A very odd homage to Ray Bradbury's 'The Visitor.'
The days and nights and nights and days ran together; he couldn't tell which was which any longer. He had buried her some days and nights ago, the last one left to him, and she fit so well into the small box he had made himself. He spaded the dry dirt himself, threw on the last handfuls himself, and he said no last rites and he said no good-byes—he just buried her deep and watered her grave with tears.
The days and nights and nights and days ran together; he still continued on, alone in the broken settlement where the grave markers rose like jagged teeth on an overlooking hill with its creaking windmill turning rust-eaten blades in a weak wind. His only company was his thoughts, turning like that windmill, drifting without purpose. Some nights and days he did not move off the floor of the shelter he had shared with her; other times some will that was not his own would seize him and he'd spend the entire day searching for food, searching for life, searching for hope.
The days and nights and nights and days ran together; he was falling apart, but he couldn't die. Humans died so easily—he had seen it all his life, but why did he persist? He was convinced he was inhuman. He spent days and nights exploring that fact, testing the boundaries of his life, and each time, the days and nights would turn into nights and days, and he was falling apart but something still held him together: a stubborn will, a defiant wish, a plea for a miracle.
The days and nights and nights and days ran together; the sun shone bright the day he met the visitor among the empty dunes.
He stared dumbly at the visitor, undeniably human but irrevocably alien, pristine in a pressed uniform, skin pale and soft. He continued to stare as the visitor approached without hesitation, stared at the hand extended to him.
Sounds filtered into his ears; he did not know the words because he had not heard words in so long. Scents he did not recognize reached his animal nose; scents of good things, of living things, things he had not known so he could not name. He touched the hand held out to him, fingers crawling blindly over the fabric sheathing it, before touching the smooth sleeve of the uniform, touching the stiff collar at the visitor's neck, touching the pale skin of a slim cheek. The warmth of blood pumping under flesh vibrated under his fingertips: a living person.
There was pity in the visitor's eyes.
His senses all came to that horrible conclusion and Noel fell to his knees with a choked sound, burying his face in his hands, fingers digging into the gritty skin.
"I need you to take me to Cocoon," the visitor repeated and this time Noel understood the words.
His shelter was just that: ill-fitting four walls and a roof, barely adequate in keeping out the freezing nights or the burning days, but he had lived here for so long that he knew nothing else.
Estheim did not seem outwardly bothered but Noel wasn't sure, because he had no experience in reading body language. It didn't matter either way; he had no better comforts to offer. Estheim's eyes looked at everything, Estheim's hands touched everything; sometimes Estheim would bring out a strange device and his fingers would dance upon it and sometimes a flash would issue from the device and a picture of Noel's reality would appear within it.
"I need you to take me to Cocoon," the visitor had said and it took a long time for Noel to find his voice, to croak with an unused tongue that there was no 'Cocoon.'
A crease appeared between the visitor's fine brows and Noel wondered where this man was from, if it was a place of plenty, if there was food and water and security and people, if there was laughter amid the tears and sorrow amid the happiness, if it was a place like he had known when his grandmother and Yeul had still been alive.
The lack of Cocoon obviously bothered the man so Noel told him that it had fallen. He told him that they had to return before the night fell or they'd freeze to death. He told him his name. He told him he had some food to share, a place of shelter. He told him, he told him, and the words he kept to himself for so long kept bubbling up that Noel had to slap his hands over his mouth to stop.
The pity deepened in the stranger's eyes and he introduced himself as Estheim before pulling Noel to his feet.
Noel watched the man explore every nook and crevice over the low flames of his tiny fire; a fire, a warm meal, all were unaffordable luxuries but he had a guest. Estheim seemed to have taken a particular interest in the dirt that served as the shelter's floor; he was scooping some of it into a tiny vial, which disappeared into the many square pouches upon his belt. Dirt was dirt. Estheim was strange.
"Can you tell me how Cocoon fell?" Estheim asked, turning to him with those pitying eyes. "Do you have any history records or books discussing the event?"
Noel licked dry, cracked lips. He was thirsty from his babbling before, the most talking he had done in many days and nights. "Where are you from?" he managed, because Estheim was so very, very strange and Noel didn't understand.
