Adrian Cross
Why did England always have to be so ungodly wet? It wasn't even raining, just a dry thunderstorm which in itself was quite rare. The air was alive with electric flames and roaring thunder that seemed to tear the sky apart with each loud boom. If I have to be dramatic about it at least. As lightning struck, Adrian saw the flash strike down a few miles away, illuminating the edges of the houses, trees, and fences for a brief second before the neighborhood turned to darkness and the air erupted in a violent quake, shaking his body from ears to feet. Anxious, but without fear, he hastened his steps. Even if the thunderstorm had been with no rain, he was still drizzling with sweat from the humid air. He tried to wipe the water away with his shirt, but it had become wet and gross by the humid air and did nothing but smear the sticky water out on his face.
The phone in his pocket began to vibrate. He tried to dry his hand in his jeans, but quickly realized it was a lost cause. The display showed a picture of a young bald man with dark brown eyes, a grin as wide as his face and his signature tattoo of spread angelic wings across his throat.
"Malcolm?" he asked, trying desperately not to drop his phone from his slippery hand.
"What up, Cross," Malcolm greeted back. "You home yet?"
Adrian wiped water off his forehead. "Roughly a mile away. Soaked."
"Damn cunt, you´ve been drinking without me?" Malcolm asked, almost mortified by his words.
"Soaked," Adrian corrected, meanwhile contemplating why his best friend, despite the countless ridicule and scolding, still hadn't lost that Brummie way of speaking. "As in drenched."
He scouted the neighborhood. The streetlights were still not working. They hadn't been working for at least a month now, making the street feel dire and unpleasant, striking a shiver down his spine, causing him to shudder. The only source of light was the occasional lightning strikes that would light up the street for a split-second. The road was completely empty too, barren like the streets of Chernobyl. A few of the local neighborhood youngsters would usually be drinking outside at this hour, but the unusual weather and broken lights had probably forced them to stay inside instead.
"What's the real reason you're calling me?" Adrian asked curiously.
"It's that obvious, eh?"
Adrian chuckled. "Who on God's green earth asks if someone's home yet? I'm not your husband for crying out loud."
"If it ever came to that, we both know you'd be the wife," Malcolm said.
"I've heard it's not healthy to lie in a hypothetical relationship," Adrian noted. "So why don't you just cut the crap and answer my question before I call the divorce attorney?"
"Fine," Malcolm said. "I'd like to cancel our plans for tomorrow."
Funny. Maybe I should make that call after all.
"Is there any particular reason? Another man in your life perhaps?" Adrian asked teasingly.
"If by man you mean a bulldozed, moustache-wearing motherfucker called work, then yes," Malcolm said. "These last seven weeks have been bloody exhausting to be honest... I don't have the energy to go out tomorrow, man."
Adrian couldn't blame him. They had been working around the clock for a long time. The excavation had taken much longer than he had first anticipated. It was amazing that they had finished before the deadline, and it wasn't just Malcolm who needed a break. Adrian had suffered from a massive headache the last couple of days, hammering against the back of his eyes. Sometimes, it would spike and he would lose control of his thoughts for a moment. It must be the stress… I have to cut down the number of hours I put into my work. Before my mind overheats and shuts down.
"It's fine," Adrian said. "I will cancel the reservation."
"When you say it like that, no wonder people think we're a damn couple." Malcolm sounded almost accusing.
Adrian nodded with a skewed smile on his lips. He couldn't remember a time when people weren't making a joke out of their friendship. When you had been friends for so long…going out and eating together…it was nothing strange, yet everybody seemed to make such a fuss about it. He didn't care much about it. In fact, he was often amused by the jokes.
Who cares anyway? I know I don't. It's the twenty-first century after all, and I am an adult now.
"We can meet tomorrow, still," Malcolm said. "Your place, your TV, and your beer. And you pay for pizza."
"Because you still think I get paid more than you?" Adrian asked.
"Damn right, we both know you fucking do," Malcolm said.
"I don't." Adrian chuckled loudly. "I have tried to convince them that the work I do is worth far more than yours, but so far, I'm stuck with the same lousy salary as yo—"
A lightning strike suddenly struck down right before his eyes. The shock and sharp light blinded him, causing him to drop his phone on the ground. His heart was beating twice as fast as it normally did, almost to the point where he thought it would go into overdrive and stop. He slowly tried to open his eyes, but everything was a white blur. Finally, the shapes around him began taking form, and he could once again recognize the dark neighborhood before him. He looked at the dark sky. Curious…why was there no thunder?Oh damn, what happened to my phone? His phone lay face down on the sidewalk. Inspecting it, he gladly realized it hadn't been damaged by the fall.
