For the first time in her life, Mary Thornton allowed her children to open their presents before Christmas morning. If the experts were right, and she suspected they were, the world wouldn’t make it that far. Why waste the carefully wrapped presents?
For so many years, she – and many others – had scoffed the rumours. There was no denying it now. Earthquakes, tornadoes, freak landslides - these were just some of the natural disasters happening on a daily basis across the world. Major ones, ones that devastated millions of people at a time. When Mary felt the ground tremble beneath her all afternoon, she knew. It was almost time.
She gathered her family around her. All teenagers now, but still, the same care went into their gifts. They all embraced each other, exchanged presents, even laughed and joked together. Nothing could cut through the tension and nervousness when glasses of wine fell over as the tremors increased in strength.
At three in the afternoon, the world turned dark and the television stations cut out. Mary’s youngest daughter had cried in her arms. Now they waited. A lull in the air, except for the howls of neighbouring dogs. The mournfulness of their cries scared Mary more than anything else. At least she was with her family – better to die with those you love than to die alone.
“How do you think it’ll happen?” Her son’s voice cut through the silence. Mary gasped at the question.
“What kind of thing is that to say?” she said.
“It’s gonna happen whether we talk about it or not, Ma. Might as well chat while we’re waiting.”
The rest of the family began to giggle, nerves making the situation hysterical. Mary joined in and laughed until she cried, wiping the tears away with shaky hands.
“I think it’ll be soon,” her eldest daughter whispered, grabbing her mother’s hand.
Mary blessed herself, even though she hadn’t believed in God in a very long time. “At least we’re together,” she said out loud, although she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.
Her husband gripped her shoulder and began to speak but a huge crack in the floor silenced them all. The world seemed to break in half and Mary felt her family drift away from her as she floated in the air. Gravity reset itself and slammed Mary against the wall.
Slumped on the floor, Mary wasn’t sure if she hallucinated the scene before her. The room seemed to spin, literally, although she stayed put. The Christmas tree was hurled across the room and through the window but the splinters of the glass stayed in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground.
The floor shook so hard that Mary’s teeth chattered together and she felt drill like vibrations under her. One of her daughter’s rolled too close to the crack in the ground. Even though she knew they would all die, Mary grabbed her child’s ankle and held on tight, unwilling to let go. She could hear screaming but over it was another sound, something she had never heard before.
From the crack in the ground rose a spirit, or at least, that’s what it looked like to Mary. It grabbed Mary’s daughter and pulled, dragging the girl back into the crack with it. Mary scrambled to see where she went but the hole was dark – she couldn’t see a thing.
The spirit appeared in front of Mary’s face before she could pull back, close enough to see it didn’t have a distinguishable face. It put its hands on Mary’s cheeks and she felt drenched through. It pulled her into the crack, into an unimaginable darkness. Mary felt like she was falling from a cliff but never felt the landing. She screamed and screamed as she fell and heard voices whispering in her eyes.
“Final call.”
“Last chance.”
“Get it right this time.”
“Welcome to the next world.”
“Welcome to the final world.”
Mary wondered if she was in hell, in a dream, if she had gone insane.
The darkness enclosed itself around her until she felt trapped in a soft, wet cage. She felt her knees tip her nose. She struggled to break free, pushing herself in the one direction that gave her a little leeway. She felt herself move and began to hear noises again.
Through the darkness, she moved slowly, feeling the darkness expel her through a crevice. She couldn’t breathe and screamed out loud as she finally made her way into light. Hands gripped her roughly and she shivered, a cold, wet mess. Gigantic people who cleaned her off, ignored her terror and finally covered her in a blanket.
Mary tried to talk to them, beg them to help her. Even though they smiled, none of them listened. They carried her once again and lay her somewhere soft and warm. Mary yawned, feeling comfortable all of a sudden. A woman looked down on her with a huge smile on her face.
“She’s beautiful,” she said, and looked down at Mary, awestruck. Mary blinked a couple of times, felt something touch her lip and turned her head to clasp it, even though she wasn’t sure why. Something warm flooded through her entire body and she relaxed completely in her new mother’s arms, her previous life fading into darkness.