Dusk Harbor 1999

Evolution

About seventeen hundred years had passed since the day he died in the forest. A lone soul, still terribly hungover and with a constant pounding in his brain, he travelled the world unable to communicate with anyone. There were no other spirits to talk to either, no Heaven, no Hell. He wondered if this eternal wandering was Hell in a way. Punishment for his alcoholism or his failure to be a good husband. He always tried to be a good husband and father, but being a senator robbed a lot of his time.

 Another odd thing about his afterlife was that even though he was a spirit, he could not pass through walls or any other objects like ghosts were supposed to be able to do. The only things he could affect were doors and windows. He could open them. Not close them again though, they'd be left like that until a living person came and shut them.

After witnessing the death of his wife in childbirth, where his son was born still, he could not handle staying in Rome any longer. He couldn't bear witnessing another one of his loved ones dying. So he traveled around Europe, Africa, and Asia for a long time, visiting places he'd only heard about but hadn't seen. Wonderful things he had learned, brutal battles he had witnessed, amazing people he'd watched grow from infants into adulthood. Some places he couldn't help but stay a lifetime or two. Watching the evolutions of families and civilizations, the rising and falling of empires.

Around the year Seventeen Ninety-Two, he boarded a west-bound clipper ship, ready to experience a whole new continent, with countries newly independent. He loved America as soon as he'd set foot on its soil in Maine. The air was clean, the people were tough, and the land went on forever, there was so much to explore.

He traveled all the way up to Canada and then down to Mexico, eventually making his way to Argentina many years later.

He spent a while in South America, trekking through mountains and winding through narrow streets. He witnessed the birth of the Panama Canal. What a project that had been. It was how most of humankind's innovations were; Necessary and destructive.

Necessary for ease of transportation, and ships, but destructive to the environment.

It was the Nineteen Sixties that called him back to America.

Called him all the way up to California to witness the hippies in action. The peace-sign adorned vans, the girls with flowers in their hair, the overwhelming sound of rock music blasting through the air.

He went along the southern border of the United States, then up the East Coast, where in Nineteen Ninety Seven he found himself in a city known as Dusk Harbor.

The people here were overly fond of sports, got rowdy over both losses and wins, they loved art and coffee, and staying up late, and most of all they had something no other city he'd ever been to had; Superheroes. There was something in the water in Dusk Harbor. He tried as he could to figure out what that was. It seemed as if the city were just manufacturing them out of nowhere.

One morning he wandered into a computer store, marvelling at how advanced computers had gotten. Now there were computers that one could fold up and take with them where they went, called laptops. He wished he could touch one and feel how they worked. He wanted to type something.

Though he knew that there was no point in trying, he reached out with his hand and attempted to touch the space bar on a bulky black laptop. Instead of a wall of resistance, his fingers went through the material. Half his hand had disappeared inside it. His arm buzzed as electrical currents flowed through him.

Wonderful, glorious electrical currents. He could feel it. The sharp burning of it. For the first time in over seventeen hundred years, he could feel something real. He let the computer consume his arm up to the elbow. This is... this... I can feel! It's strange, I should be recoiling in pain but I just can't! It's too amazing! I wonder what would happen if I let my whole body go into the computer.

He had nothing to lose. He was already dead. So the computer swallowed him up like a noodle out of a bowl and transported him to a space that felt endless. There were blue and purple clouds as far as he could see. He wondered if he was inside a thunderstorm in the sky. There were bolts of electricity dashing here and there, across the expanses of clouds. Jagged black masses rolled by in the distance.

Instead of claps of thunder, this strange place sounded as if he were trapped in the engine of a motorcycle, or in the grinding gears of a clock tower. The awful noise filled his skull and made him grit his teeth. He put his hands over his ears, but the sound permeated them anyways. It was no use.

He turned himself around, and he could see a small window that led back into the computer store. People were walking past the computer minding their own business. A blue-shirted worker stopped in front of the device and stuck his face right in the frame as he typed something.

Daemon floated up to the window and smacked his palms against it.

The worker jolted back, blinked at the screen, and started typing furiously. Squinted his eyes.

Daemon smacked the screen again.

"Hello?" He called out.

"Stupid virus. This computer ain't even left the store yet!" The worker complained.

Daemon's eyes went wide. Shock rippled through him as lightning danced between his fingers. This man was being affected by him. He could affect something. It was scaring the man. A grin spread up his face.

Ok, don't get too excited yet. I gotta test this. Maybe if I went to another computer and saw if someone else could see me. Oh! Better yet, a TV! If I can go through one of those. I haven't been able to in the past but maybe computers are the way in! No no, a football stadium jumbotron! If the crowd all noticed me, then I'll know! But how do I--

As he imagined a football jumbotron the tendrils of electricity wrapped around him, and he flashed forward through a rainbow tunnel.

Seconds later he was looking out at a half-empty football stadium. People were just gathering for a game. Settling into their chairs, buying last minute overpriced food. Talking to each other while they could before the game started. He floated to the window and dragged his palms down it.

"Hello!" Daemon called out.

A hard knot formed in his throat. He tried to swallow against it.

A couple dozen people looked up at the screen and started pointing at it, jabbing their friends in the arms so they'd look too.

"Hey everyone! Can you see me? Hear me?" He shouted.

There was a massive uproar of response from the crowd.

People screamed with pre-game joy and waved at him.

I--I-- People can see me! They can hear me! Oh, joy! How wonderful! This is-- I don't even know how to react!

He was frozen with anxiety and shock, and disbelief. His arms nor legs would move.

The people were making noises of confusion. Wondering why he wasn't saying anything else. Why he was just standing there staring at everyone. The sunlight was making his eyes burn and his temples pulse.

He pushed himself back from the screen and drifted into the clouds behind him. His mouth hung open, and his hands came up in front of him as he tried to process the situation. After all this time... Finally, I'm free! Sort of! People see me! Oh! I never want to be invisible ever again! I've got to do something before whatever this is goes away. People must have a way to remember me, that way if I disappear again they'll still talk of me and know me! Oh world, you have cruelly cast me down, and now I shall cast you down! I'll take you for my own! Once I own you everyone will know exactly who I am. This will require careful planning of course, very careful planning. For now world, there is nothing to be concerned about, but when the time comes you'll all know me, and you'll never forget me. Not this time.