THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter Zero

~PROLOGUE~

The Fourth Order

1977  

The seven are at the bottom of the eight foot pit they've dug at the back of an abandoned farm, deep in the hills of New England. It's mid afternoon; the air is calm and the sky is clear. The sun is directly above them, beating down to where they're sitting, holding hands in a circle with the torn out pages of an ancient Shangrinn text pinned to their chests.

They're staring up into the searing light, not caring that their corneas are burning. It's too meaningful for it hurt. This might be the last time they ever get to feel a sun like this, and for the first time they wonder if they'll miss it in the place they're leaving to.

Will this place be like how the words on their chests describe it? Maybe this new world will be in a state of perpetual twilight that lingers on the horizon in all directions and the plants will feed off of little stars that suspend in the air like pollen. Maybe their bodies will move as gracefully as if they were underwater, and in this new place they'll never feel cold and always feel loved. Maybe it will look just like this world, but without any of the same pain. If that's the case, I don't blame them for wanting to leave. The words tell them it's more beautiful than anything this dimension has allowed them to imagine, but they've still tried; it's what their lives have become: trying to imagine the unimaginable to the point of belief. And they've done it. The world that inhabits them is more real to them now than the world they inhabit.

They are waiting. They can't see it yet, but they can feel the moon coming to take away the light.

Cynthia Frasier reaches to the centre of the circle for the gun, and hands it to Striker Hastings. Kent watches him take it, noticing how steady Striker's hand is. There's an eerie peacefulness in the pit that goes against every animal instinct clawing at Kent Barren's insides, screaming at him to stop this.

With his heart beating out of his chest, he looks across to Sarah Lacey, the girl he thought he loved more than this world, more than his own sanity. Her lips relax into an effortless smile as she looks back across to him. Her eyes are bright and so full of love, so full of faith. She is so sure. This should calm him, but it only terrifies him more, like Striker's steady hand. His mud-caked jeans soak with his own urine. Sarah sees this, but doesn't flinch in her composure.

She mouths to him that she loves him. His heart is crushing too intensely for him to say it back, but she knows that he does. How could he not? Their love story is greater than any; theirs doesn't end in death. This is where theirs begins.

Over the hills, the moon's shadow races towards them, swallowing their part of the world in darkness, like the sky is tucking them in under a silky black sheet. The sound of wings flapping overhead, from birds trying to escape the wall of darkness, is their only lullaby telling them to sleep.

They feel it coming minutes before it touches them.

Alien winds echo down in distorted waves of unfamiliar sound that can only be heard during an eclipse like this. It's been over a hundred years since the last one occurred here. It will be forty more before it comes again.

The click of the gun's safety being switched off will forever haunt Kent Barren. Striker Hastings cocks it.

Kent blinks fast, trying to hold back tears, too scared to shut his eyes completely because he needs to see her. He needs to see her face, to know that it's going to be okay.

And then it happens; the pit goes dark.

He wants to get up, to scream at them that this is a mistake, but he's frozen and the first gunshot happens too fast. The sound sets off an intense ringing in his ears that makes none of this feel real, like he's in some kind of messed up dream that up until two seconds ago, he wanted. Maybe he still wants it, but he's too scared now to know. He can't think—he can't do anything.