Short Story

Blood Awakened First

Carter stretched a finger towards the shelf of glass and white marble, as if the movement to manhandle the artifacts was demanded by the strange devices themselves. Of course, Professor Nuckberry slapped his hand away like a petulant child. The Professor was letting the class catch up with his scribbled lecture on the blackboard.

“Stop it, Carter. I need you to clean the phlebology bowls,” the old professor said with a sigh, pointing to the used bowls sitting near the compact sink at the lecture table.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“And mind the plugs this time Carter. Last time you cleaned them, you left the seal rings absolutely filthy,” Professor Nuckberry added.

The first-year college students in the class snickered at the public admonishment, but Carter took it in stride. The one called Ash raised his hand, thankfully pulling the attention away.

“Sir?” He ventured.

“Yes, Ash?” Nuckberry lowered his forehead, peering over his half moon reading glasses.

Ash waved erratically at the shelves of Alchemical detritus. “I know these… devices?”

“Not devices! Instruments!” Professor Nuckberry corrected with a smile.

“Very well, Professor. Can you explain why the… instruments are locked away like that? On those displays? This is a classroom, not a museum.”

“Ah, but the unspoken question is in there as well? Such as why this is a required class for you spry college minds, eh?” Nuckberry grinned.

“Well… that too,” Ash replied pragmatically.

Carter grinned to himself at the first year’s honesty, remembering his own place on the other side of the tables, now instead, playing the part of the nerdy TA turning away to scrub the phlebology bowls in the squat sink. Professor Nuckberry swung a set of keys upwards from his belt, flipping a handful of keys around the ring before settling on the best single candidate with a flourish and a smile.

“These are Instruments… but not any instruments, mind you. But real Alchemic Instruments! Dangerous!”

Some of the other students laughed. A voice from the back called out, “Dangerous? Alchemy doesn’t work!”

“Ah! And that is why this is a required class,” Professor Nuckberry returned with aplomb. “Alchemy used to work. Right? Now it barely does. And I so happen to have one of the greatest Alchemy Instrument collections in the world in these cases about this stage. I am a a collector of sorts… although these cases are under the protection of your King, his Courts, and the armies and navies of the Empire. I have the pleasure of being… nominated to be the keeper of these artifacts, uh, Instruments.”

The same voice from the back, “Museum!!!”

“Hush, whoever that is!” Carter rarely used his TA voice to interject, but he felt a responsibility to protect the Professor.

“Carter, hand me that phlebology bowl. Clean! Clean!” Nuckberry ordered with a flash of annoyance.

Carter jumped at his name, scrubbing the last of the dried brown from the seals and hastily reassembling the pieces before handling it to the Professor.

The Professor continued, “Alchemy! A sublime topic of surprising depth and detail. You should have learned some of the concepts in your primary classes before your inevitable migration to higher education. So anyone… tell me the Alchemical Disciplines that used to be the sum all of science. Anyone?”

A young girl named Masie raised her hand tentatively. The Professor looked over the bowl in his hand quickly before calling on her. “Miss Masie?”

“Metallurgimancy, Energetimancy, Biologimancy, Aerost… Areas… Aeria…” Masie stumbled.

Nuckberry nodded with the save, “Aerostatomancy. For a quick review for the entire rest of the class that was not paying attention in Primary school, I suppose! Metallurgimancy is the alchemical study of the elements of matter itself. Energeticmany is the study of energies created and consumed in the interchanges with matter. Aerostatomancy is the study the chaotic systems that govern the movement of matter. And finally, Biologimancy is the study of the systems that arise in systems of life. The four systems working in harmony, it was theorized, is what gave rise to life in the first place.”

“God gave life,” Ash stated dumbly, sounding as if he was reciting a long lost Sunday School lesson.

“Ah, he did, he did, praise to Him,” Professor Nuckberry responded with admitting nod. “We must always be cognizant of our Creator and give Him praise. However, this class is not about the act of creation, but the systems that govern our world.”

“Do they?” That same voice spoke up from the rear. Carter kept his mouth shut this time.

Nuckberry admitted defeat to his own patience regardless. “Who said that? Stand so I can see you.”

A student in a leather jacket and tasteful, yet expensive, clothing stood with a grin, raising his hand in well rehearsed mock guilt.

Professor Nuckberry rolled his eyes. “By the crown, Mister Wilmot. Come to the front, and at least pretend to be entertained. Your grandfather’s own Metallurgimancy shield is here! You should be respectful of Albion’s great history.”

