The Void

“Hey!” Eddie dug his running shoes into the ground in front of a peculiar looking structure, letting his friend speed right past him. “Dom, look at this place!” Dom looked back with hands on hips, panting, and shook his head.

“Last time we looked at a place, we got in trouble for trespassing.”

“But this is on a public path,” he flung a hand at the dilapidated building, “and look at it!” Eddie couldn’t believe his luck at finding the shack- well, it was more of a run down garden shed, really. Just this morning he’d complained to Dom about the lack of adventure in his life, and here was this mysterious structure just begging to be explored!

“I dunno…” Dom removed his yellow cap and ran his fingers through messy, brown hair. “We’ll get in trouble…” Regardless of that possibility, he sluggishly walked back to Eddie.

The shack was made of rotted wooden boards, all nailed together at odd angles. Its roof was made of tiles, the majority of which littered the grass. It was just big enough to hold a couple of bikes, or a shelf of gardening equipment, but Eddie suspected something much more sinister. At least, he hoped for something more sinister; a dead body, drugs, pirate treasure, an abandoned bomb shelter…

:”Let’s go inside and explore!” The rusty, corrugated iron door was calling to him, desperate to be opened. And the wind; Eddie’s black hair waved in front of his face, the breeze almost pushing him forwards. It was like a cowboy movie; destiny was calling to him.

“Alright,” Dom still seemed reluctant, though his curiosity won out, “but if anyone sees, you made me do it.”

Eddie stepped within the shed’s shadow and placed a palm against the door. There was no handle, so he assumed it had to be pushed. There was also no lock, funnily enough, but the way the hinges creaked and moaned as he pushed the door open suggested no one had been in there for years.

“It’s pitch black,” Dom observed, standing beside his friend, “got a torch?” Eddie shook his head and put one foot forward, intending to just feel for evidence of dead bodies or secret staircases. But, when he tried to put his foot on the shed’s floor, his foot just flicked back to its original spot. It was like a spring mechanism; Eddie kept trying to put his foot forward, but it kept jumping back.

“I can’t go in!” Eddie beamed manically. He was certain there wasn’t a wall in front of them, that the darkness was a physical space, but something was preventing him from entering. He felt his adventure senses tingling; this was the sort of supernatural phenomenon he’d spent his whole thirteen years searching for.

“What do you mean you can’t-” Dom tried to stride past him, but to no prevail. His foot would not pass the doorway. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Woah…”

“What do you think it is?” Eddie waved a hand inside the shed; his hand disappeared into the darkness, and all he could see was an elbow with nothing connected to it. He pulled his hand back. “I can touch it, but I can’t go inside.”

“Lemme try.” Dom thrust both his arms into the shed, and they too disappeared, the boys only seeing upper arm stumps. “Wicked!” He leaned forward, falling towards the blackness. Dom should have landed flat on his face, but the invisible wall -if that’s what it was- held him upright, not allowing his body to go inside.

“What’s its deal?” Eddie said.

“I've got no idea. Maybe it's magic.”

“Black magic,” he laughed, that would be cool. “Hey, I wonder what would happen if I pushed you against it?” Dom seemed to cotton on to the idea, and he replied,

“Yeah. Would I just become a human pancake or what?” He straightened himself, standing right before the hidden barrier. “C'mon,” he gestured at Eddie, “gimme a push and let's find out.”

“Alright!” Eddie, feeling like a scientist conducting a highly important experiment, placed both hands firmly on the back of Dom's striped shirt. Then he pushed. And Dom disappeared into the darkness. Eddie's hands followed behind, but the invisible wall held him back as his chest hit the doorway.

“Wicked! Eddie shouted at his friend, “You made it through! What's it like in there?” He expected Dom to reply with something sarcastic, like it's pitch black in 'ere, how should I know? But he was completely silent. “Dom?” Eddie leaned his ear against the barrier uneasily, craning to hear something. “Dom? You okay in there?” Eddie's heart started beating a little too fast, and he felt his black eyeliner running as he perspired. He stayed there, frozen, for a few minutes, and still heard nothing.

“Oi, kid!” Eddie jumped away from the mysterious as he heard an old man's voice behind him. The man was standing on the running track, waving his cane. “What're you doing in there? That's not your property!” Under normal circumstances, Eddie would have made up some excuse and tried not to be arrested for trespassing, but Dom had disappeared into the blackness of the shed, and he was truly worried. This wasn't the sort of adventure he'd been hoping for.

“Sir, my friend, he's-”

“Your friend? Playing games, are we boy?” The man stepped closer, the cane getting dangerously close to Eddie's face. “I'm in no mood for games, go back to wherever you came from!”

“Please! My friend went inside that shed, but he won't come out. And I can't go in. And it's-”

“Give it up, I've been watching you the whole time, kid!” He flicked the cane towards a garden bench a little way from the track. Eddie and Dom had been running so fast, neither of them must have noticed the old man when they'd passed him. But why was the old man saying Dom wasn't there? “You came jogging along, acting all nice and healthy like, then the next minute you're breaking into that shed!”

“But I didn't! My friend fell-”

“Stop blaming your imaginary friends! I didn't see anyone else, you lying scum!”

“Please!” Eddie not only felt the sweat dripping off the tip of his nose, he now felt tears running down his cheeks. Dom had been there; he'd run with him, laughed wih him, gone adventuring with him. When Eddie had placed his hands on Dom's back, he'd felt as real as the sky was blue. Eddie faltered, if only he hadn't pushed. If only he and Dom had left that cursed shed alone. The dark-haired boy recalled all the sci-fi movies he'd watched, he thought about the dark pits astronauts feared above all: black holes. Could he and Dom have found a black hole? Could he have pushed his friend into an infinite void? Eddie wished they'd found gardening tools in that run down shed.

“Get out of here boy, before I call the police!” The old man started jabbing the cane toward's Eddie's chest, and he was certain that the elder would hit him if he stayed. So Eddie silently apologised to his missing friend, and ran. Each time his sneaker hit the ground, he felt a dagger stab at his heart. As he progressed down the track; closer to home and farther from the abandoned structure, Eddie's mind whirred with the idea that Dom was lost. If he'd pushed his friend into a blackhole... well, if science fiction had taught him anything, it was that once something entered the void, it never returned. But then why couldn't he step inside himself, why did Dom have to be pushed? Eddie thought he'd figured that out; in Biology class his teacher had explained that you could take someone's pinky finger and bite it off as easy as biting a carrot. But your body wouldn't allow you to do it to yourself. Their bodies hadn't allowed them to step in... but Eddie was able to send his friend to nothingness. To murder him. He collapsed on the pavers outside Dom's house and looked to the heavens.

“What have I done?!”

“Are you alright?” The front door opened and his friend's mother, a concerned expression on her face, stepped outside. “Why are you shouting? What have you done?”

“It's Dom,” he sobbed, “I've killed him.” Eddie couldn't bring himself to look her in the eye, and her response confirmed his worst fears, sending Eddie's mind into a dark, torturous void of his own.

“Dom? Who's Dom?”