Written by: FioraVoss

MILAM, WEST VIRGINIA, USA

August 15, 6:00 AM

Be-beep.

Be-beep.

The device looked like a watch, but within this apocalyptic scenario, power and communication had been reserved only for those deemed the most important, and this was obviously more than just a smartwatch.

"Agent Donovan." Upon engaging the device, the caller didn't waste any time on pleasantries. "Your report is late. Again."

"Shhhh..."

"What? I'm your Commander. You can't shush me."

Agent Donovan crouched in a corner of the kitchen, head cocked to one side as he pressed the communicator to his ear and tried to maintain listening beyond it.

"He'll hear you," he whispered.

"He? Who? Donovan, you're alone!" The commander's tone descended from anger to contempt, "Light has been reported as emanating from the center of the craft and what do I hear from you? Crickets!"

You didn't have to look out the window to know the light was there, eerie and synthetic. As if the darkness wasn't enough of a mind-fuck, the light was worse. It didn't glow; the shadows hadn't lost their density.The room wasn't bright, even though everything outside was bathed in the light's euphoric glow.

Donovan didn't answer. Maybe he was too scared to feel the rhapsodic flare. Maybe he had been alone in the dark for too long.

"Donovan!" The Commander was yelling now, a tinny-sounding anger through the tiny speaker.

Donovan's gaze flitted aimlessly around the room, what could he possibly say?

He closed his eyes, "Trying to survive."

Cryptic, seemingly lucid. Of all the possibilities, that was a pretty good choice, but there was no way this pompous Commander would infer the plea within his words.

"I have no interest in your ramblings and hallucinations. I want to know what's going on up there."

Donovan began nodding, though the action was out of sync with the conversation.

"The chickens."

"Jesus, Donovan." The Commander let loose a strained sigh. "I have no choice but to extract you. You're not the first, everyone out there is falling apart."

Enough of this. Listening to the Commander fret about weaklings.

Donovan looked up in surprise, "No!" Backing into the corner, his spastic finger cut the call short.

Perfect.

* * *

"Ninety-seven."

He hovered so near to the ground his nose brushed the dingy carpet, and Donovan paused. Pushing a steady breath through his taut lips, he held his body rigid; in, out, he breathed. Pressing his palms into the floor, he straightened his arms, his back ram-rod straight.

"Ninety-eight."

This is so boring.

It was now the fifteenth day since the massive, stolid blue numbers had appeared in the sky – when the bona fide hysteria had begun.

Donovan let his body sink again, then pressed himself up with conviction.

"Ninety-nine."

The repetition of his motions, a structure, kept Donovan afloat. The darkness and the silence had been all consuming and he was employing every tactic in the book to preserve his faculties. Sounds, apart from the ones he made himself, were all but nonexistent, and he had taken up talking to himself as a tether to reality. In all honesty, that was probably one of his less effective tactics; does talking to yourself really divert insanity? But still, saying the words aloud seemed to give him reassurance.

He had been counting everything.

"One hundred."

Time moves more slowly in the darkness of isolation.

He slid his knees beneath himself, and, wiping his face with the hem of his shirt, he compulsively checked his watch. Shaking his head, he stood and strode to the kitchen with surprising ease, like he had memorized the darkened maze of this shabby, desolate little house.

But there were chickens. Nestled in their coop, none the wiser. The original allure of this property had been the fields which surrounded it and the coop full of chickens in the backyard.

What a fools errand that had been.

The center of the Midnight Zone was dark.

And cold.

In some of his more coherent ramblings, Donovan had lamented both the loss of the crops as the mercury fell within the unrelenting darkness, and his bitter realization that without light, chickens didn't lay eggs.

"Today," he spoke aloud, between gulps of water, "Today, I will roast one of those chickens."

Fool. He'll never hurt a feather on their backs.

Some part of that enormous "16" in the sky stretched directly over the house. The countdown. But the countdown to what?

With the exception of disruptions in normal Earth functions as a result of the physical presence of the craft, nothing had actually happened.

Nothing.

At this point, annihilation seemed a better option than remaining here, holed up in the spectral emptiness of Appalachia. Waiting.

Donovan turned to the window, for no reason, really, because there was nothing for him to see; the foreboding countdown failed to cast even a moonlight twinkle on the land beneath it. Life had become undetectable. The Eastern seaboard was rapidly achieving Atacama status - completely devoid of all life.

