Chapter 1
“No, no, no, please no!”
Markus’s heart hammered in his throat as he looked over the calculations. The complicated formulae and numbers told a horror story. The end of the world.
His pen shook in his hand as he feverishly redid the computations, praying for a miracle.
Please let this be a dream…
His heart sank to the pit of his stomach as he looked over the completed formula. They were correct. With this much mass and at this velocity…a breach…no…worse… The test was supposed to only push an accelerator to the brink of creating a singularity; to see if it was possible. But now the Babel project would consume the world.
Markus slumped back in his seat, letting the papers scatter on his cluttered desk. He had to stop the experiment. The weight of the impending disaster pressed against him, rooting him to his chair. The surreality of the situation fogged his thoughts.
He raked his fingers through his thick hair. How had it come to this? When he’d joined CERN, all he wanted was to understand the nature of the universe. The world-famous nuclear institute had always guided his career ambitions. Now it would herald the end.
He nearly jumped out of his skin as the intercom blared its message across the facility
ATTENTION! THE BABEL EXPERIMENT WILL COMMENCE IN FIVE MINUTES.
The loudspeaker acted as a jumpstart to Markus. An unerring, writhing energy coursed through his body. He sprang out of his chair and bolted out of his office. The doctor had to be warned.
Markus blazed past confused assistants, their carried papers raining from above as he shoved into them. Before he could conjure a coherent thought, he was already at the office. The ornate plaque gleamed:
Dr. David Peterson
What lies beyond time? What lies beyond space?
He kicked the door open and sprinted inside. “Sir, we have to sto–”
David’s desk lay empty. Markus cast the room a crazed glance before it landed on the computer still logged in.
My Dear Dr. Brady,
Today’s the day. Humanity will peer beyond the veil of space and time. We will birth the new God in our image.
Yours,
David
Markus could hardly believe what he was reading. Birth the new God? His watch beeped. His heart stopped. It was time.
He raced out of the office; the air burning his chest as he hurtled to the experiment room. He hung a right before his destination stood just ahead. Before him, at the end of the hallway, stood two red double doors. A sign hung affixed, reading:
European Council for Nuclear Research
Cleared Experiment Babel personnel only.
A security guard stood at either side. Markus’ footsteps echoed along the tiled passage as he flashed his clearance badge for the guards to see. They gave him a curt nod and opened the doors for him.
Markus raced inside. “Stop! Stop the test!” He bent over, wheezing as he caught his breath. He glanced up. The room comprised a series of raised semicircles filled with workstations, all facing a central podium.
Behind the podium lay a massive curved metallic structure, arching into either end of the room. The rest of the accelerator fed underground in a ring that spanned kilometers.
Everybody fell silent as they stared at him. Marcus wiped the sweat off his brow as his gaze sought David.
“You’re late Marcus.” A silken voice rang out above Marcus. David walked down the steps of the rings with his hands behind him. His grayed hair was slicked back, framing a face with hollowed cheeks and sharp features. His thin mouth pressed into a frown.
Markus rushed towards him. “Sir, we have to stop. I looked over the calculations just now an–”
David hushed him with a raised hand. He gestured to the podium. “Let’s talk over here in private, Markus. Everyone else, fire up your workstations. We begin soon!” Assistants scrambled to their desks as the pair approached the podium.
David placed a hand on Markus’ shoulder. “I altered the calculations. Trust me, it is perfectly safe.”
“But sir, we will create a singularity! We were supposed to only approach the brink!”
David’s mouth extended in a smile, but it failed to hide the feverish gleam in his eyes. “I’ve revised what the brink is.”
Markus wanted desperately to believe him but, almost unbidden, his question ushered out. “And this new god? What about it?”
Like a mask slipping off, David’s face darkened and his brow furrowed. A fresh sheen of cold sweat blossomed as Markus realized he no longer knew this man.
The doctor gestured to the security guards at the door. “Gentlemen, please escort Mr. Acreman to the lobby. He needs rest.”
Markus remained rooted in shock as a large arm grabbed him by each shoulder and half dragged him out of the room. His psyche crumbled within. The world wouldn’t end by accident, but with the glee of a madman.
He could only utter a helpless plea as the red double doors slammed shut in front of him.