Devin Wilmot, grandson of the greatest war hero that Albion had ever seen, Captain Arthurian, strolled calmly down the short stairs towards the wide glass and white marble shelves with a grin. “Of course, sir. No disrespect, again, of course. I signed up for this class just so I could understand firsthand my grandfather’s success during the Great War. But my point stands, Professor. Those systems do not govern our world any longer… they haven’t since long before I was born.”

“True,” Professor Nuckberry admitted with a slow nod. He fingered his chin thoughtfully. “But the devices still react, even now in the illustrious sixties, the Great War aside. Come, Mr. Wilmot. Not afraid of a small prick on your finger, are you?”

The pretty girl, Masie, giggled at the flash pf Devin’s momentary discomfort.

“Of course not,” Devin added quickly, covering the hasty emotional reaction that had ran slipshod over his handsome features. Carter noticed it just had all the students that were clustered tightly in the compact lecture hall.

“Good. Do you know what this is?” Nuckberry held the bowl up to Devin’s eyeline.

“Its a bloodsucker.”

“It is, indeed. Many aspects of Alchemical reactions withing the world of Biologimancy require blood to work. Blood carries nutrition, oxygen, waste products, chemicals and hormones throughout our bodies. In the world of Alchemy, it is a powerful connector to all things that represent life. This phlebology bowl will pull a small measure of your blood into its central core, providing a power source to Alchemical efforts withing that realm,” Nuckberry handed the small bowl over. “Go ahead and put your finger on it. Your grandfather used something very similar to this, albeit it was in the realm of Metallurgimancy, so his battery and the resulting Alchemical miracles he wrought in the battle were focused on the matter around him.”

“Ouch,” Devin inhaled sharply as the small bowl pulled a few milliliters of blood from his hand. He handed it back over to the Professor and moved to the side, out of the view of the rest of the class.

Professor Nuckberry took it with a small formal bow and waved it near the unlocked case. Nothing happened for a moment, but near the bottom, a small device of what looked like five chopsticks rattled in the ceramic bowl which they were resting within. “Ah! See!”

Carter glanced down at the sticks. He couldn’t recall what Instrument it was off the top of his head. He would have to look at the tag after the class was dismissed. No sense in drawing the ire of the Nucks.

The Professor waved it across the front of the glass again, but this time nothing moved or reacted.

“And this is the mystery of Alchemy. Right here. One day, everyone can use it, and it can do amazing things for the advancement of our people and our society. Then the next day, poof! It stops working except for these small demonstrations. It should work. It should!” Professor Nuckberry exclaimed, a measure of small frustration seeping into the tail end of his lecture.

“Carter take this. Clean it again,” Nuckberry said absentmindedly, immediately drowned within his own world of thought. To the class he raised his hands placatingly. “That is the extent of what alchemy can do today. A little rattle, a little shake. Maybe an old Instrument glows for a brief instant and then putters back to nothingness again. Sad old relics, all of it, I suppose.”

Masie raised her hand, still looking out of the corner of her eye at the handsome Wilmot standing nearby. Carter wondered if a girl would ever look at him like that. He was only a junior, so he still had time to find a wife before he graduated. Not that he was trying, but it would be nice to have something before he moved on into the real world. Carter started disassembling the bowl and scrubbing it in the small sink at his station. As a TA, this was his job. Stand around and wait to assist however Professor Nuckberry asked him to assist.

Nuckberry pointed at Masie’s upheld hand. “Yes, my dear?”

“But why?” She asked simply.

“That is the mystery of Alchemy. Three generations without it though, and we all seem to be progressing as a society anyway,” Nuckberry waved it away. “Anyway, that is enough for today. Class is dismissed. Have your notes prepared on my lecture today, on my desk by end of week, please.”

The students collectively groaned as if in a choir.

“Come now. I have to know who was listening,” Professor Nuckberry grinned devilishly.

The class filed out, and Nuckberry followed, waving at the lectern and demonstration table. “Clean up, Carter. Then you are free to go for the day.”

“Yes, sir.” Carter replied with a quiet shrug. “Have a good night.”

The Professor did not respond, as he was already out of the classroom door.

Carter laid the phlebology bowl out on the drying rack, careful to set the seals at an angle so they would dry correctly. As he laid the bloodsucker sideways, the damn thing triggered and caught his thumb.

