Lukas and the Visitor's Quest

The first time I heard her voice, it was like a blade slicing through the fog.

"We're lost."

She said it with such assurance, such bluntness. We both stopped and turned to look at each other.

I had been trying to explain to her that we were not lost. The city was right there, as it had always been right there. It hadn't moved or changed in any way that I could see, and if we just kept walking we would stumble across it eventually.

"No, we're lost," she said again, and then she pointed up at the sky. "Look where the sun is."

I looked up at the sun. It was shining down from directly overhead, which seemed strange since it hadn't done that for a very long time, but I couldn't tell if that meant anything or not.

"It doesn't matter," I told her. "We can just keep going forward until we find the city." She didn't say anything in response, she just stared at me with those big blue eyes of hers. So many eyes like that had stared back at me over the years, but never had they looked quite so sharp and bright as hers did now. Then she turned away from me and walked on down the dusty old road without saying another word. Her hair was so blonde that it glinted like gold in the light of the sun above us, and I felt an unfamiliar pang of something tugging at my heart as I watched her go.

That's how it started between us. Me telling her one thing while my heart told me something else entirely, and then her walking off in one direction while my legs carried me in another. It happened again and again over the weeks and months that followed -- every time I opened my mouth to say something sensible about directions or food or water, my stupid heart would beat faster whenever she looked at me sideways or smiled or laughed. My head would fill with thoughts about what I could do for her next; how I could make things better for us out here on this endless plain of red dust that stretched in every direction around us; whether I could survive long enough to see her smile again; whether she would ever forgive me for being born into this world so far away from everything she ever knew.

Over the course of those first few months together on our quest to find some kind of meaning amidst all this emptiness, we learned so much about each other -- sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose -- though neither of us ever admitted how tied our lives were together before all this began. She had grown up amongst the stars in a place called Norway, and even though all those places were nothing more than a distant memory now she still remembered them fondly in her dreams when she slept at night beneath the dim orange glow of Earth's lonely starlight above our heads. I had been raised by my mother alone atop a crumbling tower in a dead city once called London; it was difficult for either of us to understand how anyone could have lived in such places before they died a thousand times over during our own lifetime out here on this empty plain of dirt beneath a darkening sky filled with dancing dust devils all around us while we wandered aimlessly looking for ... well ... whatever exactly it was we were looking for out here besides each other that night when the stars fell from the sky and crashed down around us like flaming asteroids until all we could see were twinkling lights dancing all around us against black smoke-filled skies filled with glowing red tongues of flame licking at everything as they licked at everything until nothing remained but darkness itself as darkness itself blotted out everything else before even darkness itself finally succumbed to silence when silence itself finally took control after everything else failed to resist its grip any longer except for us two who stood there holding each other close against a cold wind which blew through places where moments ago only warmth existed before darkness finally won out over everything else when even darkness itself gave way to something else entirely which made no sense until you realized that you no longer understood anything because you no longer spoke nor thought nor felt nor even dreamed nor planned nor hoped nor wished nor prayed any longer because you weren't thinking anymore after your brain stopped working after your body stopped working after your soul left your body behind to wander aimlessly down roads lit only by fire where shadows danced around you laughing as shadows do whenever they're free to move around however they want wherever they want whenever they want because once upon a time there was something called life but now there is only death because life has given way to death which gives way to nothing else except time which goes nowhere except back into its own past which goes nowhere except forward into its own future which goes nowhere except sideways into its own sideways past which goes nowhere except sideways into its own sideways future which goes nowhere except straight ahead into its own straight ahead past which goes nowhere except straight ahead into its own straight ahead future which goes nowhere except up into its own straight up past which goes nowhere except up into its own straight up future which goes nowhere except down into its own straight down past which goes nowhere except down into its own straight down future which goes nowhere except right back where it came from after traveling through time along a never-ending loop shaped suddenly like infinity before time becomes gravity becomes light becomes sound becomes space becomes air becomes water becomes earth becomes life becomes death which gives way to nothing else as everything gives way to nothing else as everything gives way to nothing else as everything gives way to nothing else