“There are loved ones in the glory
Whose dear forms you often miss.
When you close your earthly story,
Will you join them in their bliss?”'
- Ada R. Habershon
The midnight sun is giving a gentle kiss upon the home below. The moon gives a miniscule light to the waiting package below. A complicated fate taped up inside a simple cardboard box. A fate of bright blue. The shadowy figure gives a knock at the door and quickly flees into the night. The cursed happenings of the wider universe shall at last meet the waking women after all these long years.
The crunching sound of metal.
The million lights coming from a million directions.
The sounds of screaming and then the deafening sound of silence.
She would survive but some won’t
Four in the morning. Who could have knocked on her door at such an hour? Her girlfriend, barely disturbed by the sound, had already drifted back into the deep pleasantness of sleep after an annoyed grunt in response to the rude awakening. Mae Sighed at the apathy.Though she could hardly complain considering Syd was the one with a stable paycheck around here. Getting up she groggily made her way to the living room flicking on light switches as she did. It could be another creditor trying to squeeze payments out of them or a person whose car broke down on the nearby road. Either way she already made a mental note to make herself some coffee. She wasn’t going back to sleep after this. When she didn’t see anyone through the eyehole she swung open the door. A single package sitting on the welcome mat. Hesitant but intrigued she yanks the cheap starch tape and pulls the box open. She falls to her knees looking a thousand yards away at its contents.
Syd wanted to call the police. Those men could be responsible. The persons who must not be named could be responsible. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if they are. Mae just sat on the couch lost in memory. After a loving embrace Syd left for work. As soon as heard the car driving Mae almost instantly got up and lit the fireplace. She wanted this thing gone. The teddy bear of her childhood. Lost the very night her parents died violently in that car-wreck. She didn’t want to think of any of this. She just needed this bear to be nothing. Anything to keep what lies in herself from rising to the surface. She picked up her bear and her face contours in a certain blind hatred. In the last second before Mae can burn this memory away she hears a clink. She looks to the ground and sees that a key has fallen out one of the worn-out teddys many holes. A blue built-in emblem in key laid there shining in the light of the nearby fire.
Therapist after Therapist. Social worker after social worker. They tried to reach her but barely scratched the surface. There was an emptiness in her that could never be filled. A heart-ache that can never go away only to be numbed by life’s many distractions. The most they could do is help her with her gender questioning and, later on, her transition. Taking her Mother’s maiden last name: Mae.
Eventually she got her GED and lived in her late parent’s house. She was Lonely and kept to herself that is until she met Sydney. The one who saved her. The one whose warmth keeps her soul from freezing over. The one she will someday marry. Syd’s smile, her skin, her heavenly voice. Even if Mae has not yet escaped from it Syd had cracked the shell she was in.
She rarely came anywhere near the basement. Out of all the places in the house this hurt the most. Some of Mae’s fondest memories of her father were down here. She would sit and watch with a curiosity at his carpentry skills. She would paint the birdhouses he built with his own two hands. A hardworking loving father. And she was his little champ.
She swatted away those distant recollections and her tears as she walked up to her father’s old chest. An ancient almost-decrepit brown and black storage chest. Was probably not even built in the twentieth century. There was just one thing different about it that set it apart from what one might find at a pawn shop or a thrift store. A shining crystal blue emblem on it’s old lock. Not sure what to expect from inside, she unlocked the dusty thing. She screams as she is hit by a blinding white light.
This feeling hits here every so often. The feeling of being watched. The feeling of not being alone when you, by all accounts, are alone. This creeping feeling of dread.All of it started when the drunk driver and his bastard buddy went missing when both of them were both out after serving their manslaughter sentences. Disappearing into thin air. Were they after her now? Did they want to take out their anger on her? How they acted in the courtroom showed how terrible they were as human beings. Men in only the broadest sense of the word. Now she felt someone following her. Somethings following her. Sometimes when she was walking away from a bus stop or just on a walk she felt a presence behind her. Only to look around her and see nothing.
She thought that she may have gone mad.
Was something really there?
As she returned to the waking world she felt the unbearable cold gnawing at her body. She opened her eyes to find herself half covered in snow. Shocked, She takes in the environment around her. She takes in the unbelievable around her. No longer was she in any part of the midwest. She is but a tiny spec in a large valley. Winged bat-like monstrosities flying overhead in the basking daylight. Shivering and her lower half near numb she got up hoping against all odds that this was merely another night terror.
She was forced out of her trance by a large insectoid quickly approaching her out of a predatory hunger. It’s many many razor sharp teeth wanting to be sunk into her warm, delicious flesh.
She saw it.
In all of its impossibility it was in front of her.
During a manic episode Mae went outside into the nearby park.
Not caring about her own safety.
Not caring about anything at all.
In the middle of the dark she witnessed its alien presence.
An all black humanoid creature.
With one giant pupiless eye.
Before she had time to react it was happening.
For a brief millisecond it was no longer all black.
In the very physical fabric of this being, in it’s full body there was a window into the greater cosmos.
In that millisecond the secrets of all the unknown made themselves known to her.
All of it’s secrets, mysteries, and purposes were all hers.
Every ugly detail.
Every horrible revelation.
She would end up remembering none of it.
Her head pounded in pain.
