"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The creature seems to delight in all the answers. Despite its lack of features, it radiates something like pleasure as horses choose, though it does seem slightly more pleased whenever the word ‘trick’ is uttered.
When everyone has answered, the creature waves something that seems like a shadowy hand and those that said trick all disappear. Poof. There’s smoke and sound and theatrics with it for the benefit of those still standing on the beach.
Those that asked for a trick will receive one, but oh, aren’t tricks fun? Each will find themselves in the place where they came from, or at least, it seems like that place. But it’s not really, because you can tell there is something wrong. There’s no life here except for you, or at least, it certainly seems that way. Everything is shadowy and subdued, as if the color had been stripped from the world. It feels like you will end up the same way if you stay too long...
For those who were slightly more boring and ask for a treat, a gift appears in front of each of them. The gifts vary in size and shape, but they are all clearly desirable, for who doesn’t want a gift? But the shadowy creature grins, if it can grin, and suddenly there is so much space between you and the gift that is supposedly yours. There is no one else around you now, but just you and the gift and chasm of space between. The night sky is dark, and you hear at least one sort of something that goes bump in the night…
spooky thing
You have received a trick or a treat, but actually it’s mostly just a trick because that’s more fun.
If you picked trick:
You have been sent back home...or have you? Figure out where you actually are (there’s a ‘right’ answer and a hint in the post, but it’s fine if you get it ‘wrong’) and how to return to the shadowy creature. You should encounter at least one thing that ‘goes bump in the night’.
If you picked treat:
You get a treat all right, but it’s very far away and you have to go get it. You should encounter at least one thing that ‘goes bump in the night’.
That’s it. That’s the entire prompt. Everything else is up to your imagination and there’s no wrong answer. Replies are due by 11:59 PM on Wednesday, November 11th.
Others find their way to the shadowy figure, and some choose trick, while others, like myself, choose treat. The figure seems almost thrilled with those that choose trick, and I’m starting to regret my choice, though it is what my heart desired, but still, I stand as confidently as I can, though my knees still tremble before it.
Then the treat appears, and a thrill of excitement runs through me. I start forward towards the gift, but then I find it far away, in the distance, at a distance that it shouldn’t have been possible for me to see. As if it came from within me, I get this sense that I must retrieve this gift myself, so I start forward, though my gut wants me to run away. That’s just the fear that I felt over this weird creature in the night. So I push through it and continue on my way.
I can still see the gift, but trees and shrubs close in around me. As I continue to move forward, the trees and shrubs continue to move in around me, closer and closer until bows and tendrils scratch at my sides, thick with the beginnings of my winter coat. They get even closer until they are grabbing at me, like hands–or rather claws. They begin to tear at me, scratching me, cutting me. I stop in a panic and try to move backwards, but I find the path behind me has closed and now presses itself against my buttocks.
The only way through this would be forward, but even that seemed impossible, as the claws begin to rake themselves down my sides. They grab at my mane, tear at my neck. The claws wrap themselves around my neck, trying to strangle me. I squeal in terror and rush forward. The claws grasp at my tail as I pass by them, like living hands, trying to keep me from my prize. But there was no turning back now, even if I wanted to, so I run.
It wasn’t the most elegant run, as I break through the claws that surround me. Sweat breaks out on my chest, neck and barrel, and a foam froths in my mouth. But then I am free, and the forest shrinks away from me, and the treat is there before me, surrounded by an eerie glow. A glow should have filled me with warmth and comfort, because Yanhua is warm and comforting, and he glows, but this glow fills me with fear. Yet still, the treat beckons me, calling to me, like a whisper in the winds. I had come this far, and I wasn’t leaving without it.
I move forward and reach my head out cautiously, pressing through the eerie glow that tingles on my skin and leaves me feeling violated. My nose touches the gift, and then the light surrounds me. Something has changed, but I don’t know what just yet.
in this hole, that is me...the dead are rolling over
The shadows swirl and the creature speaks and still, he remains unafraid. Cautious, yes...but only marginally. Perhaps it is something in the lilt of the creature’s voice, or the stillness of those around him. Whatever it is, he listens intently, his eyeless face aimed towards the place where the shadows danced.
