Worlds beyond

I started writing this piece about 2 years ago. A little over a year ago I posted it here on this account. I then lost this account for a long time. Eventually I started a new account and posted the story on it as well. Just recently I found this account again, and I want to share the story here instead. I am trying to deactivate the other account and just go back to this one, but for now they are both active and they both have the story on them, so if you see this story on another account, kittygirl86, under the same title, it is the same story, by the same person. If anyone can tell me how to deactivate the other account, it would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise here's the story. . .

PS. Since the last post on this account, the story has changed a lot, grown if you will, but it is still the same story.

Chapter 1

Fallon parked her car in the driveway, in the same spot she had used for the past three years. Just like she had every so often over those years, she got out and unloaded the groceries from the back seat of her old junker of a car. As she grabbed the bags she got a faint smile, forgetting the trouble her car had given her the last few blocks, and thought, instead, about seeing her husband, Kyle, for the first time since leaving that morning. She missed him every day and every day he made it clear he had missed her too. She imagined the kiss he would giver her and how she would long to just throw the groceries on the floor and drag him to their bedroom, but how she couldn't because she had to get the meat in the freezer.

She grabbed as many of the bags as she could handle, she hated making too many trips, and, so, tried to get them all. She couldn't quite get the last two, and sighed resignedly and took what she had to the back door. She juggled the keys, her purse, and the bags until she got the door unlocked. The hallway opened up to her and she walked down, until she got to the first door on the left. Like always, it was open for her to walk through and she stepped into the kitchen. She started setting the bags on the counter and was disappointed when Kyle didn't come to greet her like he usually did. She made another trip to the car and got the remaining groceries, closed and locked her car door and went back into the house. Kyle still hadn't appeared.

'He must have fallen asleep on the couch again,' she though as she put the remaining bags on the floor and went looking for him.

The dining room was attached to the kitchen and led through to the living room. She barely noticed the small table and rickety old chairs that frightened her every time she sat in one. She had the passing thought that they should really replace those rotting old chairs before someone went through them to the floor. A small painting of an old log cabin sitting just off the beach of a small lake hung above the table. The lake was surrounded by blue firs and evergreens of every kind imaginable it seemed. She had not given an inch when he had thought to fight her about the placement of that picture, she loved it and insisted on having it in the dining room. The compromise had been that he got to arrange and decorated the living room, and she had regretted it ever since, but she would not give up her beloved painting.

The living room was small, like every other room in the house, with a too large couch spreading lengthwise across it, about three feet from the door, leaving only a small gap between the right arm and the wall to get around. The tv sat cockeyed in the far left corner and a large bookcase sat opposite facing the couch. An over sized window predominated the far wall, with thick dark gray curtains blocking most of the sunlight trying to filter through.

She stopped short when she stepped into the living room. He was standing in front of the couch, staring at the TV which was flashing the news. That was not unusual, he loved the news and watched it whenever he had spare time or she was not around, but he was frozen, watching with what would have been a blank expression except for the faint glimmer o horror that had seeded itself in his beautiful dark green eyes. Her heart turned icy at the sight of such terror in her loves' eyes, and she found she was terrified to learn what was flashing on the news that could keep him frozen in terror like that.

'Curiosity killed that cat,' she found herself thinking, and would have smiled had it not been for the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She finally tore her eyes from him and for the first time focused on the television.

At first she thought she was seeing the aftermath of a large earthquake, somewhere in a large city, but then the pictures flashed again, and it was a different city, with the same widespread destruction. She read the caption below and the terror she had seen beginning in his eyes, completely took her over.

"It can't be," she whispered more to herself than anything, but he heard and he answered, though afterwards she wished he hadn't spoken at all;

"It can and it is," she was shocked from her horrible reverie at the sound of his detached voice. She stared at him agape as his words slowly sunk in. She couldn't believe he sounded so calm when his eyes told her he was as scared as she was. It almost seemed he was walking in a dream, and talking to her through it. She was beginning to wonder it she was in a dream. A nightmare she couldn't wake from.

