prelude

[singmod]

January 1st 2015

Do you remember yesterday? What is tomorrow?
How will you face this quiet apocalypse?
— Raphael van Lierop.

As the old year falls and the new year begins, the skies fill with light. An Aurora comes on the last day of December, and with it the usual signs of it: the ethereal noise, the cracks and pops in the air, the stuttering of electrics as they struggle to power on and then blare and flicker. It is, as Interlopers have come to know, business as usual — in terms of the Auroras within this world. However, something a little different happens this time.

Interlopers will fall asleep all over the town of Milton. Even the ones who fight sleep and try to stay up into the small hours of the night will find themselves drifting off for a short while — as if their eyes just feel too heavy to keep open, and their minds slip into a deep kind of quiet darkness without their realising. And at first, there is nothing — nothing but the quiet dark. Something peaceful, almost.

A dream comes.

The first thing you notice is blood in your mouth, the cold in your bones, the deafening din in your ears — as if you are caught in static and the sound of howling winds through pine trees. You are afraid. At first, you do not know why. You find yourself on your knees in the snow. The skies are filled with green light, the air is thick with smoke. And then the realisation comes:

This is the ending of all things.

You look up, to the sight before you: a huge, shapeless shadow. Towering above you, over you. A head peers down at you: a cluster of three wolf skulls, eye-sockets glowing green and terrible, and their three open maws, dripping with more green. The sound it makes is unnatural, you cannot put it into words. The darkness draws in, you are so cold, so tired.

This is the ending of all things.

It is so hungry. You are so tired. The world falls away, you cannot see the stars, the dark hiding them from view. Were they even there to begin with? Or did they go out? You have forgotten. And you know, you know—

This is the ending of all things.

The skies glimmer, licks of strange, colourful wisps curl above — a voice screams out your name, from the static and winds. Through the noise. A woman’s voice. You have heard this voice before, in the lights and noise. Do you see? What could be? What you could become?

Can you hold on? Please. A hand grips your shoulder, but as you turn — the dream ends.

For some, they snap into waking with a shout or cry. Some will shudder awake to find tears in their eyes. All over Milton, the Interlopers wake: shaken, unsure, afraid. They will awaken to the dark: the Aurora is gone — slowly fading from the night skies into an otherwise calm and clear night.

It is a new year.

Comments

[m1895]

[ He wants to—how desperately he wants to. But there’s a part of him that recognizes that it will probably never be possible, not with who he is, the name he has, the documents that still lie resting like a sleeping dragon in the KGB archives—his signature, repeated over and over on endless fabricated confessions; his file; even payroll information, probably.

There’s a deep, infinite ache of grief that opens like a sinkhole deep in his core. How he wants to. How he wants to. Even if they get out of this place, he can never just go home. He’ll just be a stranger on a different planet. The only difference, aside from his environs being even more hostile (at least to a person like himself), would be that everyone else was at home, not equally displaced.

He almost prefers this reality to his own.

He lies—for Konstantin’s benefit, or maybe his own—voice quiet with sleeplessness and awareness of the hour of the night. ]

I think so. I’ve seen enough.

[sputnik]

[ Any lingering trace of somberness in Vasiliy to the subject is attributed to the fact they're stuck here, and that to think of returning home to Russia may seem... impossible. Konstantin has no idea the true scope of things, but he does know how to function through hope, how to hold onto the concept of a thing with such certainty that one can feel emboldened. It's never about false hope, or pretending. It's about the confidence that one is strong enough to make it happen. It goes along with all of the values that are intrinsic to where they're from, what's revered — strength, capability, dedication.

He smiles, and it's genuine. ]

You'll make it back there. We're going to escape this place, Comrade. Together.

[ He doesn't doubt that. It may take time, so much time. But he will not be trapped here forever. And he will not leave Vasiliy behind. ]

....This strange place with its strange dreams. What a night this has been. [ He gives a soft chuckle deep in his throat, like the purr of an engine. ] Do you think you can get back to sleep?

[m1895]

[ What if I don't want to escape? he thinks but doesn't say— Konstantin would think he was mad, and selfish, were he to say it out loud. He's not particularly eager to return to life as an EMT on the poverty line in a hypercapitalist, anticommunist country that famously receives immigrants, especially those who are not perfectly fluent in English, particularly well.

He tries to refocus on the sound of the other's quiet laugh, a sound as warm as the rest of his demeanor, and cast his thoughts of what lay behind him aside for now. He needs rest. They both do. ]

I think so. Are you comfortable?

[sputnik]

Yes, [ he answers, honestly, and with the lingering trace of his smile. He is comfortable, more comfortable than he can remember being in a long time. There's this home, this bed, this— companion.

This little compartmentalised place of safety, despite whatever is going on outside of it. Tomorrow morning might bring more horrors — things to think more deeply about, what the nightmare could mean. The realisation that more people than just the two of them have seen it.

But for now... He feels his eyelids fluttering, heavy and relaxed. Konstantin gives a drowsy hum, low in his throat, and finally closes his eyes, breathing a soft wish for them both, ]

Better dreams, Vasiliy.

[m1895]

[ He's bedding down, himself, when Konstantin says it, adjusting his pillow, shifting slightly as he tries to re-find the comfortable position he'd fallen asleep in, and he's again struck by how odd it is that he now falls asleep beside someone who would wish him such things every night—here, in this cold, desolate place others have described as a hell. ]

You too, [ he murmurs, and within no more than twenty minutes, despite having returned to the feeling of knowing it's all about to end for the first time since his death a few hours prior, he's soundly asleep. ]