The wall

 The wind is blowing soft and calm. The trees rustle.

I walk through soft forest foliage, tall trees allowing no view of the outside world.

There is path though. It’s wide and wanders through the woods taking the path of least resistance always, beaten down by years of being marched.

Nothing grows on the path. The forest has given up trying.

As I walk, odd rusty parts of something begin to appear in the grass next to path.

Bolts. 

Pistons.

Cogs and gears.

They feel out of place. Alien to the serene beauty of the forest.

No so out of place as what I see next.

The forest give way to a massive field. 

Center left and right are three concrete pillars boxes. I step inside one.

Vents and pipes flow through. There is a small window looking out over the barren field and directly at it.

The wall.

Sticking through the window is something like a machine gun. It wants to be a modern .50 caliber, like the ones mounted atop a hum-vee, but it’s just not. It has pistons and valves, and some kind of rotary mechanism for its ammo.

Crates of massive bullets are stacked around the walls. 

A single tables sits behind the strange weapon and two cots are elevated, accessible by small ladders above the stacks of munitions.

I hate this room. It reeks of… betrayal.

I slip back out the heavy steel door make my way to the front of the concrete structure, looking out over the muddy expanse before me and…

The wall.

It’s massive. Casting an ominous shadow over the field before it. It’s steel and wood, a patch work of repairs, damage, and years being augmented to the point that, I’d guess, not one piece of the original remains. 

The field is pot marked with craters and as I make my way through and get close, the sheer size of the structure becomes even more impressive.

It stretches in both directions, impossibly tall, and no end in its length can be seen.

People move all over it like ants in a colony. 

Windows high in the air are manned by men with rifles from a civil war battle, bows and arrows.

Massive vats of steaming liquid dangle precariously high above me.

Then… without warning, I begin to be pulled backwards towards the pill box. 

In the pill box, I hear men screaming and yelling, “charge! Go! You were made for this! Take the wall!”

Thousands of …. Teenagers? Young adults at the oldest, storm past me. 

They have those clock work limbs. These are the ones I saw in the factory. 

I want to get away but I am compelled to watch. They charge into a slaughter.

Some carry ladders, grappling hooks; one group pushes a catapult.

They are mercilessly destroy by those manning the wall.

They begin to retreat. 

A voice screams out. “No mercy for cowards! Take the wall or die trying!”

To my horror I realize, it is ME screaming.

The steampunk machine guns open up around me. The sound is deafening. 

I curl into a ball on the ground as the retreating augmented soldiers are mowed down.

Then quiet.

I look up. 

There is no wall. 

There is no death. 

Only a sign that says “welcome to Florida”

Nico

 The shooting had stopped.

That was the first thing that scared him.

Not silence—there was no silence anymore. The city still screamed and collapsed and burned—but the pattern was gone. No orders. No volleys. No rhythm. Just noise without meaning.

Nico stood in the middle of a street he didn’t recognize, rifle hanging uselessly from one hand. The smoke was everywhere now, not drifting but settling, thick and yellow and wrong. It clung to the backs of his eyes. It scraped his throat raw every time he tried to breathe.

He coughed. Bent forward. Spit something dark onto the pavement.

“Hello?” he called, and the word died before it reached the next building.

Chicago was on fire.

Not pockets. Not blocks. Whole sections of the city burned like they’d been soaked in something eager. Buildings sagged and folded in on themselves, sending sparks and dust into the air. Somewhere nearby, something exploded with a deep, final sound, like a door slamming shut forever.

Nico started walking.

He told himself he was looking for Elara. Or her soldiers. Or anyone. But really, he was just moving because stopping felt worse.

Every shape in the smoke looked like a person until it wasn’t.

A body slumped against a wall.

A helmet melted into the street.

A hand sticking out from under rubble, fingers curled like it was still trying to grab hold of something.

He stepped around them. Then over one. Then stopped caring which.

His eyes burned. His lungs felt too small. The rifle slipped from his fingers and clattered against the ground. The sound startled him—too loud, too final.

He didn’t pick it back up.

“Hey,” he croaked, voice shredded. “I’m here.”

The city did not answer.

He turned a corner and nearly ran into a wall of flame. Heat punched him back. He staggered, coughing hard enough that his knees buckled. The gas was thicker here. It tasted metallic, bitter, wrong. Every breath felt like it was doing damage.

Nico dropped to one knee.

Just catch your breath, he told himself. Then get up.

He thought about Wesley. About Sil. About Jonah yelling something he hadn’t heard. About Elara riding past like she wasn’t bound by the same rules as the rest of them.

She was gone now. Passed through. The war had moved with her.

