The Black Eyed Children

Prologue Part 2 - Krant Aloe

Rain lashed against his cheek like sharp claws, the cold searing his skin. He had only been outside for maybe three seconds and his dark brown hair was already sticking to his face, each strand struggling to breathe. The knife-edged wind found every pore of Andrew's skin and tore through it, shredding his very core with a dark coldness as he swept his hair back. Even breathing required effort and concentration so as not to inhale any of the rainfall.

Andrew gazed across the road he had just come from. There wasn't a headlight insight. He reached into his pocket and clicked the lock on his car keys. Normally there would be a ping to go along with the flash of lights to signal the car being locked but he could barely hear anything over the racket even though he was less than a foot away from his car.

There wasn't another vehicle in sight but he instinctively made his way over to the side of the road. Being careful as to where he stepped, Andrew began to slowly walk forward in the general direction of the where he remembered the road sign to be. It couldn't be more than 300 metres down.

As he walked he wondered about what he's going to say to his wife. He should have called her before he got out of the car and given her an update. How could he be so stupid? This will definitely take more than the ten minutes he had promised. There probably wouldn't be any car breakdown service that was operating in this weather and even if there was it would probably take hours before they got to him.

As Andrew approached the road sign a feeling of dejection came over him as he realised he might miss his daughter's birth. Helping this young girl out in the rain wouldn't make him feel better but at least he would be able to reunite her with her family.

Andrew stopped, looking around the road sign. She wasn't there. Andrew scanned the road to make sure she hadn't wandered off. Nothing. Had he imagined her? It couldn't be... he was sure he had seen her looking straight at him as he drove past. Andrew squinted his eyes, placed his hand above his brow line to block the rain and focused on the area around him. There was nothing as far as he could see in front of him. Behind him was the same. Next to him, plants and vegetation lined the hard shoulder going all the way up, thickly covering the hillside.

Andrew stopped. A young girl sat in the middle of the grass, her face and features hidden under long and straight black hair. What was she doing all the way up there? He thought.

"Hey!" Andrew shouted as he approached the girl. She looked around 8 or 9 but he couldn't be sure from this distance.

"HEEEY!" Andrew's attempts were in vain as the wind blew his words away. Andrew looked down at the foliage at his feet, momentarily contemplating turning around and going back to his car. He sighed, he knew he couldn't leave her. Andrew brushed his hair back and took a step forward.

Where he thought the plants would part, they vined around his legs as if holding him back. His feet submerged slightly into the mud below pulling the boots off his feet. Every step required immense focus and concentration; one bad placement could mean a broken ankle or worse - him sinking and getting stuck.

He trudged on, parting the long greenery with his hands. Greenery would normally be a normal description but he noticed that the plants were growing strangely, not just sticking around him but there were flowers he had never seen before. Long leaves of bright blue twisted and turned underneath him; light grey and shiny purple petals crowned white stems themselves forming larger flowers of many strange shapes, patterns and forms. Andrew plucked one of the flowers out. A prismatic tone of colours sharply formed the leaves of the Krantz Aloe. What Andrew found stranger than the hues was the fact that he had never this particular species in England before - he was sure it was only present in South Africa.

Andrew put the flower in his jacket pocket. He would take it to the lab and ask Dr. Vasiliev to run some tests on it.

Andrew looked up to see where he was going but the girl wasn't there. She was right here, where could she have gone! Maybe he had imagined it after all. Must have been an animal. A fox or somethi-