Author: Cyrus Borzak
The initial shock kept Parker and Hudson in place. Their gazes lingered between Black Mystic’s gunwale and the water. They both saw Desmond get thrown overboard, but neither could believe the sequence happened. Activity on the deck pulled Parker’s attention back to the present. He observed Captain Stall step back from the gunwale and hold a finger to her ear as she spoke. The storm diminished once Desmond went into the water, so Parker could finally hear at least one side of the conversation.
“Confirmed, Mother’s Venture subject returned, storm abating, window closed.”
Stall nodded at the other officers on deck before giving her attention to the other “subjects”. Everyone else dispersed or went about their business like a man forcibly thrown overboard was part of the daily routine. Stall’s extra glances at the water and hesitancy to move on with her day at least hinted at some emotion wrapped around event. She straightened her uniform and smoothed over the few hairs displaced in the commotion. Satisfied she was put back together, Stall took a deep breath before approaching Parker, Hudson, and a wide-eyed Stone, who was now bracketed from behind by a panting Hrafnsson.
Parker fought to suppress the same reactionary attack he initiated on The Orange Nightingale. The events of the past days eroded his ability to avoid lashing out as well as his patience. Thankfully, Hudson was willing to do the talking.
“What the hell, Stall?! Did you just kill him?!”
Stall held up her hands in a calming gesture. “He’ll be okay. I know that looked bad, but I promise you, he’s fine.”
Doctor Hrafnsson chimed in between deep heavy breaths. “I’d hoped to explain the process to get you home, but this opportunity appeared unexpectedly, and we could not risk wasting it.”
Parker turned to face Hrafnsson. “Opportunity for what, drowning a man? And if you all are so quick to get rid of us, why are we still here?”
Hrafnsson still fought to catch his breath. “That’s how we get the displaced, like you, back home. The storm and the entity brought you here. They are the only things that can get you back. And you’re still here because we are unsure what could happen if we try to return subjects from different periods at the same time.”
Parker gave Stall and the doctor a look of incredulity. “By ‘get us back’, is that just a fancy way of saying sending us to our maker?”
Stall did not appreciate her actions being questioned. “Have we done anything to give the impression we are cold-blooded murderers? You saw when Desmond hit the water, he immediately disappeared.”
Desmond needed Stall to repeat what she had just yelled over the sounds of the raging storm. He looked at her with the same bewildered look he wore since coming aboard Black Mystic. He recognized nothing of this current world and understood only that he understood nothing. If not for Parker, Hudson, and Stone treating him so kindly, Desmond knew his only companion would be overwhelming loneliness, and that left him with uncertainty toward any possible future.
“Desmond, we have an opportunity to get you home, but we need to get you back into the water, and we need to do it now.”
Again, he heard the words but disbelieved Stall spoke true. She then yelled at someone behind him. He turned and felt a glimmer of hope as Parker and Hudson assessed the situation and inched toward him.
“Desmond, focus on me.”
He turned back to catch Stall’s eyes piercing his own.
“We are going to toss you overboard, and just like you ended up here, you will be transported home, to your own time. I know, it’s uncomfortable, but this is to help you.”
The vessel shook from a hard impact. Stall turned to look at one of the other officers on deck. Desmond stayed focused on her, trying to gauge her sincerity. A moment later, he felt strong hands grab him from behind and lift him off his feet. The storm hammered him with wind and water, rekindling memories of that fateful night aboard Mother’s Venture. Then, he was falling.
An angry ocean rushed to meet him, and just below the surface, Desmond once again saw the beast. Its maws opened and emerged from the surface to greet him. Desmond loosed no scream nor did he feel the icy slap of the water as he plunged into absolute darkness.
“How do you know it works?” Parker posed the question to a now fully recovered Hrafnsson. They were all back in the octagonal room and seated around the table with the glossy black surface. Several screens on the wall showed different views of the water’s surface and immediate depths. One had infrared scans while another mapped sonar pings. Then, there was a simple video of the surface. While nobody said what they were looking for, Parker, Hudson, and Stone knew they monitored for Desmond’s potential reappearance.
“We simply look back and see if there is record of the person after the date they initially disappeared. When we look before they are returned, we will only find record of their life up to the moment of their disappearance, and then, depending on their time period and culture, we typically find record of their assumed death, once expectation of finding them ends. Upon return, however, we find history of their actions up until their actual death.”
“So, are you seeing anything?”
Ulf worked the keys before him and bounced his gaze from screen to screen. His brow furrowed deeper with each passing second, and the perspiration returned to his forehead. He briefly looked up and gave Parker a weak smile before returning to his screens. After an additional few moments of typing and more harried checking of one screen after another, Ulf sat back in his chair and slowly looked up at the men.