“Fuck!” Carter harshly spit. “Dammit.”

He stuck his wounded thumb in his mouth, sucking on the welling blood carefully, and started to clean up the Professor’s mess. He sorted the papers, stacked the books, being careful to keep everything in the order Nucks preferred. Carter turned and realized one of the Instrument cases was still unlocked. Carter remembered.

“Ah, Nucks left with the keys, didn’t he?”

He walked over to the shelf, and bent down to read the text on the tag of the chopsticks like metal slivers sitting neatly in their own ceramic bowl. The little paper sign read, ‘Keys of Chifu, Biologimancy. Est: 1680s, Wanli, Ming Dynasty of China.’

“Keys of Chifu, huh? Weird,” Carter tapped the glass with a knuckle and grabbed the door with his opposite hand, swinging it shut.

Without a noise, the thin metal slivers erupted from their ceramic bowl, and struck his finger tips as if guided by their own intelligence. The heat was immense at the back of each finger. Carter grabbed his hand, breathless from the pain of the needles digging and fusing to his fingertips. Without a moment to consider it, he grabbed one, attempting to rip it from his right middle finger with a yank. That was a mistake. The pain erupted across his arm, shooting lightning across his chest, and he fell to his knees in mild shock from the bad choice.

He felt energy in his hand. A strange sensation, since the tag had stated this Instrument was Biologimancy based. But he could sense the energies swirling in the air around his hand, through his hand, and over his skin. It was if he was a holding a dousing rod.

“Oh my God. Merciful father, who art in heaven, hallowed be they name…” Carter whispered. Alchemy was dead.

Alchemy was supposed to be dead! Why was an Instrument working? Carter’s stomach dropped as his brain caught up to the moment, evaluating his options. “Oh, no. How do I explain this?”

Carter held his right hand up in front of him, the long slender chopstick looking bits of metal fused to where his fingernails should have been. He looked like a parody of a whitewashed Chinese villain in one of the penny store comic books he occassionally flipped through as a guilty pleasure.

He flicked his fingers at the tickle of energy and immense gout of dark magic blossomed in front of him, pulling at his clothes, as if enticing him towards the darkness beyond. The portal sucked at him, like it was a vacuum of time and space, the edges wreathed in purple smoke, and nothing but a night sky and a star filled sky laying beyond.

Carter screamed as it the ring of darkness enveloped him without his express permission.

The classroom was empty and quiet once more, papers, once nicely stacked, now settling anywhere the currents of the room took them to rest.

Thousands of miles away, Carter found himself on the side of grass covered mountain side, crooked trees hanging at either side, and a massive temple rising in the twilight before him.

A voice called out in greeting or warning, but Carter could not tell what it was. It sounded foreign. It sounded Chinese.

Short Story

The Time We Meet

“Wake up little girl,” the old woman whispered from the window. She had hissed and crowed, but the girl asleep in the small poster bed had not stirred. The old woman tried again, crooning gently from the sill.

Finally the little blonde girl stirred, rubbing an eye with a pudgy hand, still enlarged from the baby fat that was slowly dissipating as she headed towards being a kid and no longer a child. She sniffed, “Wassat?”

“Hello, little one,” the old woman smiled kindly. Her blood was from her side still, soaking her clothes. She knew she was minutes from death. She knew because she had seen it with her own eyes.

“You are a stranger,” the little girl yawned, only deigning to turn her head, and not climb from the bed.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” the old woman grinned despite herself, pushing a lock of gray hair from her face, absentmindedly smearing a bit of blood across her forehead.

“Are you hurt?” The little girl noticed.

A firm nod. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why anything? Why everything?” The old woman shrugged. “It is funny how the world looks different from the place you are sitting. Perspective is everything.”

“Huh?” Confused looks of different types flashed across the little girl’s face, a flurry of conflicting yet complimentary states of the same thing expressed in a way only a child can.

“I am here to give you a gift, little one.”

The little girl’s eyes went wide as the statement caught her full attention. She sat upright in her little bed, swinging her chubby ankles and feet swinging over the side. “I was told not to take gifts from strangers.”

“My name is… Grangran. And you are?” The old woman waved a hand of introduction.

“Alyssa?”

“That is a pretty name, Alyssa. See? Now we are not strangers.”

