Into the Light

“Stop!” I protested.  She said nothing, only continued her inexorable march.  “I’m going to burn!”

As she hauled me up the stairs, my vision, having adjusted to the darkness, was remarkably clear.  I clearly saw every tool, every extra bike gear hanging from the toolshop wall, every dusty drawer knob, the specks of light flooding in-

And suddenly, the specks of light were no longer flooding in through the cracks in the paint.  Imagination?

“You have been asleep for a long time,” the woman said, “it is now night.”  Ah, so that was it.

“Oh,” I added, stupidly.  I could have sworn it had been light outside.  As she dragged me toward the garage door, I asked, “Miss, who are you?  I mean, what’s your name?”

“Unimportant,” she responded, releasing the garage door hatch and pulling it up.  It shuddered upward and, with a gasp of dust that belied its long abandonment, heaved upward.  I wondered how she had gotten in there, if not the garage door.  The window as well?

She hauled me outside into the night.  I could see that the street was in a state of disrepair.  Gravel

“You can let me go now.  I promise I won’t run.”  I considered running.  She simply gave me that deadpan stare and then I considered not running.  She was probably as fast as she was strong.

She let go of my arm.

The night, as it appeared, was young.  There was still a glow at the horizon denoting its youth, though the sun seemed to be retreating at a fairly rapid clip.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“To where?”

“Unimportant.”

“To you, maybe, but it’s pretty damn important to me.”  Suddenly, I was almost hysterically panicked.  “I don’t even have the slightest clue what’s been going on this past day!  My memories just fade away last night, then I wake up in the middle of nowhere and the sun burns me, and then-”

“You will find out,” she interjected.

“-I find this place out of nowhere and then my dog attacks me and then you’re here and you’re strong as hell-”

“Be quiet.”  She looked around the neighborhood at windows.  Pointedly.  One of them slammed shut.

“-and…” my voice was hushed.  I looked around.  People were probably wondering what kind of madman was in the streets today.  “I’m just really confused,” I finished in a whisper.

“We are going to someone who can explain everything.”

“I don’t want to head into the light.  I just want to…to go home.  And,” thinking about it, “go to work today.  If I don’t set fire in the sunlight, that is.”  Then I thought about going to work anyway.  I did have bills to pay.  If I got there before the sun came up…but no, there was probably no way to avoid the sunlight, even at work.

“Impossible.  You are not equipped to deal with what has happened to you.”

“How do you even know what’s happened to me?  You’ve known me for all of five minutes.”

“I’ve seen it before.  Now quit arguing and follow me.”

“So he’s a doctor?”

This actually brought her to a pause.  She considered for a bit.

“…Yes.  You could say that.”

I sighed heavily.  No questions answered, only gained.  I looked overhead to the night sky and watched the stars there.  They twinkled no brighter or duller than they had the night before, when my memories began to fade.  But some of them seemed like old friends, the North Star most of all.  Directly below it, the woman waited.

“I’m coming,” I said at last.  She started walking, and I just followed.

We were headed into the light of the North star.

Nexus

She ignored my slip of mind.  Her canine features resolved themselves into something decidedly more human.  Vulpine, for sure, but human at least.

“What are you doing here?”

But something was still off about her.

I sputtered a bit, then asked, indignantly, “What are you slapping me for?” I tried breaking free of her grip, jerked a bit and found that my forearms might as well have been welded together.  I shifted a bit more than necessary, trying to cover up my surprise.

“What,” she pronounced deliberately, “are you doing here?”

I panicked, a bit, wondering how I was going to justify breaking and entering in order to escape the sunlight, and blurted out the nearest answer.

“I’m homeless. I just needed a place to stay, and the window was open and it looked pretty deserted so I let myself in.”

She didn’t raise an eyebrow, but I got the impression that she did.  It was probably the quick, skeptical once-over she gave my workout shorts and work shirt.  If I’d been all dressed in workout clothes, it might have been believable.  What the hell was wrong with my attire?  I wondered, again, what had happened to me.

