Ruben where art thou

The Graveyard

Ruben stands staring at the graveyard, mouth agape. He cannot make sense of what has just happened. Nor can the reader. He walks between the gravestones and reads the names. He recognizes the shop keeper, Mr. Proctor, and the girl who showed him where his cabin was when he first arrived. The gravestones spread out around him, filling the area where a whole town was just a few hours ago.

‘I have to be dreaming or at the very least have lost my mind right?’ Ruben wonders as he keeps glancing at one gravestone after the next. He replays everything in his mind from the afternoon until this moment. Convinced that he is in a fever dream, he punches one of the black granite stones, only to cry out in pain. ‘Urgh ! Not a dream then I guess.’ Ruben is not sure about anything but one thing he knows is that only reality hurts. That is enough for him to evaporate the fog from his mind and consider what is next.

Holding his hurt hand in the palm of his other hand, he heads back to the cabin and his car. There is nothing to be found in the cemetery. ‘The dead tell no tales… Well not directly at least,’ his thoughts start up at their normal pace again.

 

The Escape

‘Now, I need to get home, safe and oh…’ Stopping just before entering his cabin, which is only a five-minute walk from the aforementioned town, he remembers something very obvious. It is day. He remembers how, just a couple hours before, it seemed like night had come early. The giant cloud structure, which he tried asking the town people about, moved in hot and fast. Some might discount it as a storm, but he does not know of any storm that has bright lights at the heart of it. It was as though the clouds swallowed the sun.

Ruben tries putting the pieces together, but he cannot account for the time spent in the desert when he escaped from the town into the desert. His mind tells him it was only a couple of hours, most of it walking. When the strange cloud formation hit town, the resulting quake, aftershock, and blinding light seemed to last less than a minute. Ruben cannot know when his body felt like it could be turned to dust and his mind begged for everything to stop. Only a few minutes had passed. No one can know how time and space are affected by the cloud structure.

What Ruben can know is that it is about the right time to get away from that place. He tries starting the car again but the piece of trash still does not want to budge. Then he rips the backseat out, thankful for once that the car is indeed a piece of junk. Ruben then uses the seatbelts as straps and the boot as a bit of protection. When he is done, all his belongings are sandwiched between the two parts, wrapped tight by the seatbelts. He then takes the loose ends he left at the ends of the package and hauls his ass out of there.

 

The Stranger

After a couple hours of walking, he is filthy from sweat and the sand; his shoulders ache from the increasing weight of his luggage as he tires. Ruben looks around to spot a rock formation not too far off and hopes there will at least be some cover. It seems closer than it looks but he makes it just in time before the last rays of sun run from the sky. He uses the time to unpack his things quickly and set up his tent. He smiles for the first time since the ordeal started when he sees all the food he hoarded on his stay to avoid going into town as often. After a meal, Ruben settles on his now backseat-sled and sleeps like a baby.

“Hello!”

Ruben is startled awake. ‘What, someone is here!’ he thinks in panic. He quickly recovers his wits and rushes out of the tent. “Hello, how can I help you?” he asks, his business side kicking in for no reason.

“Hi, no need to help me I am fine, thank you. I was more wondering if you need any help?” the stranger says, then smiles awkwardly in a clear attempt to seem friendly.

“I could use some help yes, I just came from a pretty scary place down there,” he replies and points to the decimated town he came from. “I am pretty sure I will find a town within the next days walk,” and he points in the opposite direction, “but I wouldn't mind if you could confirm that for me?”

The boy, whom Ruben has decided is an accurate gauge of the stranger's age, tilts his head looking a bit puzzled. “I don't agree,” he says and then says nothing more. It confuses Ruben, but patience is not his middle name, so he pretends. “Ok, thank you. By the way my name is Ruben and you are?” He steps forward offering his hand to the boy, who quickly shakes it and steps back again. “Doa.”

 

The Confrontation

Then Doa turns around and disappears into a crevice of the rock formation almost right behind Ruben's tent. When the boy leaves, Ruben decides it is best to leave it for now; he has had enough of strange things. He also decides to skip breakfast and start packing quickly.

“Hello again!” He hears behind him again, this time noting the odd straining of the word ‘hello’, as though the person finds it hard to try making it sound jovial and natural. It ends up sounding creepy instead, and for a moment Ruben tries packing his things even quicker. He quickly recovers his composure and turns to face Doa. Before Ruben can even find his balance, Doa shoves a waterskin toward his chest.

“Here I brought you some fresh water for your trip." He smiles then adds, "you can't keep the waterskin."

“Thank you, luckily I came prepared.” Ruben accepts the waterskin and starts filling his two empty jugs, thankful for the gift.

“Uhmm, where did you get this from?” He asks Doa while pouring the water carefully.

“Inside,” Doa says simply. “Are you a monster?” He then asks, and before Ruben can ask why, Doa explains, “Because you have not set foot in the sun since you came out of your tent, you were here like magic this morning when I came outside, you also came from there, I met a fellow along the ways and he said I should not go there because the land is filled with monsters, he said they travel like witches inside metal boxes and what is this?”

Doa picks up Ruben's phone, which has been off for weeks now since the town had no electricity. “Is it your communication amulet? Does it suck souls? What kind of monster are you?” He finishes finally and takes a deep breath before stepping back into the sun and making odd signs with his fingers in the hopes to find an anti-monster one. When Ruben does not start hissing at him or collapsing, he stops but stays in the sun and just tilts his head curiously at Ruben. “So?”

Ruben cannot help but laugh, then he laughs even more as his nerves relax. “Ha, no, I am no monster.” Then he explains to Doa that he came from the city looking for a job in the small town he just escaped from; he explains the strange clouds that turned the place into a cemetery and how he thought he was escaping the light that came down and did what it did to the place only to find himself having circled right back to where he started.

Doa listens attentively the whole time, then tells Ruben that in the direction he is heading there is no city. He knows that because he comes from there and has been travelling for close to a week himself. He tells Ruben the only places along that border of the desert are fringe towns like his own, and to even get to a city he would need access to one of the bigger towns further inland. Those towns have transfer gates. He tries explaining what a transfer gate is, but having never seen one himself, he just says it is magic.

“Magic?” Ruben asks, confused.

“Yes, magic. Like your witchbox,” Doa replies.

“My witchbox?” Ruben asks and frowns more.

“Dude, you are the monster here, don't try tricking me. Also, can you teach me magic?” Doa persists.

“No,” Ruben responds quickly, his brain starting to piece things together. ‘Where am I really?’ He wonders, then asks Doa, "What is this country called?"

“Well, this is just the desert; there is no country controlling it because no one understands it,” Doa says. Then Doa lists all the places he knows of around the desert, and none of them sound like home to Ruben.

 

The Oasis

The two talk for a long time and before they know it the sun is past its highest point. “It is too late for me to leave now, guess I will camp here tonight,” Ruben says to Doa. “I hope you don't mind? I won't go inside there and will stay here again,” he quickly adds after asking.

“No worries, if you tried to go in you would die anyway,” Doa says simply. “I can take you inside though; it is much safer than out here.” He then helps Ruben carry his things into the oasis on the inside of the rock formation and they set their tents next to each other.

Sitting around the campfire, Doa looks at Ruben then pokes him on the chest with a stick he is holding. “You know, I think that cloud storm of lights you saw were Soul Mirages.”

“What are those?” Ruben asks, his interest piqued immediately.

“I don't know, I just made it up, but sounds cool,” Doa says, then gets up and bids Ruben goodnight by only saying “Night!” in the most awkwardly forced polite fashion Ruben has ever heard.