But not here. No, here he was. Agent Donovan, stationed as close to the center of the craft as the Agency had deemed safe for a long-term assignment, ready to serve his country valiantly. Donovan had talked about all of this: of his Hollywood-induced dreams of acting as a secret agent. Only he had become, instead, a stupid man following orders, slowly drifting away on the coattails of his own crumbling mind.

The glass in his hand shattered as he slammed it on the counter. Startled, but unscathed, Donovan flicked the shards into the sink; it was the third glass that had fallen victim to his frustrations, and if he wasn't careful, he'd be left drinking from a bowl.

Isolation and darkness can play cruel tricks on the human brain: desperate for stimuli, it loses its ability to differentiate between thoughts and reality, conjuring any matter of entertainment to maintain sanity.

His descent had begun with flickers of light, faint flashes in his peripheral vision, whipping his head from side to side, trying to discern their origins.

Maybe if he knew I was here, that he wasn't alone, it would help?

I chuckled to myself at the thought. Knowing I was here would definitely not quell his disquietude.

Admittedly, though, part of me feels the need to be thankful for Donovan; without him, I would be alone.

Cock-a-doodle-dooooo!

Donovan scrunched his eyes, peering out the window. "What's up, buddy?"

He's talking to the chickens.

Cock-a-doodle-dooooo!

I watched as Donovan strode through the door and into the backyard, peering briefly above him at the craft. It always loomed up there, somehow out of sight; dark, invisible, but entirely present. I took the opportunity to slip out the front door and into the overgrown bushes surrounding the house. Mere sticks, I had no idea what sort of plant they had been, but in the insurmountable darkness, their defoliation didn't matter anyhow.

All of the chickens were cackling, responding to their rooster, and the cacophony around him was clearly making it difficult for Donovan to focus. You have no choice but to rely on your hearing in the absence of sight, and without the monotonous din of civilization, these chickens and their squawking seemed to echo through the fields.

But that was for Donovan to worry about.

This was coal country, and the landscape would have been breathtaking, had Donovan been able to see it. Perched on the precipice of a mountain, the town had arisen as the summit of the ridge had been flattened. This backyard faced due West, and he should have been able to look over the valley at the surrounding mountains. He couldn't stop himself from straining to see into the darkness, however futile the effort.

As he gazed into the empty wilderness, the nothingness that had come to surround us, I picked up on the faint rustle of leaves. Donovan heard it, too.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to zero-in on the sound, but the chickens had become so frantic in their coop, he couldn't tell where it was coming from and instead moved haphazardly closer to the treeline.

Growing louder, it was a scrape and a pause; like something limping, someone struggling, and my heart began to race.

Wasn't the town, maybe even the entire state, abandoned? Save for Donovan, I hadn't seen a single soul after crossing the West Virginia border.

This couldn't be another person? But whatever it was, it was definitely alive.

Appreciable excitement rose in Donovan's movements; maybe this was an animal he could eat, something large enough and hot enough to warm him. To quell the constant ache that went along with the constant cold.

Maybe Donovan would start a fire, roast the meat right here in the backyard.

Why hadn't he started a fire? That was certainly an oversight.

"Light," a tiny, shrill voice rasped.

Donovan wheeled around, but no one was there.

This would be entertaining.

There must be someone there, but Donovan had no hope of seeing whomever it was.

"Who's there?" he shouted.

"Light!" the voice repeated, more forceful this time. "Behind you."

Slowly, Donovan turned, and so did I; in a moment of equality, we all three peered up and over the roof of the house.

And indeed.

There was light.

A single beam, emanating from what must be the center of the ship.

I could do nothing but stare.

Light.

"Light," Donovan whispered.

"It nearly brings tears to my eyes." The effeminate voice was gravelly, thirsty, and very nearby.

Unable to tear his eyes from the light, Donovan walked around the house, vaguely aware of the shallow footsteps that followed behind him, but seemingly completely unaware of me. There, with the house to his back, he could see the beam more clearly, illuminating everything in its path, from the center of the ship to the ground. Only everything in its path.

"It's a shaft of light?" the voice had become hesitant, still dry, but losing some of its softness. "It isn't right."

"It's over," Donovan stated emphatically. Finally looking over his shoulder, assessing the woman standing behind him, "Insanity," he concluded. "I've finally lost my mind."

If only Donovan knew I could see her, too.

She shifted her wary eyes between him and the column of light, growing wider as we stood watching. Sweeping over the trees and rocky crags, the land encompassed by this new light was rapidly increasing.

"Maybe we should go inside." Her suggestion fell on deaf ears as Donovan spread his arms wide and I stifled a laugh.

