Original Fiction: News from the Sea pt 2
May. 20th, 2012 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI have to keep reminding myself that this is writing practice, otherwise I find myself overwhelmed by how many other better fantasy stories are out there. Still, I'm enjoying writing it, even if I'm really not sure where its going.
Contains: briefly described gore.
Summary: I slept fitfully in the shadows of ancient ruins and dreamed. 1000 words.
Part One
I slept fitfully in the shadows of ancient ruins and dreamed.
Ghosts surrounded me, their skin pale as moonlight and their eyes the colour of leaves and sky. I was in a tower, impossibly high, looking out onto a city so ancient that even the oldest storytellers have forgotten it's name. I could just barely recognise the same shapes and designs that I had been walking through in my waking hours, except they were now new and whole instead of crumbling and covered in dust. It was beautiful, sparkling white buildings filled with light and life, more people than I could count wandering through wide clean streets edged with trees and flowers. The air was filled with the songs of birds, and I could barely breathe for the wonder of it all. But on every face of the ghosts that surrounded me I saw not wonder but fear.
I knew I was dreaming, but this knowledge did me no good, for I could no more control the thread of the dream than I could that of a book or poem. The people around took no notice of my presence, and spoke to each other in a tongue I could not understand. The birds did not speak at all, they only sang, and although their songs were beautiful I could sense no meaning in them. But I could follow the purpose of people's actions well enough to feel a sense of urgency, a growing panic about some fast approaching deadline. Those in the tower with me were no exception, they talked amongst each other urgently and walked to and fro, carrying large boxes or writing on wax tablets. One alone did not seem to be in any hurry. A woman sat quietly in a little garden bed, her feet bare and her fingers digging themselves into the dirt. She did not appear afraid, if anything her expression was exultant, but there was something in her eyes that gave me pause. Like the others she was pale and sickly looking, like an albino, her neatly cut beige hair hanging straight to her shoulders and gleaming yellow in the sunlight. She wore a simple shift of roughly woven fabric, the deep blue colour muddied by green and brown from the plants and dirt around her. It seemed that sitting in garden beds was no more normal for this city than any of the more modern ones I have visited, for every now and then one of the passers by would stop to stare at her in confusion before going on with their business. Some even tried to engage her in conversation but she paid none of them any mind.
Something told me that the woman was important, and I watched her closely. After sitting comfortably for a while, her eyes listlessly wandering around the wide well-lit room at the top of the tower, she suddenly stiffened and closed her eyes, her fingers grasping into the dirt like they were holding on for balance. Her face scrunched up as if in in pain, and her fingers pushed further into the ground, her arms straight. And then, from the ground below us, the screams began.
The people in the tower all rushed to the edges of the room, staring out through the many arched windows onto the city below. I longed to join them, to get a better view, but I was forced to remain where I stood, in the centre of the room. Looking into the distance I could see people running through the streets, all of them seeming to want to escape from something near where the tower stood. The people at the windows were crying out now, pointing and shouting and clutching at each other. And then, finally I could see what they were pointing at: the ground itself.
It seemed to be coming alive. The streets of the city were paved with a pale pink stone, perfectly formed squares all neatly cobbled together. These streets were bucking and twisting now, like drying mud, the dark dirt below rising up between the cracks. And then from the dirt came even darker shapes, like ribbons of pure night curling up to strike at the air and anyone close enough to be caught by them. And many were so caught, the seething shapes in the dirt were moving faster than any human can run. Each time a person was caught the darkness would twist around them impossibly tight, weals of red and white forming before they were swallowed up entirely by the dark.
It was horrifying, even just to see in a dream. I can only imagine what it was like for the people in the tower, seeing it in truth.
And still the woman sat in her garden and did not move. She was smiling now, a little, though the muscles in her arms twitched as they extended further down into the dirt. I realised that she was being drawn down into the garden bed, the ground shifting around her to make room, the little flowers and bushes twisting upwards like the stones below. Looking more closely I could see little tendrils of darkness licking around her wrists and feet, but she did not seem to mind them. I opened my mouth to yell a warning to the other inhabitants of the room but no sound came out. The woman continued to sink, her eyes still closed, and then just as her feet vanished from view she opened her eyes. They were a deep blue, like her shift, the pupils wide and black. It felt like she was staring right at me. I thought about trying to speak to her instead, to ask what was going on, but then she closed her eyes again and suddenly everything went white.
