Original Short - The Window

“They call it The Window,” she said.  Her eyes would not meet mine as she hesitated.

“Go on,” I prompted, afraid to hear what she had to say, but knowing my life depended on it.

“They say it has been here for thousands of years,” she continued.  “It was here when man first crawled from the sea, and it will be here long after you and yours are dead and buried.”  As she continued, she lifted her gaze, but did not see.  It was as if someone…some thing…was now speaking through her.  Her eyes were not her own now.  Colors and shadows swam across her pupils, which were huge and black as death.  I tried to look away, but couldn’t, as goose bumps crawled along my flesh, and the hair on the back of my neck rose.

“He who had once ruled this land,” she continued.  “He who was forsaken in favor of the weak…they say He lives beyond the shimmering glass of The Window.  He who will return and reign terror and fire and blood upon the Earth once more.  It is He whom we serve.  It is for Him we give our lives.”

Before I could move, she pulled out a long, dark blade and drove it into her chest.  Raising her hands toward the sky, she let loose an ear-piercing scream as I watched…as if hypnotized…as the blade began to twist in her chest.  I stepped forward, only to be thrown backward by an invisible force, as she collapsed to the ground, writhing and undulating under the blade.

I lifted myself up on my elbows and stared as the woman I had met only minutes earlier finally stopped moving.  The blade dropped from her wracked body and disintegrated into dust.  Clouds that were not there earlier moved in front of the sun, as lightning flashed blindingly across the sky and thunder came crashing down from the heavens.

And still, my body aching as if tiny pins were digging into the very nerve center of my brain, I got up.  As if on will power alone, I moved with all the resolve of a parent who had to save his child, and walked toward The Window.  As my hand reached forward, a dark crimson light began to pulsate behind it.  A mind-numbing buzz began in the back of my head, moving across the temples and into the forehead.  I closed my eyes and prayed, tightening my hands into fists, the nails digging into the palms of my hands, willing the pain from behind my eyes…until it was gone.

When I opened my eyes, the woman was gone, but The Window was still there.  The skies had cleared up again, and the pulsing crimson behind The Window was now just a pleasing shade of pink.  I hesitantly reached out towards the glass, pushed inward, and walked through.