The Radio

Narl left for a bit, came back with a long chain and something that looked like a two sided prong. I stayed to the back of the room as he passed the prong-thing to Rill and set to work with the chain, wrapping it around and around in a large oval on the floor. The moment he was done, Rill stepped forward and crouched down, carefully stabbing the prong into the middle of the oval. Narl began to pace around the outside of the oval, mumbling under his breath.

"What is this," I asked Narl as he passed me, "what is this supposed to do?"

Narl snapped out of his reverie, but didn't stop pacing.

"Where is the radio of radio?"

I turned to look at the small, cheep radio in the room, "I don't understand."

Narl ground his teeth for a minute before answering, "when the radio, sound object, is on, where does the music come from?"

"A broadcast tower?"

Narl shook his head, still pacing, "Radio waves, the signal, the music unseen. We must make a radio."

"I still don't understand."

Rill stood and began to pace the oval too, on the opposite side of Narl, she spoke as she passed me.

"The radio pulls the signal from the sky, makes it ours, able to be heard."

Narl spoke, asking his question again, "so, An-drew-gi, where is the music?"

"All around us?"

They smiled simultaneously. Yellow, blood spattered teeth leering out of overlarge mouths.

"The library," Rill began again, "you were in the presence of the old one, his library. Where is the Library?"

"It was across from a city."

Narl shook his head again, "No An-drew-gi, it is here, here like radio."

"All around us," Rill completed, "intangible but surrounding. Dimensions are not separate areas, there are no walls, no borders. They are inside, all inside, one another, like radio waves."

Narl picked up again, "traveling between them is tuning in, out of one frequency and to another, radio."

"But I thought you said they were locked, that we needed a door."

"They are locked, we are stopped from changing to their channel," Rill said, still at the opposite side to Narl, "but not all, we need only a door, a door can be many things, a door can be a radio."

"This," Narl said, pointing at the chain oval and prong, "this is our door, our radio. It will change the channel, tune us to the apocalypse. All we need is the key to open our radio."

"So what's this key?"

They stopped, standing at either ends of the oval.

"First blood, an act of war," Narl finished.

Rill's jaw snapped open, stretching wider and wider. She lifted a hand and began reaching inside, down her throat, into her stomach. I could see her neck bulge, then shrink as she retracted her arm. There was a slight gurgling noise, and she pulled something out. Stepping forward, Rill speared the thing on the prong. As she stepped back I could make out a shock of red hair, still attached to a bloody chunk of scalp.

For a moment nothing happened. I turned to Rill and Narl, trying to figure out what was wrong, but they were both staring out the window. From under his breath, I heard Narl say something.

"-like the dinosaurs."

There was a whistling, high pitch and uncomfortable, just at the edge of my hearing. I looked past them, out the window, into the horizon. There was something, a tiny streak of light in the sky, moving steadily toward the ground as the whistling grew louder. It bored into my ears painfully; the object in the sky grew brighter, I could hear the buzz of planes overhead now, thousands of planes. The burning light streaked down, a bolt of slow lightning, closer and closer to the ground. I felt a pang of dread as it fell behind the horizon, some unspoken understanding.

The white exploded out, devouring the sky. I put my hands up, I could see the bones in them through my closed eyelids.







































































When I opened my eyes it was all ruined. Everything.

The side of the hostel was gone, torn away. Dust covering the ground, pervading the sky, painting everything grey. A thousand craters, smoking into the air, were spread across the ground. Out of each a chain, thick and dark, linking up into the ashen sky. From next to me, I heard Rill speak.

"Welcome Andrew. This is the grove of fetters. This is an end of the world."

~Ji

Key

Rill returned today, covered in gore. I'm not sure how she got here without being noticed and arrested. She looks like a person again. But I know better now. She started talking like no time had passed, directing her question at Narl.

"The way is long. We have not the legs to traverse the path in time. We must prepare, obtain the items to cross the boundary."

"The wilderness will not suffice," Narl responded immediately, "An-Drew-Gee would not survive. The city is locked, the other realms held shut, we have no making speed."

Rill smiled unsettlingly, her teeth stained dark red.

"The inciter is bound, the path unguarded. We may open the gate and wander through. The apocalypse. The world of world's end."

Narl furrowed his brow.

"The ritual we do not have, the gate unguarded but locked eternal. We lack the key. The path is inert without the blood to wash it clean, the hate to grant us entry."

Rill smiled wider still, her mouth stretching unnaturally.

"But we have the key, I made it," She stretched her arms wide, flakes of dried blood drifting to the ground, "The drums beat louder, they had no quarrel and now they do, the gates can be pushed open. The path clear for us."

Narl's eyes widened slightly.

"You have been in future thought. The hardest part passed. When shall we have the doors be crossed, the smoke inhaled?"

"We need still the bindings and the fork. We must make quick our voyage, we begin now.

They turned to me for the first time since Rill walked in, bloodshot eyes boring into me.

"Come An-Drew-Gee," Narl began.

"We have places to seek, and little hours to spend" Rill finished.

I doubt this is going to be pleasant.

~Ji