Chapter IV
3:47 am
Lieutenant Schneider,
I walked, crawled, wept, stumbled, and fell,
I clawed my way, wept once more but this time used my tears to seal some of the bleeding cracks on my lips, stumbled down craters, and fell down on one knee.
My feet felt numb and so did the rest of my body. I gently dropped Captain Rio and leaned him beside a wrecked tank as did I.
The clouds ever darker, I fear no light may even pierce nor leave from it, I looked back at my captain---he who barely show life now gives me his.
Tears came out bursting my face with life, now bloody carcasses levitated off the ground and so did burned down vehicles even crashed parts of a plane.
I moved my fingers little by little to make a fist as water continues to flood all the way down my neck.
I clenched my teeth as hard as I could tasting the bitterness that rivered up on my cheeks, I closed my eyes hoping that everything that came to be was none at all---in times of despair, I denied and yet believed what could not be.
I punched my head as silly as I looked, I couldn't care less for no one was there to see. Frustrated and in rage I didn't know what to do and where to take it out on, I had none to blame---I only have myself.
I punched the tank that I leaned on, pounded the floor, stood on my knees, and screamed as loud as I could using up the energy left in me in a fit of rage.
I crashed on my back laying naked on the field of rubles. Helplessly I stared high in the clouds, from the corner of my sight, before everything was about to go dark there I saw a flicker of light.
Again I stood on my knees but this time filled not with rage but with wonder. The blue starlight lit once more in the form of butterflies flying altogether as one. My arm extended as my eyes poured no more, the blue starlights flew from above towards the Eiffel tower.
A beacon of hope showed in the most crucial of times, and there---I followed. I carried my captain once again and this time ran my way towards the tower oblivious of my surroundings and the danger it brings.
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3:47 am
The closer I got the louder the thunder-struck, there was a rush and complete certainty in each step I took. There was, this pressure---that gravitated as I reach the epicenter, and a definite force that lore me---as if it wants me...
By the time I was close enough to admire its spectacle as a whole---my body started to hover as well. I tightened my grip furthermore on my captain fearing that he might levitate away in a flick of my finger similar to all the carcasses that flew as if they were leftovers from a wreckage in space.
Finally, I bathed in a dark hue of blood-red upon reaching the most bottom part of the Eiffel tower and so did my captain. I felt collapsing, falling short on one knee, but I could simply not, not when I'm this close to the staggering blue starlights.
In a distance, I saw a staircase that leads nowhere but up. The entirety of the dark mist-like entity hovered in one phase but this time, they fell flat on the floor---failing to float higher than my knees. I managed my way up the staircase as I hear last the fleeting screams from the mist.
Going further up made everything feel heavy---and now I wonder if the earth is slowly crashing down on me or whether it's the other way around.
The staircase went on, and on, in circles of nothing but a hue of red and the reverberating sound that the tear in space made.
It grew larger and beyond, that horrifying image in space was completely nothing, nothing but sound, a call? a summon? a cry? I didn't understand. I don't think I even wanted to understand.
The crackling of thunder was louder than ever, it felt like a ravaging beast pounding on the door, awaiting for its prey to appear right before it.
Higher the staircase led, I could barely breathe nor did my legs felt. I didn't even realize that my fingers suffered from frostbite and that I was shivering along with my lips. I moved slower than ever but none the less still fueled with hope, a hope that's enough to spark at least a kindle in my soul to keep me moving.
"H...h...h...hang...in there, cap. We're almost...there." I struggled to spat out as I continue to carry him over my shoulder.
Alas, what felt like decades, now liberates me. Upon reaching the top I roughly laid down my captain and quickly fell flat on the red glowing floor. Every bone and every muscle surely died already even before making it halfway up here.
What felt like a broken piece of a man---a man left for dead, a bent, dismantled, and deteriorated man. I felt, all---but all wasn't enough for me to feel for I'm already a dead man walking.
I've reached the point where little could my feet move, I couldn't feel them at least not now. My vision wondered from left to right, and I was left speechless upon realizing what this place was. It was an auditorium, a small one---flourishing rich in bright red, it was the auditorium where I got married in secret to the love of my life before she...
Dumbfounded I were, sitting upright on the floor as heartache almost submissions my heart to stop, barely it beats.
I wanted to weep, feeling helpless at this twisted, upside-down, convoluted place. But tears were not there, there was no water, only pure regret, agony, torment, and sadness---I wept with no sound nor tears not because I didn't want too, but for my body and soul couldn't make any of it happen.
The roar of thunder was no more, but I can feel its rage as it continues to smite the top of the tower which is where I lay now. Slowly, I clawed my way in front of it all to feel---to reminisce---to go back.
