Vision2 (3 page)

As he sat there, he could feel the air shifted around him, giving way until he gradually felt himself slipping through the ebony world. He clawed at the air, trying to grab onto something, but the thickness that had been there only moments before faded to nothing more than fog with his touch. Within seconds, the substance that had held him up failed completely, and he found himself plummeting through nothingness.

He tried to scream, but no sound escaped his lungs. The air rushing by his face was moving so fast and with such force that he couldn
’
t inhale. If not for the momentum he felt, he wouldn
’
t have known he was moving. There was no hollow roar of wind, no pressure on his face or skin, simply the movement of his body as he tumbled over himself.

Roger clawed at his face and throat, trying to find some way to force the air into his lungs, but nothing helped. His throat burned as if he had screamed it raw, and his lungs were like two hot coals smoldering in his chest. As Roger began to lose consciousness, ghost voices and song fragments floated through his head.

It had been over sixteen years since the last time he danced to Manfred Mann
’
s
The Mighty Quinn
with his mother, but he could still remember her soft voice and bouncing laugh.

That
’
s right,
Roger thought as he fought to stay awake,
Quinn was an Eskimo.
The song echoed through his head, relaxing him. It had been one of his mother
’
s favorites, and she used to play it on her old record player while they danced around the room.

Just when her voice began to trail off and leave him, his body was thrown against a harsh, unforgiving surface. A deep, rattling cough racked his entire body before he was finally able to draw a breath into his still burning lungs. As the stinging subsided and his limbs returned to him, Roger opened his eyes a slit and was immediately assaulted by a bright, green glow. It took him a few moments to realize that he was in a circular room made of green stained glass.

Each pane was a different shade of green, ranging from lush forest green to puke green. Pulling himself up on his elbows, he gazed around the room, forcing himself to take several deep, controlled breaths until his lungs felt normal.

There wasn
’
t any kind of door to the room that he could see. He rolled onto his side and inspected the piece of glass he had landed on, but there wasn
’
t a single crack on its surface. This was a miracle considering the speed and velocity of his body at the point of impact.

Where in hell did glass that strong come from? Where am I?

He grimaced as the pain once again flared from a dull roar into full agony as he tried to stand. He gripped his head with both hands as the pain drove him onto his knees.

“Ow! My fuckin
’
head!” His scream rang through the still air, startling him. He had forgotten how quiet everything was until he heard his own shrill voice echoing in the round chamber.

“I can talk,” Roger thought out loud, actually amazed at the sound of his own voice. He remembered the last thing he had heard before now had been Bear
’
s frantic barking.

“Hey! Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?” Roger croaked, grabbing his head as it once again began to throb. “I need an Aspirin.”

“I
’
m afraid we have nothing to offer you, but sleep will take care of it,” a disembodied voice tried to assure him. “If you just relax, everything will be better when you awaken.”

Roger was startled. He had not been expecting an answer, but he still responded without thinking.

“Sleep? How am I supposed to sleep? There
’
s not even a bed or a blanket.”

“Do you always have to have a bed to sleep?”

“No, but…. Where are you? Why can
’
t I see you?”

“You
’
re in a special chamber. It often takes awhile to adjust, and you will have to stay here until that has been completed.”

“Adjust to what? Besides this horrible monster of a headache, I feel fine. I just want out of this room.” The soft, glowing, green panes were starting to give him the creeps.

The voice returned, this time more exasperated than before. “I promise, sleep would be a good thing.”

“Sleep? You want me to sleep after that?” Roger screamed, ignoring the pain that flared up with each word. “I don
’
t give a shit about sleep or anything else except answers.”

Roger waited, but there wasn
’
t a response. Whomever he
’
d been talking to had decided to leave.

Firturro stood in front of the viewing window and shook his head as he watched Roger crawl across the floor patting down the walls like a rat stuck in a maze. He sighed as he turned away from his side of the glass. The light shined through the one-way observation and caused shadows to march across his tired face.

The council wasn
’
t exactly happy with him. He had argued with them for two days, remaining steady in his support of Roger, which annoyed them. When he had talked during the meeting, it had only been to try to convince them that, with enough time, this human would adjust and decide upon an appropriate path.

Firturro didn
’
t have any misconceptions about the council
’
s views, and he knew that his defense of a mere human disgusted them. They wouldn
’
t admit a human, no matter how brilliant, had the capability to walk the line between free will and fate. To them, humans were nothing but substandard creatures who could only live and reproduce, and that
’
s why Obawok had been decreed their caretakers. Humanity
’
s flaws were just more assurance of the divine status of Obawok.

In the end, none of his arguments had mattered. No one in the council had taken his side, not even the ones who sometimes agreed with Firturro
’
s more liberal views. In their opinion, the subject had been given twenty-seven years. That had been enough time to make an appropriate decision. They kept insisting that this was especially true in Roger
’
s case since most people make the decision during or before their twentieth year. Here was this human male almost thirty years old and still undecided. To the council, that was worse then blasphemy, and they didn
’
t feel they could wait any longer lest his soul be left to perish between worlds.