“Please, dont…”
—------------
David didn’t even wait for the doors to shut before making his way to the podium. The moment he’d waited his entire life for had arrived; he had no time for the misgivings of the youth.
He addressed the audience of assistants, some of whom shot nervous glances at the door. “Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for Mr. Acreman’s behavior. He has been under much stress lately. Now, if you would, please monitor your workstations as we begin the test.”
David turned around to face the accelerator. A thin window exposed the inner workings of the device and would act as the gateway to their new God. David raised his hand, hovering it over the large red button that would start the test. His mouth ran dry. Finally, the time had come. He slammed the button down.
The accelerator whirred to life with a dull grinding roar. It crescendoed to a high pitch screech as the power built. David stepped off the podium and strode towards the window as it burned into a blinding stream of light. He reached his hand out to the glass, ignoring the air scorching his fingertips.
Two streaks of darkness marred the otherwise white glow, each flying in the opposite direction. David’s entire body trembled. The collision would happen any second now and open the gateway. In an instant, the two streaks reappeared and shattered into one another.
FWOOM.
An earth rending bang exploded throughout the room. Assistants screamed as the workstations burst into flame. A rain of glass from fractured bulbs pelted the room as it was cast into darkness. The only light glowed from the shimmering stream from the accelerator.
David ignored the blood streaming from his ears, his pain muffled by the sheer joy. The viewing window of the accelerator burst. A small dark orb rose from the shards of glass up into the air. Its rippling light emblazoned in a kaleidoscope of colors across the spectrum. The shades of luminescence swirled in a hypnotic pattern just as a small, black sphere burst from the center. The singularity.
A horrific squelching echoed in the air as the sphere above him writhed in viscous convulsions. The orb pinched at both ends, lengthening into a line, raining down a thick, dark liquid as it carved along. The visceral noises only intensified as the split lengthened and spread open, spewing ever more of the tar-like fluid.
A shaken voice whispered from behind David. “Sir, shouldn’t we stop the test? The power is only rising!”
David shook his head, barely suppressing a cackle. “No, this is perfect.”
He thrust his arms into the fissure, taking no heed to the blistering pain the fluid inflicted on his skin. Like a hunter skinning an animal, David wrenched his arms outwards. The gate is open!
A rushing gale roared in its hollow voice. From the depths of its pitch erupted a wailing. The encompassed voices of a billion damned souls echoed in an oscillating cry. But David didn’t care. He could see the other side of reality.
The tear in existence revealed shards of the cosmos floating in entropy like shattered glass. The hole he’d ripped in space had spewed a spray of their timeline into the vast desolation. His reality, his moment in time stretched infinitely to either side as in a mirror’s reflection.
A bright flash of light wrenched David’s gaze forward into the abyss.
David stared in awe at the blinding flare of a supernova exploding in one. The resulting glare illuminated something else floating in the nothingness. Something massive. It was Him.
His skin shimmered in a cosmic haze, His body stretched into eternity speckled with stars. Two brilliant swirls of nebulae blazed in the eternal darkness. Brilliant hues of purple melded with golden yellow, murky green, capped with exhilarating blue. David’s eyes burned in their sockets as he gazed at the face of the new God.
A booming voice that rattled David’s bones rasped in the ether.
Existence…is strange…who are you?
David’s speech cracked from trepidation. “J-just as God breathed His breath into humanity, so too shall we into Him.”
Breathe…?
David could hardly stand. His brain scorched the inside of his skull, but no pain tarnished his joy. “Yes, breathe in your existence granted.”
The tear in reality burst in an explosion of light that glistened in blazing hues of purple and blue. David sprang back, cackling. His hands had long since melted away, only bleeding stumps remained.
The room groaned as pieces of the walls crumbled from their foundations and flung themselves into the fissure. Workstations were ripped from their desks in shatters of sparks. Assistants attempted to flee but were dragged screaming into the rip.
David dropped to his knees as his chest exploded, casting his innards into the ravenous wound in reality. He let one thought punctuate his life as he surrendered himself to the unknown.
We’ve made contact.
—-------------
Marcus strained at the guards as they dragged him away from the Babel room. “Let me go! It will consume every–”
An incredible bang rippled from the experiment room, rocketing down the hallway. Lights shattered, plunging the hallway into darkness. Markus fell to the floor as the guards dropped him.
