Midnight Apocalypse

  MIDNIGHT APOCALYPSE

  VIOLA TEMPEST

  Midnight Apocalypse

  © Copyright 2022 Viola Tempest

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  Cover Design by CReya-tive

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  CHAPTER ONE

  “The Pyramid has ruined my life,” Freya Moore sighed, moving her phone from one ear to the other.

  “What are you trying to say?” a feminine voice on the other end of the phone call replied. It was hollow and distant, as if she might not have been quite as interested in the answer.

  “Juliet, you know how much my parents’ relationship has been affected by all of this. It’s impossible to get rid of this disease,” Freya attempted to explain to Juliet, her best friend from the past eight years.

  It pained her to discuss it, but if she could somehow gain Juliet’s interest in the subject, along with a modicum of understanding, it’d be worth it.

  “It made my dad cheat on my mom with another woman, You don’t think that’s bad enough? And instead of making it work, they…”

  She trailed off, and there was a pregnant pause. The silence across the atmosphere felt oppressive enough to touch.

  “Your mom hooked up with someone else?” Juliet interjected, finishing Freya’s sentence, but turning it into a question.

  “Love her for that,” Freya said sarcastically and rolled her eyes. “And to top things off, my brother got hooked on drugs and became depressed. He was already struggling, but that just broke him. He felt so helpless, and now, I’ve seen him on that app more and more often, too.”

  “Yeah, I feel terrible for Cyrus.” Juliet now sounded genuinely sympathetic.

  As if Cyrus’ plight, in some way, trumped her parents’. Another moment of silence made the sound of the inevitable digital hum of the cell phones so much clearer. Freya felt compelled to ask if her friend was still on the line when Juliet cut in again.

  “So, did you get the intern position at the Pyramid?” she asked. “That could change things, and also give you some purpose.”

  “I don’t know, haven’t checked my mail yet. If I get it, then it will be the perfect birthday present.” She smiled to herself. The best gift is the one you give to yourself, she thought. “I hope I get it. I really need to bring the Pyramid down,” Freya continued, her smile vanishing when she pronounced the name of the social media platform.

  Suddenly, a knock fell upon the door of her room.

  “Freya, can we talk?” Her mother’s voice sounded anxious. The way it always sounded these days. “Also, some mail came for you.”

  “Jules, I’ll talk to you later,” Freya said, and once her friend said goodbye, she turned off her cell.

  She carelessly tossed the old thing onto her bed; it bounced against the pink fluffy duvet cover and slowly slid to the carpeted floor. Freya stood still for a moment and contemplated the perfectly engineered piece of technology as it laid facing up. The screen was dark, like one giant lifeless eye staring up at the ceiling, where a huge poster of her favorite band had once hung. Ancient residue from all the tape was still clearly visible. A distant memory of her rebellious youth, when the images of tattooed men with long hair and nose rings stood as a sharp contrast to the pink door that separated her childhood room from the rest of the house.

  Freya squinted at the phone and clicked her tongue. As if she were expecting it to call out to her. Begging for her to pick it up. To unlock the untold treasures and promises that the digital world had to offer. She smirked and tapped the doorknob a couple of times before she decided on what to do next.

  Do I really need my phone for this? she thought. Let’s see what life has in store for me instead. Maybe something that I’ve been wanting for the past few months.

  With determination, she grabbed the worn brass colored doorknob — it, too, a jarring contrast to the cheery pink door, and exited.

  “Is everything okay, Mom?” Freya asked as she strode through the kitchen and grabbed her mail from the island in the center of the room.

  It’d been weird to call her that at first, she still remembered. It’d actually taken her a few years to go from Mr. and Mrs. Moore to Mom and Dad, but in the end, it had been worth it. The first day Freya had called the Moores their parents, their eyes lined up with tears, and their smiles were the biggest she’d ever seen. Jumping from foster home to foster home ever since she had memories, life had been hard, but when she finally landed with the Moores, she knew she was home. It had just been harder to admit it out loud after so many failures.

  Her mother smiled sadly. “Yes, I think so…”

  She could sense the hesitation in her mother’s already contemplative voice. It made Freya do a double take, having decided to ignore her at first and proceed with her own business. The apparent emotion in the voice made her question if her mother had done something out of the ordinary. There was a sound of guilt hanging in the air of the stark white kitchen with its dark marble countertops.

  Her mother tapped the countertop of the island in an anxious rhythm. Her jagged, broken fingernails created an odd beat as they struck the crafted marble. Freya looked at her with a raised eyebrow, waiting with bated breath for the words to come.

  “You see… I… um…,” her mother stammered.

  Her eyes darted erratically from side to side in an unfocused manner. As if she’d expected something to appear and stop her from delivering the message.

