A Break In Reality

A Break in Reality

“Oh, God! There’s so much blood!”

            “You have to put pressure on it. Give me your shirt so I can stop the bleeding. Amy, I need you to call 911 and get an ambulance over here.”

            “Guys? I’m feeling a little woozy. I think I need to sit down.”

            Marybeth saw the emergency her friends were experiencing through the corners of her eyes; she was too preoccupied with the anomaly in front of her. She wasn’t really sure what she was staring at, but she knew it shouldn’t be there. The object had probably appeared during the unusual tremor they had all felt while walking not five minutes ago. Her curiosity had taken over as she walked towards the strange thing, drawn to it like a fly to a bug zapper. She reached out her hand, inches from touching it, before being pulled back by her boyfriend.

            “Mary!” he yelled, yanking her by the yellow scarf—a gift he had given her last year for Christmas—and pulling her back from the weird feature. “I need your help here. Mary? Can you hear me?”

            Marybeth was taken out of her trance, brought back to the scene of her wounded new acquaintance. Amy, her best friend, had taken off the pink sweatshirt from around her waist and the piece of clothing was now being used as a makeshift bandage. Peter was wrapping it around Zane’s raised right arm, trying to slow the flow of blood that was already soaking through the now ruined sweatshirt and dripping down his arm. She could see by the look of Zane’s pale face that Amy’s new beau was not doing well.

            “I think I might faint,” Zane said. He was now sitting on the front steps of some nearby apartment buildings. His head looked wobbly, and his eyes were blinking rapidly.

            “Nope. You’ve got to stay awake, Zane.” He snapped his fingers in front of Zane’s eyes, trying to get his attention and keep him awake. “Come on, stay with me. Amy, you get an answer yet on that ambulance?”

            “I’m trying! I’m trying!” Amy had a frantic look on her face as she was trying to talk to the person on the other line. “Where are we? I don’t know where we are!”

            Marybeth could see that her best friend was having trouble dealing with the situation and the sight of blood; she was always squeamish when it came to bodily fluids. She walked over to Amy and tried to help her out and calm her down.

            “It’s okay, Amy,” she told her friend. “Take a few breaths. We are on St. Vincent’s Street, between 3^rd Avenue and 4^th Avenue. Tell them our friend is hurt and that we need an ambulance sent here immediately.” She waited for Amy’s nodding head to relay the information into the cell phone before turning back to Peter and Zane. “Is he going to be okay?”

            “Yeah, I think so,” Peter replied. “He got cut pretty deep, but I’ve managed to slow the bleeding down. As long as he stays awake and the paramedics get here soon, he should be fine. Are you okay, Mary? You were looking really out of it.”

            “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just, that thing,” she said, turning to the oddity that seemed to hang magically above the sidewalk before them.

            It looked like a crack, like a sliver of glass had been chipped away from a larger pane of glass, except there was no glass. The whole thing was suspended roughly four feet above the ground. It looked about three feet in length and only about five inches at the widest part, which was the middle of the strange thing. It fascinated her, and before she knew it, Marybeth was next to the odd phenomenon.

            “Mary, I think you should probably stay away from that,” Peter suggested, still attending to Zane.

            “Look at it, though! What is it?”

            “I don’t know, and I’m a little busy right now. So, will you please just stay away from it? It’s already proven to be dangerous.” He turned so he was facing Amy. “How’s that ambulance coming?”

            “They’re on their way,” Amy replied, keeping her cell phone plastered to the side of her head. “They want me to stay on the line until they get here. How is Zane? Is he going to be okay?” She knelt by her wounded boyfriend, stroking the black hair above his ghostly white face. “Oh, Zane, baby, everything is going to be alright.”

