Everybody went nuts, trying to figure out what the fuck happened and what it meant and what it was. Nobody ever did. Stuff pretended it didn't exist for every test anybody ever thought of running. Yeah, I tried to test it, explain it, explain it away. Like enough explanations would convince it to go the fuck back wherever the hell it came from.
There never were any explanations. The sky was broken, and stuff spilled out, and that was it. Nobody who tried to fly found out a damn thing before they crashed. Pisses me off; rip open the sky, flood us with whatever the hell that stuff was, and never bother to say anything. Not even a 'take me to your leader'.
Somewhere along the line people started dying. The stuff sucked all the life out of them, and everybody else ... well, there were a hell of a lot of drownings and poisonings and fatal falls. Don't know why I didn't. Too obsessed with making it all make sense.
Don't know why he didn't, either. She always thought it was giving up, and she hated that. Maybe that was it.
He didn't tell us he was dying - didn't have to, really, there's a look people got when they were dying from the stuff. Like they were turning into ghosts. Got to know it real well after a while. That's when she told us about this vision.
Visions. Shit. Never believed in the damn things before. Don't think he did either. Think we did everything we could to get her to do something else - he offered to do it instead, even. Hell ... I should have offered. She was so sure about it. Guess that's why we gave in. Maybe we just didn't want to see her die like he was dying.
It was a bitch finding a boat and somebody nuts enough to sail out to that island, and why she insisted on there I don't know. She never said.
Christ, if it's not that damn sound in my nightmares, it's the ocean. I'm out on the damn boat again, and that stuff ... it's full of voices, and my eyes are telling me there are faces and people in it, and I damn near climb over the railing to get to them. I wake up from that nightmare and I don't sleep again.
He yanked me back before I got into the water, and goddamn if I think he did me a favor.
Copr. ©2004 Sara A. Keating. This work will enter the public domain January 1st, 2034.