A Quiet Room in the Dark

Paul Dawson woke up late to find that the sun had not risen. He checked his bedside clock again. It read 11:45 am. Light should be coming in through the window. The street lights should have turned off by now. Paul closed the gap in the blinds through which he had seen the outside world. Ok. So it was 11:45 in the morning, but the sun was still not up yet. Perhaps there had been a daylight savings time change? Of course, he would be the last to know about it. He peered out the window again. Darkness. A strange blank space opened in his mind, like an enormous white room with no rules. In this room he could run, and he could shout, and he could roll around on the ground like a big dog on the sand at the ocean. Paul smiled gently to himself. He clicked on an airplane shaped lamp on his desk. The black plastic of his gaming controller shined like liquid in the yellow light. The computer started up with a click and then a quiet whirring of the fan keeping the high performance electronics cool. Paul turned on the overhead light but immediately switched it back off. It was too bright. The subdued glow of his desk light heightened the intensity of the moment. His socks felt warm and comfortable on his feet. His sweats were soft and enhanced the feeling of freedom and movement. His leather chair embraced him like an old friend. He sat back into it and gave a few twists left and right, swiveling around like a little kid. He opened a tiny gap in the blinds once more, just to see if the sun had risen yet. It had not. A foggy orange halo floated around the one street light he could see. How lucky it was to be in a basement. It was always so quiet. The earth ate up all the noise. Sure, Dorris did stomp her heels on the wood floors upstairs, but for the most part, she left him alone down here. He liked that. And just as he thought this, he heard murmuring through the low ceiling. It was Dorris' gravelly voice. She must have been on the phone, and now she was shouting. He could only understand every few words.

“What? You said the -- apple make ---...I could probably make ---No!--that is a ---.” 

She was probably talking to one of her sisters again. Every conversation was like the world was ending. Her feet stomped back and forth across the house. The front door slammed. A car engine started and then disappeared. The room returned to the quiet humming of the computer. He began his pre-gaming warm-up. A stretch of the arms, a massage of the wrists (especially the right wrist). He let his head hang for a full and slow rotation of his neck. No stiffness today. He blinked his eyes a few times. They seemed a little blurry. That would not work. He stepped just outside of his room into the makeshift kitchen and laundry room. Standing in front of the deep utility sink, he splashed cold water onto his face a few times. He blinked again. Good, nice and clear and awake now. 

Now seated again at his station, he checked his giant water bottle, three-quarters full. That should last a while. He took a large gulp from the built in straw and clicked the icon for Eternal Quest IV. The screen expanded into a gray hooded figure holding a large wooden staff. Now the perspective moved closer toward the figure’s shadowed face as the whole screen expanded into darkness. Calm, expansive music began to stream out of his black speakers into the room. Then loading bars began whirring across the center of the screen. Loading game components. Loading host faculties. Loading stored proxy hosts. Then an error flashed onto the screen. No internet connection. Paul swiftly crawled behind the purple computer tower and peered into the maze of colored wires. The internet cable felt good. But no light was on above it. That was odd. He tried starting up the internet, but the homepage wouldn’t load. He checked the modem. Sure enough, all the lights were off, no internet. Dorris had probably messed around with the router upstairs. Paul shook his head. Whatever, he could just play offline and upload his progress later. His friends would miss him for sure, especially Alpha-Zone and Hopper, but Paul would have a good story to tell them. 

No internet was like being shipwrecked. His heart beat just a little faster at the idea of being the lone survivor of a disaster, he felt suddenly special, like a great adventure was beginning to unfold. Dorris was gone and there was no internet, and somehow it was still dark out. He hunkered down in his seat with a smile. He clicked past the notifications, since he already knew them all. Character: Sandor, Weapons Caliber: Excellent, Difficulty: Ultra, Current Map: The Stone Sea. The world began to load in hazy chunks that grew more clear. Paul smiled thinking of the new map. This was his favorite world yet. The Stone Sea had only been released 6 days ago. Paul had paid in advance for the pre-release, ensuring he would get the map a full 48 hours earlier than everybody else. But even after playing every day since the release, he had only explored maybe 5% of the new territory. 

The Stone Sea opened out before his eyes. The southern reach was made of gray boulders stretching out to the horizon. Paul could almost smell the fresh rain that had fallen on the rocks while he had slept. It rose in a fine white mist off the stones in the early morning sun. Sandor walked in his gray cloak through the mist for quite some time. Overhead, he heard the heavy wings of the occasional dragon hunting at the edges of the map for stray livestock. He settled in for a long journey into the interior. That seemed to be the best place to find mission stones. Without a stone, he was just ambling blindly over the rocks, which was fun, but a mission gave the map real meaning, a purpose. After walking for maybe 15 minutes, the stones began to break apart into sharp gravel. It crunched under his sandals. He scanned the skies in this new geography. There was a storm building in the east. It looked to be about 20 miles away and would hopefully pass by to the south. There it was, a mission stone. A message came onto the screen: Find the Hidden Elixirs of Erelene. 

