And as the sky was falling, Ray who was on his way home took a fancy to the left. Over the horizon, he could see the glaring lights of at least ten or so rigs flying high above the ground. Between the soothing smokes of his cigarette blowing up his glasses and the falling droplets covering his near ground, no man could say with a straight face that it wasn’t a sight to behold.
One step forward and his night was going to turn even more beautiful. A glassy shard of stone, smooth as all hell, just waiting to be picked upon. The construction around the block might not have given him any peace but this piece of an almost monolithic structure just might. With the stone in tow, Ray arrived at his home, had a talk with his sister, and went up to his room. A night of deep slumber and some unwelcome sorrows wait patiently for him.
Awake. The frizzy hair covering his face and the humid weather underlining the room, he opened a window. Not a peek of construction sound audible to his ears, he went out to the balcony only to find the construction site had disappeared. In a very abrupt manner, it would seem as the tools and vehicles were still parked there. Hopelessly waiting for someone to use them, maybe.
He walked over to the living room. See if his sister was awake. Being curious about the recent happenings, he searched the empty room. A person is too hard to not notice then what was he searching for?
It had dawned on him that he had left his precious founding from last night right by the dresser. Ray was keen to see it shine. He picked it up and left the room. Hey, maybe she’s in the kitchen.
Every other minute, Ray would replace one place with another in a hope to find his sister and at every attempt, he would only find failure. Have had enough with this charade, he went outside to get a bit of free air. The clouds hadn’t calmed down, you’d think after raining down all night, they’d finally be done terrorizing the good people.
Lifeless roads, wet pathways, and a gloomy atmosphere. Ray was starting to lose his patience as he went ahead to check out the construction site. His sister, managing director of Excise, the company paid to drill the ground beneath Daily Park around the avenue. She must be there, he thought to himself. It was eating him up, this curiosity. The not knowing where all the people have disappeared, the stopped construction, and the eerie weather. Most importantly, why can’t he lay his mind at rest?
At the site, he could still smell the puffiness in the air. The oil seeping in from below and the concrete laying bare by a gigantic hole. He didn’t have it in him to move his legs near it and check what’s down there. The environment was harrowing on its own, for fuck’s sake, to add onto it was the worst thing he could do. He spotted a cabin near it, though. Must be where the planning takes place, he thought. Must be where he’ll find her.
Creakingly, he opened the door with no light escaping from the inside. He got the feeling that it had been empty for a while, no had come in here, at least not since last night. The lights didn’t work and he had to make do with his phone in hand. The only hope was to find anything just barely enough to point him where his sister is as with every passing second, his sanity was winding down.
He came upon a box of documents. Most of them were company orders, nothing of notice to him. Right by it, he found a crumpled up paper thrown beside the table. Like someone had written it in a hurry but had second thoughts before giving to someone. Now, it was resting under the cold air of uncertainty.
Unwrapping it, Ray’s cold hand gave him chills but not the winter kind. He pondered if all this is just a nightmare and the moment he reads this piece of paper, he’ll find himself back on his bed. Trying desperately, but to no avail, to untangle his hair.
The paper had some writing on it. It could pass as almost illegible. Almost. Luckily, it wasn’t.
‘Kenny. Kenny, if you’re reading this then you need to stop the work right now. Right fucking now, okay? Excise screwed us. I cannot believe those fucks like they had the gall to lie to us. We’re perfectly innocent blue-collar workers and now they have us in the mess. Kenny this ground is not what they’ve told you is and it certainly doesn’t hold some weird fossil from million years ago. It’s hard to explain, I-look this is all that you need to know. The stones that we keep finding under the ground. Yes, the ones that look like they’re something from outer space. They are not natural. They belong to Euclidean monoliths from the ancient times. I know what you’re thinking, isn’t that what we’re looking for? The answer to that question is no! We were not supposed to dig up the ground. We were not supposed to find these stones. We were not supposed to go there. We were not supposed to find out what we did. And yet we did, anyways. You know what else we did? We doomed humanity. Kenny, people have been disappearing. Look around, fewer and fewer people on the sidewalks. You know, yesterday? Alex, the new guy? Went around to have his lunch and never returned back. His family has been worried sick. I swear to god, Kenny… This seems like a nightmare. The worst part is that I know for a fact it isn’t. A tale as old as time, we humans went somewhere we shouldn’t have and are now paying for it. Well, if I never see you again my friend, just kn-‘
That was it. That was the end of the letter. Whoever wrote this letter had been disposed of before he/she could finish their letter. This is not what he was expecting. He wanted answers and all this letter provided him with were more questions. One, in particular, that was screeching away in his mind. Was this truly the work of something cosmological? Some higher power that’s so incomprehensible to all of humanity that even a mere touch of it is more than enough to annihilate the world.
In no way, shape or form, could this be possible, Ray thought to himself. There is an explanation for this. Surely, there is.
He was doing his best to calm down. The room’s surreal and cold air was winding him down so he thought he’d take a gander outside. See if his prank or most likely, his nightmare, is over or not.
Much to his horror, before he could exit, he came upon a safe. Opening it was a temptation, he could not seem to resist. With a pull to the left, he opened up the safe to find several of the same glassy pieces of stone. It was at this point, Ray knew what he had to do. He had to face it. The only choice he had.
He walked out with his heart upon his sleeve and his mind decaying into madness to the ghastly light of the skies. With the rain pouring down his eyes and his only pack of cigarettes turned into mush, Ray took a deep breath and took a plunge into the hole.
//
Awake. Between the comfort of his warm sheets and the annoyance of his messed up hair, Ray took a deep breath. He quickly got up to see his sister in the living room, who had been talking to someone over the call. He gave her a long hug much to the confusion of his sister. Been a long time since Ray had been this happy to see her.
Before he went about his way, Ray passed by the dresser and found it devoid of any stone. This reaffirmed his every belief that whatever it was he experienced was simply a bad dream. He got dressed to go out, seeing as though the sky was still the darkest he’s ever seen, he made sure to carry an umbrella.
The puffiness in the air, the smell of concrete and oil, and the aesthetic of smoke flying away with the pedestrians. This was the scene that Ray had been hoping to see and this is exactly what he saw. He pushed his hand to his pocket to maybe find one last cigarette as his eyes wandered to the corner of the road. A glassy shard of stone, almost monolithic, resting away at a not so clean spot on the street. Ray picked it up, tossed around some dirt and shoved it in his pocket. But before he took a step further, he took a fancy to the right. A few rigs flying high above the ground and little droplets of rain falling below.