“Eyes From Above”

Spoken in Arabic

Tarek Badawi leaned into Fatima Farsi’s ear and quietly spoke, “This place is the white devil’s nest, Fatima.” He shook his head with disgust. “We should return to Amman as soon as possible—before we are drawn in too deep within this den of sin. Allah is very displeased by all of this.”

“Tarek, we must kill these demons and take their tongues as trophies before we return. Otherwise, would suggest our cowering defeat.”

“World peace…bah!” Tarek’s dark eyes reflected his disdain for being sent here in the first place. “Do we die here? Or do we choose to die in our homeland? The end is on its set course as we speak.”

“Tarek, we cannot sit and wait for such things to happen. We were chosen for a much more important reason than to just come here and watch from above like an albatross. Like the carpet viper’s venom, we must also kill from the inside out.”

“Woman, do you truly stand here in my presence and presume to tell me what our purpose here is? You would be stoned for such arrogance if we were back home.” Tarek’s eyes narrowed as he lifted them upward, “Allah, one true God of all—how shall I admonish Fatima for showing such contempt and scorn towards me?”

“Oh, Tarek, are you not aware of the changing world we now live in—up here in this community of ‘sharing and love’ that we have entered?” Fatima guffawed. “All I would need to do is scream rape and you would be crucified by any one of the other infidels aboard! Put out of the base and into space!” She grinned coyly.

Tarek’s eyes tightened and instantly became hotter than red-glowing branding irons. “You cannot live in two worlds at once, Fatima. Enjoying Allah’s way in one world and the devils in the other. A woman’s legs parted that distance—opens her up for much-deserved pain.”

“And maybe the pain you imagine in your backward ways is actually pleasure in this new world we live in—amongst the lower creatures who live to gratify themselves with sins of carnal lust filled with sexual titillation!” Fatima cackled.

“Your words of such hedonism are blasphemous against Allah, Fatima, and He will punish you for speaking to them so easily.” Tarek pushed Fatima against the wall as he pushed his palm against his door entrance scanner, causing the door to slide open. “We shall see how you handle a serpent of sin….” The door to Tarek’s personal quarters quietly slid to a close after throwing Fatima through.

Communication from Earth

“I understand, Pavel—This is most unexpected. When will we cross into Ukraine?  Yes, relations here have been adequate. How much time? Yes, I understand….”

“We must claim final victory, Ivan. While my heart breaks for humanity, final dominion over our enemies is all we will have left. This triumph of superiority has been laid upon your shoulders for our mother country.”

“Yes, Pavel. Shall I inform Elizaveta of this vital knowledge?”

“Can she be trusted to carry out this mission? Or will her emotions rule and interfere?”

“Elizaveta is loyal. She will fulfill the necessary steps to complete a victorious end.”

“Ivan, they must witness the destruction of their worlds. This is directly from the mouth of President Putin. He wants the dogs to see their world devastated before they die.”

* * * * * *

“Elizaveta—my God, that was incredible. I held no idea that sex two hundred miles above the earth could be like this!” I glanced back out through the portal, seeing the blue and green orb hovering in the dark vastness.

“Vhat vill your comrade think of zis connection ve have made together?”

“My ‘comrade’ has no ties or hold over me. Besides, she’s the one that told me you were interested in me.”  Rob smiled and then continued to grin. “I’m sorry, I can’t erase this smile that is plastered across my face.”

“Vhat does this ‘plastered’ mean? I don’t understand vhat you say. Is this good thing, this ‘plastered’?”

“It’s a wonderful thing. It means I want to do this again! If I never make it back to earth, I’ll die a satisfied astronaut who rode a rocket two-hundred-forty-five miles into space to make love to a beautiful Russian woman. There is nothing better than sex while we travel 17,000 miles an hour, hovering above where home used to be! Yes, a smile plastered across my face is a good damn thing, Elizaveta!”

“Vell, I must admit our two vorlds colliding together are explosive!” Her eyes suddenly teared and her mood sank.

“Okay, Elizaveta…what did I just witness?”

“I cannot say.” She looked away to the portal as she nested into Rob’s stomach. “Ivan vill be looking for me soon.”

“You don’t belong to Ivan. Do you?”

“Not in the vay you are saying.”

“Stay forever, then,” I said with a smile.

Elizaveta tore her gaze away from the portal and turned to face me. “Forever may not be as long as ve think, Rob.”

“Where did this come from?” I asked.

A tear squeezed from each eye and rolled into the air, hovering in between their faces. “I vas told to say nothing.” She watched her tears as they hung weightless between them. “Vut, I don’t think I can keep silent.”

