Through Glass (10 page)

The blackness that had pressed against the window before had gone, letting me see into the once bright world, into the eternal midnight that they had covered us with. The street was covered with the signs of war. The asphalt pock marked with grey, ashen circles, cars overturned, houses ripped in two. Remnants of people who had fought, people who tried to get away, people who had lost surrounded me.

My heart clenched at seeing the world in front of me. It was so much worse than what they had done to my house. My hands balled into fists at my side, my conviction to leave suddenly wavering.

“Lex.”

I turned my head at his voice, my heart thumping to see Cohen standing on his own porch, his eyes as wide and scared as my own. I hadn’t expected him to be there, to be alive. His screams had melded with all the others as they died, his window covered with black. I had expected him to be dead.

“Cohen?” I asked, my voice breaking in surprise and relief.

“I’m coming to you, baby, stay there,” he pleaded and moved toward me. My heart relaxed at the idea.

The darkness hadn’t come and taken everything, not quite. I fought the urge to run to him as he leaned down to pick up a large bag. His body froze as the front door to the house across the street opened, the Jones family rushing out toward their car.

I turned my head instinctively at the sound; the fearful grunts of the mother, the tears from the baby. They rushed out of the house, their feet moving quickly across the grass.

Mr. Jones led the way, his skin looking strangely grey in the smothering night. He jumped off the porch and had taken two steps toward the car when a screech filled the air. The wings of the monster flashing as the talons came down on him.

I heard the last sound Mr. Jones would make as the wide arch of blood sped through the air. As the creature turned from the wide circle of ash he had created, his jaw opened widely at what was left of the family huddled on the grass. The creature’s body folded as it screeched at them, its jaw opening more than what should have been possible while its black, shiny skin stretched unnaturally.

Mrs. Jones screamed and turned right around, dragging her two children right back into the house. The monster didn’t seem to care that they had gone back inside. The screech called again as the Ulama ran after them, its clawed feet clicking loudly against the cement as it chased them into what should have been safety, but not anymore.

The monster’s large, black body moved quickly across the grass as it ran through the door. The door slammed shut just as the woman’s screams rent the air, the children’s cries strangling.

I turned away as I pushed my fist into my open mouth, smothering the scream that threatened to join the children’s. I collapsed to my knees as the screech sounded in the air, the screams of the family dying out as the shriek did.

I looked up to Cohen, his eyes wide as they looked into me. Tears began to fall down my cheeks. One more step and it would have been him. It would have been me. The creatures had wanted full control and they had it.

He couldn’t come. They would kill him if he tried.

His eyes were wide as he stepped away. His hand flinched toward me, mine mirroring to reach toward him.

“Cohen,” my voice sobbed out, the words lost in the darkness that was seeping into us.

“Meet me at the window, Lex.” I barely heard him above the rush of blood that was filling my ears, the panic mixing with my anger dangerously.

“Cohen, no…”

“Please, Lex, meet me at the window.” He didn’t say anything more before he turned and walked into his house. The gentle tap of his door closing sounded like the bang of a gun through the still air that surrounded us.

Everything inside of me closed up as I sat still, listening to the distant sound of screams and letting the heavy pulse of my heart fill me until it was all I could hear, all that was left. I stood slowly, my eyes scanning the destruction in front of me. My only path away from this nightmare was blocked and barred.

Everything was gone.

I ran into the house, ignoring the way the fear mixed with my loss and pain; it swirled around me in an angry tidal wave of destruction. I ran through my ransacked home, my feet tripping on missing steps as the tears continued to fall.

They wanted control and they had it. In my panic, I couldn’t see a way around it. I didn’t think there was one.

I closed the door behind me, my back pressed against the wood as the tears broke the floodgate, as the ugly things trailed down my chest and broke into sobs that heaved out of me.

I looked toward the window, wishing Cohen had answers—a way out—but knowing that he was just as trapped as I was. He stood there on the other side of the glass with his hand pressed against the pane as he looked at me; his own tears streaming down his face.

My sobs stopped in my chest as I saw him there, my heart clunking at watching him. At having to say good-bye.

I crawled on top of my desk as I plastered myself against the glass, my hand pressing against it. There was nothing more than glass and air between myself and the last human contact I would ever have.

He looked at me with those dark eyes, his face sad, and I knew at once what the pain behind his eyes meant. His attempt to come to me had failed, leaving him trapped alone in his house just as I was trapped in mine.

“Cohen?” I said, my jaw clenching, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

He looked at me, his dark eyes boring into me before he stepped away; the lack of light in his room swallowing him up and leaving me alone. I raised myself onto my knees as I tried to meld myself into the glass to see where he had gone. I waited, fighting tears, only to have him return a moment later, a bright red, dry erase marker in his hands.

“Are you alone?”
He wrote the words on the glass, his writing slow as he scribbled the letters backwards so I could read them easier.

I looked at the words, my heart aching to see them.

I turned from the window, dropping my body to search through the contents of my dresser that were scattered on the floor only to produce my own marker, this one bright green. When I turned back to him, he had written something else; more words placed amongst the others.

“You are not alone.”

I looked at his words and wanted to scream at him. I wanted to cry and hit and fight. My temper bubbled over at seeing those words, at the false promise they held.

“I am alone,” I wrote back, my hands shaking as I wrote the words, as I accepted the heart wrenching loss I was still trying to ignore.

“No,” he wrote, his eyes pleading.

My face screwed up as I tried to keep the sob from breaking out of my chest, as I tried to keep the sound restrained.
I was alone.
They were all gone. My mother with all the boys, dancing among the black ribbons before the monsters turned them to piles of ash. My father working on that skyscraper downtown, the remains of him glittering down to the street below. Cohen couldn’t even come the ten feet to be with me. I was alone.

There was no one else.

No more battles and fights in the house. No more pancakes in the morning. No more talks with my mom.

“I AM ALONE,” I wrote again, my hand shaking as I wrote the words, not caring if they were backwards to him.

“No,” he wrote again before he bowed his head, his shoulders sagging. I watched him with his head bent low, waiting for him to look back up to me, yet knowing he wouldn’t until he was ready. I wanted to pound against the window. I wanted to yell at him, but I hesitated. Although I wasn’t even sure why.

Slowly, he moved to look back toward me, his hand wiping away what he had written only to place his pen against the glass once more. His hand moved as he drew, as the swoops that he had sketched on my wrist only hours before replicated themselves before my eyes. The face of a girl materialized before me; the hair, the eyes and the slight dimple on her cheek. This time I could see what had not been apparent on the small sketch on my skin. I looked between the two, my shock at the realization stronger than the pain for a moment.

The girl was me.

“We have each other,” he wrote below the picture, his writing small as he pleaded with me. “I will always be here, and soon, we will be together again. I promise.”

I just stared at him, wishing I could rebut, wishing I could say it was useless. It wasn’t, though, not really. So much of what he said was right. This may be the new reality, but it would not be forever.

It couldn’t be.

I could find light. I could find hope. They would let us go. This couldn’t be the rest.

Cohen smiled sadly at me before wiping off his words below the picture he had drawn, his hand moving fast to replace them.

“I won’t give up, Lex. Stay alive. For me.”

I looked away from the girl he had drawn against the window to him, his eyes pleading with tears running down his cheeks. Cohen lifted his hand and placed it against the glass, the palm flat as he pleaded with me and called me to him.

He was right. I couldn’t give up. I had him.

I wasn’t alone.

I pressed my hand against the glass in a movement which mirrored his, wishing it was his skin; wishing that there was no ten foot gap.

Wishing he had never gone home before the sky went black.