  “Your dad is getting married.” She finally sighed.

  For a moment, Freya couldn’t quite fathom what her mother had said, as if the words coming out of her mouth hadn’t made sense. A mess of guttural sounds without real meaning, but when she observed her mother, the realization dawned on her. The way her eyes gradually became used to the dark. The words began to step out of the distortion, coming into focus and making sense.

  She looked away, at her mother’s fingers still tapping against the white swirling patterns on the dark, polished stone, and then up at her face. Her blue eyes were wet with tears; they reflected the LED lights of the spots placed in neat rows on the ceiling. The pain was evident in them as her lower lip trembled.

  “What?” Freya felt a pang of the shock reverberate through her body. The news made her muscles twitch as she tried to regain control of her body. “He’s remarrying?” She turned away from the situation, moved toward the sink, and turned on the faucet. “Damn, he really is something. It hasn’t even been a month since your divorce, and he’s getting married again?”

  She put her hand under the running water before realizing that she wasn’t holding a glass. The Pyramid had ruined the only good thing she’d found in her life, making things worse each minute, and she didn’t know what to do.

  “Yeah, well, he called last night and wanted his children to know about it.” Her mother moved toward her with a glass. “I know, you want
me to be strong.” Her voice was cracking, but she tried to stay in control. “But Freya, I’m just extremely tired of feeling rejected.”

  “I know, Mom.” Freya took the glass and put a hand on her mother’s arm. “I know. I just don’t get how he thought this was an appropriate time to do this.”

  Freya could hear the anger in her own voice. How it trembled ever so slightly. She wanted to scream the words, but then thought better of it. Who would it help at this point? She might feel better. Like her body releasing the pressure of intense hatred, but what good would it do to spit venom over her douche of a father to his former wife? Shouting at the choir, it would be.

  She then realized the water was still running, and she quickly swept the glass under the tap, and then went over to hug her mom’s fragile body. Her tiny frame felt bony as Freya wrapped her arms around it, trying hard to not spill the water down her back. It was as if all the tragic events recently had worn her down, turned her into a shell of her former self.

  She let go of the hug and handed her mother the glass of water.

  “Drink up, Mom,” she said. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

  Her mother did as she was told, and then placed the glass on the island. That was when Freya noticed that it was one of the promotional Dawn of the Dead glasses her father had brought home from Burger King years ago. Painted yellow eyes looked back at her from their perch on the island counter. She always hated that movie, but still loved the image imprinted on the glass in bright colors. Now, like the memory of her father, they seemed dull and tarnished.

  Freya grabbed a soft pack of Newport and tapped the top on her hand until a cigarette emerged like a rabbit from its burrow. She handed it to her mother, then went for the mail.

  Among the slim envelopes with tiny plastic windows — obviously containing offers for free credit cards and insurance proposals — she found the one she had eagerly waited for. A standard white envelope, with the Pyramid logo clearly visible.

  She turned it over and broke the seal in order to slip out the letter, and began to read the words in clean crisp font.

  Congratulations, you have been selected as an intern. Your superiors will decide your permanent employment after a period of time…

  Something like that. It felt less important what the actual wording was. The important part was what the gist of it meant.

  She smiled. It was done.

  “Mom,” she said and searched for a lighter. “The Pyramid accepted me as an intern, according to the letter. I start on Monday.”

  Her mother smiled through bloodshot eyes while fishing for a lighter with trembling hands.

  “That’s amazing, sweetie, so proud of you,” she replied hesitantly and lit the cigarette, then proceeded to hold out the bright flame toward Freya.

  Freya looked at her mother as she inhaled the fresh smoke from the newly lit cigarette. The once proud person who used to be the archetype of the perfect, ideal parent, now reduced to a husk, a shadow of a real person. One incapable of caring for herself. Her pain was so clear in everything she did, the way her eyes were never quite dry from the tears she shed daily, the way she would stop in the middle of every task she performed. Confusion surrounded her like a wet blanket thrown over her shoulders, not comforting or warm, instead oppressive and weighted, like the thoughts that sent her spiraling deeper into the abyss.

  There had been a time when this woman would do anything for her children so they could have a perfect and healthy life. So, they were cared for, clean and proper. It seemed like another life, another time. Seeing her like this, the victim of drastic changes, made Freya sick to her stomach. This was a person she no longer knew.

  Her parents had divorced over a month ago, and since then, her mother had brought several strangers into her bed. Men she had met over various dating apps and then, without vetting them properly, taken home. It made Freya’s head spin. Her mother acted like a teenager, experimenting with random strangers, while her father was getting married for the second time.

