The Trial

Because it was a day made for a drive, that’s exactly what Sunna and Gunnar did.

With unflappable spirits of adventure, they cut a handsome profile. Nearly identical with fair and muscular features, and clad in matching black athletic gear, they resembled the Viking gods who haul the sun’s chariot across daybreak. Except the red swoosh was Sunna’s Mustang.

“Look.” Sunna directed her boyfriend’s gaze into the infinite azure that mirrored their eyes and spread over golden crops that resembled their wind-tousled hair. Nearly eclipsed by the bright sun, a bluish-white square floated above.

Gunnar removed and replaced his Ray-Bans a few times, squinting in between.

“Strange,” he said. “Looks like we took a picture through a window from a room with fluorescent lights. The reflection…” Then he whispered the obvious. “This isn’t a picture.”

Not one to pause in action, Sunna nonetheless pulled over. That may have been a mistake. Maybe not. Maybe they would have been absorbed into the light even if they kept going.

In what could have been a minute or a year, they found themselves wandering a sterile space devoid of windows, doors, and people. Gunnar reached for Sunna’s hand and drew her close. “We need to get out of here.”

“How?” Was that panic in her voice?

“When you give me your son.” Sunna and Gunnar startled in unison. A skinny, colorless, old man emerged. He vibrated rather than spoke. “Then I shall set you free.”

“But…” Gunnar stuttered. “We have no son.”

“Then give me your daughter.”

Gunnar stepped protectively in front of Sunna. “We don’t have any children.”

“Then make one. And we will set you free.”

“Who is we?” Sunna asked over Gunnar’s shoulder.

“Not your concern.”

“I cannot bear children,” she defied him.

“You will,” he said and disappeared.

Despite the ominous setting, life was idyllic. They strolled greenhouses full of fruits and vegetables, and picked their fill. They frolicked in freshwater teeming with fish. They made love in their lavish alcove but were careful to not conceive. And in hushed moments, they questioned their fate.

What would the creepy old man do with a child? Could they sacrifice their offspring to gain their freedom? Would that really free them? Could they live with themselves? Could they return to rescue the child?

During one daily walk, Gunnar pulled Sunna into the shadows and in a feigned kiss, whispered, “We are somewhere on Earth.”

She gasped, as if reacting to Gunnar’s passion. But it was his intellect that excited her.

A scientist, he had noticed tiny bubbles around an air panel. It indicated a leak. Yet the ventilation system remained balanced. He incrementally widened the crack with his fingernail to where he could breathe air and see the contours of Earth through it.  

More than that, he had determined that their captor’s power came from the fluorescent-like lights.

“He doesn’t eat. The food is for us,” he mumbled as if it were sweet nothings in Sunna’s ear. “The lights are not fluorescent. Something other than mercury-vapor gas is producing light. He inhales it. That’s his food. If I can inhale it, I can destroy him.”

“But what if it kills you, Gunnar?”

“We’re going to die, anyway, Sunna. We may as well die as witnesses to the preservation of humanity than as accomplices to its destruction.”

While pretending to snip some fruit from a high limb, Gunnar poked a hole in a lightbox with a straw he had fashioned from a reed. He inhaled. Nothing happened. He inhaled again. Energy pulsed through his body. He felt alive in a way that was foreign yet natural. With a final gasp, he turned to Sunna. Kissing her, he filled her lungs with the same potent mixture.

Without a word, they each seized a lightbox and smashed it into glowing smithereens. Then another. And another. They continued smashing lights until they came upon their captor shaking in his control room.

“Stop!” he commanded. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, yes, we do,” Sunna cried and broke a lightbox over his head. He shattered into a thousand shards of glass. Gunnar used one to break the seal on the escape hatch of this strange kind of longboat. Outside was flower-filled tundra.

“Let’s go, Sunna! South is that way. And we are Vikings.”

“No, Gunnar.” Her patience matched his impulsivity. “First, we are people. We will gather food, water, and supplies. Then we will follow the sun across the sky.”