CHAPTER 1
All is black. Until an orange claw appears. Then another. Two round eyes set wide apart, shine bright in the dark. A small cicada crawls slowly upwards and breaks the surface of the earth. A bunch of golden strings tear up the darkness. Here comes the sun.
The cicada is now walking onto a beautiful meadow. It looks up to the blue sky. Daffodils and daisies dance to the light summer breeze. An empty basket is turned upside down and bunches of grapes are scattered around. The wind that gently blows through the meadow reveals the body of a man. He is lying face down on the ground. He is wearing a white T-Shirt, a pair of worn-out khaki trousers and black hiking boots. His long dark hair covers his face. It’s a shame, cause it is, it was, hmm... a beautiful face. At least, that’s what people thought.
“George has a beautiful face.” “George, must be the most beautiful man to ever walk this earth.” “His eyes are bluer than the sky, the strangest blue you’ve ever seen.”
Not that they ever told me. Not that it ever made the slightest difference in my life. On the contrary, it just added to the fear around me. And there I was, all alone, in the middle of nowhere, lying down next to cicada that had just risen from the dead.
CHAPTER 2
It all started with a boom. I didn’t feel it, I just heard it coming from somewhere in the back of my head. But it was as if my head was not a part of me anymore, but rather a place I knew, a place I used to live in.
When I opened my eyes, the cicada was staring at me. I looked back at it. I’m pretty sure that in that moment we both weren’t exactly sure of what was going on. Where were we. Who were we. I blinked. The bug was gone. Now... It was time for me to get going. Slowly and unwillingly, I made it onto my knees. It wasn’t easy. The world was spinning and the back of my head felt sore.
“What a mess!” I muttered and began to put the scattered grapes back in the basket.
When... “Ohhh… Ah…” a deep gusty sigh startled me.
A white goat was lying on her side under a fig tree a few feet away from me. I approached her hesitantly. After all, it had been some time since I had last seen a goat. Let alone, anything alive.
“Poor thing, what happened to you?” I kneeled next to her.
Her eye was half open, like someone who is taken by the pain. She looked at me, as if she was begging me to help her. I placed my hand tenderly on her ribs to feel her breathing. Then I slightly her head up slightly.
“Oh my God! Shit!” I shrieked in terror, when I realized half of her head was missing.
I quickly took my shirt off and wrapped it tightly around her head even though there is no evident hemorrhage.
“Whoa! Take it easy!” said someone, in a crystal female voice. I looked around. “Hello?” I shouted but no one replied. “Hello? Who’s there? Come out now!”
“Come out of where?” asked the goat.
Scared to death, I jumped away from her. The goat got up and made a strange sound, that now I know it was a sigh of despair for my lack of intelligence.
“Hello!? The turban? Could you PLEASE take it off my head?”
“You! You, you… are talking to me?” I wondered.
“Do you see anyone else around here?”
I looked around once more and stepped a couple of feet further away. The goat shook the shirt off her cut in half head by herself. There was no blood or any indication of an open wound. As I found the strength to look at her half head, I noticed that instead of a brain, or muscle or blood, the open part of her skull had some sort of structure, that resembled a dark grey labyrinth. It looks artificial or extraterrestrial even.
“What are you?” I muttered still not expecting an answer.
However, she replied. “What do I look like?”
“Um…”
“Baa, baa, baa, baa...” she bleated.
“A goat?”
“It wasn’t that difficult, now, was it?”
“Goats don’t speak!” I bellowed.
She cringed. “Because speech is a human privilege? Or should I say a male one?”
“No. It’s a fact.” I answered with uncertainty.
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you met a goat?”
“Met?” I still wasn’t quite sure of how one meets a goat, even though I was already conversing with one. “To be honest,” I said “I haven’t seen a goat, or any other living soul, for twenty years, or more… Except for you and one crazy eyed cicada a few minutes ago.”
“Well, don’t worry about it.” she consoled me. “You will be seeing a lot of them from now on.”
“Cicadas, you mean? Or goats?”
“No, man!” replied the goat, utterly deflated. "Living souls! With the Apocalypse happening and all...”