The Bermuda Sky [A Horror Story] Part 3

“Just kill it already!!!!! Can’t you see it?” Out of a corner, someone was standing behind the monster, a shadowy figure holding a long scythe with effervescent, glowing stones. There was an inscription on the scythe. Weirdly, I knew the scythe was friendly. What was that? Who’s there? I felt the perpetual glow push me out of my drowning state, a gentle strength skipping the deadly precipice. Something or someone was waiting for me to do something. Who? The wispy arachnid had its separated hairy child wrap itself around my neck, raising me four floors up into the air, dangling and stuck. From above, I could vaguely see a roofless room that had yellow chalks at the chalkboard. A basketball. There were scribbles on the tables. It was time, and I was fading out.. what was the point in struggling. And bending to breathe. And growing up. Let go, the mountains are beyond deers.

“Are you kidding me?! KILLLL. IT. Are you REALLYY DUMB OR STUPID???” There was this tiny girl in bangs, mad kid racing in a few feet away from the creature, just breaking in to my death scene, rude impudence fueling the all-knowing to taunt and batter by shouting. Worst, not the least helping. Again, reminding me why bold caffeinated Emma Chamberlain social media chatterboxes had produced daredevil good-for-nothings chowing down breakfast eggs and hash from their mother’s pan. JUST as I was about to die and nearing brain dead to do anything. Tight at the neck already. What the fuck! The monster was clamping the daylights out of me, not affected by the little bitch. Big monster didn’t even see or recognised that there was another annoying midget, conveniently prepared for succulent monster grub.

The glow was warming up to me now. There was a kind of rousing wickedness coming forth from inside my head. My right hand unbelievably started moving on its own, fighting the chokehold, the internal strength impervious and masculine, twisting and gorging out from the squeeze. The aggressive reflex shifted the tipping balance to an active influence and was answering fear in return. A thrust of wind, icy with a force and carrying a flow from a source within my right palm, blew and tore wide open the chest of the beast, grabbing the giant beating heart and bursting its core through the grip of my hand. From the chilly blast, flesh deformed till all the blood insides spilled out, dripping on the broken tiles. Complete, like I had done the act before, the confidence from a prior knowing. The heat inside me sent out clear signs again gesturing that I should have done so, and not fail cower away to the toilet hole I wanted to mark as my grave.

I fell to the ground first, one leg hitting a cement beam, letting out a scream and recoiling into a fetus. Gasping away, I saw my brother collapsed beside me. He had fainted, and he saw the whole deal of monster and my hand killing it. I brought my hand up to my mouth, not touching, merely plain searching for the innermost soul to gather the course of my hand. What happened? I’ve done something I didn’t think of doing. But it was familiar and sure by the hand. Am I an Avenger now? My knees felt rather jelly, and it was despicable to be an Avenger. I might be evil, just as I’ve felt myself wanting evil earlier. I burrowed out the throbbing heart, not even half wincing.

I managed on my feet, and looked around. That crazy kid, about 10 I believe, stood in front of my brother, a meter ahead. Her eyes were scanning and patronising. Leaping inwards, she sat on one of the fallen broken sinks, her cherubic cheeks got up close to mine, smelling of sandalwood. “Is this your first?” she began her inspection of my physique.

“What are you talking about??” I yelled back, alarmed at the girl, pain shooting upwards at the leg. Finding bruises and cuts amid the possible fractured ankle on my starving, heavily sleep-deprived body throws daunting tolerance and niceties out of the window. Snorting, she let out a sigh to confirm her disappointment, mouthing the words unwaveringly. “You’re a Seer Actinium. YOU ARE supposed to be able to kill hoards of these Numens. They are once humans though.” She dipped her finger into a blood puddle, wiped the finger with her handkerchief and continued.

“Some humans turned to Numens, some didn’t when Bermuda came. Some like you, became a Seer and had powers. Mortimer sent me. You’re a level 9 and we don’t see them often. We’ll be seeing you soon. You will be needing us.” She took a piece of mirror shard, going around in a slow, careful examination of her face at her reflection, absorbing her appearance upon angles, fair that nothing fazed her and bored she had to find ways to amuse herself.

