The Blackening sky

As the light creeped through the blinds, hitting his soft fudge skin and rope braid type hair with small coils but there he was like he was on most days sitting at the edge of the bed. “How have you been?” a voice says, common or frequent his thoughts blurry like an unsettled puddle. Four voices in his head all trying to talk a once, “Please, not all at once” he pleads in a low but deep and stern way. “Interesting”, “what?”, “Him…he is being oddly quite” He sits there staring off almost as if he were day dreaming but he is fully aware, there sitting, listening to the conversation between the voices in his head play out. “Hello” the third voice in his head said this once more of a child’s voice, the thought of hearing a child’s voice wasn’t haunting at first but the slicing truth of hearing his tongue cuts the flesh persist to make him keep the thought of innocents at bay. “He does this often, no surprise…it’s impressive”, “Can we please quite down?” he asked them.

His break in concentration though comes from the clicking sound of the door knob as it swings open revealing a pale frosted face standing on the other side, her brunette hair and blue eyes pierced through the shadows of the hallway. “Hey babe, you having another episode?” she asks nervously not knowing which way his mood may swing being spontaneous like the wind when ever he was trapped in his own head. His head slowly creeps up before he unleashes a wide smile “ugh, this smile”, “I wonder if she can read through it” their back and forth conversation makes his eye twitch. “Yeah, it’s nothing outside the normal” he stands “maybe a….” he blinks and realizes he is still sitting down of the edge of the bed. “Terrence!” she shouts “Yeah…eh, uh”, “Are you ready to go?” he looks up in confusion “remember we told Paul and Sally we would meet at Scorched mountain”, he stands this time he was sure of it. Paused …the silence crawling on the floor like fog, unsettling silence gives way to the light breeze blowing outside the window. It was happening again there were main things he is familiar with and the blur was one of the things he was familiar with best. The blur started when he was around thirteen, a lot started around thirteen but this is about his vision; his right eye goes blurry making words impossible to read at time even so far as to turn friendly faces into sinister blotches. “Yeah, I’m good to go” he says picking up his wool stylized WWII back pack. “Yeah, no that’s not going to work it’s entirely too small. He lifts it up and spins it around by the handle, “No, I disagree” he says with a light hearted smile to greet her stern face and rolling of eyes “fine, but if you run out of clothes, that’s all you”. He leaves from the bedroom following her to the kitchen as she opens the fridge with him coming from behind her and gently gripping her hips. “It’ll be fine, I’m fine; I promise” he whispers to her before slipping his hands into his pockets and pulls out a joint holding it up Infront of her face. She takes it from him turning around to face him while she lights it, letting the flame cuddle the tip of the paper as it sparked taking a deep inhale and soft exhale before passing it back off. They share in a intense kiss followed by smiles and giggles from either end “ah, how cute he’s in love”, “no, he thinks he’s in love”, “ now now be kind”, “Terrence….Terrence…..TERRENCE!” the voices shouting out into the echo chamber of his mind. “let me get done packing my other bag” he smiles before he heads back to the bed room, she smiles back complimented with a head shake.

Entering the bedroom once more, he had a feeling of something? The only way he could describe it would be to think of smoke. No, it was soft like cotton, maybe. Either way he knew no matter what description he gave it would serve no other purpose than to showcase the heaviness the black cloud brought with it. Boundless, empty with the sense of continuous falling but the room forever cold. He stands in front of the window and watches outside as everything begins to speed by the sound of Beth singing from the driver side of the car makes him blink a few times to make sure, the time, it had melted right by him without even a second thought. He doesn’t dwell on it too long, accompanying her in singing instead in an overly exaggerated fashion, as the hours go by and the drive carries on the singing stops after while with Terrence observing outside the window. The cold winter wrapped around the skin of the trees, with sleeping dead leaves at their roots.