The lack of fear would prove to be a stupid decision, as he soon will find out. Sometimes, a man can be either handsome, or smart, but not both. Chemosh is perhaps one of those men.
In the blink of an eye the shadows consume him, threatening to choke him though he has no trachea to squeeze or lungs to collapse. His skeleton frame blends into the dense white fog, rendering him invisible from even himself. But as quickly as it snatches him up, the fog releases him, leaving his bones trembling on the Beach. He takes a moment to survey his surroundings, and it does not take him long to realize he is the only one here. At least, for the moment. With a shudder he takes a step, and that step brings the land of the dead into the land of the living. He could not have caused more of a disruption if he had stepped on a landmine.
All around him the dead rise from the sand, all in various states of decomposition. Some are rotting, others more freshly dead, and still some match his current, skeletal form. They do not notice him at first, for in the land of the zombies, a skeleton shifter has a large advantage. But despite his gift, he is very much living. There is still somehow a heart that somehow pumps blood throughout his body, somehow keeping him very much alive. Like bloodhounds they turn on him, and the noises coming from their putrid mouths make his currently non-existent stomach churn. As a whole they come for him. Even their maggot passengers make their way towards the living skeleton. He is given little time to think and less time to react. While his skeleton form is resistant to some things, in many ways it is weaker. With a shake of his skull he cloaks himself in his bay and nebula coat. He is in motion before the hair seams itself together on his back. Eyes set on the water he runs, and though the zombies walk, he never seems to gain on them. He feels teeth on his rump and spares a backwards glance at the rotten mouth who had dealt the blow, but no more than a glance. Finally, his hooves hit the surf and he plunges chest deep, wondering exactly how smart this was when he sees the creatures following him…
The water must have been the tonic to ease the fits of the nightmare land. Before he can take a deep breath and plunge beneath the waves, he feels a jerk at the base of his spine and the mist consumes him once more. This time, he almost feels safe in the mist, like being cocooned underneath his mother's neck. Finally, the mist spits him out again, right back where he started. Dripping and nursing a sore rump, he stares at the shadow creature much more cautiously, and there is a worried arch to his newly-formed brow.
Some men learn lessons the hard way. Chemosh is one such man.
11-07-2020, 06:40 AM (This post was last modified: 11-21-2020, 07:55 AM by xii.)
Others come, giving their own answers. I remain still, hidden by the thick shadows of the boughs above my resting place, even as the distant figure begins to change. It does not actively seem to dislike those of us that choose to treat, but the tension-gnawed edges of my nerves grow ever more frayed.
Already tense, the theatrics that accompany the disappearance of roughly half the other grazers is met with nothing more than a sharp stamp of my hoof and a snort. I do not like this. I do not like it at all. Is this why envoys from the Roof of the World no longer visited Beqanna? Had they been driven off by spooks and ghosts and devilry? This world has wonders; but I begin to doubt they are worth the risk.
But then…
It appears, glittering, not so far ahead. Different from those that the others find, and while perhaps not better than those, it is perfect for me. That I feel at the very core of my being, an iron certainty that no tension could bite its way into. I stamp my hoof again as if to cancel out the fright of the first one, and step toward the treat that the figure has gifted me.
That single step changes everything. What starlight there had been winks out, and the space between the gift and I stretches far ahead. I am sure there had been only open space between it and I, yet now there are living trees lining a deadfall-riddled path, and the smoke from the others’ disappearance becomes a cold mist – too dark to see but ever present against my skin. I shiver, just once, before taking another step forward. Nothing changes this time, nor with my next step.
I have made it three-quarters of the way through the thick forest that lies between myself and the gift. My breathing has grown labored, and the distasteful smell of blood from one of the many cuts and scratches the forest gave the delicate skin of my legs and undersides. I’ve just scrambled up a fallen log, perched to leap off it and closer to the gift when a rush of sound from overhead forces my brown eyes upward.
