Obsidian Series, Last day
By: Grisly silence

He ran, maniacal laughter spilling from his throat. It was his! Babbling incoherently, he ran, talking to himself, the stone in his hand, and to no on in particular. He raved about at last being happy. The voice said he must be happy. So he was happy.

He stumbled through the brush, tripping over rocks and branches. But he was always up again almost before he hit the ground. He was infected with an insane glee.

Somehow he knew he had been here before, a long time ago. In that desolate time in which he did not have the artifact. He didn’t know how he had survived without the love it gave him.

He hadn’t stopped running since the compound. The artifact had left the controller there. It said that that way, if any people came and discovered what had happened, they would think that the controller had done it. No one would come after them and try to separate them. They would be together. Forever.

He burst from the trees in a flurry of leaves and twigs. Before him was a wide desolate region where nothing lived. The voice whispered in his ear. It wanted him to avoid this place. It wasn’t safe here. It said that it was passable if one had numbers on one’s side, but that alone, it was suicide. He would die and never again see or love the artifact again. The horrible creatures would eat him and the artifact would not be able to stop them. It would lay there forever, lost, alone. He wept at the thought. He turned to go back into the trees.

Mihail.

He whirled. Standing a little bit off into the wasteland ahead was the woman.

Mihail, please come to me.

He took a step toward her. The voice screamed at him, but it was drowned out by a strange roaring sound deep inside him.

Mihail, I love you. If you don't come, it will be too late.

The sadness in the woman’s voice brought a sob that was more real than the weeping he had done for the artifact. He took another step.

Mihail, you must come. I know you are confused right now. You must listen, or you will lose everything.

He hung on her every word. Her name was on the tip of his tongue, her face so familiar and yet so strange. He should know her.

You are lost within yourself, Mihail. The thing you hold in your hands wants you to stay that way. If you come with me, I will show you the way.

He stared down at the black stone in horror. The voice was silent in a way that was more disturbing than what the woman was saying about it. He felt dazed. He felt like he was stranded on some boat in the middle of the ocean, alone and with no way to control his direction.

Mihail, please. I love you so much. I know you love me too, if you will only let yourself remember. Please remember, Mihail. Remember who I am. Remember who you are.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. His thinking felt so fuzzy. He couldn’t seem to form anything approaching coherent thought. Something stirred inside him. It was a pleasant feeling that rose up through his whole body. It felt like he had been under some huge weight, and that the weight had been lifted. He looked around again. He looked around and began to remember.

Mihail, I know you will come. When you are ready. You must come. Follow me. When you are ready, you will know why. Remember, I love you.

Mihail felt like he was waking from some long, horrible nightmare. He was kneeling in the sand at the edge of the barren waste Svyatoslav and he had crossed what seemed like so long ago. He stiffened with realization. Svyatoslav…betrayed him…he remembered. There was a hard weight in his hands. He looked down. The artifact. Gasping in horror, he dropped it and stood, backpedaling. He stared at it. Nothing happened. It lay gleaming dully, inert, unmoving.

Mihail glanced at the wasteland. He couldn’t see the woman. The woman…he still didn’t know her name. Too much was gone, irretrievable lost. It felt like half of his body had been cut off. He stared down at the artifact.

“You must come,” he whispered. “When you are ready, you will know why.” He suddenly recalled the conversation of the two scientists in the compound.

“I can’t believe we found it!”

“Where was it?”

“North-east of here. There were a bunch of dead men, some killed by guns and some hacked apart. There was no one around. They even found the guns.”

“Who were they?”

“The ones it took when it-“

They knew about it. How? How could they possibly have known? And that last part implied more, “The ones it took when it-“ Only one word seemed to fit. The ones it took when it escaped. They knew about it because it had come from that compound. They must have created it. And they found it again. But they underestimated its power. It could even subvert the mighty will of a controller.

He looked down at the evil thing with mounting dismay. How could man create something like that? For what purpose? As a weapon? An uncontrollable weapon was not a weapon at all, but a means of extinction.

But how…how had he been able to escape from its grasp at the last possible moment? Who was the woman? He struggled for her name, for who she was, but it wouldn’t come. Frustration overcame him. He wanted to scream. What was the point of surviving if he no longer remembered who he was? She was a part of his past, a past that was as blank as a clean sheet of slate. He could remember only a little of events from before when he met Svyatoslav. But it was different than before, when little pieces of memories would float away from the artifact’s grasp. This time, there was nothing. Past a certain point it was just black. Despair took him. Who was he? The woman knew.

Tears running from his eyes, he looked back up at the expanse of dead ground ahead, but his eyes caught on the stone. It began to draw him in. His eyes widened as its grip tightened once more. He fought back, screaming, and tore his gaze from the stone. Gasping for breath, he fell to the ground, sobbing. It was happening again. He couldn’t escape. Not only had the stone taken away his past, but also his future. And when he rotted away like the men from the compound, it would find someone else, someone else to keep it alive, to keep it moving to some unknown goal. How many lives would it ruin? How many men would die in its cold embrace? It would jump from person to person, systematically destroying those that created it.

When you are ready, you will know why. The woman’s voice seemed to echo inside his head. He was the only one here. The only one with a chance to stop the artifact. The only one with a precious hour, maybe less, in which to find away to get rid of it. He was the only one who could do anything about it. He could run and hide and try to get away, but when its grip closed around him in full force again, he would come back. He might never get this chance again. He could keep this from happening again, to someone else. He could try to erase man’s mistake.

He ignored the whispers in the back of his mind. They bore the hissing pain of the voice.

You must come. Follow me. When you are ready. He heard the words again. She had said those words before disappearing into the sands. The voice did not want him to go in there. It had said that to go in there was suicide. That it would be left alone after the beasts inside ate him. It would be left all alone. All alone with no one to control. Forever.

Mihail lurched to his feet. He was dead anyway. Perhaps something good could come out of his death. He stumbled forward and grabbed the stone. Touching it sent searing pain through his nerve endings. Moaning and twitching, he set his gaze forward, forcing himself not to look at it. Dust swirled up all around him, and took the option from him anyway.

All he could hope for was that the monsters inside wouldn’t kill him until he got to the middle. It would be harder to find in the middle. Just wait, he prayed. Wait until I get to the middle. Then you can have me.

He walked on and on, mumbling the woman’s words to himself to keep from listening to the rising torrent of screaming in the back of his mind. The artifact was getting desperate.

He closed his eyes since he couldn’t see anything anyway, and imagined the woman’s face. He tried to remember her name. When he still couldn’t, he just concentrated on tracing the contours of her face.

He didn’t know how long he walked. It was a long time. The roaring of the wind and the voice had reached such a fever pitch that they almost drowned each other out. It made it easier to ignore both. He remembered that he had once had a superstition that the place you died was where the wind was loudest and most furious. He thought it ironic that he had been right all along, even though he had later dismissed the superstition as stupid.

Suddenly, he stopped. He didn’t know why, but it felt right to stop there. He opened his eyes. The sound of the wind died, and the dust cleared a little. Dark shapes surrounded him. In place of the wind was a deep baritone growling. Even the voice was silent. It had given up. Just as he had. The stone tumbled from his fingers.

The woman appeared in front of him. She spoke, but he couldn’t hear her words. It didn’t matter, though. He knew what she was saying. As the beasts came to kill him and let the sands bury him and the artifact forever, he spoke the words back to her.

It was then that he remembered her name.

Oleesya.

His wife.

He smiled.

 

End

 

GSC contest detail

Name: Joshua Mann

Nickname: Grisly Silence

Email: Wyverninc@juno.com