“I suppose that’s right,” Alyssa noted, scrunching her lips and her forehead simultaneously as she thought it through. “We are not strangers. How do you do?”

“I am well. And you?” Grangran played along, despite feeling her thigh getting wet and cold from the blood soaking out of from between her ribs. Thankfully she did not feel light headed yet. Mezz had a hand in that for certain.

//I am sorry//

Grangran shook her head at the thought, dismissing it. She knew it had to happen this way. Things always happened for a reason. And her purpose was the reason, this time and every time.

“Tired. What time is it?” Alyssa asked meekly. She stood, and took a tentative step away from her bed.

“It’s late. I am sorry for that. But I brought you gift.”

Alyssa shook her head. “If it is candy I am not going to take it.”

“Smart girl. Your mama taught you well. Always listen to your mama.”

“I will,” Alyssa took another step from the comfort and safety of her covers.

//You remember this//

Grangran shook her head again, trying to clear the voice away. “Little Alyssa, do you know what a singularity is?”

Confusion again. Her eyebrows scrunched, raising up like caterpillars readying for battle against each other. “Na-uh.”

“It’s always No. Try not to say Na-uh, it sounds too backwater,” Grangran corrected gently. “A singularity is an event that is so powerful that cannot but help change everything around it. It is like an explosion that never ends.”

“That sounds scary.”

“It is amazing. Scary sometimes, yes. But always amazing,” Grangran smiled, pulling her locket from around her neck carefully, trying not to fall from the roof. As soon as she let go of Mezz, the strength she was feeling was going to fade away with her. She had to make it to the woods still. “This is Mesmer.”

“It’s a necklace.”

“It’s a singularity. An intelligent one. Her name is Mesmer. She talks.”

Grangrin sniffed, feeling the fear again, the pain of the unknown looming just at her fingertips. She could ask… she could ask Mezz to take her back. Take her anywhere. Take her elsewhere. Anything but this night, in these woods, in the darkness of the Mississippi south.

“Mesmer?” Alyssa stretched a hand out, brushing her hand against the locket. For a brief moment, Grangran felt the connection to Mesmer fray and reassert itself once again. This was going to hurt. So powerfully.

//The cycle must continue//

“Mezz for short. She will be your bestest friend ever,” Grangran stretched her hand out to hand the locket over.

The young Alyssa took it gingerly, looking at the silver and gold locket with amazement. “It is so pretty.”

The connection frayed again, but instead of reasserting itself, it faded away altogether as Grangran let go. She immediately felt the bullet, the wound, the shock and blood loss hammered her all at once. She swayed against the windowsill, her feet uneven on the shingled eave.

“I… I… uh, have to go now,” Grangran grimaced, biting the words off as they escaped her lips. “Bye bye Alyssa. Oh, and don’t tell anyone about Mesmer. She is yours to protect.”

“Ok. I won’t.”

“Promise me,” Grangran demanded.

//Promise//

Alyssa’s eyes snapped down to the locket, hearing Mesmer’s voice in her own mind. “I promise.”

Grangran leaned back out of the window. She blinked slowly, once, twice. She had a tree to stumble to. The funny looking one. The one that held secrets. Alyssa did not watch Grangran leave, as she was too busy feeling Mesmer in her palm, stroking it with a finger.

Mezz’s voice broke out as if traveling a vast distance as Grangran stumbled towards her secret tree in the dark.

“Goodbye, Mezz. Take good care of me.”

//I will//

A pause.

//Promise//

Short Story

Jeshua the Favored

Jeshua walked into the cave of ice, and came upon the presence of the Lord. The ice was alive, as if moving like a fire, dancing in the wind.

“Remove your tusk covers, Jeshua, for you are on holy ground,” said the Lord.

Jeshua reached up with his prehensile snouts and removed the covers from his four tusks, revealing the broken and notched second on his right side, as his progenitors did, and his parent-pairs before him. Jeshua was devout and loved the Lord, and the Lord looked upon him with favor.

“You may speak, Jeshua. You are my child, as your mothers and your fathers were,” the Lord breathed from the living ice that was of like fire.

“What do you ask of me my Lord God?” Jeshua bowed until his snouts brushed the ground in penitence. He held all four hands behind his back, keeping his single toed feet still and pointed towards the Lord in humility.

“My people suffer at the hands of the Obisd. You are to go upon the land of their Emperor and demand their freedom, my son.”

Jeshua rose his head in confusion to the living ice. “My Lord, I am not the right man.”

