The Black Sun Finale

I connected the call, keeping my focus on the article I was reading as I answered.

“Hello?”

Faint noises whispered through the receiver, but no words nor discernible meaning greeted me.

I blinked.

A shiver crawled down my spine, I turned and cast a look across my shoulder around my room. Perfect stillness accompanied me. Heavy with emptiness the atmosphere felt cold and metallic. The isolation, oft so comforting is ever-present. It’s oppressive weight is undeniable save for the unwholesome alien quality that persisted despite the assurance of my senses.
A cool wind caressed my neck. I shuddered. It was so quiet now. No birds song or call, nor drone of a single vehicle, nor even a breath of wind. I could feel my heartbeat building in my chest and the pinpricks of panic built in my veins urged me to cry out or scream.

A word cracked the still.

I froze. The sudden intrusion cut a hole in the silence. From the phone I held to my ear I felt the room begin to fill with sound. Paralysed, I listened as it spoke to me. Whispers, so faint, mounted until deafening. This soundless scream took horrid form in my mind and gripped me.
A tendril of understanding reached into my mind and tore a hole. Tearing open my perception until the hole was greater than the whole of me, and I was but a speck in my own perception.

I blinked.

I felt unchanged, but for the icy weight of experience covering me.

The song of birds outside the window, just barely audible above the cacophony of traffic still backed up to a standstill at the top of the road. The air was stuffy and warm, a cold sheen the only reminder of the previous chill.

I put my phone down on my desk. It was off. I stood and stumbled, almost running, into the kitchen. I drank deeply from a glass of cold water that shook slightly in my hand until I placed it, empty, by the sink. Steadying myself, I gripped the sink and stared at my hands, studying the shallow lines and white knuckles.

I could hear my phone ringing in my room. I ignored it. It didn’t matter, there was something more important I had to do, I realised. Calm certainty filled me, purging the shaking from my hands.

I was methodical and efficient as I dressed and readied myself. The scent of smoke as I combed my hair. To the distant sound of screams and sirens I stepped from my front door and descended the stairs, turning to calmly step out and begin to walk again the trickle of fleeing people.

With a smile I place my headphones in my ears, the melody that greets me, one that harkens me back to an aeon before the womb.

The Black Sun pt. 5

“What… what are you talking about Jess?” I asked, distracted but still angry, “You called me this morning didn’t you?”
“Ty, I just woke up, that wasn’t me calling you this morning?”
I pause to consider remembering I hadn’t actually checked the origin of the call this morning. I flushed with the realisation that I’d mixed up some other, probably wrong number, for Jess and exploded at her over nothing.
Taking my phone away from my ear, I hit speaker and went looking for my call history as I answered her, “Oh shit, I’m sorry, I thought… look never mind I wasn’t freaking out and wasn’t thinking.”

Making it to my call history it listed three incoming calls, Jess’ call now, Mum this morning and an unknown number in between. I copied the number into an internet search, “Anyway, mum suggested we come over their place today with… well yknow, with shit being weird like it is”
“Yeah that sounds like a good idea sweetie, I’ll just shower and call my boss, see if this is affecting work at all”
The phone number search result came back with a flood of results, at the top the usual phone number tracking websites with useless webtracker pages confirming that the search was made but with no information. Beneath those however I found a handful of question sites, all dated as posted today, reporting having received a call from this number. That’s weird, I think to myself, looks like I’m not the only one they called… and as far as I can see, all today.

“Ty?”
“Huh, what?” I asked, realising I’d zoned out and Jess had asked me something, “Sorry I didn’t catch that?”
“I asked what you thought was going on?”
I paused again at that question, I hadn’t really tried to consider what was going on before now, not really. It was all too enormous to me to focus on.
“I don’t know… The sky’s fucked for one thing. Mum says its been like this since dawn,” A thought struck me, “But dawn here is noon somewhere else…”
“What?” Jess asks, tired confusion in her voice, she’s not a morning person at the best of times and working nights has exacerbated that.
“I mean, if the sun disappeared at dawn our time, then it would have happened while the it would have been noon in like, Japan or something, right?”
“Yeah, so?” she asks,
“Then shouldn’t videos of that be all over the internet? I haven’t seen any mention of that… shit,” inwardly I kick myself for skimming over headlines rather than actually reading any of the news articles or long comments, “Hang on, I’m gonna look that up”
“Yeah sure, I’ll go have a shower, but I’ll keep my phone with me if you want to call me”

The call ended and I jump back on my computer searching “When did the sun change” and one of the first articles I ignored shows up with that exact phrase bolded in the snippet beneath the link. God I’m an idiot, I think shaking my head as I click open the article.
The text inside explains that the sun rose black in the sky at roughly 10am UTC on the 21st of December. That was around 8pm last night here, I noted after converting the time zones online, right around sunset.
Searching “Sun goes black” videos immediately shows a minute long video of the horizon which shows the sun peripherally as it flared and in a surreal moment a piercing prick of blackness opened up and like watching a piece of paper burn from the centre outwards the light is absorbed by the abyss until only that twisted halo remained.

