Eight in the morning came around. A low-pitched buzzing continually rang to the point of absolute irritation. With it were high-pitched beeps blaring in an echo of one another, one after another, after another in an annoying fashion. A hand reached over and smacked the alarm clock to shut off the wake-up call.
Andy dragged the blankets and sheets off himself. His uncovered legs swung over the other side of the bed as he sat up on the edge. Toes planted firmly on the wood flooring and pressed hard for a few seconds to stretch calf muscles before resting his feet completely flat. As nightly knots loosened, a non-distinct utterance of “uh” slipped out from his lips.
Olivia barely stirred having become accustomed to his routine.
He stood up after he finished stretching and approached the window. Staring out from the third story, down to the streets of the city, he could see the cars and people who were also beginning their day. However, there was not much more to observe as buildings as tall as his floor blocked his view of the horizon. But he could see the grey, overcast sky. A smile crossed his face as it did every day, regardless of the weather.
Dressing in a button-up shirt with tie and slacks, followed by making a quick breakfast and coffee, he was gone in thirty minutes.
All felt well as he drove to work. The city was its normal self, never too fast, not that loud, yet very alive. A person walked their dog. Another performed on the street with an improvised instrument. Others sat outside cafes and restaurants, in the park or along the waterfront. Peaceful.
He parked in the small parking structure, crossed the street, and entered his workplace. In the elevator, he pressed the ninth-floor button. He was joined by another co-worker before the doors closed, a guy named Jacob.
Rising upward in the metal box, Andy and Jacob listened to the light music that was provided as Jacob asked, “Are you ready for your meeting with management?”
Andy clicked his tongue irritably at the fact he was being called in at all. “As ready as I can be.”
“What do you think is going to happen?” Jacob hassled. “You really botched things.”
“I didn’t botch anything,” Andy stated without the need to defend his case.
“Andy,” Jacob reminded, “your changes drastically impacted our metrics.”
“I just did what management told me to do,” Andy stated.
“Yeah, well, they’re looking to blame you,” Jacob continued putting on the pressure.
Yet, Andy felt none of it, knowing all too well, “They blame someone every month for a decision they make then forget about. But not like anybody’s been fired. They just like to waste our time. Susan will just say something like, ‘Next time, consult me before making any changes,’ even though she was the one who told me to make them. Then I’ll be back to work.”
“You’re right,” Jacob realized. “That is the way these things tend to go.”
The elevator dinged as they reached their floor. Andy quickly stepped out and away from the conversation that was getting on his nerves. He attempted to relax, or at the very least not become tenser, by focusing on his work. For roughly two hours, he sat at his computer.
As the time neared eleven, Andy got up from his seat to attend his performance review. Normally, he would have just taken the stairs up the single flight. However, on this day, a small painting crew was retouching the white in the stairwell. That left him having to use the elevator.
The tenth-floor button was pressed and Andy slowly ascended. The doors opened to the familiar floor. He exited and made a beeline down the hall, passed the receptionist, to the meeting. The room was full of jackals, four to be precise. Each was dressed in a combination of black, white, and grey suits.
Andy stood outside the room and peeked through the slightly cracked open door. Though he had mentally prepared himself, the mild heat of his frustration was rising. A very thin, unnoticeable perspiration made him feel like he was drenched. A tapping of his finger on the door handle made him feel like he was shaking. And an increase in his heart rate made him feel as if he was breathing heavily. But none of that was true. He just had never been this annoyed before.
“Come in, Mr. Liminal,” the man at the far end of the table requested in a monotone voice.
Andy entered with stone-faced professionalism, crossing the room to shake each of management’s hands as he said each of their names, “Mr. Hide. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Hooker. Ms. Tanner.” Then he walked back to the opposite side of the room and stood before them at attention.
As Andy looked at the managers, he could see that they were a bit off, less threatening in a way. Their faces were red and damp with sweat. They would pull at their collars as if to let out heat from their layers. It was like they were hot even though the room was well air-conditioned.
