The room was dark and vast. Books were stacked upon one another in impossible towers, unwavering, unmoving, parchment paper rolled around in waves. There were no walls but for the sky and stars. Space was all around, stars twinkling brightly, some very far away, some close enough to burn. The room was littered with books and paper. Messy, undeniably so. It smelled of ink, and of trees, and yet it felt ancient, older even than trees. In fact, the first saplings spread from this place, when she had sent The Book to earth. The sound of scratching on parchment was constant in this place. She sat writing.
Read More“Where is it, where is it, where is it,” the man shuffled through papers. His fingers were bleeding from cuts, the papers he was handling haphazardly were tinged red and brown and all shades in between on the sides, every now and then, another would prick his fingers. He had cursed at the beginning, hissed at the next dozen, and now he would just stare at them sadly. Keep shuffling through them.
Read MoreBefore he had become the extraordinary man in the cavern, he had been an ordinary man with an ordinary life. He lived alone, worked out of his house. He did data entry as a freelancer, which would be useless for his career in the future. He learnt how to program on the side as a passion project. Unfortunately, he always thought he was never too good at it. He watched monitors to security cameras for his various employers, stifled yawns as he did. Nothing interesting happened. Before he was approached to become the man in the cavern, he was an ordinary man.
Read MoreHūr’s mind reeled at the plan that had been unfolded in front of him. He sat with his head in his hands, hunched over. A man broken. He was somewhere in his twenties, he had never kept count it always took him a few seconds to remember. Twenty seven. That was it. But right now, he looked like he was sixty with good skin. His head was aching, his heart was sinking. The information that had been revealed to him was astounding. Unbelievable. Yet…
Read More“Will someone please get that bitch to shut up?” his companion yelled as The Detective massaged his forehead with the knuckles of his hands. The dog was crying, had been crying, howling, wailing, unearthly sounds, since they had gotten here. Her fur was spotted with blood and guts, but her mouth was clean. Besides, they knew now that it was not her who had torn her master apart. Heck, it couldn’t even be called torn apart.
Read MoreHeavy sounds hitting the pavement, immediately lifting off, repeatedly. Heavy breathing. The air smelled of pine, and pre-dew. It was four am, and he was running, a wolf alongside him. His wolf. She would run in bursts, run way ahead of him, plop down on the ground, and wait till he caught up. He kept up a steady pace. He wiped some sweat off his brow with the palm of his hand, and trotted onwards. One foot after the other. Mind buzzing with thoughts, and thoughts left behind him, they could not follow him as he ran. This was soothing, calming. The ground was rough. gravel-ly.
Read MoreHūr Amran woke up sitting on a chair, his head supported by a backrest. His wrists were red and raw, and they itched, as if they had been tied with ropes. He moved his arms. They worked fine. He kicked his legs back and forth. They worked fine. He remembered exactly what had happened before he ended up here: he could not erase her from his mind. The girl dancing in white in the clearing in New Zealand. Animals observing with solemn glances, seriousness in their posture and glances. That magical clearing. He knew it was not a dream. Hūr Amran may be many things in life, but he was not delusional. He knew it had been real. The question was, where was he. It was only then that he started to look around. He was facing a wall made of metal, or made to look like metal, and he turned and looked both ways. Walls, brick, stone, he got up, heart starting to pound furiously, he was not fond of small spaces, he did not do well in small spaces. He sighed as he saw a small corridor behind him. Brightly lit. At least there was more, he was not in a small room, that corridor probably led somewhere.
Read MoreThe braying of sheep and the moos of cows. The smell of dung and decay and death. Machines whirred, humming happily as they did what they were designed to do. The ground was too slippery, regulations and procedures requiring that the death and travesty be wiped away at the start of every travesty. Otherwise, they would be ‘unhygienic’. A lonely mechanical trolley strolled through the empty factory. The ghosts of terrified sounds echoing through the halls, bouncing off the metallic walls. Everywhere.
Read MoreThe white cloth covered the glass table, it was off-white. There was a stain in the corner that the elderly washing lady had not been able to see, her vision was getting worse, you see. The baji of the house would give the washing lady a piece of her mind the next morning. The woman would listen in silence, head hung low, listening, listening, until baji would cool down.
Read MoreHe wondered much later what would have happened had they not interrupted the ritual. He wondered much later what would have happened had he not interrupted the ritual. It felt like for the first time in his life, he was part of something. Much… bigger… than him. But then, he did not have the time for regrets. In fact, he didn’t have much time - much later - at all.
He found himself at the edge of the clearing, entranced. The moon was still bright, the darkness still a void. The air was fresh, and he had grown accustomed to it, but he would not realize until he was outside of the clearing how fresh and rejuvenating it was. The ground sighed warmly hugging his feet, comforting, comfortable.
Read MoreThe moon was bright, a beacon of hope in a pitch black sky. Everywhere one saw, there was darkness, shadows were coming alive.
Hūr Amran didnt know how much worse it had gotten since he had been in this country. He didn’t even know what the rest of humanity knew, the humanity, who was doing one of three things at the moment, were glued to their television screens anxiously watching the news, were the ones being murdered on the news, or were part of the organization who was turning people to murder on the news. Of course, the mass public did not know about the organization. Yet. If they ever would.
