Chapter 518
The old woman, Nombeko, sat on the porch. 91 years on this earth, and she'd seen some things. Nothing like this, though. It was the silence.
The sun beat down in Harare, but nobody moved. Even the sounds of arguing kids were absent. Just that damn silence. Like someone just stopped life mid-sentence.
Her phone sat dead. No electricity for hours. She picked up a small, handheld fan and pushed the warm air around.
"What now, hey?" she muttered to no one. Her joints complained as she stood. She grabbed her purse and cane and set off for the store.
The road, usually full of life, was a dead man's smile. Cars sat with doors open. Empty and idle. Even the usual dust was still today.
"Hello?" Nombeko called out, her voice frail against the stillness. Only silence replied. It chewed on her already fragile nerves.
She reached the small store, usually a meeting place for anyone and everyone who needed anything. The door was ajar, swinging just a bit. Inside, the owner was frozen mid-laugh, holding a beer.
"Tatenda? What are you up to?" No answer, obviously. He just stood there. That idiotic grin and unblinking look. The stillness now had a sinister feel.
Nombeko walked further in. Everyone here looked the same. Eyes glazed, stuck mid-whatever. Frozen. It reminded her of some old statues she saw once in England.
A primal fear started. Something terrible had happened. Not just here. Everywhere. And her life depended on her next actions, at 91 years old.
She got some water and some bread. Her heart pounded. A whisper of some memory about an old African god who would bring order surfaced in her head. What did it mean?
Out on the street, the sun seemed to burn a hole in the world. Heat wasn't an issue, and the dead stillness grew more unbearable. What did she do now? She didn't feel safe.
"Anyone home?" she asked in her native tongue as she approached her house. Her dog usually reacted from the second she hit her driveway, today there was just the quiet again. She hated it.
"Mufaro, Mufaro, boy?" Her dog was on her bed, and just like all the rest he was still. His mouth wide, and mid-bark as he protected his owner. She sat on her bed next to him.
What could do this? It was the sort of questions that left her empty. Nombeko touched Mufaro's fur; even he felt cold now. Like everyone's life got snuffed.
Nombeko moved over to the radio, hoping it was all just some temporary issue, but it didn't react. She tried an old radio, one that ran on batteries, but not even static.
She could stay here, maybe things would change. Or not. This had to be the end of the world, right? What were the stories of those gods? Had they returned? Were they to blame?
"Nonsense," she murmured, dismissing those old tales. Yet, the eerie quiet, the frozen people—it didn't feel human. It felt like some other thing.
Nombeko ate some bread, washing it down with tepid water. Each bite felt like swallowing sandpaper, and she wondered why she still was moving and nobody else. It seemed unfair.
Then, she heard it—a sound, distant at first, but there. A low rumble, like a distant train. Or thunder. Maybe someone finally had something moving again. Relief didn't come though.
It was coming from above, and she hurried outside, her heart ready to crack her ribs. The sky, once a perfect blue, was turning strange. Like blood spreading through water, red streaks started mixing with blue.
Darker, heavier clouds began to form above, blocking the sun completely. She felt a presence; not like anything normal. It wasn't like death, but some strange type of power she didn't understand.
"Hello?" She felt insane to call out to clouds, but needed a reaction, a sign, anything. But this, in front of her? It felt like she stood before some judgment. And she felt small and useless against it.
The first bolt of lightning was not white but a thick, crimson red, and as it hit somewhere outside of Harare, she knew she would never feel like this was her city again, ever. She needed to escape, hide, live.
Nombeko, driven by a new primal survival sense, hurried to her old car in the garage, grabbing what was in the house quickly. She managed to pull the small car out the garage as another blast lit up the house behind.
She felt heat on her skin from it; even the glass window that shattered next to her didn't make a sound. As she put her old small Toyota in gear she felt it vibrate but it didn't make noise, neither did the road under the tires.
On her way out, heading to who knows where, maybe the small farm she owned far north, Nombeko passed many more frozen people. Stuck like pictures on a wall, a sight she wanted to run away from.
