I checked the piece of paper in my hand that the little man in the Chinese shop handed me after I said the code word. Did I just imagine the flash of fear in his eyes? With a shaking hand, he wrote the directions down, his words of warning following me out the door.
“There’s no turning back, young man.”
I nodded briefly, understanding. My website, called “Truths Exposed”, was aimed for letting out what the government doesn’t want us to know. You wouldn’t believe all the lies I’ve exposed! One day while updating, I saw a private invitation. It gave me a set of instructions, and here I was. I wondered if it were a government agent in hiding who wanted to spill the beans for my website!
Excited at the prospect of gaining more information, I walked quickly down Cortland Alley in China Town, seeing the remnants of heavily rusted facades in a permanent state of disrepair. Iron-clad windows gave the alley a chilling feel as memories of a criminal past left residual uneasiness and fear. Looking up, I saw that the ash was not falling as thickly near the the end of the alley, and took off my mask. As my footsteps bounced off the walls of the alley, a volley of whispers followed me through.
“He’s going to the door.”
“Say goodbye.”
“Shhhhhh….”
I ignored them as instructed. They were the deterrents, the watchers. The guardians of the door.
About three quarters of the way down, I spotted it exactly as described on the piece of paper. Red door with the number nine in black. Taking a deep breath, I tapped out the code on the paper. Three sharp raps, soft tap, tap, tap, one more sharp rap and a kick. It opened. I was grabbed roughly, a bag placed unceremoniously over my head, and led down a steep incline. Deeper, deeper, until I thought that perhaps it was not my intended destination we were going to, but hell itself. Finally stopping, the bag taken from my head in a more gentle manner, another door stood before me. The ones who led me here faded into the inky shadows, unseen. I went in.
The sight that met my eyes was more unbelievable then I could ever imagined. Hanging on thin cables that went as far as the eye could see, were glass tubes filled with human beings in cryostasis form. Thousands of them! I stared in shock, turning around to flee, but remembered what the little Chinese man said. ‘You can’t go back.’ Once you pass through the door and see what lay beneath New York City, you were not allowed to leave. Alive, anyway.
“Please disrobe number 590001.” A voice came from somewhere, everywhere.
I looked around, and saw a glass table to my right with a neatly folded robe. Exactly what the people in the tubes were wearing.
“Please disrobe and put on the robe provided to you.” said the monotone.
I did, exchanging my khaki pants and a tee-shirt for the unbelievably soft robe.
“Shoes as well, please.”
I complied, looking out at the endless expanse of tubes and humans. They seemed suspended in mid air by the cables, as I couldn’t see what the cables were attached to. There was light, but from where, I had no clue. Only the tubes and cables were visible.
I removed my shoes and as soon as I did, a platform came from below somewhere, stopping right about two feet from where I stood.
“Step onto the platform, please.”
I did, and as soon as both feet hit the platform, a glass tube came down over my head. Trapped, I panicked. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I pounded on the glass, screaming to be let out, but no one heard or obliged. Suddenly, detecting an odor, I smelled something like a cross between Jasmine and licorice. I felt my eyes grow heavy, and then the darkness came.
;Waking, I was devoid of my three senses as if I were in a sensory deprivation tank. I hallucinated creatures swimming up to the tube, peeking in curiously, and looking out into the dark void, I saw lights come into view. Dim at first, then brighter until I saw what they were. Fish. At least I think they were fish, never having seen one in person. Not hallucinations! As they illuminated my surroundings, I remembered where I was. The tube. As the other tubes came into view between the vast schools of brightly lit fish, one detail made me gasp, then shiver in terror. Most of the tubes held skeletons! As far as I could see, which wasn’t too far, bone dry skeletons. That could only mean one thing. Between the water and those bodies, I had been in this tube for a VERY long time. My God! I must look like I’m a hundred years old! But when I felt my face, it was as smooth as the day I stepped onto the platform. How long? I banged at the glass, wanting out, until I realized something. I was underwater. How far? If I got out now, would I make it to the top? Would the pressure of the water crush me? I stopped banging at that thought, horrified.
As I moved in the tube, two things happened simultaneously. A light in the tube came on, and suddenly, I was going up at breakneck speed. All the tubes were! Up, and up for at least fifteen minutes, and I knew that if I had broken the glass, I would have died. The water grew lighter and lighter until I could see all around me. Fish were everywhere! I’ve never in my entire life seem so many! Actually, I’ve never even see one. According to my father, the sea died completely one hundred years ago, in 2020. Something about a place called Fukushima and the spreading radiation. I was tired of being hungry. This experiment was expensive, let me tell you, my whole life savings. But the world was dying, and I didn’t want to stick around to watch it.
