Jagged Teeth

The abandoned graveyard is covered in rare October snow. You sit at a makeshift table and chairs, improvised out of old gravestones by yourself and the others. You take turns passing around your stolen apple whiskey. A third of the bottle left, it sloshes between grips, grabs, and upturns, between guffaws and inebriated conversation.

“You know,” Charlie slurs. “A damn shame.”

“A damn shame what, Charlie-char?” Shasha greets his slur with a tipsy tangle of words.

“How could someone not tend to a graveyard?”

“Shame—” Samuel tries to chime in, but falls over, spilling the rest of the bottle all over himself.

Sterling white, interrupted by brownish yellow. Snow melts through the tangles of Samuel’s hair and slips down his hoodie. He jumps to his feet, flapping and flailing and failing to escape the sudden cold.

“Damn shame!” comes the chorus of gleefully drunken young adults.

“Argh!” Samuel finally sits up with a grunt. He’s the only one unamused.

Within the dying laughter, Sasha says: “You think they all find peace?”Samuel wipes the last of the snow off his lap. “Know what I think? I think no matter what, no matter how— how you die, it don't matter. Take this graveyard. Who… who’s been cleanin’ it up? No one. But they're all— they're all still dead, ain’t it? Don't matter. You die, you're dead. Where you go? What’s heaven anyway? What's hell? It's all just— mass. Really.” Samuel smears his words like finger paint.

“The hell are you talkin’ ‘bout, my boy?” you ask your inebriated friend. 

At some point during his speech, the others found themselves caught up in side chatter, so you were the first to notice.

“Samuel,” you chuckle. But he no longer responds. “Samuel?” You nudge him, and this gets the attention of your friends.

Samuel wipes himself down, confused, and stares out at nothing. “Do you… hear that?”

“Hear what?” Charlie asks, still laughing.

Samuel stands and starts walking, without another word.

“Sam?” you call after him. You receive no inkling that he’s heard you.

You and your friends share a glance at one another.

“Aw, he’s had too much.” Sasha pushes herself up off her stone seat. She reaches after Samuel, but he brushes right past her. 

She gets up to follow him, and the rest of you follow suit.

“First he wastes the golden water. Now he wants to play some creepy game of follow-the-leader,” Charlie mutters.

You shove Charlie to the side. “Why would you call it that, my guy?”

“Don't make fun of Charlie!” Sasha yells back at you. “You don't know what Charlie-char’s into.”

“Hey Sam, you think we've gone far enough?” you call out to Samuel. “I don't even think we’re in the graveyard anymore.”

“Hm,” Charlie says, looking around. “Too much snow to tell, really. It really came down today.”

“Maybe he just has to pee. Anyone thought of that? We could be following him and he could've been tryin’ to shake us this whole time. Remember, Sam, shake it once—” 

Sasha slams into Samuel’s back.

Samuel is reaching and waving in the air as if feeling for something. His lips are moving, but no one hears anything. Cold marches down your spine. 

Sasha reaches for his shoulder, but fear keeps her from making contact. You begin to wonder if he truly did have too much to drink. Or maybe he took something before drinking. 

The three of you— you, Sasha, and Charlie— each take a tentative step forward. You try pulling him away. It’s well past time to go home. You'll have him flush out whatever’s in his system. 

The closer you get to him, the more clear his mumbling is, but you still can't make it out. Now, you and your friends begin to panic. You keep pulling at Sam, but his wrist slips out of your hand. Each time you try— slip. Slip. Slip. One word seems to slip into your hearing. Something about a singularity.

Come on, Sam, it's time to stop playing games, is what you start to say. But like oil sucked down a drain, Samuel slips away. He melts into nothing. Nothing left of him but footprints in the snow.

White noise penetrates your ears. It's not until you're tripping in the snow that you realize you and your friends have run away, screaming, unable to comprehend what you just saw. Or— what you think you saw. You steal a glance over your shoulder, and sure enough, nothing remains but divots in the snow where Samuel stood just a moment ago.

You have to get out of here. Surely you're dreaming. You have to be.

Gradually, it becomes quieter and quieter. You turn to find that Charlie has stopped running. He’s trekking through the snow in the same direction that Samuel was. You try to grab him, to stop him, but again— just like Samuel, Charlie drips into nothing. Blots out of existence. 

You fall to your back, then push yourself up and start to run away again, but— just ahead, Sasha wipes herself off and walks toward you. You run at her, grab her wrist, pulling, but you fall to your knees as she slips out of your hand. 

You reach out again and face the same results. 

You force yourself up and tackle her to the ground. 

Still, she manages to slip out of your grasp. Continues her walk. As you watch your last friend mumble and spill out of existence, you feel the hope leave your body, like a moth giving in to the embrace of the spider’s web. Yet you still run. All that's left is the sound of your hollowed breath and the crunching beneath your boots.

You’re stopped short by an oily black orb, buoyed in the air in front of you. Before you can think, it bursts, spilling its impossibly dark, oily contents on you. Frantically, you wipe all over yourself. 

You think to throw yourself into the snow, but your mind becomes muddled, leaving you unable to command your own body. Surely, steadily, the words become clear. 

You understand it to be the whispering of the abyss. It repeats its mantra in you: Everything is nothing and nothing is everything. We are no one and we are everyone. You are us and we are you. The purpose of life, singularity. 

(There is no life. There is no death. There is only life. There is only death. There is only the singularity.)

You find, in fact, that you want this. We’re led to the spot where our friends disappeared.

Space unzips its jagged teeth, welcoming you home.