Worlds Apart

What could it be? Dante thinks as he fights back the urge to scream, watching the small closet light above him flicker on and off. On and off. Oh, God. What could it be? Dante whimpers. And his older brother, Santiago, places a hand over his mouth and whispers, “Don’t. Move.”

Dante abides and holds his breath, staring at his older sister, Addie, gripping onto their father’s hunting shotgun she loaded the second they rushed into the closet. He notices her trigger finger trembling. And her fear only heightens his own. Addie’s never scared. Ever. 

A few minutes ago, everything was fine. They were eating pizza, and taking a break from playing video games for two hours. As usual, Addie bullied Dante, scolding him for taking his stuffed baby giraffe everywhere he went. And, as usual, Santiago stood up for him. Usually, Addie would back down. Not tonight. Tonight, she snatched the stuffed baby giraffe out of Dante’s hands. “Hey!” Dante signed as he dropped his pizza, shot off the couch, and reached for Tom Tom. “Give him back!” he pleaded, trying his best not to cry. 

Addie raised an arm above her wavy caramel hair, ensuring Dante couldn’t save Tom Tom. “No.” She scoffed, the way she always did whenever she was clearly ashamed of him. “Look at you. You’re pathetic.”

Don’t cry, Dante thought, knowing that his tears would only make her meaner. “Please,” he whimpered, staring at Tom Tom’s clearly distressed face. “Please just give him back.” 

A tear escaped his eye.

And when it did, Santiago approached. Finally, Dante thought. Save him. Save Tom Tom. As Santiago reached for Dante’s stuffy, Addie shook her finger side to side. “He can’t help you forever,” Addie told Dante. “Nor mom. Nor dad. Eventually, Santiago will die. And mom. And Dad.” Dante lowered his head, crying silently as he pictured losing his parents in a car crash, just like their grandparents. “In this word,” Addie continued. “You have to be able to take care of yourself. You want your toy? Take it from me.”

Santiago sighed and rested a hand on Addie’s shoulder. “That’s enough.” Addie shook his hand off, staring at Dante and Dante only. “Come on. Take it.” Dante stopped crying. And started breathing like an angry bull as he formed a fist, tired of Addie treating him like this. Addie smiled, somehow satisfied with his anger. “That’s it. Take it.” Dante’s breath grew more violent by the second, garnering the courage to stand up to his bully. “Take it!” 

Do it, Dante thought as his fist trembled. Just do it! He didn’t. He remained still, fuming like a teapot as he contemplated whether or not to punch his own sister. He remembered all the times she called him weak, all the times she scolded him for crying, and all the times she took Tom Tom away from him. And as he remembered, the house lights flickered on and off, as did the TV, and Santiago’s phone on the coffee table. Startled by the flickering, Addie looked away from Dante. When she did, Santiago snatched Tom Tom and handed it back to Dante. “I said that’s enough!” 

The flickering stopped. 

And Dante retreated to his shelter: the closet. Inside the small and dim storage, smelling of dirty socks and towels, Dante hugged Tom Tom as he cried and overheard Santiago and Addie arguing. “What the hell is your problem?” Santiago demanded.

“My problem?” Addie shot back. “You. You’re my problem. You keep babying him and—” Dante muffled out their bickering as he shouted and cried into Tom Tom’s soft fur. Why does she have to be so mean? He squealed. I hate her! I hate her so, so much! I wish she was gone! Gone! Gone! Gone!

Suddenly, the closet light flickered on and off two times before Dante heard a loud crash, as if a small meteor had landed on their front lawn. A brief silence followed. Then, Addie and Santiago whispered something Dante couldn’t make out. He only heard Santiago’s last word. “Don’t.” Another silence followed before Dante heard who he assumed to be Addie opening the living room curtains. When she did, she gasped and… ran, rushing inside Dante’s shelter with Santiago, both of them looking as if they had seen a ghost. Hands trembling, Addie reached for their dad’s hunting shotgun, loading five shells.

What did she see? Dante thinks as Addie aims the shotgun at the closed door, her trigger finger still trembling. As Santiago holds Dante, Dante holds Tom Tom, noticing his brother flip open his Razor phone. The phone flickers on and off, in sync with the closet light. He sighs and shuts the phone closed, slipping it into the pocket of his jeans. Oh, God. We can’t call mom. Or dad. 

Just then, the front door creaks open, causing the closet light to flicker as fast as strobing lights at a dance club. 

Addie widens her eyes, barely able to keep herself from holding the gun up.

Santiago tightens his grip around Dante.

And Dante buries his face in Tom Tom’s fur, tears streaming down his eyes as those lights flicker faster and faster. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off…

The flickering stops.

But something else begins.

The room’s temperature plummets, growing as cold as a freezer. Dante shivers. When he maneuvers his hand towards his face so that he can wipe away his tears, he feels… frost. He would gasp but the wooden floor in the living room creaks and wails from the heavy weight of somebody. 

