30 Days Of Undead Summer

Tendrils of Fate

#SciFiSaturday

Perceval had been sitting within the waters of his oasis when his heart clenched. Every vessel seemed to have cinched shut with a piercing stab in his very core that pushed all air out of his lungs. Something had happened to Raekinn.

That was when the waters before him seemed to part on their own and an ethereal being traipsed through the muddy rock bed. The figure, shimmering golden and bright drew closer. A boy. The boy.

The automaton.

Only his eyes were black ovals that shone like galaxies. His hair swept behind him in golden tendrils. His body gleamed in hues of emerald and gold and silver and from his chest was the swirling purple haze of his captured soul.

The boy extended his had. Perceval reached it and suddenly they were whisked through the air, beyond the clouds, beyond the very sky into the dark orbit of the heavens. He turned his head to gaze back at the receding ball that was his home. That was earth.

"Where are you taking me?"

The boy remained quiet, unseeing eyes matching the stuttering stars winking around them. In the distance, the sun was a flaming ball of warmth cascading over them.

Then Perceval was in a windowless room of pure white. Before him was a glass wall.

Beyond the wall, were an undead throng dressed in attire he'd never seen before. Collared shirts and crisps trousers. Some wore white coats sweeping about feet in polished black shoes. The undead banged against the glass, making it vibrate in his ears and teeth.

"It's over. It's over. It's over." A voice whispered behind him. He whisked about and stood before the crumpled form of the Cardiffite. Only he too was dressed in the strange garb. In his hands, he clutched a glass case that held a single vial.

"Cardiffite!" Perceval moved towards the man but the man stared through him. He reached down towards the man, hoping to slap some sense into him but his hand phased right through.

"What magic is this!?"

"This is no magic."

A voice spoke. It was the boy. No longer glowing yet his eyes bore the galaxies once more and his voice came not from his lips for they were none.

"Who are you?"

"What you see here is a moment in this man's past. A past he hopes to rectify."

The boy turned and moved towards the horde. He moved through the glass and everything stilled. Perceval moved quickly, testing his own ability to move through objects and he too slid through the frozen undead. The boy held his hand and they once again flew through the ceiling, past the chaos of the upper levels and into a clear sky where two black objects, large and shaped like giant eggs, were caught in mid-flight.

"These are nuclear bombs, humanities greatest and worst accomplishment. The man in there has created one like it. He hopes to bring the undead together, detonate this bomb and hopefully travel back here. His future."

"He's from the future?"

"Was. There is no future for him."

They swept once again up into the sky, towards the blackness of space. Only this time the sun had dimmed, and a mass of black tendrils clutched the flaming ball, as though squeezing the life from it.

"We the Outer Beings cannot allow this man to travel here. You need to extract the soul from the boy."

"What is that?" Perceval whispered, eyes wide. The tendrils were moving.

"The man and boy travel to Hillcrest. Retrieve the soul! You must."

"What is that!" Perceval screamed, only he was falling. Falling. Falling.

*

He thumped into his body with a spine-tingling crash. His feet still in the water of his oasis. The vision blared alive in his mind as he rose to his feet quickly and lifted his wand. His undead army stilled to attention.

"We travel to Hillcrest!" He shouted.