Chapter 2

She shook herself. Stop thinking! Stop thinking and just go! It hadn't been a dream, it was real, and now she had to save herself. The roads were backed up for miles and miles. She didn't know how she was going to get out of the city, and fast, without her car. She panicked as she frantically searched for an alternative. It seemed like hours passed with no solution, as she packed a backpack full of a few essentials. She went into the garage to find a flashlight, and inspiration finally struck. She hand an old mountain bike she hadn't used in over a decade, which she had kept as a memento of the happier times of her childhood, there had been so few, she couldn't bring herself to give up the few things that reminded her of them. The bike was one. It was small, but it would still serve its purpose. She threw it in the back of her car, and finished packing her bag.

She took her car as far as she could, before traffic got so bad that people were actually taking their cars off road to get around the jam. She knew that if she took her car even a few feet off the road it would stall and not go any farther, it was already acting up, so she abandoned it. She yanked her bike and backpack from the back seat. She weaved between the traffic as fast as she could go. A few motorcycles zipped past her, almost knocking her to the ground.

The years of neglect showed on her and the bike. She was tiring fast, and the gears squeaked and groaned under the pressure of the hard riding. She pushed herself further though, and amazingly the bike held up, and so did her legs, which she kept peddling furiously to keep the impossible speed she maintained.

She was miles out of the city now, and she was beginning to climb into the mountains. She could not believe she had kept up this long, but she couldn't stop now. It was time to leave the comfort of the road and try to find safety in the hills. She didn't know how or where she would find it, but something told her to go there. There were no paths and riding was even harder in knee deep grass that fought her ever inch, but she pushed herself and the bike followed.

Her legs ached and she was breathing hard. She was beginning to run out of steam. Her terror had fueled her well, but even that was beginning to run out. She was losing hope. She didn't know how she had even managed to gather hope in the first place. Everything she had ever known was gone, or about to be blown to pieces. She was slowly realizing that she didn't know if she really even wanted to try anymore.

She reached the tree line just as the sun started to go down. The grass ran out, and riding became easier, but she was so tired that it felt like she was still riding through the grass. She was still riding fast, but it was becoming harder and harder. She could barely feel her legs anymore and she had to look to make sure she was really peddling, even though her speed told her she was.

The light was failing and when she looked up from watching her legs peddle, she didn't see the rock directly in front of her, and hit is squarely. She went down hard, nearly shattering her shoulder. Instinct saved her though, and she curled into a ball, taking the brunt of the fall in her backpack bruising her deeply where something hard crushed into her back, but she had otherwise saved herself from a nasty break. She stood up, and nearly toppled over on her overused legs. She could have lain down and passed out right then, she nearly did, but even with her misgivings creeping in on her, she was not ready to give up. She didn't know where she was getting her foolish notions that there would be someone or something that would save her, but she kept thinking there was still hope. She knew it was only a matter of time before a bomb came to wipe out the only home she had ever known, but until then she was not going to give up.

The sun was down now, but there was still some light left. She picked up her bike and threw it down almost immediately. The wheel was hopelessly bent and deflated. She had to abandon it as well. She took off walking, she didn't have the strength to run. She had no direction, she just walked. She came to a clearing, and saw that the stars were almost out in full force. Any other time and she would have stopped to admire the view of the heavens that was so clear and bright up in the mountains, away from the city. She had always wanted to live in the mountains, and laughed bitterly as she thought that this would be her final resting place. Fitting, but terribly so. She kept going, despite the strong urge to just lie down and watch the stars till the bomb came, obliterating her and everything else. She reached the other side of the clearing, still walking up hill, when she heard a distant slow rumbling.

She stopped and looked around. She didn't see anything that could give off that noise, and it grew louder. She looked to the sky, fear enveloping her, as she hoped against hope that it wasn't what she thought it was. Louder and louder as it drew closer, until she could not stand the noise any longer, and suddenly it burst over the horizon of the low hill in front of her, screaming its rage as it sped towards its doomed target. Unstoppable in its mechanical rage, its jets blazing brightly, it was propelled onwards.

