Half a fifth into the night – still another half to go, but already getting hazy; drawn further up into the aether where I hope to find my inspiration.  Or at least respite and a good night’s sleep.  Lord knows I need it.

The edges of the blank page begin to fade – bleeding off the screen and cutting through the night like a phantasm, prodding my psyche for the last remnants of creativity.  The haunting image swirls around me with a cold, empty embrace.  I close my eyes, tight, and take a deep breath, regaining my focus.  And there it is again:  a blank page staring back at me.  I don’t even know where to start, but the damned thing’s not going to write itself.  I take another shot.  Still nothing.  One more can’t hurt.

 The soft glow of my monitor falls onto my keyboard in the darkness of my dimly-lit study, beckoning my fingers to type.  Something – anything.  And so, I do.  Vomiting gibberish from my fingers in hopes that something intelligible, or at least salvageable, will show up on the digital paper.  No such luck, but I keep trying; each subsequent sentence a rambling non-sequitur with dwindling potential.  One more drink for inspiration.  One more for good measure.

The words on the page begin to melt together as an unreadable hazy grey; each new word lost in the fog as it spills out of my screen and envelops the world around me until everything goes dark.  Finally.  Finally, I can sleep.  Finally, I can dream, and maybe find my words there.

BAM!

Or not.  I jerk back and sit up straight in my chair – the ramblings of my drunken night of “writing” still in front of me and no less disappointing.  I lock the screen and stand to ready myself for bed, only to be interrupted by another loud crash.  It shakes my whole house, rumbling and vibrating beneath me – it sounds expensive.  And it doesn’t stop.

It sounds like it’s coming from my basement – the muffled sounds of grinding heavy machinery, breaking glass, and heavy winds.  I don’t even know.  I open my basement door – it swings violently, ripping itself from my hands; I’m almost swept off my feet by the force.  I pull my phone from my pocket, readying myself to make an emergency call, as I walk down the stairs.  I freeze when I finally see it – the source of all this noise.

I conclude that my eyes, and all my other senses, must be playing tricks on me as I stand before a violent tear of swirling, red lights and forceful winds ripping through the air of my home.  This isn’t happening, it only thinks it’s happening, I think as I step closer to the strange, unnatural storm that’s tearing apart my basement.  The center of this curiosity obscures the area behind it, but acts as a window into what appears to be a blood red, hellish landscape of pulsing vines and bulbous growths.  My curiosity gets the best of me and I approach the storm, cautious not to get too close – but foolish enough to get too close.

Searching the area around me, I grab the first long-handled object I can find:  a push broom.  I decide, then, that my best course of action is to poke the beast and send the handle of the broom through the opening.  Nothing happens.  Not to me.  Not to the broom.  I pull the broom out and examine it as closely as I can.  There’s no residue, no apparent damage, and it doesn’t give off any heat – or cold – different from that of the air in my basement.

I do another quick scan of my surroundings and grab a hammer – the only loose tool I manage to find that I don’t feel like I’d miss all too much.  I toss it into the opening.  It lands with an uncomfortable squish.  I run around the back of the vortex to find absolutely nothing.  The portal itself appears invisible from the rear, though the power of its wind is readily apparent, and the flashing lights reflect off the surfaces on the other side.  Still holding to the broom, I poke it through where the portal should be and, again, nothing happens.  I let go of it – it falls to the floor and begins sliding across as the winds force it away from me.  I run back to the opening and watch as the broom handle appears, seemingly, out of nowhere.

This can’t be real, I conclude.  I must be still in my study.  Dead asleep and having the wildest liquor-fueled dream my unconscious mind can muster.  Committed to this conclusion, I step forward and reach my hand out toward the portal.  It passes through without issue – there’s no pain, just a brief, light pressure that brushes against my arm at the point of entry.  I pull my arm back – it’s still intact and unharmed.  I step through the portal.

The first step is unsettling as my foot sinks into the soft, moist ground – pulled in down to the shoelaces.  The constant pull of the floor slows my movement as each subsequent step mirrors the first.  Each step leaves a darkened impression in the ground – a depression that slowly rises once the pressure of my body is no longer on it.  The color bleeds back into it as the footprint fades. With each step, the corridor writhes – it breathes with life.  The walls pulse with a hypnotic rhythm beckoning me deeper.  And so, I follow.  I follow until my entry fades from view – until the path ahead to my unknown destination is shorter than the one behind me.  I follow until I stand before another portal opening to a world that’s wildly unfamiliar and immeasurably intriguing.