Read Morescrambled up the hill, not realizing that it was getting harder to traverse. Not realizing that his knees were bleeding. Not realizing that they were healing, that there was no pain. The animals looked at him curiously, not having seen one of his kind before. There had been one, but he was a rumor, they had not seen him in a lifetime. Trees spoke about him, but sometimes the trees spoke of memories from their fathers and their fathers fathers, memories that they had carried with them as the wind blew them from one place to another, until they landed on these shores. This was the first real man that many of them had seen. They did not know to fear him, but they also saw the goodness in his eyes.
Read MoreThe man waited in the living room of his doctor’s office. Patients waited in silence, some children for their pediatrician, some teenagers and an elderly couple, the man comforting the woman. She was sobbing into his shoulders. The sobbing was the only sound in the fog of silence at the doctors’ living room. Many practiced out of this place. They each had their own offices, but found that it was cheaper in this city to work out of a shared space. A collaborative space. Plus, they could send business to one another.
Read MoreHūr Amran climbed the green grassy slopes. After the ‘fertilizer’, the white powder had poisoned the crops, he had run away. He wondered now what would have happened had he told the farmer, and asked for forgiveness. People used to tell him that his eyes were beautiful, and he thought that’s why they usually agreed with him, on most things he said. It was like a trance. But the farmer was too blinded by racial animosity, it was a wonder that he had like Hūr work on the farm at all. Too blinded by intolerance, that he would probably have not seen the eyes, only seen his withered crops. Which was also fair. That was his living. Amran had left what little money he had on the counter by the table in his room, along with a note, and an apology, which he suspected the farmer would not accept. The apology, not the money. He was unaware of the fact that the New Zealand police had already been informed, and they were on the search for him. The world had turned into a dangerous place from the world of his youth. They would probably suspect that he was one of the anarchists, and the harshest punishments were meted out to those groups of people, as a deterrence, yet in spite of that, more kept on rising out of the woodwork. He was not one of them. Yet, he looked at his hands, sadly, it was his hands that had sprinkled the powder onto the crops. He had never seen something die like that. The roots shrivelled, a blackness that sucked out light, slowly, it crept up the stalks, of all the plants. Wherever the powder touched them, he was too shocked to move.
Read MoreExhaustion racked every pore in his body. From the tips of his toes all the way up to the muscles in his neck. His shoulders screamed as they moved. His hands shuddered when he asked them to grab something. His legs burned, resisting his every effort to move, until they didnt. Every muscle in his body was sending signals to his brain to stop using it. He grimaced and resisted the pain.
Read MoreThe train sped through forests and trees, and all sorts of greens. The air it bulleted through was fresh and cool, and peaceful. It smelled of pine and earth, and reminded one of hearth and home. Outside was a forest it was racing through, trees on all sides, light beams filtered green dancing through the carriage of the train.
Read MoreThey called him Morpheous. No one knew where he came from or how he came to be. The lack of knowledge about him coupled with the fear of him fuelled speculation, and only added to the myth of Morpheous. When he came for you, it was over. He was the most feared person on the planet. At least in the few circles that knew of him. The very few circles. He travelled by himself, kept to himself, and spoke to few. He spoke with purpose. Each word delivered like a nightmare, like those he brought to people. The few lucky ones he let sleep at all. Or maybe that was all part of the mythos. Not many actually had met him. And lived. Mythos? No one knew of anyone who knew the man called Morpheous.
Read MoreThe sky had darkened, the darkness slowly spreading, becoming, darker, deeper, absorbing all light, getting bigger, stronger as it ate away at the light. The sky had darkened, it was coming. He could feel it in his bones. He could feel it beneath his feet. The ground was trembling.
Read MoreHe sat curled up on his bed, head in between his knees, arms hugging his knees. Would they come? It had been years since he had been sent here. He believed in the plan. He believed in them. But no word, for six years. It had been so long that he could feel the fire spreading over the earth, he could feel it shivering under his feet, could feel water seeping out from under, trying to drown the world, or maybe those were the tears of an already dying earth. Two of his most trusted lieutenants stood outside, one on each side of his cell. Hands behind their backs. They had strict instructions. No one was to enter without permission. No one was to enter without being announced. His head was in between his knees, hands cupping the sides. He was rocking from side to side, ever so slightly. No one could come in now, he was weak right now. He did not want to demonstrate weakness. He was supposed to be the messiah, if not that, he was at least supposed to be a general in their war. Yet, they seemed to have abandoned him. No word, no sign. He was losing faith.
Read MoreThe walls of flesh and bone were just that, walls. Even here, especially in this place, they did not have the capacity, foresight, but also the resources to hire smart walls of flesh and bone, if such a thing existed.
The doors opened, scraping against the ground, screeching loudly as they did, drawing the light in, and the prisoners out. His eyes had adapted. It had been a month to the day since he had arrived at this place. And he had turned most of the prisoners. The rest had met with such tragic accidents, and unfortunately, passed away. There were two prisoners left. One was a wizened old man,
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