It was to be the final day in Paradise.
President Darwin Maximoff Harrow, first of his name and fourth of the Harrows to live atop the Grand Light Building, sat behind the oak desk in his office with a broken vial in his hands. His secrets gone. Gone with the wind; nothing left but shattered glass and a few drops of blood from his hand when he slammed it down on the dainty flask as it lay innocently in the centre of his desk.
But this was not his vial. These weren't his secrets. They were a long way away from here now, in the pocket of Orwell Jacob Grayson. Oh how Harrow had trusted him, loved him like a brother until the end, and now a note lay on the desk, Grayson's handwriting scrawled across the page bearing only the words "with regards." Harrow had been a fool, and Grayson knew it. But he refused to acknowledge the game was up.
He made a motion to the two faceless men standing by the door. Despite them bearing no ears to hear and no eyes to see, they nodded as if understanding Harrow perfectly, and with that they dispersed through the walls as though they were nothing but air.
You do not underestimate the elements in Paradise.
Grayson was running. Through the streets he weaved. He knew where he had to go, but it was getting there that was the problem.
It was all down to time in Paradise.
They would be on his tail within an instant; this he knew. Those faceless creatures that took the shape neither of men nor beast, but were something else entirely. What, he did not know. Everything was wrong here- that was fact. This was why he did what he did. This was why he risked everything for a vial of secrets. The people had to know the truth.
There is no truth in Paradise.
They appeared like a mist, surrounding him, engulfing him. As soon as they were there, there was no escape- they had him. The mist thickened, as though it could latch on to his legs. It became like running through water, until he wasn't running at all, and they appeared before him in the street. Pedestrians walked past oblivious. They could not see through their mist; to them, they were not there. Those faces, void of expression, of anything, looked right through him. Grayson felt true fear in that moment, and words formed in his very mind without being spoken, and he knew they were theirs.
"Relinquish them." They whispered, "Secrets should not be spoken in Paradise." Those words. Over and over they sounded, though no sound was made. But the longer the faceless men held him and looked into his mind, the more Grayson's fear eased, for he knew now where he stood. The one with fear, true fear, was indeed Harrow. His old friend had slipped and now he was falling. Harrow was terrified. Yes, indeed.
There is always fear in Paradise.
A doctor lay awake in his bed. He was waiting for someone. Someone important. Mere days ago a man had come to him to enlighten him of the myth behind Paradise. He had told him that he, the doctor, was important too, in a grand scheme. What this was, the doctor did not know. He was a part of the system, albeit a significant piece, but nothing more. Yet his unexpected visitor had unsettled him and now that the bottle had been opened there was no replacing the cork.
He stood from his bed and moved to the window. It was night time, but it wasn't late. There were still people in the street. But for the first time looking at the street, he thought back to the words of his visitor, and he looked beyond. He looked hard. And with this new eye he saw a void, in the middle of the street that people were just avoiding like it was invisible. There, in that void, stood the man, being accosted by two wicked-looking strangers. The doctor grabbed his coat and ran out of his house and into the street, into the void that no one thought to enter. The strangers turned, and he saw them to be faceless, yet even so they seemed startled by the doctor's appearance, that he was seeing them at all.
There is no hiding in Paradise.
Words began to fill the doctor's mind that he himself had not thought and he knew it to be these faceless men.
"Turn back," they said, "Turn back and forget."
The doctor shook his head and replied out loud,
"There is no forgetting in Paradise."
The doctor instantly felt their true fear inside him as they dissipated into the wind, but he himself felt none of it in his bones. He had purpose. He was enlightened.
There is only one purpose in Paradise.
Grayson collapsed onto the cobblestones. The doctor dropped to his side, checked him for a pulse, but before he could go further Grayson shot up again and clutched onto the doctor with every last inch of his life. He pulled the vial out of his pocket. Inside it was a bluish liquid.
He raised it up to the doctor and pushed it into the man's hand.
"Open the vial." He breathed as the life finally rushed from his body. The doctor wept for this man he hardly knew and lay his body back down upon the cobblestones. Though he cried, his sorrow quickly turned to hatred and he wrenched the cork from the vial.
There is no goodness in Paradise.
He watched as the bluish liquid flowed from the vial. Before a drop hit the ground, it burst into a gaseous form, filled with a multitude of beautiful colours. In a moment, the doctor felt hundreds of induced emotions. Wonder. Rage. Terror. Anxiety. To name a few of the many coursing through his very being as the contents of the vial expanded and enveloped first the doctor, then the street, and then Paradise.
There are no secrets in paradise.
Harrow watched the events unfold from the great window of his apartment in the Grand Light Building. Helpless. He felt the building shake as it began to collapse, and the faceless men appeared once more before him.
He turned to the faceless men. True fear glistening in his wide eyes.
"What has he done?" he asked them. Like the others, the words of the creatures formed in Harrow's mind.
"Not him," they spoke, "but another."
"No." Harrow said softly. "There are no others in Paradise."
The faceless men closed in on Harrow as he collapsed to the ground. He closed his eyes so as not to witness the horror of their faces splitting open as giant mouths formed, lined with razor teeth, and they began to slowly consume him.
In that instant he woke up.
But there are no dreams in Paradise.
END
Edward GL Dewey
