The humming florescent lights hung above Jack as he made coffee. He had a headache no amount of caffeine could possibly fix. The constant clacking of keys grated on his nerves as the room was full of people working hard to meet deadlines. All these people working late meant Jack was busy running around refilling cups. This certainly wasn't what he anticipated when he applied for a job here, but an entry level job here will hopefully get his foot into actual journalism.
"Hey, kid. Refill!" One of the guys, Hank, barked without glancing up.
"Right away, sir!" Jack yelled over, putting on a smile. He found it helped to act far more chipper than he truly felt. It made people like him more, and therefore more willing to share information.
He quickly ran over once the pot filled and poured the coffee. As he did so he glanced at what hank was writing. It seemed to be a piece on the graffiti around town stirring up trouble. It was probably just the work of some punk kid going through a rebellious phase.
"Thank kid." Hank told him without even looking up from his work. Talk about poor manners. "You should probably head home, it's getting late."
Hank was such a great coworker.
"Of course, sir." Jack checked the clock on the wall. "I'll head out in a few minutes, just got to empty this pot of coffee first."
Hank didn't respond, instead he continued typing away. Jack thought he saw phrases like "dangerous ideology" and "threat to the populace", which was oddly strong wording for a piece on graffiti.
Jack continued to hustle around for a few minutes, pouring coffee and gleaning as much information as he could. Eventually, he ran out of coffee and decided to head out. It was almost 11:30 at night and with work again in the morning he wanted to be as fresh as possible.
On the way out, he ran into Elliot. Elliot was around Jacks age and worked as a delivery boy. He'd often see him hustling around town delivering packages. He seemed to be a bit out of breath, as if he'd ran from across town. In his hands was a radio that only emitted static.
"I was told to deliver this as quick as I could." Elliot explained when he saw Jack looking at him confused. "The radio said they had important news that would broadcast at 11:30 and asked me to bring radios to all the buildings in this area. They paid pretty good money, too."
The radio tower wasn't that far away. Why would Elliot be so out of breath and cutting the time so close?
"I may have stopped off at the diner for some food." Elliot admitted sheepishly. "I was hungry and the door was open when I walked by. Who could resist Bertie's meatloaf?"
After he said that, the radio started buzzing. Multiple voices started to be heard as they got louder and louder. He could see impossible patterns and hear impossible noises emanating from the radio.
"Peace is war and war is peace and peace is war and war-" a voice declared.
"Armageddon is upon us." Said another voice.
"A permanent ceasefire has been declared." announced the final voice.
They blended together and repeated those sentences over and over. It was enough to drive a man mad as Jack felt his mind almost split in two, feeling both terror and happiness simultaneously. He began to lose consciousness, surrendering to the paradox.
But he couldn't. He needed to understand. He needed to know the purpose. He needed to know the truth.
His mind was splitting as he kept thinking those thoughts over and over before something seemed to click and he became lucid again.
He looked over at Elliot and saw his eyes were glazed over. His mouth seemed to split in two as he screamed in both horror and enjoyment. It was a sound that couldn't fully be described by humans and Elliots expression was one Jack hoped to never see again.
He heard screaming behind him as well and turned to look. Everyone had jumped up from their seats and were running around. Some seemed to be celebrating while others were running for the door. Hank was screaming about the bomb shelter nearby, while another journalist was saying he couldn't wait to tell his wife the news. Everyone was constantly shifting expressions and emotions.
It was wrong, it was impossible. Those were not faces anyone could make. It was a paradox.
It was chaos. Nothing made sense. Jack needed to get out of here as soon as possible before he got trampled. Unfortunately, Elliot stood in front of him, still seemingly paralyzed.
He pushed through Elliot to get out and after a moment grabbed the radio from Elliots hands and smashed it.
"Elliot was fine. He wasn't suffering any negative effects." Jack felt compelled to speak in such a stilted manner.
Elliot seemed to regain clarity, looking around confused after the voices stopped speaking. For some reason, everyone inside was still incoherent. Their eyes were still glazed over.
It wasn't just their building. People were streaming out of every building within sight, yelling both praise and penance.
"We need to leave. Now." Elliot shook Jack, now terrified out of his mind.
"You got this radio from the station, right?" Jack asked Elliot, surprisingly calm. He felt as if a switch had been flipped in his head. The second that went back to normal he'd be a blithering mess.
"Yes, but that doesn't matter. We need to run." Elliot insisted. "If we get to the shelter fast enough and lock it, we could avoid the chaos and stay safe."
"And then what? We leave everyone like this?" Jack retorted. "We need to get to the radio station and figure this out."
"Figure what out? I'm a delivery guy!" Elliot yelled in terror. "You make coffee! Neither of us are qualified. We need to leave it to the police."
"Those police?" Jack pointed out a cop that was currently leaned against a wall, practically comatose. "They can't do anything."
"So then where do we go? What do we do?" Elliot asked.
"We go to where this all started, the radio station." Jack told him hurriedly. "If we stop the broadcast, we may be able to stop the chaos. We can save them."
"It's as simple as that? We go in, come out, and save the world?" Elliot chuckled dryly.
"Simple as that." Jack reassured him.
They ran together past the chaos, ignoring the inhuman screams. They ran as quickly as they could until they reached the radio station. Jack and Elliot hid in a bush nearby, looking at the station. By the front were 2 men who seemed strangely alright. They stood at attention, acting as guards at the entrance. One held a pistol in his hand while the other just kept his head on a swivel.
