Part Three: Sanctuary
"Home is very
near…" Once again I thought I heard Aisling's whisper.
"Aisling!" I screamed at
her. "Aisling!? Where are you? I've been walking for weeks! I'm tired,
cold, hungry, and very pissed of! Don't start playing games with me! Where are
you? What do you mean by 'home is very near!?'"
"Sanctuary…" Still I could
not see her.
"Dammit Aisling! Where?"
"Near…" was all I heard.
I was sick and tired if this. For
weeks all I had done was walk. I was incredibly tired of walking. Every step I
took led me farther from the sea. I was going uphill and it was getting colder.
And Aisling's tricks on my mind were starting to annoy me. A lot.
I was so cold I could barely walk.
The loose clothing I wore from my village days were not enough. And it was a
strange intense cold that I felt. A cold whose source seemed to be the very
bottom of my heart, deep in my chest and spreading all over my body. It was
that cold kept me alive, but that cold could also kill me.
At dawn I decided to stop to rest.
The intense cold of the night was being replaced by a warm summer's breeze. The
smell of white roses rode the air until it was all around me.
* * * * *
I opened my eyes to find myself in a
grassy field staring at the clouds. The sun was incredibly bright and yet it
did not bother my eyes. All around me were flowers. Particularly bushes of
white roses.
One minute I was laying down looking
at the clouds and the next I was starring at the sea. I seemed to be standing
on a plateau overlooking the ocean. There were dolphins in the distance,
calling me. A sudden shock ran through me as I realized that I had never seen a
dolphin before. Where did I get the name?
A glimpse of a wall mural came into my mind. Then it was gone.
Darkness surrounded me and I could
hear voices in the distance, very far away. I tried to open my eyes but could
not. I could not. I couldn’t scream and I couldn’t swallow. And it drove me
insane that I could only understand fragments of what people where saying. Only
mumbles of words. Suddenly a bright flash filled my eyes.
This time I was standing on a rock.
Below me was a village. There were children playing in a circle, singing some
sweet ballad. A little boy with dark blonde hair and the most intense brown
eyes I had ever seen stopped playing. He turned my way as if he could see me.
And he started walking towards me with very slow steps as if afraid. Yet he
continued walking. An old woman came out of a hut and started to call him back.
I strained to hear his name but could
not. The wind made sure I didn’t and she stole it for herself. At that instance
a man with incredibly dark eyes looked at me, straight trough my soul. A man
who was very young but had aged because of a darkness that overpowered him.
In an expanse of time so rapid that
I didn’t have time to blink, much less inhale; I was thrown into the sea. Or so
I figured. I was surrounded by water that pressed against my sides and made my
head feel like exploding. But it felt strange, I wasn’t wet. The closet I could
come to describe the feeling was like being in an air bubble. I could breathe a
bit of air and it wasn’t wet. There was a strange, cool sensation on my
forehead that almost felt wet.
Like the flowers in the field,
thousands of animals were around me. Species that I never dreamed existed! And
they were thriving in an environment that didn’t seem capable of supporting
them. The most spectacular sight that awaited me was the arrival of two
dolphins. Carefree, they where playing. A sudden feeling of peace overcame me
as soon as I saw them and heard their cries. And then a voice that seemed to
come from the shadows of my mind. Dream… was echoed all around me. The
cool feeling in my forehead was spreading all around my body until it was so
intense I couldn’t breathe from the deathly cold. Then darkness came again.
* * * * *
Opening my eyes I could hear a voice that seemed to
be whispering sweet words of encouragement towards me. Or so I could gather
from the person’s thoughts. The view around me was hazy, I figured I was in a
bed for the material under me was soft, not the hard ground where I had last
fallen asleep. And there seemed to be three women in the room who looked alike,
triplets maybe.
What brought me partially back to
life was a gray presence I felt nearby. The need to find this presence, to be
near it, caused me to sit up in bed wide awake, my eyes searching wildly around
the room.
