Through Glass(13)
Cohen’s grandfather was out amongst them. He stood in the driveway, a rake in his hands as he watched the glitter fall through the air. I watched him as they fell around him. He smiled at their beauty.
I wanted to be with him. I wanted to dance amongst the fans of black and feel the smoke against my skin. I reached my hand toward the clasp on my window, desperate to touch them. I froze in awe with my hand soft against the lock of the window as Cohen’s grandfather extended his hand out to let his fingers touch the silky smoke that danced before him.
His fingers grazed the surface of the smoke ribbon, the black glittering around him like a dozen falling stars. It moved through his fingers and brushed against his skin until it disappeared at the same time that the high pitched screech I had heard before filled my ears. I jumped at the sound while the relaxing bliss I had felt mere seconds before vanished as panic took over. It called like a bird, the terrifying sound tensing in my muscles. Cohen’s grandfather didn’t seem to hear the warning call. He moved his hand into the sheet of black before him and, with that one touch, the smoke was gone, the solid body of a monster taking its place.
The scream broke free from my throat as the creature erupted from the smoke. The large, black mass of the thing hovering over the withered old man below him.
Staring at the monstrous black being, I wasn’t sure if I was seeing a man or an enormous bird. The top of its head and the reptilian wings that adorned its back were feathered with shiny, jet black spikes which looked more like the blades of a knife. The wings erupted from its back in large masses of dark, shiny metal; the jagged edges cutting through the darkness around him. The spikes and sharp lines of the wings were like that of a bat, yet they were somehow more medieval, sinister. The body and the face of the thing seemed almost human except everything that should be normal wasn’t. The creature’s skin was black like ink and shimmering as though it was polished steel in the darkness. The same razor like feathers that adorned its back jutted out of its face in odd places like he had been stabbed multiple times.
The arms of a man shot forward from the monster, but instead of fingers, five long, golden talons flashed before its long arms. The talons curved dangerously through the air, the bright color looking beautiful against the sunless night of the world.
The gold glinted as the monster’s arms jut toward the old man before him. The screech in my ears grew as Cohen’s grandfather’s screams joined them along with a dozen other terrified yells that filtered down the street and through the glass of my window. I jumped at the noise, my body moving out of habit while I pressed myself against the window as I watched in horror at the scene that unfolded below.
The screech grew and then the creature’s arm moved, swinging wide in a blur of movement. The flash of golden talons and a wide arch of blood were the only images before nothing was left except a black circle of ash where Cohen’s grandfather had stood.
I froze against the window, my blood turning to ice as I looked at the grey circle of dust on the sidewalk. I just stared at all that was left of a man, a motionless heap of ash amongst the dancing ribbons, unable to process through the numb shock that controlled me. The numbness stretched through me as the faded screams of more victims filtered into my ears. They came, more and more, my mind filling in what I couldn’t see. The flash of talons, the arch of blood.
The creature stood over the ring of ash before it arched its back, its human mouth opening in a screech that cut through the air, the joy it felt at having taken a life terrifying me. I jumped at the noise, my breathing picking up before I, too, began to scream. My own terror mixed with the lost lives on the street below
Cohen’s grandfather had disappeared, burned into a pile of ash by what my mind could only register as being a monster. One touch and he had vanished; now nothing more than a ring of ash in the darkened world. The hell that was falling from the sky.
Everything inside of me shook as I screamed. Terror mixed with an insane desire to run, to fight back. I fought the desire to open the window, to attack the monster for what he had done. My fear and anger mixed together until I was having trouble breathing and my eye sight began fading in and out as tears along with panic swept it away.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the ash, even though I could hear the poundings of Cohen’s fists against his window. I could hear the muffled voice of his own screams as they mixed with mine in my ears.
My fists joined Cohen’s as we screamed, the ribbons of death continuing to fall between us and what was left of Cohen’s grandfather. They weaved themselves through the sky, blackening the darkness into a solid mass of ink, their numbers increasing until I could no longer see the spot where Cohen’s grandfather had stood.
The black that fell from the sky was taking over. Snatching up what little light we had been left with and seeping it away into nothing. I watched them multiply as the thought I refused to acknowledge weaved its way to the surface of my mind.
The black, the monsters, whatever hell that had opened up on us. It was killing everything that was outside.
No.
My mother had taken my brothers to the skate park. My family was outside.
“NO!” I screamed as I hit my hands against the window. My tears streaming down my cheeks as I pounded against the glass. My anger bubbled up beyond what I had ever felt. I screamed at the blackness that surrounded me while, at the same time, needing to get out of this room; to fight them, to save my brothers. I screamed as the monster turned from Cohen’s grandfather, its movement slow as it turned its black eyes to me in warning.