《Infernal Eidolons》


 Furnace

    Our town has many graveyards. We have one for the people who have died. We have one for buildings that have fallen down. We have one for the cars that were destroyed. We have one for the people who burned. And we have one for trains. Just a few trains, some with lines of char staining the sides of the metal, some newer and without signs of burn.


    The dead trains still lie on dead tracks. Lines of melted railroad tracks that begin at the outskirts of town and extend outwards towards the mountains, the trains there sitting dormant and hidden by trees. It took the place of an old railroad that was being built that was originally supposed to connect Rias to the Rockies, but the 1862 fire halted that before any meaningful progress could be made. Nobody who was working on the railroad lived to tell how long it extended before it was discontinued¡ªit¡¯s rumored all of those people died in the fire, too.


    I¡¯m a railroad operator, and having just heard of the graveyard, I felt compelled to visit it. Due to its distance from Rias, it was seldom seen, and no roads led in that direction. Just dirt, then tracks, then trains.


    I had arrived after a long trek on foot and quickly noticed the graveyard was circled with trees, and I had a great number of trains to choose from. I chose an old black-charred passenger train, one that had apparently been through the great fire. Finding a place to board, I stepped on.


    Immediately I smelled the stench of smoke. My flashlight told me there was nothing occupying the stale train compartment air, but I smelled the distinctive odor of smoke anyway. I assumed it was the remaining char from the fire, so I proceeded anyway, flashlight in one hand and the other covering my nose.


    Moving closer to the engine, I passed by a number of seats. All were apparently made of some kind of soft material, but their old color was lost, replaced by the sinister black of soot. I had half expected to see old signs of people in them, like a lost bag or an indentation in the seat, but nothing was to be found. Just blackened train seats.


    I wandered down the middle of the aisle towards the next car and saw more of the same. I tried uncovering my nose for a second to inspect things, but the smell was still overpowering, and I would quickly replace my hand.


    But as I got closer to the engine compartment the air grew hotter. Each passenger car looked practically identical, but everything was growing hot. It was night outside, I knew, which is why in particular the heat was so off putting. But every time the uncharacteristic warmth intensified I would try and look outside the windows, try and make sure I wasn¡¯t seeing or feeling things that weren¡¯t there, the windows would always be coated with the black soot. I was isolated.


    Around three cars away from the engine I began to hear something. A low sound, almost not there at all, that sounded like clamoring voices coming from ahead. And when I placed my hand on the wall to proceed into the next car I noticed that the steel was hot. Not warm, but hot. Too hot to touch.


    I jerked my hand away from the wall and stood there for a moment, pondering whether or not to continue. But, I told myself I could always leave when I wanted to, and what I was experiencing wasn¡¯t yet outside the realms of possibility. The sounds could be an animal that took refuge in the years that succeeded this train¡¯s death, the smoky smell could be the remaining char on the walls. But I couldn¡¯t explain the heat.


    In the car before the engine I noticed something else. There was a soft warm glow, reddish orange, peeking out from below the engine room door and just barely illuminating my car. I turned off my flashlight to gaze at it bewilderedly, taking in the bizarre sight. Nobody has been on this train in the 100 years since its death in the great fire. By no means should the furnace be on. When I had entered the train, there was no smoke or steam emitting from the smokestack at the engine¡¯s top.


    And I had also noticed that the strange voices were growing louder.


    In a swift movement, I gripped the door handle and pushed the engine room door open. The voices immediately stopped.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    But what I heard and saw in their place was far worse. The engine room was sweltering, and at its far center there was the abnormally wide furnace, fully on and blazing with fire. It seemed as if the entire room had bent and warped around the furnace, stretching it further away in the room than should be possible. And the fire. It crackled, tongues of flame licking the rims of the furnace, hot embers floating in the air before fizzling out. The flames looked as if they briefly made screaming faces in the inferno, every aspect of the furnace looked inexplicably sinister. And when I leaned down, I saw that the furnace looked as if it had no end. I couldn¡¯t see the other side of the furnace, the flames looked as if they stretched on infinitely.


