The rusted muffler clattered to the oil-stained concrete floor with a dull, metallic thud. Mark Edwards, 32, barely flinched at the noise, his eyes not wavering from the undercarriage of the '98 Ford F-150 suspended before him.
"Hand me that 5/8ths socket, would ya?" he called out, his voice echoing in the cavernous garage. His father, hunched over a workbench with a carburetor in pieces before him, grunted in acknowledgement.
A moment later, the requested tool was slapped into his outstretched hand.
As he ratcheted the new muffler into place, Mark couldn't help but marvel, and not for the first time, at the utter simplicity of it all. The truck, a patchwork Frankenstein of replacement parts, would rumble out of the garage running like new. The customer, a local farmer by the name of Jim Abernathy, would sing their praises to anyone who'd listen, ensuring a steady stream of broken down vehicles and machinery into Edwards Auto Repair.
It was all so predictable. So mundane.
Mark tightened the last bolt with more force than necessary, his knuckles whitening. He rolled himself out from under the truck and sat up, grabbing a rag to wipe the grease from his hands.
Across the garage, George Edwards straightened up with a groan, his back popping audibly. He turned to look at his son, bushy gray eyebrows knitting together.
"Truck should be good to go. Though I'm surprised it made it here at all, considering the amount of hay and cow shit caked in the wheel wells." George shook his head, half exasperated, half amused.
Mark just grunted in response, tossing the rag aside and getting to his feet. He rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the tension that always seemed to reside there these days.
George watched him, lips pursed thoughtfully beneath his graying mustache.
"Your mom called earlier, wanted to make sure you're still coming for dinner tonight. She's making pot roast."
"Yeah, I'll be there," Mark replied distractedly, already mentally cataloguing the other jobs that needed finishing before he could call it a day. The rusted out Chevy still needed a new catalytic converter, Mr. Wilson's riding mower required a new starter, and he was pretty sure the transmission on the Henderson's minivan was on its last legs...
George sighed, recognizing the distant look in his son's blue eyes. He'd seen it often enough over the years, ever since Mark had come back home with a shiny new mechanical engineering degree and a slew of accolades, only to settle into a life of small town drudgery. It was a waste, really, of a mind as brilliant as his son's. The boy had always had a knack for understanding how things worked, taking them apart and putting them back together better than before. Even as a tot, he'd been fascinated by the inner workings of the world, always pestering his old man with an endless stream of 'why's and 'how's.
That inquisitive streak had only grown with time, manifesting in a dizzying intellect that left his teachers slack-jawed. Mark had breezed through school, his report cards a litany of perfect scores and glowing praise. Science fairs, math competitions, robotics clubs - he'd dominated them all, leaving his peers in the dust. It was like his mind operated on a different level, able to grasp complexities and see patterns where others saw only chaos.
His college years had been more of the same. He'd torn through his coursework like a man possessed, earning his Bachelor's in mechanical engineering in just three years, followed by a Master's in half the usual time. His professors had called him a once-in-a-generation talent, his future so bright it was almost blinding.
And yet, here he was, back in his hometown, his genius relegated to fixing tractors and tuning up minivans. It was a tragedy, in George's eyes, especially since he wasn't sure what had happened for him to lose his curiosity and drive. All he knew was that it was a waste of potential on a cosmic scale.
"Ya know, son," George began, in the slow, deliberate tone of a man choosing his words carefully, "No one would fault you for wantin' more outta life than this." He gestured around the cluttered garage.
Mark snorted humorlessly, finally meeting his dad's gaze. "And what exactly would I do, Pop? Go be another cog in the machine at Ford or GM? Design the next great coffee maker? The world's got enough useless crap in it already."
"There's always teaching," George pointed out. "I know you loved your history classes in college. With a mind like yours--"
"What, and be surrounded by pimply faced brats all day? No thanks." Mark cut him off brusquely.
An uneasy silence then fell between them, underscored by the distant bang and clatter of the garage. George looked like he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. He knew his son's stubborn streak all too well.
"Well, come 'round for pot roast anyway. Your mother misses you. We both do."
"Yeah, I'll be there," Mark repeated, his tone softening a fraction. "Six o'clock?"
"Six o'clock," George confirmed with a nod. "Now go on and give Jim a call, let him know to come get this hunk 'a junk."
