The Unseen

2 Nov 2001

Note: this is an unfinished rough draft of a story, not a complete, polished piece. It is just a fragment. Eventually I may finish it, but only time will tell.

The blackness slowly faded away into a pale gray. He was lying on his back, curled up into a ball, shivering. A woman stood over him. She looked vaguely familiar; something about her eyes and the shape of her nose seemed to remind him of someone, someone he ought to know. They made eye contact. He blinked. She smiled softly and stroked his forehead. Her hands felt rough and worn, but at the same time they felt as smooth as those of a princess. Rider's eyelids sleepily closed.

He was on a boat sailing along the ocean. It was a dream, he knew, and he tried to wake up, but couldn't. He climbed up on deck and leaned against the rail, letting the wind wave its way through his hair and taking a deep breath of the wonderfully salty air. He felt a child grasp his hand. Looking down, he saw nothing. He awoke.

Suddenly he noticed that the touch on his forehead had disappeared, and that the woman was also missing. He sat up. He was in a muddy ditch, and his car, the windshield shattered and the roof crumpled in, lay next to him. The clammy, wet mud had seeped in through his shirt and soaked the entire back. He began to reach back to scrape off some of the mud. As he turned, his heart skipped a beat. He wasn't alone. There was a man sitting next to him, dressed in a ragged trench coat, smoking a cigarette. Rider noticed that the cigarette was unlit, and that no smoke left the man's lips. The man cocked his head to one side and looked at Rider. He seemed to be saying something, but Rider couldn't hear any sounds come out of his mouth.

"What? I can't hear you." A chill breeze swept through the ditch. As the wind swept goosebumps along his neck, Rider felt that the man was dark. He couldn't explain it, for never before had such a thought occurred to him. But without a doubt, he was certain of it: the man was dark. The man didn't seem to hear him. He kept talking and puffing away at his cigarette, looking off to the side as if waiting for someone. Rider closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, the man was gone.

Rider swallowed. Was he dead? If he was, he thought he wasn't in heaven, or at least heaven wasn't what he was expecting. Where were the angels and the trumpets? Where were the harps and the choirs? This, if it was heaven, was a devil's heaven.

He stood up but then sat back down as a sharp pain suddenly scraped along his back. His watch read 2:36 in the morning. Nobody would be driving by at this hour. He turned over on his side and tried to crawl to the other side of the ditch. The pain gripped the lower part of his back and twisted cruelly, making his breaths short and tight. It was almost too much. He wanted to give up and fall on his face, letting the waters of sleep wash away his pain. Giving up surely wasn't such a bad idea after all, was it? The hurt was incredibly exhausting, draining him of all energy and willpower. He didn't care anymore. It was over. The sweet feeling of relief overwhelmed him as he collapsed.

A red light surrounded by glowing white was blinking above Rider's head. The blur of colors swirled around the red, moving in a kaleidoscopic dance. Gradually the colors ground to a halt, and the mass of red focused into an alarm clock. He was in his bed at home. The alarm clock was his, and it read 9:14 a.m. He vaguely remembered the events of the previous night, but his memory was still too murky to make any sense.

The alarm's shrill cry sounded. He reached out and turned it off. Was it morning already? The night seemed like it had drawn on forever. Pulling off the covers, he stood up and walked to the bathroom.

A strange face greeted him in the mirror. It was familiar -- indeed, it was his own -- but there was something changed about it, some odd characteristic which made him seem like a stranger to himself. After examining it in detail, Rider decided it was the eyes. They glinted with a different light, an unfamiliar echo of something unseen.

He realized he was dirty. Not just unkempt from a night's tossing and turning, but really dirty. Mud streaked his face, and bits of leaves and twigs clung to his hair. Instinctively he turned around. His back was clean. That seemed wrong somehow, not fitting in with the rest, though he couldn't figure out why.

Chills coursed along his back as he saw someone walk by in the hall outside the bathroom. Nobody else was home but he. Slowly he turned, cautiously peeking out the door. There was no one. He walked into the kitchen and gasped.

There, seated at the table, were two children. They seemed to be eating an invisible breakfast and happily conversing with each other, vividly gesturing with unseen utensils. One was a boy of perhaps eight or nine, with tousled red hair and a plethora of freckles. The other was a girl, six or seven, tossing her brown pigtails from side to side as she giggled. Rider took a step forward. The two children disappeared.