"No," he adjusted his stance and threw back his head. "I'm going to stand right here and soak up every ray."

Ray? Those didn't look like rays of sunshine. The woman was correct - something was off. For all of its brightness, my body should have been instinctively delighted.

I should have been elated, but I, the hunter, was petrified.

Coursing wider still, the light had nearly reached us.

"The edges," the woman observed, "it isn't glowing. The periphery is chiseled."

"Don't ruin this for me, Figgy."

"Figgy?" the woman scoffed.

"I know you're not real; you're a figment of my ailing brain." Donovan shook his head, "I should probably be concerned that you're talking to me, that's a new development, but I'm not."

She snorted.

"My delusions are laughing at me, and I don't even care." Donovan stood stock still. "The sun is about to shine on me."

And with those words, the light came.

A torrent through the landscape, the devastation of unseasonable cold and prolonged darkness festered in my view just before the beam wooshed over us.

Palpable and unnervingly stagnant, the light felt as wrong as it looked; it crawled over us, tingling like heat on my skin without delivering any warmth, but somehow bringing calm. Euphoria. A growing strength of confidence.

Donovan sighed, a smile spreading across his face as he basked in the glory of hope. Finality.

Righting his position, he turned to the woman, a happy grin plastered to his pallid visage.

It was dismaying. And creepy.

Rubbing his hands together, Donovan advanced towards the chicken coop, "Shall we eat?" he called over his shoulder.

I call bluff on this.

"Eat?" Looking between Donovan and the coop, "I'm going inside," the woman gestured towards the house.

Donovan paused just outside the coop door, looking back towards the house and pursed his lips, thinking. Finally, he nodded, traipsing to where the woman stood holding open the door.

"There's a man in the bushes," he leaned in close like he was whispering, but I could hear him clear as day.The woman scrunched her face in confusion. "He thinks I can't see him," Donovan winked and jerked his head towards where I was standing, "but I can see everything."

Her eyes widened, irises flicking around the now-illuminated yard. It looked like another planet.

"Should I check it out?"

"Suit yourself," Donovan shrugged and stepped through the door. "Since you're in my head, I bet you can see him, too."

Eyes perusing the withered garden and the hedge of sticks where I stood, her gaze passed over me. None the wiser.

"MRE's! Huevos rancheros," squinting at a silvery package in his hand, Donovan struggled to read the smudged ink as he leaned out the door, "or bacon and eggs?"

"Bacon and eggs?"

"Coming right up!" Donovan chirped happily, smiling at the sky once more.

Hesitating on the porch, the woman eased the door shut after Donovan had retreated inside to make breakfast. Lithe on her feet, she silently descended the steps, inspecting the ground as she made her way around the circumference of the house.

As she passed me, she whispered into the watch on her own wrist, but I could only make out a few fragments of what she said, "confused... no footprints... leave..." Holding the device briefly to her ear and nodding, she dropped her hand and I noted my nearly spotless shoes, despite skulking around this unkempt place for the last two weeks.

Slipping back inside, the woman's footsteps echoed towards the kitchen, and I followed silently.

Donovan had set only one place at the table.

"How will I eat?"

She was prodding Donovan and he looked up at her as he set the steaming plate of gloppy, re-hydrated bacon and eggs between the fork and knife. He didn't answer.

"And the other man?" She waved a hand around the room, "Didn't you say there was another man here, too?"

With an eye roll, Donovan sat down, "How can you eat? You're not real." He dug the fork into the mess before him.

Pulling out a chair,she sank down into it and crossed her arms. "Why didn't you set a place for him?"

"Him?" Flicking his eyes to where I was watching their interaction through a crack in the living room door, Donovan whispered, "He has never eaten."

As he scraped the last of the egg substance into his mouth, wiping the corners with a neatly folded napkin, the woman stared at him.

"Why haven't you left?" she asked.

"This is my home," robotic and monotone, I had heard him practice this speech. "I'm not leaving the farm my family has worked for generations because of some apparition in the sky." His inflection towards the end almost sounded like a question - would she believe him?

She glanced at the watch on his wrist and back at her own.

"My name is Marcy. My family left, but I didn't want to. I've been wandering these hills for days, maybe weeks, but without the sun, moon, or stars, I can't find my way back to the light. To wherever civilization still exists."

Hmm. Equally as prepared as Donovan.

Donovan tapped his temple knowingly. "You're welcome to stay here, there are chickens. But, it's over." Emphatic, he swept his hand towards the light outside.

Outside. It was only outside. The shadows were still dark, dense and impenetrable inside the house; there was no reflective quality to the light.

