Free Nightingale Songs by Simon Strantzas Page A

looked through the window set in the door.
    "Hurry, I think he's having a seizure!" she said, and opened the door.
    There was a drone as though insects were swarming. The sound pierced Fisher's head, the sensation like knives cutting through his skull. Rose ran into the room toward Breem, who had fallen to his knees and was rocking, releasing choked moans. Fisher covered his ears and called Rose back but she didn't seem to hear him. Above them the dark cloud swirled faster, swelling and contracting as though it were breathing. From that darkness split two protrusions like thick fingers; they slowly stretched toward the floor behind Rose while she held Breem's shaking body. As she turned to Fisher, screaming something he couldn't hear, the darkness behind her began to solidify and take shape. Fisher yelled and frantically pointed to where the two figures were forming but she didn't understand. The shapes were barely four feet tall, thin and childlike, and as they reached their arms toward her the cloud descended further, the storm brewing. Breem's lips moved as though he were silently incanting, each word causing further tumult above. Fisher screamed "Get out of there!" as loud as he could, louder than he thought was possible -- so loud his panic flared white-hot. But it came too late. Rose looked behind her, and everything slowed down in Fisher's mind. The two figures finally reached her and when they lay their dark hands upon her there was a bright flash like lightning sparking in the gathering storm and it blinded Fisher for an instant, leaving an after image burned on his retina like a photograph. He saw laughing children, but the laughter was without warmth, and as he blinked the image away he saw those two dark shapes fall apart, disintegrating in thousands of tiny shadows like flying insects. She was gone in an instant, and he saw remnants of what she had been as they bobbed along the surface of the dark swirling clouds above. Then they sank out of sight forever.
    Fisher shook as he closed the door. He could still see through the window though, see the cloud churning as its turbulence settled. Sanderson had ceased moving as the endless spewing of darkness filled the room. In the shrinking space near the floor, Breem continued his inaudible speech, bent as though in prayer.
    Fisher paced, his hands over his ears to block the noise but it didn't stop his heart from racing furiously, the pounding filling his head. He didn't know what to do or understand what he had witnessed; Rose had disappeared so quickly, so impossibly, that it left him numb. The droning noise worsened the sensation, creeping through the bones in his hands to fill his head with rough cotton. Everything was dull and shifted out of sync, as though he had fallen asleep and in his dreams was no longer part of what he surveyed. Fisher saw Breem through the door's tiny window, saw his face turning a deep crimson. The muscles in the man's throat stood out as though he were commanding the darkness above to stop. Fisher almost believed it was working. The spin of the dark cloud orbiting the room slowed as the effort exerted by Breem increased. His entire face shook, beads of sweat running down his cheeks. Breem poured every breath out to stop the thing, and as his kneeling body began to waver the tumultuous rolling of the cloud began to ebb. Soon it came to a full stop, settling upon the ceiling like a calm pond, and then Breem collapsed onto Sanderson's bed in a heap. Fisher took hold of the door handle to retrieve his and Sanderson's lifeless bodies. If he could get them to safety ... but before Fisher could open the door streams of dark shapes swarmed from the cloud above and with them came a sickening noise that filled Fisher with terror. Everything the darkness struck was consumed in a flurry of bright flickering sparks. The electronics in the room were the first to go, devoured seconds, then the stands and wires. Fisher removed his hands from his ears to