by T5
The four people woke up on a lovely, sunlit morning. The surf hit the beach with its harmonic rhythm, and a few seagulls fought over some dead fish on a medium-sized rock just a few yards away from the makeshift hut made out of the raft.
An older man in his forties, with a full-grown sailor's beard, shook his wife and said, "Lucille? ... Lucille, wake up, honey. It's a new day, and the rains are over."
"Mm-hmmm..."
The other three youngsters, two boys and a small girl, started to explore the beach in the hopes of finding something useful. They soon came upon a small swarm of crabs, which they -- to much dismay -- couldn't catch, instead receiving painful pinches from the frightened crabs. They gave up and headed back to the older pair sitting on a log, hugging.
The older, thinner boy said, "Are you two going to pitch in or just sit there feeling sorry for yourselves? We have a kid here," he said, pointing at the little six-year-old girl. "She says her name is Laurel, and she wants to go home. Let's see if that wish will become a reality for all of us, eh?"
The man stared at him and grumbled, "You should mind your tongue, young man. We need to pray and find strength through the word of God. Then we will help."
Suddenly, a small explosion could be heard from afar. The younger boy said, "I think it came from the jungle!"
"All right, now -- everyone be calm," said the young man. "We don't know what kind of people are on this island. For all we know, it could be drug smugglers or hunters. So we'd better watch our step and be quiet."
The woman looked up with tear-filled eyes and said, "Drug smugglers? We'll be killed if they find us. We have to hide."
"We don't know that," sighed the young man. "I'll go to take a closer look and report back to you. Does anyone have a watch?"
The young boy showed his wrists and said, "Of course, and waterproof as well. It's made for surfers. One day I will become a great surfer." He smiled and tugged the watch of his wrist, and gave it to the young man. "I'm Sam. What's your name?"
"Tom," said the young man, taking the watch, and he started to wander into the jungle. "Give me four hours. If I'm not back, I'm most probably in custody of the people who created the explosion."
Laurel sat down in front of the woman, taking a firm grip on her leg.
Tom struggled with the never-ending, ropy plants and swarms of insects that had taken a liking to his body's sweat. After an hour's struggling and cursing, he spotted a clearing in the thick jungle, a small camp with soldiers that apparently were leaving and packing their gear up into a smaller truck. He heard loud voices giving orders, and the soldiers jumped onto the truck and began to drive off into the jungle on the opposite side of the clearing.
Tom saw his chance and ran out after them, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Wait! Stop! We need helllp! Stop!" But the truck soon disappeared down a small trail into the jungle. Not one to give up when hope was so close, Tom started to jog, following the trail the truck had used.
Unknown to him or anyone else in this universe, an old man and his donkey rode across a broken land with the sunset at their back. They stopped, and the old man started to unpack his saddle bags.
He placed five dark, red candles in a circular formation, and he started to draw a pentagram with an ivory stick. He chanted and coughed, and eventually he sat down in the center. The chanting started again, this time with a lower voice.
Across space and time, the Quadinc had their base of operations in a tower just outside spacetime as we know it.
"The dive is just about to take place. Should I stay and watch?" said one of the mechanical aids to a small, blue, midget-sized man.
The small man looked around his high-tech lab and said, "No, I will be all right. This is not the first time I have made the dive into lower reality." The mechanical aide walked out and let the door close behind him with a sliding motion.
The instruments were switched on, and the man laid down on a small bed full of sensors that started to swarm all over him once he laid down. An automatic voice told him that all readings were nominal.
Deep down (if such a description could really apply here), in a place best described as Hell, a red-skinned, two-horned demon feasted on a young virgin's stolen soul. The land was covered in red-hot dust from the nearby volcano. The never-ending sunset cast long shadows that were ice cold to the touch.
A small light on top of a smaller mountain close by made him stop in his feasting and look up to see a brilliant light never seen here before. He stood and started to walk across the dusty desert toward the mountain.
Two angels were making love in Heaven. The blue skies with silvery clouds stretched on forever. They looped through the clouds, crying out their ecstasy.
The male angel gave the female a bright, content smile. "We will never be apart, my love. For this is heaven, and you are my dream."
She waved her hand, and a small cloud thickened and transformed into a silvery platform with a bed and table. The table was full of fruits and bottles of wine. She said, "Here, my love, let's rejoice in our newfound love. Never did I think all this was possible." Tears of happiness flowed down her face. They sat down on the bed and started kissing.
Then, suddenly, a black vortex appeared between them, ripping the silvery construct and cloud apart. They screamed. The male cried out for his love as he watched her being devoured by the vortex.
On the small Malaysian island, Tom finally reached the end of the trail, only to see that the truck had been driven aboard a smaller shuttle headed for a French battleship. He waved and hollered on the brink of rupturing his lungs, but to no avail. They were simply too far out. He sat down and started to shudder. Pretty soon, the helplessness flowed over him, and he started to cry in anger.
Finally, he arose and began walking the direction he came from, muttering to himself about how he came to be here and why the world hated him so much that he deserved this.
Pretty soon, he noticed a trail leading off the path he'd been walking on. Hopeful, he believed that maybe the soldiers had left some supplies for future stays there. The trail ended in a small clearing with a strange, silvery device in the middle of it.
Its huge silvery shape reminded him of an enlarged thermo bottle. A few panels on the side gave him the appropriate time and a changing set of numbers.
It took him a full minute to realize the thing was counting down.
Suddenly he was reminded of the stories in school, of the French nuclear tests that were supposed to be active in these parts of the world. Shock made him just stand there in bewilderment as the numbers kept counting down. The numbers showed him he had three hours left. He then sat down and sighed against the silvery relay station.
Time passed. In another dimension, the old man's pentagram started to glow. Outside reality, the small blue man meditated and sent his mind down into the whirling globe called the universe. In Hell, the demon climbed onto the top of the mountain and tried to touch the glowing, silvery sphere he encountered. In Heaven, the black vortex died out, and inside it a female angel screamed as she felt herself being turned inside out.
Simultaneously, the bomb on the island, the pentagram, the wandering mind, the silvery sphere, and the twisting, dark force all erupted together in an awesome explosion.
The Malaysian island was turned into a crater, and a huge tidal wave swallowed what used to be the island's mass in the deep waters.
Aboard the French battleship, a commander screamed, "Look! Look at the sky!" A face in agony was vaguely shown in the atomic clouds covering the sky. It soon disappeared as the clouds soon turned into themselves by the backdraft effect of the bomb's pure force of destruction. After twelve minutes, it all settled down, except for the clouds.
"What was that?" the French commander asked a fellow officer.
"Don't know, but it must have been a chance formation of energy and vapor. Please don't start spreading rumors around about faces in bomb clouds. You'll be the laughingstock of the navy."
"No, I won't. But it sure gave me a jolt."
The scientists aboard the vessel soon finished up their lab tests and gathered readings for further analysis. And sometime later, the ship started to head off toward mainland Malaysia. In its wake, a brilliant white light shone in the depths of the ocean.