Worlds Beyond

Chapter 1

Fallon parked her car in the driveway in the same spot she had for the past three years, and just like she had every so often over those years, got out and unloaded the groceries from the back seat. As she grabbed the bags she got a faint smile on her make-up painted face as she thought about seeing her husband, Kyle for the first time that day. She missed him every day, and every day he made it clear he missed her too. She imagined the kiss he would give her and how she would long to just throw the bags on the floor and drag him to their bedroom, but how she couldn't do that because the eggs might go bad.

She grabbed as many of the bags as she could handle, she hated making so many trips and so, tried to get them all. She couldn't quite get the last two, and sighed resigned and took what she had to the back door, juggling the keys her purse and the bags around until she got the door unlocked. The hallway opened up to her and she walked down, till she got to the first door on the left. Like always, it was open for her to walk through and she stepped into the kitchen. She started setting the bags on the counter and was disappointed when Kyle didn't come to greet her like he usually did.

She made another trip to the car and got the remaining groceries, closed and locked her car door and went back into the house. Kyle still hadn't appeared and she was starting to get a bad feeling. She lay the bags on the floor this time and went looking for him. She walked through the dining room and into the living room and stopped short at the sight that greeted her.

The living room was small but homey, with a too large couch spread length wise across the room, making it so there was only a small gap between the arm and the wall to step around to get to the other side, and a TV turned cockeyed in a corner next to the window. Thick dark gray curtains blocked most of the sunlight trying to filter through the oversized window. Kyle was standing in front of the couch, staring at the TV, which was flashing pictures and videos of the news. She didn't pay attention to what they were saying; instead she was focused entirely on him. His face was blank, except for the faint glimmer of horror that had seeded itself in his beautiful dark green eyes. Her heart turned icy at the sight of such terror in her loves' eyes, and she found herself terrified to learn what was flashing on the news.

'Curiosity killed the cat,' she found herself thinking, and would have smiled had it not been for the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She finally tore her eyes from him and for the first time focused on the television.

At first she thought she was seeing the aftermath of a large earthquake, somewhere in a large city, but then the pictures flashed again and it was a different city, with the same widespread destruction. She read the caption below and the terror she had seen beginning in his eyes, completely took her over.

"It can't be," she whispered more to herself than anything.

"It can and it is," she was shocked from her horrible reverie at the sound of his detached voice. She stared at him agape as his words slowly sunk in. She couldn’t believe he sounded so calm when his eyes told her he was as scared as she was. He almost seemed as though he were walking in a dream, and talking to her through it. She was beginning to wonder if she was in a dream, a nightmare that she couldn't wake from.

Chapter 2

The roads were backed up for miles and miles. She didn’t know how she was going to get out of the city, and fast, without her car. She panicked as she franticly searcher for an alternative in her head. It seemed like hours passed with no solution, as she packed a backpack full of a few essentials. As she went into the garage to find a flashlight, inspiration finally struck. She had an old mountain bike she hadn’t used in over a decade, which she had kept as a memento of her childhood. It was a little small, but it would still serve her purpose. She threw it in the back of her car, and finished packing her bag.

She took her car as far as she could, before traffic got so bad that people were actually taking their cars off road to get around the jam. Her car was not equipped to handle the ground off the road, so she abandoned her car and yanked her bike from the backseat. She weaved between the cars and trucks as fast as she could. A few motorcycles zipped past her, almost knocking her to the ground.

The years of neglect showed on her and the bike. She was tiring fast, and the gears squeaked and groaned under the unusual pressure of the hard riding. She pushed herself further though, and amazingly the bike held up, switching gears on command and keeping up with her furiously peddling legs.

She was now miles outside of the city, and was beginning to climb into the mountains. She decided it was time to leave the comfort of the road and try to find safety in the hills. She didn’t know how or where she would find it, but something told her to go there. There were no paths, and the riding was even harder, but she pushed and the bike followed.

Her legs ached and she was breathing hard, and she was beginning to run out of steam. Her terror had fueled her well, but even that was running out. She was starting to lose hope. She wanted to give up. She was slowly realizing that she didn’t know if she really even wanted to try.

She reached the tree line just as the sun started to go down. The grass ran out, and riding became easier, but she was so tired she almost couldn’t peddle anymore. She was still riding fast, but it was becoming harder and harder.