The ice flared outwards, shifting upwards with immense energies, laces of lightning arcing across the reflective surfaces. “Am I not the creator of the seas and the land? Am I not the creator of the heavens and the earth? Am I not the creator of the energies that fuel your suns, and the bodies of the sky that govern your seasons and your harvests? I can discern all things.”

Jeshua quailed in the ferocity of the Lord. Lowering his head once again in humility, he covered his shorn ears with each of his snouts, opening his four palms in obedience. “I hear you, oh my Lord.”

“You will go to the land of the Obisd. You will gain access to the Emperor and you will stand proudly before him to demand of him to set my people free.”

“Lord, my Lord, I am but a simple Irru seeking peace as commanded by your teachings to my progenitors, so how will I do such a thing?” Jeshua dared to raise his eyes, raising all four palms upwards, placating. “This seeks violence in the eyes of the Lord.”

“I will be with you in this. Take this staff and with it work my wonders.” The ice split and shifted, yet did not shatter, and from it a staff of pure absolith was formed. It was pure and unblemished. “You will not be an instrument for my people’s enemies to be destroyed, but instead learn of the future by which they will come to know me.”

“Can you see the future, oh my Lord?” Jeshua the Favored asked with fear, his hand holding the absolith staff, unblemished in his grip. Jeshua felt certain that he was to be immolated in his insolence.

A snout of ice caressed his cheek, calming him as his mothers had in his youth. “Young Jeshua, this is story that has been seen across all my peoples, across all my creations. You are not the first, nor will you be the last. In this knowledge, I know how this story ends. You must do your part, for your Lord has commanded it.”

“I am afraid,” Jeshua admitted.

“I will not send you alone. You shall be accompanied by your brother.”

Jeshua felt deep confusion. “My Lord, I weep in this, as I have no brother.”

The ice split again, the edges and faces unbroken, flaring and rearing outwards like a flower. From the ice, another Irru emerged. His eyes were closed, and his arms were crossing his chest as if he was newly born. Jeshua helped lower the unconscious Irru to the ground, careful to not allow his snouts to be crushed under his own shoulders.

“He will know how to help you in your tasks that are before you. He is blessed and of my heart,” the Lord declared. “He will awaken when I leave this place. He will know you, Jeshua my Favored, Irru most kind, of the Estian People so blessed. You will go to your people, and they shall be set free.”

“What shall I call him? My brother?” Jeshua asked, looking over the Irru made by God’s own hand, his lower right tusk was broken and notched as Jeshua’s own.

“His name is Moses, a prince of Egypt. A place long gone and long forgotten. He shall not remember. But he will still know what to do in his heart, for he is faithful, and he is your brother.”

Jeshua bowed, caressing the face of his brother with his snouts, memorizing the detail of the young Irru’s face, for he was holy. The cave fell silent and the ice was still, once again frozen without light.

The eyes of Moses opened and he looked upon his brother Jeshua with kindness. “Did he give you a staff?”

Jeshua held his staff proudly in one hand, showing Moses the glimmering end of its unblemished metal. Moses smiled widely, his snouts moving uncertainly as if being used for the first time.

Short Story

The Balance

“Miles?” The radio made its stuttering bleeping noise as the walkie-talkie cut back to silence.

Miles rolled over in his bed, and fumbled in the dark beside it, looking for the rectangle of plastic with its wonky extendable metal antenna. His fingers felt the nub of the retracted metal, with its small disk at its apex.

Static again, then Robbie’s voice. “Miles? Are you up? Over.”

Miles groaned, pulling the walkie up by its little disk, rolling onto his back. He kept his eyes closed as he held the walkie pressed against his temple. Reluctantly, he pushed the talk button.

“Robbie? Over.”

“Sorry,” the connection dropped for a moment and then came back. “You were sleeping?”

Miles cracked an eyelid in the direction of his nightstand, the flip dials of the gently lit face read 1:07am. “Yes, Robbie. It is 1 in the morning. What else would I be doing, man?”

“Yeah, sleeping. Sorry, Miles. Can we talk?” Robbie sounded hesitant, his voice further than the actual distance of the other side of the walkie talkie.

Miles sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What is wrong? Are you ok? Over.”

“Yeah, ok. I had the dream again.”

“The playhouse?” Miles’s eyes were forced a little wider. “Over.”