The double red doors buckled inwards. Markus covered his ears as a cavalcade of screeches echoed all over the tiled hallway. The doors wrenched open. The last thing Markus saw was a brilliant light.
—-----------
Is this all there is to existence?
The thundering words boomed in Markus’ head, jolting him awake. He lay on the hard tiled floor squinting up at the blinding gleam of the fluorescent lighting above him. Instead of the usual glow, the light streaked away from its bulb in a stream.
Wind rushed over him, the roaring filling his ears. Panic flushed across his chest as he realized his body slowly dragged along the ground.
He scrambled upright, the whipping gale almost folding him over as he did. Ahead of him lay the world’s end.
The opened doors stood as the harbingers of Man’s arrogance. The stacks of paper once carried by assistants, dissolved into rivers of ash that poured themselves into the cavernous entrance.
Markus gulped. Though he only saw a black sphere, the hairs on the back of his neck raised on end as if something watched him from within.
The words rubbed like sandpaper in his dry throat. “Who’s there?”
Come closer…
The air fled his lungs. His body screamed to flee, yet something deeper than instinct drew him to the room. Mouth agape, he took halting steps to something beyond comprehension. Markus took a step forward, lifting his own shaking hand…
The skin peeled off his forearm like a glove and ripped off his fingertips, drawn into the void. Markus had but an instant to glance down at his mangled arm before the flesh squelched into paste, oozing onto the carpet. He screamed and tried to step back, but his arm was trapped.
He grit his teeth and grabbed his bicep with his remaining hand. He pulled back. Pain wreathed his body in its flame as nerve strands split like cut thread. Only gnarled bone remained from the forearm down. He let out a roar until.
CLACK!
Markus fell to the ground, his arm a stump at the elbow. His torn limb hung suspended for an instant before disintegrating into the room.
Confliction..
The room darkened into a burning crimson, casting Markus into a heated glow. Five bulges burst out of the shimmering glow. They lengthened, spawning dozens of pulsating threads. They wove themselves into a mass that grew five curled appendages.
Markus took a step back, mouth agape.
The hand unfurled itself, revealing a bloody palm devoid of skin and flesh. It grew in size until its fingertips grazed the ceiling. The roof burst into particles at His touch, flowing into His grasp.
Warm blood gushed out of Markus’ stump. He clasped his hand over it to staunch the bleeding as he stood up. “What are you?” Markus whispered.
Born of arrogance yet cloaked in regret and guilt. There must be more…
The giant, pulsating hand stretched forward. The entire hall ground into ash in its wake, ripped into His essence. Nothing remained behind Him, only the dark.
Markus turned on his heel and sprinted away. Deep gouges carved on the walls beside him, chunks tearing off. The floor below him crumbled at his heels. Terror clutched Markus’ spine as he whipped his head around. His hand stretched out from the doors, consuming all in His path.
Tell me who I am…
The skin on Markus’ back tingled and pulled back. His entire front tightened, stretching almost as if he would tear right through his own skin…
As Markus gasped into the reception room, he whipped around. “You’ve yet to be born!”
The hand slammed down, fingertips grazing the edge of the room. Markus’ heart hammered in his throat as he watched His hand ball into a fist and retreated into the doorway.
I see…
The appendage rocketed back into the singularity. The double doors slammed shut, leaving them suspended in eternity.
The concept of nothing itself engulfed the Babel room in a cavernous embrace. Markus peered over the side of the reception room. The void stared back. He sprang away as if he’d be consumed by it.
Markus retched. Blood drizzled from his stump. His head rushed as he yanked a lab coat off a rack near the wall. He wrapped the length of it over the stump and tugged it tight with his mouth. The bleeding slowed to a halt.
His mind burned as it tried to calculate the damages. The impossible had happened. What were the consequences? A man-made phenomenon of this size and magnitude had never occurred in the universe before. He took comfort in the solid ground. Maybe this was the extent of their punishment for breaking the laws of nature.
He glanced around the reception room. It acted as a hub with four connecting hallways. The corridor behind Markus had surrendered itself to the void. The path in front led to the exit. To the left and right were research offices. Above him on the wall, the acronym CERN remained embedded.
He picked up a stapler from the desk surface, wincing in pain. Taking care not to wave his hand over the threshold, he tossed it out where the hall once stood. It traveled in a normal arc at first. The moment it passed out of the reception room, the stapler sped in a straight line, disintegrating along the way.
