The Call

Schweizfille co-wrote this book. In advance, this one shot has a very similar plot to the tv show Manifest, but we are not copying it. This book was written 2017. Ok, here we go.

You try to run,

You try to hide,

You cant escape,

It will follow you.

Now you're trapped,

lost, drawn the wrong way

Don't forget that unmistakable sound,

only they can save you,

always remember,

that you can never forget,

The Call.

There's this thing. It resonates inside me, lives inside me, pulls me somewhere. I keep searching for a direction, the horizon, the sky, the sea, the land. When I find what I'm looking for, I will finally know the truth about the Call inside me.

The call. A sound nobody knows is there, but can sense the imbalance its encased in. I can hear this sound. I know this sound. It means that you are trapped. Trapped in a madness caused by our greed, our violence and ourselves. Something calls us all and all will fall subject to it. All but one will obey. One against them all as they rebel and regret till the destruction of their universe.

I heard a scream. I felt it wrenched out of my throat. All I could hear were the screams, but I could still feel it. It haunts me. I had a dream last night. Someone was there. Calling out. But darkness, black as night, consuming me. It was a nightmare vision of my death. Wailing, groaning, crying pounding in my head, all called together in one rolling soundtrack. I was a everywhere and yet nothing. I was the master even though I was a pawn. It was a trick. I was just the pawn, I was nothing. The master, everything, was making me subject to my own game. I cannot win my fight. So I must live by the Call. Black seeping through the edges of my vision. Some people asked but almost no one knew, The call was calling me too loudly for me to resist for much longer. But I was still searching, I was still here, I still clinging on to sanity and to life.

It's almost tangible, yet it held a fragility, robbing me of the pleasure of touching it, releasing the potential for me to hold it. I was only to look, to run and to hide. I was the slave to it all, all of it controlling me. It had led me this far, I need to continue this journey to discover truth, with the Call eternally pulsing through my veins.

This strange foreign pulse called me, bringing me closer, whether I wanted to or not. Resulting in me resisting for my life, drawn by an ancient power, with one dark unsolvable mystery. Bound by curses of blood, skin and heart, but not spirit or mind. Then my gut sparked, it could hear it, feel it. Pulling me to its origins. Looking now, a ghost of me is who remains. Yet I know Another has suffered the same fate as I am. Having a choice seems like such an alien concept, i almost could not consider there being one. But I save myself from this by searching for something else, or I finally discover the truth, at the risk of having to sacrifice my own life. But was it even mine?

As it pulled me ever so slightly closer, I suddenly felt another presence. Only briefly, for a moment, but it wasn't scary, cold like a bone. Warm and comforting. I'd never felt this presence before, had no clue what this was or where this was from, but I knew that whatever it was, wherever it was, the Call would never let me near it again.

This presence left me quickly, like it was scared so moved on, but it reacted with something. I was led over hills and through valleys, always pulling ever closer. Filled with absolute dread and petrifying fear, settling at the pit of my stomach, feeling like dead weight, I followed regardless. I thought that this could be the end. The pull was growing in strength. I involuntarily relinquished the remainder of control I possessed over my actions and my body. I might never see daylight again now. This could be the end. Or it could just be the start.

As I stopped at an ocean, I thought it was over. The Call stopped. I turned to retrace my steps, I'd missed the truth, but found myself dragged into the ocean. Completely submerged, suffocating, all my senses were obscured as oblivion over came me.

I can only hear screaming now. All that can be seen of me, the true genuine me, is a glimpse of a soul, a rebelling spirit, against the demonic possession the shadow of the Call is. I follow the screaming, the pulling, the Call. I had fallen prey to the enchantment once more, as I did every time. To restore a feeling of hope and a sense of control, only to have it snatched away before it had even completed materialising. To taunt and tempt, until there is not a shred of humanity left. I thought I had chosen the truth over my life, in a desperate bid to break through the facade of lies and untruths. The deception and betrayal. Only for it to become blindingly obvious, my perception had been distorted and warped until I was convinced it had been my decision. I have been reduced to a voiceless monster. I'm trapped, locked inside my own mind, while I am called to the ancient origin of the call, unable to alter my footsteps, helpless to the path I was on. I know my fate once I get there, once I discover the truth, once I succeed. I shall fulfil the role many others have abandoned, scarred and traumatised of what had happened, so they try to deny the Call, treating themselves to excruciating pain before an agonising death, their screams haunting anyone the next, as they begin their fated journey, on an endless cycle. However I won't cause another pain or suffering, or the nightmares of my screams torturing them. I can't deny what I've found as I have to discover the truth. No others shall be tricked into following the urges of the Call. I've spent years being controlled by it, but I shall refuse it the satisfaction of stealing life from the world.

100 years later.

Raindrops splinter on the earth, as the water shatters and breaks, the shards scattering across the dirt. The sun had long ago been consumed, as the world was enveloped by the darkness. Smoke had bellowed out of Manhattan, L.A, Chicago, and Exeter, Liverpool, York, ploughing through the surrounding land, contaminating plants and water, poisoning the wildlife, hiding the sky from view. At the same instant as the smoke had started spreading, flames had started to lick at the coast lines in every country. Just smouldering embers, gently burning the sand of the shores. No smoke. They had buzzed softly, a humming of sorts, all together, almost like they were singing. The embers had suddenly all simultaneously died, all over the Earth, burning to ashes. Then the smoke had been there, visible from every continent, country, city in the world, stemming from either America or Britain, flowing freely across the Pacific, Atlantic to Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Seconds after the smoke had been seen, rolling atop the waves, the fires had roared, bursting up like a phoenix from the ashes, with flames rising 7 feet high, ravenously consuming the waves, the sand, and anything else within a 10 feet radius. Except for the smoke. That had drifted steadily through, as though it weren't there. Manhattan, L.A, Chicago, Exeter, Liverpool and York had all been deserted, no one could get in. The worlds population is now somewhere below 100,000. Its almost like all the life had been sucked out of the world. Screams are constant whispers, plaguing the deafening silence that threatens to control the world, Always the same thing:

'They failed'

'Success'

The Call.