The light was failing and she didn’t see the rock directly in front of her, and hit it squarely. She went down hard, nearly shattering her shoulder. Instinct saved her though, as she curled into a ball, and took the brunt of it to her back, bruising her deeply, but otherwise saving herself from a nasty break. She stood up, but nearly toppled over on her overused legs. She could have lain down and fallen passed out right then, but even with her misgivings creeping up in her mind, she was not ready to give up. There was still a chance. She knew it was only a matter of time before a bomb came to wipe out the only home she had ever known, but she didn’t know when, and until it happened she was not going to give up.

The sun was down now, but there was still some light left. She picked up her bike and examined it. The wheel was hopelessly bent and deflated. She had to abandon it as well. She took off walking; she didn’t have the strength to run. She didn’t have a direction, she just walked. She came to a clearing, and saw that the stars were almost out in full force. She could barely see, but she kept on. She knew it was foolish, but she couldn’t stop or she would give up. She would just lie down, and never get up again. She had reached the other side of the clearing, still walking up the hill, when she heard a distant slow rumbling.

She stopped and looked around. She didn’t see anything, but the noise got louder. She looked to the sky, fear enveloping her as she hoped it wasn’t what she thought it was. The sound got louder and louder until she could barely stand it anymore, and suddenly it burst over the horizon, screaming towards its doomed target. Unstoppable in its mechanical rage, its jets blazing brightly, it was propelled onwards.

The sight made her heart flutter, and she couldn’t contain her terror anymore. She took of running, with a new burst of adrenaline, back into the trees. She ran a few paces and stopped, for under the roar of the deadly bombs engines, she heard the excited yells of people. Could there really be other people out here, in the middle of nowhere?

She followed the sound of their voices, until she saw a light in the middle of the hill side. A bright unnatural light, and she wondered briefly where it could have come from, but discarded the thought when she heard that the voices were now coming from that direction. She tore through the trees and burst into another clearing, She could see the light clearly now and dashed for it as she saw the people tearing through the doorway in their haste.

The door started the close behind the last one.

“STOP! PLEASE WAIT FOR ME!” she yelled, but either they didn’t hear her, or they couldn’t stop it. Impossible as she had thought it to be a few minutes ago, she increased her speed until she was racing full sprint towards the door. She nearly tripped on a rock that twisted under her feet, but miraculously she stayed upright, and continued her headlong race. She reached the door just when there was only enough room for a single person to squeeze through sideways and slipped through just before it closed behind her. A light brighter than that of the hall she now stood in briefly lit the whole world behind her, then the door slammed shut.

Chapter 3

She wished she hadn’t made it. She wished the door had closed too soon. She wished she was with Kyle, obliterated by the blast. But she wasn’t. She was here, in this god-forsaken place without windows. She couldn’t look outside. She couldn’t see the sun, or the clouds, or the trees. She couldn’t walk outside, and feel the suns rays warming her, or the soft wind in her hair, or the gentle touch of the spring rain. She couldn’t do anything but walk the endless corridors, searching for meaning.

How had she known where to go? She realized now, looking back, that something had been guiding her. She hadn’t just been randomly roaming, and just happened to come upon this place. It was too much of a coincidence. And what about the other people? Had they just known too?

She didn’t really know if she wanted to know. She had kept herself locked up in her chosen apartment ever since the tragedy. Several of the others had tried to talk to her, but she sent them running from the room, most in tears. She didn’t remember what she had said to them, she seemed to become possessed when someone came to speak to her, and the only thing she could recall was that they all left terrified of her. She didn’t know why, she knew she needed to talk to someone, and she had never been one to be cold or ruthless.

Nothing made sense anymore. Her whole life had been turned upside down, and there weren’t even any windows to comfort her.

She realized that even if there had been windows, the scene would have been anything but comforting. It would have been terrifying, with thick black clouds pouring nuclear snow and ash, and terrible electric storms would be tearing the surface to shreds. But they were safe in this dungeon, as she had come to think of it. It was a place of torture, not physical, but mental. She had survived, and everyone she knew and loved was dead, either by the blast or some other terrible fate that had befallen them in the chaos before.

