RAI LETTCES EN SUR MAU OUV RAESD ER EN.

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DIRGE OF THE DAWN

Dirge of the Dawn is a lament to those who were taken by the Entity.

Strong adult content, including violence, language, and some other adult references and themes.

Meg Thomas

Meg gritted her teeth in frustration. Even Nina Simone's vocals sailing through "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" couldn't drown out the low, persistent rumble and rattle of the oxygen concentrator. Her mother, a frail skeleton draped in loose skin, scowled at her from the bed.

The plastic tube around her nose gave her the air her cancer-filled lungs needed, but it wasn't enough to keep her from sounding like she had gargled sandpaper. "I didn't ask you to throw away your future for me," she wheezed.

Meg leaned back in disbelief. "You didn't have to ask me, mom. You're sick. I should be here to take care of you."

"The nurse-"

"The nurse was stealing from you, mom!" Meg snapped.

"Sandra had sticky fingers, but she wouldn't let me… go anywhere. She knew you'd beat her to a bloody pulp first."

"I almost did anyway when I found out what she with did grandpa's wedding ring."

"It's just a piece of metal, Meg."

"It was a treasure! It was my grandfather's. What if… What if I wanted my future husband to wear it, or something?"

"Husband?" Meg's mother let out a raspy laugh. Meg rolled her eyes and bit back a smile.

"Not all female athletes are lesbians, mom."

Meg's mother laughed harder before tumbling into a fit of coughing. Meg snatched a pearl-white cloth from the nightstand and held it to her mother's face. It turned scarlet with each huff of air. Meg felt her eyes burn. Damn tears, she thought.

When her mother finished coughing, she rolled her head away from the handkerchief. She was always grossed out by the sight of blood. Nurse Sandra had always cleaned up Mrs. Thomas' messes as quickly as possible; probably because her buyer was waiting in the living room most days. When Meg found out, she called police. They arrested her on the spot, but had to hold Meg back when she learned her grandfather's ring was gone.

Meg folded the cloth and set it out of sight.

"This is embarrassing for me," her mother said. She didn't look back.

"Don't be embarrassed, mom," Meg answered, trying not to roll her eyes. "You beat the cancer before. You'll do it again. And no one is going to steal from you this time. Win-win."

"I wasn't 65 last time. What's the point?"

"Mom! Stop!" Meg shouted, standing. Her mother's gazed whirled around to meet hers. "Just stop! You're a goddamn warrior and you always have been. When Grandpa died, you carried on. When Grandma died, you carried on. And-"

"When I die, you'll carry on."

Meg froze. A petrifying realization of her mother's mortality drenched her in icy despair. The frail woman in the bed in front of her was not her mother. Her mother wasn't a quitter, a doubter. She was a fighter. She was a survivor. Meg cupped her palm over her eyes to hide her tears. She tried to speak, but only a shaky breath tumbled out of her mouth.

"I'm going for a run. Do you need to go to the bathroom before I go?" Meg said. Her voice was flat and robotic.

"I'm fine. Just be back before dark," her mother said. Meg nodded and turned away from her mother. She sniffed the dribble back into her nose and opened the bedroom door. "I love you, Meg."

"Yeah..." Meg couldn't continue. She couldn't say it back. There was something so final about it; saying "I love you" to a dying person. Meg quickly threw on her jacket and sneakers before ducking out into the chilly autumn air. If she didn't say "I love you," her mom wouldn't leave her behind.

The woods were always a great place to run. The winding trails were usually devoid of people this time of year. It wasn't cold enough to be frigid, but Meg definitely regretted wearing shorts over leggings. Her leggings were great at protecting her from getting anything more than bruises if she fell, but they were designed to breathe and breathe they did.

Meg welcomed the cold. It was a gentle sting compared to what she felt at home. Her heart raced as she thundered across the trail and it felt like the burden she carried couldn't keep up. She sprinted faster. She could outrun it. She could outrun anyone. She could feel them behind her. She squinted and blinked tears from her eyes. The world whirled past her as she careened between the trees. Her tightening tunnel vision could only see the steps ahead of her. Everything else was black as she sprinted as fast as she could, faster than she should. Her heart raced, lungs ached, legs burned. She could feel her tendons stretching and feared they'd pop, but she couldn't slow down. She couldn't stop. She wouldn't stop.

Her tunnel vision closed to a pinpoint of daylight as the weight of her mother's demise swallowed her whole. She heaved in air, but the air was heavy; dense. She coughed and choked. Her feet fell out beneath her and she lurched forward, falling towards the darkness. She spiraled so quickly she couldn't even feel the ground. It was as if she had sailed over a cliff into an abyss.