    And then, there was a shuddering movement beneath me. I heard the distinguishable creak of a train jerking forward as it began to move, and then the repeated, accelerating chug of the wheels on a track. I felt the movement inside of the train, and it was undoubtedly moving forward.


    I immediately began to run out of the engine room, but a loud SNAP of wood cracking in fire stopped me. I looked back at the furnace and the fire looked as if it had grown. It was pushing its way out of the furnace and into the room, expanding further and further, the ghostly faces in its flames accentuating themselves more and more.


    I sprinted down the halls as fast as my legs would allow, and I felt the train growing faster and faster. I had forgotten the idea of blocking my nose from the smoke as I ran, and the overpowering stench took my breath away. There was a whistle from outside, deafeningly loud. It sounded like a train whistle, but more like an imitation¡ªit sounded much more like a scream.


    The ghostly voices were practically yelling from behind me, and I turned around to see it.


    From the engine room, the fire from the furnace had taken shape into a being. It was human, but not. I heard every variety of voices emitting from the creature. It had eyes and a mouth, dark spots in the fire that warped and changed by the second, its faces switching, swapping and disappearing. It took up all of the train compartment behind me, having to lean down to properly fit inside.


    The metal I touched was scorching, the air itself was burning. Every breath of fiery smoke singed my lungs. The train was accelerating faster and faster, the chugs repeating themselves quicker than should be possible, shaking the train. I sprinted away from the creature behind me, and when it talked it screamed, a burning echo of crackles and voices. Now in the charred seats I could see imprints of people occupying each one. Where there was previously just char, there would be a person-shaped gap in every seat, of every shape and size. The imprints seemed to move as I passed as if the invisible people who occupied them were reaching out for me.


    I ran for what felt like forever, before realizing that I had ran through far more cars than I had on the way in. The train just kept on going as it turned on tracks that shouldn¡¯t exist, twisting and winding towards the mountains. I could never see beyond the next car because the train just kept turning, and there was never a place to leave the train. No area to step off, nothing.


    Until, in a sickening movement, the train seemed to hit a straightaway. One by one, the cars in front of me aligned in a straight line, and I noticed that the train was truly infinite. Each car aligned themselves with mine, an infinite series of burnt seats and imprints of people. It never ended.


    Behind me the fire creature still burned the cars it passed over, so I had no choice but to keep running, But now the seats were beginning to fill themselves. Where there used to be just imprints there were now real people, their skin and image darkened and reddish, flashing in and out of existence. And one of them grabbed my arm, a woman with abnormally long hair.


    When I looked into her face, I saw that it was hollow. Inside of her mouth and eyes was a glowing red flame, emitting out into the car. I screamed, tearing myself away, and saw a window over an empty row of seats. It was still coated in char, but I ignored it and kicked through it, shattering the glass. The world seemed to be whizzing away outside, but I steeled myself and leaped through.


    And I found myself on damp grass outside the still train.


    All was silent, the smoky smell was gone. Cool summer air filled my nose and mouth as I lay, heart pumping, gasping quickly. I was in the train graveyard as usual, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary whatsoever. There were no voices coming from the train, no glowing red light, no hollow, ghostly figures with a fiery glow replacing their being and emitting from their shell.


    But the smell of smoke still lingered on my clothing, too real to be ignored. My skin still felt warm from the sweltering air inside, and the burns I had received from the scorching metal still stung my skin. I had no choice but to push myself up and sprint home, never gazing at the train again.

 Fever

    I came down with a fever in the coming days. Confined to my apartment and living alone, I could only watch as my temperature continued to rise night after night. The days are long and brutal. I¡¯ve taken to breathing the same stuffy air rather than letting the searing summer heat in through my window.


    The sickness clogs my sinuses and arteries, making every breath a wheeze and filling every moment with discomfort. My body fluctuates between inescapable chills and inescapable sweats.


    On the third night of my fever I turned off to bed early. The heat was already unbearable in the apartment¡ªI slept with a leg over the covers, sickened by the claustrophobic oven that was my bed.