The sight made her heart flutter, and she couldn't contain her terror anymore. She took off running, with a new burst of adrenalin, back into the trees. She ran a few hundred yards before she stopped, for under the roar of the deadly bombs engines, now fading in the distance, she heard the excited yells of people. She had to stop herself wondering how there could be other people out here, in the middle of no where and just followed the sound of their voices. She saw a light in the middle of the hill side. A bright unnatural light, and this time she did wonder, briefly, how it had come to be out here. The voices were coming from that direction, and she tore through the trees and burst into another clearing. She could see the light clearly now, coming through a tall wide doorway, and dashed for it as she saw the people tearing through it in their haste. The last one entered it, and the door started to close.

"STOP! PLEASE WAIT FOR ME!" she yelled, but either they didn't hear her, or they couldn't stop it. Impossible as she had thought it to be, only a few minutes ago, she increased her speed until she was racing full sprint towards the door. She nearly tripped on a rock that twisted under her foot, but miraculously she stayed upright, and continued her headlong race. She reached the door just before it closed and slipped through it sideways. A bright light illuminated the world behind her, then the door slammed shut.

Chapter 3

She wished she hadn’t made it. She wished the door had closed too soon. She wished she was with Kyle, obliterated by the blast. But she wasn’t. She was here, in this god-forsaken place without windows. She couldn’t look outside. She couldn’t see the sun, or the clouds, or the trees. She couldn’t walk outside, and feel the suns rays warming her, or the soft wind in her hair, or the gentle touch of the spring rain. She couldn’t do anything but walk the endless corridors, searching for meaning.

Not that having windows would have made it any better, really, the only view they would offer would be one of complete destruction. It would be too soon for the nuclear winter to have begun, but the world would be cold and dying. Whomever and whatever had survived the blasts would find themselves faced with the impossible task of surviving a world devoid of sun and heat for weeks, or months or years. Nobody knew for sure. No one even knew how many bombs had been launched, or how many had found their targets, or how much dust and radiation had been launched into the atmosphere. Perhaps no one would ever know. With civilization crumbling beneath its own folly, and her and some strangers trapped in this pit of doom,
How had she known where to go? She realized now, looking back, that something had been guiding her. She hadn’t just been randomly roaming, and just happened to come upon this place. It was too much of a coincidence. And what about the other people? Had they just known too?

She didn’t really know if she wanted to know. She had kept herself locked up in her chosen apartment ever since the tragedy. Several of the others had tried to talk to her, but she sent them running from the room, most in tears. She didn’t remember what she had said to them, she seemed to become possessed when someone came to speak to her, and the only thing she could recall was that they all left terrified of her. She didn’t know why, she knew she needed to talk to someone, and she had never been one to be cold or ruthless.

Nothing made sense anymore. Her whole life had been turned upside down, and there weren’t even any windows to comfort her.

She realized that even if there had been windows, the scene would have been anything but comforting. It would have been terrifying, with thick black clouds pouring nuclear snow and ash, and terrible electric storms would be tearing the surface to shreds. But they were safe in this dungeon, as she had come to think of it. It was a place of torture, not physical, but mental. She had survived, and everyone she knew and loved was dead, either by the blast or some other terrible fate that had befallen them in the chaos before.

Her dark purple eyes, flecked with bits of red that had never been there before, filled with tears and overflowed. Her eyes had always been a mark of hers that set her apart from everyone else. They drew attention almost anywhere she went. Most people did not believe that they were not contacts, but she really didn’t care. She liked the color, and could care less if anyone believed or not. Kyle was one of the few, besides her parents, who believed that they were natural.

‘Kyle!’ she couldn’t bare to think of him, and his ugly fate. She just couldn’t, but it seemed to creep up on her no matter where she let her mind wander. Everything reminded her of him, and with nothing but the endless white walls of the dungeon, she found herself mulling over him more and more often as the days passed.

