The Quicksilver Herald

Alice Libel never thought she'd die with the world trying to self identify as something it's not. It's started with iridescent light pulsing from a little peninsula South of the city of Providence. With every shift of its color seemed to warp the city's skyline, from the towering grey familiar blocks, to red-orange spiral towers with clouded asymmetric windows, then melting down to sagging gambrel roof tops and Georgian balustrades. The way the buildings oozed and morphed like watered down play doh shifted Alice's perspective to one of a plastic pliable existence that has been bent far beyond its breaking point. She felt hot as though she too were melting like the buildings on the distant shoreline. Water, water would cool her off, she thought. A dip into the ocean would cool her off and resolidify her plastic existence under this nausea inducing skyscape.

She jumped from railing of the pleasure yacht, closing her eyes and crossing arms over her chest and feet stretched out anticipating breaking the waters surface. It wasn't tell after she jumped did she think that she hoped one of the crewman seen her jump so they could call a man overboard to retrieve her or else she'd have to attempt the swim to shore. Then she thought that maybe everybody else on the ship had the same idea, in which case who'd save them. This really was an idiotic plan.

The fall seemed to take much longer than Alice would've thought, as her perspective of time skewed to a plastic malleable concept where a second could be stretched a minute or an hour. Or was the fall just further than she believed.

It was at that moment she opened her eyes. What she saw was not waves coming up to meet her but suspended just a few inches below her was a flagstone terrace tessellated with asymmetrical shapes and intricately carved balustrades surrounding the platform's edge on all sides. Whatever force was holding her up dropped her ungracefully and painfully onto the stones below. She grunted in pain as the air was forced from her lungs.

She was lifting herself off her stomach where she laid and heard the first sounds that the place had to offer.

Do you hear it? a voice called out.

Who's there? Where am I? And how did I get here? Alice rapidly spit out the questions less the voice goes away.

I haven't heard silence like this in ages. The voice didn't seem to notice her. Odd how a voice reveling in silence doesn't noticeable somebody interrupting the silence.

Alice slowly surveyed her surroundings, turning her body slowly searching for the voice. She saw nothing and nobody but the distant mountains whose snow capped peaks were spying just over the balustrades. As if they were curious neighbors sensing an interesting bit of gossip was about to happen before their ever watching eyes. As though they longed for the excitement of something new, but somehow anxious about getting caught knowing the new knowledge that they would soon witness.

Where are you? Alice called out hoping to be heard.

Behind you. said the voice.

Alice quickly turned around to see a black basalt throne and a pedestal that held a book facing her. Neither of those were there a few seconds ago. She would've swore it. She approached the throne, her bare feet slapping loudly over stone. The udder silence of the terrace put her on edge. Inspecting the 4 inch cube shaped purple rock with what looked like uneven scratches or parallel lines of string covering its surfaces.

Who are you? Alice asked.

That is not important and besides you'll curse one of my names in anger the moment you return to Earth. Said the rock.

Alice feared she was going mad talking to a rock as though it was another person. Sure she had a pet rock too as a child and she talked to it, but that was over a decade ago and it looked nothing like this purple brownish cube.

Alice bent down at the waist to peer closer at the rock. Her small heart shaped locket falling out the top of her yellow sundress to dangle level with the purple cube.

How would you like to be the herald to the end of the universe?

Alice thought about that question and thought to herself this must be a dream. The casual way the purple cube just asked if I wanted to be a part of destroying everything just didn't make sense. Made it sound as if a girl scout asked her if she'd like to buy a box of Raw-Raw Raisin. Alice hated the tastes and texture of raisins.

What if I say no? Alice asked.

Alice got the impression that the cubes focus was directed at her but not at her face, but lower. Oh great my subconscious mind put me into a lucid dream where my only companion is a perverted cube. She then remembered the pain she encountered when she first arrived, and recalled the fact that you're not supposed to feel pain in your dreams due to it being a illogicial construct of your subconscious mind that's ill fitted for processing the delicate nerve signals related to painful physical experiences.

Then our business is concluded here. Said the cube. Interrupting her train of thought.

Okay then I say no. Can I go back now? Asked Alice. Standing up straight.

If no is your answer then I have no reason to send you back for the results will be a waste of my effort. Said the cube.

What do you mean by that? Asked Alice a hint of frustration in her voice. And why are you focused or staring at my cleavage? You're a rock, what interest would you have of a living creature like me?