            Anger flickered through Marybeth momentarily. She loved her boyfriend very much, but the one thing that really got on her nerve was when Peter thought he knew what was best for her. It annoyed her, always taking charge and telling her what to do. It made her feel like a child, or even a dog, being told no. She was about to say something when she thought better of it. This was neither the time nor the place to start causing personal drama. Besides, he was just looking out for her safety. She decided to bring it up some other time and returned her attention back to the crack, making sure to stay several feet back to keep her boyfriend happy.

            It was quite queer. Bending forward to get a closer look, she could see that there was an opening inside the crack. It was hard to see through the opening from where she was at, so while Peter was busy with their wounded friend, she took a few steps towards the object to get a better inspection.

            It was like peering into another world.

            The window opened up into a fantasy realm, a different universe, and it was gorgeous. Dark violet grass rolled along a hilly, wide, open landscape. A forest, made from different hues of red vegetation, was off to the left. Large, white mountains rose high into the sparkling, blue sky to the right.  A few thin lines of smoke traveled up from the rooftops of a small looking village off in the distance, most likely from families cooking their lunches or keeping their homes warm. It all looked so real, and she could even hear lovely nature sounds and smell sweet fragrances coming from within.

            Taking her gaze away from the inside, Marybeth walked around to the other side of the crack. It was all but invisible when looked at from the side, which was why Zane didn’t see it as it sliced through his arm minutes ago. Thinking she would see the same thing through the other side, she was gravely disappointed.

            The opposite side was a window into a nightmare. It was dark, so she couldn’t see much, but what she saw frightened her. She stared into a twilight realm, with a black sky lit up by three different glowing moons. A bubbling bog, with murky, purple fluorescent lights eerily shining through mounds of moss and dead grasses, took up most of the scene. Monochrome positive forests lined the left and right sides. Sounds that chilled to the bone came from creatures hiding within the shadows and bleakest crevices. A blurry, winged monster flashed in front of the viewing window, sending Marybeth stumbling back as she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a scream.

            It was impossible, but there were two separate worlds through both openings of the crack.

            “Hey,” Marybeth said, calling to her friends from behind the splinter in reality. “You guys have got to see this.”

            “Still busy over here,” Peter said. “Amy, go watch for the ambulance and see what Mary is fussing about.”

            Marybeth fumed silently to herself. She knew they were in an emergency situation, but her boyfriend was starting to get annoying. The paramedics were on their way, and Zane’s wound did not look life threatening; Peter did not need keep up the attitude. She ignored any eye contact with him and watched Amy walk over to her instead.

            “Zane will be okay, Amy,” she said as she hugged her friend. “Don’t worry, help will be here any second.”

            “I know. I wish they would hurry, though.” Wiping away some tears, her face scrunched up as she caught a glimpse through the chip in reality. “Oh, wow, what is that? This is what cut Zane?”

            “I have no idea what it is,” she replied. “But look closer, through the opening.”

            “Oh, my God! What is that? Where is that? This cannot be real.” Amy looked bewildered as she walked around to the other side and stifled back a scream at the other opening.

            Before Marybeth had a chance to say anything, the familiar sound of ambulance sirens could be heard from around the block. The flashing lights soon followed, and then the large vehicle turned onto their street. Seeing them, Amy frantically waved her arms in the air to get the driver’s attention.

            “Oh, thank God,” Amy said. “I thought they’d never get here.”

            The ambulance pulled into an empty space next to the sidewalk and parked. With the sirens turned off, but the lights still going, a woman jumped out of the driver’s side while a man burst out of the back.

            “Where’s the injured person?” asked the woman paramedic as she rushed up to Amy and Marybeth.

            “Over here!” cried Peter, waving from the steps of the apartment building they were loitering on. Both paramedics rushed over to Peter and Zane, immediately unpacking their first aid equipment and assessing the situation.

            “What happened?” asked the male paramedic.

            “We were walking down the sidewalk when he ran into that thing over there,” Peter said, pointing to the object directly behind Marybeth and Amy. “It cut his arm pretty deep, and I think he’s lost quite a bit of blood.”

