Awake (21 page)

Kevin heaved a sigh. “At least it’s a nice
place.” He strolled his way into the village. “I could get used to
this.”

“What are you doing?” said a hushed voice.
“Get inside.”

“Huh?” Kevin had a quizzical expression as
he glanced around. “Who said that?”

A person came bolting out of the trees and
grabbed Kevin from behind. Kevin tried to shout, but someone else
showed up, clasping a hand over his mouth. Another person grabbed
Kevin by the legs. Together, the three strangers carried him off
into a hut. They shut the door behind them. Kevin was tossed to the
ground and released.

Kevin looked up in the dark building. The
only source of light was the moonlight that seeped through the
cracked roof. It took him a moment to finally see everything around
him. Several men and women, dressed in torn rags, were crouching
along the walls. Some were busy nailing wooden planks along the
doors and windows. He stared at one of the inhabitants and they
stared back, showing only a look of despair.

Kevin got up and slowly said, “Who are you
people? What do you want with me?”

“We want nothing to do with you,” replied a
woman. “You almost killed us!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The night hour approaches.”

“Night hour? I…don’t understand.”

The woman snapped, “You walked outside
during the night hour! What’s there to understand? It’s common
sense!”

Kevin shook his head, looking thoroughly
perplexed. “I have no idea what is going on. What is the night
hour? Why are you all hiding around? What is this place?”

The woman stared blankly at Kevin. “Don’t
tell me…you just arrived…”

“Just arrived?” Kevin examined the woman
with scrutiny. “Yeah, I did, if you can call it that. I just fell
asleep a moment ago.”

The woman ran up to Kevin and grabbed him by
the shoulders. Their eyes met and they stared at each other for a
while. Kevin’s eyes widened slowly as he suddenly recognized
her.

“Mom? Is that you?”

A look of shock and joy on her face, his
mother suddenly began to laugh and shed tears at the same time.
“Yes! Yes, Kevin! It’s me!” They hugged. “I missed you so much! I
was so worried! I haven’t seen you for such a long time!”

Kevin broke away from the embrace and said,
“Where’s dad? Is he here too?”

Her eyes suddenly fell with her face as she
took in his words. “Kevin, listen to me…”

Looking concerned, he said, “What’s
wrong?”

“You may have realized it by now…but this
isn’t an ordinary dream.”

Kevin nodded. “Yeah, this is a dream with
everyone, right? I never expected to actually see you—”

“No,” said his mother gravely. “This isn’t
our dream. This is our
nightmare
.” She bit her lip. “Your
father, he was taken away.”

“Taken away?” Kevin suddenly looked fierce
and growled, “By who?”

“Not who,” his mother continued, “but what.
Our days here are short. There are eleven hours of daylight…then
the twelfth hour is the night hour. Darkness falls and—” Before she
finished speaking, a loud scream pierced the silence. Kevin
exchanged glances with his mother.

His mother put her finger to her lips,
shushing him. “Go help block the door.”

Everyone suddenly fell silent and
motionless, undoubtedly hiding from something.

Kevin walked to the door and whispered to a
man, “What should I do?”

“Push up against the door,” the man replied
in a quiet voice. “And don’t look out.”

As Kevin leaned against the door, he could
hear the sounds of screams much more clearly. It wasn’t a regular
scream. It clicked and echoed shrilly. Its tone ran high and low,
sounding distorted. He couldn’t help but wonder what was happening
outside. His curiosity got the best of him and he decided a small
peek through a tiny, little crack on the door wouldn’t matter.

But the moment he looked out, he could not
tear his eyes away. “What…is that?” Kevin stared at a strange light
hovering in the darkness.

“You idiot!” The man pushed Kevin away. “I
told you not to look!”

Crash!
The door burst inward with one
loud explosion, wood chips flying all over the hut. Kevin ducked
and shielded his face from the scattering debris. Then he looked up
and saw the gaping hole in the wall where the door once was.

Everyone screamed as a thick black mass
emerged from the hole. The giant black mass was in the shape of a
hand. It reached into the hut, snatching up a few people, including
Kevin’s mother, with its broad grip, and then dragged them out.

“MOM!” Kevin chased after it, but a man
tried to hold him back.

