Dust
Part of the Album writing prompt thingy.
By: Turboencabulator
Album: Can’t Wake Up - Shakey Graves
Dust spiraled in the noonday nothing as the wind blew over what used to be verdant plains. The
sky was the same empty grey, devoid of life and character. The moon was long gone, only a belt
of rubble around the world. An incongruously black strip of asphalt, cracked and half-buried,
split the horizon. A toppled house or overturned, rusted out car dotted the roadside.
Kyle knelt in the shadow of a lone brick wall, re-tying the laces on his boots, smelling the
dry, sterile air, tinged with his own sweat. He stood up, lean, wiry, and rolled his
shoulders.
He looked at the ground. Then at the sky. He was puzzled, and a voice interrupted his reverie,
making him look down again.
“What yu wookin at, daddeh?”
A pale lavender fluffy, not so plump, but healthy, was watching Kyle. After a minute of
thinking, Kyle picked him up, tucking him in the basket on a worn, but well maintained
bicycle.
“Well, I was looking and trying to figure out why the wall has a shadow.” Kyle said, turning
back to look at it. “Not everything does.”
The fluffy looked at the shadow, then up in the sky. “If dewe no sky-baww, why anyfing hab
shadow?”
“Yeah, it’s weird isn’t it.”
The pair looked at the wall for a moment more, before Kyle got on the bike and pushed off, a
helmet on each. The bike’s shadow was going in one direction, their own another. Kyle didn’t
say anything, for the strange behavior unnerved him. It would unnerve Patchouli, and that would
lead to extra issues.
Miles rolled under the bicycle’s wheels, and Kyle checked a compass often. It pointed dead
ahead, and for the past few days it drifted less and less. What that meant, neither could guess,
but Patchouli said he could smell new things now, very faint. Like the smell of rain.
Dead trees, twisted into unnatural knots became a feature, and Kyle would stop here and there,
pulling dry firewood for when the world turned chilly. The cart on his bike was a sturdy
affair, and made good use of space, so he didn’t need to give up provisions for wood.
Neither fluffy nor human could quite tell how long it has been since the sun vanished, and the
moon broke apart. Nobody could remember much about the times before that, even the few others that Kyle had come across had issues remembering, if they were in the right mind to remember anything at all.
A whistle sounded on the wind, and Patchouli buried himself in the basket. Kyle slowed his bike
to a stop, wincing as the wheels rubbed and squeaked, and got off, hauling Patchouli with. He
lay the bike down and covered it with dust, and hauled a grey cloth over the cart, securing it
and disguising it as a rock.
There was an old house nearby, and Kyle slipped in a window, cautiously, working himself and
Patchouli inside the hall closet and closing the door. Patchouli trembled, keeping his face in
his tail, and breathing in the slow, even way Kyle taught him.
The siren like sound began, a call and response of faceless, ageless hunters prowling the
wastes of what once was. Kyle pulled down the tattered remains of coats and jackets, making a
bed, and curled up in the closet with Patchouli. He knew they would be there for a while.
A day later and Kyle ventured outside, his bike still buried, but the cart of provisions was
shredded, strewn about and soiled with ichorous slime. A dense, rot and chemical funk hung in
the air. Patchouli took a moment to waddle away to vomit, then after taking water, the duo rode
onwards on the road, past a sign saying ‘Welcome to Illinois’.
The compass guided them until on the horizon, Kyle could see a bright red line shooting up into
the sky. The needle lined up with it perfectly.
Within a day they coasted onto a sprawling campus of glass and steel, a star-like glyph still
standing in blue painted concrete, the rest worn away. The central plaza, formerly some kind of
garden, was overtaken with cables, machinery, and a humming device in the middle, firing a beam
of red light into the sky.
As Kyle rolled past, the streetlights all turned on, and Patchouli jumped. “Dey hab
ewektwifty?”
“I guess.” Kyle said. “Must have a generator or something.”
At the far end of the plaza, glass doors were propped open on a building. Kyle rode in,
stopping in what appeared to be a marble and glass reception hall.
Rows of desiccated bodies were neatly laid, all wearing ID badges, and either lab coats or
business suits, in every hallway that Kyle looked down. Patchouli whimpered and hid his eyes,
afraid of the sight.
A television was standing on a cart in the middle of the reception area, with a media player
attached.
Kyle walked over to it and pressed play.
A middle aged man in a lab coat sits down in frame, adjusting his clothing and clearing his
throat.
“Never thought I’d be making this kind of briefing.” He mutters, then looks up at the
camera. He’s sporting pronounced bags under his eyes.
“My name is Doctor Paul Scarlet. I’m a researcher here. This used to be a place where people
figured out how the world was constructed.” He says, then sighs. “And we have made a mistake.”
“I don’t know who you are or how well educated you might be. I will explain as simply as I
can. The world is made up of tiny things, so small you can’t see them. We try to learn how
these tiny things work. One of them, though, is special. It gives everything its structure. We
call it the Higgs particle.”
“During our investigations, we found that the Higgs particle could be built another way. A
simpler way. So someone got the idea to try it.”
After a moment, he lights a cigarette with a grimace. “Turns out it was also a way to build it
where it did not give structure to time. It was simpler, and the universe likes things
simple. So when we made it, the universe became simpler. Which made all the adjacent bits
become simpler, and on and on. An expanding bubble of non-time that started a hundred feet
below where you are standing.”
“I’m sorry,” Paul said, “There’s nothing else to be done. With the lack of time, the universe
will end in a way that our science cannot predict. Instead of a heat death, it will be the
death of structure, we think. The rules of reality will erode. We’ve already seen lifeforms
that cannot exist in our known rules of nature. You probably have too.”
“In the drawer under this video display are doses of poison. We all have decided to end it now,
rather than wait and see the horrors that are to come.”
The video ends.
Kyle stared at the screen, then slowly looked up at the clock on the wall, frozen and
motionless. After a moment he opened the drawer, finding a wide tray of empty slots for pills.
Patchouli padded over, tapping at Kyle’s ankle. “Daddeh, wut wong?”
“They killed the world, Patch.” Kyle said. “And someone else got here and took all the
forever-sleeping pills.”
Patchouli looked around, confused. “Den whewe dey nao?”
Kyle slowly stiffened, looking around. The bodies that lined the halls were gone, only the
occasional scrap of cloth marking where they may have been. He picked up Patchouli and got back
on the bike, pedaling out as fast as possible.
There was a whistling on the wind.