Something hurtles down in the darkness, crashing into the trees far to my left. It is far too dark to see what it might have been. Another crash sounds to my right – a little closer than the first. I descend from the log, urging my tired limbs to move faster. A third crash echoes behind me, and then time there is a thumping after it, like whatever had fallen rolled along for a moment after impact (crushing trees like grasstems as it went). The fourth impact is right in front of me, so close that the thin wisps of my mane flutter from the impact.
A huge rectangular prism, as pink as the salt crystals my homeland is renowned for, has crushed the earth in front of me. Its surface is perfectly smooth, covered across the entire surface with unfamiliar white runes. It’s waxy too, and firm with the faintest give, like late autumn grass on a hill in a bog. Walking across it seemed the logical choice, the way it had landed in the earth requiring only a small scrambled to reach the surface. My gift is right at the other side; I can see it glittering.
Though the surface is hard to walk on, and the saccharine scent of too many flowers has risen, unbidden, from the darkness, I press on. Distant crashes reveal the falling of more such objects, though the sound of impact is not always the same. I am too frightened to wonder about the variety of things that might be falling from the sky in Beqanna. Too frightened until one falls just to my left, and skittering to avoid it crash into the one that falls on my right. The first thing slides harmlessly down the incline of the pink surface I walk across, but the second is prevented from slipping by my body. After the impact (a bruise that I am sure will spread from hip to shoulder), the attacking thing has been as still as the surface under me. In the darkness I can see it is a bright yellow, round as the bowl of the moon, but the size and shape of the giant-turtle-of-the-sea-shells that the Emperor so prized. It too, smells sickening of sweetness, and I shudder as I try to keep my footing on the slick surface while allowing the yellow thing to roll away from me and slip down the prism, landing with a soft bump in the night.
My pace is slowed by my injury, but I have made it too far to stop. Though objects continue to fall around me, no more endanger me so, and I reach my gift at last, breathing hard.
The indiscernible creature appears to be in favor of his choice, which isn’t terribly surprising, Barrow supposes. Anything as spooky as the shape lingering in the shadows would surely love the opportunity to trick naïve youngsters drunk on the taste of their first adventure. He gulps down his growing concern. What was he thinking? Barrow looks to the others who picked a much more reasonable and much less insane answer of ‘treat.’ They all look normal; there is not a wild, crazy eye or drooling lip amongst any of them. So why had his own mouth formed the word ‘trick’ and practically shouted it like a damned fool?
His heart races as he awaits the gleaming guillotine to come down out of the shadows and lob his head clean off. Haha, what a trick that would be! And what a treat for the audience full of sane, self-preserving choosers, too!
POOF.
Barrow disappears and narrowly avoids a cardiac infarction.
Thank god, he thinks, when his eyes clear of smoke and he finds himself on a beach. He thinks he’s landed in Tephra, his volcanic home ringed partially by the crashing ocean. A comfort, that sound is. Good to be home. Don’t think I have the constitution for adventuring, after all. It would be embarrassing if he weren’t so relieved. His grandfather had dabbled in the affairs of power and powerful beings, but perhaps his genetic contribution had been only to pass down the color of his coat.
There is a lot to explore here instead, surely. Why, he’s only just started mapping out the lower trails just to the west of the volcano –
The red roan blinks, wondering if there are still trace amounts of smoke in his blue eyes, because the volcano is gone. What in tarnation? He feels the sand sliding under his feet, and that is right, but he realizes little else is. There are no palm trees swaying in the salty breeze. There isn’t the flush of color when he looks deeper into the land; no big and bright tropical flowers turn their faces to the sun. And the sun? What sun? The sky is a peppery grey that pushes down on him, crowds him. This isn’t Tephra – it is quite the opposite of that warm and happy place.
