Broken Sky 2:2

Someone tried to fly up to the rip in the sky. I figure they must've been nuts, because every other pilot had crashed already. Whoever it was didn't crash - the plane just broke up in midair and fell in flames, the way no damned plane is ever supposed to fall apart, and they never did find a corpse. Maybe the pilot faded.

That was the end of the official tests - the ones that got paid for. The rest of us kept on going, making shit up, trying to get samples, test it, explain it, explain it away. Like an explanation would make it make us remember color and light, make that goddamned rip in the fucking sky disappear. Nobody ever came up with one, at least not that anybody but them believed. Pisses me right off, too: some asshole breaks the fucking sky, floods us with whatever that shit was, and we don't get so much as a ‘Take me to your Leader'. As much explanation as we give fucking ants.

That stuff sucked the life out of people. You stared at them long enough and you could almost see it, see them getting thinner and fainter and less real every damn minute. People stopped looking at each other, much as they could. There were a lot of drownings and poisonings and shootings, and sometimes I wonder why I didn't. Why he didn't. She wouldn't have, she thought that was giving up, and she hated that. Maybe that's why we didn't.

Made the whole thing worse later.

I knew that bastard was dying. My brother, my oldest brother, he had this look to him, like a fucking statue, everything but his eyes. That bastard had the same look, and if I looked hard enough I could see him fading out. It was a kick in the gut, even after everything, because if he was fading, we were going to fade.

That's when she told us. Fuck. I didn't believe her, thought she'd finally flipped, and I don't know if that bastard believed her or not. Offered to do it himself instead. We tried to talk her out of it, tried almost everything ... I didn't offer. Should have. She was so damn sure she wouldn't have listened anyway, but I never tried.

She wanted the island and it was hell getting there.

If it's not that damned sound in my nightmares, it's that damned boat. That stuff is everywhere and there's voices and faces and dead people in it, and I'm climbing over the railing to get to them. That's where I wake up, and then I don't sleep. Maybe I don't sleep for days after that one, because in the dark I keep hearing those fucking voices.

Damned if I think that bastard did me a favor when he yanked me back before I fell.