Nano Bytes - A Collection of Short SciFi Stories

Edge of Eternity, By KADowd

The ground was rock hard and just as unforgiving. It didn't matter. Levi had long ago lost the ability to feel pain or discomfort. All he felt anymore was the unrelenting cold. After a breathless second, frigid air rushed into his lungs until he remembered he did not need to breathe. Air, food, and other luxuries of life were unnecessary for the dead.

Groaning his breath out, Levi opened his eyes. Laying on his back, he had an unfettered view of the gateway, hovering in the sky above. It loomed over him, its circular opening gaping at him like a hungry mouth and not that far away. In the beginning, he had hoped he might pass back through it and return to his world. But, after trying everything, reality set in. Unless he grew wings, there was no way to reach it. Still, he refused to leave. It wasn't hope that held him captive under its dingy glow, but stubbornness. Pure, unyielding, stubbornness.

Levi blinked. His sluggish brain became more aware. Something had changed—changed enough to draw him out of his comatose state of boredom. Not the gateway—that fiendish siren stayed the same. Then what was it?

Levi moved his numb body upward. His exposed feet couldn't feel the frozen tundra of a wasteland beneath them, but he forced himself to believe he was standing. It was the first thing he had to learn upon arriving here, as his sense of touch deserted him, the potent power of belief. If he convinced his mind of something, it became reality. Of course, it had limitations. Gravity remained the uncontested ruler, preventing him from floating away like the ageless boy who could fly. Maybe that ancient Scottish playwright had met an escapee from here?

Levi laughed, then regretted it as bitter air pierced his lungs. He rubbed at his bare chest, more from habit than any expectation it would ease the icy ache from within. All it did was remind him that his heart no longer beat. Levi gritted his teeth, stomping out the morbid thought. Whenever doubt crept in, he fell back onto his adolescent learning with the Brotherhood.

"Cogito, ergo sum. I think; therefore, I am." He stood taller, rolling his shoulders backward. He existed, even if that form of existence had physically changed him, he still existed.

His hands gripped the thin material covering his legs. It was the only article of clothing he had been wearing before the betrayal. Though his fingers could no longer feel the texture of the fabric, he could sense the tautness of it stretching across his thighs from the action. This existed.

In control of himself once more, Levi scanned the area. What had changed?

At first, he took it for a distant cloud. After staring at it, he could make out individual movements within it. His eyes jerked in their sockets. The scene zoomed toward him, expanding into details. Wild creatures only found in a drug-induced psychosis ripped and screamed across the sky. Levi roared. Sanity departed. Fingers curved into claws and reached for his eyes, ready to gouge them out. As his nails raked across his forehead, the palms blocked out the terrible image from sight, allowing rational thought to intervene.

Levi jerked his head away; his eyes squeezed shut. As he returned to his sense of self, bitterness flared inside, looking for someone to blame. "Cursed Collectors! May you forever rot in hell. Your death came too quickly for the pain you have done me. I wish I had given you a terrifying death—one where you saw your demise and could do nothing to stop it!"

The rage burned out. Levi hung his head. Now that he was listening for it, he could hear them—the muffled commotion of the approaching storm of living nightmares. Were they heading for the gateway? Would he escape their notice? Probably, until they realized none could enter through it. The gateway would only allow one being through, and he guessed none of those creatures met the requirements for passage.

"Your cursing could rouse the Leviathan from his depths, my friend," a tired voice said. It sounded like a man.

Levi's body twitched. There was someone here. Close by. He pivoted toward the sound of a heavy object thudding against the earth. Fear warred within him, debating on which would be worse: opening his eyes or keeping them closed.