    On this night, I experienced the first dream.


    In the dream, I found myself wandering my apartment. The walls felt narrower somehow and I roved without reason, confused by the non-euclidean structure of my hallways. It felt endless. I walked through my kitchen, a hallway, my kitchen, a hallway, my apartment making sense in a way it didn¡¯t. I was free, but I was trapped.


    The walls grew darker and darker, patterned wallpaper peeling into threatening curls or jagged claws. Everything around me peeled and fell, pieces littering the floor and crunching loudly under my bare feet. Eventually, all surfaces became a sick, dark black, and the peeling stopped. I was in my kitchen again, looking into a pitch black room. My living room. And I could no longer move.


    As I stood, gaze affixed to the doorway, a feeling of dread slowly, steadily built itself inside of my mind. The darkness concealed something, something important, something I was afraid of. The darkness of the doorway surpassed the darkness of the peeled kitchen walls.


    I took a step towards the doorway.


    And I woke up.


    <hr>


    The next day I found my brain filled with fog. Walking around the apartment triggered acute dissociations, taking me immediately back to the dream. Hours blended together, uncomfortable and stuffy and hot as ever. Sometimes I turned a corner into a hallway I swore I¡¯d just walked through.


    My fever was worsening. I didn¡¯t touch my forehead anymore because I already knew what it would feel like. Scorching, burning, dotted with oily sweat.


    Walking into my bedroom that night I felt an apprehension. I feared the world I might step into, the peeling paint walls and the dark black doorways. I feared the claustrophobia. I feared another confused waking day where my battered mind blended fact and fiction.


    But, I told myself, sleeping was the only option. And my waking world was filled with discomfort, anyways.


    And so I dreamed the second dream.


    In the dream, my gaze was affixed to my television in the center of my living room. I sat¡ªor maybe stood, maybe both¡ªseveral feet away, and the static-filled screen was small, but it occupied so much of my vision.


    Darkness choked the living room, its dense weight pressing on my skin. The only thing that wasn¡¯t pure, utter black was the luminescent static of the screen I stared at. In the corner of my eye, I could tell the darkness was moving, the walls of the room ebbing and flowing like a breath or a pulse, but there was no way to tell for sure.


    The static remained unchanging. Despite this, I could almost make out faint, transient shapes among the black and white. I stared and stared, feeling my body move as the indiscernible room around me swam, watching the symbols assemble themselves from the insect-like dots on the screen. The television was growing bigger, or closer, or maybe I was getting smaller.


    And then I could make out symbols no longer. Slowly, steadily, a single distorted point was forming in the center of the static, being burned irreversibly into the screen. It was dark, like the dots of static were coalescing together in the middle.


    The point on the screen began to glow.


    And I woke up.


    <hr>


    It was like the sweat never left my body. I would have thought that my flesh itself was melting if it wasn¡¯t for the visibly clear liquid that stained my clothes and dotted my skin. I was constantly sweating. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Part of me was compelled towards the television just because I wanted to prove that what I¡¯d dreamed wasn¡¯t real. But even before I turned it on, I noticed a faint blue stain in the screen. Perfectly centered, perfectly small, hardly noticeable if I hadn¡¯t been looking for it. It could have always been there.


    None of the channels functioned. They were all static. I spent my ever-fading energy attempting to drag a chair in front of the television, and once I did, I just stared at the static. Just stared. There was no suffocating darkness, no swimming walls, just my living room and some static. The television¡¯s near-inaudible, high-pitched hiss filled the room.


    But the burn remained. There was, undoubtedly, a dot burned into my television screen. I affixed myself to it and let my fading, confused mind drift.


    It could have been an entire thirty minutes before I started seeing the symbols. My sense of time was slowly crumbling. But they were there, slowly fading in and out of view, with sharp or smooth edges, barely noticeable as if the unknown message they displayed was for my eyes only. I felt the air grow hotter around me.


    The dot in the middle began to grow.


    I got up from my chair, turned away from the TV, and rubbed my eyes. I looked back to see regular, harmless static, and a dot burned into the middle of the screen.