As I crawled my way at the center of the room, a pair of hands rolled me over my back, and in those arms, I felt warmth, comfort, at peace.
That person whose arms belonged too, cradled my head---as if it knows what I've been through, what I've heard, what I felt.
My eyes widened as tears dropped down on my face, tears not of bitterness and anguish, but of joy and sweetness.
"My sweet little soldier, ow how you've grown." I couldn't believe, I shouldn't, but I could, and I would.
With no words to spare I wrapped my arms around her as tight as I could, I've never felt this much warmth and passion since the day I lost her.
My whole body trembled even my very sanity, but not because I feared nor I had yet again fallen for another twist in the dread line, but simply because I couldn't contain myself from doing so.
I wanted to cry, I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to let her know one more time that I love her but words went array, they were formless and could never express what I'm feeling at this very moment.
All I could do---was hug her, as she continues to pour down tears than happens to soothe my soul, my entire being.
Her grace of a hand brushed through both of my filthy cheeks. She wanted me to look at her as I did, her wide invigorating smile completely demolished the pain and suffering of my heart.
She glowed in blue starlight as her eyes remained the shade of hazel, it burned me, cleansed me, and revived me.
Her smile fueled hope within me as even did her glance. She touched my palm open as I surrendered myself entirely to her, then placed a sphere large enough to cover my hand whole: there were carvings that I didn't recognize at all, symbols that were alien to my knowledge.
I closed my eyes and immediately felt the fiery sensation that made brittle of my bones, I felt her lips lightly kissing my forehead---again tears dripped down on my face as it revitalized my sunken face into life. "No matter where you find yourself in, I will always guide you my love."
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3:47 am
As soon as my eyelids were brought to life, she was gone. The bright blue starlight dispersed as did her, but the strange sphere remained whole and intact. While I was closely examining its features tears came bombarding my vision, there was no bitterness nor regret anymore, only the light of her memory.
A sudden jolt made me slide back to where I once crawled, The auditorium bursts in red glowing flame as the tower finally gave in from the wrath that swirled from above. there was barely even a roof to shelter in, and everything leaned back to the left.
It's falling! I quickly realized. I hopped and lumped my way to the captain where he lay next to the staircase this time leading all the way down back to where I came. I carried him over my shoulder once more but before I could make a sprint I heard her voice---calling for me.
A wholesome entity covered in menacing black yet form the heavens in its gleaming astral manifestation with the figure of my dearest beloved, but had no face nor mouth, her embodiment and presence were enough to captivate millions of stars and both heaven and hell itself.
She hovered and walked through empty space, everything she touches turns into a part of her and even leaving a trail of her astral formation.
A mere man like me couldn't resist such a being, I did not know what she is nor her intentions, all I knew is that she calls for me. My body, completely paralyzed---completely frozen---completely helpless, She walked through blazing starlight that burns a billion galaxies away yet still bright enough to shine in the eyes of another.
Closer she came, I the captivated, I the vulnerable stared regardless of the situation---but this "situation" this place, was second from this being that now stood in front of me. The thunder dare not to smite it, the dark echoing mist dare not to touch it.
It extended its arms towards me and in an instant blew me away with such force. I didn't feel pain only the force itself, the force was enough to completely tore the tower in half and everything else with it.
I held my captain and braced myself for thunder ate the metal away and dark twisted, painful melodies wailed from below, the mist widdled its way up the falling Eiffel tower.
With nothing else to do, I closed my eyes and prayed that I may be delivered back to my beloved. I was breathing intensely as I place a firm grip on my captain.
Even with my eyes closed, I saw a brightness like never before and felt the dense mist closing in as if it was chasing after me. I was falling and I didn't know how high nor knew that I was already in motion, all I knew was that my heart skipped multiple beats as I flew off the top of the tower.
I heard the voices, the screaming, I felt it all over my skin. There I saw, I saw. Humanities inevitable extinction. It was the ripple in space, it grew as far as my eyes could see. Metal debris from the tower as the tower itself had fallen from grace and into this anomaly.
It made no sound, no baren touch, no light, no pain, no anger, no turmoil, no chaos, no assurance, no joy, no pleasure, no warmth, no comfort, no love, no hate, no order, no balance, no life, nor death.
It is simply is---and will be, and soon humanity will face this "threat" or so they will assume, but nothing will come of it. Emptiness, bare, and hollow will be the greatest threat of all existence, no, human nature itself will be our downfall.
The astral entity got farther and farther as I fell deeper. The Eiffel tower fainted in its glow and hue of red, I barely saw my captain as my body stiffens. A cold comfort welcomed me in its embrace.
I started to understand, It's calling me.