Random Brandon Stories

                                                          RAINBOW 

Trev lay there shivering and miserable with just one thought ever present in his mind. “If I had just listened.”

He closed his eyes but could not block the landscape outside the module from his mind.  Red rock almost to the limit of his vision but just on the edge he noticed it was an unusual red.  This strange color was almost like the pearlescent red on Trev’s first car.  If he let his gaze shift the tiniest bit the color slipped and bounced like a trout fighting a fishing line. The red would dissolve and flecks of white and a sharp silver-blue would appear like the shimmering rays of the sun kissing wave tops as they met their end on a reef. 

“Now that is strange” he thought. It really appeared as if the blue had reached out and gradually shifted its hue first aqua, then a brilliant but subdued electric blue.  Leaving just an out of focus rainbow finger.  “Can something be both brilliant and subdued.  This can’t be real and colors can’t ‘reach’ out.” His thoughts jumbling and tripping over his mind’s ability to comprehend.  Trev reached out a surprisingly steady hand and extended one finger toward the incongruous but beautiful rainbow finger.  As they met he could hear the color flow from his finger and see the rainbow gaining focus.  He snatched his hand back and heard a pop and hiss as the color snapped back into his body.  “What the Hel was that,” He screamed.  

Trev’s thoughts went back to the mission brief struggling to recall even one mention of what he was now experiencing. He could remember the flight doc talking about the vivid hallucinations that were common among all of the crew on their return from the surface but none of them had mentioned the colors.  They had all seen a lake with cold blue sun-freckled water and a forest of black leafed trees with mottled grey trunks and branches streaked with faint yellow lines. There was also the dark silhouette of a man near the edge of the lake backlit by the searching and reaching tongues of yellow, orange and black flames.  They also talked about the rainbow fish.  “What was it about the fish,” he struggled to recall. There was something in their description that was not sinister but just not quite right. Then as if his thoughts were Words the red rock melted away and the lake slowly shimmered into view.  Edging forward and slowly consuming the color and washing away the strange vision Trev had been experiencing.  

“5,4,3,2,1” came the hollow electronic voice, “Doctor wake up.” It commanded and suddenly he was back in the pod and could feel the arms of the Mech lifting him gently from the warm embrace of the oozing suspension gel.  He was back and could feel a slight pull and heard the pop of the control cable as it disconnected from the back of his head. Trev turned to look at the pod next to him and the realization hit him with the tidal force of a great moon.  “They are all gone and it was my fault.”  

He was the flight doc, the one responsible for ensuring each of the crew were protected against the entity that came back with the captain. Trev could see himself standing next to the captain’s pod holding the ebony black containment chamber.  Sharon Rodgers, strong capable Sharon, hazel eyes flecked with gold, short grey brown hair and as always her blue Yale sweater casually draped over her shoulders . The transport pod its interior awash in a rainbow light was just to her left.  The expression on her face pulled her mouth into a thin line giving away the tension she was feeling.  Max Capharelli jet black hair but with a pure white soul standing beside her with a look of fascination playing on his face.  He was shifting nervously from one foot to the other not sure if he should move to help.  Captain John Wolcott always calm and self assured but now his lips curled back in a mixture of disgust and terror and the whites of his eyes completely devouring his normally grey eyes.  The once livid scar that traced a jagged path from the graying hair at his right temple to just below his jawline had faded to a thin pale line as the blood drained from his face.  Everyone’s eyes were drawn to Captain Wolcott lying in the pod a thin, deep puncture just below his rib cage invisible if it weren’t for the steady stream of blood flowing out onto the cream and gold of the suspension pod.  How could Trev have forgotten what John had said to him after Sharon had opened the hatch.  Three simple words was all and Trev had been too focused on the blood.  All that blood but it was wrong, not red as it should have been but a writhing, swirling, beautiful rainbow of colors and John had said, “Do it, now.”  Trev couldn’t because he was reaching out for that finger of rainbow light and willing his body to let go.  “Just join the color” he heard it say.  At that moment the rainbow jumped to Sharon and as she stumbled away she reached out to grab Max’s hand.   Max caught Sharon and steadied her then he looked at his arm in horror.  Trev watched as the color bounced and shuddered along Max’s arm until it slowly sank into his chest.  Max turned to Trev and his mouth opened but before he could say anything there was a soft pop and all three of them coalesced into a brilliant yellow-gold disc of light.  Trev realized he was still holding the containment chamber.  The chamber filled with prisms and mirrors all at precise angles to ensure the color would be split into its individual elements, the true black of the cylinder to ensure the light could not escape, the one thing that could have saved his friends, and there it was still clutched loosely in his hand.

“If I had just listened” he thought.