The man tilted his head, and suddenly a world erupted around Noel, a shining world crushing his shelter, metallic bright in a white sun, structures sleek and tall as they held up the blue sky. This world was alive, moving with the silhouettes of people and machines, and its noise was a loud hum in his ears, and its scents of sweat and oil pierced his nostrils. Noel screamed, shrinking down on himself even as his senses tried to absorb everything, unable to process any of it. Wide eyes stared at Estheim standing tall across from him, a large edifice rising above the other buildings like a throne to a king behind him, and Noel could almost recognize the insignia tattooed upon the foremost pinnacle.
His mind couldn't take any more; Noel whimpered, clutching his head, squeezing his eyes shut, wishing it'd all go away.
And then only the sounds of his fire dying, the creaking of that windmill.
He opened his eyes warily, an animal testing the air, and Estheim was crouched before him, pitying eyes apologetic.
"I thought it'd be easier if I showed you."
"... what was…?" His shock and awe loosened his tongue.
The smile was a brief twist of Estheim's mouth. "My home. At the moment."
"That's… not my world." The tension eased itself from Noel's limbs and he uncurled himself from his defensive posture. "How did you make me see it?"
"Telepathy and thought transference, I suppose, for the lack of better nomenclature. I've always had it."
Noel didn't understand; he felt he didn't want to. It didn't matter. "Why are you here?"
A soft exhale escaped from Estheim and he leaned back on his hands. A new world sprouted up to replace Noel's shelter; it was clean and straight like Estheim, with a soft floor and warm heating. Noel curled his fingers in the plush fabric covering the ground; it felt real. A soft aroma tickled his nose, pleasant and foreign—like Estheim.
"I want to save your future," Estheim told him.
"Oh."
Estheim raised a brow. "You don't seem very enthused."
"There's… really nothing left to save."
Estheim's lips tightened. "I meant, to save it before it becomes like this. I need to know what happened with Cocoon—why it fell—and how it all ended up in ashes."
Noel said nothing. Estheim was strange. If that's what Estheim wanted to do, Noel saw no point in interfering. But Noel didn't really believe him. And yet right now, everything was so warm and the floor was so soft, that he felt he could forget his nights and days.
"Noel?"
But in reality, he couldn't forget. It had been many days and nights since he had heard his name. "Tomorrow I will show you what my grandmother had. I don't know if your answer is there."
"Anything would help," and Estheim smiled at him. "Don't you want to escape from this place?"
"I don't know. It's the only thing I know."
Pity filled Estheim's eyes again and he looked like he wanted to reply, but his mouth pressed together tightly and he turned his head away.
For several nights and days, Estheim went through the tomes and journals Noel had locked away when his grandmother had passed. They were legacies of a period before the settlement, aged with time and use. Noel had once curiously glanced through them, but there weren't very many pictures to hold his interest. He did not know if they were useful to Estheim, but the man studied them all very thoroughly as Noel sat at his feet, watching fish dance in a pond.
Estheim had turned the broken storage shed into a lush green world, rich with the sounds of birds and fresh with the scent of loam. A little private garden, with a table and chair for Estheim to seat upon as he worked, and a clear pond filled with bright orange and white fish swimming freely, mouth gaping and delicate tails flicking. Noel had never seen so much water in his life and it was wet to his fingertips and tongue; real to all senses but his mind rejected them.
It seemed to cost Estheim no effort to conjure up these reflections of his world, maintaining them without care. Noel flopped back against moist earth and springy grass to watch Estheim, the sun a halo behind pale hair. Like a god.
He said the last part aloud and Estheim's eyes flicked down toward him, but by then Noel had rolled onto his side, curling up against the hunger beginning to gnaw at his stomach. Estheim's realities were just illusions to the senses. The fish Noel had eaten did not stave off the truth of his world.
"The histories aren't very clear on why Cocoon fell," Estheim said as they lay side by side beneath a glass dome which opened to a galaxy-dusted tapestry.
"People probably didn't have time or resources to worry about that."
It had been some days and nights and Noel had gotten more used to being not-alone. Estheim was still strange, always drowning out Noel's world with his own, but he was a living person and Noel hadn't realized how desperate he was for the company of a living being. A new purpose was breathed into him; the strings which kept him together tightened, pulling the rifts close, sealing them shut. He hunted more frequently, more successfully; he sought water which would be more pleasing than the brackish source he used; wood, blankets, supplies for comfort, he sought them out almost eagerly. They were meager before the luxuries Estheim could conjure, but they were what Noel could offer and they were real.
Talking had become easier for him as well, and he spent his nights and days answering Estheim's many, many questions as best he could. Cocoon had fallen. A war had started. Those who survived then began to die out, from exposure, from monsters, from disease, from internal strife, from hopelessness.
