Can You Hear Them Calling

Chapter XII

3:47 am

The clouds of illumination vacuumed me whole. A great spark of life burst everywhere as I continued to fly in a straight line. A paint of green and purple, blue and red, yellow and orange, a bountiful spark of life shimmered from left to right and from top to bottom. 

My eyes couldn't keep track even for a single image, everything was just moving too fast. I felt scared, yet there was a part of me that wasn't, a part of me that felt---right.

Reluctantly, I spread my arms as if they were wings. Every color that shimmered by was disrupted by my fingertips, as if I was brushing my fingers on the surface of a calm ocean, a wave of disruption came by.

I tried to reach for the pool of colors yet when I touched them my fingers only seemed to pass through it as if this band of colors was merely a silver lining to something---much greater.

I hesitated by the thought of putting my head through it, yet there is still a part of me that knew, that this is right, it couldn't be more right than this. 

Slowly I poke my head pass through the silver lining. My eyes immediately stiffen as the cold takes hold of it, the thunderous tundra. My lungs still haven't felt the touch of air, now was completely oblivious of it as did I for my sense of touch no longer holds me captive.

Red monstrous thunder reverberates through the continuous dark abyss. At the farthest of distance was another string of light similar to what I was flying through. A tentacle bigger than a planet swiped across it, the string of light immediately collapsed leaving no trace of glimmer at all.

I stuck my head back from the beam of light as I heard it's enormous gnar all over my skin.

"UUUNNNNNGGGGG---"

It was disturbing and something that you wouldn't at all imagine. It was the type to make your stomach churn and make your hide crawl. Once more it gnarled, but this time it wasn't high pitch---it was a deep emerging sound, and every part of me vibrated as did the shimmering beam of light.

I see the end, where giant rays of light shower my sight. From way below another tentacle swiped, The bridge of light now races me for its collapse, I see the window pass all this, in front drawing near and behind lies nothing but the dark and the cold---and something more.

The bridge finally collapsed and no thread of light was left to shine in the solemnity of the dark. I got on the other side at the nick of time, I was hovering on the ocean floor.

Grains of sand covers my feet, the weight of the ocean on my head, the vast and calming emptiness of water, the comfort from the rays of light that penetrates the ocean's surface.

Where am I?

I held no breath, somehow that puts me at ease. My beloved Summer must've felt---everything that my soul bared and pleaded to God for my soul. With that engraved in my mind, I found myself swimming up, toward the light and leaving the dark.

Sunlight glazed my face, platoons of sand all over my body, and I hear the waves crashing against the shore. Drowsy, did my eyes flutter about. A clear sky surprised me as the first change of scenery, then the crystal blue ocean as far stretched as my eyes take me, then the brightly burning sun that watches over me.  

I was sitting upright on the shore with sand covering all over me, I was in disbelief---this isn't real. Nothing is real. 

In front were the ocean and the sun, behind was a field of sand leading up to the rocky terrain filled with tall grass and moss hanging about on broken branches of trees and even on the surfaces of rocks. The shore stretched infinite from left to right as did the ocean and the sky.

A tall lighthouse appearing to be long-abandoned rests near me on the shore. It was almost buried in sand as moss and tall grass finds its way creeping in the broken planks of wood. The metal steps were very old and rusted, some even were broken down.  

The old rattling steps lead me straight at the top where the control room slumbers like the lighthouse itself, it was old and abandoned, some rusted away, other buttons were missing, and everything was coated in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. 

A massive broken glass laid at the center. There I saw the reflection of myself. My cheeks and eyes were sunken, my hands all the way to my arms were only of bones while skin barely keeps itself intact, the broken ribs that I bare outlined itself at my chest and the same goes for my spine. 

I became---something that I myself wouldn't recognize. My skin was thin as a sheet of paper while sand covered a great amount of it. Slowly, I brushed my own fingers upon my face, I see a storm of gloom within my eyes, I couldn't help but pity myself from what I've become. I couldn't feel---everything to me was dull.

A broken-down door took me outside of the room and towards the terrace. The sun ravished on the surface of my skin---but it wasn't the only thing that was watching me from the heavenly bodies.

At its right side were three black cross figures, it was distant to each other, and especially to me, they were far above appearing small but was still their none the less. At the sun's left were two more black cross figures, they were also distant at each other.

The shore suddenly was filled with dead fish as far as the sand takes it. By my left was the ever-expanding rocky terrain, it was vast and---the same, never changing.

At the side of the terrace rested captain Rio. His two legs hanging at the edge as his body leans against the wall, his head tilted towards the sun as his lips motions for a smile, his eyes far and dry while the blood that once ran through his veins soaked the floor.