“Hello?” Markus called out but his voice reverberated across the abandoned room with no response. “ANYBODY!?” He cried aloud, only receiving his panicked echoes in kind. Flutters of fear spread within him once more.
He stumbled to the exit in a frenzy. Blood seeped from his stump, dripping onto the floor behind him, but he didn’t care. His eyes clung to the light gleaming through the glass doors. Everything is going to be fine…everything has to be fine.
He hobbled the last steps to the exit hallway, scrambling for breath as he braced his aged frame against the wall. The shafts of warm sunlight acted as a tonic for his frazzled nerves.
Markus finally made his way to the exit, leaning his weary body against them. His breath condensed the glass in a fog. He hurriedly wiped the moisture away with his sleeve and shot a concerned peek outside. “Thank God…” He sighed in relief.
Everything appeared normal, the exact way he’d last remembered. The street in front of the building bustled with life. He couldn’t revel in the sounds, but took respite at the sights. The black sedan cruising down the street. The young mother grabbing her child on the sidewalk. A flock of birds flying overhead. The black sedan cruising down the street. The young mother grabbing her child on the sidewalk. A flock of birds flying overhead. The black sedan cruising down the-
Markus’ eyes widened as he stared in horror.
“No….no, no, no..” He chanted the spell as if it would change his reality. This can’t be….how far out did this spread? The entire city block? Markus repressed a shudder at the thought.
Trembling, he grasped the door handle, drawing in shallow, shaking breaths. A sudden CRACK caused him to jump, tumbling onto his back.
He craned his head to gaze out the glass. Someone new appeared from the infinitely looping scene before him. A young woman strode directly towards him. Her skin was the color of acacia, a mouth contorted in a smile slightly too large for her head, and proud cheekbones surrounding a button nose. She walked with a merry gait, almost skipping along.
He scooted back as she opened the door and stepped inside. Markus gawked at the woman. Was she real? He stretched out a bloodstained hand and touched his fingertips to her ankle. She was real!
The woman gazed down at him and jerked her ankle away from his grasp. Her smile persisted though “Whoa”, she jeered in a raucous voice, “Simmer down sparky. You gotta treat a lady to a modestly priced fast food meal first before you get ta touching.”
Markus gaped at her. Without a further word, she jaunted across the reception room, towards the entrance to the void.
Markus clawed his body back to his feet. “Hey wait! Wait young lady!”
She ignored him, crossing right to the lip of the last bit of solid ground. Markus frantically hobbled his way after her. “You can’t go in there! Its…” His voice trailed off, unsure how to explain.
She looked back at him, still walking to the void. “Huh?” Her foot passed over the threshold.
“NO!” Markus cried, but the unknown whisked her into its clutches.
Markus ran a blood stained hand through his hair in shock as she flew through the vacuum towards the red double doors. Her body flowed in graceful curves through the entropy. The dance severed along with her spine as her body folded in half backwards at the navel, as if jerked by an invisible hook. She emitted a brief gurgle as her windpipe collapsed.
With a horrific squelching, her torso tore apart, releasing a spool of intestines. Her eyes stared unblinking back into his own before she turned completely inside out. What had been a young woman morphed into a coalesced stream of viscera. The blended remains of blood, bone, and organs funneled itself into a fleshy thread and flung itself at the doors.
Markus closed his eyes, but his ears painted the picture for him when it splattered noisily against the doors. Acidic bile filled his throat, ejecting from his mouth in a thick stream. He stumbled to the bathrooms on the right wing hallway.
Crashing through the bathroom doors, he heaved himself on the sink, retching all the way. The sight and sounds of her body shredding would forever imprint themselves in his mind. His heart nearly stopped when a sharp knock emitted from the door.
“Damn, that shit was rougher than I thought. Definitely like, the…. second most intense way I’ve had my guts rearranged today! Hey, can I come in or are you gonna be all weird? I promise I won’t peek unless you want me to!” The same woman’s voice, albeit muffled, rang through the door.
In numb shock, Markus slowly turned around and pulled open the bathroom door. In front of him, the young woman stood very much alive and intact. She placed something in her back pocket. “Sorry about all that, name’s Bella. I just came here to grab something for Dred, but we can have a little chat. You wanna talk in here or somewhere more dignified?
