A Devil's Dictionary

1980-7

TO SAY THAT WHAT HAPPENED next was, for all intents, impossible to describe, would be to short you, Reader, in a way I am not prepared to do. More so, it would be to skip or gloss over the most salient aspect of what occurred that day; the day in which we learned just how strange and inexplicable the universe really was, and, more importantly, just how dangerous it had become—not just for us but for everything we had ever known, ever would know.

Suffice it to say that when the lightning-like bolts erupted from the girl-thing’s eyes, they instantly connected with (and paralyzed) virtually everyone present—Kevin, Orley and myself included. And here is where it gets so strange—and difficult to describe—for what happened next was like, a kind of mass hallucination, one in which all of us, I think, felt we could read the thing’s thoughts; not only that, but that we could see where it was from.

And where it was from was hideous beyond measure: a place as barren and blue and seemingly lifeless as the girl’s body itself—a place, a planet, a dimension, where everything that had ever lived had long since been devoured and consumed, and where the husks of those drained of their lifeforce had, at last, formed piles as high as mountains.

It was, in short, a kind of Hell, and what we learned in those moments—the moments we stood paralyzed and alone, trapped, each of us, by the lightning-like force—was that this was the fate of all the worlds they, her species, had encountered (via scouts, just as she); and that this was simply what they did: They fed, and more, that they had learned to create entirely new dimensions, entirely new timelines, exactly toward that end—all to satisfy their ever-growing need.

And we learned one thing more: which was that although Earth was next—our Earth, the Earth of this particular dimension, this timeline—a thousand more might yet be created, and that one of these would be the Earth upon which Orley would walk as a war hero and I a bestselling author, and where Kevin would be a rock star, bigger even than Elvis. A place where we wouldn’t be losers at all but gods, receiving a b*****b from all the world. The place she had promised us in our dreams—and which would now come. Whether we liked it or not.

For, having chosen us for our very softness and empathy, and loving us—insofar as she was able to do so—for rescuing her, she intended to keep her promise.

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