"What happened, Cross?" Malcolm asked, worry coloring his voice. "It sounded like you dropped your phone or some shit."
"I-I did," Adrian stuttered. "It was lightning. It…it almost hit me."
"Shit," Malcolm responded. "You okay, man?"
Adrian laid a hand on his chest. His heart was still racing away, and his hand was covered in sweat…or moisture. But not a single scratch on him.
"I'm good."
"You might wanna hurry home then," Malcolm said. "Looking over the city as we speak and let me tell ya…the thunderstorm seems to be growing…and it's headed your way."
Adrian looked at the sky. Everything was dark, and the clouds didn't seem to neither cease nor move. "I'll manage. I love this kind of weather, you know."
"Even when it almost kills you?" Malcolm asked.
Even then. Lightning never strikes twice, or so they say.
Suddenly, he could hear Malcolm's doorbell ringing loudly, forcing him to move his head a few inches away from the phone.
"Pizza's here," Malcolm said.
"Really?" Adrian asked. "Pizza today and tomorrow?"
Malcolm chuckled. "I'm shocked you're surprised."
"Vegetarian?" Adrian asked.
"Fuck no," Malcolm said.
"You should try it," Adrian said.
"You try being less of a presumptuous prick and I just might," Malcolm retorted.
"Ouch," Adrian said, faking a burn.
"Same thing the pig said before it got molested into five pieces of servings drizzled over this beauty of dough and tomatoes," Malcolm said.
Adrian scoffed. "Such a vivid picture to paint."
"Whatever," Malcolm said. "See you tomorrow, hippie cunt."
Adrian hung up the call, a smile faintly present on his libs. Another clash of thunder boomed above him, and the dark streets were once again illuminated by lightning. This time, he could briefly see the outline of his third-floor apartment. The worn brick walls and damaged wooden handle on the front door were keen reminders about how little a newly educated archaeologist earned for a living. He turned the key and opened the squeaky door. It was completely dark in the main hallway. Was there even power in his apartment? He started walking up the old, creaky staircase, which could of course break apart at any second. He tried to be as light-footed as possible, afraid that he would wake up the other residents, but little did it help. With each step, he could feel how sore his legs were, and he tried desperately not to moan each time he put his foot down. Meanwhile, he had to deal with his headache that just didn't want to cease. It was as if something hard, metallic was drumming on the insides of his skull. His only relief was that he had restocked his supply of painkillers just before leaving.
If the headache wasn't gone in the morning, he would do the unmanly thing and see a doctor.
He finally reached the third floor and opened the door to his humble home. Forty-three squares of dull wooden floor and old furniture purchased from the local secondhand store, which was scattered around to make the place seem bigger like a damn wood junkyard. But this was the era of recycling, and he was most assuredly going to embrace it. Even if he looked poor.
Another keen reminder, I guess.
Adrian rushed to the bathroom and opened his jar of pills, quickly swallowing two of them whole without water. He looked up and saw his reflection in the mirror. A wasted young man with onyx-brown eyes and overly sharp cheekbones was looking back. He could feel his soaked blue shirt stick to his chest, as if it was glued on. Water stuck to his hand as he let it comb through his black sticky hair. He then dried off his hands and face in a towel and began to remove all his soggy clothes. The small scar from their expedition was still visible on the right side of his abdomen. Fortunately, the almost-but-not-really dark color of his skin made it seem almost invisible.
He stepped into his bedroom and threw himself on the bed, bouncing a bit up and down to the rhythm of the squeaky springs hidden beneath the dirty sheets.
My god, I am too exhausted to even crawl beneath them. I just want to lie here and drift away.
His headache was still going strong, and he began to wonder if he would even be able to fall asleep. He shut his eyes and tried to focus on the tranquil noise of the diminishing thunder in the distance.
But he couldn't sleep. He could feel his headache churn his brain. Small pulses of pain kept beating against his forehead continuously…like iron drumsticks hammering against his skull. They just wouldn't stop. The pain was getting more and more intense, spiking with every beat of his heart. He began gasping violently for air and opened his eyes wide, wanting to bang his skull against the wall again and again until it cracked open and bled out the pain. He tried to put his hands on his head, but it was difficult to move them. Suddenly, another type of pain emerged within his brain. It was almost as if a spear were piercing through his mind, cutting through every thought and every memory on its way. The pain was so intense he wanted to scream, but not a word came out.
Something had spawned deep within his mind. A sound. But he couldn't make out what it sounded like. It was too vague, hiding as a background noise and covered beneath the curtain of pain that was still aching inside his head. The sound became clearer as each second passed by. He could hear it. It was a voice, husky and deep. The nature of his voice made each last letter of each word echo within his mind, like someone whispering in a dark, narrow tunnel.