The young stallion snorts rudely and with an edge of panic in the sound. So this is the trick he himself asked for like a ninny. It is eerily silent and dark as he begins to walk the shoreline. He doesn’t know what else to do, where else to begin to find his way back to his real home. There’s no one here to ask, certainly. Maybe he’s the only one left alive in the world – it feels like it. With that cheery thought to keep him company, Barrow presses on. “A trick’ll be nice,” he mutters to himself with his head held low, “who doesn’t love tricks?”
And no sooner than the words have left him, seemingly brought on by the sound of his voice, the water to his left bubbles alive. It snakes around the sand by his ankles at first as he passes by overhead, harmlessly rushing back to meet with the ocean between footfalls. But after a few steps, the water coalesces into thick tentacle that rises up and up behind him, growing larger and no longer retreating. He doesn’t notice this latest trick at first, so intent on his aimless journey (and still cursing himself all the while). Eventually though, and in spite of the many shadows already crowding around him, he sees a shadow looming over his shoulder.
He turns, but it’s already too late.
The grey water crashes down on his back like a cold hammer. It pulls at him, too, even as he’s bucking and frantically trying to go forward again – this time at a quicker pace. But everything seems more sluggish here as well, or maybe it is just him. No, he is definitely slowing down. The ocean gathers itself for another assault, racing towards the shoreline where Barrow is running like on quicksand that keeps sliding out from under him. He wonders what horrors would befall him if the sea succeeded in dragging him under their depths. Surely sharks, big-toothed whales, and kelpies would enjoy a midnight snack to share. He doesn’t escape a second slap of hard water across his neck and turned cheek, but he sees something up ahead.
There are clear gates he sees that stand out of this otherwise murky place. They are nearly cloaked in billowing shadows, but they are still like a beacon to the bounding boy. Barrow senses another imminent watery attack and feels the phantom lashes of the previous ones. He doesn’t want to feel another. He lunges for the opening just as a wave rushes all the way up the beach behind him, relentless, trying to keep him from crossing back. But cross he does, leaving only a few red hairs plucked from his tail by the water behind. The creature is there, just ahead, but Barrow is too tired from the chase to tell him what he thought of the trick – and politely just where he could shove his treats.
Oren would be called quite a naive boy and everybody would be right in doing so. The still small bay roan bounces a little when he hears more tricks - it’s bound to be a good show then! - but then, poof! - it appears that he doesn’t get to see the others’ tricks after all.
He’s sent home, he thinks for a while, and starts to pout. While teleportation is a nice enough trick, it is rather a boring one to experience when all it does is take you home.
Oren outs a dramatic sigh, accompanied by an even more dramatic eye roll. His blue eyes change color for a bit, turning somewhat brown out of his boredom, but then he sighs and decides to tell his sister. At least the meeting of this strange creature is a scary enough story that she might be entertained in his place.
Oren has never been to the afterlife, and it takes him a moment to realise that he is not home. He doesn’t know where he is instead, but the places misses everything that makes life life, from the sound of the wind to the color of the normally much redder trees. There are no birds and squirrels around, and when he traces back in a circle, neither is mom.
Rosey is.
A sigh of relief escapes the gold-marked colt as he bounces towards her. He’s home after all! ”Rosey! Look what I -” but when Roselin turns to heed him, she has no eyes. ”Aah!” The colt stops, sliding to a half when his twin sister’s dark patches of shadow fall on him, subsequently followed by a toothy grin that’s not at all reminiscent of the kind that runs in their family - even if she’d had inherited sharp teeth.
His twin sister’s dark form then makes a move that Oren instinctively wishes to a avoid, immediately. He turns around on his heels and bolts, trying to avoid at all costs a bite by the lookalike of his twin. She would never do that! She can’t be real! But he doesn’t want to take the chance, and doesn’t dare to look around. What if she is his sister? What if she isn’t? He tries not to lose himself in imagination as he runs through the trees he ought to know by heart. Some seem to warp and change though, as if trying to trap him. When he comes around to a familiar spot, exhausted, he finally dares a glance backwards.