He catches a glimpse but only for a moment of a group of deer hopping their way across a forest by the road. Seeing them almost as if a photo image. They turn onto a rockier road which shows way to the forest that starts to scatter away as they come into a more open desert like area. Seeing the mountain ahead, they called it the crown of God mainly cause of the visual position of the mountains as you drove up. It had a real beauty to it’s orange tint, “it’s fascinating, really?”, “is it?”, “This has been a uncomfortable sit, why is he so quite”, “he is here you know…listening” this infuriates one of the voices “Listening? Are you trying to ignore us?” the anger from the voice manages to make the words come from Terrence’s physical lips at a low whisper causing Beth to look over him “how you feeling about the star glazing tonight?” she asked not wanting show him how worried she really is. He shakes his head, getting himself out of his own head. “Yeah, the uh….” He loses his train of thought for a moment pulling out his cell phone “The NASA site shows a meteor shower flowing in tonight around 11:45pm, which is going to be cool”, “Damn right, especially with no overwhelming city lights” he smiles, she laughs “I just can’t wait to eat my stomach is killing me slowly” Beth laughs out loud. As they come to the base of the mountain, three other cars are all parked next to a sole booth with a single security guard in it. He was old with honey colored skin and long jet-black hair covered by an old worn out hat, his eyes had this dull look to them. Beth walks up to the booth while Terrence grabs the bags out the trunk of the car, “Hey, yeah we are here to check in” her bright warm smile does nothing to penetrate the man’s grim face, he sets up from his chair as Beth hands over her pass to get logged in “Are you aware if you’re not logged out in 48 hours then a search team will be sent up for you, do you understand?” he tone was dry and annoyed; she was sure he was just tired from saying this line to hundreds of hikers and campers a thousand times today alone.

Beth simply nodded not wanting to be a bother to the man any further. He proceeds to scan her card through the computer and makes her sign in on the clip board sheet. “we good?” Terrence ask peeking his head into the booth with both sets of luggage on him. Beth nods before taking her card back and the lead up the path on the mountain, it isn’t much further from the booth that they see a group of four standing there waiting. Two being Paul and Sally, he could tell cause Paul had a very noticeable strong chin line from afar he was also bulky and tan looking almost like his military father and Sally was a red head nobody ever knew if it was real or fake or maybe a redhead that just dyed her hair a different color of red but she was short the same size as Beth normally more short fused than anyone else but the others were unfamiliar from a distance “That’s interesting?” Beth says “what?” Terrence replies “I guess they invited more people, I thought this would be a couples camping trip” as the other two males come into view Terrence is able to barely make out faces. Soon enough the camaraderie and greeting begin “Aye aye, Mark I’d like to not be judged my good man”, “Ethan, It’s just a question bro” the back and forth between the two friends create a pond of smiles and slight laughter  with Terrence and Beth walking past them and up to the other couple “Hey Paul” Terrence says while they give each other a hand shake before bring it in for a brief hug.  “Sally, how have you been?” Beth ask right beside him as she takes the other two bags off of Terrence’s hands giving him a free hand as they start their journey to march up the mountain. Paul pulls out his phone stretching his arm high into the sky only to be greeted by the red X over where his bars should be, “Damn, no signal. You know this place is the worse at times” He says laughing.

Sally takes the lead with Paul, leading the way up the mountain something the others didn’t mind with Paul having the most experience hiking more than anyone. “Soooo, any of you heard of this mountain? Like the history behind it’s crowning name.”, “I always assumed it was some ancient ritual ground kind of like taking a sacrifice to the top of a volcano” Terrence replies while mimicking the heart hand gesture from Indiana Jones; he stops when he notices that Sally didn’t seem to pleased by his assumption but before she could say anything the soft voice of Mark cuts her short, “I’m definitely sure, she was referring to the how like Clark and louis found it and just thought it looked like a kings crown”, “Ah….yeah” Terrence replies nervously scratching the back of his neck. “Geez bro, a little morbid today? Aren’t we”, “no, not morbid I’d just say a little concentrated”, “on what? psychopaths and cults?” Sally says with a condescending tone “no, not with that but what makes someone want to do sacrificial rituals” Terrence says with clarity in his voice. Sally snaps her neck back to look at him “That’s easy, it’s cause they’re fuckin psycho, it’s not a deep thing” The conversation comes to a halt but the chatter amongst their feet scrapping against the dry rock never stops, only having to compete with the birds above and slight breeze of wind that will pull through.

