The Dissonance Paradox explores a world in another universe that has suffered from incursions by mankind throughout its history. At the beginning of the story the Earth is destroyed sending a significant portion of our population to this world.
When I began writing my stories as one large novel I included a chapter that showed how the death of humans changed this alien world we find ourselves on. It no longer has a good fit in the smaller novels I have broken my story into so I have placed it here.
In our universe our souls were destined to move on to an afterlife. In this universe that is denied them. The imagination of humans has the power to alter the fundamentals of this new reality. Their beliefs and myths have impacted this world for thousands of years. Our modern fantasies generated by movies, shows, books, and music do the same as our generation arrives.
My books joyously play off the tropes of modern fantasy and horror. There are undead, lycanthropes, fantasy races, aliens who walk among us, and people grappling with newfound ‘superpowers’. I hope I put my own interesting slant on each of these things. Our modern mythologies, fed to us through entertainment, become tangible things that I use to explore the ideas at the heart of my stories. ‘It doesn’t matter who you were on Earth, it matters who you are now’ and that ‘Those who are good will do Whatever It Takes to ensure the success of the community. Those who are evil will do Whatever It Takes to further their agendas.’
The wording is loftier than most of the chapters in my books. I wanted this to be mysterious and old school. I hope you will enjoy it. More importantly, I hope you will leave a comment with your thoughts good or bad. I want to write a story for others to enjoy and I need criticism to help me become a better writer. Thank you.
HAILEY’S TALE
Hailey Cowell had two distinct honors in human history that neither she nor humanity would ever be aware of. Out of the multitudes making the Transition, she was one of the first. She had no awareness of the world’s destruction around her. A brief cascade of force barely disturbed her drunken slumber. She slept as another universe pulled her in and left the stranger lying in bed beside her behind. She appeared on a steep slope. Falling and rolling, she hit her temple on a sharp spike of rock. Rebounding down and then falling through the air, her body smacked into another piercing stone, shattering ribs and piercing her heart. Hailey Cowell was the first refugee to die on this strange world.
Simple understanding and a natural acceptance of what had previously been unknown, filled her. She looked down at her bashed, ragdoll form whose eyes stared into a gulf beyond the infinite mortal man sought to quantify and understand. In a truly timeless moment, her days flashed by in a first- and third-person perspective. There was her childhood full of angry and groping hands, degrading words, and the fumes of alcohol. Teenage years flashed by. She sought relief, release, and security from boys and men who took too much and returned little. Childhood fears became a fascination with death and the power of evil to transcend the barrier between existence and decay. A nonchalant attitude for education led to dead-end jobs. A hungry soul led to submission to a brutal man and the cloying arms of addiction. An unborn child drove her to seek help. A stillbirth pushed her to the final point of no return. Boozy breath and iron hands leeched life from her soul. She made herself numb as often as she could, so she did not have to care.
Her husband walked away with a younger woman who was pregnant with his child. The party girl faded, but the shell remained. Online conversations led to romantic thoughts that withered before the same old same old. She was always alone.
Through it all, the media was ever present. Movies, television, and an endless supply of anonymous strings of text kept her fascination with death and evil flourishing. Decay thrived even while life struggled on. A hobby became an obsession and, soon, a focus of her existence. The characters in the shows and movies were more real than her neighbors and much more important. Emotions and self-awareness became tangled in a surreal mix of a bitter reality and a romantic notion of horror.
As she looked down at her body wearing the t-shirt she had put on to separate skin from skin, her mind glossed over the rotted face leering at her with a pithy quote below and trademarked words above. A nameless sensation passed through her. Her soul realized something was terribly wrong. Its certainty was shattered as it felt for the path it knew must be there, only to find it gone. Confusion, hurt, and a vast dread overwhelmed her. Terrified, she felt herself slide back into a body her soul knew could not live.
Her soul expected a homing signal and found apathy. What next? Her soul filled the body and struggled to understand. What next? What’s happening to me? The thoughts faded into an uncaring physical universe but vibrated against a different reality woven within. That reality perceived, and it bent to a purpose guided by the energies of the aspect of this world that hated the life that spread across it. Her thoughts catalyzed into a reaction that tilted the scales away from eternal peace.
Her mind guided her to what must come next. Neither alive nor dead, her perspective found the answer. Forces unknown in the universe of her birth achieved symbiosis with her brain and her soul. Tainted imagination allowed death to bloom into an unnatural state. Slowly, she began to twitch. Random firings in her nerves caused muscles to spasm. Her eyes focused on a glowing moon. Her jaws worked, obsessively grinding. An overwhelming desire to tear, to chew, and to consume life controlled her completely. An addiction, beyond the ken of all others, overpowered her limited awareness. Only bloody bits of life, its energy absorbed by the chewing, clutching decay that was now all of Hailey, could assuage that addiction and bring reprieve from the endless, gnawing hunger. Hailey staggered upright.
She was no longer the woman. She was no longer anything, but a blundering appetite. She shambled on never aware that she had re-patterned the forces of this universe. The common souls of her race would follow her path once their hearts stopped. They would exit, face their span of time, and fall back into a perverted blending of life and death – and the hunger.
The slope she followed soon began to level. She ambled barefoot, unaware of the torture the flesh of her feet endured. While stars and the odd waxing moon wheeled overhead, her body moved on. Briefly she paused, eyed the ground, and with surprising speed grabbed a small form and stuffed it in her mouth. As she chewed, the pain faded, and bliss filled her. The slight spark of life merged with decay and enriched her. She staggered on seeking more.
As the hours passed, other forms began to lurch nearby. They moved closer to each other as an unseen lattice began to connect them. The lattice joined but did not provide a focus. The ever-growing knot of once-humans moved together but took each step alone. They were simple vehicles for essences propelled to find succor and add their former fellows to their ranks. They were stripped bare of the thoughts and deeds that would have brought them to a reality that transcended all they could have conceived in the universe that once was their home.
As the night advanced and their numbers grew, a cunning awareness awoke in the shell of Hailey Cowell. Something sinister triggered and she became a beacon for the dead. They assumed a lumbering formation. Forward they trudged, bringing madness to an overwhelmed world.