A Storm Beyond the Worlds

Thunders roar outside like a grumbling beast.

I open my eyes, slowly getting up from a bed. Wait, this doesn’t feel like my bed. I sit up, it looks like I’m in a hospital room—am I sick? Did I get into an accident? Mum? Dad?

I look around. Heavy, dense masses of clouds outside the window. Beneath me I see a tiled floor, bleached white and cold. I don’t feel ill or hurt or anything, so I hop off. Wait, I was sleeping with my sneakers on the bed? I hear machines beep and blink like watchers in the dark. The air smells of metal, antiseptic, and… something sadder—like wilted flowers left too long by a forgotten bedside.

I turn my head and see another bed behind a veil of white curtains. I hear a girl sobbing. She sobs so violently her entire bed shakes. Oh no, this totally feels like a scene from a Japanese horror movie. I don’t know why, but just the horror movie trope, I feel myself compelled to tip-toe forward to take a look. Get ready for jump scare…

I’m not brave at all. It’s just… it feels different. Her sobbing doesn’t feel scary, it just feels sad. Again, that’s what all scary movies want the main character to feel in the beginning. I don’t care about movie tropes anymore, so I tip-toe forward. Inch by inch, I poke my head around the curtain, and see only white.

I can’t see her face. All I can make out is her long white hair clings like soaked threads of silk. Her fists clutches the thin hospital sheets, knuckles white, as if trying to hold on to something that was already gone. She’s sobbing so uncontrollably I don’t think she knows I’m here, or if the entire world exists at all.

BOOM!

Ack! Jump scare! Outside the window, lightning tore through the sky over a storm-lashed city. Skyscrapers of glass and steel shimmer beneath the rain. Cars howled across flooded streets.

“Why am I here?” I whispered. My voice was swallowed by the girl’s cries. “Wait… Grandfather Moon, World of Shen, Zobito… was that all a dream?”

This would be a very lame story if everything turns out to be a dream.

Clack!

Ahh! Jump scare number two! The windows suddenly blew open. A gust of cold wind pushed the curtains into the room, so strong it’s pushing me off balance. I fall onto my butt. As I slowly regain balance, I look up at the girl.

The storm seems to wake her a little. I see her tilt her head to look up for just a moment.

Her eyes look like lakes—tears poured rivers down her cheeks and soaking her gown. She trembles like a dam about to break. She doesn’t speak. She can’t. Her sorrow says everything.

I feel tears rolling in my eyes too. I can’t take her sadness anymore. My instinct pushes me up and drawing me closer to try to embrace her. But wait! my hands… they pass through the bed, the sheets, the girl.

A whisper suddenly swims around the room, cold and still, not my own, nor anyone else’s:

“This sorrow is not yours. I will carry the weight alone.”

The storm outside shatters a rooftop in the distance. Alarms screamed. The lights in the room flickered.

I leap toward the voice.

“Please! Let me carry this weight with you!”

My cry breaks through the room. The world instantly dissolved.

I open my eyes, gasping.

I look around. The world is back. I’m sitting up, and see stony walls sprinkled with moss around me. I can hear a fire crackling, and my senses return from the scent of ember.

A tall metallic figure sits not far from me, humming softly and tending to a warm campfire. A tall metallic figure… Zobito!

I’m in a cavern. I look out towards the exit. No skyscrapers, no cars, but a stand of conifers. And far in the distance behind the clouds, I see a tall spire piercing the sky.

Rain drips from a crack in the cavern ceiling above my makeshift hay bed made by my robot companion, hitting my cheeks with cold reality.

“Good morning, civilian.” Zobito’s warm voice chimes like a digital clock. “Your qi seem to indicate you had a bad dream. May I offer you some warm water for hydration and harmonising your mental state?”

“Umm… yeah, sure, thanks.” I mutter.

I feel I’m slowly coming back to my grasp of reality. Is this what interdimensional jetlag feels like? I look around, the shadows of the cave flickered with firefly glow, a strange robot heating a pot of water on the fire.

I still hear the echo of sobs in my heart. Cold. Sad.

“Please stay warm.” Zobito’s voice. I feel a warm blanket covering me. I snap out of my musings and turn to her. “I am detecting severe weather. A storm is coming our way.”

I take another peek outside the cavern. The heavy clouds are gathering and darkening the sky, covering the Celestial Tower almost out of sight.

Yeah, a storm is definitely coming.