 The air is heavy and blackened by soot; I pull my shirt up over my nose to serve as a crude filter.  The sky is a gradient of hazy grey and a deep red.  Streaks of bright green lightning cut through the sky and illuminate the landscape, pulsing perpetually.  The luminous branches intersect and grow – blossoming into an electric web of light overhead that never strikes the ground.  There’s no thunder – there’s no noise at all.  It’s a still, dead air that’s haunting yet beautiful.  I snap my fingers and the audio is abruptly terminated – no echo, no resonance.

The landscape before me is equally ominous.  Saplings sprout from rotting remnants of trees, and desolate structures lie in waste of rubble and dirt.  There doesn’t seem to be any life here, but evidence of its past inhabitance decorates the horizon.  The architecture of the ruins is unlike anything I’ve seen before – no corners or creases, no markings.  Every broken structure appears as though it was composed of a single mass.  The surface textures look like a brushed stainless steel with intermittent patches that have a reflective, though translucent, surface that seems to disappear when viewed at an angle.  To the touch, the structures feel more like glass than metal, which seems a fair assessment given the majority of damaged buildings are shattered opposed to bent or warped.  Despite the foreign architecture, the destruction and quiet abandonment is reminiscent of nature’s reclamation of Pripyat.

I have no suppositions that the answers to what happened here could be found here, but that doesn’t hinder my curiosity.  I circle around the building closest to me until I can find a point of entry – a shattered wall with an opening about 10 feet tall and maybe twice as wide.  I step over the metallic shards that pepper the ground and make my way into the building.  As I enter, the walls illuminate with a soft, but bright, blue light that doesn’t strain my eyes despite the contrast of darkness my eyes had acclimated to outdoors.  The light is singular – emanating from everywhere with no apparent single point of origin shining brighter – and follows me from room to room.

As with the exterior, the walls of every room are seamless with no sharp corners.  Most rooms are bare with no furniture or decorations; the exception to this being what I assume to be the kitchen wherein a large island counter sits in the center of the room.  The island houses three deep basins which have no visible source for water or drainage.  I glide my hand around the countertop which seems to summon an interface, the options on which are noted by a series of concentric circles arranged in Venn diagrams.  Out of curiosity, I press one with no certain expectation.

The area to the left of the display illuminates with a bright, rounded rectangle of piercing white light; it should be blinding, but my eyes adjust with no issue or strain.  I stand over the light and reach out to touch it, but stop as soon as I feel the intense heat radiating from it.  I return to the interface and press the button again; the light fades, almost immediately, and the surface is, again, cool to the touch.

Below the button that ignited the range is a series of three identically-marked buttons atop digital sliders – not unlike the ones you’d see on a soundboard.  I press one and the corresponding basin begins to fill – the liquid seems to appear from nowhere or oozes from the walls of the basin.  I press the button again and the flow stops.  It’s scentless and clear, appearing to be water.  I submerge my hand without a thought or hesitation.  It gets wet.  The water is warm and, by my brief assessment, indistinguishable from that at home.  I shake my hand dry, as best I can, and pat the rest of the water off on my pantleg.  I drag the sink button down on the slider and watch the water disappear, still unsure of how; it drains faster the farther down the slider is pulled until the basin is completely empty.  I run my hand around the basin – it’s completely dry, no droplets or residue.

I start dragging my hands across the walls as I walk around the room hoping that something else might pop up.  I hit another trigger point, and a six-foot by three-foot rectangular cutout recedes into the wall – light spilling out around the corners – and slides out of view.  Cold air carrying an overwhelmingly strong scent of spoiled produce and rotten meat spills out of the opening, triggering my gag reflex.  I start desperately smacking at the wall trying to find the trigger that closes the door; it feels like an eternity, but I finally find it.

“That’s enough of the kitchen,” I mumble to myself as I stagger back out into the hallway.  After catching my breath, I venture down to the staircase at the end of the hallway and ascend to the building’s upper level.  The second floor has the same cold aesthetic of the first, and is still a far cry from what I would call homey.  The walls are bare, but there’s a short bench outside the first door at the top of the stairs; across from the bench is a small table with an empty plate, specked with dried food residue and topped with a knife and trident.  Alien as this place is, there’s a familiarity with the lifestyle that keeps it from feeling entirely foreign.

