CHAPTER 2 – THE ORDEAL

He was whole, healed and…utterly confused. With his attempt to stand proving futile, Alex began to crawl. However, no sooner had he moved did his hands sink into sand. He yanked them out reflexively and as one moment fell into another he sat there, still, frozen.

“I’m…okay.” The assurance was followed by a slow exhale. “I’m alright.” Sliding a hand back into the cool minerals in confirmation, he wiggled it under deeper, encouraged by curiosity. Barely a foot under, fingers brushed against a flat plane and the palm that followed leveled out atop a smooth surface, akin to glass. Running the hand along the underlying flat surface tentatively, Alex, retrieving the hand, stood.

If I haven’t been pulled under yet, then at this point, I’m not likely to do so. He thought and propelled by the fear of never escaping the darkness, took the first step forward. Then stopped. What was meant to be a pause to allow his he eyes to adjust, to the dark setting, lengthened to minutes.

Why? Why is it�"? He thought blinking rapidly, as a knot of panic tightened. Why can’t I see anything? Why is it so dark? The light…where is it? It’s not possible for this place to be so dark. He glanced up. I’m outside aren’t I? So where are the stars? The moon?

Was the sky…always so foreboding? Was the world…so dark? He wondered. With no notion of what lied ahead, he waved a desperate hand before him; over his face, over his eyes certain they would catch a glimpse, even the slightest of some sort of motion to instinctively follow.

He just needed a reaction, a reflex, confirmation that this place wasn’t as ominously dark as it seemed. But there was nothing, he couldn’t tell so much as an outline of his hand apart from the black background surrounding it. Beside the nerves of his hand and whoosh of air that his fingers conjured as they sliced through it, he saw nothing, no hand, no movement. It was eerie as it was terrifying. Dropping the hand to his side, he stared out into the unknown and unseen blackness and wondered, were his eyes still closed?

Cursed with blindness, Alex tightened his grip on his wrist.

“There’s…no light, no light…there’s nothing to adapt to.” His voice a harsh whisper, his body trembling. “Where am I? What is this place? What�"what do I do now…?” He scuffed a foot, kicking sand into the air. “It’s sand, it’s all sand, I’m surrounded, stranded… this is a wasteland and I’m going to die.” He sank to his knees, head in hands; overwhelmed. Fingers running through his hair, his gaze dropped and he gritted his teeth, he couldn’t even see the ground. Was it was all a dream? Was this death? Or was he in the middle…locked between a heaven and hell? And yet it was all so…vivid, so real.

Calm down, take it slow. There’s no rush, watch, learn and think. Inferences are key Alex. Krystal’s words surfaced within his mind’s blank despair and took a hammer to his irrationality like a mallet to a window. Make a hypothesis and test it. If it doesn’t work out tweak it and try, try again. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, picturing a wet leaf on a log in the effort to relax.

Change is revolutionary, being stagnant is insanity.

Releasing the breath, he opened his eyes and got to his feet. “I have to get out of here.” It was eerie listening to his voice fade into nothingness, without even an echo, the silence returned and it was like he’d never spoken. Was there nothing out there?

From his breathing to his heartbeat, there was silence. A chill ran through him and Alex glanced over a shoulder, never had he’d been more distinctly aware of himself, his presence, an overbearing solitude.

Where was the sun? Its light, he’d so taken for granted?

Distractions are for losers. Krystal’s voice resurfaced, blunt as ever with its scholarly practicality. Stop wasting your time on things you can’t change or don’t matter. Time is valuable, use it right before it takes flight.

She was right, he was wasting time and though futile, he cast his eyes over the area that stretched out before him. “It doesn’t seem like there’s anything out there…but then again, I can’t even see my own hand. So no credibility there.” Taking another deep breath, he pictured the wet leaf and the log once more to calm his jittery nerves.

Better to start ignorant, then not at all.

Stepping forward, Alex began his trek. Common sense ruled in favor of the inevitably stumbling upon an exit, that was…if there was one.

After what felt like an hours, he blinked rapidly, pupils dilating. It was a reaction. For a second, he’d reacted to light. Light, even the concept of it had become a little foreign. He’d somewhat adjusted to the suffocating darkness, one foot after the other in a rhythmic pattern whose static repetition seemed to meld with the surroundings. The blackness so complete in its entity and dominating presence was felt…in a way, alive as it was mysterious. An ancient ingenuity overshadowed a peculiar indoctrination and assimilation to a new world and realm, a reality to which denounced light, reducing the physical perception to hallucinations.

Squinting amidst the darkness, Alex glimpsed the faint but sure traces of light and color. Fuzzy in its appearance, the purple glow’s illumination albeit soft against the crushing darkness, poked through it like a hole, a chink, a little moon in the eternal night; the light held strong, a sliver of hope for the lost.

