Through Glass (7 page)

Everything rattled inside of me as the vibration continued, the shriek growing right beside it. It grew until it became a pain, a rippling heat that covered my bones and took away my desire to move and my ability to focus beyond the noise that seemed to be coming from inside of me. My body ached as the sound rattled through me, my mouth clenching as I cried, as I tried to cope with the pain.

I stayed curled in the ball; my body aching and writhing as I tried to manage and to move beyond it. I couldn’t. I stayed still, clawing at the sound vibrations while lying on my desk as my eyes scanned the sky, waiting for everything to end.

The sound grew as the darkness began to seep lower into the world below. The silky black of the sky above our heads darkened as it rippled like the waves of an ocean. The ebbs and flows moving over the sky like water before it pooled and began to fall. Thicker than rain, slow and steady, the sky dripped thousands of drops of black; the color smooth and shiny as the black rain moved and fell. The dark fell onto us, bathing the pristine streets in liquid smoke, covering what little I could still see in a smothering blanket that only promised death.

The sky had begun to bleed in ebony streaks.

My heart beat accelerated, the sound in my ears adding to the screech that sang with the rain that fell on top of us. My fear peaked as I watched it. My body shaking as I fought to move, to get away, but my body wouldn’t respond. I watched as the black hit against my window, leaving black streaks of what looked like oil against the pane. Drop after drop hit the window, streaking the glass as the terrifying screech that had filled me evaporated.

The pain that had filled my body slowly left, leaving me numb with residual pressure as I lay still, watching the sky fall on top of us from my curled position on the desk. My chest heaved as I caught my breath and control over my body slowly came back. I lifted myself slowly, my body aching as I slid my feet onto the windowsill, with my face pressed against the glass as I watched the drops of ink seep from the sky. The mass of them was growing until they became something more and cut through the air with the wide brim of a sail.

It was no longer just the black rain that floated gracefully toward us. There were now black masses floating like wispy smoke, dancing through the air like an elegant gown. The black ribbons fell through the already darkened sky, making the black that surrounded us more oppressive, but strangely, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the dark anymore. I didn’t care about the vanishing sun or the way the sky had bled. The fear I had felt vanished and all I wanted was to sit here and watch the dancing blackness fall from the sky, wishing I could be among them. It twirled and spun through the air as it fell to the ground, swirling down on top of us.

I watched the ribbons of darkness fall, mesmerized by their beauty, by the calm serenity that they brought to the suddenly dark world. My body loosened as I watched them, my breathing slowed as everything relaxed. I didn’t know why I had been so afraid only a minute before. The darkness was beautiful. I smiled as they continued to fall, the darkness taking away what little I had been able to see, only to disappear against the earth in a splash of smoke and sparkling tinsel.

Cohen’s grandfather was out amongst them. He stood in the driveway, a rake in his hands as he watched the glitter fall through the air. I watched him as they fell around him. He smiled at their beauty.

I wanted to be with him. I wanted to dance amongst the fans of black and feel the smoke against my skin. I reached my hand toward the clasp on my window, desperate to touch them. I froze in awe with my hand soft against the lock of the window as Cohen’s grandfather extended his hand out to let his fingers touch the silky smoke that danced before him.

His fingers grazed the surface of the smoke ribbon, the black glittering around him like a dozen falling stars. It moved through his fingers and brushed against his skin until it disappeared at the same time that the high pitched screech I had heard before filled my ears. I jumped at the sound while the relaxing bliss I had felt mere seconds before vanished as panic took over. It called like a bird, the terrifying sound tensing in my muscles. Cohen’s grandfather didn’t seem to hear the warning call. He moved his hand into the sheet of black before him and, with that one touch, the smoke was gone, the solid body of a monster taking its place.

The scream broke free from my throat as the creature erupted from the smoke. The large, black mass of the thing hovering over the withered old man below him.

Staring at the monstrous black being, I wasn’t sure if I was seeing a man or an enormous bird. The top of its head and the reptilian wings that adorned its back were feathered with shiny, jet black spikes which looked more like the blades of a knife. The wings erupted from its back in large masses of dark, shiny metal; the jagged edges cutting through the darkness around him. The spikes and sharp lines of the wings were like that of a bat, yet they were somehow more medieval, sinister. The body and the face of the thing seemed almost human except everything that should be normal wasn’t. The creature’s skin was black like ink and shimmering as though it was polished steel in the darkness. The same razor like feathers that adorned its back jutted out of its face in odd places like he had been stabbed multiple times.

The arms of a man shot forward from the monster, but instead of fingers, five long, golden talons flashed before its long arms. The talons curved dangerously through the air, the bright color looking beautiful against the sunless night of the world.

The gold glinted as the monster’s arms jut toward the old man before him. The screech in my ears grew as Cohen’s grandfather’s screams joined them along with a dozen other terrified yells that filtered down the street and through the glass of my window. I jumped at the noise, my body moving out of habit while I pressed myself against the window as I watched in horror at the scene that unfolded below.

The screech grew and then the creature’s arm moved, swinging wide in a blur of movement. The flash of golden talons and a wide arch of blood were the only images before nothing was left except a black circle of ash where Cohen’s grandfather had stood.