I am the Midnight Star, let me in. I am the Void Pathogen, let me in. I am the Gamma Ray Thunder, let me in. Let me in, let me in…I am in.
Adrian Cross. Pursuer of truths, digging into the stories that lie buried beneath the sands of time, an outsider peeking from behind the curtains and beyond the context of time. Yet you live in the shadow of the greatest truth of all, a reality that shades your own reality. Camouflaged like dark crystalline out of space, wrapped in the machinery of the Makers, you are blind to it. Blind to grasp it, blind to hold it, blind to feel it. I know you, Cross. I know your ambitions, I know your deepest desires, and more importantly, I know that you are too curious to decline the offer I am about to make.
Secrets are for those who can keep them. This is not a secret. Your world, your England, your very history is all soon going to be no more. The shades will fall and make you blind, the sands will swallow and make you drown, the chaos will consume and tear you apart. Everyone you ever cared for will be washed away in the tides of war, burned to cinder by arsonists, choked by the hands of forces you do not even know exist. The end of days is coming, and you cannot fight it until you remove the blindfold and start seeing the world as it truly is.
The enemy of my enemy is an echo of universal truth that persists without diminishing ever so slightly. And so, I will help you remove the blindfold. I will help you cancel the coming apocalypse. I will help you to not only understand the construct of the universe, but to grasp it, mold it, expand it. Follow my guiding whisper in the dark and save those you care for from the impending war that is to come. And do not question who or what I am because you would not even be able to comprehend it until I decide that the time is right.
Each word the voice spoke to him made his headache worse. He tried to awaken himself, shaking his head back and forth, naively thinking it would help, yet it didn't. Adrian knew that he had to wake up or snap out of it somehow. But the darkness sustained, and the husky voice continued.
Your struggle is like an infant pushing a boulder. Like an eroding shoreline against the volatile ocean. Like time against the ceasity of man. You try to resist. It is only natural. I am an intruder in your mind, a dark spectacle in your room of mirrors, a shadow to your light. When you wake, you will deny my intrusion, deny my spectacle, deny my shadow. Deny me, then expect me. Expect me again.
Face the reality as it truly is and rewrite history as it truly happened. Embrace my aid and protect those you care for. Because when the flames of hell fall upon you and the screams of a thousand souls horror your heart, there will be no god, no devil, no man, to save you!
Adrian woke up, gasping madly for air. It was as if his lungs had collapsed, and he feverishly tried to get the air back into his body. His face was covered in a thick layer of sweat, his mouth was completely dry, and his heart was pounding against his chest like a sledgehammer. He tried to sit up, but his muscles wouldn't obey him, and he was stuck in the bed, paralyzed and petrified.
Snap out of it, Adrian!
Slowly, he began to breathe forcefully through his nostrils; then just as slowly, he would breathe it out of his mouth. After doing it a couple of times, he became more relaxed and his heart decelerated to a calmer rhythm. He had regained control of his body, but his mouth was still dry like a desert. Staggeringly, he got up from the bed and limped out to the kitchen, but struggled to control his muscles, tripping over himself over and over again. Finally, he managed to open the faucet and pour water down his throat as if his mouth was on fire.
As his lips left the stream of cold water, he couldn't help but think about the unusual dream. Besides the fact that the dream itself was painful and unpleasant, it was odd for him to even dream…he hadn't had a dream in over three years, or at least one he could remember. The therapy he had undergone to cure his sleep-paralysis had been working every night for such a long time now. His nights were nothing but emptiness. Except this night. This night was different for some reason. He poured a glass of water, walked into the living room, and placed himself firmly in his couch, knowing that he needed time to think and that he couldn't do that in his bedroom.
Every word that had been said was clear to him, as if someone had just said the words right in the very room he was in. Dreams were rarely this clear. The images were but the words…the words never were. Yet this time, it was the other way around. He remembered no images…only the words that had been spoken to him. The echoing whispers. But that voice…
Of course! I knew something sounded familiar. A few days earlier, when the headaches had just begun, he had experienced something unusual. A flash of light had burst before his eyes, leaving him blind for a second. In that very moment, where everything he could see was nothing but a bright light, he had heard a sound. A vague whisper. Yet it had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He had thought it had been caused by his headache…but the voice he had heard and the voice that had spoken to him just minutes ago…they seemed similar somehow. But he couldn't figure out if they were one and the same. Just that they are familiar in one way or another.