“Oh, you’re awake,” I heard an
elderly voice speak to me from the side of the bed. Beside me was an old woman
with a motherly face. Not three, just one.
“Well..umm,” she seemed uncomfortable under my
stare. She swallowed hard and tried to smile. We’ve all been wondering when you
were going to wake up. Sleeping for a month is a long time. Not that I minded
taking care of you.”
“Where am I ?” I asked in a harsh,
cold tone that even surprised me. If it bothered her, she didn’t show it for
she answered as nicely as possible.
“In the mountain top village of
Cervat.”
“Mountain top village…” I mumbled to
myself. I became aware that she realized that I was confused as she thought
about what to say.
“Yes,” she responded. “This is the
highest altitude at which we’ve been able to found a large village. There are
smaller ones farther up though. You’re in Xolani Nia’s domain now.”
I looked outside a window to see
bright forest green bushes covered with a sprinkling of powder like snow. So
was the rest of the ground.
“What time of year is it?”
She looked outside, following my view.
“Oh!” she had a warm comforting laugh. “I’m guessing that it’s around fall for
the rest of the planet. But up here it’s usually snowing anyway.”
“Oh, ok.” I said more to myself than
to actually answer her.
“Honey, I was wondering what your
name is?” she inquired.
A strange feeling came over me at
hearing her call me honey. My father used to call me that, when I was
very little. I swallowed the feeling and tried to answer her.
My voice came out in a crack.
“Cassandra.”
“Well good afternoon Cassandra, I’m
Dea.”
“How did I end up here?” I asked
Dea.
She smiled at me once more. “We
found you. Well, I didn’t. Some of the young men who where out hunting found
you. I don’t know any details except that you seemed dead at first until one of
them noticed that you were breathing. Anyway, I suspect that you must be
hungry. I’ll get you something to eat and I’ll send in one of the girls to see
if we can get you something else to wear.”
True to her word, after being
brought a hot soup, a young girl came in, carrying some clothing. She smiled at
me, a rather strange smile that made me nervous.
“Hope you’re all rested. I brought
you these cause what you were wearing won’t keep you warm for long.” She put
them at the foot of the bed. “Take you r pick, I’ll ask one of the seamstresses
to come in later and make you some of your own.”
As she was talking I was straining
to hear what she thought. But my immature mind wouldn’t pick up much. Actually,
I couldn’t pick up anything at all. She gave me on of her strange smiles again,
as she turned and started to head out the door. I wondered what her name was as
she left. Vision… was whispered into my mind and the room was suddenly
very cold.
* * * * *
A dark, bleak presence hung over me.
It was suffocating me. Like dark hands that were tying to strangle me. An
overpowering presence filled my soul. A dark, evil, malicious thing that wanted
to kill me.
Then I was standing in an empty
street. There was more darkness around me. I stood there, alone on that street,
feeling very small and vulnerable. From out of the shadows I heard a growl and
saw the bright twinkling of yellow eyes. I knew I was dreaming, because I
seemed to be living a scene form some old film. The type of film that was no
longer seen, but that adults always knew where to find. The films that our
ancestors had brought with them long ago from the mother planet .
I tired to awaken, repeating to
myself that I was dreaming. But I could feel the darkness around me. I could
smell the stench of rotting meat on the animals breath. But what scared me the
most was that I knew their ravenous, hungry thoughts.
They started moving forward, in the
slowest way possible so that my fear increased by every second that I stood
there, not knowing what they were. My legs were paralyzed in fear as I was
suddenly reminded of something I had lived a long time ago. The dark feeling
was familiar. I realized that the feeling of darkness was the same sense of the
unknown that reined when my sister died. The realization came not a moment to
soon. I barely had time to defend myself as the rabid teeth of a thousand
attackers came on top of me. Just as I felt the slight touch of teeth on my
neck…
GALLERY/STORIES/WEBRINGS/SPIRIT PAGE}
