Snap! : A Short Story

Cyril Trafford sat, hunched at his desk, scratching away at a notebook. Wearily, he straightened up in his chair—a rickety old thing, armless and unforgiving to his aching back. He rubbed his eyes with mildly ink-stained fingers and blinked blearily at the soft evening light filtering through his round porthole window.

The soft, repetitive ‘swoosh’ of the ocean usually provided a pleasant background to his whirling brain, a metronome that his scattered thoughts could march along to. Now, however, the rhythm seemed to mock him.

Cyril's glum gaze fell to the well-worn pages of his notebook—a slightly worrying brown from too many incidents involving tea and a case of perhaps-keeping-liquids-on-unstable-surfaces-is-a-bad-idea-itis— that, to his mounting frustration, remained stubbornly blank.

He sat up and stretched—he really ought to buy a new chair, his spine was crackling like kindling, and he was just 45!—and reached for his full cup of tea. His fingers were mere inches from the handle when something made him pause. Was it a trick of the fading light, or did the cup seem... off somehow?

Cyril blinked hard, then leaned in closer. The edges of the cup appeared to shimmer and shift, like heat rising from sun-baked asphalt. He shook his head. The shimmering stopped.

Making a mental note to cut down on caffeine—thirteen cups a day couldn’t possibly be healthy for anyone, no wonder he was seeing things— he shifted his weight, about to stand up and head to bed.
That was when it hit him.

A brittle, ringing silence. The kind of silence that hung heavy in the air after an intense argument. Tense.

He strained his ears, listening for the familiar murmur of the waves, and the gentle sighing of wind in the trees, the occasional gusts that made his little front gate creak ever so slightly.

Nothing.

Brow furrowed, he gazed out the window, the sun dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in luxurious, purples and reds. Only now, the light had an unnatural, dreamlike quality to it, and…no, that was impossible- was that–

Snap!
Cyril’s eyes flew open. He sat up, his neck screaming in protest. He must’ve fallen asleep in an awkward position. He reached for his cup, his fingers brushing against the cool ceramic. Everything seemed normal. Just a dream then.
He took a sip of his tea, and sighed.

Snap!
He awoke with a gasp, and blinked, momentarily disoriented. There was a harsh ringing in his ears. He realized with a start, that he was sitting on the floor. The cool wood felt reassuring beneath him as he waited for the ringing to stop.

Snap!
He groaned. The ringing was getting louder, more insistent.

Snap!
Cyril found himself slouched on his desk once more. He looked around at his cluttered workspace. The light filling the room was no longer warm and buttery, but cold, and unsettling. It was sharp, fragile; as though any sudden movements might shatter the very air into a thousand shards. Everything around him had a warped, distorted appearance, like he was looking through a piece of melted glass. The ringing had stopped, but the sounds around him were amplified, the waves choppy and agitated.

Panic seized his throat. What was happening, was he losing his mind? He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying to will the strangeness away.

He looked at his cup. It was empty.

Snap!

Warm, smooth wood. The rustling of paper. The insistent murmur of waves.

Cyril sat up warily. Trembling slightly, he took stock of his surroundings; his notebook and pen were in their usual spots on the cluttered desk, the lamp, rusty and disused as usual, and his tea–
His tea cup was full. He furrowed his brows. He certainly remembered it being empty.

A knot of apprehension tightened in his gut as he listened for any discrepancies in the cacophony of sounds that usually surrounded and permeated his cottage.

Hearing nothing out of the ordinary, he stood up, grabbed the handle of his cup, and emptied its contents into a small sink. He had half a mind to throw out all the tea in the kitchen; it must have been contaminated, or something.

Drawn by the promise of a sea breeze to clear his head, he stepped outside. The muffled murmur of the ocean turned into an insistent roar, as the sultry sea air enveloped him.

He drew in a breath. The ocean always helped him think. Indeed, that was why he chose that cottage, nestled in the dunes of a charming little tropical island, away from the deafening din of a buzzing metropolis. Sure, he enjoyed publishing and editing, seeing new authors burst onto the scene with fresh ideas and vibrant prose, but nothing quite compared to the thrill of crafting his own stories, weaving worlds from the whispers of waves and the rustle of palm fronds.

He was finally beginning to relax, having dismissed the strange occurrences as an elaborate nightmare, as he scanned the horizon, watching the churning water make the sunlight dance elegantly on its surface.
He tensed. The water looked wrong—waves lapping backward, defying nature. His gaze drifted upward; clouds rolled against the wind. A shiver raced down his spine as the hairs on his neck stood at attention. The unshakeable feeling of being watched crept over him.

Slowly, he turned. His shadow loomed on the wall instead of the ground, rusty nails gleaming where eyes should be. Transfixed, he watched as the air crystallized around him, reality fracturing at the edges.

Panic propelled him inside the cottage, the world lurching with each step. He gripped his desk, knuckles white. His notebook, half-blank moments ago, now overflowed with loopy, messy script. The crinkled edges of pages fuzzed in and out of his vision,

He'd never learned cursive.

The light splintered, a kaleidoscope of pulsating shards. A piercing, tinny ringing assaulted his ears, threatening to wrench his sanity from him, whatever was left of it.

He pressed his hands to his head, the world dividing into a nauseating blur. Layers peeled back, the world a fractured mirror. A silent scream built up in his throat—

Snap