The bombs were ready. Everywhere something was aimed to destroy the enemy. Everywhere there was one ignorant vessel for the ignorant mass stood with it's finger poised over a button. That button would end the Game. Just End it. No way to Start Over.
I got from my chair. I went outside and stood at the end of my driveway. It seemed logical enough to be outside when the end came. My end would come quicker outside than in.
I looked up at the darkness of the sky at night. It made sense to look up.
Up.
Up.
At the moon. At the darkness stretching towards the moon. My skin itched. Something was wrong. Something I could do nothing about.
It wasn't my responsibility.
A dog down the street barked. It barked again. My muscles twitched. I looked at the dog. A Bichon Frise. Approximately 20lbs in weight, 4 years in age.
Beside that dog, another came. A German Shepherd. It barked.
I felt an itch at the back of my head. My heart jumped a bit.
Another dog began barking. Then another. No one came outside. No one yelled at them to shut up. In a few moments it wouldn't matter anyway.
The itch moved into my skull, into my brain.
Something stirred.
The dogs stopped barking. Started howling. I shivered as the Something stirring went into my insides. There was an ache, numb, but unhealed. I looked up at the moon. It had a shine to it, like a halo around what little I could see. They howling stopped. Paused.
They ache didn't leave I felt like howling myself. A profoundly stupid way to spend my last moments. I sho--
The howling started again. The Bichon Frise. The German Shepherd. The Doberman. The Shelties, the Labs, the Chihuahua and all the mutts and mongrels. The sound woke up Something.
It spread, the howling sound making my nerves and bones vibrate. I could almost imagine being like them, furred and everything. Lifting a pointed muzzle to the sky. The sound of howling filled my ears, my head, my everything. I felt suddenly as stiff. I must have spent days sitting and doing nothing but waiting. And then doing nothing but nothing. I clasped my hands together, stretched my arms up and out, towards the only Light in the thick hopelessness of the Dark .The howling and the Something mixed together. I took a deep breath and let it out. And as I did, a sound left me, a low, long reverberating noise that came from somewhere I had forgotten existed. It wasn't noise, not my sound, not the sound of the dogs. Howling wasn't the right word for what any of us did. It was signing. Two different songs. But the same message.
And the I heard it. Not a Voice, a feeling, a something that resolved itself into words only so I could understand it better.
"Close your eyes."
I did. The Something threaded through my mind, repeating the words I had written in the cover. My fail safes. My final bits of hope.
"There is Life, so there is Death."
Because It exists, so do They.
Because They have Life, It has Death.
Because Death has entropy, Life has wizardry.
In my mind's eye the Darkness became rolling storm cloud. The howling, the growling, created thunder. From the clouds emerged large shapes. Their eyes flashed brilliant red and white. Blue-white fire of lightening made their teeth. Everything from the pointed muzzle to the sharp tips of their tails was muscle made out of a different kind of Darkness. The Storms Dogs had come back for the big event. As they always had since the day my great-grandmother died. The dogs howled. The Dogs howled with them.
The Something flowed, giving the Words meaning.