Nico hadn’t.

He tried to stand again. Failed. His hands shook too badly. His chest wouldn’t expand the way it was supposed to. Panic surged, but even that burned out fast, smothered by exhaustion.

He sat down in the street.

The pavement was warm beneath him. Almost comforting.

Around him, Chicago burned. Above him, the smoke turned the sky into something bruised and unfamiliar. Somewhere far away, engines roared and men shouted and the world reorganized itself around new lines of power.

Nico pulled his knees to his chest and pressed his face into his arms.

“I tried,” he whispered, to no one.

The gas kept coming.

After a while, the coughing stopped; not because his lungs were better, but because they were tired.

Nico stayed where he was.

And the city erased him.

The farmhouse

 I did not plan to come here.

I never plan to fall into these moments. I could be doing something productive. Working out, focusing on my actual job that actually pays.

But this world beckons me.

My mind begins to wander. 

I was walking through something else. A corridor. A thought. A version of myself that had already decided to turn around. Then the floor creaked beneath my foot, not loudly, just enough to announce that weight had returned to a place that remembers it too well.

Loraine’s house.

Time is not moving, but it is not dead either.

The stove is warm. Not hot. Warm in the way a body stays warm for a while after leaving it. Steam sits in the pipes without sound, caught mid-pressure. The coal fan on the wall is frozen with one blade angled down, dust clinging to it in a way that suggests it should be falling but has decided not to.

Someone swept recently. Poorly. Honestly. There is grit in the corners where the broom gave up.

I walk slower than necessary. The floorboards complain anyway. They always do. The sound does not travel. It dies immediately, like the house swallowed it.

There is a cup on the table. Coffee. Cold forever. A dark ring stains the wood beneath it. The chair is pulled back slightly, as if whoever stood up meant to return in a moment and simply never did.

I recognize the chair.

I should not.

Loraine stands at the sink.

She is not moving.

Her hands are submerged in water that does not ripple. Sleeves rolled unevenly. Shoulders tight in the way people hold themselves when they are not working but thinking very carefully about not thinking. Her hair is half-pinned, half-abandoned. There is strength there. And fear. And something unresolved that feels heavier than either.

She does not see me.

Wesley waits near the doorway.

One hand rests against the frame. The other hangs loose, fingers slightly curled as if they forgot what they were meant to hold. His posture is open. Expectant. He is frozen mid-breath, chest barely lifted, like the house caught him before it could decide whether to let him finish inhaling.

He does not see me either.

I pass between them.

The space feels crowded. Not with bodies. With unsaid sentences. With futures that almost happened and are now stacked on top of one another like boards waiting to be used.

The pipes along the wall resemble veins more than construction. Iron brackets bite into plaster. I can tell they have been repaired more than once. A patch near the ceiling is a different color, applied carefully but without pride. Utility mattered more than beauty here. Survival over elegance.

As I move, I become aware of something subtle and deeply wrong.

My reflection does not appear where it should.

Not in the kettle. Not in the window. Not in the dark glaze of the cabinet doors. It is as if the house has decided I am not part of the inventory.

I step into the bedroom.

The bed is unmade in a way that refuses to explain itself. Sheets folded back. One pillow closer to the center than logic allows. The window is cracked open just enough to let air in. No air arrives.

Dust hangs in a shaft of light that does not shift, not even when I move through it. The particles part around me, then settle back into their exact previous positions.

This is not memory.

This is not imagination.

This is preservation.

I realize then that the house is not frozen by accident. It is holding itself exactly as it was told to. Like an animal trained to stay.

I think, briefly, that if I touched something, anything, the spell would break. The cup would fall. The fan would scream. Someone would finally blink.

I do not touch anything.

Some moments remain powerful only because no one interferes with them.

As I turn to leave, the floor creaks again beneath me. The sound is louder this time.

Too loud.

Loraine’s face does not change.

Wesley does not move.

But I am certain, absolutely certain, that the house noticed me leaving.

When I step back out, motion resumes somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

Behind me, the farmhouse waits.

It is very patient.

The ascension

 I find myself at the bottom of a set of stairs that should not be here. 

An open field. The morning dew wet on the grass, and the smell of pollen and spring. 

Birds chirp. A bunny hoops paste, looks at me, like I am the oddity here, then continues on.

This abomination is metallic, shiny silver at the sides. Black treads climb upwards.

I look behind me. Left. right. There is nothing but field and grass and warm sun and a gentle breeze. 

I have no desire: No inclination: no WANT to step on this monstrosity. 

But I do. 

I scold myself but am interrupted by movement. The stairs are an escalator. 