Or something, Dante thinks as he peers through the small crack under the door, noticing the shadow of some creature standing underneath the full moon’s light running through the skylight window. 

The creature pauses by the closet door.

And Dante closes his eyes, wishing that the monster would go away. Or that he would wake up from this nightmare. Or that his parents would swarm in and save the day like superheroes. One of his wishes comes true: the monster walks away. As it heads towards the back door, Dante feels his frozen tears melt away, dripping down his neck. 

Dante waits. And waits. When he hears the back door creak open, the closet light turns back on. It’s gone, Dante thinks as he exhales a breath of relief. It’s gone. Santiago smiles at him. Dante smiles back. Addie doesn’t smile. She sighs, staring at Dante as if she wants to say something. Dante waits. But when she stays silent, Dante turns to his brother and holds up his right hand in a fist, palm facing out, with his pinkie finger sticking up straight, signing the letter ‘I’. He follows by lowering his pinkie and tucking his thumb in front of his fingers, signing the letter ‘S’. “Is it safe?” he finishes.

Santiago exchanges a glance with his sister before he replies, “Probably—”

Suddenly, the lightbulb explodes, the closet door freezes over and a fist passes through it, bursting the door into a thousand ice fragments. Santiago shields him from the debris, yelling “Shoot!”

Addie doesn’t shoot. Instead, she goes rigid as she comes face to face with the beast, the full moon’s light revealing its pale, wet, and veiny face with no nose or eyes or lips, its mouth like a twister with rows upon rows of shark-like teeth. Body pale, dry, and blistered, as if burnt alive before being thrown into a freezer where the skin dried, its blisters are larger than quarters and surround its entire naked body, all black. No hair on its human-like body — almost the size of two men —the top of its head is missing a chunk of skin, as if it had been flayed, revealing black and rotten flesh. 

“Shoot!” Santiago repeats.

The beast reaches for Dante’s foot.

And when it touches him, Dante squeals.

His scream causes Addie to shoot. Bam! The blast deafens Dante’s hearing as he sees the beast fly out of the closet, crashing onto the corridor’s wall. Addie pumps the shotgun and fires again, the blast causing her to stumble backward. She doesn’t stop. She fires again and again until she’s all out of shells. When that happens, she turns around and signs, “Go!”

Riiiing! Ears still ringing from the gunshots, Dante clutches onto his brother as he’s carried out the closet and down the corridor, heading towards the backdoor. He sees Addie follow close behind. And he notices the beast stand, its body regenerating from its wounds. “Addie!” He signs with one hand. “Faster! Run faster!”

She abides.

But the beast reaches an arm out, its limbs stretching on and on as it transforms into a spear-like weapon made of its own skin that reaches Addie and sinks deep into her ankle.

Addie screams, collapsing onto the floor. 

Dante screams with her, breaking free of his brother’s grip as he rushes toward her. The beast stretches its free arm out, its limb slowly transforming into another spear. 

Dante screams again, louder, and the house lights, porch lights, and even the neighbor's lights next door flicker on and off, on and off, faster than they’ve ever done before. Addie! Dante whimpers, growing closer and closer to his sister who stares deep into his soul and mouths the words: “I’m sorry.”

Spear at the ready, the beast thrusts, aiming for Addie’s heart.

Dante raises an arm out, screaming louder than he ever has in his life. The second his arm is raised, an oval portal that flickers black and white appears behind the beast. Acting like a black hole, it pulls and devours everything in its sight: the furniture, the walls, the ceiling, and the beast. The creature snarls, attempting to grab hold of anything so that it isn’t swallowed whole. It works. But only for a second before its entire body is engulfed, forcing it to withdraw its spear out of Addie’s ankle. 

Somehow not affected by the portal’s force, Dante rushes for his sister, who hovers in the air and clings to the corner of a wall. He grabs both of her hands. But she doesn't let go. “You can’t!” she mouths. “You can’t hold me!”

Understanding that he doesn’t have the strength to carry her, Dante glimpses back at Santiago, noticing that he’s holding onto the kitchen counter, fighting the portal’s force. Dante panics, questioning how he can save his sister. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

Unsure of the answer, he holds onto his sister’s hands, already feeling the full force of the portal pulling her in. “Let go,” he mouths. Addie doesn’t listen until she notices him crying. Please, let go. 

She abides.

And Dante groans, holding onto his sister’s full weight and fighting the portal’s strong pull as if he was playing tug of war. But he’s losing, badly. Growing closer and closer to the portal, he sees Addie shake her head, tears escaping her eyes. No! Dante thinks, knowing full well what she means to do. Don’t do it! He forgets about the fight they had a few minutes ago and all the bad times before tonight, and he remembers the good. Like the time she got his fourth-grade bully to stop tormenting him; the day she bought him Tom Tom since he had lost Bam Bam; or the night she let him wear her denim jacket, which she never gave anyone. Ever.