“It was different this time. You were there,” Robbie dropped, another beep. “Sorry, had to move my hand, I am hiding under my bed.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I don’t know why it scares me so bad.”

Robbie’s voice broke, he must have been weeping all along and Miles hadn’t picked up on it. Miles sat a for a moment thinking it through.

Robbie’s voice came back, tentative. “You still there? Uh, over.”

Miles pushed the button. “I am.”

“What should I do?” A question that was not a question. It was fear.

“Tell me everything,” Miles swallowed lightly, swinging a foot over the side of his bed and tiptoeing lightly to his bedroom door. He slowly pressed closed, hoping that his voice would not travel down the hallway to his parent’s room.

“The usual dream is that I am at the hideout by myself, reading. To get away from my sisters. They are annoying me. When the dream starts, I know it is a dream, but I can’t change it… I have to watch it. I have to watch it play out. This time, though, you were with me. And I wasn’t reading, we were waiting. Patiently. That is what made this one so scary.” Hiss, static… pause for a moment. “We knew it was coming. And we sat there. I was even in the same PJs I am wearing right now. It was so weird.”

“What was I wearing?”

“Uh, your Star Wars shirt, the one with the x-wing. Why?”

Miles looked down at his t-shirt, pulling at the x-wing that was crossing his chest. He had ran out of clean pajamas. “No reason.”

“Miles, we sat there, waiting for it to arrive,” Robbie sniffed, he must have been regaining his composure. “We saw the light filter through the trees as it come to us. In my other dreams, I always run. This time… we just sat there.”

“Isn’t that good? Doesn’t that mean we are fighting instead of running?” Miles tried.

“The thing, I know it is scary, like it will kill us. It could kill both of us now, Miles,” Robbie’s voice cracked again. “I am certain of it.”

“Robbie, you are safe at home, right?”

“Yes.”

“It was just a dream,” Miles tried, rubbing at the corner of his eye.

“Miles, uh… I think I need to go the playhouse,” Robbie started crying again, just sobbing into the microphone on his side.

“What?!” Miles exclaimed. He clamped a hand over his mouth as a furious afterthought.

Crackle, crackle, like tin foil on the other side, then dead air. Robbie filtered through again. “The nightmare has been the same for months, but tonight, the dream was different. I need you to come with me. I can feel it.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Miles,” Robbie’s voice was full of dread. Even over the air, it weighed heavily with palpability. “I have to go… uh… I have to go. Or the dreams will never stop. If I go alone, I know I will die. But, if you are with me, we stand a chance.”

Miles felt perplexed. “A chance for what?”

“I don’t know. But I have to go. I have to, Miles. Please come with me.”

Miles swallowed and felt the decision already taking shape in his chest. “Yeah. I will meet you at Burnside in ten minutes. Over and out.”

Robbie sounded as if a massive weight had been lifted. “Thanks Miles. Ten minutes over and out.”

Miles kept his t-shirt on, and slipped on his jeans from earlier in the day, fumbling as he tried to pull his jacket on quickly. With one arm in his jacket, the other hanging free, Miles grabbed his baseball bat without a thought, shoved it into his backpack and zipped it closed around the taped handle. He opened the door to his room and snuck down the hall, careful to jump over the third stair so it could not betray him with its squeal of nail on wood. He unlocked the side entrance off the garage, rolling his bike into the grass. Jumping on his bike, pedaling through the dew laden grass, leaving a contrail of a rubber tire behind him.

Robbie was waiting at Burnside, the stop sign sitting at an angle since some drunk driver had tagged it a few months ago. The street sign that said Burnside Avenue itself had a bullet hole at one corner from a 22, so the sign said Burnside Avenu, with the e decapitated. Robbie had not bothered to change out of his pajama shirt or sweatpants, only adding his puffy jacket over the top.

“Hey,” Robbie called from his Huffy bike.

“Hey.”

“I owe you. A comic?”

“Amazing Spider-man 252?” Miles attempted with a crooked smile.

“Sure. All yours.”

“Wow, you are messed up. Your Amazing Spider-Man 252, seriously?”

Robbie nodded, his eyes bloodshot and wide. “I need your help. It’s worth it.”

Miles’s brow furrowed and he shrugged. “We will worry about it later, Robbie. Let’s go?”

“Yeah.”