I had to ask because this sounded now a ridiculous conspiracy. “Are you saying that I’m the Avenger now and the monster, the monster that I’ve just killed is called a Numen? Numen used to be normal people?” Sweat was still slick on my face and there was fresh blood on my clothes and across my body. “Uh, if you could say so, pretty much yeah. ” Little crazy girl was checking her scythe now, the stones had stopped radiating red, quietened to a black, the scythe inscription also an insipid grey. The heat I felt from the scythe had dispersed from back then, and it was just this petite girl extraordinarily holding up the adult, oversized weapon to her level. She tucked the scythe behind her back on a mount. I propped up my little brother against a knackered wall and felt my own tears brimming over Ken’s pale face. He became lighter and was now bone thin where he used to be a little overweight. Mom and Dad used to tell him to run laps outside instead of playing computer games and snacking on chips.

“Oh. I’m just like you but I have a scythe, and I’m only the keeper.” She retorted back, sardonic to affirm the importance of doing one’s job as the whatever slayer, and to imply I only had one job to do right. “Why do you know nothing at all? You don’t even know how to land.” The insult revealed, insinuating a response. Ken did not wake. He was lifeless, but breathing I could tell. He might need proper treatment and help. “Fuck, how old are you? You seem to know a lot of things. Are you from an organisation? Do you have any medicine or know first aid or a doctor?” I started crying and hollering out in panic, murmuring too, and shaking. “Please, my brother might be dying.” Breathe, I had to. Think, think, think. What, I was so enraged, at the girl’s lack of emotional regard, knowing we were both hurt and Ken might be seriously hurt.

“He’ll be fine. Just leave him be. You’ll need to treat his wounds though.” Scythe girl lashed out impatiently, her pitch higher than it was. What’s with her?

“Here, give him this.” She threw over an envelope reluctantly and I bent forward to pick it up, opening it to see that there were a bunch of dried brown leaves. “They are healing leaves, you will make him eat.” She was walking away from us. “You don’t need water for hours when he has taken the leaves….”, Then all at once her presence was diminishing from the corporeal in a turbulent whirlwind, dissolving her talk and babyfaced features along with her scythe till it was out of sight. What remained was a light breeze. There was the sound of her scythe with the bowed, irregular contours hitting on the cement spot where she left.

I had a lot to process. I stared at the toilet divider, now already damaged and exposed, for awhile. I stared at my hands for that moment of truth again. A long while, and nothing. I waited. I rummaged my bag and did the bandages for our injuries, which fortunately did not require surgery or emergency aid. There was some water at the sink so I did my best to clean us up, wobbly limping on the side. I did have to walk slower than usual since my ankle twisted. There were several neck bruises and small cuts on my arms and Ken’s but they were minor.

An hour later, I heard Ken stirred and he had kicked against a hose getting up. I ran over to check on him and he hugged me in relief, both of us in pain, wildly afraid and in tears again. Jitterbug, I stuffed the healing leaves into Ken’s mouth, forcibly had him swallow it down which he did. I utter to him in that sweet tone Mom had always, deliberating the new might. “Ken, I’m a Seer. Watch me.”

To be continued.

- Vander

The Bermuda Sky [A Horror Story] Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

“You sure there ain’t anything or anyone in the building?” Ken warned, looking on suspiciously with his sweat dripping from his head. We walked and ran for miles before finding this school, a possible safe place now decrepit and dreadful against a familiar backdrop. Walls still standing up and strong, roof from the front looks fine although yet to be examined. It’s the school that we pass always, on the way home from the Jupiter mall in Mom’s car and on our bikes. Signboard missing, but sure about the Maple International School with the fancy courts that Mom would say on repeat, school for the rich children and their mollycoddling maids. Our 23rd day alive since Bermuda happened, vile giant creatures had arrived and took the towns, animals, families, my parents.. everything sped by fast and gone. We don’t know the nature of these lifeforms, their actual names or where they came from, at least the both of us. All the TVs and radios had wires fried when the circle moon broke into a triangle, its center still moon-like but different and diabolical this time. The neighbour who died saving us a meal and a shelter on our 10th day, only said it was the Bermuda calling out monsters. There must be an explanation somehow on Bermuda. What martian sick shit Bermuda could tear us all apart?