Out on the open road, the car coughed, struggling for breath, like everything else. The red hue in the sky was getting darker and now with an added purplish tone she only saw on bruised bodies.
"Come on, you piece of crap," Nombeko yelled at the car, hitting the steering wheel. A futile gesture, but she had to do something. Anything, besides this hell. It was some power in her body to feel, even if bad.
Another lightning strike hit not a hundred meters from the car, kicking up debris and making Nombeko swerve, yet, there was still no sound. The impact, the crash, the shattered asphalt—nothing. It was the silence she feared most.
As she regained control of the car, something she thanked God for, she saw something in the distance and pressed harder on the gas. Maybe it was another person, one still living, a sanctuary from her current madness.
As she came closer to the structure, it got taller and more intimidating, until a mountain rose up in front of her, the size of the old gods and their mythical legends she used to hear when she was a child.
"What the devil is this?" Nombeko felt herself shrink before this colossal form of living stone. This impossible figure rose from the ground. Her mind rejected what she saw, she tried blinking it away, and she closed her eyes, but it remained there.
When Nombeko got out of her car, the living statue spoke, the stone grinding against one another making sounds worse than nails on a board, and a pain in her chest forced her to the ground in agony.
"Human, you still function, you were chosen to prepare our work of perfect order." It rumbled a voice from before time, and the world shook at its words. More of these creatures appeared next to the first one, their bodies taking the full color spectrum and more.
"I am too old for this, please," Nombeko replied in the strongest way her failing heart could manage. The stone creatures looked at each other in what could only be considered to be amusement to an extent.
"Old, correct, it matters little. You can serve, explain how you did not follow the process. This planet will now be organized in true order, the others must not stay as they are now." The way these gods, she assumed they were, moved felt fluid yet hard at the same time.
She felt their attention; it wasn't human. More like a thing, it didn't care about her or even know what life and death were, it made her ill. What did they want with this world, what were they?
"We have our rules," she tried to explain, looking at their immense bodies, searching for any sign of emotion, finding nothing but her own end in their presence. They seemed so indifferent and unfeeling. "Your laws are wrong, we are here to re-organize into something greater." They said it with finality, they expected no more explanation and needed no acceptance from Nombeko.
Nombeko stayed with them, days, or hours, she didn't know. She never moved without their control; she showed them all they wanted to know, and how to work machines and electricity. The days mixed into a horrible fever dream, yet, the whole time the quiet, that awful absence of noise stayed with her.
As she explained what humans were about, trying to showcase that humans were a functioning, living species that could feel and love, the old gods didn't respond, they didn't see humans that way. It was cruel, it made her tired and sad.
In their plan to establish a new order, one she knew they would never explain, she knew humans were to become an organized part of that process. Maybe an ant colony, at best, some type of slave, it didn't sit right with her.
When she saw how they planned to 'fix' humans, she tried to scream, run, fight them. She threw her old small body between the humans and these cruel stone beings. The process was horrifying, inhumane, but that would mean nothing to them.
She saw how they turned her people into something she could only describe as soulless bodies. Like someone pulling a core out, but still working, it killed a bit of Nombeko every time she saw them change someone into these walking puppets.
Nombeko had failed, failed herself, failed everyone, she helped make this place of horrors, the pain kept building in her chest until one day when she walked by a river. It had never looked more calm, more beautiful.
It felt like some type of old invitation to an escape. "It can end, at least, for me." She moved forward and then sat on the bank; the water was as still as the air. She let her body slip in with no effort, to stop the feelings of failure, it just hurt her too much.
As the water covered her head, a faint sound started. She almost pushed back up, but she just waited and saw that above, one of the old gods approached. It stood there for what seemed like forever, watching. She stopped moving in a way only a person without hope could.
As she died, drowned, she heard something, just like when it had started, a small almost not there sound, from above. It wasn't natural or right, but something, some reaction was there.
A noise so terrible and so wonderful, all mixed together, and all at once. Not the horrible silence from before, no, her people and the world reacted to her, in full horrifying agony at once. Screaming as a dying Nombeko's eyes closed one last time.