Wicce (2nd Edition)

52

HER first reaction was: Am I dreaming? Charlotte couldn't quite make out where she was. She looked down and could barely make out her own body. It was not dark, just foggy. She was enveloped in fog. The faint white mist twirled around her as she moved. Her memory was intact. She was fully aware of how she got here and most importantly why. She started moving quicker then but it was as if the fog had substance and it held her back. Then she saw the shadows around her, not shadows she found out as she peered closer, but silhouettes. She gasped. They were people. She was surrounded by a crowd.

Charlotte called out. There was chance her mother might be in the crowd. But her call was muffled. She called louder and louder, screaming on top of her lungs and waving wildly in front of her to fan the fog away so she could make out the faces. She started to panic. One of these silhouettes must be her mom. She must be here somewhere. She must.

Then suddenly she felt someone grabbed her elbow from behind. She whipped around.

"Charlotte?" came the sweet, familiar voice. The voice she almost forgot. The voice she would have given anything to hear again.

Charlotte stood frozen. She finally got what she wanted and she did not know how to respond. Perhaps she should scream with joy and jump up and down like a little kid but she did not. Instead, she felt relieved and somewhere inside her chest the hole started closing up.

"Mom!" She shrieked, bursting into tears. "Mom! Oh my god! Mom!" She peered closer and although it was still blurry, she could make out the familiar face. It was looking at her wearing the same worried expression Charlotte remembered so well but it was very pale. It was as if this world had no colour, just black and white, and her mother looked like a face out of a black and white movie. It did not matter. She did it. She found her. Charlotte threw herself at her mother but no matter how hard she squeezed, she could barely feel her mother around her arms.

"Charlotte? Why are you here?" Her mother pushed her away; there was sheer panic in her eyes. "What happened? Are you dead?"

"No, mom." She grinned then her smiled froze as she thought deeper about it, "Actually, I don't..."

"Wait." Mrs. Branson looked at her up and down, puzzled. "No. You're not dead. How...What..."

"Mom. I can explain. I have so much to tell..."

A blaring, dull sound that sounded like the blow of a horn blasted in their ears, causing them to ring. Charlotte looked around and could see the fog twirling rapidly around her. The silhouettes were scattering. She squinted. No, they were not scattering. They were fleeing. In terror.

"Oh, no! Come!" Mrs. Branson grabbed her arm. "We have to run! Stay close!"

"Wh...what's going on?" But she no longer needed explanations. She threw a glance behind her. The sound came from an enormous creature. She could see it because its eyes were the only things glowing in the distance. It looked like nothing she had ever seen before. It resembled an gigantic blob of liquid tar the size of a trailer, except there were tentacles protruding from its body as it moved. At times numerous horned heads would form on top of it, shrink back and reform into tentacles. Openings like gaping mouths in its horned heads would open and whenever they did everything would rumbled as it roared. She could see black sharp fangs inside the orifices glistening in the dim light. There was something else coming out of the mouths other than the deafening bellow. Then she realized. They weren't surrounded by fog. They were surrounded by smoke. Smoke spat out by the creature.

With her arm in her mother's iron grasp, they ran to what Charlotte surprisingly found to be a community of tiny straw huts. They ran past a dozen of them. They all seemed identical. Charlotte squinted through the smoke but could not find any windows in the huts. Suddenly, they stopped in front of one. Mrs. Branson pushed her head down and stooping, she got inside.