Fiver’s Vision

Fiver, so weak.

He’s all but collapsed. God, he never complained! Never said a word!

He’s running a fever! Carry him, PhD students! Make yourself useful.

If only we could fashion some kind of bier …

Five, mouthing. He has something to say. Leaning in to listen.

Fiver’s vision. Of the future. The near future, Fiver says. Something terrible had happened. It was dark. Like, permanent twilight. There was no light in the sky. And it was so heavy. Like gravity had been turned up. The simplest movements cost such effort.

And there was this terrible disconnection, Fiver says. Everything was muffled and distant. If you shouted, you wouldn’t be heard. If you cried out, no one would hear you.

I looked in books – familiar books – but couldn’t understand them, Fiver says. All the words were corrupted. I listened to music – music I used to know. And all I heard were terrible tones …

I saw people running for their lives, with their children, Fiver says. I saw fake people: like robots, but flesh and blood … Wraps, they were called. And the wraps were possessed. They were Inhabited by … demons.

And there were these time loops, Fiver says. That people got stuck in. Repetitive behaviours. Just looping round and round … And the weirdest thing was that you couldn’t die. Like, if you died, you’d just come back to life.