FICTION | DYSTOPIAN HORROR
Luck of the Draw (3 of 3)
L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Honorable Mention Recipient.
I never thought I would be this nervous. We all dream about reaching the door. We train for this from the second we can hold a knife.
I count each step as I walk up the stairs.
“One.” What is behind the door?
“Two.” Who is behind the door?
“Three.” Will they hate me?
“Four.” Will they be disappointed?
“Five.” I hope they love me. I want them all to love me.
“Six.” I feel lighter. The weight of my old life is falling away.
“Seven.” Like shedding skin.
“Eight.” I will walk naked into the Pool of the Ancients and be baptized in the waters of miracles.
“Nine.” At least that’s how Old Betty tells it. I’m not sure what it means, though.
“Ten.” I just want to wash this shit out of my hair. Clean my arm.
“Eleven.” I could use a drink right now.
“Twelve.” I think I’ve earned it. I bet they have the good stuff in there.
I grab the edge of the tall door, its thickness roughly half the length of my hand. It feels smooth and the sun has made it warm to the touch. The surface is completely devoid of any ornamentation and there is no pull of any kind.
So, open it, Kell. What are you waiting for?
Do I really need to find out what’s behind this door? I could turn around and just walk away. Go home, back to Shithole City.
I look again at the bodies in the stands. They don’t seem to be laughing now. I could start over, be somebody else.
Fuck it.
I pull the door open wide enough to slip through. After my eyes adjust to the darkness, I find myself in a narrow corridor. The only light is the sun coming in through the open door, extending several feet until it tapers off into complete darkness. In the center of that darkness, no telling how far, I see a small rectangle of light.
As soon as I take my first step, the darkness rushes at me as I hear the door slam shut behind me.
I run back and lean into it but it doesn’t budge, not even an inch.
“Fuck.”
Standing in the dark, I’m reminded of one of Old Betty’s books, the one about a man who gets swallowed by a whale. Like me now, except I’m a girl. Some of the girls think this is the last city of men. I wonder if I’ll see a man in here.
“Hello?”
No man replies. Nothing replies.
Well, no use standing here. There’s only one way to go, Kell, so let’s go. Into the belly of the beast, as Old Betty likes to say.
The corridor is narrow enough that I’m able to run my fingertips along each wall as I walk toward the light. It’s closer than I thought and soon, I can see more detail of the ground and walls surrounding me. I hear a low hum, that seems to be coming from behind the walls.
I enter a large, circular chamber and peer up into blinding bright lights. Looks like a dead end.
“Welcome, Kell. Congratulations on your impressive achievement,” a cold, machine voice speaks to me, its source completely undetectable. “Please proceed to the center of the room to receive further instructions.”
Something feels off.
Where is the Pool of the Ancients? I haven’t seen a single drop of water much less a fucking pool. I ignore the screaming voice telling me to run.
Suddenly, the low hum becomes a loud rumble. The floor shakes and my stomach sinks. The room is moving. I’m moving up.
I continue rising for a long time before the smooth stone walls give way to glass. Now I’m rising through a tower of glass, surrounded by water. So much fucking water. The Pool of the Ancients.
If this truly is a pool of miracles, the miracles don’t look very clean. I cup my hands against the glass and peer into the greenish-brown water, dimly lit from somewhere above.
Staring into the depths of the water is like staring at the clouds in the sky. The light and shadows begin to suggest something recognizable. Objects, people, faces. Then, in the murky shadows, something moves. Something massive. Old Betty would claim it’s a whale, but it doesn’t look like any of the pictures she showed me. Too many parts. Much darker, much scarier.
Whatever it is, it stirs up a cloud of silt and debris that reduces my visibility to near zero. The thick billow of detritus swirls around the glass. I see something round made of yellowed bone tumble into view and then quickly disappear, back into the cloud. It looked like a skull. A human skull.
Calm down, Kell. It could have been anything. The popper is still messing with your head, that’s all. Playing tricks on your eyes. Nothing to fear.
The floor shakes. A few feet above my head, a divide between water and air descends into view. Just above the waterline, the rim of the glass tower I’ve been traveling through descends into view. I continue my ascent until finally, my head crests the rim and I’m almost overwhelmed by the warm, humid air thick with the smell of salt.
The floor comes to a jerking halt, level with the top of the glass. The platform I’m on is a small island surrounded by water that reaches easily twice the length of the lawn in any direction, all contained by black stone walls. There is a single ring of lights circling the entire perimeter, all pointed down into the water. Directly above me, I see nothing but unyielding darkness.
