"I didn't know the sky could be so ugly."
Koran had always thought that no matter how rough its storm, it was at least honest: blue or grey, clear or cloudy. But what hung over his head now… was something else entirely.
It looked twisted, tugged in bits like a painting done by an angry child who later splattered all the color that he could find on it. Red crashed against grey, orange seeped through the tears of blackened clouds, while a faint light, like the touch of a dying sun, tried in vain to break through.
And when he turned his eyes away, he found something even worse: lines, two opposing armies lined up. But they were not like the armies he learned about through textbooks on history or saw in cheap movies.
On the one side… was a strange leader, so strange that he wondered if he existed at all. The moon was carved into his chest, and on his back, the sun blazed. No armor, no sword, no spear. He was the weapon. Slender serpent statuettes whirled about him, sliced through the air or through his own self. His movements were not human… but in some way more a cosmic rhythm, a law only he could sense. And as for him (Koran), he was just a lost onlooker amidst an ocean of dead faces.
And on the other side. there was no leader, at least not one of any kind humans could comprehend. There was a headless creature, a body that floated and moved like a balloon, swaying with no sense of touch. With every step that it took, anyone who laid eyes upon it felt an emptiness creeping to their chest. It had no eyes, no mouth, nothing to indicate that it was alive. And yet… all the soldiers that stood behind it were affected by it.
And then there was the army… the undead army. My God…nobody ever imagined they would get to see something like this with their own eyes.
Their expressions twisted in agony and immobilizing fear. Some of them looked like men who used to populate his old nightmares, or so it seemed to him. Sunk eyes staring blankly, half-open mouths in the guise of having spoken long ago a thousand years back. Smashed limbs that didn't deter them from standing erect. Lines rankered up with military-like discipline, as if the memory of battles that they once had was sowed by someone in them. The strongest of animals were in the front, their faces less broken, more human. And in the background. it was an open coffin, individuals moving not at all, their legs dragging on the pavement, their arms shaking.
When he allowed his eyes to fall a little lower, he observed his own hands: pale, dry, his fingers stiff, his nails cracked.
"Wait a minute…were those really mine? I've become a zombie, damn you, Timo! I didn't want to go to the gym. I knew I'd not come out in one piece after leg day!"
He rolled onto his side and found another beast swaying beside him.
Its lower jaw was completely gone.
"what the hell happened to him ?And how did I end up here? Ah… even if I asked him, he could not have answered me. Since I have no clue where I am, I will enjoy this as much as I can."
And so he hunted until his gaze noticed a third zombie ahead of him… with bright red hair, unnatural in this destruction. He was like a failed advertisement. A red-haired zombie… now he'd seen it all. He almost laughed out loud, but he remembered that he was a zombie. And a zombie laughing… well, that isn't good for the image.
He was standing in their midst, in this pile of rotting humanity, wondering to himself the same thing repeatedly: What the devil was he doing here?
His legs were trembling in spite of himself trying to steady them. He cast a quick look at the torn sky and thought he was caught in an endless nightmare. The ash-laden wind carried hot ash suspended in the air. The earth itself was covered with wounds: spots of dried blood, sword cuts that no longer existed, scratches in the earth. He heard a strange screeching… as if there were invisible weapons hovering around them, waiting to be invoked.
Nobody said a thing. Not even a word between the two commanders. Everybody…waited. And him? He was just trying not to puke in desperation.
There was a heavy silence, heavier than was bearable. It pounded his heart with an unnatural rhythm, and his head ran around wildly: Was he really dead? Were these legions of the living… or did he become one of them?
He tried to chuckle within to ease the tension, his inner mind grumbling:
«If this was a movie… I'd be racing after a dog or something, i can't risk trying to mow a man down then running for my life so i won't get beaten up. Can I even run with this body?» . But his body did not move. And no one moved.
That silence… he loathed it. Not a natural silence, but a silence like the moment just before the flash of lightning. The soldiers, the clouds, even the wind had all frozen: alone, his heart defied the rules and was pounding recklessly against his chest as if yearning to burst free by itself.
His eyes did not leave the strange leader… that guy who had the moon on his chest and the sun on his back. His eyes had a glacial sheen in them, colder than someone cutting with a light knife through blackness. Why then was he sure that he was nothing but someone's dust speck under his foot?
