The City That Slipped

The Tome

     The air inside the shack turned cold and heavy like an entity entered the room. It felt otherworldly how quickly the atmosphere changed and how he could now see his breath with each and every exhale. David nervously nudged open the shed door to see that he was in the center of the city that slipped from existence but it was different. Like the city he knew had an alter ego. The buildings looked as if they had been abandoned long ago. The windows were blown out and a pale auburn colored ivy, long dried and withered by the cold, was creeping inside. It was night but the sky held no familiarity nor any natural illumination of a moon or sun alike. The oddly colored skies were rippling with some weird energy and a purple lightning that would periodically strike through the sky but never from the ground. The shack looked out of place in the center of town as the door hastily slammed shut behind him. He started and quickly turned around, he could only push onward now. No turning back.

     "Tabitha," he screamed into the cold dark night.

     He heard nothing but his echoes in the bizarre eclipse of day. David was at a loss with how to start his search for his lover so he decided to pick his home, maybe Tabitha was hiding there. Hiding from whatever mysteries this place held. The streets were bare, not a car to be seen nor a soul to accompany it. The trip to his house was quiet and eerily still. Like the shadows looming beneath each shattered structure was biding its time. Waiting for its chance to consume a feast recently felled.

     Upon arriving he saw that everything was normal outside of the obvious twists that this... place offered. His house, unlike that of the tall buildings, was largely intact. The windows were sound and not a brick was missing from its structure. The withered and dried ivy, however, was tapping gently against the window panes trying to force its fingers through, but the glass held steady. Upon entering he noticed a peculiar sound emanating from Tabby's work room, like a squishing and a gargling but the sounds were forming a phrase in English but in an inhuman pitch: "look with no eyes, no eyes, no eyes." His heart began intensified as he picked up a knife from the drawer In the kitchen which was rusted as if many years had past since it had been touched last. Their house was small and the kitchen was directly adjacent to the front door and past that was the room with the odd sounds. He raised his knife, ready to defend himself from whatever lingered in the room and turned the knob to the door, slowly to not make a sound. When he flung the door open, inside was a break in the air, like a piece of paper with a pencil jabbed through it. As the air quickly healed to a normal state there laid a large tome on Tabby's crafting table. the book was made of a sort of patchwork leather and had the symbol of an eye with horizontal pupils like that of a goat's eye. On the cover was a language unknown, like that of the ornate box.

     "Look with no eyes," he whispered to himself, "with no eyes." He brushed his hands across the cover of the book and opened it. Inside were etchings in the same language and drawings of mangled and twisted creatures that were almost human with fingers that stretched longer than their bodies but resembled tentacles more than finger. Its eyes were perfectly circular with the familiar goat pupil and its mouth like a mosquitoes proboscis. It was very thin and looked almost emaciated. However odd the creatures may have looked, he could not read to tell what they were Or what this book had to say.

     "Look with no eyes..."

     He firmly shut his eyes but felt silly doing so, surely the method would turn up to be useless and give zero results but in the back of his mind he began to see something, something the color of a blue sky, much unlike the sky in this world. The odd characters of the language unknown floated vividly but still. After several moments, they broke apart and formed english words and read a sentence: What do you seek?

     He did not know how to respond but he went ahead and spoke, again, feeling odd doing so, "I... Where is Tabatha?"

     The words broke apart and reformed, "The breeder in the center."

     David opened his eyes and tucked the book under his arm and bolted out of the room and began to pace side to side, "With the breeders in the center... The center? Center of the city? So maybe city hall?" That was all he had to go on. So that was what he would do, he would have to check the city hall. The other part of the message, "with the breeders," however, greatly concerned him. What are the breeders and why would Tabby be with them? His anxiety began to rise and he began to feel the strong desire for a shot of whiskey. He whipped out his flask and took a deep, burning swig.