“What’s your name?” she asked, before adding,  “We should probably get you to somewhere more fitting…for a homeless man.”

I tried to find a hint of sarcasm.  I just couldn’t be sure.  I also couldn’t tell what exactly was off about her.

“My name is Devin.  Devin Breaker. I live on the southside.”

She waited.  Her gaze was piercing.

“I…I’m not really homeless,” I stuttered out, not quite knowing why.  “I…”

Her simple silence was unnerving.  And that mystery element.  She was a petite thing, apparently possessed of disproportionate strength.  She had elegant, high cheekbones and healthy auburn hair pulled into a severe pony tail.  The lines of her body were just the right proportion to her size, waist just so, tilted as they were, one foot on the couch, and breasts just the right size to curve and break away from the cusp of her torso as she leaned over me…

…and I felt absolutely zero attraction to her.

“…I was burning in the sunlight.”

Damn.  I hadn’t meant to let that one slip.

“Did you try sunscreen?” she asked wryly, finally showing a trace of emotion.  Her eyes had taken on a new glint, though.  “Let me see,” she said.

“My arms.”

She grabbed ahold of one of my arms with her free hand and then held both up in front of her as if considering two rutabagas at a market.  I winced reflexively as she brushed at my left forearm where I’d shielded my eyes from the sun; there was a strange sensation of crumbling.  She looked at her palm, looked at me, then showed me her widespread hand.

A fine layer of charcoal dust, or ashes perhaps, covered her skin where she had brushed my arm.

Other than that, I was amazed and grateful that my arm had healed from what had felt like a serious burn.  Maybe I was a vampire.

“Let’s go outside,” she commanded.

“Oh, no,” I said, but she simply held onto my arms and started walking up the stairs, the strength of her legs apparently as undeniable as her ironclad grip.

If the sun was out, I was going to die.

Nexus

I don’t know how long I simply sat there, in the depths of the basement.  There was a couch, a counter, countless drawers inset into the walls.  I merely heaved myself onto the couch and collapsed in a heap, dazed.  My mind had picked up where my feet had left off – racing without a destination in mind.

Well, except for the small fact that it had come up with a destination all on its own.  Another conundrum to add to the mysteries of sleepwalking and a pronounced sensitivity to the sun.

Pronounced was an understatement.  I was laying as still as a newly quadriplegic accident survivor so that my skin wouldn’t chafe against the mild fabric of the couch.  What could have happened to me?  It wasn’t just my skin either – my eyes were barely beginning to recover from the stinging sensation, and I hadn’t even looked directly at the sun.

Could it be that I was a vampire?  I licked my lips, unintentionally checking for fangs.  Nope.

At this point, though, I wasn’t willing to rule it out.  Anything seemed possible.  If I could only remember how I had gotten to that building, I could…well, I just felt like something important had happened there.  It was digging at me – every stray thought led back to the building, but the best I could remember was a vague sensation of…would I call it glory? Or perhaps it was simply feeling as though I were a small part of something greater?

Then a terrifying fall.

I hoped Bernard was doing okay.  That mutt was enough trouble at my heel, much less when I was away.  The apartment was probably in shreds by now, but I’d love her anyway.  When she was a pup, I’d named her without being too sure of her gender.  She never begrudged me the slip, and I never found a reason to change her name.

I was drifting.  The adrenaline was slowly seeping out of my bloodstream.  I found myself thinking about Bernard and the apartment.  I could envision it almost perfectly.  Almost.  There was the slight indentation in the wall where the doorknob met the plaster.  The landlord, curse his cheap, lazy ass, had never bothered installing a stopper.  The lights would be off, which I found to be a relief from the eye straining yellow cast.  “Warm,” it had been advertised as.  And the landlord had convinced me of its warmth just long enough to sign the lease, and not much longer.

It was quiet back home.  It had been quiet for a while since Stephanie left me, but now it was even quieter.  The crap on the floor, composed of bottles ranging from half to all the way empty and dirty clothes, formed an almost organically pleasing pathway to the kitchen.  As I drifted closer, though, I noticed an odd sound breaking up the muffled peacefulness.

