Neverborn

Shuddering metal whispered into the night and the forest lit up with neon white light. The searing light left no burnt smell in the air and in a blink everything faded to darkness. Yet the humming of nocturnal bugs never ceased. Linda let out a held breath as she stared at the picture piercing the night from her camera's screen. With a smile, she took in the details of the landscape. Some said photography was a simple thing. Just point and click. Linda hated the disregard people had for her art. This proved them wrong! The dim lighting melded perfectly into frame. Moonlight lit a lilly against the hazy limbs of trees. Everything glowed with perfection...except for a blackness just behind a tree like a misplaced shadow.

Sighing, Linda leaned back to the half squat and redid her masterpiece. With a click and a flare, the lightning in the bottle had been caught twice! She grinned as she saw that the odd shadow was gone. Then the camera slipped from her hands. She caught it as her gasp echoed the crickets to silence. Between trembling fingers, her eyes refused to blink. Between the trees of her picture, there stood a tall lanky man. A cloak of inky blackness hung unnaturally still, but worse was the face. A hood tried to cover the eyes, but the flash of her camera had revealed what was underneath. Pale skin stretched untouched where eyes should be. Shuddering, she looked up from her camera to the woods in front of her. Faintly the shape stood there in the distance. It had to be at least a few hundred feet away. But reason lost the argument to fear. Linda could feel the stare of the man...thing? It seemed somehow inhuman. Her instincts screamed danger, and included a daunting sense of unknown. As if a creep was foreign to the modern day? The whole situation let loose alarms in her head. Then the thought came to her.

"Aliens?" She muttered. "I just photographed an Alien." She stared at the creature and it slithered forward with disturbing quickness.

"Oh bloody-" Linda turned and ran to her car. Slamming the door shut, the engine coughed to life. Yet as she skidded away, safely speeding down a country road. She saw the grin on the eyeless face fade to a snarl as he/it blurred into the night.

***

Logan sighed as the tension left from his freshly cracked neck. He dusted off his pristinely white lab coat and picked up a clipboard full of reports. Just a couple more hours and his shift would be done for the week. His shoes squeaked on the floors as he ambled to his patent's quarters. With a glance, Logan estimated that he might need another polishing. Dress shoes were required among Spire employees, as was the necessity for cleanliness. Logan frowned as he recalled the slang thrown at his humanitarian co-workers. "White Coats!" they had called him. "Wash well for handling filth!" Logan muttered swears under his breath. His patients were not filth, they were troubled.

He passed by patient Luis Brand's room that glowed with light on the inside. The door rattled as something slammed into it. Logan stepped back momentarily bumping into a brunette he didn't recognize. Papers fluttered to the ground and Logan apologized. The lady jerked back as Luis screamed from behind the door.

"Ashamis," Logan explained. "Poor fellow is suffering from extreme mental stress and chronic pain. He often rambles about an old lover of his, Chereen."

The lady nodded with a very confused expression.

"Apologies," Logan said. "I'm Logan, head of Obsidian research, I don't think we've met?"

"Marina," She said. "Just visiting,"

"Oh, I see," he said helping her to her feet. He looked around and found the sterile halls quite empty. "I don't see your escort. Guests usually have Wards with them at all times for safety."

She blushed. "I fell a little behind the group I was with..."

Logan smiled. "No worries, would you like me to help you find your group?"

She shook her head fervently. "No, no, I'm quite alright. Thank you."

Without another word she continued on her way. Luis began weeping from his room and crying words out in a ramble. "Twice and Twice. Twice and Twice he comes. A breeze to bring the storm. Blood on black to free mankind. With that which is and isn't, the dawn will come. From the waist, the veil crosses the spine. Dread will walk, the world will rend anew! Music will shatter the mirror and the ancients fill the void. Chosen they come, Forlorn they flee. Oh grails for glass, A pure singularity!"

Logan flipped to Luis's file among his papers. Noting the habits, he checked the boxes personalized for the patient. Bursts of violence, Check. Screaming and weeping, Check. Rambling/"Prophesying" Check.