Adrian turned his attention to the sky. He wasn't a religious person…at least not anymore. Maybe it was just a dream and his imagination was running wild after seven weeks of hard work and constant headaches. But even after hundreds of nights where his sleep-paralysis had created living nightmares inside his mind, there was no experience that had ever been as unpleasant as what he had just endured. Never had a dream caused him any physical pain. Never has one of my dreams seemed so…unlike a dream.
Another booming thunderclap sounded in the sky, and his focus shifted back to the real world. He realized he had been holding his glass of water tight this entire time, making his hand uncomfortably cold and moist. The clock above the couch pointed at 1:30 a.m. It had been thirty minutes since he woke up. He could continue thinking about it and not get any sleep or go to bed and get some well-deserved rest. Choosing the latter, he raised himself from the couch and began marching toward the bedroom, which seemed dark and far away now. Maybe a cup of tea, just to calm his nerves. He combed through his hair, his nails biting into his flesh. Maybe he would skip the tea. Either it was a dream…or his first step into a madman's life filled with paranoia and husky voices telling him nightmarish stories before bedtime. He laughed a bit for himself, not knowing if he was actually serious while thinking those thoughts.
But as he approached his bedroom, a sharp pain in his brain cringed him to his knees. He mustered all his will and forced himself up, but now the voice returned, more husk and dire than previously.
"Dreams are for those who never dare to achieve. You never dream. You are beyond the walls of sleep. Your nights are an empty void, yet I make your emptiness no more with just a flick of my power. Are you not aspiring something greater, reaching out behind the veil, grasping against the unknown? Why belittle your own intellect by excluding the obvious? Yet I expected your defiance. Like a mongrel howling against its master, you are on a leash, chained to the words that I slip through the void. Your mind is but a closed cellar, my words are the waters that flood your cell and drown you while you try to wrestle off your shackles."
"Let me show you. Let me show you the tides of truth that will flood the world. If your desire to uncover the truth is not sufficient to believe my words, then let me show you. Let me expose the screams of the blindfolded ones that will echo throughout the halls of eternity."
Suddenly, thousands of voices pierced his head, screaming out the most horrifying screams he had ever heard, making him wish his eardrums would be scratched away and his head bleeding out. The pain intensified and he could feel he once again had lost control of himself. The horrifying sounds of men and women crying started to fill his mind, taking over all other thoughts. Images of thousands of corpses lying scattered around a destroyed city started to flash before his eyes. He closed his eyelids to keep them out, but the images turned to a vision of the Elizabeth Tower being ripped apart and crashing over London. The unsettling images and the continued screams that wouldn't be silenced caused him to drop his glass, shattering it to pieces. He pushed his hands against his ears and his body crashed into the wall behind him, but the screaming just intensified, causing him to fall backwards into the couch. Suddenly, the voices changed. The screams. I recognize the screams! His mother. His father. Malcolm. The screams of his dearest howled through his mind, howling his name, then turned into other voices. A girl. Another girl. A child. He couldn't recognize them, but their screams sounded more real than anything he had ever heard. He tried to control the voices, but nothing worked. Powerless to repress them, he only felt himself turn the screams of his dearest into screams of his own loud enough for every person in the building to hear.
"Make it stop!"
Then, all the sudden, the voices went silent. He opened his eyes and the images started to disappear as well. Once again, he was alone inside his head. He breathed out heavily through his mouth, but then he noticed something strange. Inside his mind, a memory had appeared. A memory, which was not his. It contained information about some place… in Greece? His head started to spin, and he felt as if it was about to explode like a bomb. His stomach stirred and he rushed into the kitchen, bent his head over the sink and opened his mouth. The acid burned its way up as it left his throat. It only lasted a few seconds. He opened the faucet and washed his mouth with fresh, cold water. As the water rinsed his beggar's breath, he noticed something else. His headache… was complete gone.
What the hell is happening here? This doesn't make any sense. This is not normal!
He rushed into his bedroom with little regard to the shattered glass on the floor. He got his smartphone out of his trousers and dialed the last person he had called. There was no time to waste. But the damn man was slow at picking up the phone and the waiting felt like an eternity, before finally, the line was answered on the other end.
"You'd better have a damn good excuse for waking me up at this hour." Malcolm yawned on the other end.
"We h-have to… leave for Greece… immediately!" Adrian was stuttering, only now realizing how speech impaired he had become.
"Cross…" Malcolm trailed off, not answering for a second or two. The man was thinking so loud he could hear it through the phone. "Cross, whenever we follow one of your stupid ideas, you know I'm all game. Hell, our last trip to Plovdiv ended up blasting balls. But now?"
"I – I can't explain that to you now," Adrian said. "Something… something strange has happened to me."
There was a short silence on the phone. He wondered what Malcolm was thinking. It was an insane proposal to make, but the marked location inside his head was burning clear, branded into his main frame. The coordinates, the location, the surroundings. It was as if he had been there before.
"Cross, please… just go back to sleep and we can continue this conversation tomorrow," Malcolm said, sounding a bit worried. "You sound a bit on edge."
"I am on edge!" Adrian yelled in frustration. He didn't mean to yell at him. Why did he do that? What was happening to him? Once again, there was silence, but this time, he didn't know what to make of it. He couldn't remember the last time he had ever yelled at Malcolm, or even yelled at anyone at all. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on what he wanted to say.
"I will explain everything to you once we are in the air," Adrian continued.
"Why can't you explain it to me over the phone?" Malcolm asked.
"Because if I did you wouldn't believe me," Adrian said. "You need to hear this, face-to-face. Otherwise, you might think I've just had a nightmare."
"I know you don't have nightmares anymore Cross," Malcolm said. "But whatever it was, can't it wait until tomorrow? I mean, we´re talking about Greece here."
Adrian thought about it. It was a lot to ask of him. And they were both poor sods. But he had this odd feeling inside of him that told him they should leave for Greece now. Time was of the essence. On the other hand, it was late, and Greece was far away. Malcolm had the right not to be pulled into whatever this was. I will wait till tomorrow.
"Ah!" Cross exclaimed. His head began to hurt. Bad. As if someone was pinching his skull with an iron plier, squeezing harder with every passing second. "Malcolm, I – "
"Cross?" Malcolm's voice was blurred on the other end. He was mumbling something, but the words didn't make it through. His world was a swirl of grey colors and numbing pain. For some time, he didn't know what was and what wasn't. He faded in and out of reality, landing somewhere in the space between spaces. Malcolm had been gone for a long time, if time was even a construct. All the while, the words of the entity rung like a harrowing echo in his mind. I am the Midnight Star, let me in. I am the Void Pathogen, let me in. I am the Gamma Ray Thunder, let me in.
"Cross!" he heard a voice shout. More than that. He could feel his body being shaken. Suddenly, he was back in his apartment. Malcolm had a firm grab around his shoulder, still shaking him slightly. What happened?
"Malcolm…" Adrian slowly got to his senses. He was in his apartment. Same place where he had called Malcolm, but now Malcolm was here? "When did you get here?"
"I took a damn cap the moment you stopped answering!" Malcolm said. "Barmy me, I was worried about you. Nearly called the doctor too but realized she probably wouldn't have the keys to your place."
It was like waking up from a nightmare. His mouth was dry, and he could only see half the lines in his room. It was still dark outside. His head was slow, aching just the same as it did before. The picture was still clear before him. And the voice still lingers.
"Malcolm…" Adrian said. "I still see it. My head hurts. I remember every word. This doesn't feel like a dream. A dream doesn't knock you out, it wakes you up."
"Well," Malcolm said, helping Adrian getting to his feet. Malcolm being the big guy that he was, it probably wasn't much different for him than lifting a child. Or one of those chicks that would often find him attractive. "Why don't we let a professional take a look at you first?"
"You mean a doctor," Adrian stated.
"Aye," Malcolm said. "If the doctor doesn't know what's wrong, then Greece may just be back on the table."
Adrian scoffed. "Greece was never off the table."
"Damn right," Malcolm said, giving him a scolding look. "Because it was never on it to begin with."
"But you said – "
"I know what I bloody said," Malcolm interrupted. "Now stop being a cunt, get some sleep and we'll go see your doctor first thing in the morning."
Adrian nodded. He was right. Something was off, and the doctor was a good place to start. He neither had the time nor the money to carelessly throw himself into something new. That something made him feel anxious. The type that made him shiver with dread. The type that made him feel cold and unsafe. He knew he didn't have to ask, yet he still heard himself say: "Malcolm… will you please stay?"
Malcolm was already pulling out the rugged blanket from underneath the couch. Dust from the old thing made the big man cough a few times. Poor guy, I haven't vacuumed in months. Malcolm then placed himself in an odd position to fit in the far too small couch and hugged the blanket to cover at least half his body. His friend gave him a worried look. "The fact that you feel like you have to ask me," he said. "What the hell happened to you, my friend?"
Adrian staggered wearily into his bedroom, only a thin wall separating them. He got back underneath his duvet, clutching it like a scared toddler, trying his best to comfort himself. Yet he still felt the tears leave the sockets of his eyes, with no way to stop them.
"I don't know," he said, sobbing lowly.