02.08.2016
Dalence woke up but could not tell what time it was because the rain still fell in a torrential downpour and low clouds kept out most sunlight. Brust’s door was still shut as she walked into the living room.
She’d gotten back late from the central marketplace, but Brust had gone to spend the evening with friends and got back even later than her. He stumbled into the house, forgot he was taking his shoes off, and kept looking for matches to light a lamp. Dalence crawled out of bed and got him to bed, where he promptly passed out. She then fell asleep some time later to the sound of rain on the sidewalk, roof, everywhere.
Now, she made oatmeal on the stove and drank water to make up for last night. Dalence tried to sit on the sofa and read part of the book on star charts which she was half way through, but she kept drifting back to sleep. She eventually gave up and went back to bed. She fell asleep immediately and most of Suu-manth passed the dark, damp day similarly.
A tremble woke her. She lie there and wondered what it was. Had she woken herself up with a twitch? But it was as if she’d been roused from a deep sleep. There it was again. The bed shook slightly for a few seconds. A pause and a stronger shake. The books on her night stand vibrated. She shot straight out of bed and out of her room.
Brust was asleep on the sofa now. She shook him hard on the chest as the plates in the cupboard rattled.
“Brust, wake up!”
A snore caught in his throat as his eyes crept open.
“We’ve got to get up,” she said again. “The wolf is coming.”
He wore a confused look on his face until it was replaced with a sweeping realization. A book clattered from the sofa’s table to the ground, pages slowly folding over to a steady open state. Dalence grabbed Brust’s arm and drug him up. She grabbed both his and hers coats from the coat rack by the door and opened the front door.
Others had made their way outside too. She wasn’t sure where to go for the best view. The marketplace was likely to be crowded, and she didn’t like the idea of a large group. She lead Brust’s sluggish figure toward the fringe of town, where they might use the foothills of the Knuckle to gain a vantage point.
It was night time now, but the lamps had been refueled and re-lit. Lightning forked across the sky again as a powerful tremor passed through the town. She heard children begin to cry. The quaking was steady by the time the reached a hill. She wiped water and hair from her face as she scoured the area for any clues.
“What is going on?” Brust asked as he looked about.
“Those are the steps of the wolf. He’s come, of course, on a night when we can’t see shit.”
“Do we have anything for a weapon?” he asked.
“I didn’t think to grab something as we left home.”
Brust groaned, “This headache is awful.”
“Just sit down,” Dalence said.
A stronger wave struck the area and filled the air with a deep sound. A house on the periphery of town had its roof collapse. A shout went up as the neighbors next door asked if the owners were still home. The shaking intensified until both Dalence and Brust collapsed to the ground. Dalence crawled over to Brust just as a series of lightning bolts illuminated the jagged Knuckles. A landslide or avalanche of rocks broke free of their hold some way up the mountain and tumbled down. An incredible clamor washed over the two and they clung to one another. Animals wailed and flocks of birds could be seen against the sky as lightning brightened the clouds. More houses failed and splintered and crashed, and contents ignited from fires and lamps. The insides were not yet drenched in rain.
Dalence shouted to Brust, “I’m sorry I wasn’t more supportive of you, but I’m glad we got to have lunch yesterday.” Her voice failed and Brust clutched her harder and pulled her into his arms.
Another cliff of rocks broke free and the sound grew louder, the screams harder to hear, and the ground shook with a renewed intensity. Brust shouted over the noise, into her ear, “I’m scared, so scared. The end of the world is here and we can’t even run from it.”
A bridge nearby toppled into the water flowing under it.
“I’m glad,” he added, “that we’ll go holding each other.”
The ground’s shuddering trailed off and came to a stop. They both staggered to their feet. A great light erupted in the west and they both took off running toward the mountains eastward. The crack of thunder hit them as another set of lightning bolts tore through the sky. They saw a great chasm yawn miles to their right as the grounds shifted and moved apart. Water from a lake next to it drained into the gulch and stead leapt skyward.
The ground shook again just as they got across the river whose bridge had collapsed. They both staggered forward and fell as they couldn’t keep a foothold again. The mountains cast down more rocks and the entire sky was thick with vibration and sound and fear. A shape appeared above the mountains as lightning flared, and Dalence let out a shill scream with Brust’s low one as she glimpsed the beast she’d watched for so long. Lightning struck up into the mountains at the eyes of the wolf.
A great wind swept over them, bringing the vapor that poured into the air from the trench northward. It was a warm blanket until a colder wind replaced it. The lightning went dark for a moment as the quaking reached its most fevered point. Dalence opened her eyes and craned her neck backward to look at the wolf on the mountains. Its eyes glowed there until rain hit her eyes and forced her to look away and yell to Brust.
“He’s here, Brust. I love you!”
“I love you. I love you.” he replied.
Dalence prepared for teeth in her back. But the trembling lessened and the rain let up at the same time. She still held Brust and dared not look out. Another crack of thunder and the ground settled to a nervous jitter. The two of them lay there, drenched and terrified. The ground had calmed, but they both shook with fear. A few more quick spasms of the earth beneath them and the world lay eerily quiet. Dalence finally opened her eyes.
The rain broke and Dalence could only see the city during a brief few flashes of distant lightning.
Brust said, “Dalence, are you okay?”
She wrapped her arms around her brother, “I am. I am. I’m not sure what’s happened, but the storm is let up.”
She was pulled to her feet by Brust and they stood collecting themselves. She turned back toward the mountains and said, “I saw the wolf on the mountains with eyes glowing.”
Brust turned and looked upward. The shilouettes of the range were barely darker than the clouds behind. A wisp of cloud crossed the mountains and trailed off over the city. Left behind were two burning tree stumps that had exploded when hit with lightning. Brust said, “I think that’s lightning caused that,” and he squeezed Dalence to him.