Her dark purple eyes, flecked with bits of red that had never been there before, filled with tears and overflowed. Her eyes had always been a mark of hers that set her apart from everyone else. They drew attention almost anywhere she went. Most people did not believe that they were not contacts, but she really didn’t care. She liked the color, and could care less if anyone believed or not. Kyle was one of the few, besides her parents, who believed that they were natural.

‘Kyle!’ she couldn’t bare to think of him, and his ugly fate. She just couldn’t, but it seemed to creep up on her no matter where she let her mind wander. Everything reminded her of him, and with nothing but the endless white walls of the dungeon, she found herself mulling over him more and more often as the days passed.

Chapter 4

Allysa turned the last corner, in the seemingly endless labyrinth of plain white corridors. How she knew this would be the last one, she didn’t know, but sure enough, it was a dead end hall. The only outlet was a single door at the far left end. The door seemed to call to her. It seemed to be telling her to come and open it, that something amazing lay waiting on the other side. She couldn’t tear her eyes from it once she saw it. It seemed to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, even though it was as plain white as all the other doors in the entire complex.

She felt as though she were walking in a dream and she seemed to glide as she walked towards the door. She couldn’t help her movements anymore as she finally stood in front of the door and reached her hand to the door knob. Her hand was inches away when suddenly the door changed, and she froze. It began to shift colors, first from the porcelain white, to grass green, to jet black, to blood red, to sky blue. It flashed through all the colors in the rainbow, randomly, until it cam back to white. It seemed then that it was done, but then it changed again, this time, it started with black, and slowly colors were added, all the time as they emerged the colors began to swirl and twist over and under each other, completely hypnotizing her. They swirled and swam, until every color had been added, and then they all froze, but in her mind they were still moving, and now she couldn’t wait any longer. She grabbed the handle and the world went black.

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"You're not dreaming, this is real," he said, as though he had read her mind. He still spoke in the detached monotone,  She didn't know what was wrong with him. He just didn't seem right. She shifted her eyes back to the TV for a moment, just in time to catch the most horrible scene yet. The view live from a helicopter, nothing seemed amiss yet, except the traffic was jammed on all the highways. As they zoomed in and she took a closer look, she realized all the cars were facing the same direction, out of the city. In the zoomed view, she could see some of the downtown area, and it looked as though it had all been ransacked by barbarians. This scene itself was unremarkable in itself, compared with all the rest of the cities they had panned over, and the newscast was about to flip to another view, when suddenly a wild scream came from one of the crew in the helicopter. The camera view tilted wildly for a moment and then settled, somewhat shakily on the horizon of New York. It caught the last stage of the flight of the missile as it landed some where in the densely populated metropolis. Brilliant white light flashed on the screen and then there was only static.

She didn't realize, until the screen went blank, that she had been holding her breath for quite some time, and she let out an explosive gasp and took deep ragged breaths, trying to calm herself, but tears started rolling down her cheeks unchecked. She began to sob, and she realized how much she just wanted him to hold her, and comfort her and tell her everything was going to be ok, but he just stood there, with the same blank stare, as if he had expected this all along.

“I can’t let us die like that. I can’t.” The first sense of emotion finally crept into his voice as he seemed to falling into hysteria. She looked at him, she didn’t know it yet, but for the last time alive, and realized he had a gun in his hand. He turned towards her and slowly started the raise the gun towards her.

“I CAN”T!’ He yelled. She pulled a frantic deep breath as he pulled the hammer back, and she ducked into the dining room.  Pure survival instinct took over as she ran, but it seemed as though her mind had betrayed her when she ran left instead of right to leave the house, and instead found herself launching herself into the bedroom. She snapped herself out of flight mode, and turned around to run the other way, but saw that it was already too late, he was close behind her, despite having to navigate around the couch to get out of the living room. She grabbed the door, locking it tight as she slammed it shut.

He slammed into the door, and nearly took it off the hinges, but they held firm through the beating. He slammed again, but not with as much force. She was beginning to panic, but tried to get a grip. There was only one way out of this, but she could barely bring herself to think of it.

‘I have to get out of this!’ she berated herself as she opened the closet door in spite of her tormenting emotions, and yanked the case, at the bottom of the cluttered floor, free. Hastily she flipped the latches up and tore the lid open.