Eyes Glued to the Outside

Elizaveta could not keep her secret quiet from Rob.  Ivan was furious with her. “I trusted you, Elizaveta. You have betrayed not only me, but Mother Russia.”

“Vhat matter is it, Ivan? The vorld is going to be destroyed! Mother Russia is soon to be no more. This is vhat ve are to have. This vorld and these other four vill survive.” She refused to lower her head in shame.

“The president vanted us to be the final ruler. How vill dis be possible now? Vhat miracle can give him dis now?”

The door slid open and in came Lexi and Rob.

“Ivan, we need to talk,” Rob spoke.

“Yes, yes ve do need to speak.”

Elizaveta glided around her colleague and approached Rob.

“Dis is all most unexpected…” Ivan drew in a deep breath and held the rail as he turned to glance back out through the large portal to their world below. “I vas given orders as I’m certain you now have heard. It seems it has come to the final hours. Vladmir vanted me to have you all vatch the destruction and then put you down like dogs, but I now understand that Elizaveta has betrayed those vishes of our president.”

“What good would that do for us? For you?” Rob questioned. “We will soon see if our countries are really so foolish with pride. The way I see it…This is a separate world divided from the one outside that portal. This world will also end without that world to supply us.”

Ivan’s eyes sank deep into his brow. “Eleven point five billion souls are about to meet their annihilation and here ve are hovering above waiting to see it happen as if it vere a theatrical release of sorts. Each vondering vhat should happen next vith us spectators who hold no control. Should I fight to be the last alive to prove my loyalty to an ex-KGB monster who is going to push the button that begins an end of the vorld as ve know it?” Ivan turned away unconcerned if he were in danger from Rob. He stared at the colorful orb they were racing around at over 17,000 miles per hour, a complete rotation every ninety minutes. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He looked back to Rob.

Elizaveta pulled herself close to Rob, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it tightly. “It seems ve have been part of a great experiment vhich no von vill know the results.”

Ivan laughed. “Does the vorld down there even know vhat avaits them?” He guffawed coldly. He looked into Elizaveta’s eyes, then over to Lexi and back to Rob. “I’m a scientist, a cosmonaut…not a murderer or a presidential puppet.”

There was a series of flashes that lit the inside of the space station. Ivan snapped his gaze back to the portal, “Oh my God…he actually did it….”

Rob, Elizaveta, and Lexi quickly maneuvered to portals where they could view what was happening.

A series of brilliant explosions lit the surface of the earth from one side and then the other. The brilliant blue, white, tan, and green colors began blackening in growing circles of dark bleakness containing fiery oranges, reds, and yellows. All sounds in the room fell silent. Blinding white edges almost instantly appeared sporadically around the outer edge of the planet. The colors began to dull very quickly as the earth’s stratosphere quickly filled with tons of airborne soot. Within minutes, the earth tone colors were swallowed by black with only subdued flashes of oranges as bright yellowish whites broke through the darkness, leaving a round shadow underneath the planet as it slowly disintegrated. Their world as they once knew it, was gone—almost instantly devoid of all life, and the four stood speechless. Sounds of sighs and heavy breaths filled the darkening room they four shared. The quiet swish of the door opening that was usually almost unnoticed, was suddenly a sound so loud it disturbed the quiet emptiness of the room and drew their eyes to turn. It was an act of sick reassurance of what we were seeing was not just a figment of each of our imaginations.

Tarek and Fatima’s complexions were both pale and gaunt, their yellow tannish skin appearing almost ghostlike. The white rounds of their eyes like spotlights shining into the darkened room.

Tarek was the first to speak out. “Allah, forgive us! We failed to slay the demons amongst us!”

Fatima maneuvered clear of Tarek as if to distance herself from his erratic words.

Before the door slid quietly to a close, all lights within their sight began to flicker. Each instrument light, room light, and screen blinked on and off repeatedly until blackness replaced the flashes. Total darkness swept over them both inside the main room of the lab and outside the portal. They were engulfed by a shroud of cold, stark blackness. Blacker than any darkest night one had ever seen on earth. Nary a star shined, the earth’s flashes of fire and explosions swallowed up in an instant. Cold.

Silence Broken

“Hello?” A single word sliced through the chilled emptiness. Soon sounds of shivers came from different places surrounding her. “Is anyone still out there?” She quietly asked, hoping for a response as she attempted to get her balance and bearings. Elizaveta spoke out, “Ivan, are you still vith me?” When there was no response, she called out again to her new lover, “Rob! Are you here? Are you okay?” A frigid chill rushed through her body. It felt deep within her bones as if she’d instantly been encased in a block of ice. She tried to speak out again, but the words became shards of frozen glass in her mouth. She felt her attempt to speak now slice through her tongue, laying it wide open before it became too solid to feel. Panic instantly overtook her mind as she gasped to take air into her lungs. Her throat stung from the cold that barely entered in through her nose and mouth. She’d struggle but all her mind would allow was a feeling of internal invasion. As much as she desired to fight the overwhelming and foreign feeling—she surrendered to it completely. Cold. Stillness. Dark.