Terrence drops to the back of the group, putting in his headphones. Everyone assumed it was because Sally made him mad but it wasn’t that; it was to prevent the voices from coming and pulling him into his head. Taking notice of how Ethan and Mark both have a matching tattoo on the back of their calfs, Ethan’s yellow skin matched distinctly well with his pineapple complexation, he also noticed his traditional Chinese style pony tail, one like you would see in anime or something with a baseball cap twisted to the back that had a logo of spider-man on it, while Mark was more of mountain look a long grizzly beard he wasn’t as bulky as Paul but he was taller and had some weight to him. Paul notices how oddly quite he was for a while, only to see him the furthest behind but he doesn’t seem bother just like he is zoned out, he lets himself fall back seeing as how Sally and Beth are entertaining each other. “Hey man” he says with a friendly nudge, Terrence takes out one of the headphone as to not be rude and so he can hear “Don’t take it hard man, she’s just dealing with somethings” he just cuts Paul the corner eye not saying much to him “Back in the safety zone, I see”, “ she is wrong you know”, “Yes, but is the argument worth it?” he asked the other voices in his head, the black space in his mind as he stands allow listening to the distant chatter beyond the beaming light from above that made it impossible for him to see further into the shadows. Still he, stayed straight face focusing on the words he could her Paul saying; he blinks a few times before coming back to “….totally should’ve been there man, I’m trying to tell you us finding out she is pregnant was something else”, “Interesting” Paul throwing his hands in the air and shouting causing everyone to look back at them “He speaks people, we got em” his laugh makes Terrence chuckle a little too. Terrence, takes the time to peak over the edge see how much time had passed but he knew he could’ve just looked at the positioning of the sun. It really was just his curiosity that was really getting to him “ how high are we from the ground?” He pivoted away not wanting to draw himself in, the path is sharp but wide enough to let travelers walk in pars. The pathway being sharp in turns is the reason they have signs that periodically warns of no biking down the mountain , there have been multiple stories posted in the papers since he was a kid. Thanks to adventurous teens thinking they are smarter than those who put the signs up in the first place to avoid such accidents. Terrence internally shrugs at the signs on the way up “How long do you think it takes for a person to fall off this cliff?” One of the voices asked “I don’t know, honestly from this height?….it’s gotta be what seven or so seconds before you’re a pancake to the ground”.

      With the night quickly approaching they soon make their way to the top of the mountain just in time to watch the sunset. The beauty left them in awe, well everyone except Terrence and Paul who were busy setting up the camp for the night, Ethan and Mark had this industry style tent they had just brought they were always the flashy time.

“hon, you have to come see this” she pokes her head in through the open tent door and sees that her words mean nothing coming across a sleeping Terrence, she quietly pulls her head back out and goes back to the camp fire “He passed out?”, “yep, he does need to sleep to be honest…” she sighs “he hasn’t been asleep in the past two day” the crackling between wood and ember, the popping every now and again with the release of oxygen from the dead tree you can tell was used and replaced by campers who come and go. More than likely it was the common hikers who placed these fresh wood pieces at the top for tourist they were just nice like that around scorched rock “anyone else see that?” Sally says, everyone turns their attention to one of the other mountain tops near by it was lit with a flame at the top. It’s not surprising at all that other campers were out there; it was a huge hiking tourist spot though tourist normally don’t camp at the top.

