The watchers

She felt and tasted the damp mouldy air in the room. She felt it heavy on her chest and clinging in her nostrils as she sat contemplating what to write. This new novel needed most atmosphere, something different, something new. As she typed in the room, derelict and danger, riddled with dampness undermined by rot, she felt the sensation of somebody watching. Still she typed on with determination and zeal. Just then the walls shook and plaster fell from the walls and ceiling. The rumble seemed unnatural and there was flashes of light. Still she perserveerd after a moment of quiet, waiting for another rumble or shudder but nothing came. After a few minutes the same thing again but louder and longer as well as more violent. This time she swept her long blonde hair off of her ivory skinned face. Reaching behind her head she tied it up. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a red glistening light. On closer inspection it appeared to be a camera. The more she looked, the more she found but as she did this the ground shook with real violence sawying everything from side to side. As she stabilized herself braced against the corner of two walls with plaster a falling everywhere and dust filling the room and her lungs. As this occurred, bright lights filled the room and the air seemed to be sucked out of every fissure and crack. Next moment she felt herself suspended and and floating. Then all was dark and dry and warm. A voice spoke in words alien to her. She got unsteadily to her feet and suddenly felt a head rush. She put a hand out in front and braced on something warm and firm. Then out of the dark came a face, smoothe with small eyes and no ears with what appeared to be gills in three diagonal lines on each cheek and a wide mouth. It’s skin though smoothe was of ebony blackness like the dark but a faint downright now shone on it. It’s tiny eyes shone light like stars. It spoke again yet still she could not understand. Then without hesitation it spoke in words that made sense, ‘the time of man is oher and it is time to leave, she stood staring astonished. He stood aside and opened a door. She walked through and saw thousands others like her. ‘We save the creative’s, the empathy, the lovers and the compassionate. The rest stay behind.’ He spoke evenly without inflection. ‘To die?’ She retorted in shock. ‘If that is their desire, which it evidently is and has always been. But it will be at their own hand.’ With that she nodded walked into the room and found that as she exited one room to the other, she entered Eden. A thriving paradise of beauty. ‘This it said is your salvation, your planet B, your second chance. Heed this well and live it righteously and with care for all things.’ The door shut it was gone, along with her life and everything else she had ever known. She and others here now were pilgrims and architect’s of a new world, new humanity, new life. It felt so strange, yet felt so good and felt so right but most of all felt so free. She should have felt lost, loss, confused, angry. Yet actually felt at home.