Member
Necroes
The room was dark, lit only by the dim glow of the red digital numbers of his clock. The solid wood door was shut against the weather stripping and the sweep bolted to the bottom of the door were used for a new purpose; helping to insulate Tyko's room from the rest of the house, both thermally and acoustically. Only the dull throb of noise could be heard through the walls as his younger siblings played games or watched movies. Arctic cold breezes wafting through the window failed to disturb the young man sleeping, shielded by the comforting weight of heavy blankets. Far off in the house, the distant noise died. Moments later, footsteps padded their way to the door. A click of the latch and the resistance of the weatherstripping popped the door open a crack, spilling warm light into the chilled area. A slim, blonde haired young girl slipped into the room, her feet guiding her past the bass guitar and amp, carefully placed by the wall, a think layer of dust coating them like fond memories.
Reaching the side of her eldest brother's bed, Ellisif looked down at Tyko and sighed, she hated having to wake him earlier than his normal time. She knew he was struggling to cope with an average of four hours of sleep for five days of the week, and waking him an hour early made her feel horrible to steal that time from him. It was good to see her brother resting, rolled over, his back facing her, his head half tucked under the covers, still however, she reached out and gently rocked Tyko's shoulder, "Tyko...it's your work." She paused, seeing if he responded. Nothing. She reached out once more, gripping his shoulder through the multiple layers of cloth and insulation, she shook him until he grunted, "Tyko, work is on the phone." The only acknowledgment was an unintelligible, mono-syllable grunt. Sighing, she shook her head, raising the phone to her ear in her left hand, she laid her right hand on the nearly freezing cold leg of the desk that was placed next to his bed, a slight gasp at the shock of how cold it was escaped her before she spoke, "Just one more second, sorry...it's a bit earlier than he is used to waking up." As she received a comment of apology and acknowledgment, she tucked the phone to her chest, and with her right hand, grabbed a corner of the covers, and flung it back from her brother's torso, then, swiftly laying her chilled right hand into the sensitive spot between his shoulder blades.
Reaction achieved. Tyko recoiled from the sudden shock of the cold chilling his spine, squirming away from it as he gasped chill air, the movement only shifting the cold air over the rest of his skin, he flailed for the blankets, to cover himself as he flipped over to glare at Ellisif, "Can't you wake me normally?!" A deep, muffled growl, but the faint light of the open door behind her reflected the lack of aggression in his eyes. Still, she offered an apologetic smile and extended the phone to him. "I tried...It's work.it's an hour early too..."
A deep rumble of resentment and anguish escaped the huddled covers as an arm snaked out to take the phone, followed by a barely audible, "Thanks..." The black handset disappeared into the covers, as he asked, "Yes?" It came out groggy, and carrying a faint bite of aggravation. The voice on the other end of the line however, gave him good news....in a sense. Tyko grunted softly...a laugh? "Alright...Friday then. Hopefully." A pause, "Yeah, I will. Thank you." A faint chirp of the phone hanging up. The figure of Tyko shifted, propping himself up on an elbow, before offering Ellisif the phone back. "No work tonight, something about a truck driver, a bear, and ripping the power lines off the wall."
Taking the phone in hand, she looked at him puzzled, then smiled, "Well that...that is good. You need the sleep. Her, get back in there, I'll set your alarm for two AM, right?" Tyko nodded, offering her a small smile and a whispery thank you as he slid back into his bed to get his much deserved sleep.
The day had gone fairly normal, doing dishes, setting up the slow cooker for dinner, welcoming Mianna's day nurse before heading out for the drive up to Calgary to attend his mechanics class. Another day of information on the computers and wiring involved in cars, how to test and troubleshoot issues on common vehicles. He had found himself distracted, thinking of the things he still needed to get done on the Jeep, but the class ended soon, even if it felt like it dragged on longer than reason could explain.
After the drive back to Okotoks, Tyko made his way to the small mall behind the high school they went to. He picked them up from the coffee shop where they were busy working on their homework as usual. Conversation picked up, regarding subjects and information learned and the social happenings of the school. The day had been sunny and clear, leaving the way for people to be out walking in t-shirts while there was still a healthy coating of snow and ice on uncleared areas of yards.