A loud crash from outside jarred Paul out of the game. He spied through the blinds at the outer world. It was now totally dark. Had he mixed up am and pm? No, the computer read 12:02 pm. But the internet was out, which could be affecting the auto-update of the time. He looked out again. A strange orange glow bathed the neighborhood in a dim light. That’s just the city light reflecting off the clouds. Then he saw why it had grown darker. The streetlight was gone. In the dim orange twilight, he could see it lying across the road. He could also just barely make out a vehicle that seemed to have crashed into the post. There were no voices of people around. The driver must have left. Probably a drunk driver. It was just not safe to be on these roads at night. 

Paul plopped heavily back down into his seat. The music returned. He had secretly dreamed of making music like this, wide, mysterious music that took you to a distant place that was more real than real. A notebook on the table caught his eye. It was all of his Stone Sea notes he had taken so far. On it he had carefully recorded the contents of every elixir he had found and its effects. Noxxum brought on almost instantaneous sleep for humans and creatures. “Useful,” he had written above it in bold letters. The next was Corianthus, which brought on a heedless confusion for humans but gave enhanced wisdom to creatures, “Strange,” he noted next to it. Keeping good notes like this was not something everyone did. He liked that the notebook had a physical presence. It tied his room to the world of The Stone Sea.

Paul heard a sudden pop-pop-pop, then car engines racing off somewhere. Fireworks? For a moment, he considered putting on his headphones but decided against it. The speakers were just so much more immersive. He turned up the volume two notches. That should be enough to drown out the outside. 

The game came back into focus. Broken stones crunched under Sandor’s feet as he moved into a new landscape. Something shiny gleamed among the rocks. He dug down, tossing them aside in a pile. A small vial shone with a dark green liquid inside. He held it up into the light. This he had never seen before. And by the color of it, this substance could be incredibly valuable. Sandor reached into his bag and pulled out an old leather-bound book. He flipped through the pages, but the elixir must be so rare it had never been recorded. Paul felt that it was only right that someone with so much devotion to Eternal Quest should be the one to name it. But to record its effects, he would have to drink it, or at least a little of it. 

“Well, here goes nothing,” he said aloud in the small dark room.

Sandor wobbled for a moment before righting himself. The world became colorful, the grays shifted into blues and greens. Leaves sprouted out of the rocks. A little stream began to trickle past his feet. He had found eternal life! A prompt came up on the screen asking him to name the elixir. He waited for a moment. Let’s call it something really good, something lasting and true. He reached for his glass water pipe. It was heavy in his hands, full of potential. The weed was sticky in his fingers as he carefully loaded the black bowl of the pipe. Then he lit a match. His face reflected on the computer screen. The light cast dramatic shadows across his face that intensified this momentous discovery. The marijuana burned quickly, glowing bright orange amid the small flame. Smoke percolated through the pipe, bubbling out into his lungs. He held it in for a few moments. Then came his favorite part, he exhaled the smoke gently out into the room, and especially onto the computer screen, as if Sandor could get a high with him. The hooded character seemed to shift with a slight inhale of his own. Ok. Now for a name. His mind buzzed with options. No, we don’t need options, we need the right one, the eternal one. He took another hit. The exhaled smoke billowed out against his own reflected face in the screen. It was all so poetic. Wait-that’s it, he had it. “Vita Aeternus”. Perfect. He typed it carefully into the box. A ringing chime sounded and the potion was recorded in his heavy book before Sandor tucked it away again in his pack. 

There was a surprising burning, deep in the center of Paul’s chest. The weed must have hit him harder than he had thought. His eyes watered slightly, and the room seemed a little hazy. He rubbed his eyes with his palms. Still hazy. He coughed again. There seemed to be a pit of dull pain down in his lungs. Suddenly, there was a loud crash upstairs. Then footsteps, voices of men. 

“Is anyone in here? Hello?” There were multiple voices in the house. Footsteps sounded just above his head. Paul froze in place. Would Dorris have invited these people over? But where was her voice among them? 

“Hello?” A different man’s voice called out.

Then an older sounding voice, “Ricky, see if they’ve got any water down there.” 

“On it,” said a younger voice.

