[Shh]: 58.Miscellaneous.It was a dark and stormy night

   It was a dark and stormy night. Clouds filled the sky, but they were nothing like Keat’s “huge cloudy symbols of a high romance”; these were angry clouds, clouds of doom: Mordor-clouds.

   Kelyss shivered despite the air’s stifling warmth. Something didn’t feel right. The night was too still, too tense. And those clouds! Those huge, angry, twisted clouds just weren’t natural. They were too dark, too black.

   She climbed back into her bed and sat in the middle of her mattress, her gaze intently fixed on the single window in her room. Somehow, she didn’t feel right taking her eyes off those clouds. Something was going to happen. She was sure of it.

   Yet she sat, minute after minute, in hushed anticipation; and, minute after minute, the usual night sounds of the city around her mocked her uneasiness. Finally, she could take it no longer. She had to do something.

   She leapt off her bed and grabbed a pair of jeans shorts from her desk. Whatever was coming with those ugly storm clouds, she didn’t want to face it wearing only the old t-shirt she slept in.

   Adrenaline pounded through her veins; all thoughts of sleep long fled from her mind and body. Yet there was nothing to do. Kelyss stood in the middle of her room: alone, dressed, shivering, tense, and unable to take her eyes off the clouds.

   She felt hunted, watched; she wanted to hide, under her covers, under her bed, anywhere. But she didn’t even know what it was she wanted to hide from. There was nothing anywhere. Except those clouds.

   Slowly, she approached her window and cautiously looked outside, already dreading what she would see. At first, she thought nothing had changed: the city sprawled out before her as it always had, with all its familiar buildings capped by a ceiling of roiling storm clouds. Then, almost out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed a spot of blackness, blacker than the deepest black, forming just beneath the clouds.

   At first, she thought it a trick of her imagination, or perhaps even simply another shade amongst the dark clouds; but then it started growing and she quickly realized both of her theories were merely wishful thinking.

   Frozen by the sheer surrealism of it all, she stared at the black spot, a deep feeling of dread slowly seeping through her. The spot grew, relentlessly, rhythmically, but at an alarmingly fast rate. Soon, in a matter of minutes, it had covered the entire city as far as she could see, completely hiding the clouds. And then it started to come down. She couldn’t explain it, but, just as suddenly as it had grown sideways, the blackness started to lower. Or perhaps it started to grow downwards. Whatever it was doing, Kelyss didn’t care beyond the fact that it was coming down, and that in a matter of minutes it would reach the top of the tallest buildings—her apartment building included.

   Horrified by the thought, Kelyss sprang back from the window. This was impossible!

   She thought of her parents and sister, in their family home out in the country. If they were still asleep when the blackness came down on them, what would happen? She had to wake them. Yet what if there was no blackness there? What if she woke them needlessly, and started them worrying about her?

   She stood worrying for a few seconds, not even realizing she was biting her fingernails. Then suddenly she decided.

   She sprang back on her bed and grabbed the phone off the bedside table. The numbers flew from her fingers automatically. There was a ring. She waited and waited, desperately praying under her breath, begging her parents to wake up. Finally, her mother answered the phone, her voice still full of sleep. “Yeah?”

   Kelyss grabbed the phone with both hands, sitting up tensely. “Mom? Mom! Listen to me. I want you to go to a window and look at the sky!”

   “Kelyss? What’re you talking about?” came the sleepy, annoyed reply. There was a short pause. “Oh God, Kels…It’s past midnight!”

   “Mom! Please. Go to the window. There’s this thing in the sky. It’s coming down on us. You’ve got to look!”

   Kelyss could so easily imagine her petite mother pushing back her covers, slipping her feet into her slippers and softly padding to the closest window. She could so easily imagine her looking out, standing in the pale moonlight, her long dark hair flowing down her back—except that this time, there would be no moonlight. A shiver ran down Kelyss’s back and, at the very same time, she heard her mother’s sharp intake of breath.

   “Oh my God…” her mother breathed into the phone. “Oh my God…what is it?”

   Kelyss was about to answer when suddenly, blood curdling screams of exquisite pain erupted from the higher floors above her. Kelyss froze, staring at her ceiling in utter horror.

   “Kelyss!” her mother cried from the other end of the line, reanimating her. “What was that? Are you all right?”

   Kelyss leapt back to her window, phone still in hand. The building was fast disappearing into the blackness; the top two floors were completely gone and the third was well under way. Kelyss felt a scream of panic building up in her; her floor was next. “Mom…I have to go. It’s dangerous. Hide!”

   She hung up and glanced about her room wildly. She needed to get down, but first—light! Maybe that would somehow protect from whatever was in the darkness. She ran to her bedside table and, tearing open the drawer, rummaged through it for the flashlight she always kept there. Another scream erupted above her. Her hands shaking badly, Kelyss finally grabbed the flashlight and clicked it open. The pale shaft of light it provided was far from comforting. Suddenly, someone rapped on her front door.

   “Hello! Is anyone there?” came a man’s urgent voice. “Wake up!”