“Do you know why we have called you in here today, Mr. Liminal?” the man in the middle addressed.
“I believe so.” Andy exclaimed, “But in case I’m wrong, I would like you to explain. If you don’t mind my request?”
“This is an assessment review. You see—” He stopped speaking, his mouth still moving but words not able to be vocalized. So, he cleared his throat and swallowed dryly to moisten his esophagus. “The metrics—” He stopped speaking again. Trying to repeat his last actions helped just as little as before. His face was beginning to turn unbelievably bright. He tried to create words, but it was impossible for him to speak as his throat was so dry. Only croaks came from his mouth.
But it was not just the one man affected. All of management were facing the same affliction. Their faces were tomatoes. The dampness had become rolling beads of sweat down their temples and foreheads. The discomfort became too much, and they began to hurriedly strip their clothes off in a mild panic.
Andy did not understand what was happening as he was the only one unaffected.
That was when the catalyst came. A sound that could only be described as the billows of a blown horn, that must have stood as tall as a mountain, created a wall of force that erupted from the center of the tenth floor. Tremors shocked the entire building. Windows wobbled so violently they looked like pools of disturbed water, many of which were unable to handle the strain and shattered. Car alarms could be heard blaring outside. The first thought was an earthquake.
When the sound passed through the meeting room, the four managers suddenly burst into flames. This gave them their voices back as they screamed in sheer agony. They went into a frenzy from the pain they must have been feeling as their skin burned. They wailed like banshees while they jerked in their seats and slammed their hands and heads into the table. Then, all together, they sprang from their chairs, tossing the seats backward as they charged. Smoldering hands reached out for Andy who was still unaffected by the happening but was so terrified he had not moved. The burning bodies stumbled and grasped wildly for some sort of redemption.
The shattering of glass brought Andy to his senses and the danger became apparent. He rushed out of the room and shut the door before they could get him, bracing against the wood to keep them trapped on the other side. He could feel the heavy vibrations of berserk fists beating against the barrier that separated them. Even so, he felt safe. That was until he saw the chaos that ensued on the entire floor.
Every person in the room was set aflame. Their resonating anguish joined together to orchestrate the screaming damned souls of Hell. They rushed in every direction searching for ways they could save themselves. Some rolled on the floor the way many had been taught as children. Another pulled the jug off the water cooler and poured the water over themselves, fighting a dozen others who wanted to do the same. They had become nothing but burning skeletons ravaging around.
Some began to notice Andy unaffected. And he had noticed that they had noticed him. He ran down the nearest hall before they made the first move. At full sprint, he could hear the nightmare following after. He made the classic mistake of looking back. Behind him was a blazing inferno filled with the skeleton silhouettes that crawled and trampled over each other to get ahead of the pack. That was nothing he wanted to be caught by.
Suddenly, Andy ran into something. Stumbling, he used the momentum to turn completely around and keep himself on his feet. During the spin, he saw what he had knocked into was another victim of this spontaneous combustion. So close to the burning skeleton gave him a true glimpse of what pain these people were going through. Eyes had melted away and skin boiled. Facing forward again, he did not stop running.
He completed his final length of the hall and reached the elevator. Pushing the button, the lift would not come fast enough. The stairs became his only option and he hurried into the nearby stairwell.
Step by step by God awful step, Andy had run down eight flights in record-breaking time. His adrenalin was what kept him from passing out. His fear was what kept him going. The screaming had died down to an uncomfortable silence long before he had gone down five flights, but he was not going to stop until he had reached the very bottom floor. The idea that everything that was happening just came to an end was impossible to believe. Only getting away would ensure the truth that he had gotten away. Even if he was mindlessly running, that was better than dead. The last two flights went by fast as he made these thoughts and the door to the ground level was there in front of him before he finished thinking.
He burst into the lobby. The door to the stairwell flew open with such unnecessary force that it swung into the wall leaving a dent. He quickly spun around several times looking in all directions for anyone or thing.
