It started ten days ago. I suppose all of us noticed it, but no one ever thought to question it. At noon, the bell tower that rested in the heart of the city had been ticking down. Losing a ring of its bell as each day went by. We were at ten then.
On the ninth day, the days were getting darker. The sun was visibly getting more and more dim as time passed. It was a phenomenon that no one had answers for. The bell tower rung nine times that afternoon.
By day eight, animals began to act strange, sleep schedules changed, schools called out. The weather changed, rain came from almost nowhere and no one knew it was supposed to rain at all.
Day seven, the moon began to obtain a strange glow. I stayed awake all night that night, the bell tower rung seven times that day. News channels reported about the strange ringing of bell towers, reporting that multiple bell towers were ticking down.
On day six, there were reports on the appearance of the moon and sun. The sun had turned a horrible blood red. And the moon formed a ghostly red tint. Six rings of the bell.
On day five there were lights in the sky far from normal. Moving above us all were orbs moving smoothly through the sky, perhaps a few miles up. Little more than a pinprick under the darkness of the blood sun. It darted quickly through the air, seeming top move towards me then spiral away. It swirled and swooped with dizzying speeds. Accelerating by one in one direction for a second or two, stopping dead instantly, then zoomed away in another direction entirely as if searching for something. Maybe there is something more to these strange occurrences? Five rings of the bell, its funny now. What happens when we reach zero?
On day four panic sat in in the hearts of all weeping men. Churches flooded, priests were at a loss for words. Governments were collapsing all over the world and Asia fell silent, throwing America even more into turmoil. Animals grew feral, attacking and killing their owners on the streets. Tides from the ocean became the thing of nightmares, rising higher than moderate-sized building and flooding all of the coasts. The lights in the sky came back that night, this time with different colors.
On day three, the brightest stars in the sky went out, and for the first time since the planet came into life, galaxies far away became visible that were once only seeable by telescope. Trees began to fall for reasons unknown, and everything all over the world weighed half as much as normal. The sun, no a profoundly dim orb oozing red flares in spirals from its core, made great arcs in the sky, giving us a full twenty-four hours of sunlight. Three strikes from the tower. We're out.
On day two, governments reformed, worried for the catastrophic events that could quite possibly be the end of civilizations. But nothing catastrophic ever came. The League of Nations disbanded, all having more pressing matters to worry about. Hours after the event, a storm blew across America in odd zig-zags. The thunder was louder than possibly imaginable, shaking people, literally, off their own feet. The lightning that came from the clouds were red. A terrifying reality that revealed to much from the new shadows in our world that I can't fully explain. The orbs came closer to the earth this time, darting through buildings and streets with loud cracks of wind that shot dust and papers into the air that took way too long to fall to the ground. The orb got to close to the ground though, and slammed into the ground with a deafening drumbeat, sending a shockwave through the city.
On day one, the final bell rung. And nothing happened. At the crash site of the orb, nothing had been discovered. Just metal that was 'strange in nature, perfectly stable.' Of course, as a student with a lot of science in his background, that meant one thing only: it was several rows above our current periodic table. The perfect zone. The day was clear, though to call it day now was strange in its own way, as day and night were the same now. The moon and sun became identical, only one was cold, and the other less cold. Constellations of stars spun and swirled now, impossibly low, forming patters of light never seen before. Those constellations dispersed in shards of iridescent green light that blinked different colors like the prettiest fireworks that never went out. My stomach churned, it was all artificial. But how?
…
On day zero, no bell ever came. Every clock, all over the world, landed on twelve and stopped ticking. The grass at my feet was a green almost black, even below the artificial shifting, spiraling kaleidoscope of light overhead. The space between the stars was no longer void of life, instead it had a certain flow like ink. Stars bloomed into life above us and winked out as if millions of years passed in only seconds of useless thoughts. Mists rose from the grounds of places where they shouldn't be, also artificial, and things shifted below our feet unholy in size, but have yet to attack. Animals weren't the same, grown larger and more vicious, some animals lacking intelligence gained intelligence, where some visibly lost it, destining them to extinction. Deer were terrible incarnates of demons, antlers grown on both doe and buck alike with points sharper than needles like hardened steel.
Everything was wrong.
In front of me, is a glass window to a store. Even when the world was close to ending, money had relevance. People recovered, but barely. Connections between countries have been restored, and for some strange reason, crops have grown bigger and better without the normal bright sun. Its like a giant, twisted game. A vivid nightmare, waiting for me to do something. The glass in front of me reflected not my figure, but instead reflected a shadow that wasn't my own, or anyone's. Turning around to face a street lamp, I knew my normal human shadow should have been behind me. But it wasn't.