Ken and I saw them black wispy figures with smoky dark hands taking away Mom and Dad when we ran for cover and our fearless and protective parents had thrown us into the sewers, so we were able to make it out. How they died flabbergasted, not gonna say further, or think about it anymore, or overthink and weep silly again. Ken in denial blamed Christ, cried 2 weeks in and still had more grief to settle for grievance. Seeing as I was older, I had to be collected, firm and decisive to act on behalf of us. There’s no way we could ever mend the loss. Taking care of my messy brother after all that we’ve been through is the code I live for now. I’ve kicked his bullies and jailed their gangs before, but this IS the ultimate. Surviving the future ahead without adults, little food, sleeping in turns, the stench, clueless. We didn’t have enough on us on several occasions so both of us passed out walking and hiding and then woke up walking again, a long shot away from home.

“We have to enter, to get food. There might be showers working too.” I told Ken while pushing away barricades blocking the institution’s front porch, some broken and some not, but all the same stained in blood. “We could go in, might be a fortress.” The school’s perimeter fences had a part of it toppled over for us to sneak in so we just needed to push through the main entry where the lock broke but wouldn’t open.

Something was holding those double doors fast behind, so we took a severed section of a barricade and pushed against it. The attempt failed and the door wouldn’t budge. “Go harder and faster, it might work.” Ken murmured, hurrying to grab another long, heavy clunk of steel. Nodding, I held up both hands on the other end to support it at the back. “OK, let’s push it a few times, it might give”. For two kids not even 18 years of age I admit, we were clumsy teens, uncoordinated and cared far less. After the 5th try, our clonk worked a wonder and one door collapsed behind its entrance, the other still standing but splintered. We backed away, puffs of dust and dirt hazing at a distance till we could see the opening at the doorway, clear to get in. Funny, we dashed in like kids. It was a decent sized building, larger than the houses we found earlier, and it had many rooms. Classrooms.

“Hey, should we seal the entry?” I called out to Ken. “Oh yeah, good idea.” Then he took the hammer and some nails we had in our bag (we were lucky to have found them in the home we sought refuge before we got here days ago, packed them in our large backpacks meant for backpacking). Ken rummaged a tiny pouch for the nails, pulled the hammer out, taking out pieces of broken wood he found and lifted them to board it up nicely.

I ran fast to the canteen, Ken ploddingly trailed behind. Pulling the knob and going in, my consciousness sank. I stood wobbly, shaken by damages I couldn’t believe. Dining tables were wrecked, lights fell onto severed floor tiles with pieces of glass shattered all over the left of its side entrance. The ceiling seemed to be ripped at its edges apart, leaving daylight casted over the floors below. I swung open the kitchen doors and the refrigerator was lying horizontal over broken tiles and a pile of debris. “Supplies” was written on one inner door I found. Going through it had bags of flour on a metal shelf. One bag had spilled out its contents over the floor with dirt and slime.

“Don’t touch that opened one”. My brother cautioned to me. “Contaminated yes?” I dragged the spilled flour bag over to one corner. Then I found something else there. At first, I didn’t think it was what it was, when I saw a torn box that had a sticker flipped upside down with handwritten random numbers on it. Didn’t seem like it had anything within. Still, any box could mean stuff we could use, so why not? I flung the box wide open and saw another smaller box in it. That was a box containing 12 smaller packs of Chocolate biscuits, 3 in a pack. 12! Expires a year later, which must be new. Now this was more practical than flour, we might not have water and salt to make bread or an edible. It should taste averagely good and weigh us down on the road.

I gestured over to Ken and pointed to the biscuit box. “Take these, not the flour. We don’t need extra baggage.” As though Ken could read my mind and knew what I was talking about, he rushed over to peek into the box. Right away, he slipped out a lopsided IKEA bag from his backpack and gathered the biscuits for us. I went ahead and pulled open the refrigerator door but it had nothing in it. We sighed together when our eyes met, empty and disheartened. There wasn’t anything else handy we could find there, after all the food cabinets and storage shelves have been checked. Ken popped into a classroom and got out, shaking his head. He did that for the classroom next door too.