Please, Dante whimpers, clutching onto his big sister. Please. Don’t you dare—

She does it.

She lets go.

And the moment the portal swallows her whole, it implodes, crushing within itself in a second before exploding as bright as a supernova. The wave sends Dante jolting backward ten feet. He hits the back of his head against a wall. And his vision blackens in an instant…

… He regains consciousness every now and then. First, only his hearing returns and he makes out the distant sound of Santiago sniffling. When his hearing fades, his vision comes back for a moment and he notices he lays on his brother’s lap inside a van. Mom’s van. He sees his dad, as big as an ox, driving, sweat on his temple as he argues with the black-haired woman next to him. Mom. She argues back, holding a paper map over the dashboard. Where are we going? Out the side window, the van speeds past hundreds of Joshua Trees and boulders the size of two-story homes. Above the open car top resides the Milky Way smiling down at Dante. Dante smiles back, soon losing consciousness one last time. 

When he wakes, he notices he’s being carried by his dad. Next to them are his mom and brother, holding lit torches that illuminate the dark, cold, and narrow cave they’re traversing. Dante sighs a breath of relief, grateful that he’s back with his family. I’m back. I’m safe. He thinks about the nightmare he just had, remembering the pale creature, the oval portal that swallowed it whole, and Addie. Addie. Dante glimpses to his left, then behind him, but he doesn’t see Addie. Distressed, he pats his father and asks where she is. He doesn’t answer. Nor does his mom. Or Santiago. Each remains silent, a slight frown spread across their face.

It wasn’t a nightmare. It happened. His dad ruffles his hair and holds him tight. Dante holds him back, burying his face into his dad’s shoulder as he remembers Addie letting go. It really happened.

They walk for what seems to be an hour. Within that hour, Dante asks where they are and where they’re going. Again, no one answers. In what must be the second hour, the cave constricts more and more, forcing Dante’s dad to tilt his head down so that he wouldn’t hit the ceiling. They walk a little further, stopping when they come upon a tall steel door. Handing her torch to Santiago, his mom approaches the rusty control keypad. She punches in a six-digit code. And the door slides open vertically, drawing in a small cloud of dust as if hadn’t been used in decades. When the dust settles, Dante stares into a dim laboratory the size of a warehouse with pods lined up against the eastern and western walls. Pods containing men and women with pale, wet, and veiny faces but normal bodies, as if they were in the first stages of transforming into the creature that attacked Dante. 

Before Dante can question what this place is, his mom takes his hand, guiding him towards a black mirror as tall as the warehouse. As she kneels beside him, setting a hand on his shoulder, his dad and Santiago turn on the machine attached to the black mirror. “Listen,” his mom begins as the mirror flickers white and black. “You have to go.”

Dante shakes his head. “No. No! What’s going—”

His mom cuts him off. “Addie will explain everything.”

Dante furrows his eyebrows together, confused. “What?”

“She’s through there,” she points at the mirror, now flickering faster and faster. 

“Where?” 

His mom doesn’t answer. So, Dante asks her to come with him. She sighs. “I can’t. We can’t.”

Dante feels as if he’s on the brink of crying. “Why?”

His mom kisses his forehead and holds him close. “Because you are special. And we are not.” She breaks the embrace and urges him to enter the mirror. “Now, go,” she says, a quiver in her voice. 

Tears stream down Dante’s face as he stares at his dad and brother pushing knobs and buttons on the machine that controls the black mirror. “Go,” they both tell him, tears in their eyes.

Dante faces his mom. “Will I see you again?”

She lets out a weak smile. “Maybe in another world.”

Dante embraces his mom one last time and steps into the black mirror. When he does, a bright white light flashes for a second, and before he knows it, he’s standing in some grey and bleak storage room filled with all sorts of rifles, shotguns, pistols, and compound bows. At the end of the room is someone shrouded in darkness, sitting on a couch as they sharpen a blade. 

Afraid, Dante takes one step back. But when he notices the figure’s familiar black but worn combat boots with white laces, his fear fades. Is that? He takes a step forward. And the figure does the same, setting aside their blade and whetstone. When they come into view under the tungsten light, Dante notices a woman in her mid-thirties with wavy caramel hair tied in a ponytail. She wears a torn light blue denim jacket no different than Addie’s. That can’t be her, Dante thinks, staring at the scar under her left eye. Can it? 

The woman reaches into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out a miniature stuffed replica of… Tom Tom. It is her! Heart beating like mad, Dante rushes towards his sister and embraces her. She embraces him back, soon crying as she tells him how sorry she is for hurting him. “You aren’t pathetic,” she says as she pulls away from the hug. “Not by a long shot.”

Dante wipes a tear away from her scarred eye. 

Addie smiles and chuckles, leaning into his touch. “Gosh, we have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“Yeah, yeah we do.”