Everyone but him.
"If Cocoon's fall could be averted," Hope began, before breaking off into a cough, covering his mouth. "If the fall could be averted, it seems like the chain events which concludes with this reality could be also averted."
"If it could have been stopped, why didn't they stop it before it fell?"
"That may be the problem," Estheim agreed, drawing closer the worn woven blanket Noel had given him. It had been carefully knitted by Noel's grandmother, repurposed from the clothing of the dead, and Estheim's illusions had not altered it in any way.
Noel had nothing to add and he listened to Estheim cough again.
After a moment, Estheim spoke once more. "I think it may be necessary for me to examine ground zero—the place Cocoon fell."
Noel rolled the statement around in his head. "It is far and the road is dangerous. There won't be any guarantee of food or water."
"I have to go," Estheim said with quiet conviction.
"Then I'll take you."
He heard Estheim turn his head to face him and he glanced at the man, met those pitying eyes.
"You told me that you didn't know if you wanted to escape from this place."
"That's right," Noel said.
"What do you want?"
He didn't hesitate. How could he, when he had dreamed about it for days and nights? And even when his dreams had faded, his heart continued to yearn? "Them back."
Something about those pitying eyes made Noel feel ill or angry or hurt; he turned resolutely to the starry sky above him, infinitely more beautiful than his own.
"I can also recreate your own memories," Estheim said quietly. "Places… people… you would want to see again."
"No," Noel said and Estheim turned fully toward him in surprise. "It's not real. You can trick my senses and they'll tell my mind it's real, but it's not real. They wouldn't be real. What can the past offer me? They're gone."
"It's as real as you want it to be, Noel. It's a complete immersion—"
Jerking upright, Noel whirled on the other man, incensed in a way he hadn't been for nights and days. Estheim had come and said he wanted to save this future, to prevent it, but he shut it out with his own version of reality and it frustrated Noel, who had only known this one, and though it was hard and it was horrible, it was his, the one where he had known and loved those precious to him.
He grabbed Estheim's hand, the first true contact he made with the other man, pressing the flat of the palm against his own chest, over his heart. "This is real. Do you get it? It exists without the help of magic or tricks or anything but its own honest will." Noel gestured wildly around them with his free arm. "The rest of this, all this pretty dressing, is just lies. I hate lies."
"... I see," Estheim said, and he didn't sound angry. Like falling sand, the glass dome dropped, pulling Noel's ugly, but loved shelter into existence behind it.
Shoulders sagging, the fight drained from Noel. He released Estheim, looking away. He was cold.
Estheim coughed, fingers twitching against Noel's chest, but he did not remove them. "Noel, if you know you could never see those that you love again, why do you persist? What are you living for?"
"I don't know."
Gently, Estheim pulled him to lay back down and spread his grandmother's blanket over them both. It barely covered the two, but there was a warmth there Noel had not experienced for many days and nights.
"You should leave," Noel told him finally. "Or you'll die."
"We all die someday," Estheim replied. "All that matters is how we lived."
Noel prepared as best he could with his meager resources and hoped that fortune would be kind enough to furnish more as they travelled. He had no idea how far it would be to where Cocoon fell; he only had a vague idea of where it was, based off stories he had heard from nights and days long ago.
He also knew it'd be a one-way journey; whatever he had would not last him back and he could not say what would happen then. He spent the pre-dawn hours lingering over all that he knew; he had told Estheim the past had nothing to offer him, but now the future frightened him more.
And most importantly, he had to protect Estheim, the strange visitor who wanted to destroy his world, who asked him too many questions he didn't know the answer to. So Noel stressed with Estheim not to wander off, to listen to him and do as he said, to take it easy on their supplies, to let him know when he needed to rest. Noel nagged him so much that Estheim laughed, and it had been far too many days and nights since he had heard genuine laughter, had seen the shape of laughter on another's face.
Estheim's smile was without his omnipresent pity. "Don't worry, Noel. I will survive to save you."
Apparently Estheim had forgotten that Noel hated lies, but Noel just nodded.
They huddled together under an overcropping of rock, the fallen, petrified corpse of a mighty tree shielding them from the open air. They had journeyed long under the blistering sun and into the freezing night, crossing many leagues before Noel had realized Estheim was walking dead on his feet. But it was a still few more leagues when Noel finally had found this respite in a vast desert of nothing.
