The Rift

Chapter Six

The continent was nothing but a long line on the horizon at first. Jericho sat at the bow of Cap'n's vessel and watched the dry land approach at an agonizingly slow pace. The music and singing lifted into the air again as the islanders yearned for dry land beneath their feet once again.

"So, tell me about this continent," Jericho said to Cap'n.

"The biggest dry land." He responded. "All the Crusties live there in Utopia."

"Utopia? Like . . . paradise?" Jericho felt relief wash over him. "Why would you ever live on that tiny island, so close to the rift, when you know exactly where paradise is?"

Cap'n snorted. "It is far from paradise. Perhaps one day it was, not now, not with the Crusties."

"What exactly are the Crusties anyway?"

"High class, upper crust. They run the continent, and they run it fierce."

"Fierce? Why go then?"

"Like I said, biggest dry land."

Jericho went silent again, watching the line in the distance grow into a shore, a series of hills, green trees and climbing vines. The closer they came, the more detail he could see and it excited him.

"I haven't seen this much land in a long time," he said finally and Cap'n inclined his head.

"Tell me."

"Well . . . I suppose it would have been in the rift. There were so many small islands there, as the water from their world rushed into ours, the archipelagos became long strips of continuous land."

---

As the water from their world rushed into ours, the archipelagos became long strips of continuous land. They were short and jagged chains of mountains capped not with snow, but plants in colors I'd never seen. Purple leaved trees, green blooms on blue stems. The variety was intense, and every color had its match in the ever shifting sky.

I kicked the boat into overdrive at the sight of dry land and we chugged ever closer, Caleb slamming against the inside of the cabin door and calling for me to uncage him.

"Hugh! You're going crazy! Let me out! Talk to me!"

"It's too late Caleb, we're here, in the rift, and it's beautiful!"

"It's dangerous, Hugh! You're risking both our lives and I NEVER asked to be put at risk."

"Welcome to the harsh reality of our lives. You don't need to ask to be put at risk anymore, that's just life now."

"Hugh . . . please . . . I don't wanna die."

I didn't respond, I ran our boat ashore and hopped onto the mushy, damp coast. A large plant with a bulbous flower growled at me -- yeah, it growled -- and I backed away from it. I could still hear my brother calling my name but I wasn't interested in speaking to him anymore.

As I climbed the steep incline, moving closer to the peaks of the skinny mountains, I became aware of the fact that I was being watched. I spun around and around and saw nobody, but I knew they were there, just outside my line of sight.

"Hello?" I called out and heard clicks and cackles from a nearby bush. "Hello?"

The bush, one with vibrant blue leaves and stems as black as night, fidgeted and moved. I stepped closer and noticed the riftman staring at me from within its protective branches.

"Hello," I said one last time and he stood up, followed by dozens of others who'd been hiding all around me.

"Heee-lllloooooo." The riftman had trouble imitating English. He didn't have human lips, his tongue was pointed and awkward.

"My name is Hugh Jericho." Why was I talking to the thing? I figured if I had felt such an urgent need to be inside the rift, it must have been for a reason. The forewarning of the riftmen's arrival, the strange way in which the first one had communicated his knowledge to me. It all made it seem as though speaking to them was the next logical step.

"Weeee knoooow, Huuugh." The thing came closer to me and extended a claw. It wasn't a terrifying gesture, like I had experienced in the past. It was the pleading reach of riftman number one, the grasping hand of peace, not the smashing fist of war.

I reached out and touched the claw, I felt his peaceful intentions, his longing to communicate. I felt the way he missed the oceans of the rift. His distaste for the sea creatures of Earth.

"Wow . . ." I became aware of similar knowledge from the riftmen around me. They reached out, psychically at least, and made me aware of how uninterested they were in hurting me. They wanted to teach me, to learn from me. They wanted me to understand as badly as they themselves wanted to understand.

Suddenly the one who'd made first contact pulled away. His sea creature noises rang out and this time I felt their meaning. They'd learned of Caleb through our mental tete-a-tete and they weren't pleased.

"No, don't do anything bad. Please. He won't hurt you."

The way the riftman communicated with me was not logical, it didn't progress like a conversation between friends. I was forced to sift through the jumble of information that crammed my skull all at once. He wanted me there, but only me. He had to deal with Caleb, but I couldn't figure out how he planned on doing that.

"Please, leave him alone!" I said and the riftmen all around me ignored my words. I wasn't even sure if they understood my primitive, verbal form of communication.

First-contact riftman led the siege of slimy black monsters down towards the shore. I kept up with their group, trying to pull them back but they wouldn't stop. At the boat, three riftmen climbed on deck while the leader held me back.

I understood that whatever it was he was saying to me included the notion of murder, but something about it was ambiguous.

"You want to kill Caleb?" I asked as my brother screamed somewhere behind me. I tried to turn and run towards him but the riftman held me back. He squealed and clucked and the flood of information seemed to fall into place. "You . . . you don't want to kill him?"

Two of the riftmen broke off from the group, they beat away the growling flower as they passed, unfazed by its sentience. They returned with a raft of strange reeds and spherical fruit which bobbed on the surface of the water like buoys.

"You're going to take him away?" I felt a sense of not-belonging, but it wasn't my own. The riftmen were telling me my brother shouldn't be there. "Why am I allowed here but he isn't? I need him! He's my brother. You understand that, right? Brother?"

The riftman looked awkward as he nodded. A gesture, which I understood know, his people never used, but he had adopted for my sake.

"Then you know you can't do this. We're all alone. Our parents are gone, we rely on each other."

I got the distinct impression that the riftman was telling me 'not anymore.' He was saying that I had them now, the riftmen.

"But what about Caleb? If you send him back there . . . He'll be all alone, in the middle of the ocean, with nothing but that flimsy raft."

The riftman considered this, then gave me another, less awkward nod. His shoulders became a part of the gesture, as if the muscles in his neck refused to exclude those of his upper body from their movements. He held his arms up and addressed his people and I knew bits and pieces of what he said.

They wouldn't send Caleb away, not yet. They would let him prove himself first.

"Prove what about himself?" I asked and got no response. Caleb was tossed into my arms and he cried.

"Hugh, what did you do? They're going to kill us."

"No, they won't. They want us here, they want us to learn about them, to teach them about us."

" . . . Why?"

"I don't know . . ."

I took in the image of a circle of riftmen around us. Despite their vast similarities, I could see the small variations in height, weight, features. Some were mottled with greens or blues or oranges. Even though I could see the individuality of each of them now, they were all doing the same thing. Staring at me and my brother.