With that, the matter was closed, at least for the time being. Mark watched his dad shuffle off, feeling the familiar pang of shame and self-loathing twist in his gut. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate everything his parents had done for him, supporting him through college when he was too much of a stubborn ass to take any handouts. It was just...he was so damned tired of it all. Tired of the monotony, the tedium, the utter lack of intellectual stimulation. He'd never admit it to them, but he had felt this way throughout college, failing to see any challenge in the classes that were supposedly hard. And so here he was, slowly suffocating under the weight of his own wasted potential.
Pulling his cell from the pocket of his grease-stained jeans, he glanced at the time before dialing Jim's number.
4:37pm.
Just enough time to finish up the day's work, grab a quick shower to wash off the grime, and head over to his folks' place for dinner. Maybe grab a drink at Murphy's Taproom after. Drink just enough to take the edge off, but not enough for the full weight of his regrets to come crashing down on him, as they so often did in the small hours of the morning when sleep eluded him.
Sighing, he lifted the phone to his ear as it started to ring.
***
The rain pelted against the windshield of his '92 Jeep Wrangler, the wipers struggling valiantly to keep up as he navigated the winding backroads from his folks' place to his own modest cabin on the outskirts of town. The weather had taken a turn midway through dinner, going from what had been a clear, mild autumn day into a raging thunderstorm that now battered the rugged landscape.
Jaw clenched, Mark squinted through the deluge, hands tight on the wheel. A flash of lightning split the roiling black sky, briefly illuminating the narrow ribbon of road before him. A few seconds later, a boom of thunder rattled his poor Jeep's windows.
"Fuckin' perfect," he muttered under his breath. It had been one of those dinners--tense, awkward, and with his mother's valiant attempts at conversation punctuated by prolonged, uncomfortable silences. The pot roast had also been dry, the silence heavy with all the things left unsaid. The disappointment. The dismay at seeing their brilliant son, the pride of their small, forgotten corner of the world, languishing in a dead-end life.
Mark fumbled for the pack of Marlboros on the passenger seat, shaking one out with a hand that he refused to acknowledge was trembling. He needed a smoke. Needed that comforting rush of nicotine to soothe the restless, empty feeling inside him, the one that whispered he was meant for more than this. More than a life of small-town obscurity, of fixing tractors and tuning up soccer mom SUVs until his hands were gnarled and stained with grease.
He brought the cigarette to his lips before reaching for his trusty Zippo with the same hand. But when he flicked its wheel, there was no spark, no satisfying 'clink' of flint on steel. He tried again, and again, his frustration mounting with each failed attempt. The flint wheel, worn smooth from years of use, simply refused to cooperate.
"Come on, you piece of shit," he growled, flicking the wheel with increasing aggression. He needed this, damn it. Needed the calming ritual of flame meeting tobacco, the soothing rush of smoke in his lungs.
Finally, and with a particularly vicious flick, a spark caught, the lighter's wick flaring to life. But before he brought it to the end of his cigarette, Mark admired the flame. There it was, dancing over the mechanism without a worry in the world. It was oddly peaceful, making him even yearn to one day achieve that state.
As his eyes briefly flicked back to the rain-slicked road, the Jeep hit a water patch, prompting it to hydroplane wildly. The still unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth, he swore viciously, both hands, even the one with the Zippo still lit, flying to the wheel as he tried to correct the skid.
But it was too late.
Time seemed to slow as the vehicle spun sickeningly, the guardrail looming out of the rain a split second before the Jeep crashed through it in a screech of tortured metal.
For a moment, a weirdly peaceful moment, the vehicle hung suspended above the ravine, the swollen river churning below. Mark had the strange, disjointed thought that it was like one of those cartoons he used to watch as a kid, the bumbling coyote finally catching that damned roadrunner, only to learn the hard lesson of gravity a split second later.
And following that random memory, the Jeep dropped, with Mark's stomach rising into his throat in a final moment of stark animal terror. So this was it. This was how his miserable, wasted life would end--in a rusted out old Jeep at the bottom of some backwoods ravine, a still-unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth.
Story of his fucking life.
The steering wheel was cool and solid beneath his clenched fists as he braced for impact, eyes wide open. In the stretched-out eons of that final plunge, snapshots of his life whipped through his mind, shuffled and spliced together like some student's disjointed montage.