Mind over matter Alex, imagination can take you anywhere.

“Thank God, I’m out.” He said releasing a breath he hadn’t been aware he’d been holding. Shifting onto the balls of his feet, digging into the sand he took off at a sprint, eager to escape, abandon and be free of the dark. The light expanded rapidly with his approach, expanding first from a faint horizon into a flood of which’s reach stretched up flat and wide, further than the eye could follow; the light trapped behind a clear rippling surface.

Slowing, he stopped before it and reached out a tentative hand. Touching it, he ran a hand down the haze’s smooth texture, it was similar he realized to the surface beneath the sand.

“What is this?” He wondered tapping it with a finger. “Some type of barrier?” Underneath his palm swirled an ever shifting cloudy substance, ranging across the numerous shades of purple. Illuminated by a light from the other side, it reminded him of the sun, its rays shining through a stained glass window. If was as if the haze was a blind, a curtain, keeping out its own sun, guarding its own bit of light.

Was it even real?

Reality is of the mind, Alex. Krystal’s voice rang out like an echo. So believe what you want because your mind will always justify what you do. He imagined his fiancé back in elementary school, small body sitting on the school wall legs crossed and dangling over the steep slope below. She flashed him a smile, long dark hair fluttering softly in a passing breeze and proud coffee brown eyes shining at her wit.

Gaze skimming the haze’s surface as he pushed a palm on the glass lightly. Surrounded in darkness he’d found the needle in the haystack, the light in the dark. But like the needle, the haze was solid and he like string had to find a hole to thread through. Though ignorant to what laid on the other side, the Mulholland’s priority was getting out and asking later.

Adding his other hand, shifting into a lunge, Alex pressed harder on the glass.

Everything has a weak point. He thought determination filling him. All I have to do is find a hole in this wall and exploit it.

Taking a couple of steps back from the haze, Alex ran at it; clearing the distance in seconds, he flung his arms up before him as he turned his shoulder into the wall, eyes squeezed shut.

There was a rush of air…but no impact. His stomach dropped in his fall and eyes snapping open as he flailed; a scream tore from him as he plummeted from the sky like a stone, helpless in his descent to the sparkling blue of water. He felt cheated, betrayed. It was as if the glass was but an illusion and he the fool.

His fate? Death by drowning?

Managing to glance over his shoulder, with his eyes, Alex traced the lilac haze from the cliff which marked its boundary to the clouds it touched above. Jerking his head back down as a cold spray of water splashed his form and the small wave that rolled up to meet him.

“Oh s**t�"” Catching him as naturally as a baseball player did a ball rather than sink him, the surge swept Alex along its surface. Sputtering, the youth skimming the body of water like a coin across a floor, rolled head over heels with the wave, helpless as it carried him along its calming waters like a duck bobbing in its midst. The liquid dipped and curved around him like jello, administering a dunking no further than a few inches below the surface; deep enough for an icy welcome but not to drown. Successfully righting himself, only to fall upon his back, the Mulholland turned his eyes to the sky, exasperated.

A laugh mirthless in its quality spilled from him then; soft, weak and laced with irritation. “Ugh…where the hell am I?” Dragging a hand up from the water, he dropped it upon his chest. “And how am I even alive?” They were questions to which the memories of his fiancé had no answer. The Mulholland turned his head, glimpsing the tan of a distant beach and behind, skyscrapers stretching for an unreachable sky. Shore, land…he could almost imagine balancing upon the water’s surface well enough to cross the lake and step onto solid ground. “Even though the sun is shining.” He grumbled sitting up, “I just came out of sand. I don’t want to step back in it.”

The sun shone behind a couple of shadowy figures on the beach, noticing their presence brought the barest of smiles upon his face. People, that meant food and most importantly clothing. The sand had stripped him and he was freezing. Unwrapping his hands from around him with conflicting hesitation; raising both arms, he waved desperately, bobbing along with the languid waves on his knees.

“Hey!” Alex shouted. “Over here! I’m strand�"”

“Fire!” The order from shore was closely followed by a bang of what to Alex’s ears could only be perceived as a gun. Green eyes went wide as his hands froze mid-wave and his heart slipped into his throat.

“Are they shooting at me?”

The youth licked his lips in a dreading anticipation and lifting a hand over his eyes, squinted as a large silhouette flew in his direction.

“Wait what?!” The billowing projectile hit him with deadly accuracy, knocking him back and sliding against several ripples. A jumpsuit, reddish brown in color, wrapped around his body and as if powered by a machine snapped its straps shut, cuffing both his hands and feet with interlacing black plastic in the process. “What the f**k is this?!” Alex cried rolling into a sitting position.

