Extirpation

It's only been two hours since the smoke covered everything, turning midday into dusk. It doesn't look like our world anymore.

The sunlight barely visible through this damned covering. A blanket of light hovers beyond the smoke, merging through it to ground level but unable to penetrate.

Those few hours now seem an eternity.

I and my sister Helen; we came to the city for a girls day out. A treat for her to get over that messy divorce, a break from her despair and with neither of us having friends we've been mostly inseparable since that point.

I hate cities and avoid them like the plague. When you live your life in a small, country town, you are totally out of place when you go into a city. I felt lost as soon as I got here, even when I could see everything. Now I am in an abyss of blind confusion and can't see five feet infront.

A few hours ago we had stepped off of the train. I headed to the stations bathroom while Helen had gone to buy us coffees. When I came out, everything in the world had changed. The smoke had covered everything and everywhere in the minutes it had taken me to use the bathroom.

The station, outside in the city, inside the spaces of the buildings. Any place open to the air outside allowed the smoke in. There was no explosion, no sound to warn us of anything, just smoke everywhere. No trace of a breeze at all but the smoke appeared, settling all around as though it had always been here. It doesn't fade or shift in any way. It covers like a blanket does when you've pulled it over your face and it's too close to your eyes.

There was no sign of Helen at all when I wandered around the station. I tried my phone to call her but there wasn't a signal. I tried texting but it wouldn't send, even an hour later it was still pending.

I yelled out for her from the moment I realised the situation, calling her name as clear and as loud as I could. I walked head down trying to trace a path around the station and then outside. A curbside, paint on the roads or even grassy parts that usually indicate a small park or apartment fronts, I wandered around calling for her. I navigate a world that's only visible a second at a time with strangers coming in close then dispersing moments later.

The atmosphere is dry, barely breathable but not enough to choke the life out of you. In all my years I've never seen or felt a smoke like this. It's not like smoke from a building fire or a bonfire. Not like fields burning. Vaguely sulphuric but breathable.

Your eyes fight the dryness, watering up in bursts, drying out only moments later, the body fighting for vision in more ways than one. Your focus shifts without control making you disorientated; so the floor at your feet is the only perceptible reality you have at any moment.

Now a thought hits me. I suddenly realise I can't remember the last time I bumped into someone.

The first hour I was tripping over people, walking into the mass of a crowd confused. You feel each others panic and disorientation, stumbling into one another. I was shrieking out Helen's name desperately and continuously. I came across a few Helen's but not my sister. The despair in their faces when they recognised not knowing me. Everyone looking for someone to connect with, to feel some sort of security whilst being lost.

I stopped shouting out when the clicks started to happen. Rapid, loud and piercing. Shrill noises, no density in the sounds, light but loud.

The clicking noises start behind you and then, in macabre unison, more join in to the side or around you. The smoke doesn't deaden the noises like fog does, instead it amplifies it.

People screaming.

It's not the same as the first hour, the screams of confusion, no, these are pain filled. I rapidly leap forward a step at a time as do the unseen strangers around me, all trying to speed up but facing every unknown step with dread. The herd of the city dissipating in fear and confusion over this last half hour or so, anticipating the next seconds of life in terror.

The clicking fades for a while and then comes back. The screams suddenly pierce through the smoke randomly, behind you, to the right, to the left or in front of you, the chill through the spine when your mind catches on and you realise what you're hearing, it's worse when it's close by. Like being tortured whilst blindfolded, unable to lift the veil from your eyes and you can only imagine what's happening.

You're yearning to run but you know it's a fruitless endeavour. Where do you run when you can barely see. You worry you may fall down or fall into the path of a car or down into a hole.

Instinct runs through your heart and not your mind, your preprogrammed self preservation. You know to look after your legs and feet, you sense that need to make sure you can escape.

You freeze when you hear footsteps. The silence and isolation interrupted by the noise of company. A brief moment of evaluation to realise company of a stranger is a good thing but always in the back of your mind the clicking sounds. You must move away from them. Some inherent sense inside of us to know to avoid it at all cost.

An image in front of me, the smokey environment reveals it and then suddenly the rush of love, of excitement and relief.

It's Helen, her face looking strained. She runs into me, a bear hug, squeezing the life out of me.

"Thank God." She says, speaking into my coat, muffled but audible. A long embrace before she talks again, "I've seen them."

I pull her away from me gently and look deep into her hazel-green eyes.

"Seen who?"

Helen, trying to pull herself together and straighten her posture up, shakes her head softly.

"The clicking sounds. I've seen what's making the sounds."

She pauses briefly before continuing.

"Huge. With tails. They stab at people. They sting you."

Her eyes well up.

The smoke around us starts to darken and I look on my phone for the time. It's early evening. It's going to get very dark very soon. We have to go. We have to find safety.