It was Bernard.  His growl was low, low and dangerous.  I thought I saw eyes glinting from just underneath the kitchen table.  I tried to get closer.  It’s okay, Bernard.  Hey girl.  Be nice.

She backed away.  Then, suddenly, she started barking, the kind of barks that reverberate through your entire body and send shockwaves down your spine, barks that wake the neighborhood up.  I froze.

In my paralysis, I didn’t see her gear up for the leap.

She was on me, biting my arm, tearing back and forth, ripping to the bone-

“Wake up!”

The lights snapped on in the basement where I’d fallen asleep.  It shone pristine white and for a moment I flinched in fear of the sun’s light.

The woman clamping my thrashing forearms shut with a single hand and slapping me lightly in the face was shockingly…canine?

I must have imagined a fang; the coincidental timing and likeness, as well as the events of the past few hours had addled my mind.

“Bernard?” I sputtered.

Tenebrae

I raced down the alleyway panting, what I assumed were bits of trash blending into the floor.  I didn’t have time to avoid them; a child’s game were unsuitable for a life or death situation.

At least the cold that had plagued my very core seemed to be slowly draining away as I exerted myself.

There was a break in the shadows ahead.  I nearly plunged through, but, thinking, I searched for something to block the sunlight.  There: a dumpster. If it was on wheels, as I hoped it would be, it might move.  If not, I could always dash through.

I heaved, and it budged ever so slightly.  This was not going to work.  I paused to think, slowly realizing that I had been running without an idea of where I was headed.

I had no idea where I was, or where I’d awoken.  Despite the dreaming nature of my visions, I was sure I had left a decrepit school behind me and traveled west.

Back to square one.

Damn.  Where in the hell was…

Suddenly, I simply knew.  Exactly where I was, as if I had visited this exact spot every day of my life.  I knew the layout of the gravel in precise detail.  I could tell you what had changed from yesterday.

And I knew where to go.

I walked to the opposing wall, somewhat hesitantly.  Reaching for a window I knew was there, I grabbed at the base of the pane for fingerholds that I knew were there.  They were smaller than I remembered.  Aged white paint crackled under my fingertips.  I jerked the window just so and then lifted, the latch sliding out of its resting place.  The window gave a horrid screech as it shot upward.

I winced, and then jammed myself into the tiny rectangular space.  A few buttons popped off my shirt before I managed to crawl in, but it was well worth being out of the sun’s deadly rays.  I shut the window behind me, resetting the latch.  I suppose if you knew how to get in, it wasn’t much of a deterrent, but it was better than nothing.

I found myself in an abandoned garage.  All the windows, thankfully, were blacked out, though I could only tell because of the specks of light where the paint, hastily applied, had given way.  An orderly assortment of hand tools, none of them electric, adorned the wall above a worktable.  On the opposing side, metal racks.  I was sure of these details, despite my blindness.  And there, I knew, directly across from my entrance, was what I had been looking for the whole time.

Stairs descending into the darkness.

Fear

I tumbled to the floor and landed on my forearms and knees.  My arm, where the sunlight had touched it, was a furious red and stung to the bone.  I screamed as it hit the floor, but, now in the shadows, I had no time to think.  Frozen muscles or not, I had to get away.

Semi-blinded, I scrambled on my hands and knees.  My sun-dazzled eyes told me little to nothing about my surroundings; all I saw were fuzzy grey rectangles.  I assumed that they were buildings, and I hoped that the one I was about to throw myself into had a basement.

Taking myself around a corner on the Western side of the building, I put a hand on reassuring brick wall and came to what was beginning to resolve itself as a door.  I frantically searched the smooth metal surface for a handle or bar.  At midriff height, I found a bar and heaved my weight into it desperately.  It was locked.

