Copyright
© 2012 by Stephen Grisham
ISBN 9781456612481
All rights reserved. The reproduction or utilization of this work in whole in part, in any form by any print, electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of any copyrighted materials in any form. To do so is a violation of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Prologue
I imagine myself standing in the field dreaming of a song in the meadows. I imagine myself humming a song my grandmother used to hum to me so that I would sleep.
“Oh my god is he ok? Someone get a paramedic!”
At this field I would ask myself why nature seemed so serene and pleasant, welcoming and beautiful when the world was such a mess. Such a broken tear streaked, strife filled mess?
“Hurry get him onto the stretcher! Time is running out!”
Ethereal being that seemingly exists, why did you show me this field, this beautiful field that lay before me.
“Stay with me! Stay with me! Don’t die!”
When all I want to do is burn it down?
1.
Tonight was a night where all the townspeople would emerge from their homes, in their hands a relic of importance cradled to their bosoms. A few would shed early tears and others would be stone faced, walking towards the center of the late night cobblestone ridden streets.
Young ones would shiver and old folk would tremble, breaths released into a cold circle. Sometimes, I fancied a portion of their souls escaping the confines of their earthly binds.
Holding onto my relic and glancing down mournfully at the urn that contained my brother’s ashes I myself would shed a few tears letting them fall upon the clay lid and watching my tears soak into dull copper colored container.
“Oh brother I do not want to part with you. You are too precious to me, but it is unfortunate, that you perished prior to your burial, near the Festival of Gaia.” I said feeling my lips curve into a shallow smile.
Soon my feet joined the townsfolk in a solemn march towards the center of town mirroring the many who would whisper their final parting words to their relics of endearment.
“Oh brother, brother, why did you leave me so?” Maybe it was my imagination, or the borderline of madness due to the loss of my own kin that enabled me to hear his voice from the urn, haunting and distant. “Traitor. Traitor.”
Simply smiling while my feet marched I lovingly whispered back. “It was not I who broke our promise brother.”
Alas, the voice of my deceased kin would not listen and continued in its chant.
“Traitor. Traitor.” The rest of the trip was left in silence with only the sounds of my own feet and the breaths of the many that surrounded me.
Filthy.
My eyes would glance back and forth at my fellow townsfolk, flickering moments of disgust passing by in my mind.
Filthy Earthly Beings.
Soon we were at the center, and it began, an item tossed into the flames and the flames engulfing the artifact, one by one as each threw their object in, threw it into oblivion.
Then my turn and I would look at the urn that contained my brother’s ashes, the whispers returning. “Traitor, Traitor.” Stopping and watching the orange-red and yellow glows from the growing fire reflect itself off of the clay container.
“Brother, my brother I love you,” I started the townsfolk uncomfortable and some urging me to hurry. “But between the two of us, I’m not the traitorous wretch that you’re accusing me of.”
A whistle in the air, high-pitched and deafening, it was only for a split second, turning my head to the source and the world was soon engulfed in fire.
“Traitor.” The sound I would hear, reverberating in my mind echoing as my eyes closed, feeling the heat slowly bubble under my skin. All I could hear is screaming. My own screaming.
“The world is on fire Mark! The world is on fire!” His voice full of glee and awe came forth from the darkness. “Don’t you see how beautiful it is? The flames they’re embracing me Mark! Come! Come hurry time is running out!”
Turning left then right, finding no sound would emerge from my throat, refusing to let me speak, panicking, trying to feel around in the darkness. Running, feeling vertigo, dizzy then falling onto the ground and scraping my knees a hand outstretched mouth open, everything felt confined, it felt suffocating.
“Brother don’t go! stay away from the flames!” Suddenly, the feeling of energy being forced into my chest, the feeling of my heart forcefully jumpstarting, the feeling of something inside me bursting open and shoving life into me invaded my senses.
The darkness receded and the full moon came into view illuminating the hues of blue and violet that surrounded it before it started to fade the darkness attempting to reclaim what it once had.
“Clear!” An unfamiliar voice shouted.
Another push, a burst of energy, webbing and weaving in and out of my body centered towards my chest, accompanied with pain, pain everywhere. Mouth open taking in a deep staggering breath dispersing the remnants of that suffocating feeling from earlier.
“She’s breathing!” A second piped up and the moon was back into my vision, the energy gone but the pain remaining. Gently, a hand placed itself upon my back, cold fingers against my burning skin, lightly pressing my singed back so that I was sitting up.
“Hey, hey, she’s alive, thank god!” China silk was the first thing that entered my mind when I looked at the entity who had kindly assisted me, her green eyes filled with concern and relief moving back and forth from me to what I assume was her companion.
“Good. Good, we can use her now. Get the stretcher! We got a live one!” Pressed to my lips, circular and moist, the mouth of a bottle is pressed to my mouth and water enters my mouth. I feel relief for a moment from the pain before it flares once again and greedily I drink more,