"Over?" Standing, she pointed out the window. "It's still there."

"Probably not," Donovan pushed his chair away from the table, "the sun is shining." Wiping the plate and fork with a sponge at the sink, he turned towards the woman, but she was gone.

Looking about the room haphazardly, like he doubted he'd see her anyhow, he shoved back the living room door where I was hiding and trooped up the stairs two at a time, whistling as he went.

I stood, waiting. He would be back.

Sure enough, a short time later, he bounded back down the stairs, bulging suitcase in hand. Still whistling, he whipped open the front door, slamming it against the hinges as he jumped back in alarm.

In all of her blond-haired, blue-eyed bombshell glory, the woman was there. Outside, on the porch.

Looking back to the kitchen, Donovan pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment and dropped to the ground.

"One."

He pressed himself into the floor, then rose again.

"Two."

Ten times he repeated the motion.

He was too far gone for this type of grounding, I could see it in the jerky motions of his arms, no longer the fluid, easy strength I had seen when he first arrived.

Hopping up, he brushed himself off.

Maybe it was time.

Stepping out from behind the door, I cleared my throat.

Donovan spun around, crouching like a cat ready to spring.

"I thought you could see everything," I chided.

"You!" he sputtered.

"Me," I drawled.

"Me?" the woman cooed, now standing at the foot of the stairs, directly behind Donovan.

Be-beep.

6:15 the clock on the wall read.

Be-beep.

Usually dark, the device on Donovan's wrist lit up like it had around this time for the last few days.

"Fuck!" he screeched.

Running out the front door and around the house, I could hear him crashing through the back door into the kitchen, the clatter of chairs ringing through the house as he barreled around the room.

"Agent Donovan," a voice rang out, "Your report..." it faded as Donovan must have turned down the volume. Unintelligible whispers followed and I slunk across the room, purposefully slapping the soles of my shoes against the wooden planks. Manufactured, ominous footsteps.

The woman cackled.

Close enough to hear again, "...everyone is falling apart."

And here we are. Me, staring down at the broken man. Her, somewhere in the bowels of the house, laughing for all the weaknesses of humanity. And him, huddled in a corner beneath the kitchen table.

"No!" Donovan yelled, pointing at me. Frantically backing further into the corner, his spastic movements swiped the communication device, ending the call.

Perfect.

Advancing towards him, the frightened look in his eyes is what I lived for.

The fear.

The condemnation.

The unknown.

Should he run? Because he definitely wasn't hiding.

Exploding from beneath the table, whapping his communicator on the counter, Donovan ran through me towards the back door, hands pressed against his ears.

Out, into the meaningless light, the unrequited hope of empty relief.

Crashing through the crumpled scrub edging the fields, Donvan ran.

It didn't take long for the silence to, once again, settle over this wasteland.

"Hey, chicky, chicky," I chirred, approaching the chicken coop Donovan had just blown past.

Leaning against the wire enclosure, the chickens scattered to the far corner, their earlier bustle quelled once again into silence.

The woman slipped down beside me.

"Do you think he'll be back?"

I shrugged.

Time was meaningless to me, I could wait.

When, finally, the drone of a motor made its way up the hillside, rounding the fields we were observing, a black Explorer came to a stop in front of the house.

Leaning over the dash, two men surveyed the smashed front door and upended kitchen chair laying haphazardly on the porch. The driver nodded, and both men stepped out of the car.

Handing a small, electronic device to the passenger, who cinched it around his wrist, the driver retrieved a suitcase from the trunk. Handing it to the passenger, he patted him encouragingly on the back.

"Where is he?" the passenger asked, a wary look lingering on the house.

"Fuck if I know."

"What do I do if I find him?"

The driver tapped the communicator on his own wrist. "Call it in."

Call it in, I smirked.

Slamming the car door, the driver peeled erratically down the driveway, drunk on simulated sunshine. We all watched as the vehicle rounded the fields, its beams distinct from the pseudo-light of the craft, illuminating the desolate landscape.

Righting the chair and carefully closing the cracked door behind him, the passenger, a new agent, settled into the beshadowed disarray of the house.

Let the games begin.

<<<<< END >>>>>

Find more stories by FioraVoss on Wattpad.

With a lifelong love for the art of writing, Fiora Voss began her publishing adventures with her debut novella, The Fate of Kane, which shortlisted in the 2023 Open Novella Contest. A founding member of Melkat Indie Solutions, she strives to unite writers with their readers. When she isn't writing or editing, she can usually be found tending her beloved gardens.