Time passes. I’m met with nothing but the soft sound of the water against the glass. Am I supposed to do something? Say something? I don’t remember this part in any of the stories.
“Hello? I’m…umm…I’m here? I made it. Is someone there?”
“Hello, Kell.”
An answer from the darkness. A familiar voice.
Then, I see a figure coming towards me. They’re walking on water. This has to be one of the miracles. But then a strip of lights runs down the path built out over the water. The lights overtake the figure and continue towards me until they get to a point about 20 yards short of the island.
“Congratulations. That was quite a performance, Kell. I have never witnessed its equal. Bravo.” Doc claps slowly.
“Doc? What’s going on? What is this?”
“Your destiny, Kell. And our salvation.”
Something terrifying breaks the water. Its spine is lined with flailing limbs. Arms, legs, and other unrecognizable appendages. There are faces, too, in the crevices of the bloated, black flesh. But what makes my blood run cold is that I can hear them scream. Dear god, the faces are screaming. Girls are screaming, suddenly silenced as the behemoth submerges back into the dark waters.
“What the fuck is that?” My heart is pounding. My field of vision contracts and I feel like I’m going to vomit.
“As I said, it’s your destiny, Kell. Your body’s chemistry just happens to respond in a very specific way to the stimulants — the lucky charms, as you girls like to call them. That reaction combined with your extraordinary performance are markers for a very special genetic coding we look for.”
“Okay, I’m special. So what? What happens now?”
“You will be assimilated into one of the creatures,” she points to the water. “These specimens, however, are nothing like the ones you faced on the lawn. Those are experiments, our way to improve the assimilation process if we can. These are larger. Much larger. Ten times as strong and a hundred times more vicious. We have found a way to grow gods, Kell. But growing a god takes time. Some of the creatures in this tank were started long before the collapse, long before you were born. Now you will join with them, just as many others who have come before you.”
I can’t breathe.
“What…what do you mean? Why are you doing this?”
“Men. Men are coming, Kell, as they have done so many times before.
They come to enslave us, to take us from our homes, to force us into bearing their doomed offspring before they slaughter us for food. They come from the West, a brutal, barren place where there is no kindness and no warmth. They will bring gods of their own. Creatures much like ours, grown using only the strongest of their kind. And they are strong, Kell, so very strong.
Believe me when I say this is our only chance of stopping them. You’ll be a hero. Everyone will love you.”
“What about Billy?” I ask and reach my hand behind me feeling for the small pocket sewn into the back of my belt.
“What about Billy?”
“You killed her, didn’t you? I know how much you hated her.”
My fingers slide into the belt pocket and locate the second popper I hid there this morning, slipped out of Doc’s bag without her knowing a thing.
“You think I killed her?” Doc laughed. “Don’t be stupid, girl. You saw her die. I had nothing to do with Billy’s death. The simple answer is that Billy, in all her perfection, was fatally flawed. She was not nearly as perfect as you, Kell. I’ve never seen anyone respond to the stimulants like you did. You are one-of-a-kind.
A very special girl, indeed, which is surprising, really, considering your mother was such a forgettable woman. I honestly can’t remember her name. Your father, however, oh I remember your father. I was very fond of him.
Benjamin was the only man of a handful of peaceful men to join us over the years. He came to us from the East. It’s different there. You and Billy were his only children before he died.
He understood. Benjamin understood what needed to be done. You were his gift to us. He wanted you to save us, don’t you see?”
Her words hit me like an earthquake. The shock sends me stumbling back and knocks the air out of my lungs. My mouth doesn’t wait for my brain to untangle itself. “Sister?” I hear myself speak. “Billy is my sister? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep us apart?”
Doc responds to my yelling with a cold stare and a calm, matter-of-fact voice, “Because girls are stronger when they grow up alone. Tougher. They learn how to stand up for themselves. How to survive. It activates more of your special qualities. Also, because sisters have too many secrets. Especially twins.”
It’s true. We had many secrets. My twin sister. Somehow, I always knew.
“Enough questions. I need to prepare the creature for assimilation. There is nothing to fear, Kell, I promise you won’t feel a thing.” Doc smiles, turns, and walks back down the path.
Fear is hard, but hate? Hate is strength. I look down and open my clenched fist. Well, would you look at that, Doc? A green one. My lucky color.
Thank you for reading part 3 of, “Luck of the Draw,” awarded Honorable Mention by the L.R. Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. Claps, comments, and follows are greatly appreciated.
