The Carter Project

Chapter 1

Chapter 1An icy sting pierced his head and paralyzed him with fear. His racing heart and rapid breathing amplified the terror. The unexpected blindness was made worse with the heightened sense that he was surrounded by silent observers.

A panel of light broke through the veil of darkness. A muffled, authoritative voice spoke instructions to the spectators.

Carter Fox was trapped in this shadowy prison. His face was pressed flat against one cheek, his arms numb from whatever bound him. He wanted to scream but had no control over his body. His will to cry out grew stronger with each attempt to wiggle loose from the bonds. The overwhelming pressure behind this psychosomatic dam finally burst as he overcame the restraints. His arms broke free and a guttural shriek escaped his throat.

This sudden outburst of waking from his nap attracted the attention of a few other students in the dim, auditorium-style classroom. After some snickering, they returned to madly typing on their laptops, or scratching ink in their notebooks as they followed the professor’s lecture.

The panel of light was a large projection screen up front that provided the primary illumination to the darkened room. A digital image of M.C. Escher’s Relativity artwork filled the screen. The labyrinthine maze of stairs and shifting perspectives had a nauseating effect on Carter’s groggy condition.

He awkwardly sank into his chair as his heart thumped with embarrassment. He wiped some drool from his chin and brushed against paper stuck to his cheek. He peeled it away and set it down. The professor droned on in his monotonous voice as Carter took quiet breaths to calm himself.

Then the noises started.

It began as a ripple of short buzzes at varied volumes. The clicking of keyboards around him melded together to sound like a train on a collision course with his brain. The professor was drowned out by a cacophony of stifled tones. A flurry of electronic sounds swirled between Carter’s ears.

He froze in his seat to avoid attracting attention. He kept his head still while his eyes darted around the room then locked onto the projection screen. The Escher image warped and distorted. Multiple colored wavelengths snaked across the whole display from edge to edge. Nobody else seemed to react to this.

An image rattled across Carter’s brain. He felt tiny particles scatter around his mind like shifting sand in a quake. A red afterimage of a triangular object burned through his vision and blocked his view. He lowered his gaze to his notebook. The triangle seemed to bleed onto the blank page. He waited for it to fade, but the retinal stain remained.

He grabbed his pen, then traced and scratched the image with crude, rapid strokes. The illusion faded from his view as he feverishly copied it to paper.

The glow in his eyes disappeared. His vision cleared. He slowly lowered his pen.

The page was blackened and dented with the violent sketch of a triangle. The center of the shape was untouched by Carter’s pen, which left a white clearing to shine through the black ink surrounding it.

The bizarre sounds went silent. Carter glanced up at the projection screen. There were no distortions or colored wavelengths anymore.

His heart slowed to a normal rhythm in deep, quiet breaths.

He looked at the image scrawled onto his notebook. The triangle screamed at him like a page ripped from a horror movie. He placed his hand on the paper. His palm and spread fingers obscured the sketch as if he was shielding his eyes from it, or holding it down to prevent it from flying away.

He felt apprehensive and cautious about the shape. Yet a nervous grin formed with the thought that crossed his mind.

It’s happening again.