Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Vector

He knelt low in the grass brushing his fingers through the green, overhead the sky and clouds moved like they should trundling across the blue expanse as they shrunk towards the horizon. It was all an illusion, but it seemed so....so real , it felt real and smelled real. Looking at the fake image of his mother, looking as she did in old family pictures, he could see the light diffusing through her skin, a perfect facsimile of the real thing captured in the past.

But why here?

Was there a reason the cube had taken him here?

Conn stood next to him staring out across the projected world frowning, probably wishing there were more people than Adam here, so that he could invade their minds.

Adam ignored him for the most part.

The sky overhead began to darken.

He expected Martha to pick up her children and start heading home, but the children continued to play oblivious to the approaching dark, and Martha, just didn't move from her spot. It wasn't THAT odd, not really, not until the darkness increased, and no light began flickering on, and yet the children were still playing.

It was only then he noticed how, the children were playing, but..... somehow even that seemed wrong, repeating the same actions repeatedly, their voices slowly fading until they played, but made no noise.

He backed away into the grass the hair rising on the back of his arms.

"Adam."

He turned to look at Conn who was facing in the other direction.

This time he didn't ignore Conn's unease, which was so powerful he could feel it seeping through his telepathic communication, "What do you feel?" He asked softly

"It isn't empty anymore." Conn said softly, and the phrase sent a shiver up Adam's back as he stood.

And as he stood, he saw something else stand.

The shadow of his mother sitting in the darkness.

It shouldn't' have bothered him as much as it did, but there was something about the way she moved that made his skin crawl. He turned to look at her, adjusting the setting on his mechanical eye, and flicking on the small, but powerful green bulb in the back, sometime between Adam choosing to turn on the light and the light coming on, she had moved, impossibly fast.

Light spilled out of his eye, bathing the park in a green haze.

And her twisted face.

He screamed in shock and leapt back as Martha stepped forward jerkily, her arms opened out to the sides as if expecting a hug. But the issue, she had no eyes, they had been replaced with jutting tusks of bone which curved from her eye sockets.

A red glow emanated from her mouth as she spoke.

"Dangerous of you to come here darling, for the void is ours."

Adam stepped back

It was his mother's voice, but not the way she spoke. His stomach churned, and he stepped back, running into Conn who was facing in the other direction, "Adam..."

Martha jolted forward.

Adam reached into his jacket, and with a sharp snap, he had a spear in his hand internally thanking Sunny for all the gifts of concealable weapons that she had given him, and insisted that he carry. He Brandished the spear with a steady hand despite his trembling lips, "Stay back."

Martha smirked.

"I wonder, could you stab your own mother, even knowing it isn't her?"

She stepped closer.