In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater (13 page)

“Who
are you?” Wilker asks. His voice wavers. His heart slows, his muscles unclench.
He is calm again. He needs to take command. He needs to control himself. He
needs to take control. Control.

As
he relaxes Jahum’s head makes a very slight nod. Wilker wouldn’t have caught it
if he wasn’t staring so strongly.

“My
name is Jahum,” says the alien. “I am the leader of the Astrons, I have come to
give you knowledge, power and a warning.” His mouth doesn’t move. Telepathy but
it sounds as if he’s speaking through the air.

Wilker
places a hand on his wife’s shoulder. She looks up at him, and the tension
eases out of her body.

“Why
did you contact my wife? What purpose do you have with her?” Wilker asks.

“She
is the head of SETI and one of the most brilliant minds on this planet. Even if
I didn’t have other motives in coming here, that in itself would be worth the
trip, to get a glimpse at where your advancing species was headed,” Jahum says.

Isabel
smiles and snaps out of her stupor.

“Thank
you,” she replies.

“But
I came here today to give you knowledge, power and a warning,” he mentions
again. Knowledge and power.

“A
warning of what?” Wilker asks.

“In
the coming weeks, an alien race will attack Earth. I came here to give my
powers to a select few. Isabel is one of them.”

“What
power?”

“The
power to create and destroy. Strength beyond human comprehension,” Jahum
replies.

He
looks at Isabel.

“The
power to comprehend them and the universe.”

 He
wants to make her into a god?
Impossible
.

“Why?
Why give us your power? What do you get in saving us?” Isabel asks. “There have
been many theories on why the human race has never been in contact with alien
life forms. Either they never existed in the first place or we were too
insignificant for them to care.”

“I
am not saving your race, even with my power there is a very slim chance of your
survival. The invaders are the ones who betrayed us and destroyed my people,”
Jahum says. His facial expression doesn’t change, he speaks as if he has no
feelings at all, contrary to what he is saying.

Wilker
just stands there, thinking through what Jahum said.
He’s only saving
Isabel.

“How
small of a chance?” Isabel asks.

Jahum
doesn’t answer.

“How
many will die? Can you please tell me?” Isabel pleads.

“Even
with my help, there will be billions lost. With a feeble chance of winning. If
your race loses I will take the chosen to another planet to start anew,” Jahum
says.

Isabel
looks down.
He’s going to leave the human race to die.

“What
about us?” Wilker asks.

“Us?”
Jahum replies.

“The
rest of the human race. Are we just going to get left behind and slaughtered!?
What gives you the right to choose who lives or dies?” Wilker yells.

Jahum
doesn’t flinch, as if he expected Wilker’s outburst.

“How
can you tease us with your power and give it to a woman who is going to die?
How can you do that!?” 

Isabel
looks up at Wilker, she can’t believe what he just said. How can she be that
selfish?

“When
she accepts my power, all her sicknesses and alignments will go away. She will
become something different.”

“I
don’t believe you,” Wilker mutters. As soon as those words left his mouth,
Wilker’s feet leave the ground. He starts to float into the air, towards the
sky above.

“You
don’t have to believe my words about the invasion but I can and will show you
my power. For Isabel’s sake your support is the most important,” Jahum says.

Jahum
raises his hand, ten rocks lift from the ground and glow steel blue. They come
together under Wilker and merge into one solid piece.

“I
can create,” Jahum says. He squeezes his hands together. The rocks explode out
into a harmless blue mist. “And I can destroy.”

Wilker
slowly hovers back to the ground and lands on his feet as if nothing happened.

Wilker
shakes and pats himself down. He’s whole. He looks at his wife, their gazes
lock. He calms down. This being wasn’t lying, at least not about his powers,
maybe it’s not as bad as it once seemed.

As
long as Isabel survives.

Wilker
can be happy so long as she lives.

“Will
I have to fight?” she asks.

“Yes,
but your power will be different from the others, their powers will be of
strength and might but yours will be the one of understanding. In time you will
have both strength and knowledge, but for now it is one or the other,” Jahum
says.