Chapter 4

Allysa turned the last corner, in the seemingly endless labyrinth of plain white corridors. How she knew this would be the last one, she didn’t know, but sure enough, it was a dead end hall. The only outlet was a single door at the far left end. The door seemed to call to her. It seemed to be telling her to come and open it, that something amazing lay waiting on the other side. She couldn’t tear her eyes from it once she saw it. It seemed to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, even though it was as plain white as all the other doors in the entire complex.

She felt as though she were walking in a dream and she seemed to glide as she walked towards the door. She couldn’t help her movements anymore as she finally stood in front of the door and reached her hand to the door knob. Her hand was inches away when suddenly the door changed, and she froze. It began to shift colors, first from the porcelain white, to grass green, to jet black, to blood red, to sky blue. It flashed through all the colors in the rainbow, randomly, until it cam back to white. It seemed then that it was done, but then it changed again, this time, it started with black, and slowly colors were added, all the time as they emerged the colors began to swirl and twist over and under each other, completely hypnotizing her. They swirled and swam, until every color had been added, and then they all froze, but in her mind they were still moving, and now she couldn’t wait any longer. She grabbed the handle and the world went black.

* * *
"You're not dreaming, this is real," he said, as though he had read her mind. He still spoke in the detached monotone, She didn't know what was wrong with him. He just didn't seem right. She shifted her eyes back to the TV for a moment, just in time to catch the most horrible scene yet. The view live from a helicopter, nothing seemed amiss yet, except the traffic was jammed on all the highways. As they zoomed in and she took a closer look, she realized all the cars were facing the same direction, out of the city. In the zoomed view, she could see some of the downtown area, and it looked as though it had all been ransacked by barbarians. This scene itself was unremarkable in itself, compared with all the rest of the cities they had panned over, and the newscast was about to flip to another view, when suddenly a wild scream came from one of the crew in the helicopter. The camera view tilted wildly for a moment and then settled, somewhat shakily on the horizon of New York. It caught the last stage of the flight of the missile as it landed some where in the densely populated metropolis. Brilliant white light flashed on the screen and then there was only static.

She didn't realize, until the screen went blank, that she had been holding her breath for quite some time, and she let out an explosive gasp and took deep ragged breaths, trying to calm herself, but tears started rolling down her cheeks unchecked. She began to sob, and she realized how much she just wanted him to hold her, and comfort her and tell her everything was going to be ok, but he just stood there, with the same blank stare, as if he had expected this all along.

“I can’t let us die like that. I can’t.” The first sense of emotion finally crept into his voice as he seemed to falling into hysteria. She looked at him, she didn’t know it yet, but for the last time alive, and realized he had a gun in his hand. He turned towards her and slowly started the raise the gun towards her.

“I CAN”T!’ He yelled. She pulled a frantic deep breath as he pulled the hammer back, and she ducked into the dining room. Pure survival instinct took over as she ran, but it seemed as though her mind had betrayed her when she ran left instead of right to leave the house, and instead found herself launching herself into the bedroom. She snapped herself out of flight mode, and turned around to run the other way, but saw that it was already too late, he was close behind her, despite having to navigate around the couch to get out of the living room. She grabbed the door, locking it tight as she slammed it shut.

He slammed into the door, and nearly took it off the hinges, but they held firm through the beating. He slammed again, but not with as much force. She was beginning to panic, but tried to get a grip. There was only one way out of this, but she could barely bring herself to think of it.

‘I have to get out of this!’ she berated herself as she opened the closet door in spite of her tormenting emotions, and yanked the case, at the bottom of the cluttered floor, free. Hastily she flipped the latches up and tore the lid open.

It looked so serene, just lying there, as if begging her to pick it up. Her hand shook as she lifted it out of the case, and checked the chamber. No shells. Where? ? ?