I sat in silence for longer than I can pinpoint at the end of that video, shell-shocked while the autoplay ticked around to another video of the same transition, followed by another, then another. Not even able to formulate a response, my confusion incomprehensible. What I’d just watched couldn’t be possible, it couldn’t mean anything, it was too far beyond possibility. It was ridiculous. Stupid.
How, was all I could muster, the sheer volume of ways I could have followed that word overwhelmed me. Until finally coherence returned enough for the questions to shape into words.
How could this happen? How could I have missed that video? How could I have missed all of these videos? How could I have not noticed any mention of this story in the half a day since it began last night? How… how… how… how!?

The silence of my room was broken by the sound of my phone ringing once more.

The Black Sun pt. 4

I scroll through every social media and news site I can think of while I wait for Jess to respond but there’s nothing useful. A surprising number of the horde of geeky internet celebrities I follow have posted with pictures, videos or comments about the sun managing to contribute almost as much information as I can find in any news story. Forums, message boards and video hosting sites have more conspiracy theories than I’ve ever seen but these seem almost rare beneath the re-sharing of empty news stories, vapid statements from politicians or even trolls slinging blame at everyone from the government to religious groups to whatever other agenda you could think of.

With the curtains closed my room is almost as dark as night in the diminished light. I can feel myself growing more and more anxious every time I check to see if Jess has responded just to see she hasn’t. At first I try to wait patiently, thinking she must have decided to shower, maybe even so she can drive over with the phone call not connecting cleanly. Almost an hour passes like this and I can’t take it any more.
What the fuck, Jess! I fume silently in the darkness, You call me once then vanish without even jumping online? Goddamnit… Just send me a fucking message if you’re going to shower.

I can’t stand sitting here waiting for an answer, there’s no answers online, I don’t have a car to go to her, not that I could get through that traffic jam anyway. Stepping out of my room I cross the apartment to step out onto the balcony. Cradling my head in my hands I half wished I smoked, at least then I’d have something to occupy my hands or mind.

Looking down the street towards the main street, I can see the police are out, must be trying to get traffic moving again. I try to take some comfort in that thought, but I’m too far gone, too deep in my own thoughts to take comfort in reality. As soon as acknowledging the likelihood of a positive outcome, I imagine two or three more disastrous ones. My mind darts from ’80s apocalypse thrillers, to cosmic horror novels, to those found footage horror films or monster movies.

Another couple hours pass, almost to lunch time, as I continue stew in the anxiety of it all without change. Regardles of how frequently I check, there’s no explanation for what’s going on, just the same old vacuous calls for calm and reassurance that everything is being done to get to the bottom of it.
I’m not even hungry, I’ve been snacking constantly just to try and get my hands doing something. When the ringing of my phone startles me from my thoughts. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I see Jess’ face and answer,
“Where the fuck have you been,” I cry into the speaker, I can hear the hysterics in my tone despite trying to mask, “Why didn’t you call me back after I hung up!?”
“Ty? What are you talking about? I just woke up”

The Black Sun pt. 3

Belated Sunday Story, enjoy.

***

I click once on the picture of Sarah’s face, summoning the floating chat window to Jess’ housemate.
“Hey, tell Jess to call me if you’re still home please, thanks” I ask, feeling like I should mention the sun but with no idea how to bring it up. It’s a fairly complex issue, I decide, too early to jump into that online.

Having sent the message, with no dancing ellipses to signal an imminent reply I stand up and close the curtain. Yeah just don’t look at the missing sun and it’ll all go away, I think, shaking my head. Dropping my towel, I stand in front of my chest of drawers struggling to decide what to wear… Do I dress for my workout or do I skip today. On one hand the sun going missing is a decent excuse, and if Sarah see’s my message Jess’ll probably be here in an hour to take me to my parents’ place. On the other hand my work out is only half an hour, so they aren’t really reasons not to and I skipped last Friday because I was a little cold anyway.

