Silent Echoes
Chapter 0
Prolog
He wakes suddenly from a nightmare, jerking upright, a silent scream unborn on his lips.
"He had to escape! They were every where! They...they who? Damn another nightmare I can't remember!"
Searching his memories, "wait there was a woman with a quirky smile who wanted to help me, she gave me something. Who was she, and what did she give me? Arggh it's gone"!
As the last fragments of the dream melted away, he began to take stock of his surroundings. He didn't know where he was, but it seemed familiar. He was in a small diner or cafe. He had been sleeping in one of booths up front (which explained why he was so sore and probably explained the nightmare too.)
The only light was coming though the slats of screened windows, which lined the front wall of the cafe. Lifting the blind, he could see that it was day outside, though overcast and misty. It also seemed to be snowing, "snow this time of year!"
Getting up he looked around. "Ah a phone."
Walking over to the counter that separated the dining area from, the service area, he picked up the phone by the cash register. Listening and not hearing a dial tone, he pushed several buttons, still not hearing a tone, he hung up.
"Must be broken."
Looking around he saw that there was a map, a knife and some kind of energy drink on the counter, and there was a radio and flash light on the table of a booth near the windows. Suddenly he had an incredible sense of deja-vu. That he had seen all of this before, and had done the same things even.
In what looked to be the shell of a shopping center all seemed deserted and quiet. Patches of mist drift in through a gaping hole torn in the security mesh. The store fronts that line the inside of the shopping center appear gutted; all have their security mesh down.
The walls are made up of plates of rusted corrugated metal. Unfinished metal girders, looking like skeletal rusty brown metal fingers can be seen reaching from the roof, which is lost in the darkness.
While a silent escalator ascends to the second floor, a huge section of the first level toward the rear part of the ruined shopping center is gone, revealing an inky black chasm. Past the wrecked upper level of stores, obviously unsafe, partially collapsed walk ways drop down to the shabby, dirty floor.
Most of the remaining floor's tiles are ripped up exposing a rusted metal mesh floor, through which a darkness of indeterminable depth can be perceived. At first the patches of mist seem to float randomly about, but eventually all of the undulating bits of mist float through the security mesh of a store in the back of the of the shopping center, unreachable by foot because of the missing floor.
Out of the darkness below issues a soft, faint barely heard rustling, as if some dry leathery mass were being dragged across the floor, then one ever so faint burbling rumble softly sounds from below.
Inside the store the floor is cloaked in mist. The room is dimly lit by the flicking light of dozens of barely operating monitors set in the walls. TVs can be seen stacked and strewn across the floor. None produce the amount of light one would expect; it's almost as if the air were heavy and opaque.
A young girl in a blue dress plays on the floor, while 3 figures, 2 men and a an old woman, wander the room stopping only to glance into the sickly light of the flickering screens, before moving on. The images on the screens are a mix of animations of varying quality showing people fighting and running away from ghastly creatures, alternating with video images of people, in bedrooms or sitting on couches all staring in fear, horror out of the screens while clutching something in their hands, and finally the screens would flash black and red occult symbols before returning to the animations or the frightened faces.
The old woman, dressed in a dowdy homespun dress, with a business man's power tie, tied loosely around her neck, pauses a little longer at one screen, then yells out "He has come, just as was foretold by gyromancy. The prophesy shall be completed!"
The two men turn and move toward her. The first to reach her is an older man perhaps in his mid forties, dressed as a businessman. He grabs her and spins her around.
"What is it?" He growls at her. "It had better be good. I won't have any more of your false promises."
She cackles into his face, and asks petulantly "what do you want Kaufman? Do you want your tie back?" She says, spittle spraying from her lips.
"Ugh." Kaufman stumbles away from her saying "No keep it, you disgusting hag, who knows what's crawled on to it, since you stole it from me".
"I took it to seal our bargain", she responds.
The second man approaches. He is a younger attractive man, with his wavy hair falling into his eyes. Dressed in tan slacks, a white cotton shirt, a brown cardigan vest, and wearing glasses.
He waves a hand dismissively at the old woman.
"Forget her. Dalia hasn't ever come though on anything. All she ever does is spout that ancient nonsense, that even she doesn't understand."
She yells back incensed, "You would blaspheme in the presence of GOD, on the eve of our triumph!? Look for yourself Vincent!"
Shaking his head he looks at the screen she indicated.
"I don't believe it, she's right, he's here!" Vincent responds.
"Then we need to get to him fast" Kaufman growls out."
"No, nothing is to be gained by floundering about at random!" Dalia raises her voice even louder.
"He's our ticket back to the real world" cuts in Vincent, "I'm not going to let..."
"Enough quiet!!" an awful, cold inhuman voice cuts him off. It issued out from the mouth of the little girl, who during their augment had walked up unnoticed.
Then in a little girls voice says "I'm bored, I've played all the games till I'm bored with all of them. I wanna a new game. I wanna play with somebody new".
"I want fear, and blood, and the tearing of flesh, I want screams that go on so long that the voice fails and the screams echo silently in their skulls."
"Yes that would be good" she finishes in the voice of a little angel.
Then she notices the video screen, and says "He's new! I think he would be fun to play with."
She smiles the sweetest of smiles. The two men jump back obviously afraid of her, Dahlia smiles and bows out of the way.
Back at the cafe the man is starring at the body of a winged featherless creature, broken glass all around it. He had just killed it after it had burst in through the cafe's window. He'd gotten lucky; its eight foot wingspan had hindered its movements in the cafe, so it hadn't been able to avoid his reflexive stab.
His lucky shot had stabbed it in the eye and into the brain. "A monster! This is impossible. God I hope there aren't any more around, I got to find out where I am, and find help, or a way home."
Armed with the kitchen knife he heads cautiously out side with the persistent sense of deja-vu clinging to him. The mist is so thick he can't even see the other side of the street. "Hello, Anyone, Help!"
"Oh god this cant be real! I think I've had this nightmare before."
"Hee, hee, hee."
He hears laughter behind him, and sees a little girl.
"Hey little girl, am I gla…"
He sees the girls eyes go wide as she looks up and behind him.
"Oh shit! Echoes though his mind as what that might mean dawns on him. Trying desperately to turn around, the thrum of wings filling his ears and merging with the hiss of static from the radio, he feels a stunning blow to his head.
He's thrown five feet forward. Rolling onto his back he braces for the follow up attack he knows is coming, trying to remain conscious.
"Bad! Bad! Bird, go away!"
The girl bends over him.
"Mister, will you play with me?"
The girl smiles down at him. Suddenly darkness pours in on the edge of his vision, and the ground feels like it drops out from beneath him. In his sight a rapidly shrinking circle, the girl appears to be at the top of a hole, and he seems to be falling into darkness.
"Nooo! You have to play with me!"
She seems to reach for him; her hand looks like it is growing into an inhuman claw. Darkness swallows him.
He wakes suddenly from a nightmare, jerking upright, a silent scream unborn on his lips.