   Irresistibly drawn to the small safety and comfort promised by human fellowship, Kelyss dashed to her front door. “Wait!” she begged. “I’m here! Don’t go!”

   She flung open the door. The man standing in the dimly lit corridor was unlike anyone she had never seen, except perhaps in a progressive-metal band. He was tall; and slender; and, despite the dreadful summer heat, he was wearing a tight-fitting black-leather suit, covered by an old-fashioned, knee-length, rich brown coat. Most unusual of all, though, was his hair: it was long and thick and a deep, glowing orange. Yet Kelyss didn’t have time to wonder at his appearance. As soon as her door opened, he cried, “Come! We must hurry!” and, grabbing her arm, started pulling her down the hallway towards the staircase.

   Without wasting time to protest his rough handing, Kelyss obediently rushed after him. Somehow, she could sense the blackness descending above her. The screams of pain suddenly echoed in her mind and, stifling a sob, Kelyss pushed herself to greater speeds. Together, she and the strange man reached the stairs and hurriedly started down them. As they reached the level below, the door to that corridor opened and a man decidedly as strange-looking as Kelyss’s companion—even without the orange hair—burst onto the stairs, closely followed by a confused couple. The man and woman, both still in their pyjamas, were each armed in their own way; the woman with a wickedly-sharp kitchen knife, and the man with a stout undeniably less dangerous-looking—but still quite effective—candlestick. Kelyss suddenly felt quite foolish for not having brought a weapon of her own.

   Without even slightly stopping in his run, Kelyss’s companion shouted over his shoulder, “Hurry! It’s coming! Any more?”

   “No, the level’s clear!” the strange man behind him called back as he and his charges followed as quickly down the stairs.

   “What’s going on?” Kelyss cried anxiously. She could hear more voices coming from down the stairwell and sure enough, on the next floor, there was another Stranger leading a small family of four at a dead run down the stairs.

   “There’s no time to explain!” her flame-haired companion answered, his voice strangely accented. “Just follow us!”

   Reluctantly, Kelyss once again obeyed. After all, they were running away from the scream-inducing blackness and that, as far as Kelyss was concerned, was all that mattered. Besides, these people, strange as they were, seemed to be following a plan of some sort.

   So they ran on and by the time they had reached the ground floor, their small group had grown considerably as more and more groups joined from the lower levels. But then, instead of continuing down to the basement as Kelyss had expected they would—for some reason, she had assumed the darkness would not penetrate below ground—, the Strangers announced that they would all have to go outdoors. Immediately, Kelyss realized she had not been alone in thinking of sheltering in the basement. The others, however, were quicker in voicing their opinions.

   “I’m not going anywhere near that thing!” a burly man declared angrily with a short stab to the ceiling. There came a chorus of empathic “Yeah!” and “No way!” from several of the building’s residents. “And who are you guys anyway?” the man went on, emboldened. His impromptu following, as well as several of the building’s other residents, muttered their agreement and there was a great shuffle of feet as everyone drew back from the Strangers.

   “We are Sylfalas!” came a sudden sharp cry from Kelyss’s flame-haired “rescuer”. Gasping for breath, Kelyss stared at him in amazement; she hadn’t expected him to be the one to answer. He stood tall and straight, cutting a sharp figure indeed under the lobby’s bright lights with his sharp contrast of dark and flame. His dark eyes, flashing in anger, swept around the crowded room. When next he spoke, so powerful and commanding was his voice that none dared interrupt. “The world you have known is dead! Soon, the Ghors invasion shall be complete. They will show you no mercy, spare none of you! They seek only your destruction. We offer you a chance to live. Your choice is simple: come with us and live, or hide where you will and die. Harintan, we go now!” Shooting a hate-filled glare at the ceiling above, he stalked out of the building. Without a word, the Strangers—Sylfalas, Kelyss immediately corrected herself—separated from the crowd of humans and filed out after their leader.

   Kelyss hesitated barely an instant before rushing out after them. Whatever Sylfalas were, she knew she was far more willing to take her chances with them than to cower underground and hope. As she left the building, she heard others in the lobby following but she didn’t turn around to see how many of them there were; her gaze was fixed on the sky—or rather, on the terrible blackness hovering a few meters above her head.

   Choking back a cry of terror, she ran to catch up with the flame-haired Sylfalas. This was beyond her knowledge now, but he had saved her once. Perhaps he would do so again. As she drew up with him, he flashed her a slight but terribly encouraging smile.

   The Sylfalas didn’t lead them far; in fact, they stopped under the boughs of a scraggly poplar on the lawn a few feet from the building’s front doors. Their leader turned to the Humans. “Through this tree a Gate has been opened. To cross, you must be accompanied by a Sylfalas, but, be warned: the Gate chooses whom to accept. You must want this with all your being.”

   He placed a hand on the poplar’s bark and held out the other to Kelyss. Hesitantly, Kelyss accepted it, inwardly praying for her family’s safety. All around them, the scene was being repeated by other Sylfalas and Humans.

   The last sight Kelyss saw on her world was the flame-haired Sylfalas’s wry smile and then she was through the Gate and into another world.