I groan in exasperation, as if a third party observing my own mundane inner monologue. I grab my workout gear and sulkily dress. Dropping off my empty bowl in the sink on my way down to the garage, I choose to skip my warm-up jog, not really jogging weather.

My angst-ridden teen rock backed workout is interrupted shortly into my first unscheduled breather by my phone ringing. Must be Jess, I think and click the button on my headphones to answer the call.
“Hello, Ty speaking, how can I help you?” I cringe at the mechanical response, its how I answered the phone as a kid and never really grew out of it. I blame the inherent awkwardness of phone-calls, I much prefer text.
The response is garbled, the sound quality is awful, like listening to someone under water. The cadence follows the flow of someone talking, but I can’t make out a word of it.
“Hello?” I ask, “Hey, I didn’t catch that, say again?”
The same muffled, scratchy tone responded, this time I think I caught my name in part of it as well as some hideous scratchy burst of noise.
“Hang on I think we’ve got a bad connection, I’ll head outside and call you back”

I click the headphones again, hanging up the call and returning my playlist. Realising my work out was over I grabbed my towel and started to wipe off the sweat as I hit the garage button.  The door has this really old motor that takes ages to open, the strangely dark sunlight stretches and claws its way beneath the door as it opens. I turn back into the garage to grab my water bottle for a drink while I wait. I never used to like water, I think as I swallow large gulps, now it’s all I drink, growing up is weird.

The door makes the grating chunk noise it does when its finished opening, and I put my water bottle back down. I lift my phone from my pocket, nodding my head along to the music as I turn back to face the driveway.

Chills run down my back, my skin prickling at the sight of the world under the black sun. Stepping out onto the driveway, out from under a roof for the first time today, I’m speechless. I can see the main road that mine connects to is packed to a standstill with cars, straight through the lights. There’s people on their lawns or balconies, on their phones talking or filming in awe.
What really struck me was the strange beauty of it. The way the light shone on everything, it seemed like a thick layer of shadow was covering everything. It was like on an overcast day when the sun shone through the thick clouds, but there were no clouds. Not a single cloud. The sky was clear, and dark, a thick navy that was almost black and only that one blemish. That tenebrous abyss and flame-wreathed halo.

I couldn’t entirely divert my gaze from it as I raised my phone to my eye level, tapping Jess’ contact, the ringing replacing the distorted guitars in my ears.
It rang until the call dropped, the dial tone as infuriating as always, with far more weight of importance lent to it. I redial several more times, getting the same response each time until I want to vent my frustration by throwing my phone at the ground.

“Fuck it, Jess, pick up” I growl under my breath. Forcing myself to blink and look away from the sun, even with whatever bizarro eclipse is happening it can’t be good to stare directly at it. I sigh angrily and step back inside, hitting the close button for the garage harder than it deserved before bounding up the stairs.

Returning to my computer I check to see Sarah still hadn’t replied, or even seen my message. She must have already headed in to work, I decide, even without the sun Sarah’s always on time I suppose. It’s a bit weird that Jess would be up without prompting this early, though. 
I click on Jess’ profile picture, Last online 7 hours ago. Okay, that’s also weird, I think, usually she’d have messaged me if she was going to call me, and always if the call didn’t connect properly like it did.

“Hey Jess, message me, text me or call me as soon as you can sweetie.” My message is direct and to the point, I’m starting to feel worried. I guess when it was the sun, it was too big for me to invest in, but now with Jess acting strangely I’m scared.

 

 

The Black Sun pt.2

#BlackSun is trending
Black sun leaves scientists and governments stumped

My feed is flooded with reports on the phenomena. I flick through status’ with steadily declining urgency, stifling a yawn as the immediacy of the sun seems to give way to my baser physical needs. Stretching as best I can while holding my phone in front of my face, I slip my feet off the bed slowly before standing and crossing the room to the door. Of the tens of reports dispensed by every news site I can think of, not one of them has anything to say I can’t already see myself by looking out the window and speculating wildly. I do notice the missed call and text message symbols at the top of my screen, probably my mum since my girlfriend would still be asleep at this time of day.

Electing to handle that after splashing some water on my face and relieving myself, I take my towel from where it hangs on my door and wrap it around my waist. Stepping into the hall and into the bathroom, autopilot takes over going through the motions of my early morning routine without having to give it more than a passing thought.

