House of Eternity
an excerpt

They waited.

Adam watched Eve’s lips count silently. He counted twenty and looked back at the door. He slowly turned the door knob. The knob turned.

His eyebrows shot up his forehead and disappeared behind his bangs. Eyes wide, he looked at his wife. She stared back at him, her shocked expression mirroring his.

They looked at the door and Adam pushed. It opened easily on silent hinges.

White light filled the room and spilled out to mingle with the pale gold light of the basement. Adam swallowed a huge lump that rose in his throat.

I’m not afraid, he said to himself. I am not afraid. He stepped into the room.

Empty.

Adam looked around. White walls, white ceiling and a white floor. And a small black box in the center of the room. He stepped forward and picked up the box.

“what are you doing with my box?”

A cry escaped his lips and he spun around so fast his vision blurred and wavered. Or maybe the blurring and wavering came from the being that stood between himself and the doorway.

It glowed. He brought his arm up to shade his eyes as he squinted at the figure. “Who are you?” Adam managed to work the words out of his suddenly dry mouth.

The light seemed to dim and a man stood before him. He wore a white linen suit with a matching shirt. A tiny white rose bud sat in the bootinier of his lapel. Adam glanced down at the man’s shoes; white leather with white soles. No laces, they were loafers, the kind you slip on your feet when you don’t want to bother with the hassle of tying strings. Crazier and crazier.

He brought his eyes back to the man’s face. His hair was a perfectly white mop on his head, in contrast to the short neatly trimmed goatee on his chin; still, not a speck of dark on this man. Even his skin was pale and translucent. Adam could almost see the blood pulsing through the veins under this man’s skin. Pink-rimmed eyes, the palest blue irises Adam had ever seen watched him patiently as he locked his gaze on those eyes. Cold eyes, snake eyes. Until the man smiled; barely parting his thin, pale pink lips. Then his pale blue eyes took on the warmth of an early spring sky.

Adam took a step back and tried to work some moisture into his mouth. “Who are you?” he asked again.

“I am Lucas.”

“Where’s the mainframe that’s supposed to be in here?”

“I am… the mainframe,” Lucas replied. The man narrowed his eyes and cold like he'd never felt before crept into Adam’s bones as he stood there.