His mother, brow creased in perpetual concern. His father, clapping him on the shoulder at his college graduation, pride shining in weathered eyes. The parade of girlfriends, driven away one by one by the depths of his apathy, his anger. The string of half-started projects and abandoned dreams, casualties of his own self-destructive impulses.
And always, always, the whisper in the back of his mind. That insidious voice of self-loathing, the one telling him that he was too good for it all, that he'd never live up to his potential. That he was a fraud and a failure destined to waste his gift in this backwater town, fixing toasters and tuning up lawn mowers until his once-brilliant mind degraded into mush.
In that final, crystalline moment before impact, Mark found himself at peace. At least this way, it would be over. No more struggling, no more fighting against the current of mediocrity that threatened to drag him under.
Just blessed, silent darkness.
With the flame still burning from his tightly held Zippo, he figured that, in these last few seconds, he could still enjoy that sweet, sweet nicotine, and so he quickly brought the cigarette he had somehow kept between his lips over it, lighting its tip a bright red.
As the Jeep hit the churning water with a heart-stopping jolt, he felt it immediately slip from his mouth, the lit end sizzling as it hit the water that now poured into the cab. His head had also snapped forward, colliding with the steering wheel in a starburst of pain, and the first tendrils of unconsciousness began to drag him under.
His last thought, before the darkness claimed him entirely, was a wry observation that at least he'd gotten one final drag before the end. A fitting epitaph, he thought muzzily, for a life that had never quite lived up to its promise.
And then, nothingness. Just the rush of water, the fading scent of tobacco, and an all-consuming blackness so complete, it seemed to negate the very concept of light.
But the darkness, as it turned out, would not be the end...
***
He came to slowly, the first hints of consciousness filtering through the black haze that enshrouded his mind. At first, he was aware only of a profound sense of disconnection, his thoughts sluggish and disjointed.
Was this death? The afterlife?
His rational, scientifically-inclined mind rebelled at the thought, even as some small, superstitious part of him whispered that anything was possible.
And then, a flicker.
A glimmer of something in the endless black, there and gone again so quickly he thought he might have imagined it. But no, there it was again - a glowing rectangle, its edges crisp and delineated against the void. It was starkly incongruous, this gleaming digital artifice in an environment of utter nothingness, and Mark found himself instinctively drawn to it.
As he approached, the cursor blinking at the rectangle's corner seemed to quicken, its rhythmic flashing taking on an almost eager quality. The closer he got, the more he became aware of an odd sense of anticipation building in his chest, a prickling of some primal sixth sense that whispered of profound change on the horizon.
And when he was close enough to touch that glowing screen, close enough to see his bewildered expression reflected in its pristine surface, the rectangle came to life with a sudden flurry of activity.
Letters began to appear, one after the other, each manifestation accompanied by the crisp report of a keystroke. The message took shape with deliberate slowness, each character a tantalizing clue to the greater whole.
"You are dead," the first line informed him bluntly, the words stark and uncompromising in their finality.
"but do not worry, as your new life awaits you." the next line continued, sending a chill down his spine. He didn't understand, couldn't wrap his mind around the implications of what he was reading.
The final line appeared with a strange sort of ceremony, the cursor blinking once, twice, three times before the letters began to form.
"Welcome to the Bellum Universale, Mark Edwards."
And with those words, Mark felt the fabric of his reality begin to unravel, the comforting certainties that had defined his existence up until now dissolving like mist beneath the harsh light of dawn. Latin had never been his strong suit, but the translation came to him with an instant, terrible clarity.
The Universal War.
What did it mean? What was this place, this strange digital limbo between life and whatever came after? Was any of it real, or just the final, desperate imaginings of a dying brain?
Questions chased themselves in dizzying circles through his mind, his genius intellect struggling to make sense of the impossible.
But no answers were forthcoming.
The rectangle began to fade, taking the cryptic message along with it, and Mark found himself once again engulfed in that fathomless black, left with nothing but the echo of those parting words and a rising tide of existential dread.
As awareness began to slip away once more, he grasped desperately for any shred of understanding, any hint of what was to come. But there was only the darkness, vast and absolute, and a lingering sense of profound unease.
Mark's last coherent thought, before unconsciousness reclaimed him once more, was a fervent, desperate question, tinged with dawning horror:
"What fresh hell have I stumbled into?"