Jahum
suddenly closes his eyes and stands very still. Wilker looks at Isabel.

“I
guess you were right. Sorry I doubted you,” he says. Isabel hugs him.

Wilker
wonders if this pending invasion is the reason for the stars disappearing at
night, it was whatever is coming for them.

“How
does this process work?” Isabel asks Jahum.

Jahum
opens his eyes. “I’m…I’m sorry. I will not be able to give you my powers
today.”

“What?
Why not? After all you’ve just told us?” Wilker asks.

Jahum
looks off into the sky, peering through the canopy of trees.

“I
have to leave, I may have found someone who could save us all. I will be back
here, three weeks from now at five A.M. to give Isabel her power and take the
both of you somewhere safe to prepare for the final invasion. That will be the
morning ‘they’ will come.”

“There
is going to be more than one invasion?” Isabel asks.

“What
is to come is complete annihilation,” Jahum says.

“How
will people believe us?” Wilker asks Isabel.

“I
don’t know. Maybe I can use my status,” Isabel replies.

“I
ask of you to not tell anybody about our meeting…but if you must, speak of me
closer to our next meeting, as opposed to earlier. It would do me harm if you
tell any sooner,” Jahum says.

Both
Wilker and Isabel nod. Jahum raises his five fingered hand and a blue crystal
appears in it, it’s about the size of a bottle cap. It’s a pendent for a
necklace.

“Thomas
Wilker, I give this to you. If I need to contact you before our meeting it will
be through this.”

A
blue light pulsates slowly from it. Wilker walks up, touching Jahum’s skin as
he takes it. Wilker’s jerks his hand back. His skin was scorching hot. And with
that, Jahum disappears in a white light.

…

The
drive home is silent. This time Wilker drives and Isabel is in the passenger
seat. She stares at her knees. Wilker slams his hands into the steering wheel.
If Jahum could give them what he claimed, he probably could’ve healed
her, that
should’ve been the first bloody thing to ask for.
Isabel places a hand on his arm, but she doesn’t look up.

Wilker
looks at her. She’s going to live and yet he’s going to die instead. Wilker has
always accepted death as an inevitability; he’s come to terms with that.

But
to have a time limit imposed on him puts a whole other twist to it. At least
she can survive this. He has to look at the positives now. Everybody else
except her is coming with him.

He
wants to break the silence and cheer her up. “So…what was it like to finally
meet someone from another planet? I remember you always telling me that was a
dream of yours.”

She
looks up. “It was…One of the biggest…It was amazing. I never thought it would
be like this, how composed you and I were. I still have so many things to ask
him,” she says with a smile.

“Don’t
worry, you’ll soon have all the knowledge in the world,” Wilker smiles. Isabel
puts her hands on his on the gear switch and squeezes. All he wants is for her
to be happy.

…

It’s
silent again as they walk into their kitchen. Isabel isn’t speaking again after
the long car ride, when she talked about what to ask Jahum next time. Like how
old is he and his race, how does the universe actually work and questions of
the sort. She walks to the kitchen island and leans on it.

She
starts to cry.

“What’s
wrong?” Wilker asks. That seems to be the question of the day.

“It’s
you,” she says. “Why are you so calm? When you learned you were going to die?” she
mutters.

“Everybody
dies someday. I guess now by years end it’s my turn.”

“Fuck
you!” she says as she coughs into her hand. How is he so calm? He doesn’t know
he’s scared to die, and of the nothingness of death and not existing but maybe
it’s the realization of knowing that there isn’t a damn thing he can do about
it. Maybe even though he believes Jahum, his consciousness doesn’t.

“I
don’t care as long as you are safe,” Wilker replies.

“No!
No, this isn’t right, I came to terms with my death. I stayed up countless
nights crying in the bathroom and begging to whatever God that could hear me
for forgiveness. I asked myself what
did I do
to
deserve to die. Why are you going to take me out of the life of the man I love
and why are you going to hurt him? And when I received no answers, I finally
accepted it, that there was no way out and that I was going to die.” Her face
is red and slick with tears.

