MILD TROUBLE: Enter The Void

A Short Story by LDPaul

Scribe Post 005

Adapted from the screenplay of the same name

Act 3

Jessica's eyes shoot open. They blink a couple of times, revealing her disorientation. She's lying down on the ground, her medium black braids now out of its makeshift ponytail and instead framing both sides of her face. As she gets up, she finds herself in a dreamy, white negative space-like dimension, looking around in confusion. It's almost void-like.

She looks down at herself and finds that she's dressed in a tan t-shirt with digital camouflage pants and tan combat boots. She looks back up and sees Maverick before her, dressed in a full Marines combat utility uniform, startling her.

She calls out to him, but she's inaudible with a mixture of relief and confusion. Maverick only stares at her with a blank expression. He turns around and starts walking elsewhere. Anywhere. Jessica follows him.

She then notices something strange - Like a flicker that suddenly transports her to someplace different. A shimmer passes over the area like an invisible rippling wave that's somewhat visible, like water.

One by one, this weird whirling sound occurs and spreads, filling up the area. The snapping of lights like a stage production erupt from overcast clouds and pallid sun rays, reflecting no kinds of shade on any of the dimensionless surface but only appearing in the center of everything, extending to all points of direction.

Maverick continues walking with no sense of direction. Jessica tries to catch up but he teleports farther. She telekinetically launches herself forward but somehow she can’t seem to catch up.

Then the scene settles in - a foreign city in ruins. Street pathways have become debris-pasted, black gravel-like surfaces. They’re littered with fire and dismembered vehicles and aircrafts. Smoke and ashes form into dark plume clouds. Building facades dangle from the fixtures, some scorched while others are melted into each other.

Jessica looks on and staggers in horror. She slows down, taking in all of the calamity.

Disembodied voices become louder as this Void starts to brighten - another luminous shimmer erupts. The world around Jessica and Maverick starts becoming dimmer by the second.

Through each moment, the world starts to fall deeper into darkness around them. The faint sound of gunfire, explosions, and shouts clairaudiently fill up the void like an amphitheater.

The shadows start rolling in, absorbing any light left in the area, before it washes over Maverick. As he continues walking through, he becomes enveloped by the darkness. Jessica tries to find him through the enrapturing blackout. She walks through the abysmal space and it's as if there's this dead silence. Not even a pin can be heard, let alone a heartbeat.

All that is heard is her footsteps as we see her walk up to what looks like a barrier of faint light framed around a dark rectangle - a door frame. She reaches it and grabs hold of the door knob. Opening it slowly, she walks into the light. As she does, she finds herself in a moderately spacious bathroom.

Jessica sees in an overflowing bathtub a small, delicate girl with wet black coils on her head and brown skin with cool jewel undertones. She's dressed in a one shoulder, two piece bathing suit adorned with flowers. She can't be older than eight. But she practically lies there in the tub, lifeless. Blood lightly swims with the still water. We see some of it on the bathtub itself, along with a gushing wound that's still present on her forehead.

Jessica looks on puzzled - she remembers this night like it was yesterday. She decides to go in and grab for the girl. Before she reaches, the water starts to ripple, at first at a mild motion. But then it bunches up, becomes erratic. And just like that, the water spurts out from the tub in slow motion - it divides yet merges at the same time.

Everything in the bathroom starts to levitate - including the young girl, who's lifeless body lifts up whilst submerged in the big mass of water she's resided in. Like a cocoon. Her eyes glow an otherworldly turquoise blue. Jessica levitates too, against her will and much to her confusion. Something's wrong, this isn't what happened.

The water reaches the ceiling, from the tub and from an open sink faucet that's been overflowing. Gravity has no rules in this pocket universe. Suddenly a man and woman, both African American and haggardly out of it in their chemically-induced docile expressions, barge into the bathroom as they see the spectacle unfold, much to their horror.

"Oh My God... Jess..." the woman cries out.

"Ca-Carol... you seeing this?" The man can barely choke out.

Suddenly, young Jessica's head turns to their direction. Everything drops, the massive mass of water included. It knocks both of them down but Young Jessica and Jessica still remain suspended in the air.

Young Jessica levitates out of the tub and a little closer to her parents. But they immediately scramble from her.

"GET AWAY! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM US!" The man yells.

"David!" Carol fearfully breathes out his name with slight contempt.

Jessica looks on in anguish and disbelief, tears welling in her eyes.

"Mom, Dad, no..."

Suddenly, Young Jessica's eyes glow more furiously. She ascends higher than before - and she takes her parents up with her. Jessica, now realizing what is to come, starts yelling frantically.

"NO, DON'T DO THIS! PLEASE!"

Carol and David are yelling, screaming - pleading, for their little bean to put them down. Then their bodies start convulsing. Jessica lifts her hand and tries to use her power but to no avail. Her arms and entire body suddenly becomes restricted.

She continues to scream at her younger self as the latter raises her small hand up but her pleads become muffled, almost inaudible. There's this weird, white noise ringing emanating in the room. Dead silence again, like the abyss she traversed through before.

And with one swift motion, the flicking of her wrist, her parents' heads spin in inhuman angles. Their bodies drop back on the ground like sandbags. But sandbags don't bleed like Carol and David do.

As Jessica screams and sobs, she's let down delicately to the ground. She crawls in her parents' pool of blood, motioning her hands to touch them. But she can't bring herself to do it.

Young Jessica levitates before her, with a smile that's uncannily innocent but later which becomes sinister. She holds her older counterpart as Jessica looks on in shock.

"Don't be sad... We wanted this, remember?" Young Jessica mutters with a deeper, distorted voice. "We need this!" She then snarls.

Jessica stammers. "What?"

Young Jessica stops embracing Jessica and looks at her, boring her glowing eyes intensely into Jessica's hazel brown ones. "Look around."

And as Jessica does so slightly, her eyes widen at the massacre behind her. She sees people she's encountered - bullies, foster parents, faces that look familiar but yet she couldn't possibly remember - and then she sees Maverick amongst all them - lifeless and drenched in blood like the rest of them.

She looks at her hands incredulously before bumping into a sink. Jessica then rises up before bumping into the bathroom sink. As she turns around in reactive mode, she looks at her reflection amongst the mirror and finds her eyes glowing the same otherworldly turquoise blue.

Jessica shoots up awake and tries to catch her breath. She cups her face before looking around and finding herself and some of her amenities levitating. It was a dream. No. A nightmare. It was only a nightmare.

Suddenly, a disassembled echo starts to form in her brain before emanating as a familiar voice - Maverick's.

"Jess?"

The End.

Love what you've read thus far? Be sure to check out the teaser for things to come...