The upstairs door opened, Paul sat down on his bed, he vaguely scanned the room for a weapon. All he could find was an old soccer trophy from middle school. Footsteps raced down the carpeted stairs into the basement. 

“Hello?” The young voice shot through the hall just outside Paul’s room. 

The trophy felt insignificant in his hand. He held it tighter. The door handle rolled, as if turned by a ghost. A pale face emerged in the doorway, a teenager with blonde hair squinting to see into the dark room. Each of them froze when they saw each other. 

“Oh, hey. What are you doing in here?” The teenager asked.

“What are you doing in here? I live here,” Paul said, still gripping the marble and plastic trophy. 

“We’re looking for water. Then we’re heading North, they say the fallout isn’t so bad up in Canada. Do you have any iodine?”

“Iodine? I don't think so. Wait, fallout what do you mean, what’s fallout?” 

“From the nukes.” 

“Nukes? What are you talking about?”

“You haven’t heard? Didn’t you notice it's still dark out?”

Paul looked down and shook his head, still sitting on the bed but now holding the trophy in his lap like a puppy.

“Yeah, they launched first, but the missiles crossed each other in the sky. My Dad said we knocked down tons of theirs before they hit the ground. But a big one hit down in Wyoming. It’s pretty crazy. But yeah, you should be taking iodine for the radiation. But yeah, do you have any water down here?”

Paul swallowed. “No. Well, I mean I have my water bottle.”

He got up from the bed and walked slowly over to his desk to pick up the water bottle. He took a short sip from the plastic straw, as if testing it for radiation. It still tasted fine. 

“Anyway man, you gotta get out of here. The whole neighborhood is gonna burn, we saw the fires on our way over here.”

More feet came rushing down the stairs. 

“Ricky, are you down here? We gotta go.”

A man in a red hat and jeans came into the doorway.

“What the hell is this?” The man asked into the room.

“I don’t know.” Paul said quietly. 

“Dad, do we have room in the back of the truck for this guy? He didn’t even know about the nukes! He’s just been down here hanging out.”

“Well, actually I’ve been kind of busy.” 

“Busy doing what?” The man asked.

“I’ve been crossing The Stone Sea.” 

The man lowered his eyebrows. “Is there any water down here?” 

“I already asked him. He said he just has that water bottle.”

Paul held the water bottle a little closer to his chest.

“Aright. Let’s get outta’ here. There’s a couple more houses I wanna check on this block. We gotta cross that border before nightfall.” 

“But, Dad, it's already night.” 

“No, it’s 1:30 in the afternoon.”

“Ok, but can we bring him? Do we have any room in the truck?”

The man looked Paul up and down, like he was a strange gardening tool. “Do you have any skills, any weapons?” 

Paul thought of the elixirs he had found. But he kept that to himself.

“I’m not sure. I-I don’t know where you’re going.” Paul said, his voice wavering slightly.

“Oh, come on, Ricky. We gotta go. We’ve wasted enough time down here. He’s useless. Come on.”

Then they both stomped back up the stairs. Paul leaned his head out of the bedroom to see if they were really leaving. Ricky rushed after his Dad, but he turned his head for one last look at Paul. The kid’s eyebrows were turned up, like he had realized they weren’t going to keep the dog after all. Silence descended over the house like a heavy shroud. Paul stood motionless looking down at the ground. He was useless? He didn’t feel useless. He could have helped, he suddenly wanted to cross the border too. 

A small window above the utility sink let a faint orange glow into the room. The air began to sting his lungs. Was that smoke coming from outside? Paul opened the door a crack to peek out. Little orange flakes drifted in the air like fireflies. A dull roar blew through the neighborhood. He shut the door again, coughing slightly to clear the tickle in his throat. The linoleum floor was hard against his feet as he walked back into his bedroom and shut the door. 

His bed looked so inviting, calm and dark and warm. His blankets were soft and messy. He could curl up and disappear beneath them like he was under the ocean. But there would be time for sleep later. The computer monitor gleamed with blue light like a diamond in a cave. He turned now and sat back down at his station. The music returned, relaxing, deep peace flowing through the room. Sandor came back to life and took long steps across the gray rocks of The Stone Sea. The character took a sip from the elixir, Paul took a sip from his straw. Then another sip of each. And with every sip, the world grew more and more magical. 

And when the electricity went out, the music stopped and the room grew dark and quiet. Paul felt his way over to his bed. The blankets covered him completely. Now the roar outside was deep and low. He tore a napkin into little pieces and stuffed them in his ears and closed his eyes. He saw The Stone Sea and set out across the gray stones himself, searching for whatever he could find.