I could imagine the sun rising beyond the building and knew I wouldn’t last long.  My imagination feverishly invented the scent of burning asphalt as the sun came up, and I knew the street behind me was not a viable path anymore.  Already my skin was beginning to tingle just from the reflected light.

Maddened, I hammered against the door with my fists and bashed it with my shoulder.

“Let me in!”

I threw myself against the door again.  Futile.  I didn’t have the time for this.  My eyes had almost recovered, so I looked around.  Where I had come from, the streets were lit in a delightfully sinister golden glow, the aura you’d imagine would surround an angel.  In the opposite direction lay comforting darkness.

I chose the darkness.

Awakened

I awoke on the floor, deathly chilled.  The violence of my own shivering had awoken me.  I forced my eyelids open to reveal the clouds moving what seemed to be unnaturally quickly across the predawn sky.

Rivulets of…morning dew? trailed down my face, some even flicking a distance away as I shuddered. I felt as cold as the dead.

My muscles reported every movement as neuronal bale-fire as I heaved pitifully onto my side.  I had to find someplace warm, and quickly. Once, and only once, had I ever been this cold; a ski trip gone wrong, lost in the woods for hours as a child. I thought now as I thought then; if I didn’t make it to warmth, I never would.

Standing up on unsteady feet, shoes from last night’s run to the gym, wearing a mishmash of clothes from work and working out, I wondered – what happened last night?  My memories ended at the doors to the gym on the way out, fading to white noise, then a dream.

I could almost remember…a voice?

Then it, and all traces of a dream, vanished from my memory as a blessed feeling of warmth poured over the back of my head.  So unexpected and so welcome was this feeling that my deathly cold lips split into a smile.

The feeling soon overwhelmed my nerves, and for the first half second I bathed in the glory.

Then it crossed the threshold into pain.

I whipped about, shielding my eyes with my arm, casting about for the source of this godly/devilish pain/pleasure.

I quickly averted my eyes in pain, even as my arm’s silhouette shielded me against the worst of it, and fell to the ground.

The sun was burning me alive.

Falling

“I need you to understand that we’re all falling.”

The voice haunts me. I can see everything so clearly at its peak, and so clearly fading, cracking, and tumbling to the floor. Everything bright will dim. Everything young will age.

“Everything with a shred of greatness will fall.”

The sun sets on an empty lot as I make my way towards the decrepit school.  It has been marked for demolition and its soul moans despairingly, looking about hopelessly from its gaunt broken windows and crumbling facade. My steps are the last foot falls in its abandoned halls, serving as a poor substitute for a healthy heartbeat.

There is only one place to go.

“We are all running out of time.”

The stairs end abruptly, bricks and concrete having long since eroded and fallen to the depths. I was sure their echoes still fluttered here and there – they must have been the reason for my hair standing on end.

The roof  was free of echoes, but not of haunting. The height of it made me uneasy. The bigger they came, after all. I could almost feel the building buckling underneath me. Its old knees could barely sustain itself; how could it hope to hold me up? Rocks skittered about my feet. I breathed deeply. Somehow the night had matured like a fine wine.  I wondered how long it had taken me.  Above me, the stars watched with disdainful curiosity, their considering gaze a lead mantle upon my shoulders, the roof about me.

I closed my eyes.  Swallowed.

“Even you.”

I saw the building give. It started as a sway in the wind. Then the struts and supports snapped like overstressed ligaments, twanging and ripping out bricks and foundation. The first floor shattered with a groan and shriek of breaking glass, structure evaporating into chaos.  My right foot dropped precariously.

Like a lightning bolt illuminating the entirety of my mind and body, I understood. My every being breathed in the relief of it. Before I could consciously register it, before my eyes could even open, I leapt.

The sun broke the horizon, lancing rays of light reaching across the grounds, crawling up the heaving, rolling walls of the school. There was a gap in the air where the sunlight lances into deep space, blinding the onlookers there, and then it was upon me in full.

For a moment, I hang there, a golden avatar of the sun.

“But you and I both know – this is the beginning of the Fall.”

My eyes snap open and the black of night floods in.