“I wouldn’t worry about it” Ethan says throwing the flaps from his tent open and grabbing a beer from the cooler “It’s probably just kids bullshitting around” with a nudge giving him slight discomfort in the gut as he tries to chug his drink, he shoots a sharp eye over to Mark “Remember, that Saturday…sometime in October, junior year?” they both share in a laugh about the inside joke while the others have a shared look of disagreement. Beth takes the last bit of her beer then heads back over to the tent only stopping short when she hears a conversation happening “…I’m fine, what do you guys want?” the moments of his silence, she was sure he must’ve been in his own head, she looks down noticing her own shadow being projected onto the tent and making a snap decision to peak her head inside. The darkness inside swallowing Terrence’s face was something you would imagine seeing in the climax of a horror movie.      When you finally see the killers face “Terrence you alright?” she ask, he doesn’t respond.

She moves in further in the tent placing her hand on his, this causes his eyes to knee jerk pierce throw her the unexpected making her retract her hand momentarily “I believe we have company”, “Is it Beth?”, “It appears so” Beth had never been so close to him during one of his episodes. She either only caught it from the other side of the door or when it was clearly over but this was an experience she had never seen before, his lips moved and his voice stayed the same but consciously you could tell he wasn’t there but his face leans forward from the shadows, his hand grabs hers gently “Hey” he says with a smile and the energy that Beth was use to.  “The meteor shower is starting, I was coming to wake you” They kiss before she pulls back out of the tint followed by him, Terrence stands and stretches. “Aye, it looks like we aren’t the only ones still up” Ethan says staring at the fire from the other mountain. He stares for a moment at what looks like a girl topless and dancing “It’s not nice to stare” Paul says “Yeah, don’t be a creep” Sally follows up. “Yeah, I’m so creepy coming up to the mountain to see a meteor show only to be surprised by some topless chick dancing” Sally just rolls her eyes at Ethan’s comment. Terrence walks up to the cooler grabbing a beer but when he reaches in the echoing caught by the wind carries over to their camp site the sound startled them.

“Dude, what the…?” Mark shouts as they look around trying to figure where that noise had come from, Ethan still staring at the girl over at the other mountain, He sees a pair of what looked like horns poke out from behind a bolder. He subconsciously taps mark on the arm “Dude, stop touching me while you’re checking out that chick”, “no …dude…dud, what the fu….what is that!?” Ethan’s frantic and worrisome behavior was really starting to make the group nervous they all have a look over just in time to see the naked girl jumping up and down that’s when it hit…she wasn’t dancing but was waving for help, it was too late she gets hit with a axe in the head. Sally lets out a blood curdling scream, it’s only for a few seconds before Paul puts his hand over her mouth and pulling them both to the ground ,” everyone get down” Paul whispers with the same sternness as his lieutenant father, his demeanor and strong tone make everyone reactionarily follow in his steps. As they hit the ground, Terrence notices he has a clear view to seeing the Deer mask whoever he was “Hey, anybody see anything” Paul ask only receiving no’s in reply but Terrence….Terrence says nothing just laying there watching. He moved with such grace that it almost seemed like he was floating or elegant, as he jerks the axe out of her head, a warm feeling comes over Terrence as he could feel the hairs on the back of his head stand up. who ever was wearing that deer skull mask must’ve known he was there otherwise why would he still be standing there? Was the camp fire drawing his attention? Yeah, he thought to himself, “Hey…pst…Hey” Paul whispers to Terrence, He only cuts him a side eye while trying to keep an eye on the deer skull.  “Is he still there?” Paul feels a sharp pain coming to his finger “Ouch” he shouts knee jerking his hand away from sallies mouth “Geezus!, Paul. You’re trying to suffocate me” she shouts at Paul having to cover her mouth once again. She looks at his eyes glaring as if trying to burn a whole through his head, but instead notices the serious looks in his eyes and the slow-moving single finger over her lips. She nods giving him the signal she understands the intensity of the situation.