“Now
my prayers were answered but you’re going to die instead, they’re going to take
you away from me, the only star I have in my night sky. Why do you have to die
instead of me?”

Wilker
takes a hard look at her and hugs her. He doesn’t let go. She sobs harder in
his arms.

“That’s
selfish, sometimes people have to die for a better cause, and for you to live
that’s a good enough cause for me. It’s going to be okay,” he whispers.

“I
don’t care if it’s selfish. No! It’s not going to be okay. I love you Thomas, I
don’t want you to die…please don’t die…please don’t leave me,” she cries in his
arms.

After
all she’s been through, she cares more about him than herself. She’s going to
live but she doesn’t care if he’s not with her.

“I’m
not going to leave
yo
…You and I are going to leave
our jobs and in the next three weeks I’m going to make every dream of yours
come true. We’ll travel from the villas of Italy to the pyramids of Giza. I’ll
give you the oceans…the skies…the moons…and the planets.” He starts to cry
himself.

He’s
scared; he was always agnostic about God. But proof of Jahum means that death
is the end, there is no God.

He’s
going to die.

But
as long as Isabel lives, as long as she survives, he doesn’t care.

“Will
you give me the stars?” she asks. How could he forget the stars? Wilker looks
up, through the window and out into the sky through his tear studded eyes.
“Yes, even the stars.”

Wilker
and Isabel lie
in bed, the moonlight paints their naked bodies. The alarm clock on the night
stand says it’s after three, yet Wilker lies awake as Isabel sleeps on his
chest wheezing in and out as she breathes. The necklace Jahum gave Wilker
pulsates next to the alarm clock.

It’s
been two and a half weeks since they’ve met with Jahum. And within those weeks
he’s had the best times of his life since his honeymoon all those years ago.

They
hiked the king’s trail of Sweden, waltzed through the villas of Italy and
France, bought a boat and sailed the Mediterranean Sea. Hell they even went to
see the stone hedges of Wiltshire.

They
nearly emptied out their bank accounts, especially when they decided to buy
matching Aston Martins. If Jahum is wrong, then they will have nothing left.
Maybe Jahum is really a travels salesman in disguise.

It
was well worth it.

But
for today, their past lives are gone. They have to finally deal with the
reality of the situation, something Wilker’s been ignoring the last few weeks.
In only a few days, the human race is coming to an end.

And
he’s going to die.

He
looks at the nightstand on the other side of the bed. There is a pile of bloody
tissues on it. Isabel’s sickness is getting worse, they had to cut their
escapade a few days short. She isn’t willing to get help.

In
only a few days, she’ll get saved and if not, what’s the point of getting help if
the world is going to end anyway? She knows her chances of survival. Wilker’s
is nil.

“Thomas
are you awake?” Isabel rasps. The rattle in her voice has a smoker’s vibe to
it, as if she’s been smoking for decades. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken her
hiking on that trail. It was her idea and she powered through it. Though it
didn’t bode well for her condition. She only needs to last a few more days. He
worries she won’t.

She
looks up at him.

“Yes,”
he replies.

“We
need to tell them, we need to tell the world what is coming… So they can have
time…to reconcile, like we did. It’s only right that we give them that,” she
whispers.

Wilker
looks out the window at the full moon peeking over the clouds.

“Yes.
You’re right. But you’ll have to be the one to set it up, nobody will listen to
me anymore. Not that it matters.”

“That’s
fine… I’ll do it in the morning.” She falls back asleep.

He
should tell the world, it’s only right. He would want someone to do the same.

…

Isabel
and Wilker drive down an outer London highway, heading towards the university.
They are in Isabel’s new apple tree green Vanquish. Isabel drives.

This
all feels weird to Wilker, driving in this car, but the money needs to go
somewhere. Money doesn’t follow you to the grave. He looks at his wife, her
skin is pale and drained of her usual milky cream color,
dark
bags are under her eyes.

He
didn’t want her to drive, but she insisted, she loves to drive, always was the
car nut when she was younger. Wilker can’t say no when it comes to his wife.

