The Man Who Wouldn't Die
A tale of survival. [Flash Fiction #03]
Here is an AV version for a more immersive experience.
Endless days I wander through wind and snow for my Isabeau. She guides me.
“60-23-44,” she whispers in my ear while I sleep, and when I wake, she fades. With each passing day, her voice grows fainter. My mind is set. I care not if this be devil’s work. I must save her, escape this nightmare, this frozen hell.
“60-23-44, 60-23-44, 60-23-44.” The icy storm tears the words from my cracked lips. Through knee-deep snow, I plough. A low hum pierces the thunder. Here is the construct. Here lies The Maker.
“Isabeau,” I whisper and continue my march of numbers. With every step, the structure grows, calls, beckons. My pace quickens. Parting the low branches of saplings, I gaze skywards. My heart throbs. Black looms the pyramid before me. Its surface moves. A multitude of dark beehive cells, gaping mouths, oozing sounds like sirens in an arctic sea.
I stand on the threshold, my body spent. I can go no further. She brought me here. I touch the construct. It shifts and hums, then parts. I step inside. Warmth. Silence. A dark womb of comfort. Serenity. This is the place. I kneel or think I do, for I seem to float. The sound of blood rushing through my veins fills my ears.
Past, present and future flow through me. You are here, Isabeau. You wave and shake your head. Eyes wide, your lips form words. Turn back? Terror grips my heart, your image fades, and what feels warm now burns my skin. I sink into the ice. Deeper and deeper. The hum, once soothing, suffocates; my chest heaves under burning fur. I tear it off, and there I see the pyramid, the mark of The Maker, seared into my flesh, moving, oozing, whispering. I scream in silence.
The light returns. The storm subsides. Where there once was the construct, only endless ice remains, and deep beneath, I lie and wait.
60-23-44: Asshole of the World.
It’s where it all happened. The End. Note it down for future history lessons. Some say it was human greed, drilling where we shouldn’t have. Some say the numbers were a message from the future or the past. You never know with quantum tech. As is our nature, curiosity got the better of us. So we dig. We dig deep, and Earth rips a colossal stinker. A global extinction scale methane fart, one final SBD – Silent But Deadly.
Who am I? I am nobody. I am a ghost. I am a survivor. You can call me Jay Johnson. If I told you my real name, you’d tell someone, who’d tell someone else, and before you know it, there’s a bunch of crazy assholes outside my shack trying to kill me or shake my hand. No thanks.
What did we find? Some frozen dude, preserved in near-perfect condition. Dead? For sure. Yeah, that’s the thing. He was pushing up daisies until they thawed him; a miracle, a wonder of modern science. The Man Who Wouldn’t Die, they called him. Next thing you know, cryogenic startups pop up, like there’s no tomorrow, promising immortality. Want to see the next millennium? Easy peasy with SafeFreeZ! For the low cost of twenty-five thousand bucks, you can visit the future, now.
What a load of crap. Didn’t matter, though. People were desperate to ride out the bad weather as popsicles. Of course, governments blamed each other. The truth? I think we fucked up, simple as that. Occam’s Razor. By the time that alien crap spawned everywhere, those pyramids, it was too late. Maybe, those things were there all along and all we did was wake them up. Whatever they are. Anyway, the Cryo business is booming. As they say, never let a good crisis go to waste. Waste… what a waste. A waste of time, effort and money. Whatcha gonna do with all the dough? Eat it?
And Iceman? Locked up, studied, probed, and cut into little slices? They sure tried, but shit started to happen, and he walked out of that lab with everyone following him, if you can believe those worshippers, hailing the guy as their Messiah. They say he kept mumbling the same numbers and now and then a name, a woman, Isabel. Hm? – What’s that? Ah, yeah, Isabeau. You heard the story then. She’s a ghost if you ask me. The guy spent a thousand years in ice. No wonder he’s a bit soft in the melon. Crazier yet, his body fully regenerated, even the parts that were broken off, yeah, that part, too.
How? That’s where it gets bat-shit crazy. Stay with me. The mark of The Maker. A sort of black pyramid-shaped tattoo across his chest. The thing moves as if it were alive. It makes a weird humming noise, and – get this – it spreads when touched. There’s an army of those Maker nut-jobs out there by now. Who knows, maybe there’s no one left. I saw a guy get sucked right into the chest of another man, suit and shoes and all. How messed up is that? Guess not everyone is chosen to join the ranks of the Maker. I know, classic horror B movie stuff. Well, if you hear a hum, you better run! That’s what I did. Went as far up the mountains as I could. Sure as hell didn’t expect anyone to find me that soon, but here you are.
You are welcome to stay until you feel better. I am not a doctor, but that’s some nasty frostbite there. May have to amputate the leg. I know, I know. Not what you want to hear. Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow. Maybe, you’ll live another day. Maybe, you’re wondering right now why you can’t see shit… it’s because your corneas are frozen stiff. Don’t worry, though. Look at the bright side. Whatever problems you had or thought you had, they’re gone. Isn’t that great? You only have one problem now, one priority: Survive.
Welcome to the Ice Age, meat bag.
Sometime in 2017, it was April 17th, about tea time, I read an article on a 350 million-ton methane bubble trapped under arctic ice. Not a lot, given that the arctic permafrost alone holds an estimated 1700 billion metric tons of carbon, including methane and carbon dioxide.
I’m far from being an expert on methane emission and its effects, but I can imagine one of those bubbles bursting and releasing that amount of gas all at once might be a bit of a downer. As a speculative fiction writer, such dystopian scenarios tickle my fancy.
On the other hand, reading about the IEA saying that methane emissions in 2022 remained stubbornly high is not much fun. Nor is looking at Methane ‘Super-Emitters’ mapped by NASA’s New Earth Space Mission.
Then there is Turkmenistan’s “Door to Hell,” a 70-meter wide crater that was formed as the result of a drilling accident in 1971. It has been burning natural gas ever since...
However, for this story, we are talking about natural methane trapped under permafrost, which is one part of the premise of this little speculative fiction yarn. All I had was one sentence. This weekend I sat down and wrote the rest. While fleshing out the story, I added the supernatural part, something, someone, buried under the ice. How did he/it get there? Aliens? A crossroads deal? A ghostly message? A love lost? All of it?
If you like this content, please don’t forget to click the little heart and leave a comment. It helps to keep the pixels from fragmenting. Thank you!
Wild.
This is amazing, Alexander! On to part 2!