Robbie pushed at his pedals hard, pulling simultaneously at his handlebars, forcing himself up the hill. Miles followed close behind, as they pedaled in silence through the fog. The dirt track into the woods split off the main road near the water tower, winding its way along the crick towards the Patterson’s property. The overlook was an ignorable place for most of the youth in town, as it was not accessible by car, and did not offer much seclusion to make out. But for a bunch of kids just looking to build a hideout or secret clubhouse, it was perfect. Calling it the playhouse made it sound juvenile, but that is what Miles and Robbie liked about it. It was something old and shared between two kids that were on the cusp of puberty. They crested the hill, following the dirt track from the road, and in about 10 minutes of riding they found their shared place.

Robbie jumped off his bike, parking it against the customary tree and Miles followed suit.

“What now?” Miles asked cautiously.

Robbie shrugged. “We wait.”

“Just follow your dream?”

“I don’t think we need to,” Robbie stammered, his eyes going wide and his cheeks flushed red. He started to shake as if cold, pointing at the playhouse. “It is already here.”

Miles spun, dropping his backpack to one shoulder, and pulling the bat free. The playhouse was softly glowing, throbbing with a gentle blue glow. Miles pointed his bat like a sword, holding it in front of himself like he could stab something with it. “Stay behind me Robbie.”

Robbie nodded furtively, still pointing. Miles took a step forward, but the state of the playhouse did not change. The rough lean-to sides of the recovered plywood, hastily nailed to the small trees at the corners, looked as it always had. It’s roof was two walls of a portapotty long lost in a storm, with the corner serving as the weather proof peak of the roof. Small windows were cut into the plywood, covered on the inside with stapled swaths of fabric, giving no insight into waited within. Miles took another step, and another. He could hear Robbie’s breathing behind him, the rush inwards and outwards as he unknowingly toed the edge of hyperventilation. Miles pulled the bat over his shoulder, bringing his elbows up.

“Come out!” Miles yelled.

There was no response. The light’s soft throbbing did not change its pattern either. It just stayed inside the playhouse.

Miles looked sidelong at his friend. “I thought you said we were sitting inside and saw the light come down from the sky through the trees?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever see the light?” Miles inquired in a harsh whisper. “You know, actually see it?”

Robbie shook his head violently, making his curls bounce on his head. Miles took another step closer, he was almost to the edge of the small doorway, which typically was covered by a small tablecloth hung from a shower curtain rod, and pinned to be out of the way when they needed the breeze for the hot summer days. It looked like shit, but it was a pretty strong, safe, and weatherproof build from a couple of kids scrounging from the trash cans and dumpsters around town.

Miles pushed the end of the baseball bat slowly along the side of the curtain, and a massive throbbing pulse rang out from within, as if a gong the size of the moon had just been struck. They both felt it more than they heard it, its effect traveling among the trees around them like a shockwave, pushing leaves and debris as if a stiff wind had passed by.

They both stood absolutely stock still as if a giant was regarding them, deciding if two little boys would make good eating.

Miles pushed the bat in further, and slowly pushed the curtain up. “Wow.”

Inside, a small orb only the size of a grapefruit, hung gently in the air, pulsing with its hazy glow. Robbie peered in over Miles’s shoulder.

“What the hell is that?”

Miles shrugged. “It’s your dream, you tell me.”

“Think it is radioactive?” Robbie’s voice was full of wonder. For the sheer terror that he had for the last few minutes, Miles was amazed he was even conscious still.

“Well then we are both dead, genius.”

“I don’t think it is radioactive,” Robbie asserted, more to himself than Miles. “In the dream I was so scared, but now, I am not scared at all.”

“What do we now? Just stand here and stare at the orb of glowing alien farts?”

“Think we should touch it?” Robbie wondered.

“With what? The bat?” Miles offered incredulously. “I am sure as hell not going to poke it with my finger.”

“Sure.”

“Then you do it.” Miles offered the bat to Robbie.

“Together?”

“Spider-Man 252. Swear?”

“Yours, man. I had to do this,” Robbie affirmed.

“Then we do it together.” Miles offered the outstretched bat, and Robbie put his hands around the handle as well. “On three?”

The two of them, Miles in his Star Wars t-shirt, and Robbie in his long sleeve flying cows pajama shirt, holding a baseball between them unsteadily faced the uncertain future.

“One, Two, Three…” The two lunged forward at once, putting the rounded cusp of the bat against the floating orb.

Voices in the dark.

“One.”