Elizaveta’s eyelids pushed against the thickness of her surroundings and closed, covering what were her brilliant blue eyes, the color Rob had told her matched the beautiful sapphire blue waters of earth lying hundreds of miles below them. His last whisper she’d heard as he lay on top of her then heated moist body.

Silence.

Aftershocks

Elizaveta opened her eyes to the warmth of warm skin lying beside her. Nestled tightly under a blanket, her bottom, legs and back felt almost steamy hot. There was a faint light coming from a round opening across the darkened space where she lay. Faint sounds of relaxed breaths escaping now echoed behind her. Her mind suddenly painted a picture of the face of a man from possibly the Middle East. Tarek? She silently questioned? She remembered a scenario of lovemaking last night, but it wasn’t Tarek, was it? She slowly turned, attempting to move easy enough as to not wake the person beside her.

The body next to her stirred as she shifted her weight and lifted herself up slightly so she could see the face. Her head suddenly felt as if it were in a clamp being squeezed tightly. Her temples throbbed.

* * * * * *

Fatima awoke in her cabin. She felt as if she’d gone on a binge last night. She closed her eyes tightly for a few seconds, hoping to will away the pain behind her forehead and temples. She also struggled to remember just what she’d done to bring on such discomfort. She suddenly smiled briefly. There was a shadow of a memory that she and Tarek succumbed to sexual weakness. No, she thought to herself, Tarek was far too traditional in his ways, he would never have….

Fatima searched her darkened room to make sure she was indeed alone. She quickly felt satisfied she was and that she was possibly waking up from a dream. She glanced over to the digital clock screen on the communication module in the wall by the door. “What? 1330?” How have I slept in so late? Why has no one awoken me? She asked herself as one leg slid off the bed and onto the floor, the other quickly following. She immediately grabbed her head and applied pressure to both temples. The ache was intense. She laid back down, her feet still touching the floor.

* * * * * *

Rob quickly noticed that if he kept his head still, the pain would subside, and he would then be able to try and piece his thoughts together. At the sign of any slight movement, his head would return to pounding, his temples feeling as if they would explode. His portal to the outside appeared differently. The lighting was off. It seemed as if the top were the bottom and vice versa. He started to get up to investigate, but quickly fell back in excruciating pain. “What the hell?” He almost whispered because of the throbbing his speech caused. He closed his eyes and tried to recall his last hours before sleep. What was that humming? I don’t remember ever hearing it before. He drew his little finger to his ear and plunged it inward. The sound felt as if it were internal, not external. The hum grew louder, and it drove deeper into his pounding head. Rob drew both hands to his ears to cover them, but the movements it took to do so, caused too much pain in the sides of his head. He dropped both hands and sighed. His thoughts began to shift before he succumbed to the need to close his eyes and lay completely still.

Ivan

Ivan soaked in the black mist that surrounded his body. It warmed him and stimulated his soul. He was clueless about what was happening to him, but he felt very comfortable with the outcome that seemed to be building within. It was power and it was invigorating. It swallowed the fear and devastation he’d just experienced as he watched Earth explode and melt before his eyes. The choreography of the different huge explosions scattered across the sphere were as mesmerizing to witness as watching a famous painter work the oils across a canvas. It was, however, mixed with feelings of loss as he suddenly realized his family, friends—colleagues—perished before his eyes amid the fantastic colors as they’d mixed before the blackness began swallowing the crumbling world below him. He was now feeding on those emotions. It broke him down yet felt as if it were making him stronger…his hate for his enemies even more palatable. And to think I was befriending these dogs.

Ivan took in a large breath of air and as it exited, he could feel his frosty breath leave his body and then mix with the atmosphere around him. How am I alive, he asked himself internally? He’d seen the blackness from the explosions work its way upward until the swirling, murky haze swallowed up the station he was inside. Just after they were engulfed—the power to their home in space began to fail, shutting down computers and life support systems. We should all be dead…frozen into blocks of ice. Are the others also alive? These questions now began to penetrate his brain and take over the thoughts from those previously occupying the space.

Tarek…he is my only real threat…, Ivan surmised. Fatima had shown signs of caving into the sexual clutches of Rob, putting her personal desires above her deity or country’s desires. Lexi was no threat either with her small stature and penchant to cave to the strength of a man.  And of course, Elizaveta was a loyalist to Mother Russia as he. Only Tarek was a danger, and he was indeed a threat. I must find him and end this concern of apprehension. 

