• Big City
    B.L.Night and Zasmara

    Chapter I

    I suppose in the end we all regret more then we think we will, although, right now I can only regret ever coming to this crazy-as-s**t town, then again, this could only possibly be the end, but just in case, I better start talking...

    ***
    About Six months ago, my girlfriend disappeared out of nowhere. Now I know you might be thinking that she walked out on me, but that's not something she would do to anyone, especially me. After all we've been together since she was thirteen and I was fifteen and now I'm almost twenty. I'd been planning on proposing to her for some time now, but I just didn't have the money for a ring, although I'm almost sure if I asked her even without the ring she'd still say yes, but I'm the kind of person that likes things to be a little old fashioned every once in a while.


    At first I thought that it was just a surprise vacation or something like that, but when she didn't return my phone calls I started getting worried. There wasn't a single instance that I could think of that she hadn't at least tried to return my calls. Then, I got a call from her mom asking if I'd seen her, if, perhaps, she'd come to live with me, but of course I hadn't. Her father called a few days later asking the same thing. From what I could see, Jenny had been completely erased from the planet and no one had any idea where or how it had happened.

    The police tried and tried to turn something up, suspecting kidnapping and fowl play at every turn but they couldn't find anything at all, and eventually every one just gave up; Everyone, but me.

    I knew that something was wrong, she was too strong willed to let herself be kidnapped, and her mindset, wouldn't allow her to die until she was ready, she used to say that was why nothing had killed her yet even though absolutely everything that could go wrong in the world seemed to have followed her around her whole life. But I was unable to think of anywhere she could've gone and never been found. Unable to keep my mind from fretting and thinking of the worst, I decided one dark rainy day to go out driving, maybe I'd see her walking on the side of the road or something.

    Rain splattered on the windshield as I made my way slowly through the streets of Lexington and out onto Russell Cave Road, slowly making my way out of town and into the country. Horses flecked the wet country side on either side of my car as I pulled in to the gravel driveway that lead up to the barn where my mother and I had owned horses since I was ().

    Belle, the old mare that we'd raised, was at the paddock fence, her head turned so that she could watch the road. When I got out of the car she started nodding her head and making some of the strangest noises I'd ever heard out of her; she sounded almost excited or scared. Had she been waiting for me?

    I jumped over the fence and went over to her.

    "What's up, Smelly Belly? Were you waiting for me?" I reached up and brushed my hand across the star on her forehead and froze, my eyes locked onto a spot over her shoulder. Jenny was standing just outside the barn door, looking around for something.

    I ran, almost clearing the fence without stepping on the cross boards, but stopped when she turned my direction and began walking toward me, I stopped. I could tell from here that she wasn't seeing me standing there at all.

    I watched in horror as she phased right through me and walked up to Belle, who was watching me, and began talking to her. Quietly, I approached the vision of Jenny and listened to what she had said to Belle.

    "You will let him know I've been here won't you, Belle? Tell him to keep going, he'll find me. I'm not as far away as he may think." And she faded away.

    I looked around, almost expecting the scene to replay itself, but I guess it was just a one time thing.

    I wasn't exactly sure how to react to seeing my girlfriend, who had been missing for the last two months, appear before me as an apparition, tell me she'd been here, then disappear again.

    I shivered as a stormy wind blew over the barn, bringing even more shimmering rain drops down upon my shoulders. Thunder echoed through the silence beating on my ears, and as I looked up I saw the clouds slowly converging over a long dark spire highlighted by blood red light rising from the gray-black horizon. Lightning flared and struck the spire, flowing down its sleek form effortlessly, as static charges bounced into the sky around it.

    I wondered vaguely as the storm winds blew fiercely into my face and the rain picked up, how anything like that could just suddenly appear out of nowhere. Wasn't that defying the laws of physics set down upon this world?

    I headed to the car every nerve in my body telling me to go there, that she was there, somewhere, waiting for me. I slammed the door in my hurry to get out of the rain, and looked feebly out of the windshield.

    Was it me, or did more than just the rain seem to be moving like liquid?

    I ignored the feeling and turned the keys in the ignition, listening to it stutter for a few seconds then start right up. I flipped on the windshield wipers and pulled slowly out of the gravel driveway, backing out into the road and heading toward the spire now centered over the yellow lines on the road.
    Was that snow falling?

    Lightning streaked across the sky out my left window, striking an old tree as I passed it by. I looked at the rearview just in time to see it fall across the road behind me.

    "Guess I'm not getting back that way."I muttered to myself. Little did I know that I wouldn't be going back at all.

    I didn't bother stopping the car to check and make sure that the tree was really there, the resounding thud and strong vibrations was enough proof for me.

    Was that lightning I just saw purple?

    The color spectrum flared. The clouds became magenta, the steering wheel turned lime green, and my skin shifted to a sickly shade of orange. I swore to myself right then as the rain turned into a multi-colored spray of water paint, that whatever was happening right now, sure as hell wasn't my fault.

    Glowing green ice ships began falling from the sky as the clouds shifted to red. Along the horizon I could make out the be comings of buildings built out around the dark spire. I thought for a second that it was perhaps a small tiny town, but as I got closer, the buildings I was seeing slowly rose up from two story buildings into fifty story buildings and even higher. I could see billows pillars of smoke rising up from factories and trains as they made their way through the monstrous city.

    I looked around, realizing that the car was no longer moving. I automatically tried to start it up again, but to no avail, this time it didn't even stutter. I dropped my head down onto the broken horn, sighing heavily into the relative silence.

    Slowly I lifted my head and opened the car door, stepping out into the rain. The city looked to be about a mile from where I was standing. I pulled the hood up on my jacket and began walking.

    After a minute of walking, I glanced back, considering turning back now, but the car had completely disappeared. I didn't question it, somehow I knew that it would be.