Northern Downpour

The Open Gates (XVII)

XVII

“You see this tree, my child?" Jack opened up conversationally as Micael's eyes started to open, so did his thoughts.

"This will be our entrance into everything, as all trees here will be acting that way. And time here is irrelevant. Even I cannot explain why is that, but it is like tachyon. More than just being tachyon,” said Jack with quite of a different voice from his usual one. Micael was astonished. He could not even make a code of what Jack had said.
He assembled his knickers abashed and talked curiously.

“What do you mean time here is irrelevant?” Micael asked. Like awhile, Jack did not utterly incessantly, as if he was quite a thinker. He looked at his broken watch on his left wrist, and showed it to Micael closely. The watch wasn’t really moving at all. The hands were not winding and it was really broken. Mechanical parts were not even mechanical and the seemed to had ceased to exist.

“What to you see?” asked Jack, and Micael quickly got a reply. He laughed quite unusually and said: “I see nothing! What do you mean irrelevant?” and he got his eyes into Jack’s, staring him and begging for an answer, like a slave would beg for his very freedom. But like the slave, he was given barely something, and it was nothing. Jack replied with a smile and quite a voice, again: “Someday, Aleck, you will see and be enlightened that time is completely irrelevant in my world, or should I say, ours.” The crow went back with a necklace on its beak, of which something Micael couldn’t identify, yet. The crow then squealed a little and flew above the head of Jack and squealed some more, uncontrollably. The crow then started to shred feathers and they quickly fell one by one. Micael could see it through his eyes as if they were rain drops: quiet, clustered, and black. He was  dazed on the gliding fezthers plummeting slowly don the tree's surface and without Micael's attenttion, the crow became naked and uts wings started to span away from its body and it gained some length, and some more. The claws of the crow did, too. It first clenched into a ball-like shaped and it seemed to be melted; the claws of the crow started to fuse slowly until they were in unison. Blood started ro drip from the edge of the crow's beak like paint: red-shifted but black and as right beofre it hit the plain dirt ground, It impossibly dissolved inti thin air as if it was one.

The claws in unison started to lengthen, forming itself into a shape of the child's toes and, sooner, his feet. The wings followed the same phenomenonand palms stzrted growing from both side of the crow's span; the limbs lengthened.

"You may wanna close your eyes, Aleck," said Jack carefully, and Micael quickly followed znd closed his lids once more.

And there were cracks after his eyes were closed shut. Pops continue right beside his ears like bubble wrap; it was fading, however, and sooner it faded followed by a soft voice of a child, from a dingy crow that shapeshifted into a boy, where the necklace was in the boy’s hand.

He handed it to Jack: “I saw something from afar.” “What is it?”  replied Jack, but the boy didn’t utter. With the glowsticks still going alight, Micael got a glimpse on it. It was lustering, and was gold. It also had a pendant along its lace, and it was something Micael was very familiar of. It was a clef. A G Clef to be more than just exact.

“Why in the hell is that necklace in this world?”

“As I have said, my child, you will be known and hence, you will have no cause to fully question me.” Then Micael grew floating pile of dust, like he was nothing. One could feel Micael’s upset, but he could not do anything either way, then spring-heeled Jack had spoken, which made Micael angry. He was fierce that he saw what he had given to Amy, in a world where anything was starting to not exist.

He looked at Jack angrily, his fist clenched. He threw the glowstick into Jack and it had only driven past his cloak. It was like throwing something into a pile of dust, and driven the very instance of the fact the Jack was more than just being intangible but rational, with the glowstick went past his internal cavity, Micael had realized that he was indeed had no cause to question him.
“Time is irrelevant, Aleck, but EIGHTEEN will always be more than just being irrelevant. You are my lamb and I am yours, too… … Let there be light.”
And there was no light. Micael had thought of this before. But the glowstick of which Jack was holding had turned into a serrated knife one would normally be held by someone hungry of killing; hungry of vengeance.

“I am sorry, my child. But this, should be called as a night, and forth we shall seek another night and explore the open gates, for your time had finally come. Rest, for now, and to the deep sea with you,” said Jack. He put one of his hands, which was holding nothing, into Micael’s shoulder as he was so much taller than him, and stabbed Micael’s stomach with brute force. “Stop...” Micael grunted, and whimpered, as if he had felt the pain on his stomach. It was hurting him more than he could think, but Jack continued. He twisted the knife with his hand, almost half a circle, pulled it out like twig stuck hard into hard dirt. It seemed effortless and fluid, and he stabbed him once more with the same force. Twisted it again, pulled it, and again and again and again. All which came out from Micael’s mouth was saliva and red drippings, and nothing more. Jack finally got the hang of it, and grabbed one his gun from his holsters and pointed it on Micael’s head.

The holster shouted, and the gun had spoken with the sound coming out from its barrel hitting the tip of the holster.

“You are more than fortunate I love you, Aleck,” pointing very closely, with a synapse of some non-numerical sort, and pulled the trigger, and all which had echoed around the open gates was the BANG! from the mouth of spring-heeled Jack’s gun, and the child had shapeshifted back into a crow, where he held the necklace once more, and flew away towards nothingness, where nothing of which, even Micael, would be found.

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