But
if her condition continues to deteriorate, then next time he’s going to have to
be a little more than forceful to stop her. He looks at the clock. Only
thirty-six hours until annihilation. How is he so calm when his death is only
in a couple short days?

“How
do you think they will react?” Isabel asks.

Wilker
looks out the window and into the passing trees. “First… denial… Then fear, an
utmost crippling fear. That everything they’ve known is wrong, that their gods
are not real, that there is only blackness after death. And then panic and
maybe even anger. It’s going to be chaos. The only ones to escape it will be
the willingly bliss.”

Isabel
looks at her hands on the wheel. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“Yes,
they have a right to know, a right to prepare and say their goodbyes to their
loved ones and make amends with their gods.”

“I
hope there are more people like us,” Isabel replies. “Those who take solace in
the fact that we finally found out that we are not alone in this universe. It’s
something to feel good about, that maybe, just maybe, our life is not all for
nothing. It excites me on the unlimited possibilities and the answers of them…
Even if we do die,” she says with a smile.

“Most
people are not like you,” Wilker says. “The questions to the answers we have
sought scare us. We dream and lust for the answers and that’s the thrill of it,
to journey to impossible places, to find ourselves during the search for the
answers, not to find the answers themselves. When we have nothing else to chase
for, when the answer is so black and white, so cut and clear, we only have
ourselves to look back at and the emptiness and darkness of knowing that we are
about to die. The fear we find nothing in it except death. Jahum coming to us
and telling us we are not alone is greatly overpowered by him telling us we’re
all going to die in only a few days’ time.”

The
light goes out of Isabel’s eyes. “Then why tell the world? If it’s for nothing,
why go through all this effort, when in the end it really doesn’t matter?”

“I
don’t believe in ignorant blissfulness. As long as you’re happy I’m fine.”

“Well…”
She looks at him and smiles.

“I—“

She
seizes up, her foot jams on the gas. Her body stiffens, her eyes fling open.

“Isabel!”
Wilker yells.

She’s
having a seizure.

They
zoom into traffic. He grabs at the wheel but her hand clutches it like hard
concrete.

“Isabel!!”
He yells again. He doesn’t know what to do. The 500 plus horsepower roars them
straight towards a pole. He finally tears her hands from the wheel and jerks it
to the left.

The
car spins and flips as they hit the pole.

Blood
blurs his vision. He lies on the street. Ahead of him sits only the front half
of the car. It was split in half when the pole hit his side. Sirens wail off in
the distance.

The
driver seat is still in the front half, Isabel still buckled in. Blood runs
down her face. The sirens comes closer.

“Isabel!!”
Wilker screams. The sirens drown out Wilker’s screams. Isabel’s motionless body
slumps in her seat.

…

Twenty-four
hours later.

Wilker
stands in a hospital room, over his wife in a bed. Eyes closed, sleeping like a
newborn, she is in a medically induced coma. He has defeat on his face. He
looks at his left hand; he wears a small brace.

Somehow
he only got a sprain after being thrown from the car. He would’ve called it a
miracle, if he believed in them. He’s never believed in miracles and never
will.

He
just stares at her, all he has in his life lies motionless on that bed.

“Two
days…” a voice mutters. It’s muffled.

He
drowns out the noise. The only thing that matters to him is her.

“Mr.
Wilker…” the voice says.

All
his wittiness, all his humor, it was a façade. The only reason he was able to
keep it up was because of her. His personality was never a lie; it was just
without something, his wife or even his life. It’s pointless.

“Mr.
Wilker!” the voice demands sharply. Wilker snaps up, he looks to the right. Her
doctor stands at her bedside.

“Did
you hear what I said?” the doctor asks. “No…I…” He pauses. He prepared for
this, mentally, but he didn’t expect it so suddenly.

The
doctor looks at him and sighs. “She might not make it into tomorrow, her tumor
has spread from her lungs to her spine. Causing her to have her seizure. It was
only a matter of time really.” He looks at his clipboard. “Why didn’t she come
sooner, it didn’t need to spread so far, if she would’ve gotten help. She
should’ve known better.”