“Sometimes, unfortunately, we don’t get immediate results. I could not find any change in Desmond’s story. But, as you can see, we have complete visibility of the waters around us, and he is not there. He went somewhere.”
“Okay, but where?”
Desmond remained in darkness. He heard the ocean and felt a solid surface beneath him. Hopeful excitement began coursing across his body, creating a wave of goosebumps. Had it worked? Desmond reasoned that if he had been eaten, he would be dead, though since he was still in darkness, he also figured he could be at the threshold of the afterlife. The space around him, however, did not feel like part of an ethereal plane. He then wondered if he had gone blind. He may very well be back aboard Mother’s Venture but unable to see it. Despite hearing the ocean and the solidity around him, Desmond did not feel any of the telltale rocking or sounds of a ship on the open water. Eventually, Desmond deduced he was somewhere different than he had been, but he had no guess as to where.
Desmond closed his eyes and pushed into them with his fingers. The act created a subtle disturbance of the darkness behind his eyelids, and he could make out the borders of his fingers as they swept across the soft depressions. He took that outcome to mean he was not blind, just surrounded by the total absence of light, and he exhaled in relief. Desmond continued sitting in the dark stillness and cycled through jumbled thoughts as he tried to make sense of his situation.
He was lost in thought but suddenly realized he could see his hand tracing shapes on what he took to be the floor. A soft pink light to Desmond’s left started as a floating dim ball in the distance and slowly brightened until he could discern he was in what appeared to be a hallway, and the light originated from a place, possibly a room, at the hallway’s end. Desmond got to his feet and gave his surroundings a better look. It definitely was not Mother’s Venture, nor was it any place he recognized. The floor and walls looked to be stone that was covered in moisture and irregular splotches of moss. Despite the moisture, the stone was warm to the touch. It was not scalding hot but a soothing warmth, and only then did Desmond realize he was dry and felt completely comfortable.
Though he could now see, there was nothing to the hallway that gave Desmond any sense of danger, safety, or escape. The light, however, beckoned him. While Desmond did not know where the light would lead or what lie at its source, he knew it was something different from where he was, so it was worth investigating.
As he walked toward the light, Desmond felt a hint of anger invade his mind. He was angry at Stall for promising him he would be safe and able to go home. He was upset he was now alone without even strangers with whom to share this burden. At the root of his discontent, however, Desmond wanted to return to a world he understood. These thoughts occupied his mind as he took cautious steps down the hallway. He did not notice the absence of any sound or echo from his footfalls, nor did Desmond ever look back to see the hallway shorten behind him, forcing him forward in one direction.
The light was not as far away as Desmond expected. After less than a minute of walking through the mossy hallway, he came to an arched opening with the pink light streaming through from the other side. Desmond ducked to look through the doorway but could not make out anything through the light’s glare other than the stone floor expanding out into a room. That was good enough for him, and Desmond stepped through the arch.
When Desmond stood to his full height on the other side and the light no longer shown directly into his face, he took in a voluminous room with high walls whose tops escaped the light’s touch. Desmond noticed there was something peculiar on the walls, almost like they moved. He slowly approached the wall to his right, and as he got closer, he could see pockets of pink swirls set in rows and columns that seemingly ran the length of the wall and up toward the ceiling.
Desmond drew nearer until he stopped an arm’s length from one of the swirling cells. It was slightly taller and wider than him, and he could see there was depth behind the swirl, like a casket set into the wall. That is when Desmond noticed there was something in there, but the swirl obfuscated it. He stepped forward and put his face as close to the swirl as he dared. Desmond squinted to try catch a glimpse of the contents in the occasional small gap in the swirling pink mist. He finally did and saw the captain of Mother’s Venture staring back.
Desmond yelped and stumbled back from the wall, tripping over his own feet and landing hard on the floor. He scurried back from the haunting face until his back hit against the opposite wall. He turned and looked into another swirling mist, this time catching sight of a hand sticking out of a white sleeve. Desmond rose to his feet and quickly backed to the middle of the room where he frantically looked around and realized how many swirling cells surrounded him. His breathing accelerated and dizziness overwhelmed his senses. This was not home. This is not what was promised. He turned and turned, pink light and swirls wherever he looked. He dropped his head into his hands and let tears of exhaustion and fear flow. Desmond could not stop thinking that he wished he had been eaten rather than be trapped in this hell. Then, a soft but strong voice froze him.
“Desmond Beauchamp, welcome back. You were missed.”
Featured Image: Shutterstock 334800971 (Claire McAdams)