The door beside the bench is closed.  As I step in front of it, it attempts to open – sliding to the left before jamming and becoming immobile.  I reach my hands into the crack and try to pry the door open fully.  It puts up a fight, but after adjusting my grip for better leverage, it eventually gives way and grinds open.  Unlike the other rooms in the house, this one doesn’t illuminate when I step into it.  I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight for a better look.

The air inside the room is stagnant and rancid, though not nearly as strong or repugnant as that inside the refrigerator.  At the back of the room, there’s a body lying on a bed with its back propped up against the wall.  It’s humanoid, but very clearly not human.  It appears to be dead.  Its elongated face is contorted in a horrified scream.  The eye sockets – dried and empty – stare down at the withered remnants of its left arm; the bone is corroded, and its hand is nearly completely detached – hanging loosely by the wrist with a strain of rotting flesh.  Its right hand is curled into a claw and ripping at its chest; the decaying flesh of its neck and chest torn to the bone and hanging from its fingernails.  The scene is horrifying.  I can’t look away and, quite frankly, I’m impressed by my imagination.

I approach the bed and begin to search the area for clues of what transpired here.  The bed is draped with sheets and blankets, the corners of which are undisturbed.  There’s a thick, dark outline of dried fluids around the body, though beneath the creature’s left arm is a hole through the blankets exposing the mattress beneath.  There’s a similar area of corrosion dripping down the wall behind the body starting at the base of its skull.  Its left hand is locked in a death grip and appears to be holding something.  I work my way around to the other side of the bed for a closer look.  The blankets on the left side of the bed are torn and sliced – a variety of clean, scissor-like cuts with pairings of jagged tears shredding through the cloth.  The floor beneath has eroded splotches similar to the bed and wall.

I reach for the hand and attempt to pry it open; the skin that seemed to be keeping it attached crumbles into a small mound of ash.  I force my thumb under the digits of the dismembered hand and pry them open, breaking a couple off at the joints.  Beneath the grip is a claw – or something vaguely claw-like.  It’s fairly sharp, but not curved, and the texture is similar to a crustaceous exoskeleton – maybe more like a crab’s dactylus than a claw.  I search beneath the bed and around the rest of the room for the source of this appendage, but come up empty.

I return to the hall and check the other 2 rooms upstairs.  The first appears to be the washroom.  There’s a single basin against the wall and a small shelf holding what I assume to be hygiene products.  Touching the wall above the sink pulls up a similar interface to that of the kitchen, with a button and slider to operate the water and drain.  Along with the display appears a digital mirror; none of the information on which is discernable to me, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.

Similar to the first room, the door to the last refuses to open, though not even a crack this time.  I run my hands around the door trying to summon a control panel of some kind with no success.  I do the same with the dismembered hand from the first room with similar results.  I push against the door and try to force it to the side with friction from my palms.  It’s not very effective.  I look back to the table in the hallway and grab the knife, repeating the process of trying to slide the door with one hand while attempting to force the knife through a crack between the door and jamb.  With more than a little effort, I’m able to shove the knife in and begin prying – twisting the blade and pushing the handle until I can force my foot and hands into the opening and pry the door fully open.

It’s another bedroom.  I pull out my phone again and take a look around.  It’s as featureless as every other room, save for the bed pushed up near the back.  I walk up to it and catch a shadow with my flashlight – something on the other side peeking up barely above the edge of the mattress.  I shift my focus and the light falls on another body.  It’s propped up against the wall, knees tucked into its chest and wrapping its arms around its legs.  Its hands are locked onto its opposing wrists and its head is buried in its knees.  It’s a child.

There’s an empty plate, an upturned glass, and some empty wrappers strewn around the floor and under the bed.  Lord knows how long it’s been locked in here, but it seems dehydration or starvation is what did this one in.  Not an enviable way to go, though from the other corpse, does look more peaceful.

I reach for one of the wrappers, but immediately stop when I see the body move.  A shift in position; a deep intake of breath.  It’s still alive.  I remain frozen, unsure of what to do next, as it throws its head back against the wall with a deep thud.  Its eyes open with a start as it just stares at me.  Eyes unmistakably filled with fear.  It lowers its head immediately and weakly raises its hands – holding them both up, fingers outstretched and palms outward, above its bowed head.

Still shaken by this recent development and struggling to process this whole scenario, I snatch the cup and run to the bathroom.  I fill the sink with water, scoop as much as I can with the cup, and run back to the bedroom.  The child’s still sitting there, frozen in place with its hands above its head.