Pulling in vain at his cuffs and locked straps of the jumpsuit’s scratchy fabric, he looked up across the water. A speed boat, its keel slicing through the water like butter was making a beeline straight for him. The vehicle drenching him with a broadside of water didn’t even bother to pull to a full stop as it past him. Instead two men reached overboard in passing, grabbed the youth and dragged him aboard.

“What the hell? Who do you think you are?!” Alex’s indignant protests fell on deaf ears. He sat between two darkly uniformed men. Situated on his right was an older man well beyond his fifties with a grey comb over and furrowed brows; on the Mulholland’s left a younger man around his thirties with dull brown eyes and dark hair, gazed with disinterest out over the open water. “This is kidnapping! This is illegal�"”

“Shut up.” The younger of the two men ordered absently, dull eyes shifting as grabbing one of Alex’s waving wrists; hit the kid with his own fists.

“Ugh, b*****d…” Alex wheezed, holding his throbbing nose as he shifted away from the older man, fairly intimidated. I’ll just…lie low, Alex thought. And wait for an opportunity when I get to shore.

Arriving on shore the driver looked over his seat back at them. “Get out.”

Unable to step out of the boat, Alex taking a step back, attempted to hop the side. His foot caught the boat’s edge midair and falling ungracefully over the side, he ate sand. Yanked to his feet, he half-shuffled and was half-dragged to the open doors suspicious black van waiting nearby.

“Wait! Wait!” He protested struggling, “You can't do this�"” Punched in the stomach he doubled over coughing and taking advantage of the boy’s momentary stillness, the two men shoved him through the open doors. Forced once again to take the middle seat between the two, the doors were closed and van began to drive.

“What the�"the hell do you want with me? Where are you taking me?” Alex demanded, fighting the seat belt one of them was trying to strap him in with.

“You’ll see when we get there.” The younger of his capturers said, handing the seatbelt off to older man who strapped Alex in.

“Where’s there, exactly?”

The old man crossed his arms and looked out the darkly tinted windows.

So much for finding an opportunity. Alex though bitterly, resigning to spend the rest of the drive in silence. The van made too many turns through to backtrack and as the minutes stretched further along the road of time, Alex took to staring at his cuffs.

Calm down, Alex, take it slow. Krystal’s voice cropped up again, regurgitating previous advice. There’s no rush, watch, learn and think.

Alex’s gaze drifted out a window. Think about what exactly?

The van slowed, pulling to a stop in the parking lot of a tall building. The door was opened and Alex pushed out, stepped into the waning light of the evening sun. Caught in the midst of a city and dwarfed by sky scrapers, Alex receiving a light shove from behind, nearly tripped over the curb.

“Hey geezer.” Alex seethed, stepping onto the sidewalk. “Watch where you’re going, I’m still cuffed or have you already�"“

“Yeah, whatever.” The man barely spared him a glance. “Quit dragging your feet.”

Alex making a face, shuffled a little faster. “Where are we?”

“The place where we dump you.” The younger of the men answered prodding him along.

“Care to add a little detail? I mean like…I’m going to find out anyway right?”

“Yep.”

Vague, they’re so vague I doubt they’d give me the time of day. Alex thought as glanced up the face of the dark skyscraper whose shadowed he walked within. Tinted office windows and a black marble base lining the exterior of the first floor, whether the building was government building or the headquarters of a private company, its importance was as profound as it was unmistakable.

Walking single file the older man at the head, and younger at the rear with Alex sandwiched in-between single file, they entered the building. Stepping into an elevator after the older of the men, ascending four floors, Alex shuffling from out the metallic doors, followed his captor’s lead down one hall and up another. Coming to a halt before the glass door of an office the words, The Oddities, the older man turned to the youth, a pair of scissors in hand.

“We part here kid.” Cutting off the cuffs, the man pushed open the door and held it open for Alex to walk through. “You’ll get your answers in here.”

They’re not suspicious… Sarcasm laced the thought as he passed into the office of which’s entrance alone had five men stationed before it in sharp black suits; white curly communication devices sticking out of their ears.

“Have a nice life kid. I hope you adjust.” The younger of Alex’s captors said as the door closed behind the two men. The Mulholland watched his captors leave with mixed feelings as they disappeared around a corner. He hadn’t even known their names, his kidnappers the first people he’d encountered in this unknown world, had exited his life as suddenly as they’d appeared. It was an odd feeling, he didn’t quite miss them, yet there was an underlying sense of loss. Perhaps it was only natural to ponder one’s first impressions in another land and from the interaction, lingered for a moment a feeling of familiarity. 

Author's Note

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