When I broke the surface of water, the top of the tube opened automatically and I was able to swim to the surface. Treading water, I did a 360 degree survey, looking for land, and spotting it within swimming distance. Arms and legs tired from being in the tube, were like shaky, wet noodles, and I had to spend most of time ‘floating’ to shore. Once there, I couldn’t stand. Pulling my body up on the sandy beach, I let the waves lap over my body, lulling me to sleep as fatigue washed over me.
I woke choking on seawater as the tide came rolling in. Hurrying before the salty sea got any higher, I forced myself up on my knees and then to a shaky standing position. Heading for a line of trees, I noticed that it was boxed in by tall, rocky cliffs. But upon further investigation, I knew there was more to these cliffs then met the eye. They were not cliffs after all, but the remnants of buildings from a forgotten time. What year was it? My God! They didn’t even look like buildings anymore! Integrated with the green of the land, they had become a part of the landscape itself. Nearing the edge of the forest, I saw a footpath. Footpaths meant life…but what kind? I have to admit, I was nervous. But the need to know spurned me forward, and I let myself get swallowed by the foliage.
I hadn’t walked more then twenty feet when, in front of me, there was an opening of weathered concrete, like a doorway. Lettering on the top of the broken, pitted arch said: coln Tunnel. No. It couldn’t be. The Lincoln Tunnel? Chills ran up my spine as I cautiously entered. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought I’d see total devastation of an Earth that time tried to erase with her growth. Instead, I entered heaven. My first sight was a wide set of stairs that seemed to made of shimmering gold. The bannister was carved with the purest fire opal, and at the bottom, a floor so shiny I thought it was water. A table filled with, oh my God…fruit. I never saw real fruit before! I saw old pictures in some books that if I got caught with, I would have been arrested. I never knew fruit was so colorful! As I stared in rapture, I suddenly felt a presence behind me. Spinning, there stood the most stunningly beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Welcome to Euphoria, Liam,” she said in a smoky soft voice. “Go ahead, help yourself to some fruit, it’s quite safe. Fresh picked today, as a matter of fact.”
My mouth hung open in a most unattractive manner as I looked at her. She was a Goddess. Her golden hair cascaded in soft, rolling waves almost to the back of her knees, and her eyes were the color of a cloudless sky. She had on a silky robe, one shoulder bare and baby smooth, that showed off her amazing lithe figure. Closing my mouth, I collected my wits and tried to act like I wasn’t bedazzled by her beauty.
“Where is this? I mean, when is this?” I asked her.
“The year is 3023. Thanks to the scientists in your time, we exist. Please, eat.” she insisted.
I couldn’t resist. The fruit was so delicious looking, I had to try it. I chose a fruit I think called a grape. But it was so big! The size of a golf ball! Biting into it, gasping at the amazing flavor and juice that flooded my mouth, I chewed and swallowed like a man who was on the verge of starvation. I tried a little of every fruit on the table, until something made me stop. I happened to get a glimpse of the woman in a mirror that hung at the other end of the room. What I saw made my hand stop in mid-air. It wasn’t a woman in that reflection. It was something horrible and ugly. At the same time, I felt woozy and could’t seem to keep my eyes open. I realized, too late, I’d been given some kind of poison or drug. As my body lost all feeling, I sank to the floor in terror. What was this place? What was she?
“Your government made a deal with us. They will give us all of their trouble makers and doomsayers, and in return, we give them safe passage. In other words, we won’t take over your tiny planet. You’re an expendable,” she told me as I lay helpless, my heart beating swiftly in terror. “I hope you enjoyed our little touch of apocalypse outside,” she giggled. “A humorous ruse on our part, I apologize.”
She walked over to my prone figure and knelt down.
“You didn’t really go forward into time, Liam,” she chuckled indulgently, as if humored by a child who believed in Santa Claus. “We knew your raging curiosity, so indicative of your species, would convince you that you were a survivor of apocalypse. Survivor indeed.”
She picked me up as easily as one lifts a small child, and lay me down on a table, opening my robe and exposing my torso.
“You’re a delicacy with my kind, human. Like fish roe is to yours.” she said without emotion.
When my mind stopped grappling with reality, I watched with complete horror as a glint of silver caught my eye. In her hand she held a blade.
“You won’t feel a thing, Liam. Some pressure, and then, well, nothing. Goodbye, Liam,” she said smiling, drawing the blade down the length of my body.
I screamed, over and over, the sound only in my head, until I felt the nothing.
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