The Halloween Project 2019 Story 6: Judgement

Randolph slowly rose from his dulled and subterranean mind into consciousness. His eyes didn't seem to be working quite right. Nothing was in focus. The room, if it could be called a room at all, was immersed in a thick, opaque darkness that had no boundaries. He could feel the pupils of his eyes widen, as if permanently refracted, but there was no light to be captured. As senses emerged he realized that he was sitting in a plain straight back chair. Immobile, yet unfettered. Looking down, he rotated both arms, peering at his hands recognizing that they still worked, attached to his forearms. He read his fingerprints, the lines in each palm. Turning them back over he noticed the knuckled fingers. All was in slow motion. Figures grew in the darkness, also seeming to be seated. The murky black never truly cleared. Directly in front, perhaps 10 feet away, possibly 100 yards, a shifting presence wavered in and out of clarity. It was not a man or woman. It was not a person at all. Perhaps it was a feeling. White and grey and black, rotating, pulsing. Falling in prismatic crystals. Beautiful. Perfect. "L'hiver," a sound without a voice, fell into Randolph's consciousness. "Bahar," Another voice from his right, this one bright, yet indistinct. Glowing with yellows, oranges, whites. Heat rose, storm swirls emanated, droplets formed. "Fruhling," Once again, distant yet near. Randolph's chair had circled of its own accord. An acute greenness appeared, sprouting, dancing. It entwined lengths of itself through the air. Fresh moistness and growth with light exuded. "Vuli," a final soundscape, reaching his consciousness. This one falling, and falling and falling, then coming to rest. Multitudes of colors, yellows and browns, reds, oranges, a hint of purple, magenta, auburn. And always falling. "I know these words, but not these languages," Randolph announced. "Winter in the French language. A Turkish Summer. Spring as a German would say it. And you..., you speak of Autumn in Swahili, "Where am I? How do I know these things?" L'hiver expressed thought, but not in words, "You knew much. You know more than most. Perhaps more than all. Now you will know further, deeper. You are the past. This is now. Not the present, but the now. You have passed." "Passed?" Randolph questioned emphatically, "Passed??" he repeated. "Your death has claimed you," Bahar drifted into Randolph's mind. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait," Randolph's voice came to him from a distance as if talking through an elongated tunnel, "That can't be. I'm young. I'm healthy. I'm only 42. I have a family that depends on me. My parents still need me. I have things yet undone," Randolph protested. "I feel I was destined for...for... something,...for" "Ukubwa," Vuli presented with great authority. "Yes, yes, that's right. Ukubwa. Greatness. I believe I was meant for that." "You cannot know that word. You cannot know...Ukubwa," Vuli protested. "Your greatness cannot be. There will never be greatness. Many have been ordained. Many have missed their Ukubwa. You have passed, away. Away into..." Bahar stated. "But I was meant for Ukubwa!" Randolph shouted from his brain. A seizure, a clenching of synapses and firing of nerve endings no longer in existence seized his non-corporeal form. An electrocution of awareness invaded his seated figure and appeared to explode. Then he arched into the darkness screaming into the black void, broken by the four figures. "I call for the aid of Thanayar, the Creator!" The entities began to vibrate. The breath that Randolph no longer possessed seemed to resurge in his chest. Lights and colors flashed and recombined. Spaces and distance meant nothing. The figures swelled across the distances that separated them. Atomic, linear, quantum. Molecules appeared to split, fly, collide, re-assemble. A voice, that of L'hiver, lurched through the universal chaotic void, "No living creature! No dead creature! No creature in 10 million years has known or called upon the Creator! And you know the Creator's name!!" From the other three entities careened a noise that Randolph recoiled from. It was an ecstatic wail pitched beyond the spheres. His ears, not hearing only sensing, careened with sound. All four beings merged, "The Creator comes!! Comes here! Thanayar comes!" L'hiver not so much faded as dissipated. The others writhed, dissembled and retreated. The wild cacophony continued but decibels decreased, quieted. Softer, softer, then barely audible. Then gone. A black, encompassing silence. A crushing entity surrounded Randolph. The size of worlds, entire solar systems. A universe of meaning and consciousness beyond rationality. Beyond existence. Beyond time. It was larger than infinity and immeasurably centered on him. A message poured through him. Without words or signs, beyond alphabets or glyphs, beyond multitudes. Beyond cells. An all-knowing singularity. "Return," it vowed into reality, "Return to..." "Ukubwa," Randolph replied. #