Meg slammed against something solid. The impact on her side was so sudden that she felt the momentum of her organs shift inside her. She couldn't breathe. The wind had been torn out of her. She blinked. Everything was still dark. Well, not everything. A horizontal wall of trees stood in front of her. A sheet of black hung to her left and grass sprang from the wall on her right.

She blinked again. She was sideways. She pushed away from the ground in an attempt to side up and the nauseating shift in perspective made her vomit. Ink-black liquid spewed from throat. She stared down at it, stupefied.

"What the hell...?" she muttered. She looked up at the trees as the world reoriented itself. Their stark shadows danced in the branches, making them look like they were waving, or perhaps clawing.

Meg saw a shadow stretch out before her. It was long and narrow, almost making it all the way to the line of trees. Her shadow flickered and she felt heat on her back.

She turned to see an enormous bonfire and then heard its roar and crackle as her sense of hearing came back to her. Three other people were lying on the ground. They all slowly came to their senses.

Meg wanted to check on them, but she could barely form words in her head, let alone her mouth. It was so dark here. She looked up and her eyes suddenly widened.

"Oh my god," she said. "It's night already?! Oh God! Shit! Mom's... I gotta..." Meg hauled herself to her feet. The world was still spinning and she almost fell backwards into the fire. A gloved hand caught her wrist and pulled her forward a few steps.

A young man stared back at her. His skin was tan and his hair was dark, blending in with the shadows around him. He looked a little rugged; a real outdoors-y type. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I have to get home," Meg said. "My mother... My... She's all alone."

"Do you remember how you got here?" he said. He seemed slightly out of it, but more coherent than she was.

"I'm... Not sure..." Meg replied. "Where-?"

"Oh my God!" a man's voice squeaked from behind them. Meg and the man holding her wrist looked over the flames to see a scrawny man in a shirt and tie leap to his feet. He took the glasses off his face and rubbed his eyes with his fists while saying, "wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

"Dwight, calm down," said the man holding her wrist.

"This can't be happening! I got away! I got away!" the scrawny man - Dwight - said. He turned towards the treeline. "You can't do this to me! You can't do this to us!"

"Dwight!" the first man hissed. He seemed visibly worried about something. "Keep it down!"

"What's going on?" Meg felt herself say. Her brain felt like it was swimming in molasses, but she wanted answers. "Where the hell am I? Who are you people?"

"My name is Jake," said the first man. "I don't know where we are or how long we've been here."

Meg pulled her wrist out of his hand. "What are you talking about?"

"We're in hell!" Dwight shouted. "That's where! We're in hell! There's no other explanation."

"We're not in hell," said a third voice. A dark-skinned woman stood up quietly and calmly, dusting herself off. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "I'm Claudette."

"I don't care who you people are! I just need to get out of here! Where's the trail?" Meg shouted.

"There is no trail, because this place isn't even the real world." Dwight grimaced.

"Did you come here through a forest?" Jake said, calmly ignoring the man panicking on the other side of the bonfire.

"We're in the forest! Of course I-" Meg paused when Jake suddenly help up a hand for her to be quiet. She glared at him. She didn't have time for this. She needed to get home. Her mother was waiting.

Jake turned around slowly and stared into the dark treeline. Meg felt sick to her stomach watching Jake's face contort into an expression of fear. The man who had been calm up to this point seemed genuinely afraid. She turned her head to look where he was staring.

Something stood under the claw-like tree branches.

Something enormous.

"What is that?" Meg whispered.

"No," Dwight muttered to himself. "No, no, no. Not again. No!"

"Hey, new girl!" Claudette said. "If you want to stay alive, find one of us and stick with us, understand?"

"Whatever you do," Jake added, "stay. Hidden."

Meg didn't have time to ask questions. All at once, a deep roar shook the earth beneath her feet. She staggered a step forward and turned back towards the thing in the woods. Jet black clouds rolled out from behind the trees. Jake grabbed onto her hand and she almost pulled away before she noticed the others following suit. They all linked hands and stared at the plume of living darkness headed their way.

Meg wanted to run. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare. Her mother was lying in bed, terrified and alone. What if she was coughing? What if she was covered in her own blood? Meg felt the ground below her turn to sludge as the the black smoke washed over her feet. Massive spider-like appendages flayed out in the darkness, reaching for her and the others. The tall figure from the woods stepped back and was swallowed whole by the shadows and fog.

Meg scrambled for some kind of rational thought. She saw the impossible unfolding in front of her. Nothing made sense. How long had she been running? How far had she gone? What was that thing? Who were these people? Where was her mother?

The black vapor coiled up her body as she sank into the earth. She muttered instinctively: "I think it's going to rain today..."