The Edge
Created | Updated May 21, 2003
Part Eleven
'How did you know I'd be here?'
'This might sound like a bit of a cliché, but we know everything, Wickrain,' replied Pellicle, sitting down next to him. ' - the monument to your dead father. Very predictable I'm afraid.'
Wickrain let a sufficiently lengthy uncomfortable silence pass. Uncomfortable for him anyway. 'I'm not going to do it. I hope you know that.'
Pellicle nodded. 'Yes, we know that.'
'Look, it's just not my... what?' This caught him by surprise. He expected some sort of titanic struggle to occur, where Pellicle would drag him off to some secret torture chamber and they would find new and humorous uses for his kneecaps.
'We know that you won't do it... yet.' Pellicle let a little smile cross his face.
'Ah.' Cue the torture chamber, he thought. Should probably start screaming soon or something.
'Oh, I wouldn't start screaming.'
'What?'
Pellicle looked straight into Wickrain's green eyes and a darkness seemed to fill his own. Wickrain thought it reminded him of looking up into the sky at night. Then he realised that the sky at night had things like stars in them and the occasional planet, not white shadows of demons and ghosts. The world around Wickrain seemed to fall away, like a curtain to the ground in a magician's trick. A dull grey room replaced it - though Wickrain didn't notice it, he was too mesmerised by Pellicle's eyes.
'Who are you?' asked Wickrain, assertively as he could. As you can probably imagine, he sounded about as assertive as a man that comes face-to-face with a fire-breathing dragon and asks if he could stop incinerating his village thank you very much, and could he possibly borrow some sugar.
'You know who I am,' replied Pellicle. He got up and walked over to the wall, pressing his palm firmly against a seemingly blank spot. A video screen appeared on the opposite wall. 'Take a look. Earth, 3BCE.' Wickrain swivelled round, unsure what to say. 'God has just sent a messenger to Earth to warn against its destruction from The Edge. Except he forgot, didn't he? As did Mohammed. And Moses. Actually, Moses was the silliest one. He spent all his time listening to bushes, parting water. Do you know he once tried to convince his followers that using milk a as hairgel would give them eternal life?' Wickrain shook his head, 'No? Very silly man. Anyway, it's too late to tell everyone now. They won't believe us. Well, look how you reacted. We need you to prevent it.' Wickrain didn't move. He didn't know what to say. No? I've got a dentist's appointment and couldn't possibly undertake a venture to save the world? Actually, at the moment he was tempted to ask if Pellicle could give him a new pair of underwear.
The environment changed once more, but this time, instead of something alien and grey, it was the more familiar sight, especially to a Londoner like Wickrain, Trafalgar Square. Except he was now viewing it from an unfamiliar angle. On top of Nelson's Column. Wickrain would've leapt out of his skin, if he had anywhere to leap. He was balanced precariously on the platform which would usually only play host to Nelson's statue, but was now having to find room for a slightly overweight English man in his mid-twenties. Pellicle was now six feet away from him, suspended in mid-air. A couple of tourists had spotted them and started taking photographs. The wind whipping round them wasn't helping Wickrain's mental state.
'Wickrain, we can shift reality, swap bodies, move in space and time. We can hurt you, Wickrain.'
A huge question that had been festering away at the back of Wickrain's mind managed to find it's way past his lips, after much negotiation with his voice-box and a minor tussle with the frontal lobe. 'Why can't you do it yourselves?'
'Our effects are only temporary. We have to physically attach the magnets and we need help. You have been chosen.' Pellicle's eyes lost their demonic aspect and now appeared normal. They looked desperate, pleading, 'for the last time, will you accept?'
Wickrain contemplated what saying 'no' would entail this time. Would he just be left there? The thought of a sheer drop into a pool of pigeon excrement didn't fill Wickrain with joy.