    <hr>


    This time, sleeping was a fear. I dreaded the intense discomfort of my dreams, of sweat-covered sheets and my aching, battered mind. I stalled in every way I could, but after midnight, I couldn¡¯t hold back my falling eyelids any longer.


    And I dreamed the third dream.


    This time, I was in my bed. I got up and trekked through the darkness to my living room. Aside from the unending confusion of everything around me being claustrophobic and expansive at once, there was nothing wrong.


    I found myself in front of the TV again without even remembering getting there. The burned dot on the screen looked as if it had been waiting for me. Once more it was the focus of my vision, and once more it began to glow. The brightness increased, but it wasn¡¯t just getting brighter. It was getting closer. There was something inside eating all the light and getting closer to me. To reality. It consumed the static, the black and the white, and grew closer, brighter, hotter.


    But when I felt the heat behind me, and saw the faint illumination of my living room, I realized just how wrong I was. There was nothing inside of my television. It was outside, already real, just reflected off the surface of the screen. I couldn¡¯t turn my head to see it behind me.


    The curtains on my windows were open. I had so many windows. Covering the walls, the ceiling, the floor, countless windows. Through them were eyes. Distorted, dark faces and eyes that looked at me but reflected the thing behind me. I saw its reflection a thousand times on a thousand eyes, but I couldn¡¯t turn my head.


    And the room grew hotter and brighter as the thing grew closer, but I couldn¡¯t turn my head.


    I was screaming when I woke up.


    <hr>


    For the entire following day I avoided sleep. My fever was worse than ever, the room was so hot it burned, and the sweat dripped with every step. To keep myself awake I just walked.


    I remained awake for the entire next night and into the morning. I walked everywhere but my living room. I couldn¡¯t bear to go back after what I¡¯d seen in my dreams. I was too afraid of it being real.


    I didn¡¯t know whether or not my fever would kill me. I felt so close to death. After twenty-four waking hours, I had avoided the next dream, but my splitting headache and perpetual sweating left me in eternal discomfort.


    I didn¡¯t even realize the moment I had walked into my living room. Maybe my mind had become so confused I didn¡¯t even realize I was there.


    Two steps into the room, I saw a glimpse of that burned point on the screen, and I fell unconscious.


    Pure, total darkness.


    I was standing on solid ground, but everything was so utterly dark. My headache was gone, my sweat was gone, everything was gone but me, the darkness, and that thing.


    It was thousands of feet in front of me, but it felt so close.


    It was a single white point, a red-orange glow radiating off of it. It quietly vibrated in its place far away from me. Lashes of fiery energy came out of it like whipping, flailing arms. I could almost see the heat it gave off in powerful, thumping waves. As it grew closer, it got hotter, the lashing arms growing in size and intensity. I was frozen in place as it approached.


    This, I realized, was what it felt to be in the presence of a God. Not divine, or even unholy, but just beyond me.


    It floated closer, and closer, the heat exponentially growing, until it no longer felt like heat. The pain crescendoed, searing and boiling my skin until I could no longer feel pain anymore. As it approached me its waves of heat vaporized my body, and then I came back, and then vaporized me again. The pulses grew faster, and faster, my death and rebirth accelerating, until it stopped in front of me. My body became whole again.


    It floated before my eyes with a high-pitched ringing sound, vibrating harmlessly. It was as real, as clear as day. Its red-orange light coated my body and mind with a sinister glow. I knew it was my turn to act.


    With one index finger, I touched it, and it filled me with light.


    I awoke on the floor of my living room.


    As I pushed myself to standing, I realized my fatigue was gone. The headaches had stopped. However long I had been asleep, my ailments had healed by that time.


    But, looking around my living room with a clearer head, at the burned image in my television, I couldn¡¯t suppress a feeling of bone-chilling dread. Like I had brought something into the world that I couldn¡¯t take away. I was overcome with apprehension, at the thing in my dreams I had brought into reality.


    I opened a curtain, and the morning sun was so much brighter and hotter than before.