Markus let his arm fall to his side. “How are you here? I saw..I saw..” He almost retched again.
Bell waved her hand dismissively. “Oh that little ol’ thing? Pssh, after a couple hundred times, dying doesn’t do much for ya. We need to talk, I’m sure you have questions.”
The most pressing question burst forth from his lips. “What’s going on out there? Why is everyone outside acting that way?”
Bella put a finger to her chin and walked back to the welcome desk. Markus followed her every step.
Bella whirled around with her fingertips touched. “Well, lets see. Your little Babel experiment you all did a couple years ago ripped the world from reality and awakened our new God. His name’s Greg by the way.”
Markus dropped to his knees. “What do you mean years? It just happened!”
Bella waved an arm about the abandoned room. “Well relativity’s a bitch ain’t it? Apparently everyone in this building is in their own instance. Each time I come here, I see someone different.”
Markus’ head swam. Time dilation…no, more like the end of time as a concept. To keep from passing out he asked the other burning question. “A new God?”
Bella squatted down in front of him. “Well, not everyone can see Him, only a select few through their dreams but He’s real. He’s given a few of us abilities in order to choose the world’s fate. I really did die in that hallway but it’s not exactly permanent. It was a bit spooky the first couple times but I have this choking kink and do you know how hard I can go no–”
Markus held out his hand, ceasing her torrent of words. “What do you mean, world’s fate?”
Bella stood back up with a cold glint in her eyes. “He stopped the Impact your experiment caused before it could finish destroying the planet. Europe’s gone, along with part of Asia and Africa. Sorry for your loss by the way.”
Markus’ heart sank to his stomach. He glanced outside, at the streaming sunlight and bustling street. Other than the repeating scene, everything looked normal. “What are you talking about? We’re in Europe now! How could it be destroyed?”
Bella gave him a sad smile. “Well, that’s sort of a band aid Greg threw out so as not to freak out the people who aren’t Afflicted yet. I think it’s best if you see for yourself.” She held her hand out to him. “Come on, you can even talk to Him if you’d like.”
His mind reeled. Gifts? The world gone? A God? He brought his trembling gaze up to her eyes. “Will he explain what’s going on?”
She leaned forward towards him, eyes gleaming. “Only one way to find out.”
He nodded and grabbed her hand.
She walked him out the exit hallway. Markus’ breaths grew shallow in trepidation as he gazed at the sunlight. Was the light naught but a lie?
She kicked open the door and guided him outside. She brought him to a halt a couple of feet from the research complex. “OK, this is the horizon..”
The looping scene around him kept playing on; she’d wheeled him right in front of the mother endlessly picking up her child. He studied the face of the little girl; her face started off with a joyous expression directed at her mother, mouth open with mirth. But then her smile faded, her eyes widened in abject terror at something in the sky, her mouth now opened to scream. Then it looped back to her original joyous expression.
Bella placed a hand on his shoulder. “Greg covered up your destruction. You’re seeing their last moments. Touch her and see what you did.”
Markus raised a shaky hand and grasped the little girl’s wrist.
The looping scene vanished before him without a trace, laying bare the sins of Man. The once peaceful, bustling street replaced itself with a barren, destroyed landscape. The land lay strewn and mangled before him. Jagged spires of Earth rose endlessly into the sky in all directions and curved their earthen tendrils, their points all converging at the CERN building.
“Look at your destruction, Doc. For hundreds of miles, the lands ripped themselves apart in a mad dash to join the singularity. I’ve taken to calling it The Lotus. It’s beautiful in its own way...but it can’t compare to Him....”
Bella lightly grasped either side of his head and turned it upwards. The sky was a lie, a splendid lie. Impenetrable darkness stretched across the heavens, bearing no harbor to any stars or celestial bodies. Then, they finally locked gazes. It was Him.
His eyes escaped comprehension. Each rested against the sky larger than the Moon and shone in a captivating luminescence. In them encompassed the whispered secrets of the universe.
He loomed tremendously, enclosing the heavens themselves. The very atmosphere rippled in His breath. The star stridden sky drooped as five bulges oozed down to Markus like a hand reaching out.
I’ve waited so long for you to return. You’ve yet to be born…
Markus reached out his remaining hand as he realized the Tower of Babel fell to protect Man from God.
