Life isn’t easy. Stories rarely have happy endings.
(What is this? a *reader?*….)
So you found me.…I mean, this book. Which means you were looking for something right? (Gross..a primate? And what are these things..hands? How primitive.)
A troubled boy. A peculiar stone. Strange dreams that hint of worlds older than language.
Continue to read this in your own voice my mortal worm. I mean.. *Friend.*
Where were we? That’s right..Brother turns against brother. Giants stir in the abyss. Empires rise and fall as galaxies burn.
In the middle of it: Sam, a young boy drifting through the crumbling orbit of his parents’ addictions, his childhood in the 90s was fractured from the start, everyday was a quiet drama. But when dreams become visitations, he realizes he’s not merely imagining these things, he’s living them.
(What’s that smell? Skin? Bones? Are you holding me with bones inside of you?!? Disgusting!)
Mentors appear with half-truths, and gods who’ve been waiting longer than your kind has scurried on two legs tell of a threat that devours stars…drawing closer, its tendrils tasting worlds before swallowing them whole.
*(But you clearly weren’t looking for any of that right?)
April 1996
Archdale, N.C
Earth.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."
- Albert Einstein
Sam tossed in his bed as he woke up from a dream in the middle of the night.
“Smores sound good..” He thought, waking up in a haze.
Sam could hear his parents fighting from down the hall, their angry words were muffled, but seemed to keep pace with the storm outside. The pines creaked, and swayed, casting all manner of shadows along the walls as his skylight dripped rainwater above his bed. Each strike of the lightning illuminated his room like an alien world, setting his imagination free from the cold wood floors that kept him frozen in his bed and from fleeing to the would-be safety of his parent’s room. Sam was 8, but these nights really frightened him.
He had carefully calculated plans to escape his solitude, he could cry, he could scream, but his parents would never hear him over the storm. He could run into the room, hoping the door wouldn’t be locked again, but in doing so he would just be trading his captivity for the living nightmare of waiting outside, alone….in the dark. Not to mention the hallway, lined with mirrors and pictures of angels, side rooms broke off, each with their poster-covered doors cracked, alluding to horrors and beasts he could only begin to imagine in the darkness.
The mirrors captured the light from all angles, twisting and distorting the already long, narrow corridor while the angels seemed to laugh at his fear between lightning strikes.
Sam clung to his blanket tighter and tighter with each boom of the thunder, and each burst of their voices.
The ceiling leaked with an object repetition, like the baseline in some passing car.
He wanted so badly to be in his mother’s arms, to feel the secure presence of his father, but he was trapped within the confines of his bed, the same bed that only a few hours ago, hosted one of the most captivating battles his legos and toys had ever seen. The countless toy souls that had fought and died in the service of their young king Sam, now litter the floor like caltrops thwarting unsuspected foes, yet on this night, he feared he too would join their ranks down below on the cold wood floor.
Sam thought he saw something move in his closet, his imagination was getting the best of him.
He looked up through the skylight, Sam could barely see a star shining various shades of blues and reds between the fast-moving clouds, its subtle flashing coaxed his eyes to slumber.
Sam dreamt that he was in a submarine.
***
“Prepare to dive!” The captain buzzed in over the intercom. His voice clanged down the pipes and tubes piercing the hull of the submarine.
Sam’s shipmates hastily took positions manning various posts across the ship, some behind terminals and screens, and others running diagnostics and readying munitions.
In front of him was a radar screen displaying various blips, one in particular was bigger than the others and it seemed to be traveling toward them. A numbered code sequence 2..9…9…7….9….2…4…5…8 blinked on an adjacent screen.
“ We’ve got multiple pings sir!” one of the men shouted out.
“Mr.Zaku, bring us 8 degrees down bubble.” The captain barked.
“Aye sir!” replied Mr.Zaku, The dive control officer.
A hull bolt burst, ricocheting across the sub. Water began to leak, forming a puddle beneath Sam’s feet. The bending, warping sounds of the ship penetrating the deepest depths of the ocean both terrified and excited him.
The thought of guiding this miraculous piece of technology into the purest and untouched reaches of this planet ignited his sense of wonder, but the ocean pressure’s constant testing and straining was a steady reminder to the men aboard of their own mortality. This wasn’t one of the standard research missions they had routinely completed and they knew that being finally dragged into this war meant that they might not make it out alive.
Sam tried to inform his superiors of the leak but his mouth couldn’t form the words, his movements were sluggish and his uniform was weighing down his efforts.
Sam couldn’t feel his face, he raised his hands to inspect it and his mouth was gone. He tried to open it but it was stuck shut, like eating a peanut butter sandwich with no milk.
The blip now flashed rapidly on the screen, but his shipmates didn’t seem to acknowledge his presence no matter how hard he tried to break their hardened focus. Sam scanned the bridge, seeking anything that he might use to get their attention but while looking around, his shipmates disappeared.
They were all gone! The once boisterous noises of crewmen at work even faded away leaving only the fearful sounds of dive sirens and the water consuming his vessel, foreshadowing his impending doom.
The blip pulsed faster and faster, louder and louder, drowning out the crunching bends and already unsettling twists of the ship’s steady approach to the ocean floor. Sam’s heart raced, “This can’t be real, I’m crashing into the seafloor and I’m alone on a submarine.” He thought while trying to pull himself together.
The hull tore open with a brilliant light, flooding the ships chambers with water, and jarring the metallic vessel with such force it knocked Sam to the floor.
Through the shining light, he could see an object, no larger than a golf ball, and slowly floating toward him with an intense glow.
Sam could faintly see the outline of a man behind the light, but his features were shadowy.
Water continued to fill the cavities of the bridge.
The object hovered as if waiting for Sam’s approval, he nodded and Sam too began to glow with the same intensity. The ship crumbled away in dust and smoke, revealing a blurry, crooked reflection of his bedroom. Through the haze, he could see a figure peering at him from alongside his bed.
Sam’s vision came into focus, but he still couldn’t make out exactly why his room was so hazy, nor could he see the masked figure’s face reaching out for him, only the shining light which gradually became the figure's headlamp.