There was nothing there. There wasn't for anyone. And since waking up this morning I have been hearing a voice, repeating the same thing over and over again, followed by four taps.
"As you are born into this world, something else is born with you. Always moving towards you, never slowing, never speeding up. You will rest, it will not. You will run, it will walk. One day you will linger in the same place too long…"
One, two… the tapping came from inside. Three… four.
I'm going mad.
Prologue: The Eternal Knocking
I walked now, through the streets of my city, vehicles were left, rendered useless and thrown away, disregarded. School had started once more for me, and I walked in the darkness of the sun. I laughed allowed, bellowing at how the situation played out. The noise echoed all around me, reverberating through the streets of the city like ghosts mocking me for joy like I was in a hollow cavern void of life.
The ticking came back now, echoing off like a ticking time-bomb.
My head was down as I walked. Odd geometries below my feet, and even further, I saw the slightest hint of movement, as if something unimaginable was moving and shifting below my very feet.
'They come from below.'
I lurked back and searched for the voice that broke through my thoughts. And unfortunately, once again, no one was there. But, there were shadows, impossible in nature, that followed me. There were other shadows too, natural ones, but those weren't the important ones. No, the pitch black ones were the ones that caused my mind top ache as if it were pulling me in.
To the left of me, at my feet was an old thrown out chicken breast, half-eaten with meat still on its fragile bones. I gave it a swift kick into the black shadow in front of me and watched as the chicken was mangled and devoured by nothing until only a bone was spit out the other side, abnormally white.
I continued to walk, stepping around the odd shadow and taking note of what the said shadow had done, thinking how or where the shadows could show up. Could they form in normal shadows, or are the separate all on the own from a normal shadow? If it ate the old chicken, is it alive?
I passed another store front. I stopped and looked through the window at the TV displayed, the crash site was being shown, soldiers and a stone wall was erected around it. The damn thing alone was more secured than a prison, but what looked interesting was the design. Usually the purpose of containment is to keep people out and keep a disease in. But, this wasn't a disease, and the amount of security, electrical fences so high volt you could see the sparks crack between each link, was too much for anything normal. A series and rows of weaponry, man controlled and not lined the top, every other one facing inside the containment area.
Did I forget to mention the containment area was a dome made form the same electric fence?
Something is wrong. My peripheral vision went black and my vision tunneled as vein-like tendrils filled my vision, forcing me to focus closer on the site. They weren't keeping something inside. And whatever it was, it must have been urgent, because whatever it was, it was enough to have something erected around it overnight.
'Behind a veil of versus hidden so obscure. A drop of hell, a touch of strange. When the water, so treacherous, reflects not even the brightest stars in the sky… Kneel deep in the fallen palace of guilded knowledge… and in the darkness you will find the monsters that await you. A consortium of every fear breathed into existence… then, and only then, will the world know how to fear…'
Images flashed in my head, the ticking grew louder and louder. There was a cave, a fungus, an epidemic, three girls and a desert in Africa. The world was brighter than mine, a dream world to mine. I turned and continued my trek as the images flashed past me. And at one specific images, I stopped noticing the world around me as I walked closer and closer to the black shadows. There was a red light, moving in the sky at an impossible speed, swerving and moving to erratically to be human.
And soon there was a pain, overwhelming my mind, forcing the images to stop. The ground disappeared at my feet and I was falling in a space of nothing. I wanted to scream from the pain, but nothing came out. Sharp tingles covered my skin, each one painful to their own degree, as if I was getting bitten by a million teeth. My body was gone though, no evidence of my being anywhere at all even. A myriad of emotions hit me all at once, bombarding me with colorful and incomprehensible words.
There came movement in front of me. A presence so strange with a geometry so terrifying I couldn't make sense of it.
"There's this moment, when you're so sure you're about to die, and then… you are born. It's terrifying isn't it? You can feel it now, you're a stranger to yourself. Echo's in your head of who you were in a dimension impossible to reach call to who you are now. And you must hold your nerve and trust all that you tell yourself. Shape your future to them and shape yourself towards them."
"Who are you?" I yelled, the voice was dark, broken and ancient, horrible like war.
"I'll be a story in your head."
"Wake up!"
End of Prologue
And thus, it begins anew.