illuminating the cold and damp world as rock formations and caves split between the large sections of industrialism. Hunks of metal and machinery litter the area, some taking the shape of pillars stretching up as if they were trying to escape. Fog from a seemingly endless ceiling blankets the landscape, blocking my vision of any horizon in sight. A small fire ignites to my left, illuminating a long metallic tunnel to my left, and in my oblivion I set out to investigate this strange world.

an ode to the sky

by Krista Fleming 

What a kind thing the sky must be:

It sits, overlooking the world, 

Lungs filling with smoke 

As ours fill with air.

It holds heaven, too, 

Helps create us with God’s mighty hand. 

The sky looks down at us, 

Smiling with it’s sunshine rays, 

Hiding from us all its decay. 

What a well loved thing the sky must be:

I seek to to be so known, one day,

To look inside the midnight mirror of memory, 

And be so loved that my darkness is called beautiful. 

There are stars inside me, too, 

I swear it;

They create universes inside my veins, 

And they shine so bright

That I no longer miss the sun. 

What a heavy thing the sky must be:

A thousand Atlases must sit at different points of their world, 

The weight of all things on their shoulders, 

And they do not shudder;

They do not care. 

I wonder who made them this way, 

If they were forged in frost or perhaps fire, 

To know every secret that I’ve uttered

And look me in the eye like I still matter. 

What a hopeful thing the sky makes me.

man overboard

by Angela Ke 

“Man overboard!” Josh yells, running to the edge of the ship and throwing the front half of his body over the rail, his hips like a loose hinge.  

“I see him! He’s still tumbling through the waves! Johnny! Hey, Johnny! Can you swim?” Josh flips his body back up, so fast the veins on his forehead bulge. He waves his arms in big, sweeping motions, as if that would instruct poor Johnny on the motions of swimming. 

“Of course he can swim, Josh,” I say, rolling my eyes. “He’s been going to swimming lessons all summer. You know, with the college chick teaching him?” 

Josh shoots a glare at me then continues waving his arms. “Johnny! We’re gonna throw out a life preserver for you, okay? Don’t panic!” 

Josh runs to the pile of supplies and starts digging through them. “Graham crackers? TruMoo? Izzy! Where’s the life preserver?” He holds up the box and bottle with raised shoulders and a dumbfounded tilt of his wrists. He even shakes them, as if to show just how unhelpful they are. 

I sigh. “Josh, I didn’t pack a life preserver. I didn’t think we’d need one. I mean, how hard is it to just fall over the side of a boat? Very hard. Especially if no one pushes you.” 

“Izzy! The number one rule of voyaging is to bring the darn life preserver! Haven’t I taught you anything?” He drops the snacks to the ground and storms across the ship to brood at the bow. I can practically see the steam trailing out of his head, each puff disappearing just as quickly as it appears. 

“Don’t get a hot head, Joshy.” I sit down against the side and open the box of graham crackers. “And don’t say ‘darn.’ Your mother wouldn’t like that.” 

I hear his eyes do an exaggerated cartwheel and then sharpen into daggers. I quickly sharpen mine, too, and when he turns around to glare at me we have one of our regular staring contests. 

“Hey, Izzy? Josh? A little help out here would be nice!” Johnny’s voice pierces through our glares and we both put them down. A mutual surrender. 

“Sorry, Johnny!” Josh calls over the side. “Izzy forgot to pack the life preserver, so you’re stuck out there!” 

I roll my eyes and push myself onto my feet. “Oh, come on. Just walk over here, Johnny. We can start this round over again.”

I stroll over to where Josh is standing and look down at the boy lying helplessly in the grass. After all, we are just in a sandbox, bordered with thick pieces of cardboard and drifting courageously in a dry, green ocean, with nothing but waves of overgrown grass as far as the eye can see. At least, up until that fence.

It’s hard for me to play make-believe.