            Marybeth hadn’t noticed it at first, but Zane had lost a lot of blood. Large drops covered the sidewalk, leading to a small pool that had collected under his feet. Maybe her initial assessment was wrong and that he was more injured than she thought. She felt a little guilty for ignoring him; she hoped he would be okay.

            “Okay, let’s have a look,” said the female paramedic. She looked at the wound and began to apply professional first aid. “He has lost a good amount of blood, but it doesn’t look too serious. Where did you say he cut himself?”

            “Over here,” Amy said. “My boyfriend cut himself on whatever this is.” She pointed to the glass-like crack floating above the sidewalk.

            “What the hell?” The male EMT had stopped checking Zane’s vitals while he gaped at the phenomenon. His curiosity was just as strong as Marybeth’s, making him walk up next to her and Amy to examine it. “What is that?”

            “We don’t know,” Marybeth answered.

            “Paul! I could use you over here!” yelled the female paramedic.

            “Right. Sorry. Coming.” He stared at the oddity for another couple of seconds before running back over to help with Zane.

            As their injured friend was carefully hoisted onto a stretcher, a police car pulled up and parked next to the ambulance. The situation was also drawing in some passersby, and a small crowd of several strangers had gathered to see what all the commotion was about. A tough looking woman stepped out of the cruiser, immediately taking control and telling people to stand aside. She narrowly avoided being cut by the same thing that had wounded Zane when Marybeth yelled out to her.

            “Look out for that!” she warned, pointing to the hard-to-see, razor sharp pointy end that was inches from the cop’s body.

            The officer stopped into a defensive stance before seeing what she was about to run into, then she just looked bewildered. “What is that? Can someone inform me as to what is going on?”

            “We’re the ones who called 911,” Marybeth said, speaking up for her group. “Us four were walking down the sidewalk when Zane over there ran into this. As you can see, it’s almost invisible when walking towards it.”

            “What is that, though?” the officer asked.

            “The paramedics said Zane should be okay,” Peter said, walking up to Marybeth, Amy, the officer, and the chip in the universe. He then turned to his girlfriend. “Did you tell her what happened?”

            “Yes,” Marybeth said. “I was in process of…”

            A low rumbling stopped her from continuing. The ground and everything around them began to shake. She had to grab onto her boyfriend to keep from falling over. A loud, snapping and booming sound, like that of shifting ice covering a frozen, winter lake, generated from the window that gazed into two different worlds. The crack grew larger. It stretched and widened, forcing everyone around it to take a few steps back. Marybeth had never been more frightened as she watched the passageway threaten to envelop them.

            “We should not stick around for this,” she said, tugging on Peter and Amy. After seeing what the openings had to offer, she knew nothing good could come from the growing anomaly.  She pulled harder on her friends. “Come one, we need to go.”

            “What’s happening?” Amy looked terrified as she followed her best friend.

            “Peter, come on!” Marybeth begged, noticing her boyfriend was not with her as she and Amy ran from the danger. She was about to wait for him, but then she saw the horror that began to unfold.

            Expanding and growing with every tremor, the hole that linked their reality to two other universes increased at an alarming speed. She was only a couple of paces away, with Peter frozen with awe and staring at the queer event, when the creatures burst forth from both sides. Marybeth didn’t have time to yell or warn her beloved boyfriend as a ferocious, butterfly-looking monster, emerging from the friendly and peaceful looking realm, impaled him. She stopped dead in her tracks, too startled at watching the one person she loved most—sure he could get irritating, but she still loved him—in the world die and be carried off into the sky. In the corners of her watery eyes, she could see other abominations break through into their world. Anyone within a few feet of the crack was annihilated. Peter, the police officer, and two other bystanders that were unfortunate enough to be too close were taken out by living things that could only be found within the darkest regions of a person’s imagination.

            Marybeth, never letting go of her dearest friend, ran as fast as her legs could take her. She ran and ran, never stopping until she passed out five miles from the incident that would make worldwide coverage.