“Don’t go,” said the man. “It’s over for
them. There’s nothing you can do…now that the Coveits have them.
Save yourself, kid. You’ll be powerless against them!”

“I’ll be the judge of that! Get off me!”
Kevin shoved the man aside and ran out.

Once he made it outside, Kevin froze in
terror. A hideous black monster, the likes of which he had never
seen before, trudged through broken homes. The monster was as large
as a two-story house. Though it was hard to see because of its
black nature, he could make out the murky silhouette of the beast.
Its stalwart body, enormous tusks and stout snout bore resemblance
to a warthog. But its thick arms, and even thicker forearms, were
like that of a gorilla. The most distinguishing feature was the
eyes, which were bright blue, as bright as the high beams of a car
and nearly as blinding.

“What is that thing?” uttered Kevin.
“Coveits? What the heck is a Coveit? Is that even a word?” He shook
his head feverishly. “No, I can’t waste time. I have to help them!”
Kevin glanced around the ground and saw a wooden plank on the
ground. He stooped down and grabbed it. Holding it in his arms, he
charged the Coveit. The Coveit ignored him.

“Let them go!” Kevin slammed the flat wood
against the black wrist. The wood cleanly snapped in two on
contact. The Coveit opened its mouth. Kevin covered his ears,
thinking it was going to emit another one of those eerie screams.
It didn’t. Instead, the Coveit took its large fistful of people and
shoved it into his mouth, engulfing everyone with one bite.

“Mom? No…no…” Kevin lost his voice for a
moment as his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. His voice came back
in full force. “NO, NO, NO!”

He tried ramming the broken wood into the
belly of the beast, but it became jammed into its thick gooey skin
and started to get swallowed up by it. Unable to find the words to
say, he merely cried out, “CRAP! YOU EVIL—MESSED UP—SPIT THEM OUT
OR DIE!” Kevin then furiously punched the Coveit in the stomach.
His fist got stuck in its skin, which was gooey like tar.
Frightened, Kevin hastily pulled his hand out. “What is this thing?
I can’t even hurt it!”

“Run away, Kevin!” the voice of his mother
echoed in his mind. “Run away! There’s nothing you can do! Save
yourself!”

“Why is everyone saying that? I don’t want
to save myself—I want to save everyone else. I don’t want to run…I
hate running away…I hate losing…I hate being so helpless…” He
stared at the ground, his fists clenched. “What do I do? What can I
do?”

You can die…

A black hand overshadowed Kevin and grabbed
hold of him. The hand tightly squeezed him, suffocating him. Kevin
wheezed in the excruciating pain. It felt like all the air in his
body was forced out from his lips as the black fingers crushed his
ribs. No longer able to speak or think, his thoughts were solely
locked on the torment and how he wanted it to end. No matter how
tight the grip had gotten, the pain would never end. He would never
die.

Then he was free of the pain. The monster
loosened the grip. He rolled along the palm, down the fingers and
into the mouth. As he was tossed back and forth, he was slightly
comforted by the fact that the Coveit had no teeth. But it did have
a fat slimy tongue, which he bounced gently upon on his trip down
the throat. He tumbled down a dark tunnel with slick walls and
landed on someone. He suspected he was now inside the stomach of
the Coveit, the thought of which did not sit well with him.
Everyone that the Coveit had swallowed was now packed into the pit
of the stomach. Though he couldn’t see much, it felt like the
monster was finally full.

“Mom!” Kevin shouted over the cries and
whimpers of the people. “Are you in here?” He heard many muffled
voices in reply. He attempted to squirm around the cluttered heap
of bodies, but everyone was packed in too tight for him to move.
Suddenly, the whole stomach shook and Kevin said, “W-what’s going
on here?”

“We’re being taken to center of the island,”
a man next to him replied. “There’s a hole at the center, which you
can see during the day. That’s where the Coveits come out when the
darkness falls and that’s where they return before the daylight
comes.”

“What do you think will happen to us?”

He shrugged. “No one has ever returned after
being swallowed by a Coveit.”

Kevin gulped.