We don't say anything, just holding hands and tentatively move in a direction, scanning the floor for a path or some kind of guide. Our ears fully engaged like radars for our safety but my pulse is a booming tinnitus and both our breaths eerily loud in this silent world. We quicken our pace, dodging obstacles as they appear from nowhere. A bench, a post, a car.

Click, click, click, click, CLICK.

We stop. The clicks stop.

Silence.

Helens grip tightens on my hand, the joints of my fingers lock in severe pain, I turn, I look into Helen's eyes. Wide eyes. Her mouth is open beyond it's normal limits, teeth bared, forced inhalation making a whistling sound into her throat.

Adrenaline kicks in, pulsating through my body the moment Helen releases the scream. My blood runs cold at her gutteral cry, a sound that comes from her soul. It had stung her, hidden away from behind the smokey cover. I see it. A long tail with a stinger retracts back into that darkened abyss.

Hearing the clicking right next to us, a God awful racket around our bodies, another is clicking nearby, my right side or behind me, I don't know.

The head slowly comes through the smoke, I can't see it clearly but the part I see makes my throat hurt as though my body is trying to strangle me in fear.

Huge black eyes pitted with holes, a red streak down the centre of its head. Long dark hair, a face but not covered in skin, an armour, solid plates without expression. Callous, cold and dulled gray or rotten green skin, a colour void of a soul.

I'm screaming as Helen writhes in agony. I'm fighting against her grip, she pulls me towards her and that thing gets closer. I'm pulling away and her screams become more intense than before, a level of agony I have never witnessed, physical and psychological. I lose control.

My body and heart in split decision, not wanting to abandon her but compelled to flee for my own sake.

With a life of it's own, my free hand claws at Helen's grasp, venomously prying to release the hold, peeling at the fingers to break the grip. She reaches up with her other hand but I stand on it, her face pale and trembling, terror and betrayal in her bloodshot eyes, I pull myself free from her, her skin under my nails, her blood on my fingers.

I back up, retreating far enough that I lose sight of her in the smoke filled environment. Only the sound of her in pain to remind me she's still close.

I'm still within range, to get her away from that thing, my heart yearns to help her but my body refuses, the very muscle that holds me up has its own mind.

I have to go. But I can't leave my sister.

It moves towards me, the clicking intensifying, it's head immerging and vanishing, in and out of the smoke as it follows me. My bowels churning in fear, my bladder empties itself and I feel it running down my legs.

I turn, the need to run urges inside of me, I feel slow as I start to move my legs, I feel bogged down and without vigour, my muscles dragging into the earth. More clicking and from all around me.

I'm running at full pelt without realising. My body now light, my legs loosened in action but not fast enough to feel safe and my heart broken. I'm running on terror, gulping air into my throat and lungs, sprinting into the smokey void. The screaming and the clicking gradually becoming less and less, far behind me but I won't stop, I dare not. The guilt rising up from my stomach, catching me off guard. What have I done? How could I leave her? Go back, go back for Helen. Please, go back. My body won't do it, though.

I can't tell how long I've been running for, bumping into a wall here and there, tripping up over unknown obstacles. I just run and run. Pain in my throat from the vast intakes of breath, I gag for air and the smoke is making it harsh on my lungs.

My ankle buckles on the edge of a curb and my face and chest crash towards the ground, my right wrist and fingers smashing hard under me, taking the load of my weight.

I've done damage to my hand but I dare not see what that damage is, I keep the hand as still as I can while I raise myself up but I feel an instant urge and collapse back down.

I puke. I'm out of breath and vomiting, choking it out on to the ground.

I pull myself back up, severe pain shooting up my leg to the knee. I'm desperately trying to catch my breath, the beat of my heart thumping intensely around my neck. I can't hear her screams or that clicking.

I go onto the path I fell off, limping in agony and in deep shame, not knowing what I will find with every step I take next. The smoke doesn't fade nor does it get worse, it just hangs in the air allowing me to breath but never giving me the full replenishing relief.

I see something, an arched gateway, a familiar sight in an unfamiliar area. They all look the same in every part of the world, the entrance to a church yard.

My hopes go up as I walk the path, leading me to the church door. Opening up to me as I push into it and the light of candles hit my eyes, brighter than anything I've seen for hours. There's no smoke inside, either.

Candles lit and a church half full of people. Concerned faces covered in flickering shadows and light. A brief relief to my spirit until I remember Helen.

How far did I run? I need to go back, I need to get her, to bring her here. How could I just leave her?

Click, click, click, click.

My skin crawls as that damned noise hits my ears, my resolve departs from me and the shame and misery returns again, I close the church door.

From the corner of my eye I notice words, words that grab my attention. Written on the church bulletin board I start to read and with every word my soul grows cold.

Revelation 9:3

"Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions."