In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater Read online

  Skyeater

  In A Universe Without Stars Book 1

  J Alex McCarthy

  Copyright © 2015 by J Alex McCarthy

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  SBN-13: 978-1511594318

  ISBN-10: 1511594314

  J Alex McCarthy

  5232 Corteen pl #25

  Valley Village, CA 91607

  www.jalexmccarthy.com

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank everybody who believed in me and gave me support to make this book happen. There’s too many people to name so I’ll just say thank you because you know who you are.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1 - A Separation

  2 - Power

  Deconstruction - Weak

  3 - An Execution

  Deconstruction - Pier

  4 - They Came From the Sky

  5 - Us vs Them

  6 - Jahum

  8 - Goodbye New York

  9 - Yes, Even The Stars

  10 - Goodbye London

  11 – Before the Storm

  12 - Ascent and a Legacy

  Deconstruction - Training Day

  13 - Attack on Washington

  14 - Something more

  Deconstruction - A friend

  15 – Alpha Eliite

  16 – Goodbye World

  17 - A crystal sky where the clouds used to be

  Deconstruction – The price to pierce the sky

  18 – The Skyeater

  19 – The Absence of Contrast

  20 - The Starless Night

  21 – Reaching Beyond the Sun

  Deconstruction – You’re Never Alone

  22 – In A Universe Without Stars

  Prologue

  The stars have been missing for some time. When I close my eyes at night, there was only stars. But one by one they disappear and then there was only darkness.

  Darkness.

  Emptiness.

  There is a darkness that no light can escape.

  An emptiness that nothing can exist in.

  But yet, there is something.

  Somebody that exists in it.

  An impossible entity.

  An impossible existence.

  Cole.

  He isn’t aware on how much time has come to pass.

  Time doesn’t exist in this plane.

  But it exist in the parallel allotment of reality.

  In that reality, twenty years has passed. In those twenty years in the darkness, Cole has existed, not completely whole, and not a complete being. Just one with creation.

  Yet once those twenty years pass. Cole changes, he becomes aware of the darkness and what it is. Death.

  Aware of himself.

  No, not death, something...different. His thoughts start to meld, start to become coherent and whole again.

  This isn’t darkness, this isn’t death. This blackness is dark energy, he’s in the consonance of the universe. He’s in what fabricates the universe, he’s in the creation itself.

  His thoughts become complete. This is the universe. As soon as he composes that single thought, shimmering lights manifest in the dark. Small dots sparkle in the black.

  Stars.

  He remembers. The stars seem so far away, yet close enough to light the dark. He remembers himself, but he can’t remember more.

  He’s the universe, he is god.

  No.

  A blue light twinkles to life in the middle of the stars.

  No, he is a human.

  Cole looks down at his hand or what it is now. A blue light outlines his humanoid body, but within those lines are darkness.

  What is he? He feels something, some existence pulling him in the darkness of space.

  A thought, a memory, a rumination out there in the black. He needs to go to it. He needs to remember.

  He soars through the cosmos, heading toward the…thing. As he passes, the planets, stars and gas odysseys, he feels the stars calling for him, pulling on his small fiber of existence. As they pull, his existence pulls back, taking, leeching their energy. As he passes star by star, he feels stronger, he feels more complete. And then he remembers.

  I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down Daemons from the stars…I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness…

  Not a thought I made.

  With the oncoming energy he finally starts to remember.

  It’s from a book I read once when I was young, I figured it would help me remember myself.

  He quickly approaches a small blue orb in the black.

  Earth.

  His home.

  The year is 2034 AD.

  He breaches the atmosphere, descending into the sky and into the clouds. He stops. This is where it all happened, this is where he died.

  Then all his memories, thoughts, and feelings come crashing down on him.

  I’m…Cole…Twenty years have passed since my death. I remember it… like it was yesterday. It felt so great.

  The clouds surround him.

  Please. Kindly bend to my will.

  The clouds swirl around Cole and converge into him. Blue sparks flash as they stretch and form his human shape.

  It’s just the right amount of energy.

  Twenty-three orbs appear, they spin around him. His own little stars. At first majestically slow, but then they spin faster and faster as the clouds converge.

  The blue flashes brighten as human cells form. He looks at his hand and sees every vein, every cell reform his human body.

  He knows how to reform just by looking at it. He remembers what he is, a human, and a god. And remembers twenty years back.

  I missed the thrill of the wind caressing my body, splitting apart the clouds as I fly at ten times the speed of sound. I remember the curiosity of being able to do what no regular man could.

  He’s finally whole again. His skin is golden and vibrant. His face is smooth and clear, his brown hair and his hazel eyes flawless. Dark robes cover his body as he remembers common human modesty.

  He doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. A small scar sits under his left eye. He could’ve removed it but decided against it.

  It is who he is.

  He clutches his fist and drops, splintering the clouds and toward the ground.

  I can smell the death.

  I can hear the cries of billions.

  His stars spin around him.

  I remember the spirits of my friends becoming one with the stars.

  The memories of his friends twenty years ago are as fresh as if it happened that very second. A single tear marks his face.

  A cliff-side appears as he breaks past the cloud, littered with giant two-story tall metal crosses. They’re bloodied, whoever was on them was torn off.

  The ocean crashes against the cliff rocks, its murky, copper colored water stains the cliff red.

  The ground quickly approaches Cole when-

  He stops only feet from the ground. He spins in the air to upright himself and lands on the ground with ease. On the edge of the cliff are ten small crosses, made of a different kind of metal than the ones behind him.

  He approaches and reads the names. They’re all of people he once knew. His gaze stops when he comes to the one on the far left. A wedding ring is draped on it with a silver necklace. The ring is brown with rust from wear. He looks at the name.

  Cole.
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  He snaps the ring off the cross and looks out at the ocean. The water is only copper brown on the coast and cliff-side. As it stretches out it turns blue. As his gaze extends out, only a mile away incredibly large pieces of metal and ruby colored crystals fleck the ocean in a chaotic order in the horizon, some piercing thousands of feet into the air and some submerged in the dirty depths of the ocean.

  It’s as if something astonishingly huge crashed there many years ago.

  And yet, I remember the fear of knowing, that even with my power, it still wasn’t enough to win.

  He looks at the ring in his hand and remembers a name.

  Thora.

  Against the gods themselves.

  1 - A Separation

  Year 2009. Five years before the invasion, there is a wedding and a groom and a bride, Cole and Thora, who waltz in a circle. Their family and friends laugh and clap around them. Even the disapproving father of the bride cracks a smile. His daughter is happy. A single spotlight is on them as they spin, the dancefloor is empty except for them.

  Cole stares into the eyes of his wife, she smiles, laughing as they spin. He laughs too. It’s been a very long time since he’s been this happy, this content. He hopes it can last forever. In health and in sickness, through thick or thin, til’ death do us part. He was never that lucky to be this happy for more than a short period of time. Because of that he should’ve known that it would never last, that she would take everything from him.

  Year 2014. It is dusk, a one-story house stands alone in the middle of the woods. Fog traces the trees surrounding it, featureless shadows dance in the gray. The house echoes from shouts that come from the inside.

  “I’m tired of your shit!” Cole yells. A bird in a cage stares out of one of the windows. The arguing continues in the other room. Thora’s dad yells even louder, “Get the hell out of my house!” We hear a glass break and then the slam of a door. “Dammit dad. Wait Cole!” Thora’s footsteps follows after him.

  The bird stares out the window at something. A car engine starts, and then the tires squeal as it speeds off. Something reflects in the birds eyes. A faint, oddly-shaped being.

  …

  An S-class Audi sedan drives down a dark, curvy forest road. It’s pitch black. As the car twists and turns with the road, its headlights are the only thing that glow in the woods. Cole’s hands clutch the wheel. Thora trembles beside him on the verge of tears.

  Thora is a beautiful woman, only in her mid-twenties, she doesn’t look a day over eighteen, but despite her brunette hair and stunning green eyes there is an unusual dismal attitude.

  Cole looks no different than his twenty year older self. Human. He hasn’t changed much except for his fashion sense. His athletic body pulses through his tight stylish clothes.

  They sit in silence, the radio is off, the air is so thick you can almost cut it. Cole wears an expensive PAM watch.

  “I-“ He stops.

  He can’t come up with anything, not after what she said. Her betrayal. His hand clutches the wheel. How could she? After all these years. A reflection of light flashes on his wedding ring. He can wish an end to it all. A shooting star and maybe a wish can change everything. Anything.

  Something.

  He looks into Thora’s eyes. The blue glow from the dashboard lights her face. She looks at him, distraught, destroyed and with a pang of sudden regret. She opens her mouth and—

  In a blur, a bipedal creature walks in front of the car. Cole screams and his foot slam onto the brakes but it’s too late—

  A sickening cracking sound is heard as a purple transparent wall snaps up in front of them and they crash into it as though it’s a brick wall in a mix of metal and hell fire.

  …

  Cole eyes snap open. He lies in a hospital bed in a blue hospital gown. What happened? A needle from a morphine bag pierces his arm. A bandage is wrapped around his left leg, it hangs over the bed in wires. His wife lies asleep in a chair in the corner, under a window that lights the room.

  “Tho-“, he stops himself before he calls her.

  He looks long and hard at her. The light from the window paints her sleeping body innocently. He stares at her and then remembers.

  He was in a car accident and crashed into…a…a thing, he can’t remember what it looked like, it was just a brown blur to him. It was probably just a deer or something.

  But before that…He was angry at something…with Thora… his wife asked for a divorce.

  He doesn’t know what to do. He unconsciously messes with his wedding ring, pulling it on and off. How is he going to deal with this?