“Terrence….is he still there?” Paul whispers again, for that split moment he had forgotten about that he looks straight once again just beyond the fire. Nothing…. was there, he blinked, even rubbing his eyes a little but still nothing and when he looked over to ask Beth; she was facing upward looking at the stars. He crawls over to her “Terrence…is…he, oh my god this guy” Paul says under his breathe not able to get his friends attention before turning on his stomach to see if he could see anything but it’s black. No deer skull, no campfire, it was eerie and the confusion only made him squint his eyes as he looked for wherever that psycho in the deer skull mask had went but across the way it’s just black.

“Bess” Terrence say softly and gently, laying on his back right beside her as they now both stared upward watching the meteor shower “you wanna know something…” she says “shoot” he replies “Once when I was young…”, “I don’t think this is the time to be telling stories…” he starts then stops looking at her face, how could he be so stupid the fire light gleaming off her pale face he sees tears running from her eyes. “Alright…. you were young” she continues to tell him of her experience as a child , no one moving figuring it to be too risky or they were probably had drank too much. They did what they originally intended just watching the meteor shower.

He here the echo of a voice ever so slightly as he wakes up. “What” Terrence says with a groggy and weak voice, he tries to open his eyes only to be immediately blinded by a bright light from the sky. He puts his hand up to block out the light; his vision slow comes to him but it a long time before his vision comes back non-blurry rolling over to Beth his arm instantly falls to the ground “Beth?” he says confused, jolting up he looks around to no one. The camp fire still having a sizzle to it “Beth!” he jumps up trying to find anyone else, the tents along with anything else they brought camping gone. His mind racing like a V8 engine it jumps to worst case scenario “They left you”, “How sad”, “we could always time the jump”, “seven second? I’m betting ten” he takes his chances walks towards the edge of the mountain looking over with a sigh of relief.  He walks backwards falling to the ground, something was off he knew it the sun was bright in the sky but he didn’t feel warm…in fact he felt nothing “what happened”, “maybe they hate you?” one of the voices says to him; Terrence drowns the voices negative statements out and begins to head back down the mountain to the car, it wouldn’t be the first time they let him sleep it out and waited in the car. Turning around there he was, his heart begins to pump at maximum, even outside he feels he can’t breathe. The deer skull walks towards him slowly, even with the light beaming down the shadows on the skull still give it a terrifying look. Terrence’s body doesn’t move “You’re scared, let me take over”, “no, I got this”, “ no, you don’t clearly just give me a minute. You’re going to get us killed” he was stuck and he knew it. Between a cliff and the deer skull “fine, screw it”.

They stand there staring at each other as a breeze blows by “darnabet”, “Darnabet”, “DARNABET!” the name repeats itself inside his head. He is unphased by this but more so annoyed only tilting his head as to shake it “knock it off” he tells this unknown voice but it wouldn’t. The name repeating itself over and over even drowning out the other voices, he walks over and rips the mask off of the deer skull, his heart drops as the face…could it be. “Beth?” she looks different, her eyes are black as tar and skin looked covered in oil. He couldn’t resist, he could feel himself being pulled in like a black hole, they kiss. He finds comfort in her lips regardless, the black slime on them sweet like berries making the passion intensify between the two, she drops the ritual black robe to reveal her bareness underneath.

Her whole body in fact was covered in this…this thick black like slimy oil. She leans into him for another kiss “Love me Terrence” this time the kiss makes him feel unnaturally, he feels something crawling under his skin but jolts up. Looking around, his heavy breathing is forgotten about as he noticed it wasn’t sun rise yet “but it was so real” he tells himself, seeing the fire only smoking now. He looks around to see his friends asleep on the ground he smiles as he sees Beth beside him, getting up he goes to the cooler to grab another beer and sits down at the edge of the cliff watching as the sun slowly peaks it head out from beyond the horizon; it’s beautiful orange, pink and purple painted sky reflecting in his fully black eyes. A hand touches down on his shoulder.

……To Be Continued