Ivan focused his thoughts on lifting his body from his prone position, the EMusk Artificial Gravity enabler still intact. The darkness he was surrounded in was disorienting, making it difficult to rise to any standing position. As his feet hit the surface below, he lifted himself upward and stood briefly before his head began to feel as if it were spinning. Ivan’s arm reached outward, grabbing instinctively to hold onto anything to stabilize himself. Finding nothing within reach, his eyes rolled up behind his eyelids and he freely fell backwards back onto the floor, missing the bed. His head made a loud thud upon contact and blood exploded outward in a spray between his skin and suit as he lay sprawled on the floor.

As the blood exploded from under Ivan’s head, the darkness surrounded him and began to swirl and twist together, spinning faster and faster encircling him. There was a barely perceptible hissing screech that began growing in volume as the tornado of twisting atmosphere became wider and stronger. The walls of Project World View began to shake and shrink and swell in a rhythmic pattern. It was as if it were a life form of some sort that battled to maintain its control of existence. Outside the portals of the PWV, the blackness that had risen from the destruction of Earth began swirling in radical mirrored movements.

A string of satellites made their pass in between the disintegrating Project World View station and the previous location of the earth. The orbit pattern which now held nothing in its place but large chunks of debris being pulled out into the outer atmosphere. An entire galaxy was now beginning to react to the greed and destruction of human society and its glutinous pride and ignorance. A black hole forming and sucking their world into its abyss.

* * * * * *

The lifeform unknowingly hidden in the depths of the earth’s interior, was instantly ejected into the outer cosmos by the nuclear devastation. As the underground caverns throughout the globe exploded outwards, a small nucleus of that form was able to take refuge inside the Project World View station and attempted to orchestrate invading and taking refuge in its inhabitants. The six human occupants’ bodies were frozen in a cryogenic state, each in their own personal compartment. The mist surrounded the inhabitants one by one and absorbed into their shells taking control of their non-responsive bodies. In the next hours of occupation, the six astronauts’ minds were absorbed and overridden. One by one lulled into dropping their guard, so they could be overtaken…succumbing to the new lifeform’s existence within.

The Menace from Below

The alien was already somewhat acclimated to adverse temperatures being nestled deep within the depths of Earth’s interior. The planet’s core temperatures had begun warming from the global destruction the human’s propensity to aggravate its climate with pollution, overpopulation and greed. The entity hidden below the soil and rocky crust had long begun its migration deeper and deeper into the core. Like a cockroach scampering across a hot griddle, the alien withdrew deeper and deeper to avoid a rise in its temperature. It needed the sub-freezing temperatures to survive. While humans craved and found heat a necessity—the opposite was true for the underground life which hung onto the same planet’s attributes. This destruction of the earth was in fact a timely blessing in aiding the lifeform to migrate into a more fitting atmosphere of living. Stark ice cold. It was quite possible it would now survive and grow instead of shrinking and or dying. It did however need one thing that the human lifeforms had always provided. Brain waves. These biological synopses and unseen triggering of electrical impulses and charges that the human brain gave off, had always been the source of nourishment that kept it procreating its form of life and existence. Its black mist making its way to the surface for short times to feed unwittingly from the lower intelligent creatures called—humans.

Here lies the rub. These two lifeforms unfortunately needed one another to survive. The humans needed the black misty creature to keep their bodies from turning into frozen blocks of corpses on ice. The off heating of the alien giving that form of survival in proper intervals of a temporary thawing. The alien needing brainwave interaction to continue its existence.

Where and how these forms of life would continue, was the battle now at hand. This alien mist’s priority was maintaining enough mental stimulation and temperature control to maintain the human’s brainwave interactions for feeding. The dark mist continued to weave in and out between compartments, attempting to continue the six separate silent inhabitants brain stimulations of thought and dreams. As it fed it grew…becoming larger and filling the space of the station…warming its interior unintentionally. The quagmire within was a fight for survival. The survival of each form.

* * * * * *

Each mind of the astronauts continued their dreams of life. Life before the dilemma they were now in existed. Happy moments that had given each of them the will to live. Moments of lovemaking for some…moments of killing for one’s country for others. Held captive in their mental bliss, not knowing they were feeding the only thing that kept them alive…for the moment. Struggle continued, one lifeform felt nothing of the turmoil it was indeed enduring, while the other fed from thoughts emitting within their internal mechanism. Its growth slowly choking it from its quiddity. Survival of the dark mist appeared to be short-lived which would in turn erase humanity from the galaxy. Total extinction for all involved. The death of life…and no one or nothing to witness its exit.