“Do you think he
’
ll be okay? Do you think he
’
ll be able to make it through the Mezoglike?” Tigaffo questioned as Firturro eyed him. Tigaffo was staring at Roger expectantly, and Firturro kept waiting for him to start openly salivating over Roger
’
s test. It wasn
’
t good for watchers to anticipate their subject
’
s ultimate downfall. Some watchers may have delighted in the spilling of human blood, but he was certainly not one of them and would not abide an apprentice who did.

“I certainly hope so, because the alternative isn
’
t good.” He turned, facing Tigaffo dead-on before finishing. “But it wasn
’
t my decision to make, and the council believed this was needed.”

Firturro brushed past the too eager Tigaffo and headed down the corridor to his chambers. The excitement and confusion of the past few days had denied him much needed rest and food, and he was paying the price. The body that had served him so well for thousands of years was finally breaking down, and he actually welcomed it.

He looked over his shoulder at Tigaffo. “You should try to use this time to rest. We
’
re going to be extremely busy when he
’
s released from the chamber. As his appointed guardians, we
’
ll have to assist him with everything he needs to learn before taking the Mezoglike.”

Tigaffo nodded and shuffled off in the opposite direction down the dingy and poorly lit hall to the dorms where the apprentices slept. Most watchers didn
’
t get to experience something of this magnitude until they had been practicing watchers for a few hundred years.

Obawok society was based on conformity and strict adherence to the rules. Lately, many of the other watchers had become even more aware of Firturro
’
s rogue thoughts concerning the ancient practices and had started going out of their way to avoid him when he came near, their downcast glances and their shuffling footsteps the only contact they allowed him. Any conversations they had been having when he got there were immediately cut off, and several of the councilman
’
s eyes flared bright before they too turned and left him in silence, and Firturro didn
’
t blame them. It was dangerous to be associated with someone who questioned things.

His old age allowed him the ability to ignore these childish attempts to ostracize him, but he knew how damaging rumors and innuendo could be to someone as young as Tigaffo. Firturro knew it was because of this shameful association that Tigaffo felt a very personal sense of pride associated with his new mission, and Firturro wasn
’
t so old or uncaring that he couldn
’
t understand the boy
’
s youthful vigor. He just hoped that once Tigaffo saw what the test really was, he would lose this boyish sense of adventure. If Tigaffo couldn
’
t understand the need to preserve human life, Firturro would have to see to it that he was reassigned to another department and trained to do another task.

Firturro reached his door and entered his modest but cozy apartment through a series of push button switches that released the mechanical door lock, one item among many whose original concept had been stolen from earth. This small token of safety was issued to Obawok who were high ranking enough to need certain privacies, but Firturro knew there was no such thing as privacy on this planet. There was nothing in Obawok the Council President didn
’
t immediately know how to access or control at the snap of a finger. If he wanted in Firturro
’
s apartment, nothing as trivial as this basic locking system would stop him. Despite this knowledge, hearing its mechanical lock tighten behind him did make the tension in his muscles ease.

Firturro slipped off his heavy velvet watcher
’
s cloak and looked around the room as he hung it on a nearby peg. There was nothing extravagant to the three small rooms; in fact, there was almost nothing at all in them except his glowing glass paned bed and a man-made chair that had been given to him as a gift by his old master, Lithirro.

Without even looking toward the kitchen, Firturro climbed into bed, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. Obawok didn
’
t often dream, but when they did, it was deemed as a prophetic message from the ancients. So even though his faith in the ancients was partial at best, he still wanted nothing more than to dream of Roger well and alive on earth, where he belonged.

Welcome to
Lollipop
Land

The steady click of footsteps on the heavy glass caused Roger to fling open his eyes as the sudden memory of what had happened flooded through him.

How did they get in?

He sat up and turned towards the steadily approaching footsteps, his entire body creaking as he moved. At first, all Roger could see was a small, sleep-fuzzy figure. He rubbed his eyes and immediately gasped when his vision cleared.

This couldn
’
t be a product of his imagination because he
’
d never seen anything like it. The short, squatty creature stood about four foot tall and had thick, leathery dark green skin. It wore a floor length cloak that perfectly matched this unusual skin tone, and its wild crimson hair set off its deeply lined face and brilliant purple eyes. Its rough, squatty bulldog-like face was ugly, yet like the dog it reminded him of, it was also oddly appealing.

He
’
d heard that scientists around the world were experimenting with genetics on a level he could barely comprehend, playing god with different genes and chromosomes in order to make the human species more efficient and productive, but this was science fiction on a whole new level. He briefly wondered what government agency was behind this, and what did they want from him? And, if these weren
’
t human manufactured creatures, then the only other explanation was.... Well there didn
’
t really seem to be another explanation.

Then the thing began to talk, and government conspiracies flew out of his head as a surge of white-hot fear broke through his bones, making him weigh a hundred pounds more than normal and pinning him to the glass floor. The other scenario hit him with a weight he wouldn
’
t have believed possible. And if this were indeed an alien abduction, then he owed a great big apology to all the rednecks he
’
d mocked for so long.