Isabel
is one of the smartest people in the world, when Wilker first met her he was
daunted by her, by the illusion of her intelligence, by how much better she was
than himself.

But
then he found out she was just like him, a normal human being. She was smart,
but still human, with human emotions and empathy. Others would just see her as
something she isn’t. Like this doctor.

Wilker
can’t muster up the effort to argue. “She didn’t want to. She just wanted to
live life in her last moments. That’s the end of it,” Wilker states. The doctor
rambles on but it falls on deaf ears.

Wilker
just looks at his wife’s sleeping body, the world passing by.

An
hour later, Wilker still stands there. The doctor has gone. Many people have
come and gone, friends, family, admirers, saying their final goodbyes, only
giving him a few choice words. There is some irony in it. She was a nice girl,
everybody liked her. She had many friends.

But
to Wilker, they’re just a blur in his mind.

“You
were right.” Matthews stands next to him. “Your simulation. The stars are
disappearing. Your senseless rumbling bullshit was actually right for once.” He
runs his hands through his hair.

“Where
is Alexander, why didn’t he tell me this himself?” Wilker asks.

“He
packed up and left the city with his family. He passed on your findings to the
university. Whatever is making the stars disappear is coming our way, it will
hit in a couple months. We are going to do a few more reviews before taking it
to the government.”

Wilker
doesn’t answer.

“That’s
what her meeting was going to be about wasn’t it? That your simulation was
right. To think that you would once again ridicule us by going behind our backs
again,” Matthews says.

“No,”
Wilker says softly. He doesn’t have the energy to yell at Matthews. “I suggest
you do the same as Alex and leave with your family at once. We were going to
announce the end of the world. Whatever is coming is going to hit tomorrow in
the morning. Nobody will survive it.”

“What?
That’s preposterous! What is ‘it’?” he demands.

“Matthews,
you always were an asshole, I would like it if you weren’t here any longer,”
Wilker says.

“What
are you saying? I have a right to be here, she is a colleague and a friend.”

“Fuck
off.”

“I’m
not—“

“Leave!”
Wilker yells. Matthew sighs, slamming the door behind him. He probably didn’t
believe him but Wilker doesn’t care. He walks to her bedside and sits in the
reclining seat next to her. He’s tired. He wants to rest his eyes for just a
few minutes, but as he closes his eyes darkness overcomes him.

…

Wilker
jerks awake; he’s still in the chair next to his wife. He moves his arms to
stretch, his body creaks and aches. He peeks out of the curtains,
it’s
still night. He checks his watch, 3:45 AM.

“Shit!”
He slept through the night. What to do? He needs to go see Jahum but his car is
at home. Getting a taxi home and then driving over to the meet point will take
too long.

He
looks at Isabel. He has no choice, it’s the only way to save her. He grabs his
coat and kisses Isabel on the forehead. In only a few hours, Jahum can finally
save her.

…

The
Vanquish skids to a stop. Wilker looks at the time in the car. He’s 42 minutes
late. He stopped on the road right next to the woods. He gets out and runs into
the trees.

Wilker
bursts through the clearing, covered in dirt and bruises. He puts his hands on
his knees and pants, breath frosting the air in front of him. He ran the whole
way.

“Jahum!”
he yells.

“Jahum!
Are you here!?” he shouts.

“JAHUM!!!”
he yells his lungs out. He falls to his knees, he’s too late. Nothing musters
around him. No insects, no wind, not even a single bird in the sky.

“Yes,”
Jahum says. Jahum walks through the clearing behind him. Wilker came from that
way. He must have just arrived.

“Please…save
her…” Wilker asks. He gets on his knees like a coward. Jahum doesn’t ask why
nor what happened to her.

“I
cannot.”

“Why!?
You claim to be all powerful but you can’t even do this one thing. You said she
is needed to save humanity and you’re going to let her die!”

“NO...No,”
Jahum yells. The outburst scared Wilker. Jahum closes his eyes, as if to calm
himself.

“I
will give the power to you and you can transfer the power over to her. With it
she will be saved,” Jahum says.

“Please
just come with me to help her, I beg of you,” Wilker pleads.