Reaping the Whirlwind: Part Three
Three people. Three stories. One globe-spanning storm.
Nathan O’Connell was nothing to no one, save for the barkeep at the Dublin pub that he frequented daily. Even the barkeep was gone now. Nathan sat hunched over the polished wood of the bar, hand gripping a half-pint of beer.
On the ground beside him, propped up against one of the tables, was a scientist bleeding out through a gaping wound in his stomach.
Blood soaked through his white lab coat and seeped through his fingers. He struggled to speak through trickles of it running down from his lips.
“So, you’ll do it?” the scientist asked.
Nathan finished the last of his beer and sighed. “Yeah, I’ll do it,” he shook his head, “I picked a hell of a day to quit drinking.”
Nathan stood up from the barstool and looked down at the device on the ground beside the scientist.
It was a mess of wires and metal, with straps tied onto it that made it look like some sort of high-tech backpack. It weighed at least twenty pounds. Nathan groaned as he slipped the straps over his shoulders and felt the warm hum of the device on his back.
“It has to breach the outer layer. That’s the only way to trigger the reaction,” the scientist said.
Nathan nodded. “You mentioned that already. Save your strength, buddy; I’m not going to pretend I understand how any of this works.”
The scientist coughed, sending a platter of blood across the flaps of his lab coat. “I need you to understand the importance of this. If you fail, our entire world is doomed.”
Nathan laughed. “They said on the news that it would dissolve on its own. That was a lie, too, huh?”
“We tested everything. This wasn’t supposed to be possible. This isn’t possible.”
Nathan chuckled. “You damn eggheads all think you know everything there is to know about the universe. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short time on this Earth, it’s that, in the grand scheme of things, we know fuck all about how any of this works.”
The scientist lowered his head and let out a final breath as his body went limp. Nathan didn’t bother checking for a pulse. He knew it was over.
Nathan shook his head. “I suppose that’s my cue then.”
Nathan walked out of the pub and into the street. It was deathly quiet. He looked up and saw the oily black clouds overhead, churning like an ocean of ichor in the sky above.
He knew all hell would break loose any moment. This was the calm before the storm. He started walking down the street, meandering between scattered and abandoned cars as he pulled his phone out.
Nathan dialed a number he had memorized but hadn’t called in over five years. It rang once, then again, and once more before going to voicemail.
“Hey, Clara. Not even sure if this is your number anymore. Listen, I know things didn’t end well between us, but, I’ve got to do something today, and I’m not going to come back from it.”
Bright flashes of light came from the sky above. Streaks of white, purple, blue, and shades Nathan had never seen before came from behind the inky veil above. Under other circumstances, it would have been beautiful.
Nathan looked away from the mind-bending sight.
“I just wanted to tell you something before I go. I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I was selfish; I was obsessed with whatever I wanted, and I let all of that stop me from being the person you and our baby girl needed. I know you’re both better off without me, but I just wanted you to know that I wish things had been different. You can’t change the past, though. Give our girl a kiss for me. Tell her—”
A thunderous roar tore down from the sky above, sending a shockwave of sound through the narrow street that shattered all the car windows around Nathan and left his ears ringing. He hunched over, clenching his jaw through the pain.
“Just do me a favor and tell her that her dad was a hero. Tell her he made mistakes, but when push came to shove, he did what had to be done. I love you both more than you’ll ever know.”
Nathan dropped the phone onto the ground and gripped the straps of the pack on his back. His eyes turned to the sky as the undulating clouds parted, revealing the literal eye of the storm.
Beneath the black clouds was a sky of shining wet flesh stretching from one horizon to the other. It was pale and stained with streaks of blood as if the skin was stretched far too thin.
Directly above Nathan was a swirling maw filled with layers of teeth that encircled one another like the blades of a chainsaw. A gargantuan eye was at the center of the swirling mouth in the sky. It stared at the world below with a hungry gaze.
Nathan pointed up at the grotesque site above him and held out the index finger of his left hand with this thumb upright in the shape of a gun.
“I’ve got a package for ya, you ugly motherfucker!”
The words of the scientist in the pub swirled in Nathan’s head. Something about a black hole, a singularity, and strangelet particles that didn’t dissolve into matter like they should. He didn’t understand a word of it.
All he knew was that he needed to get into that mouth and trigger the device on his back. The reaction would turn the storm into nothing more than a rain shower.
Nathan waved his arms above his head. “Hey! You hungry, big boy? I’ve got a hell of a snack for you!”
Nathan watched as the flesh above started to rupture. Globs of black ooze poured out from within the skin above, raining down onto the buildings around them. Nathan spun around as one of them landed on a car behind him, crushing it in a sea of glass and metal.
A creature emerged from within the liquid. When he tried to look at it, Nathan's vision went blurry, like static interfering with a television signal.
Nathan turned away from the monstrosity and started running. He saw more creatures exploding out from the liquid on rooftops all around him. He heard their thundering footsteps as they joined the pursuit.
Above, the eye in the sky started to pulsate, flashing all manner of colors. Nathan suddenly felt his footsteps becoming lighter as he ran.
He watched as the buildings around him started to fracture. Windows shattered and entire rooftops peeled off from their foundation as an invisible force started pulling everything upward.
As the force started to rip up the very ground beneath his feet, Nathan leaped onto a nearby car, clinging to the sides of the roof as it sailed upward towards the mouth in the sky.
He didn’t have time to think about what would happen next. He could feel the immense gravity pulling the very skin from his bones as he got closer.
Nathan reached back and grabbed the remote connected to the pack by a thick wire. He pressed the first button to arm the device. It started to hum and shake.
There was a moment, less than a billionth of a second, where Nathan passed the mouth of the storm and, in doing so, entered a place no human had ever conceived.
In that infinitesimally small moment between our world and the horrors that lie beyond our reality, he beheld everything. The secrets of the universe were laid bare before him: the horrors, beauty, and true nature of existence funneled through his mortal mind.
He couldn’t take it. The weight of all that knowledge would undo him. His entire being started unraveling at the atomic level.
His soul fractured like glass, but before the storm could annihilate him, Nathan pressed the second button to trigger the device.
Epilogue
A memorial was placed at the Cliffs of Dover approximately one year after the events of “The Storm.”
Data showed that this was the location when the storm started to show signs of dissipation over the following 24 hours.
The final death toll was over one million globally. The monument at the Cliffs of Dover features a QR code that links to a digital database listing all the names of those who were lost.
Inscribed on the monument itself is a short message:
Let this monument be a reminder,
To always temper ambition with reason.
To boldly seek the answers,
for our cosmic questions.
To let curiosity drive us forward,
while staying the hand of hubris.
We march forward, hand-in-hand.
With every step, we remind ourselves,
that some secrets are meant only for God.
Thank you for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing
Listen to this track after reading, like pairing a glass of wine with dinner.
Perfect ending to wrap this all up. Loved this, the inevitable SCI FI ELEMENTS! You could feel the characters cool demeanor from the jump, a man set to save the world without a second thought. Just because he had to. Badass! And an excellent way to tie it in with the religious element of part two. Amazingly well done. Especially with the description of the actual abomination. Something like a cosmic squid is what I saw.
Powerful story. Not just horror, but hope within it. Love and care for others pervades these three, deep and meaningful. Well written. I think I will remember this.