"We need to find some way around." Jack whispered to Elliot. "I get the feeling those guys aren't just going to let us waltz right in."
Elliot didn't respond for a few seconds; he just watched the guards. As Jack looked closer he saw that Elliot's eyes were glazed.
"We need to find another entrance. We need to find another entrance." Elliot muttered to himself, almost as if in a trance. For a moment, it looked like Elliot was back in the same state the radio put him in, before it looked as if a switch had been flipped
"I think there's an entrance over there." Elliot pointed to the west side of the building, the one facing the side road.
"I don't think there's a door over there." Jack told him. Jack had walked down that road numerous times and he knew for a fact there was no door there.
"Just trust me. Follow my lead." Elliot whispered before standing up and walking out the bush. He led Jack around the side while remaining out of the guard's view. They made it to the west wall and found a door there, unlocked and in plain sight. Jack could have sworn that door wasn't there before.
"See? I told you there was a door." Elliot bragged while opening it. He walked in and Jack hurriedly followed after him. They entered what appeared to be a storage room full of boxes containing vinyl's of various music genres. As the door closed behind them, it seemed to meld into the brick wall before disappearing entirely as if it'd never been there.
"What in the Sam hell was that?" Elliot asked, surprised. "Doors don't just disappear at random."
"How'd you even know there was a door there?" Jack questioned him. "There'd never been one before."
"I don't know, I just knew I had to get inside and that door was the best option." Elliot told him, equally confused.
"We'll consider the ramifications of that sentence later." Jack told him, feeling oddly grounded despite the situation. "Right now we need to stop the broadcast."
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Elliot asked him. "Did you see those guys outside. They're probably not the only people keeping watch around here."
"So we need to sneak in. You're good at that." Jack noticed Elliot give him an affronted look. "Don't give me that. I know what you get up to in your spare time. Papers aren't the only thing you deliver."
"Well, uh, that's not important right now." Elliot quickly deflected. "We need to, uh, stop the broadcast."
"Good to see you're on board now." Jack clapped him on the back. "I'll check the hallway to see if anyone is out there."
He peeked out the storage room door and looked into the hallway. To his right about 50 feet away on the other side of the hallway were 2 men. One of them was muttering something under his breath, glowing a light blue color that carried over to the doorway they were guarding. It appeared to be a shield or barrier, as things could be heard crashing into it. The other man appeared to be speaking as well, though Jack was unsure as to what effect it was doing.
He moved back into the room and slowly closed the door that he had opened a crack.
He turned to Elliot and shook his head.
"It looks like the entrance to the broadcast room is guarded. One of the guys seems to be creating a barrier out of nothing and the other guys is just talking to himself." Jack told him.
"What do you mean, creating a barrier out of nothing?!" Elliot asked him. "That's not possible!"
"Neither is making doors appear or a paradoxical broadcast causing mass hysteria." Jack responded. "We are so far past what's considered possible that I doubt anything will surprise me."
"That's, uh, that's true, I guess." Elliot told him. "So what do we do now?"
"What were you muttering when you got us into the station?" Jack asked. "Maybe that can help us get further in."
"I was thinking that we needed to get in no matter what. I was thinking the destination was vitally important." Elliot said. "And then I just knew how to get in. It was like magic."
"Okay, so try and do that again. Try and imagine us slipping in unnoticed while the guards are distracted." Jack told him before peeking through the door again, watching the guards.
He heard Elliot begin to speak, though he couldn't make out what was being said. For a few minutes nothing happened, and he heard Elliot curse a few times in frustration. But then a light to the left on them in the hallway fell. It made a loud bang as the light shattered, landing on a particularly dusty section of carpeting. The carpet then caught on fire, distracting the guards. The guard holding the barrier dropped it due to distraction, while the other guard yelled out in alarm before rushing over to the fire, as if intending to stop it. As the guard did that, something was launched from the room they were guarding and hit the barrier guard in the head, knocking him out. The other guard turned around and saw his partner knocked out before continuing to run towards the fire.
"Quickly! We need to run!" Jack hissed at Elliot behind him. Elliot seemed to be phasing out of existence slightly, becoming almost transparent.
"This will all fade for Elliot. The feeling is only temporary." Jack said. It felt like words were leaving his mouth without him having any input.
Once Jack got his attention and grabbed his arm, he seemed to stabilize. They sprinted to the room as the guard had his back turned and ran in.
"The hell is this?" Elliot yelled once they reached the room. Things were flying around and the room seemed far larger than it should have been. In fact, it appeared to be larger than the entire station.
There was a group of people formed in a circle. The world around them seemed to be deteriorating, including the way they just came. Impossible voices sounded, and geometric shapes never before seen by humans littered the walls. The people themselves were no better. They were constantly shifting forms. One of them appeared to be rapidly going through the aging process, quickly aging from a child to an old man before reversing back and repeating the process. Another grew horns that towered above everything yet seemed as small as a pin.
Jack's eyes burned from just looking at it. Elliot seemed to be doing far worse, his eyes bleeding from their sockets.
"Elliot! We need to stay focused!" Jack yelled, grabbing Elliot's arm. "We need to stop them."
"How?" Elliot's eyes stopped bleeding. "We can't even get close."
"We need to try!" Jack yelled over the noise. "We can't let the town become like this. Elliot, we need to get to the center."
Elliot's eyes widened in realization. He quickly began to mutter under his breath, closing his eyes.
A path seemed to slowly open up. A place where the ground didn't shift and things stopped flying.
"There!" Elliot opened his eyes and yelled. "A path!"