And then the sound came… not out there, but inside him. A dull scraping in his head, like something was trying to break into his mind. He was trying to pretend it was not there, but the silence grew, until the air itself was thick and strangling.
And then, suddenly. the leader raised his hand.
There was nothing special about the movement,just a creeping heavy… but its impact was like a silent explosion. The ground itself contracted for an instant then exploded its ash in one burst. The zombie bodies around him all twitched as if they were string puppets waiting for the master's signal. They were ready.
But suddenly… everything froze. No movement,no sound, no army, no sky.
He blinked his eyes to be standing… but not in front of the zombies.
"Where did the ranks disappear?Where have the deformed clouds gone?" Even the two leaders disappeared. Nothing was left but darkness.
Blackness that was thick, like smoke breathed in. And out of it came a great shadow, shapeless except for its constantly shifting form. Smoke curled and curled, consuming everything around it. It crept slowly, until he could feel his own breath thick in his chest.
Then the voice:
"Accept my conditions?"
The voice was not a voice, but an earthquake that struck inside of him. His own head was about to explode from the shock.
"Your terms? What terms? I can barely understand what's happening here… Am I dead now? No, no, I shouldn't be, I'm still 13, I'm a kid."
He shut his eyes tight, trying to believe:
"Wake up, Koran… it's a dream. Yes, only a dream. You'll wake up now to be in your bed, or even at the gym, doesn't matter… what does matter is that you're not here."
But when he woke up…the shadow was still standing before him, waiting.
"We have no time"
the voice spoke roughly, thunder-fashion. Koran swallowed spit—if a zombie could eat spit—his body immobile, but his mind screaming: Run! But his feet were stuck in place. He tried to jeer at himself inside:
"Great… I ended up haggling with smoke. What's my luck like?"
He ducked his head, trying to hold on, but the pressure grew, like the shadow squeezing at his throat. He screamed inside:
"Enough! Enough!… Okay, fine… I accept"
His words at last tumbled out, shattered, like a zombie's yell:
"O…Okay… I accept."
And then, suddenly, the darkness shuddered. The shadow hesitated for a moment, then whispered gently:
"Good."
And with that, in the split second. everything dissolved.
Darkness fell.
Not the usual darkness seeping in gradually like each night,
but a darkness which decided to descend suddenly, enveloping the entire place in a dense shroud of darkness.
He stood aimlessly, with no clear idea of what he should do… simply standing. His fingers were cold as if they were cut from stone, and his heart thudded indifferently against his chest, its beat dulled like knocks on a door closed ages ago.
Koran gazed upwards in the quiet and saw something not there just a moment before… a table.
A worn wooden table, its surface slightly off kilter, its legs grooved with scratches that resembled healed injuries that never healed. He had no idea if the table had suddenly materialized or if he never noticed it was there. It didn't matter, it just was there now.
He moved closer. His movements on the floor were odd, as if the floor did not wish to receive him, as if it rejected his presence. He extended his hand and touched the surface of the table… cold, rough, an alien object. He felt some strange compulsion to sit. He did not know why, but it was unavoidable.
He sat down.
The wood creaked under his weight, and the table gave a gentle groan.
Finally. He leaned on his elbows on top of it, looking around his surroundings… nothing but darkness, no walls, no floor, just a vacant space humming with quiet. And he wasn't alone. Far from it. Something was keeping an eye on him.
He grimaced.
"I'm sitting at tables again… but this time without blood on my face, and dangling limbs like broken dolls too."
He had changed. He was not anymore that grey, rotten beast, no longer zombie mocking his own face, now… he was something else. But what? Human? Or just an illusion believing it had taken back its shape?
He chuckled quietly, a dry chuckle that came out of his throat like a man who hadn't spoken in centuries.
"At least here I won't be mocking my hair, or that bloody red-haired moron swaying around me…
He placed his hand on the table, observing his fingers. They were clean, ordinary, the skin taut, the lines etched. but he didn't believe them. It was all a disguise, a temporary image that could slip away at any moment to reveal something uglier below.
He sensed the table tip sharply, maybe he dreamed it… or maybe not. He peeked about in the blackness and saw a momentary glint of something in the distance, as of lids opening and closing.
But he didn't rise. He didn't run. He just sat there, sneaking, the table had pulled him in and nailed him with its pegs.
