The Last Answer, Part 1
The ceiling seemed to hold my gaze with indifference — uninterested and uninteresting. It had been three days since I had found the portal, and I hadn’t slept since. I still couldn’t believe I had made it out. But, then again, maybe none of it had been real to begin with.
I pushed my heels toward the edge of my bed and flexed my toes. My knees and ankles ached, begging to move.
I had to know if it was real, and if such things could be explained. Growing up in a town that only now boasted one hundred and forty-three people, everything was already becoming too explainable.
Could there be more? What was it that she was going to show me? Who was she anyway? I feel like I’ve known her for longer than I’ve been alive. But that’s not possible. It must have been a dream. Maybe I just woke up from a dream and I’m misremembering. But I know where it is. I could go there now if I wanted.
I laid in the stillness of the night with these thoughts, shouting like chickens in my head.
Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I peeled back the covers and bounded out of bed. There was no need to be secretive. Mom was working nights, and my sister, Midge, slept like living was a sin for which she was desperately trying to atone.
I pushed my heels into my undersized shoes and reached for my jacket. The Texas night was as cold as the day had been hot.
Outside, under the stars, my body oriented itself like a compass needle, and my steps soon became a run. My eyes scoured the terrain for obstacles in vain. The desert became a vast, limitless void. Even the sensation of my feet hitting the ground began to subside until my run began to feel more like a swim.
My toe caught on a stone, causing me to lurch ahead, losing my balance. I only barely caught myself on a boulder shyly illuminated by a waning crescent. Fortunately, fifteen minutes in this inky darkness had turned my eyes into photon magnets. I brushed something sharp as I pulled my hand back and just made out the proud silhouette of a cactus protruding from a split in the boulder. Karl said the desert speaks to those who will listen. It hadn’t made sense to me at the time, but I couldn’t help but feel now like this cactus was telling me to slow down.
I remembered I still hadn’t told Karl about the portal, and decided I would tell him tomorrow. Maybe. If it’s even still there. The thought sent a wave of electricity through both my legs as they plodded carefully up an incline. I barely noticed the minute incisions left on my palms from climbing the rocky terrain. Sweat, dust, and blood commingled in testament to my progress and my growing desire for reassurance. My chest vibrated like a quickening kick drum as I drew nearer, even as my muscles seemed to grow weaker, as though in anticipation of disappointment.
At the crest of the hill, I peered into the shadows of the other side. With the moon at my back, I could just barely make out the outline of my quest’s object. Two slender boulders, about twenty feet in height, silently awaiting me near the bottom of the slope. Only their tips caught the moonlight, like the domes of two skulls. As I stood, watching them, anticipation unmasked fear, as though I had only remembered I must ascend to achieve my aim and not that I must also descend.
After a moment of hesitation, I pushed myself forward, allowing gravity to direct the remainder of my journey. This side of the hill was steeper and bare of vegetation. I dug my heels in and slid on the seat of my pants, just as I had days earlier when I was, for reasons still unknown to me, drawn to these solitary prominences. Salt began to sting the wounds in my hands, and the edges of stones pushed dirt into new ones. The pillars loomed ever nearer, yet the base of the hill just below them remained obscured below the surface of a sea of darkness. Visions of terrible half-man, half-demon beasts awaiting me below appeared in my mind. These were easier to dismiss than the proceeding thoughts of fully human men aware of the portal’s existence. There was no telling what someone with power would do, how they would use it, what they would do to protect it. Maybe, I thought, someone saw me find the portal and is waiting for me somewhere down there.
Upon touching the weathered face of one monolith, I stopped and waited, at the zenith of my terror. I could hear nothing except a slight breeze passing over the surfaces of a million little stones along the curve of the hill behind me. That, and my breathing, which I was trying desperately to soften. Nothing, human or otherwise, emerged from the shadows. The desert lay, massive as the universe, and with equal disregard for the ghouls haunting my imagination.
Gradually, like a bird after a storm, my confidence began to emerge from hiding. With both hands sliding along the hard surface of one boulder, I made my way toward the gap between them where the wind pushed through as if nothing were in its way. I scanned my surroundings apprehensively, although the only feature visible was the ridge of the hill I had just passed over. Breathlessly, I listened to the night and was greeted once again only by the peace of absence. My fears assuaged, I inhaled sharply and, with a genuflection for good luck, stepped into the cleft.
