Victor Black - And the Garden of the Gods

Chapter 8: Not Quite Dead

A loud chirp emanated from the back pocket of some jeans, as did the corner of an envelope. The jeans hey had been folded neatly in a pile. A designer t-shirt, black leather coat, socks, and boxer shorts imprinted with smiley faces balanced on top. The pile teetered on top of a pair of dirt-stained sneakers, with their laces hanging down from an edgy, white, opaque pedestal, in a white room bathed in soft light. The air was humid and thick—sticky, yet cold.

The chirping turned into a ringing—a phone that kept on begging its owner to pay attention, but no one did. After several attempts, it stopped.

Along the sleek surface of another pedestal lay Victor Black. His body rested there, pale white, and motionless, his hands at his sides in a corpse pose. Nothing stirred around him. The floor and ceiling blended into obscurity, shrouded in the mist, as did everything else living or moving within the space.

The forest had disappeared, as did the clearing and its contents: The Jeep, the stump, and the yellow rope. Everything had vanished. Nature was replaced by cold, sterile, geometric surfaces in varying shades of white.

A heavy silence surrounded Victor until his eyes flashed open. He stared at the blank, white space above him, confused, and alone. He'd been in this position sometime in the recent past. An electric current ran through his body, paralyzing him, leaving him unable to speak or move a single muscle. He didn't feel his heartbeat or the sound of airflow in and out of his lungs.

Victor had experienced something similar while abroad in Russia with Kai, something neither of them told anyone. Kai's face was the first image his brain fired off, followed by vague memories

The Rope.

His mind produced sharp, transitory images.

My neck.

No sounds poured from his mouth, just the screaming in his head as the memories of what he had done surged back into his conscious like a muddy flood. He panicked, and he could do nothing about it but lay there, reliving the entire experience at the overlook again through memory. His fingers and eyelids twitched—or seemed to—and a sense of fear and dread overtook him, alone in the mist.

What is all this, he thought?

He felt numb. His body had been stripped naked. Either he was dead, dreaming, or, worse yet, alive—awake and in serious trouble.

Something familiar appeared. A movement. Something Victor and Kai had both encountered that night in the Russian observatory's bunk room.

Out the corner of Victor's right eye, a pale, brown-gray figure loomed over him like a phantom, towering, and without features. It pressed against his right shoulder at its waist. Victor's insides shuddered in fear.

His mind rationalized, this could be a dream, Vic, or an illusion. The result of stupidly trying to strangle yourself. However, he knew it wasn't a dream.

The figure lingered, frozen at his side. Victor stared upward, unable to move. The numbing shock had paralyzed his body, leaving him utterly vulnerable.

Victor could not tell how long he had been there, but he heard other movements somewhere nearby. A dull, shifting movement resonated beyond the figure, out in the mist, maybe twenty feet away.

In another direction, he heard more noise. A tapping, metallic in nature, pierced the white nothingness. Metallic scraping. Drilling. Horrible grinding noises.

What's next, he puzzled?

Sounds blended until, at last, the thing, or person, or ghost next to him, moved. Victor gasped—as did someone nearby—when the figure raised what appeared to be an arm with three long fingers, and delicately touched him on the forehead.