Twinkle

Nobody can hear you scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Although I’m pretty sure a couple dozen people tried to scream as they died a quick, cold death of asphyxiation as we pushed our way back to the moon in 2025. It was always the small oversights that precipitated catastrophes while we pushed human ingenuity to its limits. Whether it was a small O-ring that failed or not completely accounting for the severe degradation of UV light, there were mistakes. There were struggles. Some resulted in discomfort, others in death.

While a few deaths may have slowed down the Apollo missions, today it only strengthened the resolve of human curiosity. Not only were we starting to get bored of this rock of paradise called Earth, but the worsening climate crisis compelled us to hedge our bets and find another home – even if it was only a few hundred thousand miles away. Something greater out there lurked just beyond our reach, and we had to reach out and grab it.

Looking up at the moon from my cell window on Earth, I could see hope. A small bright spot on the lunar surface marked the start of a permanent moon base that many predicted would be fully operational by 2035. From there, humans were going to explore the cosmos – or at least the solar system. There were missions on the books to explore Mars, Titan and even Ganymede, and while we still had no idea how to travel the vast distances to reach other systems, we still hoped that one day we could make it as far as Proxima Centauri. This new frontier was dangerous, scary and in vogue.

I sat down with a thud on my small jail cot with my head in my hands. The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable. My head was throbbing, and I could feel my heart beat in my temples. The air reeked of sweat, urine and booze. I coughed as I tried to catch my breath. I closed my eyes to massage my forehead to get some relief, but my consciousness soon drifted away from my body like a boat without a tether in a deluge. Shipwrecked, I landed where I had been before, a terrifying vision I’d seen many times before.

The picture always started the same way. I was standing in a vast wheat field. The warm sun kissed my skin as the cool air brushed past my neck. Pollen was in the air, and I could smell distant flowers and even rain. A few trees dotted the horizon, and they swayed to and fro in the gentle breeze. The sky was a dark shade of blue, and the sun shone in full brilliance, unobscured by the wispy clouds that danced in the light wind.

Within minutes of opening my eyes in this oasis, I could see storm clouds gather in the distance. They always came from the same direction. A heavy darkness followed the storm. No matter how many times this vision overtook me, fear continued to rise with each recurrence.

Fierce winds always preceded the storm. They ravaged the land, chafing me as they brushed past me. My long brown hair fluttered violently in the wind. The trees on the horizon moaned and groaned with the wind until they either uprooted or snapped off at their base. Fear continued to rise in me as the trees met their demise.

A blood red color rushed over the land, emanating from the direction of the storm. It was as though a dam that was holding the red color back broke, releasing a river of red throughout the land. Nothing lost its color, but everything took on a tint of red as though the great painter in the sky spilled a red jar of paint on the canvas. The red flow pushed through the land until it tainted everything.

Death was hot on the heels of the red flood. It looked like something was moving toward me as the wall of death approached through the wheat. The wheat died and curled up like it was on cue, pushing through the scene just like the red flood. A strong gust of wind moved with the death, and it pushed me to my knees.

Then, came the heat. I could see the fire on the horizon; it appeared as a small sun. The brightness burned my eyes as the intensity grew. The fiery monster devoured everything in its path, roaring as it approached. The smoke infiltrated my clothing, lungs and pores.

A coughing fit overtook me as I remained on my knees. There was no use fighting the painful inevitability of the impending doom. The pain of the fire always came, so I closed my eyes and accepted my fate. My skin was boiling as the fire overtook me. The roaring fire all around me screamed in my ears, leaving me nearly deaf. The excruciating pain rose in intensity until the fire passed.

Lightning struck within a hundred yards of me. It would have blown out my eardrums if I was not already deafened by the passing fire.

I fell flat on the ground in front of me. I could feel the wheat ash crunch under my burned skin as a plume of ash whooshed to get out of the way of my body. I coughed again and rolled onto my back.

Silent rain fell on the muted landscape. A drop fell into my mouth. It was extraordinarily bitter, almost as though it was poisoned.

I opened my eyes to darkness and silence. The clouds enveloped me. A stark loneliness and fear lingered over the dead landscape. The poisoned land was crying, and I was the only one to witness the sadness.

This is always where the vision ended, so I closed my eyes and waited for my boat to float back to reality.

“Get… to… mooooooon…” a harsh voice struggled to scream in broken English.

I sat up in shock and opened my eyes to pure darkness. While I’ve heard grunts, even murmurs and broken words before in the back of my mind, but this was the first time they entered my vision. I was terrified by the pain in the voice, yet slightly relieved to not be alone.

“It… isssssssss…. yooooooouuuurrr hoooooppppppeeeee…… onnnnnnllllyyyyy,” the gargled voice spoke again from somewhere in the sky. It was like the grunts and murmurs that had been in my head for years were steadily studying English for years and now they could finally form short, easy sentences.

I woke up on the cell floor in a cold sweat. The concrete floor was both hard and cold at the same time. I laid there as I pondered my vision. Was I going crazy? I knew people hear voices in their head all of the time, but it seemed like my condition was deteriorating. Why do I keep having these strange visions? ‘Go to the moon. It is your only hope.’ Why on God’s green earth would my brain send me that message? What could possibly be on that rock a couple hundred thousand miles away that had anything to do with me?

The visions started originally when I hit puberty, but they didn’t always have large burning, painful wheat fields of sadness. They started out as flashes of colors, bright lights, murmurs, whispers that were just out of reach. I tried telling my parents about them when the visions first started, and that road led to a psychologist and medication. Not a single pill could stop the visions. They just keep getting more and move vivid. I felt like something from deep inside me was trying to learn how to communicate with me. It felt less than or more than human.

A leather shoe nudged me awake.

“Your dad posted bail,” an overweight guard said in a gruff voice.

“That is unless you want to stay here,” he continued as the buttons on his blue dress shirt struggled to cling to the fabric.

I got to my feet and slicked my greasy hair back with my right hand.

I shook my head as I could not believe they were letting me go. If they could see my now sealed juvenile delinquent record, they would consider it a matter of public safety to keep me behind bars. Lighting small fires helped release some of the tension from the visions I saw. I never hurt anyone, mostly only lighting dumpsters on fire around the city. Honestly, I thought that I may even be doing the city a favor by disposing of trash.

My dad was waiting for me outside of the jail. He hit me with an empty stare that only an old aerospace engineer could. It was cold, calculating and concerned.

“The visions came again. Didn’t they?” he said in a deep methodical voice.

“What do you think?” I said more harshly than I intended.

I shook my head, and looking down I brought my hand to my head and massaged my temples. The cold air made me shiver as my dad threw his coat over my shoulders. I know he wanted to say something. He wanted to tell me I needed to remember my therapy sessions and employ cognitive behavioral techniques, but instead, his silence spoke more than anything.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” I said while I put my arm over his shoulder. He held me up more than I anticipated.

“I know,” he said.

We walked to the car in the cold silence. Snow fell from the dark sky. As the small snowflakes drifted down, they landed on the warm asphalt of the parking lot, sitting there for a moment before they were devoured by the darkness.

A car alarm rang in the distance as we reached Dad’s car. He opened the back door for me as I collapsed with a thud in the back seat. I laid there for a moment as Dad moved to the front of the car, took it out of park and started driving.

‘Yooooouuuuu…..’ the voice in the back of my head startled me out of my daze.

“HOLY MOTHER OF MARY!” I shouted and winced at the same time as the gravelly voice emerged.

“WHAT?!” I heard my Dad shouted in the distance, visibly concerned and startled at the same time. I felt the car swerve as he wrenched his neck around to look at me.

“Nnnnnnnnot yyooooouuuu aaaaaarreeeee the ttttttopp of the fffffffooooodd chaaaaaaaiiiin.” the voice sounded like it was coming close to me.

‘Thereeeee aarreee twoooo. Get to the moooooon. Salvation.’ the voice finished.

I took a deep breath and returned to reality. My head was in my hands. I was rocking back and forth as I came back to my senses. I started panting as I tried to gain my composure.

My Dad, who'd seen this song and dance before, asked me sternly. “Should we go to the hospital?” it was the only thing his process-orientated brain could offer me. He could feel my pain, and the only thing he could offer me was more science.

“No,” I whispered, catching my breath and still recovering from my close encounter.

“But, the visions are getting worse. It can form full sentences. I just don’t know what to do. Fire is the only thing that brings me relief,” I continued slowly and punctuated with a sigh.

“What are the voices saying?” my Dad said in a cold yet steady tone.

“IT. It just told me that we are not at the top of the food chain. Then, it said something about there being two of them. It told me that there is salvation on the moon.” I struggled through the words.

My Dad’s silence spoke volumes. It was enunciated by road noise and his short, labored exhales.

“There is something else,” I started again. “It sounds like it is in pain. It sounds like it knows something terrible is coming. Or something terrible happened a long time ago. It is trying to warn me about something that is or something that already happened. I am so confused.” I whispered, laying my head down on the seat. I passed out for the remainder of the car ride.

…

We arrived at my Dad’s house shortly after 11 PM. While I had my own apartment, we both knew that it was better for me to stay at his house tonight. I was too nervous to go to sleep right away, so I asked Dad to stay up with me for a while. I was just hoping that the creature would not overtake me again tonight. I just hoped that it would let me sleep.

I collapsed silently on the couch. My Dad turned on the news before walking into the kitchen. He knew that the news helped drown out some of the noises. A few minutes later, he reentered into the living room with a candle and lighter. He knew fire relaxed me, so he lit the candle with the lighter and placed both on the table in front of me.

The fire danced in front of my eyes while I contemplated the slippery slope that my Dad just placed in front of me. He was always there to comfort me. He was always there to help even when it came at a tremendous cost to him. He knew that placing the fire in front of me both relaxed me, but encouraged me to make it grow.

My Mom used to argue with him all of the time. She chastised him for enabling me. While he agreed, he also understood the pain I felt and indulged me. Perhaps, that is why my Mom left him before I turned 15. She just could not take me any more. This thought and just the fact that my mother could not stand either of us weighed heavily on both of us.

“Do you think there will be any evidence of life on the moon?” I heard a news anchor ask inquisitively. They were doing a segment on the Final Frontier mission, which was the name of the mission tasked with establishing a permanent moon base.

The astronaut they were interviewing chuckled slightly before saying, “No, unfortunately not. The moon has been studied intensively, and it seems pretty inhospitable to life.”

The news anchor laughed slightly too, “How do you all intend on living there then?”

“Our technology has advanced exponentially since the Apollo missions. Yes, we’ve had some mistakes recently, and tragically, we have lost some really talented and loved crew members. But, that cannot stop us from…”

I nodded off to sleep before I heard his final words. I was exhausted.

…

I awoke in the middle of the night. A heaviness on my chest pushed me awake. I was eerily uncomfortable. My ears perked up, and I slowly opened my eyes. I could feel a presence in the room. My Dad blew out the candle before he went to bed. I was sitting in thick, dark quietness.

As my fear rose, I fumbled around in the darkness, looking for the lighter. I hoped it would help me see something, scare away this weird presence or at least give me some comfort.

“Stop. Lighting. Fires,” the gravelly voice was much more confident and much more stern this time.

I almost passed out from fear. I tired to scream at the voice. I could not find my voice. I started shaking.

“Your taaaalllk is hard, but I am learning more and more,” the creature in the corner continued.

“Who are you?” I eked out in a shaky, terrified voice.

“I am heeeeeeere to waaaaaarn you, and I doooo nnnooooot have loooong. An advaaaaanced race is coming for you, just like they caaaaame for ussss. Hope is onnnnn the moon.” the voice continued.

“Can we fight them?”

“Caaaaannn the aaaant sttttttoppp you from squishing it? These creatures harness the pooooower of sttttttaaarrrs and black hooooolllleeeess to ruulllleee half of yoooooourrr galaaaaxy. They live in millennium, nnnoooot years. What can you do, aaannnnttt?”

“If they live for millennia, the earth will at least be fine for my lifetime, right?”

“Your tiiiimmmmee is liimmmited. Theeeeeyyyy looookkk to your technoooollogy to deteeeerrmine when to haaaarvest.”

“Who are you?”

“My rraaaaaaccceee does not speeeaakkk in spoken words, raaaather in feelings and thouuuugggts.”

Suddenly, I was struck by an overwhelming feeling of anger, pain and struggle, but also warmth, bravery, strength and resolve accompanied with a sense of cold realism and pragmatism. I could sense the creature’s strength and pain. Above all, I could sense courage. So, from that point forward, I referred to the creature and his race as ‘the courageous legion.’

“Oooookkkk. Who are they?” I shuttered as I asked.

“I haaaavvveee been dessscribbbinnng them to yooouuu for yeeeaaaarsssss. They aaarreeee the vissssiiiiooon you seeeee.”

My stomach dropped as I remembered my boiling, searing skin. The pain spread like a disease throughout all of the land, so I came to know them as ‘the affliction.’

“What is on the moon? How is it going to help?”

“I haaaavvvveee tooo goo,” the creature said as though it was looking over its shoulder.

“But, wait! Why can’t you tell me more? You mean you want me to just go to space? Just like that? Just from some creature in the corner of the room?” I started raising my voice.

The darkness from the corner of the room rushed me. It hit me on the chest and knocked me back against the couch. Everything faded to black.