"He who empties widens the Void! The twisted will be led by the Dread ones. The strength of the old can crack the dream! The mirror can only reflect what will come of us!"

Mentions of Chereen. Logan waited a moment, but Luis went silent. With a grunt, Logan marked no on his sheet. That was new.

However Erin E. was waiting for him and Logan couldn't waste anymore time. He walked swiftly by the rooms and turned right just past M. Coffin's room. The laughing always unsettled Logan. Coffin's case was one of Dreboria. Thankfully a rare disorder, but Spire didn't have proper spacing for him. Coffin was stuck laughing and muttering nonsense in what he called the "old tongue." Claiming to have lived in past lives as generals on both sides of the H.A.W.K. Republic War. Logan shook his head.

"Dance the Dice!" Coffin muttered. "Dance and the shadows will join!"

Logan quickened his pace and at last entered the lounge. Erin sat stared at the TV with sick yellow eyes. The smell of hand sanitizer and unwashed hair gagged Logan's breath. He blinked away tears and sat down next to his patient. There were a few female attendants looking after the Aeisadosis patients. The disease only affected women, which always made Logan question why they would let women treat the patients. They were still uncertain if the illness was contagious.

The screen displayed a graphic scene of destruction. Buildings in ruins, overtaken by black veiled terrorists. The headline read "EIL TAKES VENGEANCE OVER THE UPROOTING OF TREE. Erin sniffed as the news flickered to a new story.

"Hello Erin," Logan said slowly.

"Logan," Erin said. "I recognized your smell."

That raised an eyebrow from Logan.

"I know you think it's hard to believe," he said. "But I could smell the difference. All these chemicals are like lighting a fire in my nose."

Logan laughed. "I know what you mean."

Those yellow eyes snapped to look him over with a ferocity that made Logan freeze up.

"Are you hear to mock my dreams again?" Erin said.

"To hear your dreams," Logan corrected. "I believe your dreams are important. Dreams are the mirrors of our minds."

"The mirror," Erin muttered. He slid a folded sheet of paper over to Logan. Logan picked it up and unfolded what was a drawing. "Do men normally draw while sleeping?"

Logan shook his head as he stared at the images he saw. Horned men, men with hooves, beaks and snouts instead of mouths...these monstrosities tore apart humans and drove them towards angelic creatures with bat-like wings. Luscious lips and thirsting eyes ruined the appeal. The beasts had the word Colots scrawled over them while the angels had the word Raka.

"Ra-ka?" Logan said, testing the word out-loud. Erin gave him a new picture and nodded at Logan's pronunciation. The new picture was of a great blackness. It left the words He who empties in white along with the word Dread carved thirteen times. Logan felt his hands begin to shake.

"You know the Raka?" Erin asked. "You know something, or you wouldn't be shaking."

Logan shook his head. But Erin handed him a final sheet. This one was almost torn in half and had many rips. Erin looked away to the TV as Logan unfolded the paper. It showed a man-like creature but with no eyes and dressed in black. Drall had been written and crossed out again and again. Logan shivered as he saw that a word had been written in smudges of red.

"Erin, did you use blood to write this!"

Erin nodded. Logan stared at the crimson word.

Neverborn. Logan jumped as Erin began to growl like a wolf. He stared at the man, but the yellow eyes were fixed elsewhere. Logan turned to stare at the TV's new heading. ALIEN ENCOUNTER BRINGS SHOCKING FOOTAGE! The clipboard clattered to the floor and the occupants of the room hushed. Erin growled at the screen, and Logan slowly held the drawing up towards the TV. The pixelated image matched the drawing completely.

Logan blinked and shook his head. This couldn't be the same…

"Neverborn," Logan said and he looked at Erin. The man's face was like a snarling wolf. Logan had seen the odd glow that Luis's room had given him anytime he had tried to interview the man. He had seen the same glow with Coffin's room. Something about the lights had always bothered him around those men. But as Logan stared at Erin, he saw it was not a trick of the light. His patient began to stream light as if he was on fire. Logan could hear Luis screaming and Mr. Coffin joined in. Erin roared in a deafening howl.

The electricity fizzled out and everything became darkness save for a pair of golden eyes.