I reach out and touch its shoulder.  It immediately slinks away from my hand and starts shaking its hands, lowering its head further.  I hold the cup up to its hands and try to wrap its fingers around it; this catches its attention and it looks up at me.  It lowers its head again and grabs the cup and begins to slowly drink, staring up at me the entire time – its expression, having shifted from fear to confusion.  As it finishes up the water, I see its eyes dart to the open door, they widen with fear and anxiety before fixing back on me.  I look to the door and back to the child – its posture returned to the fetal position with one arm outstretched holding the cup.  I take it, assuming it’s still thirsty, and head back out to the hallway.

About halfway between the bedroom and bathroom, I hear splashing noise coming from around the corner.  I slow my pace, making each step careful and deliberate, being as quiet as I can.  I reach the bathroom door and peer around the corner.  There it is, bathing in the water, the crustacean missing a leg.  It’s facing away from the door and doesn’t notice me, but I can’t take any chances.  I start walking backwards – keeping my eyes on the bathroom door.  I move as cautiously and quietly as I possibly can, listening carefully to the sounds coming from the bathroom.

I make it to the bedroom, but catch the knife with my foot – the metallic noise of the utensil sliding across the floor causes me to freeze in place.  I shift my left ear toward the bathroom and hold my hand up to it hoping to hear better, but fearing what might be coming next.  The splashing stops.  It heard me.  I turn to the child in the bedroom and try to communicate, gesturing frantically as I whisper, “We have to close the door.  How do I close the door?”

Then, I hear it.  I hear a thud and the ticking of its feet scurrying across the floor.  I reach down and grab the knife while the creature’s head spins around to face me.  It has six pitch black, beady eyes – all fixed on me.  It rears back, revealing a snake-like mouth with two large fangs angled forward and horizontal mandibles that slam together as it makes a ghastly howling hiss.  I frantically start smacking my left hand against the wall beside the door, desperately trying to get the damn thing to close as the creature begins to clumsily charge.  Its pointed legs lack traction and causes it to slip with each hurried step.

Desperately trying to get the door to close, I begin shouting to the child for any kind of assistance – looking back hoping for some kind of gesture that might point me in the right direction.  But I get nothing but a blank stare frozen in fear as the child’s jaw drops and it wails uncontrollably.  The creature rears back again as it approaches – maybe a foot and a half away from the door.  Its fangs sling upward, shooting out a stream of green, viscous liquid as I slash down at it with the knife.  I make contact between its mandibles, driving the knife in as deep as I can, and slash back up carving through two if its eyes.  It howls again and scuttles backwards.  I keep slamming my hand beside the door until, finally, it closes.

I breathe a sigh of relief, but it quickly turns to horror as I look down at my arm.  There’s a splash of that green liquid on my forearm, and the flesh beneath it begins to peel away.  It is the most intense pain I have ever felt.  I turn back to the child in horror as I hear its screams become hollow and garbled.  The entire left side of its body being eroded as it claws desperately at its opened throat – fear and agony filling its eyes in its final moments as its desperate cries become no more than a whispered final breath.  The body of the poor thing crumples over as it continues to dissolve.

I look back to my arm in horror of the fate that awaits me as muscle and bone are exposed and my grasp around the knife is weakened.  It falls to the floor when I can’t hold on any more.  The hole in my arm starts stretching toward my hand and elbow.  The pain is paralyzing, but my survival instincts override it when I notice that the blade of the knife, despite having stabbed the creature, is unharmed by its blood.  I’m certain it’ll leave a nasty infection, but it beats dying like this.  I remove my belt and tie it around my bicep, uncertain if it will help at all, but I’ve seen it in enough movies that it makes sense to me.  I grab the knife with my left hand and press the tip of the blade into the crook of my elbow.  I take a deep breath as I straighten my arm to get a better shot at the joint.  With my left hand on the handle to keep the knife in position, I walk up to the wall and gauge the distance I’ll need to make contact.  I pull my right shoulder back and slam forward as hard as I can – the wall smashes against the knife handle and drives the blade deep into my arm.  I barely feel it as the pain of the acidic venom is far more overwhelming, but the shock of the experience is still surreal.  I don’t have time to think about it, however, and I begin to pry and twist the knife, working it between the bones and joints – feeling every scrape and pop as I wrench apart my arm at the elbow until it’s only attached by flesh.  I cut through the tissue keeping my forearm attached and it falls to the floor.  It continues to twitch uncontrollably as the venom eats through it and beings to corrode the floor beneath.

