Welcome to Gaia! ::

It started when he was a child.

Didn’t it always?

On the edge of a storm drain, peering into nothingness. For a seven-year-old, there were certainly more suitable places to play than an aluminum tunnel stowed away in the middle of the woods, but no swing set or slide held such danger, such mystery, such intrigue. It was a place to test his mettle, seeing how far he could push himself into the darkness before the light behind him grew too small to bear. It was a gateway to an ancient civilization, all rust and wet earth and rot. Sometimes, it was just a place to scream curse words and imagine the echo being carried all the way across the globe and coming out the other side to ruin some Japanese man’s day.

By his approximations, gleaned from the rumors that circulated among his peers, it was the resting place of twenty-seven children, eleven adults, fourteen dogs, and nine cats. It was the home to no less than the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the last living Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Jim Gallagher, that weird smelling kid that nobody liked.

And then, one day, it was the place of something real.

He would always tell himself that it was his fault. Not in the sense that it was the work of an overactive imagination or some sleight of mind, but in that he had pushed himself too far into the unknown for it to remain unknown. He had walked so deep down the tunnel that the light of the entrance became little more than a speck, the faintest of reminders that there existed a world outside of all that nothing. And there, alone in the dark, he felt it. A force, a presence, a something. Electricity at his fingertips, as if the air itself was responding to his occupation of the narrow space. He did not breathe. He did not move. But when the darkness did both of those things he ran screaming from the tunnel. He never went back.

In fact, he spent the rest of his life never going back. He chased after the unspectacular. The tangible and knowable. High school mediocrity and a platonic prom date. A college degree in Business. A studio apartment and a cat named Lu. Nothing but Special K for breakfast and Red Lobster his idea of an evening out. His Facebook photo an anonymous white silhouette.

A beige existence made the occasional shifting and hum of shadows so much easier to glaze over. That was, of course, until the busted up 1999 Honda Accord ruined everything.

“Ma’am, it’s really not my place to judge.”

“I can hear it in your tone. It’s sickening.”

He resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, or to grit his teeth, or to show frustration in even the slightest twitch. He wasn’t judging her. It wasn’t his job to judge anyone. He was simply analyzing facts, measuring the fallibility of human memory against evidence – photographs, damage reports, and physician evaluations against… well…

“I can understand doubting the injuries. There are so many crooks in this world, it’s only natural. But the emotional trauma? You are no psychologist, sir.”

Honestly? The neck brace was a little much.

He had become a claims adjuster because after that life-defining incident, that was the sort of career he aspired to. He had debated accounting, or becoming a real estate agent, or any number of other professions that would bore people at the parties he didn’t go to. He found something so comforting in losing himself in mountains of paperwork, where there was an infallible standard for him to adhere to. Signatures went in certain places. Words were printed in specific fonts. And somewhere amongst all those sheets, amongst all that raw data, there existed a single, undeniable truth. He could spend his whole life digging for it, and as far as he was concerned, that was exactly what he was going to do.

But the one thing he couldn’t stand?

The one thing that threatened to bring the whole enterprise tumbling down?

The people.

The unpredictable, awful, irrational people.

“It’s just…” He pushed the picture of the dented fender forward, tapping it twice and looking the middle-age wreck sitting across from him in the eyes. “… with this kind of damage, it’s extremely unlikely there was enough force in the impact for you to sustain the kind of injuries you’re claiming to have.”

“Then how do you explain the pain?” she snapped, gaze meeting his and refusing to acknowledge the photo. “Why do I need a Vicodin just to get out of bed in the morning? What about the night terrors?”

“I…” He searched for the words, but found himself staring at the woman’s mouth. Too red lipstick. Wrinkles spreading out from the corners like fault lines of misery. And between stained teeth, such terrifying darkness. “I don’t know, Ms. Anderson. But we can’t cover your expenses.”

“You know what you are?” she hissed, hackles rising as she clutched her rhinestone purse tighter to her chest. “A vulture. A goddamn scavenger.” She stood, portly frame trembling with indignation. “Feeding off of the misery of good people just to save a dollar! Sickening, it’s sickening!” Her voice cracked as she turned to trundle off in a snit, leaving the smothering scent of stale perfume in her wake.

Character assassination by way of a woman who had probably consumed more Mallomars than oxygen in her life. It wasn’t how he expected his day to go.

After work, he sat alone in his car, engine running in the same spot he parked every day. He slouched in the driver’s seat, hunched over the name tag he held in his hands, thumb running over the bold black letters reading “SCOTT THOMPSON.”

He had always wondered why he had ran away that day. No matter how many times he reached the same conclusion, his mind always wandered back to that moment. He had bumped up against something not even a child’s imagination could fathom, and ever since then he had been trying to wrap his head around things he could more easily understand. Comfort in the explicable, hands clamped over his ears and eyes wrenched shut to brace himself against those moments when a movement in the shadows hinted at some grander meaning to the world.

He wasn’t a scavenger. He didn’t feed off of other people’s misery. He didn’t even understand misery. How could anyone be attached to anything in this place? How could they feel joy or sadness when everything boiled down to cold hard facts? The sky was blue. The average life expectancy of a grizzly bear was thirty years. People will always disappoint you, except when they don’t. Nothing surprising in the least.

But out there? In the darkness? There was something they couldn’t ever comprehend. Something was tapping on the glass, always threatening to break through and muck up their tidy little explanations.

In that tunnel, there had been so much more to life. Staking out new territory in the dark, he had been a pioneer, blazing a trail across a new frontier. It was the last place he had felt anything other than apathy, and even if that feeling was abject terror, a small part of him always wished he could go back and take one more step forward.

A knock.

“Mr. Thompson?”

He never had the manliest tenor, so anyone in the surrounding buildings would be excused for having thought a woman was shrieking somewhere in the distance. The stranger showed no sign of amusement over the cry of surprise, but even if they had Scott would not have seen it. He was too busy staring at the knuckles politely rapping against the window of his car, fear choking his breath as his name tag slipped through his fingers and fell to the floor.

“If I could have a moment of your time?”

And then there was nothing.

"Let there be light."

And there was light.

It wasn't exactly a brightly shining beacon of hope, but it was a great deal more promising than Scott Thompson's previous state of nothing. In a distance was somewhere between several hundred feet and forever, a faintly glowing something waited ahead. The voice that had commanded the light continued, "That's better. Done reflecting on the woes of trivialities of your previous existence? Ready to step out of your blandly pathetic shell into a world where you are significant? Just a little bit, mind you. I'm much more important than you, so please do keep that in mind."

A long pause and then, "Well? Go toward the light? Summon a weapon to cut through the worthless dross that is your subconscious?Anytime now?"

The voice paused a long while before answering, "WHO SAID THERE WERE CHILD SEX SCANDALS.THOSE RUMORS ARE COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED. CLARICE! CLARICE!"

"Yes, sir."

"HAS CAED BEEN SPREADING RUMORS ABOUT ME? I'M THINK I'M GOING TO REMOVE SOMETHING NEXT TIME HE GOES UNDER."

"I'll note it on your schedule sir."

As "God" apparently spoke with his assistant, something odd was happening to the arrow in Scott's hand. It grew. And grew. And...

"FOR GOD'S SAKE JUST MOVE ON AND WAKE UP ALREADY!"

And it was so.




((Please head over to THE COVE thread HERE, READ THE PROMPT CLOSELY, and post a response to it thank you and congratulations!! ))