It looked so serene, just lying there, as if begging her to pick it up. Her hand shook as she lifted it out of the case, and checked the chamber. No shells. Where? ? ?

She leapt over the bed to the dresser and slid the bottom drawer open, nestled in the corner was a box full of the deadly shells. She opened the box and plucked two of them out. Her hands were shaking so badly now, she almost couldn’t uncock the gun to load the bullets. She dropped a shell on the floor when he slammed into the door again. She was sobbing harder now that when she had seen the destruction of the city on TV.

“Please stop!” she begged him, “please just stop! We can make it out of here!” Another bang answered her pleas, and through blinding tears, she found the blood red shell on the floor and managed to get it into the chamber.  She dropped the other one in as well and the gun clicked as she replaced the muzzle.

She aimed the gun with the safety still on, and begged once more;

“Please listen to me baby! Please STOP!”

He slammed one more time, the wood beginning to splinter under the pressure. She flipped the safety switch over, and touched her finger to the trigger. She didn’t hear when he next slammed into the door, but she knew and she pulled the trigger, tears running into her mouth as she was knocked backwards slightly from the recoil. She didn’t feel the butt of the gun slam into her shoulder, or the splinters of wood scrape past her cheeks as a hole exploded in the door.
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She woke with a start and sat bolt upright on the white bed. She had been dreaming this time, but the nightmare that played in her head was all too real. She tried to shake the images from her head, but they played over and over.

She swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up. She stopped dead in her tracks. Someone had been with her in the dream. Someone had just shared the whole experience with her, and that someone was in trouble. She felt a connection she hadn’t felt before, and she ran for the door. She tore from her room as fast as she could; following the instincts she had developed and learned to trust so recently.

She ran blindly down the identical hallways, thinking there would never be an end. She didn’t stop or look around. She made a few turns but kept on running, following that link that had somehow been forged in her dream. She turned another corner, and came to a dead halt. It was a dead end except for a door at the end. It looked the same as all the others she had passed on the way here, but it was somehow different.

She walked cautiously down the empty hall, and stopped in front of the door. Something shifted on the door, the color, the shape, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Suddenly the door turned black. She took a step away, now very afraid of this seemingly harmless door. She heard whispers, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The sound swirled in her head, and colors started dancing on the door. She couldn’t make out any color before it disappeared and was replaced with another. They leapt and danced on the face of the door for what seemed like an eternity. They were hypnotizing her. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Suddenly the whispers stopped, and a buzzing in her head took over.

She blinked. The spell was over, but the colors still danced and the buzzing still persisted. She looked around, but no one was around. She was alone. She shook her head, and put her hands to her ears, trying to stop the sound, but it didn’t stop.

“Stop!” she almost yelled, but it didn’t stop. The colors were becoming more agitated. They swirled around, almost seeming to burst from the door frame. She shook her head again, and closed her eyes.

“Just stop!” but she could still see the colors dancing in her head. Another sound joined the buzzing, the sound of a tortured soul crying. It was crying for her, and pleading for her help, but she didn’t know what to do. She opened her eyes and looked again at the door, but instead of the swirling colors, she saw a face. It was as though she was looking through a window, into the room beyond the door, and all she could see was the face of a beautiful young girl, crying and screaming. Tears ran down her unblemished face, but they mixed with blood that welled up from unseen wounds. The girl turned her bright blue eyes up and looked right into Fallon’s soul.

Fallon doubled over in pain. She hurt everywhere, in every way, from burning pain, to tiny pinpricks, covering her entire body, and she knew it was the girls pain she was feeling. Somehow she was sharing it with her, letting her know exactly what was happening to her. She looked to the door again; the door knob had become a hand, reaching for her. She extended her arm, reaching for the hand. An unseen force seemed to push her back, but she fought against it, and the pain, and crawled towards the door. She reached up again and took firm hold on the hand. Searing pain, worse that before, shot up her arm, almost causing her to lose grip, but she held fast and pulled. An arm began to emerge from the door as she pulled, and she pulled harder. A body soon followed, and soon she had pulled the whole form of the girl from the grip of the trap.

The girl collapsed to the floor next to Fallon, and they both lost consciousness.