The rock answered in its same reveling voice. Sending you back to have your existence erased from a history that never was. Defeats the purpose of pulling you here in this point of time and space. As for my focus, it's a curiosity of the bit of metal you have around your neck. As for my appearance. Well I am not the cube you see before you, that is a mere medium but an accurate and ironic representation of myself that's safe enough for your kind to gaze upon without going completely insane. And you're right it's not a sense you would call sight.

Oh said Alice processing all that she just heard. Why was it interested in the little pedant? It didn't hold photographs, just two small mirrors, it was just a gift from her mother. A trinket of silver, given to her on her 18th birthday.

A moment later she asked what do I have to do if I say yes? Grasping the small thing in her left hand, pressing it to her chest. As if to keep it hidden from the cube.

First you'll sign the book in your own blood, and take a new name. Then you'll wait for my messenger to guide you along my will. Said the cube. It's voice sounding more drowsy than before.

Alice approached the podium slowly contemplating what she was about to do.

Throw herself off the terrace or be erased from history as she knew it. The odds of her succeeding at the task given to her by this God rock. Cause what else could achieve and demand the impossible things that it was asking and has done other than a god.

There was a small spindle with a quill in the bottom of it as if we're resting in an inkwell. Alice instinctively touches her finger to the spindle. A sharp prick of pain and a sensation of the spindle sucking the blood from her finger made her jerk her hand back quickly.

Ouch she cried.

Alice examined the names on the yellowing parchment hoping to find any she might recognize. There weren't but three in particular were clearly legible, the first being a Kaziah Mason the second being a Erich Zann and the third being Walter Gilman. All the others were difficult to make out of not in any language Alice recognized.

With no proof of absolute evil evident she drew the quill it's nip crimson with her blood. She signed her name.

Can I ask you a question Alice asked?

Just one, and that was the one. time grows short and we wouldn't want the other to know your part of the game just yet.

Alice was just about to open her mouth to protest but the sound of drums arose from below followed by a crescendo of thin piping flutes. The music followed no rhythm or beat that Alice had heard before.

Alice was about to walk over to the edge of the terrace to have a look at the unseen orchestra below when she felt resistance pulling on her feet. She looked down to see she was standing in a puddle of water. No, that wasn't right. It was a liquid to be sure but it was thicker and the surface too reflective to be water. She struggled harder to try to free herself. The more she struggled, the faster she sank. It was up to her waist now. She looked around for the throne and podium to make her misgivings known to the cube, but it was gone. Not a trace of it could be found as if it never was there at all.

Alice looked up to curse the heavens. Then she saw them, the three stars that this planet orbited. No, that was wrong. The three stars that orbit this. Planet? Astronomical body? She didn't know how she knew that they orbited this place instead of the other around but the feeling that she was at the center of a cosmic stage pressed in on her. Then she took her last breath on an alien planet.

Alice's only instinct was to hold her breath as long as she could and hope that the cube had a plan to return her to Earth. She held her breath waiting for any change. Her body convulsed as the need for air forced her to expel the dead air from her lungs. Drawing in the silver liquid. She felt its coolness fill her mouth and it's weight fill her lungs. The last thing she felt was the sensation of sinking faster into the silver liquid before the void of nothingness consumed what was left.

Alice awoke to the sensation of falling followed by a quick and painful meeting with the ground again. Coughing and retching on her hands and knees to expel the foreign substance took several moments orientate herself and to catch her breath. What sweet air it was being fed to by the wind off the coast and rustling the nearby trees. A small comfort knowing that normal sounds still existed after hearing so very little on that alien world now filled with the sound of unseen maddening drums and thin piping flutes.

She found herself on the beach. She stared towards the city and froze. The city was there but it wasn't the familiar grey block skyscrapers but a much lower skyline filled with the sagging gambrel rooftops from before. Then she noticed that the city wasn't the only thing that underwent a change but where her dark brunette hair used to hang now dangled lochs of silver. Looking down she saw that she still wore the yellow sundress though grimed with the black of oxidized liquid metal.

Looking down at her feet she saw the one thing she needed most and was never happier to have it right there at that time. A newspaper bearing the title The Arkham Advertiser. And a headline reading Miskatonic University Energy Project Disaster.

Alice recognized those names and places from a few stories she read. The first words she spat out on that new world was you Blind Idiot.