The Last Day of Ignorance

The Last Day of Ignorance

By,

                                          Zachary Burlingame



“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu

"





“You’re full of shit.” Those were his last words. I suppose they were probably more than a handful of people’s last words. It seems to be human nature to always want to question each other. How many lives would be saved if we all just believed?  I suppose, though, that like the boy who cried wolf, a few too many drunk farmhands in the Midwest have called in all forms of monsters, ghosts, and aliens for anyone to bother nowadays. James Piero, were he not killed that dreadful day, would be able to back me up when I tell you, “Believe. Your life depends on it.”

         I was the one who found it. We were thirteen years old, and it was the last day of summer. Cliché, I know, but I am simply telling you as it happened. We were playing paintball in the woods that bordered all of our backyards. All of us being James Piero, Donald Archer, Xavier Anderson, and myself. We all lived our entire lives there on Franklin Street, except for Xavier, who moved in with his father and his father’s, at the time, boyfriend, when he was four. We were all like brothers though, spending every afternoon in the woods or playing videogames in Donald’s basement. Anyway, I was the one who found the worm hole.

         We did not call it that then. We did not call it anything. It was beyond our comprehension, then, and in many ways I believe it is still beyond our comprehension. I was running toward a fort we had made when Donald popped out from behind a tree right next to it and started shooting at me. I took a left without looking and tripped on a log. As I fell, my paintball gun went flying. I saw it hit the ground then it just kept going. It was gone. I reached were I saw it fall and saw my hand simply faze into the ground. There was not resistance, no feeling.  My hand just seemed to vanish into the ground.

         Donald saw what was happening and stopped where he was, just staring. I still do not know what was going through his head. We all seemed to have decided to never talk about it, having never once even mentioned it to each other since that day. James, who was on Donald’s team, did not see any of what happened and having heard the shooting ran towards us and immediately unleashed fiery paintball hell on me. Something in the way I screamed at him to cut it out instantly made him stop, odd as he was the one who never knew when to stop. I guess the fear and confusion was noticeable.

         He put down his gun and was removing his mask walking towards me. I began to explain what had happened, how I fell and my gun seemed to go straight through the ground. His eyes were wide in disbelief, as he said, "You’re full of shit!", he tried to put his foot on the spot where I was pointing to. It took him a second to realize his foot was not hitting ground and that as he lowered it deeper and deeper. Suddenly it did for he let out a god-awful scream. All in the same second, a hand or paw or some other awful clawed appendage reached out and wrapping it’s digits around James, yanked him down into the hole.

         The hole must have had some sort of physical dimensions, because Henry did not simply slide right into it. The leg being pulled did, but when it got to his groin his other leg was slammed into the ground, spreading straight out. He was seemingly being yanked and with each yank his still exposed leg was forced up into a more and more unnatural position until suddenly one final, extra forceful yank snapped his leg allowing its shattered remains to fold up against his body so he could slide fully into the Earth.

         Immediately following James’ vanishing, there was what I could only describe as a sonic boom, like when a jet flies overhead. The ground shimmered for a second and where the wormhole was showed entirely black. Following that I somehow knew that if I were to touch that spot it would be solid ground again. It was then that I noticed Xavier had found us and seemed to have seen at least some of what happened. Donald still stood in the same spot gape mouthed and blank eyed.

         I did not know what to do.  Donald was unresponsive, and Xavier seemed to be just as panicked as I. We knew we needed to go get help, adults would know what to do. At that point, I was still sure they would somehow save James. The problem was we could not leave Donald alone. Either Xavier or myself would have to stay behind with him. Xavier quickly volunteered to stay behind. I was happy to oblige, wanting to be as far away from that spot as possible.

         I went straight to my house. My mom was in the backyard fighting with our constantly broken lawnmower. I began telling her what happened, how we were out in the woods playing and my paintball gun fell into the ground. She stopped me, she looked horrified, and simply asked, “Who was it? Who fell into the hole?” As soon as I told her, she was on the phone with James’ mom. I was asked to leave the room but I heard her start the conversation. “Linda, it’s happened again. It took James.” It was then that a picture which had been on the living room wall my entire life caught my eye. It was an old picture of my mom and her friends when they were girls about my age. My mom, James’ mom, their friend Susan, and some other girl I have never heard my mom speak of.