An alarm blared out, and Tyko sprung up, sitting in bed, his eyes wide, heart hammering in his chest that pumped like a bellows as he hyper-ventilated, his skin awash in cold sweat. His arm flicked out of covers to snap a button on the electronic noise maker in the darkened room. Silence fell. A moment passed as he tried to figure out what had terrified him...something in a dream that he couldn't remember. Flipping the sheets and blankets from his legs, Tyko rose and slipped out of bed quickly, moving to his window and closing it with gentle firmness. With a toe, he slid the switch for the old ceramic space heater, a faint electric pop, and the fan started spinning, accelerating to force air through the dense heating element grid that slowly started to warm itself. Crossing the room to flick on the switch, the cold florescent tubes flickered a moment before igniting, soft and dim at first, but soon gaining in intensity. Shielding his eyes with his right hand for a moment, Tyko began to massage the sludge from the corners of his eyes before flattening his hand over his brow and sliding his palm up, his thumb and fingers gripping the side of his scalp through his dark hair, giving a simple massage as he forced himself to awareness. It was two in the morning and he had slept in. It was all he could allow himself lest he break his sleep cycle.
Tyko's room was almost in stasis from when he was fifteen; walls plastered in old metal band posters, most crooked in some vain attempt to be unique or something ridiculous that no longer mattered. The old wooden desk he had built in a middle school shop class, a wood veneer covered dresser, a purple bass guitar and cheap amp lingered against the wall near the bed, a book shelf of old paperbacks, a few hard cover reference books on the flora and fauna of the Rocky Mountains, a greasy book of parts numbers for Jeeps, a reference manual for the Cummins B3.3 diesel engine, and a well worn copy of the Kalevala. The only really new furniture of any sort, was the small metal gun cabinet tucked into his closet. It held his two rifles, and single shotgun.
After a quick shower, he walked into the kitchen, grabbing a bowl of cereal, he sat down before the computer for the first time, really, since the weekend. He opened Youtube, and started a video on healing land after someone had clear cut a forest, dealing with saplings and underbrush, selecting the best trees, and some other general things. It made him wish they were further west, near the mountains and had land with a forest already established upon it. It bothered him a little that he would never get to see the forest he hoped he had started on this parcel of land blossom into the dense woodland he wanted to see, but it also felt good in a way, that he was likely the only one to do such. Whether it lasted after he left this world however, was a wrench in his heart that would likely never ease.
He was about to put the bowl in the sink, and close the window when he saw a video in the side bar, “Man in jail after killing Animal Control Officer in Calgary,” he blinked and opened the video, it was a news report from a local station that was rapidly gaining views, what seemed to occur was Animal Control was called in because the black bear was following this man through the city streets. He looked respectable enough in the clips sent in by people with cell phones, the bear seemed peaceful, wasn't bothering anyone until the animal control officers cornered the two. One of the officers shot the bear with a rifle as it had become exceedingly aggressive, and the man himself was threatening the officers. The man appeared to have lost all sense, and drew a pocket knife and lunged. The video stopped there, but the news Anchor claimed that the one officer died of a severe wound to the neck. The second suffered a few minor lacerations before the police arrived and tasered the man to the ground.
It hit him, like a rolling train hammering into his head, the dream; He was alone, in darkness. It wasn't a room, so much as eternal space of empty nothing. No stars, no breeze, no sound, not even his body to touch with, just his consciousness in a well of darkness that had no end. Infinite black. A voice called out to him, small, worried, but persistent. It called his name, but he could not locate it. He had wanted to search, but he could not move, nor was there anything to search. He wanted to call out to it, but there was nothing for him to call with. The loneliness was unbearable, he didn't care who or what it was, so long as it was something. Something to take away this darkness, this empty void. It cried out his name once more, faint and distant. A third time...closer. The fifth time, it sounded....felt like it was in front of his face, but he couldn't see it. He couldn't feel it. He didn't exist to let it know he was there.
A sudden sense of realization or knowing suddenly flooded his point of awareness. It wasn't in front of him, it was in him. It was like a cannon of noise within the void, so loud and powerful, it shook the very nothing in shockwaves that cracked the darkness to reveal something darker. From those cracks came forth a torrent of black. Thick black fluid that flooded infinite darkness with black. Terror.
Tyko blinked, he found himself gasping for breath again. He looked around, his eyes finding nothing but the familiar home he had mostly grown up in. The computer screen was black, it had been a few minutes. He touched the mouse, and the screen responded with glaring white of the Google home page. His eyes glanced at the time, it was shortly after quarter to three. Twenty minutes. He had just fallen asleep, or blacked out for twenty minutes. Quickly rubbing his eyes to make sure they weren't deceiving him, he winced, a chill prickling down his spine at the thought. “The hell?” Softly escaped his lips as he tried to figure out what just happened, but he quickly decided it was best to ignore it and get on with the things that needed doing.
