When All is Null and Void

Chapter Five

"What is that?" Caleb asked, yanking his hand away from Rhea with a rough jerk. The needle she held was far too large and seemed to be growing with every passing second. Caleb's heart thundered against his ribcage.

"I need to inject you with this. It's a serum for the test." Rhea's voice was calm and collected. "You might be afraid of needles, but to test your aptitude, it's vitally important."

"I'm not afraid of needles," Caleb replied, although it came out a little too pinched, a little too childish to be truthful. Despite his swimming thoughts and the bead of icy sweat already dribbling down his forehead, Caleb extended his arm.

"Thank you," Rhea said as she brought the needle to his skin. Pinching slightly as it sank into his arm, Caleb's breath hitched as she pressed a button on the side of the vial. Nausea wormed through his stomach as the contents of the needle plunged into a vein and straight into his blood stream. Perhaps he imagined it, but euphoria enveloped Caleb, as if a cloud had opened above his head, allowing light to stream down onto him. It lasted only a moment before horror gripped him. The veins on his arms had turned an ebony black, stark against his pale skin.

Caleb grunted as heaviness settled onto him, pulling his head down. His heart still pounded, pushed whatever substance had been in the vial flowed to the deepest parts of his bloodstream. He fought the serum for as long as possible, until it hurt to stay awake, until Rhea James and her assistant faded away into a foggy wisp, and darkness overtook him.

The totality of that darkness lasted for a mere moment before shadows appeared. Stark outlines of rock, fog reaching out to be pulled into Caleb's lungs as he took a deep breath. His heart had calmed, but he felt out of his body. In fact, Caleb's perception was completely out of normal human parameters, as if he'd been stuck to the ceiling of this--cave; he was in a cave. Trying desperately to look at his own body, but failing miserably to find it, Caleb realized he was not alone. Two other people stood in close proximity to where a corporeal form of Caleb ought to have been.

Upon noticing them the boy and girl who couldn't have been much older than Caleb, they seemed to rocket into motion. The girl chattered excitedly at the boy who was quietly observing the cave. He didn't seem to be listening to her, but he also didn't seem annoyed by her shrill voice that pierced into Caleb's nerves. "Carter," she finally said, grabbing the boy by the elbow. Carter looked at her, pulled away from a spot along the wall that had a moment before gained his full attention. When he turned, Caleb knew he must be dreaming—this Carter kid looked almost exactly like Titus James.

"Do you hear that?" she asked. A fearful sort of awe rippled from her.

Caleb held his breath, although he wasn't sure how he could hold his breath if he had no lungs to expel air from in the first place. It was so dismal in this cave, where dripping water echoed. Other than the final reverberation of the girl's voice off the walls and the water, it was silent. At least, it seemed to be.

Caleb took a heavy breath, forcing air out, and yet he heard nothing. Where am I? He tried to speak, but no sound passed through his lips. He took another deep breath, forgetting the two figments of his imagination. He was panicking again, the experience of disembodiment and separation unnervingly acute. What had Rhea James done to him?

Caleb's perspective changed abruptly, from above to immediately in front of the boy and girl. From his perspective before, Caleb hadn't been able to make out their clothing. Their style was oddly out of date, something people in the 1940s probably wore. Carter wore tweed pants and suspenders, and where a jacket could have covered a once white shirt, Caleb only saw rust-colored patches. The girl wore a dress, bloodied and tattered near her knees. Both seemed slightly fringed in mist at the edges, as if Caleb saw them through smoke and mirrors rather than with his own eyes.