Most of the stuff we saw and went through stunk pretty bad, mixed together with our terrible body odour craving to be treated. Not wanting to waste further time, we made our way to the toilets at the hallway and found ourselves a shower stall that still had some clean water coming through, though no heating. The flow of water stopped almost as soon as we had finished washing up, Ken fully dressed while tying his shoelaces. An immediate thump followed, quaking the floors and there was a loud crash coming from the hallway.

“OMG quuick! Get dressed!! Something’s coming!” Ken cried out, grabbing all our things. Loud, accelerated thuds from what seem like colossal footsteps sent shockwaves through the air and our actions hastened with the approach. My head was spinning. Putting on my pants, and reaching for the shirt, a blast came through, ripping walls and toilet bowls and the impact flew us to the back of the room. We huddled against each other, bracing silent and petrified. Tears were flooding away our senses and our bodies were at this moment pinned down by nerves. The black wispy ones appeared, this time raging and bigger than we saw, a monstrous arachnid organism scuttling its limps, rapid prods striking massive holes into the grounds of the toilet, smaller holes around caving in. We clung to the remaining walls, rolling about opposite directions to get away but it was lurching at us. The hairy legs compress a beckoning of dark lingering wisps, separating itself from parent to child, sandy string curling into and wrapping taut around our necks. The choke was impetuous and intense. All struggling and screaming had dissolved into a mute, my windpipe about to explode, body turning blue. I knew I was dying, my brother too.

I love you Ken.. An illuminating bright flash, keen to a sun ray exposure blurred my vision and, a second shot back to reality brought it closer to a sight like it was calling out to me. There I saw the pounding heart of the Bermuda beast.

To be continued.

- Vander

The Bermuda Sky [A Horror Story] Part 1

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities).

On the 3rd of April 2025, there was the Bermuda sky. It was the curse of the night. The ring moon we once knew pelted into a dull triangle, three edges and three vertices in grey overcast and in came the darkest of nights which will last forever, where the sun no longer rose to give light and hope. At the full moon we embraced on midsummer and gloriously basked in the meditation of stargazing, gave birth to an odd, triangular star soaring high above the black night, foreshadowing the annihilation of mankind.

We headed indoors and locked our doors as fast as we could, our hearts racing faster than our bodies understood, as foul “things” looking like black smoky wisps appeared. These things eat men and women and will not hesitate to take your children. At a distance, I could hear two other kids’ screaming cries and upon hearing their hands and legs being pulled out apart by those things I almost broke down in a meltdown panic. Dismembering body parts, no no no no no no no no no. No. Ken, my dear little brother and I, ran as fast as we could into our safe house with a tiny torch we both shared, hustling down into our basement fort all rattled, while bolting up the doors, shuttering reinforced windows and securing gaps with added wood planks that were gathered from the shed. We could still hear the thing’s breath…drawing near. I put my hands over Ken’s mouth and waited in the quiet, not moving a millimetre lift of a feather, not even letting my eyes roam.

Many lives were taken, including our parents, but we were not done living yet. Right now, as we sip leftover dirt rain water sitting with our soiled pants on rusty chairs in this hyper-catastrophe dystopia, we continue to fight with the last of our might. And, although young and clueless to most things as we should at this juncture, we know that tomorrow is the future and it still belongs to any of us who wants it badly. If Mom was here, she would indefinitely give her very best to keep us alive even when her body is no longer able to, so this is what we are doing, doing what Mom does best, for us. Gawd, I had to cry every time when I think of Mom and Dad. No longer just about missing them and having them around. Not only were they the best parents in the world, they loved us to bits. Ken and I. It just wasn't fair - Bermuda and these foul things got to them fast, ripping their bodies with the audacity to spit out our mom and dad’s brains on the sofa as we hid behind a bookshelf a meter across, staring straight into a sight so gross it had to be the ultimate symbol of parental death. This was the final end leaving us both abandoned and devastated in the middle of the woods where our home was. We walked for 22 days before we could find a safe house built on fortified walls, something we could at least count on in the meantime scavenging for food.

To be continued.

Disclaimer: All poetry and fiction here are original material written by Vander. Please note that all text references, descriptions and indications are purely fictional (make-believe if you didn’t know what fiction is!) and is in no relation to any actual entities).