  He lies in the bed and closes his eyes, he’s tired, the morphine pumps into his veins. Eventually she’s going to wake up. At times like this, he wishes he could just ignore his problems, hit the gym and hope it all fixes itself. But this isn’t one of those times.

  To his left get well cards and presents fill the table beside him. In front of him lies a tray with his watch and his lunch. Why didn’t he notice that first?

  He grabs his watch and looks at the inscription on the bottom of it. From a loving mother to a distant son, I love you and you will always be a perfect son to me. There’s not a mark on it. Good. He wouldn’t know what to do if it got destroyed in the crash. He puts it on.

  “Aww!” It shocks him. “What the hell?” He tries to pull it off but-

  “Oww!” He yelps again, it’s stuck on. A display projects up on the glass like a computer monitor. Images and symbols pop up on the screen. He screams again as it shocks him once more. Then it stops. He stops trying to get it off. The words and images turn into English. Translation Human, United States English. He can read it. He follows as the text and images move on their own. Former Sovereign Empire, Sect 6.

  He stares in awe as a timeline shows:

  Sync length 2 ½ Earth Weeks.

  Why is there a countdown? The final image shows up. Sync 0%. He stares at it to move but—

  “Cole!” Thora yells and is on top of him. Tears spill from her eyes.

  “Th…Thora,” he mutters.

  “You woke up. I was afraid you wouldn’t,” she cries. She clutches him harder, weeping into his blue gown.

  “You know me, I wouldn’t leave you...” He mutters.

  His watch is back to normal. His screaming must have wakened her. Did she see it? She tightens her grip on him. Her sobs drown his thoughts. No, no she didn’t.

  …

  Cole and Thora lie in bed rolling around under the white covers. She laughs as Cole chases her. When is the last time he’d felt like this? It’s been awhile. She pins Cole to the bed. Too long. Light peers through the covers creating a perfect light to reveal her naked beauty. Because she left me.

  “Do you love me?” she asks.

  I hate you.

  “Of course.”

  Her pink lips kiss his.

  I hate you for what you created inside me.

  The world flashes.

  …

  Cole wakes, alone, green bile streaked across his face, more with half dissolve pills in it is crusted on his blue pillow. It was a dream, the worst kind of dream, the kind that gives him hope. He sits up. He can’t keep dwelling on the past. It’s been two weeks since he left the hospital. Only one after Thora finally left.

  “Or at least I shouldn’t have,” he says out loud. It’s his fault that she left.

  He looks at the mess on the pillow with disappointment. He thought it was going to work this time. He gets tissue from his nightstand and wipes his face. He grabs his pillow and hurls it at his clothes hamper.

  His room is an expensive one, large but oddly cold and empty, a mix of dark blue and silver. Everything is picture-perfect, not a single speck of dust on the metallic dressers, television stand, or dark hardwood floors.

  Cole sits on the edge of the bed. The cast is still on his left leg. Multiple self-help and men’s meaning of life books sits on the night stand. He glances at the note on top. To anyone who finds thi
s. He tears it in half and throws it in the trash. A couple of empty pill bottles are scattered across the floor. He remembers his last visit to the doctor.

  The doctor told him six months, six months of sitting around and doing nothing at all. Cole stares at his cast. He looks at his watch. It’s covered in his stomach mess. He needs to remember to take this off at night even if he is trying to kill himself.

  He wants to be found with it on since it’s his last connection with this stupid world. He grabs a tissue and cleans it off. Or is it because of what happened at the hospital? He decides it’s just the meds screwing with his mind.

  He gets up and limps to the bathroom and removes a pull up bar from the door before going in. He throws it to the floor with a clunk. There’s not going to be any of that any more. He pauses. What is he going to do now?

  In the bathroom mirror, he checks his eyes and face. Nothing. He takes off his shirt; his muscles look like they’re carved in stone.

  “What the hell?” His hands moves across his abs, they’re real, he thought he’d lost them. After weeks at the hospital, lying around and doing nothing at all, he looks better; in fact he looks a lot better than he did last night. But he really doesn’t care anymore. The pills didn’t fucking work.

  He opens a cabinet and pulls out a pill bottle. He looks on the back.

  “Don’t take more than recommended dosage,” Cole mocks. It’s empty. He throws it hard at the mirror. It bounces off it; his anger has nowhere to go. How many times is he going to try this? He slumps over the counter.

  ...

  Cole limps into the kitchen and checks the pantry. It’s empty, too. He never went to the store, thinking he’d never need food again. He’s getting tired of fast food, nor is he in the mood to sit alone in a restaurant again.

  Just standing in this kitchen makes him sick. It’s an extremely retro kitchen, shiny hazel-wood cabinets, a 80s-style fridge, with a large island in the middle; he hates it. He wanted a more modern kitchen because this one doesn’t match the rest of the house but Thora begged him for it and he caved. Yet he’s the one standing here, alone, staring at it every fucking day, like the damn fool he is.