She blacked out and was found half-asleep the next day by a jogger.
She is out of breath, feet in terrible pain, and her teeth chattering to no end. But she is alive. The beast gave up the chase after finding it too much effort to catch her. She wanders through the trees hoping to find some semblance of civilization. Hopelessly trying to find any kind of town or road. The sounds of those hideous animals in the distance gave her some extra adrenaline. With the sun going down she knows she is quickly running out of time.
And it is on that train of thought in which she stumbles upon the church.
Its blue stained glass windows greeting her.
The prosecutors were disgusted, Mae’s aunt was disgusted, and the Judge himself didn’t even bother to hide his contempt for the two men.
They had taken two human lives from this earth.
They had orphaned a child.
And they didn’t show any real remorse for their actions.
Even their own public defenders wanted to wash their hands of them.
They had the book thrown at them but even the judge felt like it wasn’t enough.
One of them even gave a casual smile to the wider room during proceedings.
The dual moons hovering in the sky brought some minor light to an otherwise pitch dark atmosphere. Having barricaded most of the doors and windows by a random assortment of pews and chairs Mae is sitting silently in the corner. Back against the wall and arms around her knees. The loud curious thumps of god knows what just outside and there she sits thinking of everything. Craving the warmth of her bed and the touch of her Syd. Wanting nothing more for this nightmare to finally be over.
A quick flash of blue light appeared across the room.
After shielding her eyes for a moment she glances over.
Standing there were black humanoids.
Two of them.
Two of those one eyed things.
The Starry men.
Thinking quickly she gets up and runs to the backrooms of the church. The Starry men following slowly behind.
Has it been decades?
Has it been centuries?
Has it been thousands of years?
Millions?
Either way it did not matter.
They had finally found her.
Every book on the shelves is that of no recognizable language. Each painting of the wall, while having a religious quality to it, doesn't depict humans as we know them. With the doors held shut by the bookcase Mae is in the dark once more. Not even moonlight there to guide her.
The Bastards.
These had to be the men that killed her parents with their own recklessness.
And left her as the mess of the person she is today.
And they are here for her to finish the job they started.
Now this time as something much much worse than they were.
In this cursed land death follows her. In these valleys of fear her sanity drains. Monsters both inhuman and once-human desires her blood. Maybe she should give up. Let them finish the job. Let the Starry men take her and do what they may to her. A miserable end to a miserable life. Tears stream down her face. Her mind thought about Sydney. Her mind thought about all the things she would not get to do and may have never been meant to do.
Her mind thought about her parents.
The short and wonderful time she had with them.
Each careful touch and patient smile.
The afternoons her mother played the most beautiful sounds on her piano.
The evenings where her dad would grill hotdogs for dinner.
Each Christmas with toys and wonderfully annoying carols.
Will she get to see them again?
It is now she notices something moving in the darkness.
They told the babysitter they were going into a late-night worship. This wasn’t technically incorrect.
It is just not any religion of this earth.
But for one much older and much more all-consuming.
It’s eyes are opening.
The pupil-less eye of pure evil.
For Mae it is finally over. She is too tired. Too worn out. Too cold. And has been far too depressed for far too long. Far too lost for far too long. It hovers over her and she can only close in her anticipation of oblivion.
It’s hands grab her head.
Before she can let out a scream a voice comes to her.
A voice all too familiar. A voice she hasn't heard in so long.
“Hello Honey”.
Mom?
These weren’t the men who killed her parents.
These were her parents.
Another eye opens in the darkness. Her dad.
“We wanted to contact you from the beyond for so long. But only now has our lord permitted us.”
Mae gave no verbal reply. Just rushed over and hugged them. Even if they were much different from what she remembers, these were no doubt her loved ones. After a moment of reunification her mom speaks.
“Don’t worry. We will explain everything”.
The stars of distant galaxies and planets of different realms appeared upon their figures.
By the following morning Mae had long trekked far from the church. Her eyes wide open with rarely a blink. Her soul is a mere fraction of what it once was. But, fortunately or unfortunately, there was something else, something far more unholy, growing within her. She stood at the now clearly visible mountain overlooking the land.
Of course now she knew it wasn’t really a mountain.
It’s canine heads howled loudly, piercing her ears without a single inch of mercy.
A million tentacles protruding from a million different holes on its body wiggles in celebration.
Hundreds of it’s winged servants flew around it in an arcane spectacle of a forgotten time.
Mae fell onto her hands and knees in submission to her new dark lord.
For now and likely until her death, Mae lives with a newfound smugness in her life. She of course hides behind a veneer of social acceptability and warmth but she knows it’s all merely a ruse. One meant To hide her own contempt for the pointlessness of the human world. Everyone in this stupid society lives with inflated egos and foolishly acts with sense of importance in their everyday tasks. It’s futility amuses her for she knows what awaits this race of pathetic brutes.
As Syd goes on and on about trivial matters in their conversation , Mae hopes that when the time comes Syd would bask in the beauty of her lord and join her in the glory of the stars. That her love will not resist it’s power like she initially had. That they can be together for countless millennias like her parents have and will. That this family of the infinite will live in grace. Forever as one in the color blue.
“Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, by and by?
Is a better home awaiting
In the sky, in the sky?
Written by AudreyOwO
Content is available under CC BY-SA