There was hush in the hall as if the air itself had shuddered in terror. He sat still on the wooden chair, looking at the chessboard before him, its black and white squares spread out like a strange land.
His hand hadn't been on the pieces, he hadn't touched anything. And yet, he saw the black knight move of its own accord. The piece moved one square, then stopped, another… and the soldiers seemed to crawl without force, without his will.
His chest heaved as he heard the voice. It wasn't loud, but it was so close that it sliced through his ears like a knife through raw flesh.
A deep voice, icy, with confidence:
"Checkmate."
He stopped. Then stared at the board, mesmerized. There was no one in front of him, the other chair was empty, and yet the voice was coming from there, like a phantom enemy was sitting there with a sneer on his face.
He knew the game had been won before the game was even begun. All the pieces on the board were in the wrong place, as if some phantom hand had placed them there years in advance to lead him to loss.
He wished to laugh, a mad laugh fitting for him, but his throat was dry. Strangely, he didn't feel anger… but something heavier than anger, something akin to surrender. He raised his head, looking upwards at the dark ceiling of the hall, searching for any strand of light or sign of life. Darkness alone existed, and the voice speaking in his ear once again, slowly this time, as if enjoying his downfall: "You lost… from the very beginning."
Light burst all around him in a moment, it was not regular light… but rather more like an onslaught, a white storm, rushing all around him from all sides until he felt as if he had lost his body, and became instead a shadow trapped in the midst of the storm.
He closed his eyes… or attempted to, anyway, but the light filtered past his eyelid and into his brain. And then there was the voice.
Strange… mysterious… as if it was not of this world. It was neither animal nor human voice, but rather as if the earth itself growled its disappointment in his ear: "You failed once more."
He could sense cold blood pumping through him. His heart stopped for an instant, as if his heart had not yet realized the words. Failed? Where?! He barely knew where he was, barely keeping track of this nightmare surrounding him.
He whispered softly, wonder heavily on his lips: "What…? What do you mean?"
The echo of his own voice was weak, brittle, and still the voice returned -- louder, deeper, thudding in his bones from within: "You must begin again."
Its words were not so much a command… but a judgment, and the judgment was return, fall, yield to an endless cycle. He wanted to scream, to curse it, to deny… but then came the other noise. A pop. Once. Then again. Then again.
The pops accelerated, so that they were not separate noises anymore but more like the world was tearing itself apart in two with shearing white lines, shattering like glass from great heights. The room, the light, even the ground he was on, all began to disintegrate.
He was in the middle of the white explosion, his body stretching out and condensing, his mind cracking and being bits cobbled back together by some power. He was pared down to a stunned note in a crescendo of shattering.
He opened his eyes suddenly as if something inside his head forced them apart with a brutality. Everything around him was visible… more visible than he expected. The light returned, with a warmness, unlike the brilliance of the table or blackness which surrounded him for only seconds before.
And before his eyes, Timo was cracking his knuckles, standing as if nothing mattered in the world but this small action, but in his eyes he had a kind of practiced sharpness, as if he already knew what he was going to do before he even thought about it.
He grinned and said in a spirited voice: "Hey! Where did your focus go? The game has started!"
He quivered inside, his head still straining for air between reality and make-believe. He whispered dully, with half-muffled voice: "Just spaced out…"
Timo grinned, his grinning echoing and filling the air around them, but Koran saw it wasn't the joke itself, but a way of testing waters, of understanding that he had just escaped something stronger than any game he had ever played. He said: "You're really weird."
Koran smiled weakly, without strength or ability to be serious, just an automatic thing: "I guess I am."
Then the moment settled, and all was quiet, so quiet that the sound of his own breathing was noisier than the actual sounds.
"What had I done? Was it all just a dream? Or a nightmare that went on longer than any dream I'd ever experienced? Why couldn't I recall anything? Why did I think every second of this nonsense was so real, that my body was squeezed dry with pain and wonder at once? my heart still racing, but my head mixed up… like a boat without a sail in an ocean of darkness, light, and fantasy".
He watched him, smiling wildly. He tried to get his head together, to make sense out of anything…
but all he could do was breathe slow and look at this brief instant, the instant when he saw his friend living in front of him, while the rest of his world remained indistinct, like memories sliding away from his hands.