Estheim had fallen asleep against him immediately without taking food or drink; Noel pulled his grandmother's blanket closer around them both to trap their heat against the harsh night. Estheim had not complained a whit as they had travelled, with only the sag of his shoulders and the shallow intakes of breath as indication of his exhaustion. It was admirable and foolish, and Noel made a mental note to not push so hard in the following nights and days.
Estheim exploded into a fit of coughs, and Noel could smell the tinge of blood in the air.
But they couldn't afford to be leisurely either. Estheim was going to die.
"Crystal poisoning."
"What do you mean?" Estheim wiped at his mouth with his sleeve—it was no longer so white and clean as those days and nights ago, but caked with dirt and now with the faintest trace of blood. Cold air rushed in and Estheim quickly pulled the blanket back over them.
"It started happening after Cocoon fell. It's mainly why Pulse is dying and why the human race couldn't recover after the war. Just a disease no one knew how to cure."
Estheim's eyes grew thoughtful; Noel was surprised the man wasn't more concerned about his own mortality. The disregard Estheim had concerning his own life bothered Noel. "Perhaps the result of Cocoon's crash released trace particles of crystal into the air. Absorbing a large enough quantity through gastral or respiratory tracts apparently has a negative effect on organic lifeforms."
More things Noel didn't understand. "You should leave."
Estheim shook his head; hair tickled Noel's face. Estheim no longer smelled foreign. "Why aren't you affected by this disease? You stated your grandmother and your friend were both afflicted."
"I don't know." He didn't know. He was inhuman. He didn't know.
"I was fourteen when I had first heard you," Estheim told him.
Noel was silent.
"I always had this… talent… but it was the first time I heard the thoughts of someone I wasn't in contact with.
"'Is anybody out there?'
'Please, someone...'
'I don't want to die.'
'I can't die.'
'Why won't I die?'
'I don't want to be alone.'
And so forth.
"I heard this voice so much for days and nights throughout my life that it got to the point where I wanted to find this voice and kill it just for a few moments of peace." At the weak joke, Estheim flashed Noel a half-smile, but Noel was silent.
"Maybe, Noel, you're still alive so I could meet you. So I could see your world and find a way to save it."
"You're my miracle?"
"I'm your hope."
The coughing fit shook Estheim so bad that Noel carried him on his back for the rest of the afternoon, sweat pouring down his face from the unfiltered red sun and Estheim's breathing harsh against his neck through the cloth Noel had tied around the man's face.
They were getting near.
Giant blades of crystal pierced deep into dusty, glimmering earth. The morning sun reflected like rainbows off the remains of what had once been an entire civilization, held aloft in the sky by a crystal pillar. Their feet kicked up fine dust, like powder, into the air, and Estheim immediately set to work, gathering samples and marking notes, photographing and recording, his work only hindered by his coughs.
Noel put a hand upon one of the crystal shafts. It was cool to his touch, still radiating the night's chill. Through it, he could see his world, blurred by facets into something almost beautiful, like a dream he may have had once, nights and days ago.
If Estheim succeeded in preventing the fall of Cocoon, his world would cease to be. And what would happen to him? Would he cease too? Would his survivor's curse finally end? Did he want that? Or did he want to see the real version of the worlds Estheim had created, to taste real fish, to smell real grass, to experience a real city?
He wasn't sure if he wanted that. He just wanted his grandmother, Yeul, the friends and family he had, however briefly, he wanted them real. He didn't want to cease. He wanted to live, so he could be with them again.
And Estheim… "What do you want?"
Crouching by a jagged crystal stump, Estheim glanced up at him at the sudden question, blinking over the cloth tied tight over his nose and mouth. "Hm?"
"Why are you doing this? What do you want?" This world had nothing to do with Estheim. He may look and smell and sound like he belonged here now, but this was not Estheim's world.
"As I said, I heard—"
"So you risked your life for the voice of someone you don't even know?"
"It was a pretty insistent voice," Estheim replied and Noel could hear the smile.
He scowled, folding his arms over his chest.
Estheim sighed, breaking off into a cough. "I suppose, perhaps, I felt like we were kindred spirits."
Noel realized how little he actually knew about Estheim. He had seen the worlds Estheim conjured up, but what about Estheim?
"Living from day to night and night to day, picking at yourself and picking at your failures, the things you cannot change and how powerless you are before it. And then really, you might be breathing or you might be thinking and your heart is pumping, but you're not truly alive at all." Estheim shrugged, tiredly rising to his feet. "Still, I've come to realize there's a big difference between us and perhaps that's why I'm doing this."