I blinked and opened my eyes and I was truly awake, alone and wrapped in blankets against the harsh chill of the desert night. I stared up into the infinite blackness of the sky a long time before I was able to fall back asleep.
Contains: briefly described gore.
Summary: I slept fitfully in the shadows of ancient ruins and dreamed. 1000 words.
Part One
I slept fitfully in the shadows of ancient ruins and dreamed.
Ghosts surrounded me, their skin pale as moonlight and their eyes the colour of leaves and sky. I was in a tower, impossibly high, looking out onto a city so ancient that even the oldest storytellers have forgotten it's name. I could just barely recognise the same shapes and designs that I had been walking through in my waking hours, except they were now new and whole instead of crumbling and covered in dust. It was beautiful, sparkling white buildings filled with light and life, more people than I could count wandering through wide clean streets edged with trees and flowers. The air was filled with the songs of birds, and I could barely breathe for the wonder of it all. But on every face of the ghosts that surrounded me I saw not wonder but fear.
I knew I was dreaming, but this knowledge did me no good, for I could no more control the thread of the dream than I could that of a book or poem. The people around took no notice of my presence, and spoke to each other in a tongue I could not understand. The birds did not speak at all, they only sang, and although their songs were beautiful I could sense no meaning in them. But I could follow the purpose of people's actions well enough to feel a sense of urgency, a growing panic about some fast approaching deadline. Those in the tower with me were no exception, they talked amongst each other urgently and walked to and fro, carrying large boxes or writing on wax tablets. One alone did not seem to be in any hurry. A woman sat quietly in a little garden bed, her feet bare and her fingers digging themselves into the dirt. She did not appear afraid, if anything her expression was exultant, but there was something in her eyes that gave me pause. Like the others she was pale and sickly looking, like an albino, her neatly cut beige hair hanging straight to her shoulders and gleaming yellow in the sunlight. She wore a simple shift of roughly woven fabric, the deep blue colour muddied by green and brown from the plants and dirt around her. It seemed that sitting in garden beds was no more normal for this city than any of the more modern ones I have visited, for every now and then one of the passers by would stop to stare at her in confusion before going on with their business. Some even tried to engage her in conversation but she paid none of them any mind.
Something told me that the woman was important, and I watched her closely. After sitting comfortably for a while, her eyes listlessly wandering around the wide well-lit room at the top of the tower, she suddenly stiffened and closed her eyes, her fingers grasping into the dirt like they were holding on for balance. Her face scrunched up as if in in pain, and her fingers pushed further into the ground, her arms straight. And then, from the ground below us, the screams began.
The people in the tower all rushed to the edges of the room, staring out through the many arched windows onto the city below. I longed to join them, to get a better view, but I was forced to remain where I stood, in the centre of the room. Looking into the distance I could see people running through the streets, all of them seeming to want to escape from something near where the tower stood. The people at the windows were crying out now, pointing and shouting and clutching at each other. And then, finally I could see what they were pointing at: the ground itself.
It seemed to be coming alive. The streets of the city were paved with a pale pink stone, perfectly formed squares all neatly cobbled together. These streets were bucking and twisting now, like drying mud, the dark dirt below rising up between the cracks. And then from the dirt came even darker shapes, like ribbons of pure night curling up to strike at the air and anyone close enough to be caught by them. And many were so caught, the seething shapes in the dirt were moving faster than any human can run. Each time a person was caught the darkness would twist around them impossibly tight, weals of red and white forming before they were swallowed up entirely by the dark.
It was horrifying, even just to see in a dream. I can only imagine what it was like for the people in the tower, seeing it in truth.
And still the woman sat in her garden and did not move. She was smiling now, a little, though the muscles in her arms twitched as they extended further down into the dirt. I realised that she was being drawn down into the garden bed, the ground shifting around her to make room, the little flowers and bushes twisting upwards like the stones below. Looking more closely I could see little tendrils of darkness licking around her wrists and feet, but she did not seem to mind them. I opened my mouth to yell a warning to the other inhabitants of the room but no sound came out. The woman continued to sink, her eyes still closed, and then just as her feet vanished from view she opened her eyes. They were a deep blue, like her shift, the pupils wide and black. It felt like she was staring right at me. I thought about trying to speak to her instead, to ask what was going on, but then she closed her eyes again and suddenly everything went white.
I blinked and opened my eyes and I was truly awake, alone and wrapped in blankets against the harsh chill of the desert night. I stared up into the infinite blackness of the sky a long time before I was able to fall back asleep.
