Ephemeris

12 : Weightlessness

Under the loose folds of skin and muscle closed over his tired eyes, Daniel's eyeballs shifted restlessly, from left to right, then from right to left. His eyelashes moved slightly, trembling, trying to peel his eyelids apart. Another nightmare crept inside the poor kid's mind intruding into his sleep.

In the dark, he could hear the distant weeping of women, the outcry of men, and the wailing of infants. Daniel wanted to break free from the nightmarish chains restraining his arms and legs. His eyes were still shut, eyelashes quivered in ferocity. I need to escape from you, ugly Umbra, he thought.

He wriggled his body like a writhing caterpillar. His muscles and veins popped from fighting the invisible cold chains. The chains resisted his fury. I will not yield from your tyranny, he thought.

The thorny bounds squeezed tighter, crushing and suffocating him. For a second, the boy's arms went dead. A teardrop ran away from the corner of his shut eyes, tearing the air asunder. He let out a piercing scream, mustered all his strength, and tore down the oppressing fiend's power. "I am strong. Remember that," he whispered. He slowly opened his eyelids apart, blinked rapidly, and saw the cosmic void in front of him.

The poor boy thought he was free from the nightmare. Yet, his eyes didn't—witnessing the boundless emptiness, another episode of subconscious suffering—a dream within a dream. I can't believe that the Umbra tricked me, he thought. He shoved his back and saw the crumbling world below, unaware he was floating, escaping the Earth's atmosphere.

"The same dream," his voice hoarsened in disbelief. The beautiful Earth he once knew transmogrified into a lifeless, dead planet. Everything was released from the grasp of the Earth—dirt, sea, gases, infrastructures, vegetation, animals, and humans. The natural force that caused things to fall towards the Earth and the reason that bonded them together and aground was weakening.

Daniel averted his irises away from the disturbing annihilation. The scene of the end of days filled him not with dread but loathing. He drifted beyond, engulfed by the pitch-black cosmos, with only the myriad dots of lights that had traveled trillions of miles on his backdrop. And without warning, his backside bumped into a flat transparent surface. The impact gave him quite a bolt. He extended his limbs, reclined his spine flat, and rested his head comfortably on the flat smooth plane.

The teardrop which slipped from his lacrimal gland followed him and plopped against the surface just a foot away from his cheek. He felt something was wrong. There was a force like a magnet crushing his body against the invisible plane. Daniel propped his palms and soles on the surface, trying to detach his spine away from it. His stomach was popping out, and his limbs were getting tired. His arms and legs collapsed, worn out from fighting the cohesive force. "I can't move," he said.

Now, the force was slowly crushing his chest, snapping his ribcage like toothpicks, and imploding his lungs. "I can't breathe. I can't—breathe. I can't—" he choked. His tongue stuck out, his eyes inflamed, and his face turned purple, depriving him of oxygen. The nightmare was winning to kill the life out of his vessel.

Something in his throat wanted to crawl out, something viscid and bitter. He opened his mouth wider, and after that, red blood gushed forth. "Help me, somebody!" he yelled. The unrelenting force, in pursuit of his life, was gradually crushing his torso more. The flat surface began to crack. Little fissures from his spot inched outwards, forming a web, a dramatic death designed just for him. Daniel screamed his final gasp, letting out excruciating pain. I was wrong. I am not strong. Nothing can beat you, he thought.

After a second, the infinite transparent surface shattered into a million shards of glass, and the poor boy was sucked into the vacuum—frozen, lifeless, solitary.