Through Glass(19)

I knew from the way my head still buzzed. I knew from the way my heart ached. I knew from the beginning. This wasn’t a nightmare, it was real.

Monsters and onyx skies the color of ink. The emptiness of my house, the forever missing screams of my brothers.

This was my new reality. It was all real.

I wouldn’t let it be. I would find a way out of it.

I stood quickly and ran to the front door, my feet tripping on the broken shards of my mother’s figurine collection. I swung the door open, the high pitched groan of the hinge loud in my ears.

Everything was dark in front of me, dark as midnight. There were no stars or moon to shadow the world. There was only the dim light of the grey sky above us hovering wickedly as it kept the sun away. The street was cast in grey while the trees stilled in the windless air; the colors were faded and gone.

I stepped out slowly, my foot pressing against what once was a bright green welcome mat my mother had put out for spring. It crunched under my feet as I moved out onto the porch, the wide awning over my head making everything darker.

The blackness that had pressed against the window before had gone, letting me see into the once bright world, into the eternal midnight that they had covered us with. The street was covered with the signs of war. The asphalt pock marked with grey, ashen circles, cars overturned, houses ripped in two. Remnants of people who had fought, people who tried to get away, people who had lost surrounded me.

My heart clenched at seeing the world in front of me. It was so much worse than what they had done to my house. My hands balled into fists at my side, my conviction to leave suddenly wavering.

“Lex.”

I turned my head at his voice, my heart thumping to see Cohen standing on his own porch, his eyes as wide and scared as my own. I hadn’t expected him to be there, to be alive. His screams had melded with all the others as they died, his window covered with black. I had expected him to be dead.

“Cohen?” I asked, my voice breaking in surprise and relief.

“I’m coming to you, baby, stay there,” he pleaded and moved toward me. My heart relaxed at the idea.

The darkness hadn’t come and taken everything, not quite. I fought the urge to run to him as he leaned down to pick up a large bag. His body froze as the front door to the house across the street opened, the Jones family rushing out toward their car.

I turned my head instinctively at the sound; the fearful grunts of the mother, the tears from the baby. They rushed out of the house, their feet moving quickly across the grass.

Mr. Jones led the way, his skin looking strangely grey in the smothering night. He jumped off the porch and had taken two steps toward the car when a screech filled the air. The wings of the monster flashing as the talons came down on him.

I heard the last sound Mr. Jones would make as the wide arch of blood sped through the air. As the creature turned from the wide circle of ash he had created, his jaw opened widely at what was left of the family huddled on the grass. The creature’s body folded as it screeched at them, its jaw opening more than what should have been possible while its black, shiny skin stretched unnaturally.

Mrs. Jones screamed and turned right around, dragging her two children right back into the house. The monster didn’t seem to care that they had gone back inside. The screech called again as the Ulama ran after them, its clawed feet clicking loudly against the cement as it chased them into what should have been safety, but not anymore.

The monster’s large, black body moved quickly across the grass as it ran through the door. The door slammed shut just as the woman’s screams rent the air, the children’s cries strangling.

I turned away as I pushed my fist into my open mouth, smothering the scream that threatened to join the children’s. I collapsed to my knees as the screech sounded in the air, the screams of the family dying out as the shriek did.

I looked up to Cohen, his eyes wide as they looked into me. Tears began to fall down my cheeks. One more step and it would have been him. It would have been me. The creatures had wanted full control and they had it.

He couldn’t come. They would kill him if he tried.

His eyes were wide as he stepped away. His hand flinched toward me, mine mirroring to reach toward him.

“Cohen,” my voice sobbed out, the words lost in the darkness that was seeping into us.

“Meet me at the window, Lex.” I barely heard him above the rush of blood that was filling my ears, the panic mixing with my anger dangerously.

“Cohen, no…”

“Please, Lex, meet me at the window.” He didn’t say anything more before he turned and walked into his house. The gentle tap of his door closing sounded like the bang of a gun through the still air that surrounded us.

Everything inside of me closed up as I sat still, listening to the distant sound of screams and letting the heavy pulse of my heart fill me until it was all I could hear, all that was left. I stood slowly, my eyes scanning the destruction in front of me. My only path away from this nightmare was blocked and barred.

Everything was gone.

I ran into the house, ignoring the way the fear mixed with my loss and pain; it swirled around me in an angry tidal wave of destruction. I ran through my ransacked home, my feet tripping on missing steps as the tears continued to fall.

They wanted control and they had it. In my panic, I couldn’t see a way around it. I didn’t think there was one.

I closed the door behind me, my back pressed against the wood as the tears broke the floodgate, as the ugly things trailed down my chest and broke into sobs that heaved out of me.