It is surprising how calmly I’m feeling, given the sun seems quite conspicuously missing I muse to myself. I’m already wondering if it’s denial or a defence mechanism before I realise the absurdity that I’m psychoanalysing my ignoring the big confronting issue of the sun, as means of ignoring the big confronting issue of the sun. Besides, what am I going to achieve by freaking out about it? It’s not like I’m Jeff Goldblum’s character in Independance Day and I’ll just find the secret code the world governments overlooked.

Washed and dried, I hit the call back option on my mother’s call. Checking myself out in the mirror while the phone rings, I flex a little, finding whatever pose hides the most fat while highlighting the possibly imagined beginnings of muscle I’ve been trying to build recently. I try to feel like I’m making progress while debating if the sun going missing was a good enough excuse to skip a workout this morning.

*Click* “Hello, Ty?” My mum’s voice from the phone brings me back to the moment.

“Hey mum,” I reply while stepping away from the bathroom and migrating to the kitchen to pour some cereal, “I missed a call from you?”

I mentally face palm a little at my choice of words, thinking Gee I wonder why she might have called her son on the day the sun forgot to rise. But those are the words I came up with.

“Yeah, Ty, I was just calling to check that you were okay? Did I wake you? Have you noticed the sun?”

She seems to be a lot more grounded than I am right now, I note, “Thanks mum, no, you didn’t wake me and I did noticed the sun. It’s weird but everything seems normal otherwise, and there’s nothing in the news about it. What about you and Dad? Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine but Rocky is really spooked, he’s been hiding in his cage or begging me for cuddles since dawn.”

That’s a bit worrying, I think, remembering the way animals always seem to know before some kind of natural disaster, “Do you think we should be worried, mum?”

“I don’t know sweetie, I was going to suggest you get Jess and come here today until we know”

My immediate reaction is to come up with some kind of excuse for why I can’t, I hate doing anything I haven’t had at least a day to prepare myself for mentally, but this is different. “Yeah good idea mum, she’s probably still asleep though, and she never has her phone off silent so I won’t be able to contact her until she wakes up”

“Could you call her house mates?” she asks, immediately making me feel like an idiot, of course they’d be easier to contact.

“Right, yeah, good thinking. I’ll do that now, and I’ll call you when I know what we’re doing”

“Alright, love you Ty”

“Love you mum,” I reply, ending the call. Carrying my bowl of cereal back to my desk in my room, I boot up my computer to message Jess’ housemates, since I don’t actually have either of their phone numbers despite knowing one of them for half a decade or so.

As my computer hums to life the eerie light of the black sun shines through my window and I can feel my waking anxiety returning with my waking mind finally beginning to acknowledge the reality of the situation. I face the window, bringing my spoon regularly to my mouth and study the scene again.

Marginally higher above the horizon the sun climbs as steadily as usual. The hollow quality of it, the glorious but wrong appearance of the burning halo casts enough light to give the land the same illumination as it once had but the sky remains the deep navy blue of late or early night.

What in the hell is going on…

The Black Sun pt.1

When I woke that morning I thought it was the middle of the night. There was no sunlight shining through my window, nor even a single bird’s song to liven the air. Struggling with my twisted and tangled sheets, resistant yet to opening my sleep filled eyes, I hunted lazily for wherever I’d dropped my phone the night before. Suddenly razor sharp energy rips through my veins, adrenaline pumping in response to the sudden unexpected shrieking of my alarm.

In a panic, cursing and fumbling I killed the obnoxiously chirpy tune and squinting through the too bright light I read the numbers on the screen in bleary confusion. “What the hell,” I wonder aloud lifting myself into an upright position I try to understand what was going on, had my phone’s internal clock changed during the night? Glancing out the window by my bed, the heavy fog of sleep was ripped away by the sight that confronted me.

The sun sat on the edge of the horizon, black as the blackest pit, but wreathed in a hot gold and crimson crown. It hung ominously, casting its empty gaze down across the city. Time ceased to exist for me as I sat and stared, my mind racing as it dragged itself resistantly to some kind of conclusion. “An eclipse?” I wondered silently, the though brought me no comfort since I hadn’t seen a single post online the day before to predict one.

Unlocking my phone I fired up social media to see what everyone else was saying. This deep-seated sense of wrongness demanded answers and community.

***

I didn’t know it then, but that morning heralded the beginning of a great and unceremonious shift, a dull and despondent end, bereft of fanfare or warning, to all we have ever known.