Marin's Dale

10

First,

thin patches of withered brown,

into greying fuzz...

then

nothing but

cracked, blackish soil.

Calm and translucent, the chain snaked forward. Muscle and sinew loose and unthreatened beneath the surface.

There were thousands of them. Thousands upon thousands of single-filed people. They trudged slowly, facing forward, clasping the hands of those directly in front and directly behind.  They were every size and shape. Small children and teenagers; adults, clutching friends and strangers; the elderly and the sickly; and all colors and creeds and shades of intelligent life.

But they were all the same. Their blank faces remain unchanged. And they moved, in absolute silence. Insects did not buzz, leaves did not rustle, whispers did not carry here or there, on the faintest puff of air. Nowhere, were life and sound.

Somewhere, a baby's cry broke the silence.

The steep grade that led to this procession of bodies was flattening out. It flattened out at the top, at the very edge of a monstrous cliff, its precipice sharp like a dark misshapen knife.

A sound resounded from somewhere close. It was a harrowing cry; the kind that yanked the spirit from the body, leaving the bones dull and dry.

The four of them moved into line, but then the towering humanoid stepped aside. The three of them interlaced, fingers tight, faces placid; a mindless movement now commenced.

They stood watching him. There were others, a good many others; and they were all observers. Some seemed human, entirely, in skin and breath. The rest were coming, closer and truer to a certain form. And all of them watched, waited, desired an inevitable end with their eggshell eyes.

They watched as the human line moved forward.

Tyler closed his eyes. He could feel the gentle tug and pull of Audrey ahead and the small girl behind. He could hear the collective breaths of the thousands around him, the grating inhale of failing lungs. The drip

drip

drip

of salivary glands,

and dark crimson viscous

fluid.

He pulled back from it all. They were no longer separate; now, an organism of one in many. Together they had come into this world, once creatures of the simplest form. Together they would leave, beings of the highest. But it wasn't high enough. They had finally met their match, Tyler knew. The cycle of life and death, survival of the fittest—it was ending now. At a point, Tyler would have snuffed scurrying ants with colossal fingers. He had wondered then what it was like, to be so small.

Well now he knew.

Ahead, he could see it. The line of mindless bodies snaked to the precipice, the very edge. And then they plunged.

One after another, releasing interlaced fingers, the bodies stepped off the edge. They plummeted, again, and again, and again;

tumbling

twisting

spinning free and wild; so easy, so gentle. Like snowflakes on a quiet night.

                                                     ###

Time did not move in this place. When the three of them came to the edge, Tyler could feel Audrey's fingers loosen. She shot him a look, her lips pursed, her small shoulders bonier than he remembered. Smiling, she gave the calmest of nods; and then stepped off.

Tyler could see that this cliff, this jagged mountain face, did not go forever. Below, there should have been a lake. Moonshire Lake had been here once, shimmering like sapphires beneath a steady moon.

Tyler moved to the line between land and air, his feet at ease on the crumbling precipice. Far below, he had enjoyed the Lake's waters for many years; far below...

He could see it. He could see Father

It rose from the murky depths of crimson sludge. It was taller than a tall building, as wide as a tractor trailer was long. A massive protrusion. Like a series of conjoined placentas, it swelled from the bloody lake, slimy and writhing, its impossible girth undulating with contractions.

Tyler could see already, the gaping orifice; a black opening into its bowels. Like the most hellacious Venus fly trap the human mind could ever conceive. The lake of red bubbled and spat and hissed with its grotesque bulges. This network of vascular sacks filled the entire lake, breaking the surface in spots; delving beneath the churning waters at others.

On the distant shores far below, beings spewed to life. They pumped from the slimy sacks, as if an intestine evacuating its waste. They writhed and shrieked like newborns.

Tyler stared to the sky above. The scar had returned. But this time, it was not a scar, so much as a single giant orb of red light. Like a giant camera, it flashed succinctly. It was as much a part of the sky as the moon or the sun, or the stars or the planes or birds that had once traced the celestial bounds.

As the crimson flash raped the sky and land, the creatures below transformed. Squirming in pools of slime, they went. From gelatinous grey, to hardened gray, with slits and holes ripping through; they peeled and jerked, and the whole time the screaming—the shrill, pained screaming as their bodies destroyed themselves to create themselves. They were becoming human.

"Father..."

Tyler could see. The gaping hole was filled with pincers and tusk-like blades and writhing, serpentine tongues; all of it mingled in perfect, chaotic harmony, spinning like a centrifuge. All of it, awaiting yet another after another in the seemingly endless line of homo sapiens.

One step closer to assimilation, thought Tyler. One step closer to the ending of a nightmare. In seconds it would all wash clean. The blackness would enfold, and the mind's eye of Tyler's inner world would finally come to rest.

The pain, the heartache, and all and every neuron that had fired for 18 years—all would find its rightful home; in shadows and in peace. Like many times before, Tyler would give to blackness.

Perhaps, he would open his eyes again. Perhaps, he would come back to the world fine and whole, released finally to a normal life from a lifetime abnormal.

Tyler closed his eyes. This is what you want

And he stepped off.