"Difference?" Noel echoed.
Estheim's eyes crinkled into a smile. When, during those days and nights, had they become filled with affection? "I think I've gathered all the data I can. I wish I had more time, but none of this will come to any fruition if I die here."
"I won't see you again."
"No. Nor will you remember."
Noel wished that was a lie.
The sun blazed down on his face and he could almost see it behind closed eyelids, lighting the darkness a hazy red. A breeze fanned the heat, and he flung an arm over his face in irritation, the scent of crushed grass filling his nose.
A small foot poked into his side. Hiding a smile, he made a big show of ignoring the poke, stretching long like a lazy dog and flopping over to the opposite side.
The foot poked him again, this time in the ribs, and still feigning sleep, he swatted at it, like a fly.
He heard the whisper of her dress as she dropped to her knees beside him, and feel the tickle of her fine hair brushing his arms as she leaned over to study him. It was hard not to grin, but he continued to maintain the image of a deeply napping young man.
A soft huff came as a warning before slim fingers caught his nose and twisted.
With a yelp he sat up, hand slapping to his face to cradle his offended nose. "That's cheating," he protested and her large eyes slanted with satisfaction.
She stood up primly, dusting off her knees. "Lunch is ready."
Rubbing his nose a final time, he hopped to his feet, working the kinks from his body due to his impromptu doze. He hadn't meant to nap, but the spring morning had been pleasant and warm, comfortable.
(in the dream, he had not known it, so he could not name it, but it had been spring morning he had smelled those days and nights ago)
Grinning, he prodded Yeul at the ribs with both hands; she yelped, startled by the tickles, before shooting off across the flower-studded field to escape his retribution. Noel chased after her and Cocoon stood high in the distance before them. For a moment, in the blink of one eye to the next, the view wavered, Cocoon gone and nothing but a burning, empty desert with a hollow sky, but that wasn't real, nothing more than a dream.
Noel flung his arms wide as he ran, as if he could embrace the sun and the wind and the sky and Cocoon rising above it all, and he sent his thoughts out wildly to this world, grateful, heart-felt, alive.
The crystal particles had settled into the pulmonary alveoli of his lungs, irreversibly damaging them beyond this time period's repair. It was all right though. He could breathe with the help of oxygen therapy and it didn't interfere too much with his daily life.
The researched showed that the particles would bond against organic tissue before undergoing a crystallization process. Like a cancer, it damaged perfectly normal cells and could be carried through the bloodstream to infect and damage other organs. Yes, he made an excellent model for human study of crystal poisoning, being Patient Zero—as well as the only known being in existence to suffer from such an affliction—and while cures had been found for the animal lab subjects, he refused any sort of treatment. It may have hindered their experiments, but he wasn't interested in ridding himself of this disease.
Because it was all right, really.
He did what he could and he would never know if it was right, he supposed. It was his only regret, not knowing the end result, not knowing if something may deflect the course he'd set now once he was gone. He had only the small comfort in believing he was right, in that he no longer heard the voice.
He was in his forties now, and he had lived well. He accomplished much. Not everything, of course. He'd need more lifetimes for that. But in this one, this short one, he did what he needed to do and set the ball rolling on the rest. He took his samples, his pictures, his data, his memories, and with them, he silenced that voice.
Turning into crystal didn't seem so bad after all of that.
His quarters were quiet except for the hiss of the oxygen regulator and the soft breathing of the person beside him. Outside the soundproofed window, he could see the sun cresting the top of the crystal shell of Cocoon and he watched it rise with unblinking eyes. It was the same sun, wasn't it? The same sun rising for them both.
It came like the wind, as soft as the breath of the one beside him, the last time he'd hear any thought from any one.
'Thank you.'
Hope turned away from the window to the old shelter with its ill-fitting walls and adjusted the old, worn, hand-knitted blanket covering them. He brushed dark hair from his companion's grimy face, pressing a hand to his chest, expectant, but there was no quiver there, no warmth, and Hope smiled ruefully.
Finally, he laid back on the dirt floor, drawing the blanket up to his chin and closed his eyes. After a moment, like sand, his memories fell away, this illusion he maintained for himself, revealing the blank walls and empty room that was his lonely reality.
This story was ruminating in my head for many days, in various incarnations, with the same theme, but it wasn't until I reread Bradbury's "The Visitor" (which is vastly different and far less hopeful and kind) that the story finally settled into this form.