There’s lot of blood, and I’m far from safe.  While I was sawing through my arm, the creature in the hall was desperately trying to break through the door.  Its venom was doing the job quite nicely, in fact, as light from the hallway began to spill through holes in the door.

I’m dizzy and dying, but desperate to avoid such a dreadful death.  I stumble around the room looking for the window – hoping desperately that there actually is one in this room.  My eyesight’s blurry and everything’s getting darker.  The windows blend in so well they almost seem pointless.  I prop my head against the wall at the rear of the room, using it to keep me on my feet, and slowly shuffle along the wall trying to catch a glimpse of the window.  Found it.

I raise the knife and start slamming it against the window.  I’m weak and it doesn’t seem to do anything.  I look at the decaying carcass of the child hoping that’ll give me the adrenaline boost I need to make it through.  I’m not sure if it helps.  I keep swinging the knife at the window.  It finally cracks.  I keep swinging – it shatters.  I hear the howling hiss of the crustaceous beast behind me.  I don’t look back – I don’t care to know how close or far it is from making it through the door.

I try, as best I can, to clear the broken glass from the base of the window opening; I don’t think my body can really handle much more blood loss.  I look through the opening; the ground is maybe 15 feet below me.  There’s nowhere left to go.  I jump.

I feel my right ankle pop as I hit the ground.  I landed poorly.  Thankfully, the pain of my arm and the disorientation from the blood loss dulls the pain of this new injury.  It’s hard to stand.  Harder, even, to walk.  But I do.  I shake my head and try to focus my vision as I shamble toward the portal.  It didn’t feel like I walked this far away from it, but now it seems like an eternity away.  I keep my eyes fixed on the portal and limp along as fast I can, shaking my head every three of four steps trying to jar myself awake.  Can’t sleep.  Can’t stop.  Just a few more feet.

I step inside, forgetting how soft the floor is, and fall flat on my face when I’m caught off guard by my foot sinking into the ground.  I try to catch my fall, forgetting I’m clinging desperately to a knife, and drive it into the soft ground.  I feel the tunnel writhe, and what appears to be blood starts pooling around the knife.  I look back to the opening of the portal; it expands and contracts as I pull the blade out.  I start slashing the walls and floors – watching as the portal’s size fluctuates with every cut.  But it doesn’t close.  The damn thing doesn’t close.  I need it to close.  I need to get home.  I dig the knife into the wall and walk forward, pushing it through and cutting as deep as I can desperately trying to close this hole – hoping that the horrors of this miserable world can’t follow me into my basement.

My arm’s yanked back as the blade in my hand stops cutting.  I nearly fall again, but catch my footing before stumbling to the ground.  I try to pull the knife out, but it seems caught on something.  This would be so much easier with two hands.  I yank back on the knife, successfully freeing it after a couple attempts, and more blood begins to stream out of the wound.  Excessive amounts.  I jam the knife back in and start sawing at whatever it was stuck in; it’s difficult, but the flow of blood increases and starts pooling up around my feet.  I can’t tell if it’s the distance or if the portal is actually shrinking, but it looks notably smaller.  This has to be working.

I check the area around for some kind of indication of where another one of these weak points might be.  There’s a cluster of three bulbous growths on the ceiling above me.  There’s several of these clusters along the entire corridor – some on the walls, some on the floors, most on the ceiling.  I move to the nearest cluster and stab into it; the tunnel writhes and the portal behind me shrinks again.  I saw into the wall and begin cutting through another one of the veins, contracting the portal even further.  It’s nearly closed.  I shuffle to the next one – the growths are above my head, so I skip straight to sawing through the vein.  Please, just one more.

As I cut through the last vein, the portal closes and the tunnel grows dark.  The remaining bulbs explode with bursts of light and blood.  And then, the hallway begins to fracture and collapse, falling apart at the closed portal and crumbling towards me.  A wave of liquid darkness crashes down around me and I find myself drowning. I can’t breathe and feel the pain of suffocation pressing against my chest.  I try to cry out, but there’s no sound.  I turn around and try to run toward the exit, but I’m immobile and powerless as it fades from view until there’s nothing left.  No light.  No air.

Aether: The Writer is the creative property of Andrew T.S. Bedgood and is protected by US Copyright law.  Any use of this creative work without permission is prohibited.