The provided plush seating, in the corner of the room, was empty. But there were scorch marks on the cushions from something that had burned on top. The front desk no longer had a concierge and the work phone hung off the receiver, generating an endless hum. Suitcases were dropped on the floor carelessly. Several had popped open and the papers within had become scattered around. And there was ash.
There was so much ash. An obvious layer of ash covered everything. Particles of ash could be seen in the air, glinting in the light of day, and looking like small bits of snow. But it was not snow. It was ash.
“Hello?” Andy called out with no expectations. He knew the truth, though, his denial continued for a short time.
No answer came.
Andy had stopped looking around; he had stopped moving entirely out of shock. Soon his legs gave in, and he fell to his knees as fatigue began to hit him. He placed his hands on the floor in front of him. Taking in deep breaths, every inhale took in the particles. The taste on his tongue made him think of fire, and fire became thoughts of skeletons. This was not just ash. There were no more screaming skeletons and no more people because this was what remained of them.
A brown, liquidy mess of coffee and chunks was vomited up. His hands were left dabbling in the pool, but he was not disgusted. There were greater concerns to worry about right now other than dirty hands. The world had been set on fire, and he needed to figure out why, how, and if there were any others.
Returning to his feet, he patted his palms on his pants to wipe away the spittle. Then he put his sleeve to his mouth to filter the ash as he breathed. There was not getting much readier than this before he pushed through the front doors.
The futile search continued on the street where he found himself not in his city. It was a city but one that deserved the title. Darkess might have been called the same, but that was due to population, not infrastructure. This place had endless avenues of skyscrapers that stretched far beyond what the eye could see. Even the building he had stepped out of was one such structure, no longer his workplace. The wide streets could accommodate six rows of traffic. And there were signs of a subway system.
However, this place was in complete desolation. What should have been bumper-to-bumper traffic was a pile-up of thousands of cars. They were smashed and twisted and turned. The sidewalk was overrun by vehicles that had hopped the curb only to crash into a building or lamppost. A literal mound of scrap and metal had piled up in the middle of intersections because of the mass collisions of oncoming traffic. Yet, this carnage must have happened a very long time ago as everything appeared aged and rusted.
This place would have been once so lively but was now absolutely quiet. However, the silence truly only came from the shock of it all. A thick cloud of ash filled the entire street like fog. There was not a thin layer covering everything but a thick, half-inch layer. The windows of every building and every car were cloudy to the point they could not be seen through. This amount must have come from millions of burned people.
The sound slowly returned to Andy when he heard a dominating scream too loud to ignore. Looking up saw a black beast pass overhead. It was nearly as big as a bus. Bat-like wings spread from its back with a span that could wrap around a building. Long arms and taloned hands hung as it flew. And a long tail in place of legs slithered in tow. The end whipped intentionally to scrape a roof with the tip causing rubble to fall with a heavy thunder.
Andy chased after it with newfound energy. The obstruction of many cars could not stop him from his bizarre fascination. He climbed over and moved around any that got in his way. He chased and chased but was beginning to lag behind as the screaming became a dull vibration. Not knowing what to expect, he pushed harder to reach the end of the street where it met a large canal river filled with black water. The creature was back in view.
What he saw from there was the black beast diving from the grey sky to attack another monstrosity across the water. This other was as big, standing on two legs, made of stone and flesh melded together. He watched the sudden chaos as the black beast dug teeth and talons into the golem, tearing a layer of stone and taking a chunk of flesh. The golem swung a club of an arm, catching the black beast in the side of its body. The black beast howled as it was tossed aside, then quickly recovered, digging teeth and talons even deeper. Wings beat which lifted the golem off the ground. Another beat brought them higher up into the air and over the water. The golem reached a grasping hand forward to grab the beast by the head. Before being caught, the black beast let go and fled, dropping the golem into the river.
The eruption of water brought down a sudden rain that showered everything nearby. Streets, buildings, cars, and Andy were left drenched. The only good that could be said about this was that the ash had cleared.