Meanwhile, all the Coveits gathered at the
hole, which was about one hundred yards wide and unfathomably deep.
There were over sixty Coveits in total and their bellies were all
full. One after the other, they jumped into the deep hole. After
falling for several minutes, they finally landed on the bottom with
a great thud. The light of the moon could not penetrate the
complete blackness. In this place so dark and empty the only
visible thing was the blue light of their eyes. Their bright eyes
swept across the room like strobe lights. There was a glow
somewhere off in the distance. All the Coveits lumbered toward the
glow. Then the glow brightened and a vast room opened up. In this
new room the black monsters began coughing. Their coughs started
slight at first, then turned into a much louder hacking.
BLEARGH—the beasts chucked out wads of people, almost like a cat
throwing up hairballs. Since Kevin was last to be swallowed, he was
first to be barfed out. He hit the solid floor and, groaning with
aches and pains, got to his feet. Then Kevin looked up.

It was a strange sight, both amazing and
terrifying. Surrounded in this massive room of rock and dirt was a
glowing structure. The structure was like a frame consisting of
red, blue and green vein-like wires. It was in the shape of a tree
and was incredibly large, much taller and wider than any skyscraper
he had ever seen. In the heart of the wiry structure was a
gleaming, surging yellow light that flowed like a mighty river
upwards from the base of the tree to the high branches. It really
was like a tree, Kevin thought, from the trunk to the dark-colored
leaves; there was even the inclusion of large fruit-like eggs that
hung upon the branches.

“What is this?” a terrified man shouted.
“I’m getting out of here!” He ran away from the tree, only to end
up running into a Coveit. The man bounced off the large leg and
tumbled to the ground. Before he could run away again, the Coveit
grabbed him and tossed him into the tree trunk. Kevin kept his gaze
locked onto the man as the man flew into the yellow light. When he
came into contact with the mysterious beam, his body vaporized into
white sparkles, following the flow of the surge. The sparkles
reached a low branch and seeped into the branch. Then, as Kevin
watched intently, an egg-like fruit emerged. The weight of the
newly formed fruit caused the low branch to bend lower, giving
Kevin a better look at it. He could see through the crystal shell
of the fruit and saw the man inside, the same man who had just been
thrown into the tree, curled up in a fetal position, silent and
motionless.

What the heck was that?
Kevin was
sure everyone in the room had the same thought in their minds, but
everyone was absolutely speechless. They didn’t struggle. They
didn’t care. With the Coveits fenced around them, the people had no
way of escape. They were powerless in this world—absolutely
powerless. And they accepted that. Slowly, sullenly, the people
walked into the tree, resigned to their inevitable fate. One by
one, as the people touched the yellow beam of light, they burst
into white sparkles and flew up the tree, carried by the powerful
flow. One by one, they seeped into the branches and emerged as
fruits.

“So this must be where everyone is at…”
Kevin said, musing. “Tom…Andrew…Katie. They might all be in this
tree. I wonder if I can see them if I go in there.”

Surrounded by Coveits on all sides, Kevin
was the only one remaining. He took a deep breath and walked up to
the light. Hesitant, he stood there, his hands raised, afraid to
touch it. Suddenly, Kevin felt a burst of thought flow into his
mind. It was like he could hear thousands of voices talking all at
once. They weren’t screaming—not all of them. Some were scared,
some were calm and others were angry. Then came a silence. During
this serenity, Kevin absorbed all the thoughts. A strange,
indescribable feeling ran across his body. Something was happening
to him. He wasn’t sure what.

“Kevin!” A voice echoed in the darkness.
“Can you hear me?”

Looking curious, Kevin twirled around.
“Who’s there?”

“Do you hear me, Kevin? Don’t bother
replying. I probably won’t be able to hear you. But I really hope
that you can hear me! It’s me—Tom! I’m sorry I abandoned you guys.
I pretended to be asleep. I was scared of what was happening and
thought I could possibly escape myself. But now I’m back. I’m also
sorry for making a weird voice when I answered Andrew’s cell. It’s
a bad joke…I know. He’s okay, in case you’re wondering. Anyway, you
know that device? I plugged it into you. You should be able to wake
up now, right? Please try!”

“Tom saves the day.” Kevin grinned. “So I
should have it plugged into me now, huh? That’s just perfect. No
wonder my mind feels…enlightened. But now I know the cold hard
truth. I heard it from everyone. The device won’t work on those who
don’t want to wake up. And waking up alone is pointless.” Kevin
placed his hand into the light. “Time to see what I can do.”