Gone. But where to? And where does he go now? He feels that staying in this place for too long is not preferable, feeling already how the greyness sort of grabs at him when he comes to a standstill. He can’t stay! Did the monster want to distract him so he would? Oh bugger! He’d fallen for it hadn’t he?
Chewing the inside of his mouth, Oren’s eyes dart left and right, then up. Stars! Momma always said to navigate by the North Star, so that’s what he’ll do. Though he can’t be sure if they are the same here, it is his only hope not to get swallowed by the everlasting emptiness, and so, he takes a deep breath and goes. There is no right way, but as long as he keeps going straight, he will eventually reach the edge of the forest.
It’s a good thing he doesn’t rely on the trees he thought he knew, he sees. Some are literally the same as the ones before, and more often than not it feels counterintuitive to keep going by the stars instead of following a path that he knows in real life would take him to the beach. But he knows he can’t trust his instincts in here, and so finally, finally, he makes it out.
There he finds the back of the dark creature, and he sighs in relief and disappointment. He hadn’t liked the trick, but if he was honest it had been a trick and a surprise and that’s what he’d asked for he supposes. Except for one thing. ”I didn’t even get to show you mine,” he mutters, more or less sulking than anything else at this point, too overwhelmed for anything else at his age.
A look of concern flashes across his face as the others in the area begin to vanish. While the theatrics were certainly flashy, it did not ease the newfound fear in his chest. A few feet away from him, a gift appears. Gore finds himself enamoured with it, his red eyes wide with excitement as he becomes distracted from the disappearance of the others.
Without warning, the ground before him seems to stretch on forever, effectively putting distance between him and the gift. In between them, the clearing begins to shake with such force that he could feel the trembling through his feet and deep in his bones. Cracks emerged, and two sharp, pointed legs crept their way to the surface, shortly followed by more and more. He swallowed hard as a rather large, arachnid looking creature surfaced in between the space, standing only slightly taller than him. His legs quaked as he realized more were following it, the ground still trembling as the vibrations of hundreds of legs beat the side of the earth with their ascent.
Despite his heart drumming in his chest, Gore knew with certainty that if he didn't move now, it would be too late. Shaking legs found strength in the adrenaline coursing through him now, and he launched himself forward, starting a running pace with his hooves pounding the ground below him. He shut his eyes tightly as he approached the giant spiders, leaping over two, and landing on a third's leg with a sickening crunch which was quickly followed by the creature's horrid screeching. He fought the urge to stop and vomit, keeping as much of a steady pace as possible as he charged his way forward.
Loud scittering behind him caused his ears to flatten back, their pointed ends losing themselves within the thick curls that curtained his neck. He risked a peek behind himself, and immediately wished he hadn't. The creatures seemed to have doubled in numbers and were charging towards him faster than he thought. They gathered together as they moved, forming somewhat of a wave of the arachnids that soon towered over his slim body.
With a loud crash and a cacophony of Hellish screeching, the spiders came down upon him, and he could feel their spindly legs begin to grip at his limbs, and their sharp teeth began to nip at his skin. He struggled for a while before finally breaking free enough from their grasp to get away, squirming underneath them and standing again with a heavy grunt. Finally free, he began to run again, and through laboured breaths finally approached his gift, though he couldn't help but collapse next to it instead of marveling at it more, wreching from the fear.
One second, she is standing there before the creature and the next, the world has bled away, replaced by something wholly familiar and yet entirely alien. She stands there for a moment, her elegant head slightly tilted to the side as her almond eyes evaluate the world around her. It takes a second longer than perhaps it should for her to realize that this shadowy world is not her home of Pangea. She would later assure herself that it was only because the world of Pangea was so lifeless already—born as it was of the dust and ash.
Still, this form of it was even more grey, cast in shadow and murk.
She steps forward and the air moves like water, rippling around her, feeling as thick as tar in her lungs. She pauses again, a coltish leg raised before she plants it firmly in the ground once more.
The sound reverberates within her—ringing and echoing like church bells.
Another pause as she considers.
