Brooke Jordan

student number: 44783709

word count: 999 words
brooke.jordan@uqconnect.edu.au

Moloch
Brooke Jordan

Consciousness seeps into the darkness like blood through a bandage. Hope’s eyes blink open,
her brain sending out panicked alerts as it falls into light, a strong sense of déjà vu
accompanying the feeling. She squints against the onslaught of light, her nose wrinkling at
the smell of burnt popcorn.
“Hello?” She pulls herself into a sitting position on the floor of the empty room.
White walls stretch into a white floor and roof. The ceiling is bare, the source of burning light
indeterminable.
“Hi. I’m Fern. I’ll be your lifeline on this wonderful journey.”
Hope jumps to her feet, spinning to face the monotonous voice. “I beg your pardon?”
“Hi. I’m Fern. I’ll be your lifeline on this wonderful journey.” Fern repeats, her face
expressionless. Her pale skin seems almost translucent under the bright light, her brown eyes
appearing almost black.
Panic rises in Hope like a wave. She questions Fern relentlessly, her untameable
curiosity heightened from fear.
“Please, remain calm. I’m Fern, your friend.” Fern’s emotionless voice cracks on
friend, her glass expression shattering into a wince. She answers Hope’s questions as though
reading from a dull script.
Death. Afterlife. Only for those who die by their own hand.
One of the white walls falls away, the bright light giving way to a dim train station, identical
to the one Hope catches to school.
Caught.
 She hears the rustling of her mother’s business clothes as they hug, her loving voice,
her friend’s laughter filling the carriage.
Hope chokes, coughing on the heavy fog that fills the air. The world around her is
grey, bleak, the fog coating everything. She looks upwards, eyes searching for the sun. She
finds only more greyness, as though the fog has created a single oppressive layer that spans
across the sky. The scent of burnt popcorn is stronger, stinging her throat as they cross the
eerily empty platform.
“I…I don’t understand. How is this happening?”
Fern stops, sighing in irritation.
“You. Are. Dead.” She slices her finger across the red laceration on her throat. “Your
file said you were what, sixteen? Act like it.”
Hope mumbles an apology, dropping her head as tears sting her eyes. She’s always
been sensitive, wanting nothing more than to please others.
A single box-cart arrives on the tracks, braking with a screech in front of them. One of
the metal sides falls with a resounding clang, staying on the platform as the cart rattles down
the track.
Hope watches the new land flash past her, eyes wide as the station gives way to a
seemingly endless suburbia. As far as she can see, the land is completely flat, lined with grey
cement buildings organised in symmetrical rows.
“Where are we?” Hope asks, voice quivering.
“Your home. Everyone’s, really. We call it Moloch. Welcome to your new life.” Fern
smiles sarcastically. “Well, death.”
Hope asks more questions, each answer a leech upon her heart. Fern tells her of
travelling for what she’d assumed were months. Time doesn’t exist here, impossible to keep
track of. The plains she had crossed were identical – an endless Moloch.
The box-cart abruptly turns, Hope’s hands scrambling on the freezing metal to steady
herself.
She feels the coldness of her mother’s coffin, and Hope remembers the feeling of her
heart, that had once surged with kindness and joy, freezing over like ice on a window.
The cart suddenly stops, sending them flying from inside it. Hope extracts her face
from the grey concrete, the cart rattling onwards without them.
She stands, the concrete box in front of her identical to the thousands she had just
passed. It’s tall exterior is windowless, with only a single brown door.
 Hope’s hand is bloodied as she feels her nose, the harsh sting like a childhood
bedroom in its familiarity. She feels the sting on her upper thighs, her arms, the razor gliding
across them.
Fern tells her to enter. She expects the fog to lift, but within the confined space it only
thickens, the scent almost unbearable. The walls are a filthy grey, enclosing the space like a
prison cell. It’s a single room, the small bed metres from the grimy toilet.
Hope turns to Fern, tears welling in her eyes, pain written in every feature.
“You won’t be feeling anything for a long, long time.” With a small smile of
recognition, Fern wipes away a tear from Hope’s face.
The door closes behind Fern with a soft thud. Hope slowly climbs into bed, a familiar
emptiness slowly filling her body. The rough blankets scratch at her. She’s unable to care.
She wakes in the night, panting. Fern had told her she wouldn’t dream. She has.
Vividly, in brilliant colours, bright emotions within a vibrant world. Without thinking, she
runs outside, the happiness coursing through her foreign after so long without.
Hope scales the building, scrabbling up a pipe. By the time she reaches the roof, a
small crowd has formed below. She yells at them, laughs, bellows for them to follow. They
blink at her, watching blankly. Hope feels it fading, clear joy devoured by foggy emptiness.
She desperately fights it, eyes frantically searching for a weapon in the battle.
Hope runs to the building’s ledge, smiling at the concrete below, calmness settling
over her frenzied brain like a blanket.
She feels the serenity that had filled her as she drew the razor along her wrists, blood
painting her arms. A curtain fell across her consciousness, reopening only to reveal the
searing brightness of the room she had woken in.
As Hope’s feet leave the ledge, a familiar sense of déjà vu rolls through her. Falling,
falling, falling. From the greyness into colour. Seconds, minutes, hours, decades – time
doesn’t pass her, but she it. The emptiness loses, receding with the greyness, Hope joyous in
victory. She continues to fall, only aware of the warm light that surrounds her, buoys her.
Her body is suspended. The scent of burnt popcorn fills her nose.