She leapt over the bed to the dresser and slid the bottom drawer open, nestled in the corner was a box full of the deadly shells. She opened the box and plucked two of them out. Her hands were shaking so badly now, she almost couldn’t uncock the gun to load the bullets. She dropped a shell on the floor when he slammed into the door again. She was sobbing harder now that when she had seen the destruction of the city on TV.

“Please stop!” she begged him, “please just stop! We can make it out of here!” Another bang answered her pleas, and through blinding tears, she found the blood red shell on the floor and managed to get it into the chamber. She dropped the other one in as well and the gun clicked as she replaced the muzzle.

She aimed the gun with the safety still on, and begged once more;

“Please listen to me baby! Please STOP!”

He slammed one more time, the wood beginning to splinter under the pressure. She flipped the safety switch over, and touched her finger to the trigger. She didn’t hear when he next slammed into the door, but she knew and she pulled the trigger, tears running into her mouth as she was knocked backwards slightly from the recoil. She didn’t feel the butt of the gun slam into her shoulder, or the splinters of wood scrape past her cheeks as a hole exploded in the door.
* * *
She woke with a start and sat bolt upright on the white bed. She had been dreaming this time, but the nightmare that played in her head was all too real. She tried to shake the images from her head, but they played over and over.

She swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up. She stopped dead in her tracks. Someone had been with her in the dream. Someone had just shared the whole experience with her, and that someone was in trouble. She felt a connection she hadn’t felt before, and she ran for the door. She tore from her room as fast as she could; following the instincts she had developed and learned to trust so recently.

She ran blindly down the identical hallways, thinking there would never be an end. She didn’t stop or look around. She made a few turns but kept on running, following that link that had somehow been forged in her dream. She turned another corner, and came to a dead halt. It was a dead end except for a door at the end. It looked the same as all the others she had passed on the way here, but it was somehow different.

She walked cautiously down the empty hall, and stopped in front of the door. Something shifted on the door, the color, the shape, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Suddenly the door turned black. She took a step away, now very afraid of this seemingly harmless door. She heard whispers, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The sound swirled in her head, and colors started dancing on the door. She couldn’t make out any color before it disappeared and was replaced with another. They leapt and danced on the face of the door for what seemed like an eternity. They were hypnotizing her. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. Suddenly the whispers stopped, and a buzzing in her head took over.

She blinked. The spell was over, but the colors still danced and the buzzing still persisted. She looked around, but no one was around. She was alone. She shook her head, and put her hands to her ears, trying to stop the sound, but it didn’t stop.

“Stop!” she almost yelled, but it didn’t stop. The colors were becoming more agitated. They swirled around, almost seeming to burst from the door frame. She shook her head again, and closed her eyes.

“Just stop!” but she could still see the colors dancing in her head. Another sound joined the buzzing, the sound of a tortured soul crying. It was crying for her, and pleading for her help, but she didn’t know what to do. She opened her eyes and looked again at the door, but instead of the swirling colors, she saw a face. It was as though she was looking through a window, into the room beyond the door, and all she could see was the face of a beautiful young girl, crying and screaming. Tears ran down her unblemished face, but they mixed with blood that welled up from unseen wounds. The girl turned her bright blue eyes up and looked right into Fallon’s soul.

Fallon doubled over in pain. She hurt everywhere, in every way, from burning pain, to tiny pinpricks, covering her entire body, and she knew it was the girls pain she was feeling. Somehow she was sharing it with her, letting her know exactly what was happening to her. She looked to the door again; the door knob had become a hand, reaching for her. She extended her arm, reaching for the hand. An unseen force seemed to push her back, but she fought against it, and the pain, and crawled towards the door. She reached up again and took firm hold on the hand. Searing pain, worse that before, shot up her arm, almost causing her to lose grip, but she held fast and pulled. An arm began to emerge from the door as she pulled, and she pulled harder. A body soon followed, and soon she had pulled the whole form of the girl from the grip of the trap.

The girl collapsed to the floor next to Fallon, and they both lost consciousness.