It’s then that she catches the sight of her sister, her mother, her father—or, rather, she believes that she does. They are them, but entirely other. She narrows her eyes and thinks of moving forward but she can feel the earth practically reach up to hold her back. There’s a moment when it feels like sinking. When it feels like her father’s vines crawling up her legs. When it feels like her mother’s magic holding her.
She skitters to the side and it releases its grasp on her.
There’s the solid, warm feeling of something bumping into her and she twists to see Iris. Relieved, she opens her mouth to tell her sister about the shadowy creature but no words come. Because it’s not Iris. The creature that is not her sister wears her body, but the skin is loose, the eyes rolled back. She can see the way it doesn’t fit quite right, as though hung upon a loose frame, and something like horror crawls up the back of her throat—the otherness of this place continuing to sink the teeth of reality further down.
Death, she thinks.
The place reeks of death.
She remembers her mother’s stories of the afterlife. Of the place where the veil between life and what lies beyond grow thin and fragmented—where the fabric of life becomes perverse and drains you of that which makes you whole. She can only wonder if somehow this is where the creature has sent her.
The place of her mother’s resting.
The place of her rebirth.
The place of the in-between.
Rosebay looks up again to see the pantomime of her sister opening its jaw wide and, although she feels her heart beat against her ribcage, she refuses to give up even a semblance of control. Swallowing back the scream that would form in her young throat, she instead takes a step back, finding the path beneath her.
The world twists around her, as if in response to her acknowledgement of its true form, and her family and their strange form bleed away. The not-Pangea bleeds away. It becomes nothing but fog and mist and darkness—nothing but her own heartbeat echoing back at her like the chiming of a great clock.
She cannot decide whether it is better or worse.
Swallowing again, Rosebay peers into the nothingness, feeling as though the air is pressing into her like the tide. There is a queer sensation of being underwater again, as though gravity has shifted, and she suddenly realizes that which has been obvious from the beginning: the mirror quality of this world.
Taking a deep breath, she plunges forward, the cold air splashing her face.
She emerges on the other side sputtering slightly, soaked and shivering, life flooding in her once more.
Laurelin’s not really paying attention anymore after he’s said his bit - he’s watching the crowd grow and listening to all the other answers. Every time someone says treat he feels great! Like he got the answer right. But, then, every time someone says trick… he worries he got it wrong. And then a bird flies overhead and the young boy cranes his head to watch it.
And then he nearly jumps out of his skin when some of the others standing on the beach disappear. His stance goes wide and he’s suddenly Very Prepared for anything that might happen - but then something appears in front of him. A present? Laurelin is suddenly very Pro Present and thinks that this needs to happen every day.
As he steps towards it, all preparation and caution absolutely leaving his body, he finds that the present has slipped away. He glances around to see if the same is happening to the other Present-getters but he is alone.
Well.
His stubbornness outweighs any fear and he is very determined to find out what his present is so he starts walking. The ground beneath his hooves begins to splash, as though he is wading into shallow water, and the stink of it reminds him of a swamp.
As he walks, the water around Laurelin gets doesn’t get any deeper than his knees but he becomes Aware of the fact that it could be deeper around him. Especially when he thinks he hears something behind him splashing. A subtle sound, not unlike the noise something makes when it slips into the water. So Laurelin starts to go faster. Picks up a splashy trot but now his splashing covers up any noise from anything else that might be with him in this dark world.
He looks back, because he thinks that not-knowing would somehow be worse, and is horrified to see something horse-like emerge from the water. Something gold, blue, and white with a great mouth lined with sharp teeth like the large crocodiles he spied on one day. Something with a fin. Something moving through the water with ease. Laurelin does not know of his father, does not know anything of his kelpie heritage or the dormant traits that lie inside of him. So he does not know that this is a kelpie. All he sees is a monster. And he does what anyone would do when they see a monster - he screams.
And he runs.
His movements are made sloppy by the water but Laurelin is quick to believe that he just needs to move as fast as he can. If he falls, he’ll find out what it feels like to have those teeth pierce his skin and he Does Not Want that very much. There’s a hissing noise behind him and he tries to hurry - all his focus is on the dim form of the present before him. If he can get there, surely everything will be fine.
