By Philip Malazarte
Do you remember those times when your eyes would just start watering? Without provocation or reason, tears would spill over and run down your face, but with no emotions tied to them. You weren’t moving, you weren’t dreaming, in fact, you weren’t even thinking, and yet there they were. This is the story of why that happens. This is the story of tears.
A girl was crying. Not crying really, just watering at the eyes. She wasn't doing anything to warrant such a reaction, just laying in the grass, watching the clouds go by. There was no wind, and it wasn’t cold. It was calm, calmer than words could describe. But the tears still came. The girl brushed a finger against her face to wipe away a tear. As she went to shake the droplet off, she noticed a flicker of motion within the teardrop. As she looked closer at the tear, she could swear she saw people inside. Then the world went black.
The girl woke up in the same meadow, but it was different somehow. The grass was gray and burned from some unknown explosion. The remnants of weapons were strewn about the meadow half buried in the dirt. The sky was bright red.
The sky was burning.
The girl looked back down at the meadow, and for the first time, noticed the ghosts. Thousands of grey, transparent, ghosts. And it seemed that they noticed her too. Every single misshapen, dead-eyed face turned to look at her, mouths hanging open, pieces of skin hanging off from either decomposition or some past injury, but all those faces had one thing in common. They all recognized her. She could see it, that spark of acknowledgement in their otherwise blank eyes. Then the ghosts started speaking, all of them, at the same time.
“Welcome. We’ve been expecting you.”
The girl whirled around, trying in vain to find the source of the voice, as she said, “Expecting me? I don’t even know you!”
“We are The Fallen, and WE know YOU.”
“How? What does that even mean?!” She asked, of no one in particular.
“We are your past lives, the people you used to be. You know that matter cannot be destroyed, only reused. Is it so hard to believe that the matter that makes up your body used to make up the bodies of others? We have watched the world die at a distance, locked away here in our cage, but will we no longer be spectators to the destruction of our home. Give yourself over to us……”
The Fallen started walking toward the girl in a limping, shuffling gait. The girl tried to run away, for she knew she could outrun them. But when she tried to turn around, she found that she couldn’t move. She looked down to see the grass under her feet winding its way up her body, encircling her, trapping her. The ground surged up the last few inches, swallowing her into the ground, screaming and terrified. The last thing she saw was the white eyes of a dead man.
Time passes in the battlefield. But to the outside world, nothing has changed.
The girl shot up to sit ramrod straight, still in the same field, at apparently the same time of day. She rose and brushed herself off, then went off on her way home. She entered her house, her eyes darting around at the pictures of her family. Her mother called to her, about to ask if she enjoyed her nap outside, but when she looked at her daughter, she started with surprise. The girl was staring blankly at her with pure white eyes. And when she spoke, it seemed as if it was with the voices of thousands.
“Hello. We are home.”