Spiraling sound in multiple directions.

“Two.”

Time is unbound.

“Three.”

Edges of reality come unwound.

“Two.”

In the dark, absence of light, speeding movement in multiple directions, twisting with the stars spinning by at superluminal speed.

“Two.”

Miles felt his body around him, inconsistent as light, as if he was floating in a sea of nothingness. He thought he would be scared, but he was not.

“Two?”

The voice changed. Concern? Confusion? Uncertainty?

“Two?”

Miles thought he felt Robbie nearby, spinning as if in orbit of each other, the push and pull of two objects contesting and yet compelling one another.

“Miles?” Robbie’s voice sounded far away as if coming through the a radio, stuttering in the dark before it cut back to silence.

“Two…” The voice pondered. “There should only be one.”

Miles still could not see anything, only feelings his fingers and toes at the furthest extent of himself. He did not feel warmth or cold, only the shift and movement of what he was, who he was, in the unaffirmed space. “You got two, pal.”

Images started to flash before them. They were not things to see, they were things to feel, to experience. He felt the change in himself, as if he was not witnessing these images with his eyes, but his truest self. The part that existing underneath the layers of his flesh and bone.

There was darkness, then there was light. From the light sprang trillions of billions of millions of hundred quintillions of threads spiraling away into the dark, all the moments that would ever be or that have ever been. Universes of universes, not stacked nicely like dinner plates on a shelf, but thrown into heaps of abstract and congruent angles, aligning and yet at odds with each other. These universes branched and branched again. Most ended in darkness or heat, some ended with nothing at all since they failed to start, and yet others progressed into something else.

Life. Intelligence. Progression. Survival. Competition.

Miles tried to close his eyes, but the images continued. The gentle assault would continue until it was done. If he could look around for Robbie, he would have. But he knew that Robbie was going through this with him, together. “One, Two, Three…”

Time wound backwards, as reality reasserted itself, Robbie and Miles both had their hands on the handle of the baseball bat, lunging forward with wide eyes, pressing the cusp of the bat against the glowing object in their playhouse. Miles could feel the reality of it, as if he was back in the moment. He could feel Robbie beside him, realizing that they were moving backwards and forwards in time.

“Time. Time is a strange thing. We forgot that it exists.”

“Why?” Miles asked.

“You will see.”

“Both of us?” Robbie asked from far away.

“Both of you, it seems. Worlds need heroes. Universes need to be lead to the impossible futures. Your purpose is to be the heroes here so that you can find the others. The others in the dark.”

“How?” Miles asked.

“By being greater than you were destined to be.” The light flashed, the throbbing images flared away, as if being tossed over a shoulder nonchalantly. “Greater.”

The lights went out and Robbie and Miles were standing in an empty playhouse with a bat being held between them. They both looked at the bat, and then at each other, dropping it simultaneously.

“What?” Miles asked. Robbie looked different, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“You tell me,” Robbie laughed. “You are the one staring at me.”

“You look different.”

“I feel different,” Miles looked at his fingertips. The tips were smoking, just like the end of the baseball bat already forgotten on the floor of the playhouse. He felt energy everywhere. It was in cells, in the air around him, in everything. He felt like a norse god.

“Miles, your eyes are glowing,” Robbie smiled. He did not sound scared. “What are you thinking of?”

Miles laughed as the sparks danced on his fingertips. “Thor.”

Robbie stood up proudly, flexing his chest like an adult. “I feel like Superman.”

“Robbie…”

Robbie burst from the ground, flying upwards as if he was shot out of cannon. The playhouse disintegrated into hundreds of pieces around Miles, as lightning started to erupt from his shoulders.

“Wait for me!” Miles finished, leaping from the ground. He thought of Superman traveling faster than the Flash, and in a breath he next to his friend.

The air was cold, but it did not feel cold. The clouds were blown apart as they flew through them, laughing and twirling in the night sky. Both the boys would be ageless gods with an inscrutable future, only a promise of where they needed to lead to be their only guide.

However, what the boys did not know, being boys enjoying the gifts they had received, was that every universe required balance, and their opposite on the equation was not two, but one. As it had been through countless ages, when a hero was created, so was their antithesis. A villain.

A man picked up the phone and his men on the other line answered immediately.

A tinny voice came over the secure line, as if it was further away than just down the hall. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“Charles, please inform the staff that I wish to go for a run this morning… I feel rather… energetic.”