The hissing noise comes from right behind him and Laurelin can hear the snap that just misses his tail. Another yelp and a burst of speed and he thinks the water is growing more shallow because it is easier to move. And then his hooves strike solid, dry ground and he does not stop until he reaches the present. The excitement for it has dimmed as he turns around to see if the monster is still there - but there's no sign of the swamp. Just the beach he had been on the whole time and if it wasn't for the ragged way he was sucking in the air, Laurelin would wonder if he had made the whole thing up.
A trick he'd asked for, and a trick he'd received. The bold young stallion blinked, and blinked again. The shadowy figure had vanished. Gone, as if he'd never been at all. Mikael stood now on the crest of a hill he knew well, knee deep in whispering grasses and looking out over the seemingly endless landscape of home.
No matter how far he traveled, how wide his range, the wildflowers of the Pampas would always be home. Which begged the question: how had he gotten here? Surely he would have remembered traveling home, remembered climbing this hill. His head shook in baffled wonder. He'd dreamed the spectral figure, surely, except... There was something wrong.
Something off about the way the hills unfolded. The way the landscape faded towards the edges of his sight in a misty haze. It was winter, true enough. The world was always bleak this time of year. He stepped cautiously from the hilltop, and paused again at the bottom. Grass. He was walking through grass that swished and rustled with paperthin whispers, and yet he couldn't feel it brush against his legs. Couldn't feel the breeze that seemed to ripple through the field.
And while he knew that there was little color in the land this time of year, it dawned on him that there was a difference between little, and none at all.
He couldn't help the doubt that crept into his voice when he called out: "Mother? Father? Anyone-" He cut himself off. His voice was too loud, when it was the only sound. It landed like a stone in a pond, disrupting the unnatural stillness in a way that seemed almost disrespectful. What he was disrespecting, well that he didn't know. Still, there was an air of disapproval that made him silence his raised voice.
He walked on, trying to ignore the lack of sensation that motion should have brought. He snatched up an experimental mouthful of dry grass, and spit it out just as quick. It had been nothing but ashes on his tongue.
He walked as far as he could. To the edge of home, to where mist began to fade the edges of his sight, to where darkness began to close in. That was where his heart failed him. It was too unsettling to walk into nothingness, without even the ground beneath his feet to reassure him that he still existed. So he turned back to the grayscale replica of his home, empty of all life.
That thought struck him. Empty of all life. Did that make this death? Was he dead? Memory flashed in his mind's eye, the little 'trick' he had played himself. It had been a skull's face he had shown the phantom, hadn't it? A funeral mask. He'd been tempting fate without realizing it, and here was his reward. He groaned, weariness seeping into his bones. If this was the Afterlife, it was a lonely place to spend the rest of eternity.
Or was it? A shape distorted the landscape in the corned of his sight. A shadow that didn't match the rest. Hulking, bulky, it was nearly but not quite hidden in the rolling hills. It had moved ever so slightly, which was the only reason he'd noticed it. It was not curiosity that drove him toward it now, but desperation.
If he was already dead, it didn't matter if it was friend or foe. What mattered was finding out if he was truly alone.
The closer he got to the vale where the shape resided, the stranger things got. Light seemed drawn toward it like water down a hole. The landscape stretched beneath and around him, leeching away into the impossibly dark shape he'd been running towards. Dread clutched him close. He tried to stop and found much to his horror that he couldn't. Like the light, he too was being siphoned towards the growing dark.
The grey world was draining into the hungry void. He couldn't stop it, didn't know what he could do to even begin. He was out of time. That became abundantly clear when the shapeless dark opened its eyes.
They were the only color left in the world. Brilliant, burning embers in the emptiness, they were the eyes of a being that saw his fear, and drank it in like the finest of wines. The endless nothing swallowed him screaming. Like stars dying in distant galaxies, the eyes blinked once, satisfied. Then there was nothing at all.