“Then he must still be over there,” she said.
Brust turned back to Suu-manth. The faint light from the burning buildings or street lamps which survived the tremor stood in the night.
“Dalence, it might have only been a bad quake. Look at the city.”
She turned as well from the burning trees to smoking homes where flames sputtered against the dripping water.
“But, Brust,” she said as he took her shoulders and started back toward town, “what if he comes back?”
“I’m just as afraid of what we’ll find if he doesn’t,” he said.
Through the messy streets, they found their way back home. None of the homes and buildings they passed had gone unscathed. Even their home, when they stood looking at it from the road, had its roof partially collapse in. The bedrooms stood in a fractured wreck, as the fire in the lamp that had fallen to the floor peetered out. A low roll of thunder drew their attention back to the sky. Clouds were breaking apart and a few stars were now visible.
They walked next door and found their neighbor, an elderly man, laying sprawled on the grass. His chimney had collapsed and struck him as he left the house. They rushed to his side and checked his pulse, but he was lost. A brick had fractured his skull and others has pummeled his body. Brust took off his jacket and lay it across the man.
The clouds cleared out more as they went from house to house, looking to help anyone. The stars soon sat overhead and Brust and Dalence sat near the wreckage of a school house. Dalence numbly shook her head as she watched the sky. The wolf hadn’t caused this, as she feared, but the damage was still severe. A light caught her eye. A streak in the sky; long but faint.
A shout went up nearby and she could see the injured man point to the sky. Others looked and repeated after him, “The wolf.” The streak zigged and zagged in the sky, which confirmed it. But the wolf was still too far away to make out. Dalence jumped up and shouted to Brust, “I’ve got to find Woustan!”
She faintly recalled where he lived and ran that direction. His house had survived mostly in tact, it being stone. Woustan was sipping on a drink with a neighbor on his front steps. Dalence ran to his yard and asked, “Woustan, do you have the telescope? The wolf’s in the sky.”
He ran his hand through his hair, looking exhausted. “Yes, it’s just inside.”
Dalence noticed a tree that had fallen onto his house at the back and had cast a few stones into the living room. Woustan appeared lugging the crate.
“I got it outside with me before the shaking got too bad to run. But after the quake I wanted to keep it dry, so I put it back.”
He sat the wooden box on the ground and flipped open its latches. The metallic tube sat safe in its straw bed. Dalence asked how she could help and Woustan told her to wait as he set it up. First the tripod legs and then the large clip that he’d attach the body to. He swung it around to point to the sky, and then attached the viewpiece.
They both looked to the sky to locate the wolf. The streak was still faint, but very long. Shortly, Woustan had the lens trained on the wolf. Dalence asked to look herself, and Woustan stepped aside. The shape was small. A white splotch that moved across the stationary stars in the background.
“Woustan, which telescope is this?” Dalence asked.
“The smaller one, unfortunately,” Dalence sighed.
“Do you know where the larger one is?”
“Houmere kept it as his inn, but I saw earlier that both the inn and the telescope were destroyed by the quake.”
Dalence peered again through the telescope. This would have to do.
Brust eventually found Dalence in the street, talking to Woustan. Dalence told him the wolf was active tonight, but too far away to make out doing what. The morning lightened the sky on the side of the planet behind where they looked. Dalence looked through the telescope again. And the streak veered off in a new direction. She tried following it and had to ask Woustan to help guide her. She finally caught the wolf again and this time his fast shape was just visible.
He was speeding along, and Dalence was unsure why. Then a planet came into view of her telescope. One of the gas giants. The wolf hit the planet with all his speed and the planet exploded. Gas spread out from the impact like blood from a gunshot wound. It was hard to tell just how large the wolf had grown. The wolf circled back around and snapped up the wisps of atmosphere he’d scattered, and sped off again.
The sky grew orange with the coming sunrise and the wolf streaked the sky as he frantically raced about. He took another planet further out down whole, which was noticeable from the spark of light disappearing from the sky. The sun crept over the Knuckles now, and the wolf made a move so fast that Woustan lost it from the telescope. The streak in the sky grew bright and wide and long. The wolf was on a straight course.
The wolf grew larger in the sky and could now be made out in full form, brighter than the sun now, leaving a trail burning behind him. Then his size diminished. He’d reached his nearest approach to the earth, passing it by, and continued onward. The streak grew brighter and brighter as the wolf shot toward the sun.
His fur shown brilliant and his jaws gaped wide. The wolf passed in between the sun and the earth and caused several seconds of darkness as he eclipsed the star. His size was gargantuan, which became more apparent as he neared the sun. The wolf swept a wide arc away from the sun and then came back to it, slowing its approach as it neared.
The wolf seemed to be molten now, he was so bright. Fangs nearly melting with the heat. The wolf came closer, more slowly now, until he leapt forward with one solid motion and clamped his teeth shut around the sun. His eyes burned solid gold and fire streamed out his nostrils and smoke poured out from his lips as did tongues of blue flame. The wolf pulsed with light and grew in size even as he sat there; the sun in his mouth.
His radiant fur dimmed as the flames from his face subsided. The wolf’s eyes never lost their intensity, though it was not enough to sustain the sunrise, and now the sky had gone dark again. Two glowing eyes gave enough light to see a bit around them, and the group of people exchanged looks.
“The sun is eaten.”
Brust and Dalence grasped hands as they stared into the sky. She squeezed his hand and said, “You were right. The end of the world is here, and we can’t run from it.”
“I still love you,” Brust said.
“And I you,” Dalence replied.
The wolf blinked and barred his teeth. Sunlight streamed out in filaments before the beast’s mouth closed once more in satisfaction.
Dalence laughed, and Brust asked, “What?”
“I wonder: what are the thoughts of an eaten sun?”