The Apocalypse Spiral

Chapter 9: Fels

The woman walked up to me and punched me right in the jaw.

My head rang further and I didn't know what to do or say in return.

"You i***t!" She yells at me as she dusted herself off. "You damned fool! The last thing I needed was another Loop!"

"I killed you..." I say. My lips and mouth felt dry. "I killed you and you're back."

"Yeah, damn right you killed me!" Fels shouts, "You let your emotions get to you. That, the knife in your neck, was supposed to help you!"

Emotions flare up again.

"You had insanity in your eyes!" I tell her. "You wanted to do that!"

"I'm not crazy...I'm just eccentric." Fels nonchalantly says, "By now, I assumed you should've gotten used to it..."

Oh, that's it...

I take a few steps towards her and Fels backs off, her hands in the air.

"Whoa, cool it, you hothead," Fels says. "Fine fine, I'm sorry that I showed you that way...I should've given you a heads-up first." 

"I just...lose control you know..." Fels says with her arms crossed on her chest. "Every time I loop back I lose a bit myself..."

Her tone changes from one of nonchalance to a brooding one.

"I'm losing my humanity. I remember doing all of that, you beneath me...the knife...I would never do that." Fels explains. "But I did...! And It felt...It felt good."

"I'm feeling my morals slipping away. I'm still in control but goddamn, it's getting harder and harder to suppress those..urges of doing...dark things. I don't know how to explain it Jonathan...but I know you felt it too when you came back...You did have hands around my throat after all."

I felt a chill shoot through my body.

 A part of me knew she was right.

I felt something was different with me from the minute I awoke...I may not remember my past much, but I knew I wasn't a violent man...

...or maybe I was, and that dark place brought it out into the light.

I shuddered.

Fels' eyes met mine. Her gaze spoke volumes. I opened my mouth to speak.

"You were there too, weren't you?" 

She nods.

"Many times...But I've never seen a light. Just an abyss of darkness & voices..." Fels had a faraway look in her eyes. "Voices that whispered...things. Violent things, gibberish, and language I didn't even recognize."

"Look, I'm sorry for killing you earlier. I'm sorry...for everything. I really am." A tear rolled down her cheek.

Guilt was plastered on her face...but I didn't completely buy it.

Something still rubbed me wrong whenever I saw her...Like I've seen her before.

"You had to see it. You had to take the quickest route possible. You needed to see what I meant...so you can act for Us." She explains.

"What do you mean 'Us?' " I ask.

"We're both on the same staircase, looping round and round until we either go mad or die in that apocalypse. It's a cosmic joke and we're the punchline." 

She chuckles to herself, forcing back some more tears from escaping.

"I hate this. I really do. I've always said to myself that it'll get easier...but it never f*****g does."

Fels begins to pace around the room, talking with her hands as she explained. I just stood there, conflicting emotions raging within me.

"Every time We die, We age a bit...It isn't obvious and it isn't detrimental at first but the effects are there...The most obvious sign that time passed us by is the layer of dust we wake up in...You've noticed that for sure." She continues. " Something must've thrown us outside of Time, something  is allowing us to survive and live in some sort of twisted spiral of sorts..."

She was beginning to ramble once more.

"I call it a spiral because the further I, We, loop and loop and loop...things just get worse.  The more we die, the bigger the chance we lose who we are...Our memories, our identity, our humanity...Everything that makes us into who we are..."

"And what happens if we keep looping?" I ask, genuinely curious and terrified at the possibility.

 "God knows...and I don't want to find out," Fels tells me.

"Where I'm from...things are slightly more technologically advanced." She continues "But this s**t? This is way above my circle of knowledge."

"Where are you from exactly? You have been pretty coy about it..."

Fels cracks a sad-looking grin.

"You really want to know huh? Well, given the circumstances...I guess it doesn't hurt." 

"Your answer won't mess with 'Time'? You've mentioned that before." I reiterate. 

"That was bullshit. I just wanted to keep my cards close." She dismisses it. 

I exhale out of my nose. What else was she purposely hiding?

"Fine. Where are you from?"

"The short answer is Here, but not here."

"And the long answer?" I implored.

"I'm from another dimension or specifically...another Earth," Fels says. "Yeah...Weird huh?"

"Where I'm from, things are cleaner and peaceful....No wars in the Middle East, complete reliance on Solar, Wind, and Nuclear energy,  We've landed on the Moon and Mars...and we still have the Dodo bird...Well, those and We've researched inter-dimensional travel, hence these doohickeys." She explained, referring to the "watches" around our wrists.

"I was a researcher in our lab somewhere in the Pacific, it's this oilrig of sorts, and we were tearing open peepholes into various dimensions. We found various worlds, peering into them safely without interference or fear that they would see us...We found a world of monsters roaming in some vaporous fog, We found war-torn earth where the Cuban missile crisis lead to WW3, We also found a world where cats & dogs gained human-like sentience...I liked that last one." She continued, her words, though almost fantastical in nature, was almost believable to my ears. 

"But one day, We found this Earth that was like My earth...the one we're currently in, and our findings found out that it was mere months away from destruction. We didn't know what was going to cause it, and they sent me on a quick recon mission...It was supposed to be a quick in and out mission...but something went wrong...The space between dimensions pulled me out of mine."

She continued, her gaze was far away and her skin turned even paler.

"I was floating in the darkness, the same one We end up whenever we "die", and I could hear millions of voices screaming and talking into my ears. I was weightless, I didn't know what was up from down, I spent such a long time in there...I cried myself to sleep many times. Other times I woke up screaming...I was in that abyss, floating, screaming, and sleeping in a sort of sensory deprived limbo. I was going mad...But one day, if I could call it a day, I just...changed. Something changed inside me. A part of me died...and another came to the light within that darkness. I was suddenly comfortable in there and I just became...bored." Fels continued. "Somehow I knew Time had forgotten me...but I had the feeling that I was being watched within that darkness..."

"...Until I saw this glowing, quivering patch of air...something told me it was a door. Driven by my boredom, I made my way to it and I was granted an escape.

"I made my way to it and found myself in this dimension, in some empty apartment, covered in a layer of dust overlooking a chaotic city of death and fire...I found myself in the middle of an Apocalypse. I died there too, about 10 minutes in...the goddamn building gave way...I found myself in that darkness again soon after, but I managed to get out...and woke up a year before this chaos." Fels continued.

"I studied this Earth...Found out this place was a bit worse than Home. The Dodo was dead, a persistent war in the Middle East, a climate crisis...It was Home but with a few dents...I also found out this thing called The Ritual of Id, an ancient ritual that speeds up Time. I had my doubts at first but the "spell" looked similar to the studies of SpaceTime We had back Home..."

Fels sat on the bed and crossed her leg over her knee.

She rubbed her neck and cleared her throat.

I instantly remember her death by my hands...My heartbeat speeds up.

"Something began to gnaw at my insides and mind too...I needed to find somebody, something compelled me to find...You."  The young woman continues. "It was like I was drawn to you...and when I found you through this strange Instinct...My heart dropped and I knew who you were."

Her wide eyes looked up to me, piercing me with a gaze that sent a chill down my back.

"You were Me...I found Myself."