It was a little over an hour later, that Tyko was in the workshop, beyond the wind break of the trees, The old fireplace was stoked with wood and coals, pumping out just enough heat to keep the large area just above freezing. Tyko was out in his work clothes; double tin pants and a heavy denim jacket, both well stained with grease, linseed oil, and metal dust, and a pair of heavy leather gloves as he worked on something a little bit special; he had recently bought and dragged home an old Isuzu truck that had been sitting in a neighbors “dead cars” lot for several years. He had already replaced the engine of the small truck with a slightly larger four cylinder from a later model, replaced the shocks and bushings, and was currently building a simple bed cap for it from aluminum. The special part about it, was that it wasn't for him, but for his brother's sixteenth birthday in a week. So far, he was into the project for less than eight-hundred.
A sudden flash of blue, and the crackle of electricity filled the air with the acrid scent of burning metal as Tyko struck an arc with the welder. He drew the bead for a moment before finishing the short weld to inspect the joint of the small patch panel he was welding in on the passenger side rocker panel where the rust had eaten through. Placing the tip, he flipped the helmet down and struck the arc, on the opposing side of the panel, trying to prevent the hand-hammered piece from warping out of shape. As he raised the helmet, he was struck with the sensation of emptiness, a feeling that he was suddenly....or perhaps had always been incomplete.
The sudden, dizzying loss of emotional control knocked his balance away from him, planting ass to rough, stained and dirty concrete from his previously crouched position. His left arm swung out lazily to try and catch himself from the fall, sweeping away the empty and full rattle-cans of primer, the empty clattering off into the unlit section of the shop, the full smacking to the ground and rolling until it clinked against the wheel of an empty engine stand. His chest felt constricted as he tried to drag air into his lungs, his heart pounding from the fear of loneliness and the utter lack of understanding of what was happening to him. He struggled, fought to control the overwhelming senses. His brow furrowed as he dragged himself forward, back to his knees, waging war with the vertigo and the impossible resistance his body felt. He needed to call for help, he wanted to believe this was some toxic chemical given off by the welding.
He grabbed onto the open door of the little truck, using it to lever himself from the ground. He wanted to believe that it was just a chemical, that it was a passing thing, that it was curable or deadly. But the core of it twisted in his mind, he knew it was neither, it was void. Like something had eviscerated his soul, or a substantial fraction of it. He was nothing but a shell of unseemly thin walls, where the structural supports had just been cut loose. But collapsing was not part of him.
With knees trembling as though he shouldered weight greater than he could carry, he stepped towards the work bench. The phone was just ten feet away. Ten feet was possible. The next step, another; he slammed down to the pavement, breaking his fall with his hands as his knees gave way, buckling under his weight.
Staring at a splot of epoxy, long ground into the pavement, he lost track of time, refusing to yield to the crushing weight of emptiness that want to drag him to the core of the earth. A shadow moved in his peripheral vision. Craning his neck to see, hoping to see Kiite, or Ellisif, he did not expect to find a small, masked-face-bandit emerge from the shadows beneath the old tractor. Her small eyes shone with the light of something he didn't know, but he could feel the weight ease from his heart and body. She moved, fast, darting to something on the ground. He found out what it was after the raccoon threw it, and the object bounced off his head: it was a nut for a bolt. The scavenger squeeked, and then carefully approached him seeing as he appeared to pose no threat. She stopped inches away from his face, stuck her nose close to Tyko's face and gingerly tested his scent before rearing back on her rear feet, and simply pushing her forepaws into his face.
Shock. A pulse of something exploded within, the world vanishing for but a fraction of time before rebounding, brighter, louder, more intense than what was real. It was gone, the world faded back to normal, and he was hunched on the floor with a raccoon blinking furtively at him, with her paws jammed against his nose and cheek. Withdrawing her little paws, she glanced at them, then to him, and made three soft croons before tilting her head at him inquisitively.
It was gone, the hollow void of emptiness and loneliness was gone, replaced by a small little ball of fur who was born just last year. She hadn't had kits yet, she was young, curious, and loved noodles. Noodles with sauce, from a small building up north. Eggs, still warm, and the soft fuzzy fruits with the juicy flesh and hard center were amazing to her.
He couldn't help but smile as he slowly shifted to sit on the floor, crossing his legs as he tried to wrap his head around what had just happened. Staring off into space, he felt something shift and looked down to find the small raccoon climbing into his lap. He couldn't fathom what was going on, but he did know that she was tired, and hungry. She did a quick cleaning of her forepaws before she snuggled in against the inside crook of his left knee, falling asleep near instantly. Tyko sat on the cold floor, trying to process what was going on, and what had just happened.