The steps hum beneath my feet, low at first, almost imperceptibly. Each one feels alive, carrying me upward whether I want it or not. I glance down: the field stretches infinitely behind me, calm, forgiving. Ahead, the escalator stretches into the clouds.

Names appear on overhead arcs as I begin passing through them. The glow like molten iron poured into stencils burned into the metal: Private…Corporal…Specialist…Sergeant… Each  a whisper of responsibility, a whisper I can’t refuse. I try to step aside. I try to turn back. But the escalator laughs, and lifts me anyway.

I feel eyes. Faces behind glass panels, glancing down, passing judgment, giving commands I cannot hear. Yet their authority weighs on me. I rise past Lieutenant…First Lieutenant…Captain…Commander… The arches widen.  The hum grows louder. The scent of waxed floors and bureaucracy fills the air, clinging to me.

Halfway up, I glimpse the end. It waits. It does  I press my hands to the railing, but it is not there to hold; it is there to carry.

The escalator moves faster. 

I turn to run down but there is nothing behind me. The step dissolve as they pass through the arches and the arches, fine brick, crumble and fall apart.

Major…Lieutenant 

Faster now.

Colonel…Colonel…Brigadier…Brigadier Major… The letters glow less, shifting like mercury. I try to count, but counting is meaningless. Each step is a step I have already taken, a step I cannot undo.

 The arches turn from brick into steel as I rise higher, past General…General Major…Marshal General…Marshal…Lieutenant Marshal…Comadant… The sun fades; clouds gather like watchful officers. I am small. Yet I am moving. I am going somewhere.

And at the top, I see nothing but fog and steel. No applause. No welcome. Only the end. 

I look behind. The stairs are dissolving still, catching me until the is nothing left of them and I am falling.

And I am falling. 

I land hard in a chair. Behind a desk. 

An old man looks at me and says, “well, that does it. Welcome to Central Continental Authority Armed Services.

Private Xavier Army. Go get your gear.”

Everything

 I think the world has to expand to make room for the people falling in to it.

They’d be so confused. Someone needs to be their shepherd.

But that shepherd couldn’t be everywhere.

And, I think there would have to be a place, somewhere , where more people “slipped” through, so to speak, than other places.

Why are they slipping and sliding?

Probably death.

Death. 

What would the world do with them?

What would a town do when people just started APPEARING, speaking of another world they were just in? 

Exploit them probably. Isn’t that what humans do?

Something awful awaits these people. 

Unless they’re found by the shepherd. Unless they are allowed to leave. 

 

Wesley. Goats.

Wesley had been on the farm for exactly four days when he announced, with unreasonable confidence, that he “understood goats now.”

Loraine was not entirely sure goats were something a person could understand, but she’d kept that insight to herself and watched from the porch as he marched across the pasture with a coil of rope and a grin that belonged to someone who had never truly suffered.

The afternoon was thick with heat. One of those days where even shadows seemed to sweat. Wesley had rolled his sleeves up past his elbows in a move that was either practical or showing off. Hard to tell with boys that age.

He found the goats clustered under the lone tree, glaring at him in a way that suggested advanced judgment.

“Well,” he muttered, hands on hips, “which one of you wants to go peacefully?”

None of them did.

The biggest nanny trotted forward, head low, the kind of slow, confident walk that said plainly: I am about to ruin you. Wesley, undeterred, crouched like a man preparing for a duel he didn’t know he’d already lost.

The goat feinted left. Wesley feinted right.

Then the goat feinted not at all and simply rammed him square in the thigh.

He yelped, an undignified sound, and the entire cluster of goats erupted into chaotic motion. Dust rose. Rope flew. Someone bleated; it might have been Wesley.

Loraine found herself laughing before she realized she was doing it. A quiet, surprised laugh that slipped out the side of her mouth. She covered it with her hand, but it was too late. Wesley had heard.

He straightened, panting, hair stuck to his forehead, and shouted toward her with theatrical outrage:

“I had that under control!”

He did not.

Another goat dashed between his legs, nearly toppling him again. Wesley spun, tried to grab a horn, missed completely, and ended up lunging at empty air with the earnest desperation of someone who refuses to concede defeat even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

When he finally managed to lasso one, by what could only be divine intervention, he lifted the rope like a trophy, chest heaving.

The goat immediately flopped over in the dirt, legs stiff, playing dead.

Wesley stared down at it.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Loraine pressed her fingers to her lips to hide the smile, but it didn’t matter. He saw it. And despite the heat, despite the dust, despite the goat that had just humiliated him in front of a woman he clearly wanted to impress, Wesley smiled back.

And for one long, suspended moment, the entire field felt brighter.