The Red Fell Chapter 1

THE RED FELL

Chapter 1

 

ART BY EASTIN DEVERNA @EASTINDEVERNA

Thomas found himself there with no recollection of where he came from, who he was, why HE existed.

He knew none of those things, and yet he lay lost in the brilliance of his new found existence.

Then a voice broke the peace.

“I knew you’d wake, son.”

The voice wasn’t deep; it wasn’t confident or boastful, but relieved.

A voice that was both soft and grateful, with a small touch of the south.

Thomas turned his head towards the man sitting in the corner of the room.

His eyes were behind thick lenses, his hair all but gone except for the long pieces on the side. He was shirtless and thin.

 He saw a gentle man sitting with him in the room, right behind his eyes, there was an invisible truth to be seen.

It is here where Thomas finds a meaning behind the gentle old man sitting in the corner of his room.

Thomas found this just as his realization of his existence. He wasn’t alone, other existed with him.

He sat upright and then for the first time he noticed the Red.

It was rolling in through a door left slightly ajar and was steadily filling the room with thick red clouds that seemed to be weighted down to the floor.

Thomas could feel it’s cold. He could feel so many things…

The man spoke as he marveled at Tom

“Oh my God, Here you are awake. Why would I be worthy enough?”  His lips were trembling as his face tried to withstand the onslaught of emotion.

 Tears began to fill his eyes…

Thomas looked deep into his blue eyes as he watched tears slowly filled its corners.

The fluid was building gradually.

 Thomas could see the water molecules accumulating and growing until it was ready to burst.

Thomas seen himself mirrored in that man’s first tear.

Thomas was thin and bald. Tired looking…

The tear finally separated, and as it released, Thomas first felt gratitude.

Thomas wondered how a precious drop of life holding such a pure feeling can fall and die.

He wondered why it was that when the tear fell off this humble man and into the red, the feeling vanished.

The man stood and walked towards Thomas as he lay in the bed.

 He sat on the mattress and grabbed Thomas’ hands as cried.

“You see, son… The mutherfuckin sky is falling.” The old man was so happy.

Thomas felt the love pulsing through this old man’s strong grip and the smile said even more as the tears continued to fall from his face and down into the red.

There was silence.

 “Say something, boy.”

Thomas was looking at the man but didn’t know how to respond.

The red had now reached the same level as the bed.

The tops of the thick red clouds were extending like long fingers over the space untouched.

The old man’s face went still.

The silence said it all.

His eyes were glassy and his mouth open.

The tears had stopped.

He released Tom’s hands and suddenly they were standing on a roof overlooking a familiar neighborhood, though Tom did not remember from where.

In the distance a thick red cloud was rolling down into the valley.

The people below were frantic.

Thomas felt their fear in his heart.

The red was rushing like a slow moving avalanche upon the town.

It seemed to be feeding and growing off the hysteria as the colors became a darker red and the red gained weight and became heavy with the worries of the world behind it.

That’s what he felt as he watched the horror unfold around him.

There was just nowhere for anyone to go.

He could see the doom fall upon the people.

Death was behind their eyes as the fear manifested itself through their shrill shrieks and cries.

The red was almost upon them now.

The wind suddenly picked up and blew his hair to one side of his face.

He marveled at how the Red made no sound.

Only the sound of rushing air and screams would define it.

Ahead, he watched the first victims succumb to its effects.

On a street corner a young mother with her wailing babe were desperately trying to flee.

The red seemed so heavy.

As the red devoured them both mother and child fell to the ground prostrating in the direction in which the red came.

No matter the size of the human, it was always in the same stiff prostrating position.

The bodies engulfed by the red began to smell like burning flesh and as the red moved and claimed more and more victims, so too did the smell of burning flesh.

Yet another way to describe this horrible red.

Their bodies became glowing like fire embers…

Charred skin melted and turned black.

Flesh and sinew snapped and crackled as it contained this internal fire that the victim’s body contained.

Their eyes black holes filled with molten tar.

A child no more than two years of age, took its final prose as her flesh, molting like lava, began to hiss. Tom noticed her black bubbling eyes and asked himself:

Why the pain?

The Red moved slowly and methodically into each street, blanketing each section of earth. It raised in depth as time went by.

When it entered into a house it would slowly fill it till the red burst the windows, and then – and only then- would the red make its way back up towards the stratosphere.

When the red hit a certain height in the sky it stopped rising and covered the sky like clouds.

Then the Red clouds became darker and more sinister than this red tide.

The screams were made silent by the red as the wind became stronger.

Molten rocks began to rain from the red clouds adding a constant audible boom to the devastation.

Tom eventually noticed the old man walking on the street towards the Red.

As the red moved in the old man closed his eyes and extended his arms.

Tom cried out into the wind gust only to be silenced by the existing screams, wind gusts, and booms.

He closed his eyes and turned away right before the old man was swallowed by the Red.

Thomas felt loss…

When he opened his eyes he was back in the room, and alone.

There was no sight of the old man or his remnant of his presence.

Only the pain filled red clouds filling the room.

 

TO BE CONTINUED