I froze against the window, my blood turning to ice as I looked at the grey circle of dust on the sidewalk. I just stared at all that was left of a man, a motionless heap of ash amongst the dancing ribbons, unable to process through the numb shock that controlled me. The numbness stretched through me as the faded screams of more victims filtered into my ears. They came, more and more, my mind filling in what I couldn’t see. The flash of talons, the arch of blood.

The creature stood over the ring of ash before it arched its back, its human mouth opening in a screech that cut through the air, the joy it felt at having taken a life terrifying me. I jumped at the noise, my breathing picking up before I, too, began to scream. My own terror mixed with the lost lives on the street below

Cohen’s grandfather had disappeared, burned into a pile of ash by what my mind could only register as being a monster. One touch and he had vanished; now nothing more than a ring of ash in the darkened world. The hell that was falling from the sky.

Everything inside of me shook as I screamed. Terror mixed with an insane desire to run, to fight back. I fought the desire to open the window, to attack the monster for what he had done. My fear and anger mixed together until I was having trouble breathing and my eye sight began fading in and out as tears along with panic swept it away.

I couldn’t tear my eyes from the ash, even though I could hear the poundings of Cohen’s fists against his window. I could hear the muffled voice of his own screams as they mixed with mine in my ears.

My fists joined Cohen’s as we screamed, the ribbons of death continuing to fall between us and what was left of Cohen’s grandfather. They weaved themselves through the sky, blackening the darkness into a solid mass of ink, their numbers increasing until I could no longer see the spot where Cohen’s grandfather had stood.

The black that fell from the sky was taking over. Snatching up what little light we had been left with and seeping it away into nothing. I watched them multiply as the thought I refused to acknowledge weaved its way to the surface of my mind.

The black, the monsters, whatever hell that had opened up on us. It was killing everything that was outside.

No.

My mother had taken my brothers to the skate park. My family was outside.

“NO!” I screamed as I hit my hands against the window. My tears streaming down my cheeks as I pounded against the glass. My anger bubbled up beyond what I had ever felt. I screamed at the blackness that surrounded me while, at the same time, needing to get out of this room; to fight them, to save my brothers. I screamed as the monster turned from Cohen’s grandfather, its movement slow as it turned its black eyes to me in warning.

I screamed as my anger melted into fear, my heart clenching until my scream vanished and the evil glare froze me in place. The look that the thing had given me shivered through my body before the monster vanished from sight. It left me alone with the terror and blackness that inched closer and closer, threatening to push through the glass and take me with it.

I looked away from the smothering black of the sky toward Cohen. My heart caught in my chest at seeing him staring at me, barely visible through the blackness that was swallowing us up. His hand was still pressed up against the window. His face was streaked with tears while his eyes were as wide and scared as I felt inside.

I could see my own fear mirrored in him; the realizations that I had fought acknowledging were now staring right back at me.

We were trapped inside.

We were alone.

I saw the terror in his eyes and felt mine increase. My heart was a heavy mass of lead inside of me; a lifeless piece of flesh that was draining me.

I couldn’t tear my eyes from Cohen, even though I could barely see through the black.

He was just there beyond the glass.

Too far for me to get to.

The dancing black ribbons grew and grew until I could no longer see Cohen. It had taken him away from me. I could no longer see anything. My room was as black as everything else, the light sucked from it and surrounding me in an abyss of nothing. The skin of my arms prickled where small bumps had started running up and down my arms and across my neck as I squinted into the darkness, trying desperately to make something out. I knew I was in my room—I could feel my desk under my legs, the glass against my fingers—but I saw nothing.

The blackness consumed me for one moment before the sounds of the screams outside my window grew, pulsing through the air. I turned toward the window, expecting to see something, only to be met with obscurity which caused my ears to prickle as it heightened the noise. The sounds of terror, fear and death rang in my ears as they vibrated through the air and shook the window in its pane.

The screams continued before they changed, turning into yelling and grunting that was mixed in with the sound of terror. I heard footsteps as someone ran through the darkness outside and then a man yelling back at his wife as he guided her through the dark only to end in screams of death. My hand tensed against the window as I focused on the black in front of me. My heart pulsed the blood uncomfortably through my fingers; the joints straining from the pressure that I hadn’t realized I had applied against the pane.

Another sound joined the panicked battle outside; the deep grunts of exertion, a man fighting the assailants even though he couldn’t see through the dark. My nerves tensed in fear as the sound continued to grow and swell around me; the cry of a child joining in before it, too, was silenced and another scream took its place.

I looked away from the indistinctness outside the window as the shouts kept coming in an attempt to move past it. There was nowhere to look; there was only the black that had swallowed me. My heart beat so loudly, so painfully, that my breath sped up to match it, every muscle hurting with each pulse.

The yells continued, the sounds increasing as someone fired a gun in the dark. His terror filled yells made it obvious that he was hitting monster and human alike. He screamed as he shot, the screech of the monster sounding loudly before a child’s scream interrupted it. The gun only going quiet as the owner’s life ended with his own stifled cry.