Through Glass(18)

Cohen.

I froze, the pieces of flashlight falling from my hands. Everything in me was ice at the thought of him. I had no way of knowing if his scream was one of the ones I had heard. If they had taken his life, too. I stood slowly, my head turning toward my window. I could see his clearly through the grey, the window black and dark as the world had been only moments before.

I needed to get over there, to make sure he was okay. I needed to leave. I ignored the pain in my chest at seeing the darkness in his window and turned toward my door. My feet took me swiftly out of my room before I stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes widened at a world I had never seen before.

It was my house, but nothing was recognizable. A tornado had come through, picked up and crushed every bit of furniture, every piece of wall. It had sped down the hall, destroying everything. The wooden railing that separated the hall from the great room below was missing, a few bars from the banister sticking up awkwardly from the carpeted ground. The carpet was ripped; chunks of wall were missing. The door to my parents’ room was torn off its hinges and thrown into the hall.

I stared at the sight of the gaping hole to my parents’ room, the black expanse of the room behind it both calling to me and erupting through my heart in a painful cascade of loss. I couldn’t take my eyes away from it, as much as I tried. I knew they weren’t there. I felt the hot burn of tears hit my eyes, the tight restriction in my chest, but I held it inside.

I needed to get out of here. I pulled my eyes from the door and walked past the room as I weaved my way down the stairs, leaping over the missing stairs only to come face to face with what used to be my mother’s aged and yellow kitchen.

I might have wept over the ruined countertops, cried over the broken cabinet doors, however it was the remains of what had once sat amidst it all that rocked me to my core. The refrigerator had been turned onto its side, the contents spread over the floor as they removed the food from inside. I stared at it, a shiver of fear winding its way up my spine.

They had taken all the food.

First the light and now the food. Even if light was a weapon, I wouldn’t get very far without food. Judging by the mess they had left, I wouldn’t find anything here, either. They had taken it all.

I walked over to the overturned fridge, my toe prodding through the broken jars as well as the milk cartons that had been ripped in two. I didn’t know what the monsters wanted. They came into the world, took the light, the food, and killed everything. Why would they leave me alive only to take the food. Unless I wasn’t supposed to be alive.

My fingers slowly reached up, the pads of my fingers rubbing against the rough blood that had dried against my face. Was I supposed to be dead?

Was I dead?

I felt alive. I could feel my heart as it pulsed in fear, my muscles tense. Yet, nothing about this seemed to tell me that I was alive. It felt like a nightmare.

A nightmare I needed to get away from.

I looked toward the front door, the old, wooden slab still hanging perfectly as if my brother had just shut it, as if life was normal. Life had to be normal somewhere. I took a step forward, determined to find the normal when the screeching from before filled the air around me, the painful pressure filling my mind again in a torrent. It was the same as before and my body reacted to it as if it was now a trained response.

I fell to the ground as my hands flew to my head, a scream escaping my lips as I tried to fight the pain. The pressure grew for a moment before it lessened, the low buzz of static taking its place.

I listened to the crackle of white noise from inside of my head; the buzz loud in my ears. I didn’t move from where I had collapsed on the floor of my kitchen, waiting for the end, when the hissing grew. A voice grew through the buzz and filled my head from the inside.

We are the Ulama.

The deep, raspy voice crackled and gasped through my head, the static growing with the sound like a bad radio connection.

You have been cleansed and now you will be warned. Your life is now our life, your mind our mind, your belongings, ours.

We will kill you without question unless the rules are followed.

My body tensed at the word kill, the pain almost meaningless for a moment. The static grew for a moment before the voice continued, deeper and angrier than before.

Any groundlings found to have left the interior of your current place of inhabitance will be killed.

Any groundlings found in open spaces will be killed.

Any groundlings found to make noise will be killed.

Any groundlings found to generate light will be killed.

Any groundlings with an intent to cause harm will be killed.

Stay inside, be silent, no light, no fighting. They had done everything for a reason, for control. And they had it, if you followed the pathetic rules they had laid down for us, you would live.

You have been warned.

The voice left my head as the static returned, the crackle of the white noise loud and unwanted in my head. I listened to the noise, unable to focus beyond the sound as I lay motionless in the middle of the kitchen. Then the blare, too, began to fade, leaving me in silence again.

I stayed still on the floor, repeating the rules in my head over and over. It all boiled down to one thing. Control. They controlled me by taking away my light, taking away the food, by keeping me inside.

Was this real? Was everything real? I let the questions I had been haunting myself with since the sky turned black loose in my head.

I wanted to say no, I wanted to wake up from this nightmare, but I knew better.