  This was not the future she had envisioned, but she knew where it stemmed from. She often blamed herself for leaving, for taking that trip to Istanbul and making their parents doubt themselves. She had received a call from Cyrus while she was there and had to rush home as fast as possible, hoping the cheating was only something in Cyrus’ head, and not something real. But when she returned, her life had been turned upside down. She still remembered the moment Cyrus had said the dreaded words as it’d been yesterday, “I think they might divorce.”

  Everything in her life had been beautiful before the Pyramid, she could see that now, even though she could never get back those perfect mornings. Life would never go back to normal. But she couldn’t blame herself; the Pyramid was the one to blame.

  Monday is going to change the direction of my life, Freya thought as she looked at her own reflection in the kitchen window, looking out over the busy street outside.

  She watched the figure looking back at her, mechanically moving the cigarette from her fingers to her lips. A gaunt, pale looking figure with sunken eyes stared back at her. The LED lights overhead made her appear hollow, like the stylized zombie figurine sitting still on the counter. A shadow of her. One that only showed the negative aspects of her. Not the strong and vengeful woman she truly was.

  You have to make sure you stay strong, she told the reflection, and it winked back at her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I loved my home,” Kairi Harridan mumbled softly to her reflection in the window. Her visage looked back at her through the fog of dirt and grime. I did, right? Or was it merely the peace and tranquility it offered me?

  Her steel gray eyes stared back at her, seemingly peering through her with cold and emotionless sharpness. Like two daggers made from tempered steel, unbreakable. The reflection refused to answer her, mostly because there were no answers to give. The home, those four walls that had surrounded her like a protective barrier, keeping all manner of evil out… It was a safe haven, but that might be all it was. She tried to picture it, but only standard stock photo images appeared in her mind.

  She turned and walked down the hallway, her brown nightgown flowing behind her in a majestic fashion, like the perfect portrayal of a lady in a Victorian tale. Even though she had everything a mundane could desire, she still felt lonely in her mansion on the hill. There were servants at her beck and call at all times, but still, no one to relax her empty soul.

  The grand hallway she strode down effortlessly reminded her of this fact. Empty eyes stared down at her from large portraits. They smiled at her, but not a single one of them meant the inanimate facial expression. Instead, it became a mocking leer from dead people she didn’t know.

  It was almost midnight as she lied down to sleep on her oversized bed, but she couldn’t find any sleep. She stared at the heavy drapes, pulled tightly around her, that kept the outside at bay, watched as the wind stirred them slightly. Just as she kept the dark of night out, it refused to find her, like the two were separated from one another by the fabric, for sleep remained elusive. The fact tensed her soul; the harder she attempted to sleep, shutting her eyes tighter and tighter, the more vivid the visions and memories became.

  The memories of how she had wronged others for her own pleasure. The images dizzied her mind and made her want to scream in hopes that it would release the anxiety built up inside. She gasped instead, not finding the strength to let her lungs expel the emotion, to have it leave her sick body. She needed to get away from it all and isolate somewhere far away. Maybe one day, she would find the tranquility her unconsciousness desperately sought, but at this moment, it was too late; her ambitions had shaken the world in chaos. She stood at a point of no return.

  Her attempt at allowing her soul to escape her body was interrupted by a soft knock on her bedroom door. Kairi blinked a couple of times, listened intently to make sure she had heard it right. When the tentative knock came again, this time so softly that it was barely audible, she swung her leg
s over the side of the mattress, allowing them to appear through the drapes. The cold made the tiny hairs stand on end. She twisted her black hair into a sloppy makeshift braid over her left shoulder, and then, with trepidation, placed her bare feet on the weathered hardwood floor in order to see who had graced her with their presence at this time.

  A petite woman with red hair stood at the other side of the heavy door and entered the room with a tray in her hands.

  “Miss, you have a telegram,” the woman said, bewildered at bothering her mistress this late at night. “And someone named Henry is waiting for you downstairs.”

  “Oh, you mean Henry Cooper, Silvia?” Kairi asked as she held out her hand to grab the telegram.

  “Yes, miss,” Silvia replied and stared dead ahead without emotion. “He says there is an urgent matter to discuss.”

  There always is, Kairi thought, but flashed a smile at the woman, who didn’t seem to pay attention.

  “Alright, I’m coming,” she said, tapping the telegram on the side of the tray.

  She looked back at her comfortable bed, then made her way toward the large walk-in closet on the other side of the room.

  “Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to slow down time?” she asked as she rifled through her wardrobe. “To the extent that particles moved with the sheerest delicacy, the sound of pounding hearts dissolved in bliss, and the urge of irresistible violence mutated?”

  She found the appropriate evening gown and slipped into it while Silvia arranged her shoes.

  “I don’t know, miss,” Silvia replied and picked up a brush for Kairi’s hair. “Maybe there are good ways to achieve the same goals, more positive ways.”