Strands

It gets one thinking back at those moments prior. From what you've been taught through your life until now, the truths that we have used to push forward with a set purpose in mind, a purpose with several drives. One can find purpose through an urge, a strong want for something more, something that broadens the wast horizons that your very eyes feast upon, I know that I've felt it and I still feel it to some extent, but another drive lies within the concept of something true itself, something to stabilize the web in front of you, a web shrouded in mystery, lies, betrayal, and deception. My sister taught me that way, it taught me to be unbiased and stable in many situations, it gave me the ability to trust again and find people that could stay true to each other, people building a structure, little worlds for themselves, but most importantly, the way taught me how to stay strong in the times when it mattered, those fleeting moments that could shred the worlds that me and my close ones built.

It was the 25th of June, 2009, the rain was pouring, banging towards every surface sending its liquid strands down into the gutter below. I was sitting comfortably in the living room couch reading from a book that I had lent from my older sister Emma, I believe it was Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The rabbit hole, the Cheshire cat, the mad hatter, the queen of hearts garden, all of it, a world of fantasy, based on very real and sinister concepts, it was a world I just plunged into while the rain kept pounding away at the outer shells of my home keeping me slightly aback from a full dive into the presented story in front of me. But it wasn't just the rain that kept me from immersing completely, I've had this nagging feeling since the very start of that rainy day, at the very conception of morning, something cold, wet, and chilling clinging within you while slowly climbing up your spine screaming an omen of something to come, something that I know could only describe as dark.

While I've been reading, tormented by that foreboding feeling my younger brother Jonas had been playing across the room from me right by the glass pane sliding door leading out to the porch drenched in the downpour, that cute blonde toddler playing with his tiny toy trucks, turned three just a few weeks ago, he was so innocent and adorable, as kids his age tends to be, his laughter was ringing through the living room, then it came, a silence isolated by the downpours encore, it was the silence that completely tossed me out of the focus and immersion I had spent most of that day to create, as an escape from that entity churning deep within, then came that single word, he was standing there looking into something in the storming evening, "Outside", standing up from the couch I rushed through the room in ten steps looking through the drench of the dark storm, and there she stood. Rigid and still, yet out of nowhere she was standing there in the middle of the street looking at the pouring sky unblinking, June.

It was like a tiny explosion, just a tiny portion of the dreadful realization, I remember yelling out to mom right before I threw the sliding door open and ran outside barefoot into the drowning noise and cold embraces, I did not stop until I reached out and grabbed her shoulders her eyes, was a thousand-yard stare and blood flowing in tiny rivers from her nostrils and down her cheeks, she was mumbling incoherently at that time as well but it was one sentence that kept resurfacing something, I will never forget "he's here, cloaked in the wings of the dark storm". After many moments, or maybe just a few, dad came and carried her inside while mom called for the police and an ambulance. I never want to see her like that again, she still seemed partly conscious this time, I just hope that rest is all she'll need right now, but thinking back at that moment, knowing what I know about the world and its workings at this very moment, maybe I might be able to soon find the truth of that shattering event, and with that truth, closure for June. Only time will tell.

The assembly hall, what kind of situation is it? Or is it some form of test incoming? None of the other members are here, maybe they've already been briefed of the situation and moved out, or perhaps it was just about Junes introduction, no that still doesn't explain why I got called back when I just could stay with June or retire back to my own quarters for more research.

"Questenbaum, you will undergo a specific exercise today to prepare you for your coming tasks within the unit, you will accompany us to lab 3 where the exercise will take place". Lab 3? I wonder what might reside there maybe it's safe to ask?

"What is the exercise called and what will I do?" Sara just looked at me squarely, guess I won't know just yet.

"Follow my lead and I'll brief you when we get there"

Lab 3, wow, it is unlike anything I've seen in this facility yet, what I've entered seems to be a large dome, its center might measure 60 no perhaps 70 meters in height alone supported by an innumerable amount of arching steel beams vowed like strands keeping this massive structure together, the floors ridden with tubes and pipes, and in-between a complex net of colorful wires all leading to a dark ovoid structure in the middle of this intricate space, like a black egg dwarfing at least three regular houses.

"Here we are, the construct in the middle of this lab is called the observatory, you will be guided inside of it by the lab's personnel, and when you're inside we want you to just focus, and get relaxed, enough so you can "reach" out.". I know my own determination, they've probably picked up on it too.

"I will do what I got to do".