The Desert Incident

Chapter 3 - A God Walks on Earth

He chuckled lightly, and the sound sent new shivers of fear and terror up and down my spine.

My muscles locked into place, my jaw becoming so taut a migraine was beginning to form. The chuckle was so eerie, as if voiced from a thousand different voices, the depth of the sound ringing in my ears; and that had been barely louder than a whisper.

I shuddered at the thought of what it would be like to hear him speak.

.:You did your best, didn't you?:.

And there it was.

His voice was ten times as frightening as his chuckle had been, the sound coming both from outside and from within my soul. I could not only hear his human voice mixed in, the one I had come to know these past couple of days.

I could also hear thousands more simultaneously.

I could hear sighs, and purrs, and grumbles, the very same voices echoing from the rocks earlier, now seemingly concentrated in the direction I guessed he was standing in. Gone was the earlier dissonance from the voices; they now seemed to speak in unison even though some of the sounds were decidedly not articulate.

The wind was still blowing albeit significantly slower, and I felt as if I was somehow trapped by it; unable to escape it. 

Unable to escape him.

I didn't dare open my eyes, resolutely heeding his instructions from earlier. However, this enhanced the feeling of terror and dread because my mind was going into overdrive trying to imagine what he could possibly look like based off of the sound of his voices.

He had said to keep my eyes shut until I heard his human voice; until I only heard his human voice.

But what happened if I didn't make it in time for him to switch back?

What if he didn't want to switch back?

What, exactly, was my plan B?

.:You let the camels go:. He purred in disappointment or amusement, I couldn't quite tell which.

I stopped trying to figure out his emotions, however, as I heard him start walking towards me.

His steps sounded heavy and sure, the now imperceptible pounding of the earth mimicking his footfalls. But apart from that steady sound, I could hear nothing else which could potentially alert me to his form.

Did he still have legs?

Or was that the clinking of hooves I heard sounding over the rocky terrain?

Was that a whooshing of a tail, or simply the wind blowing through the craggy hollows of the mountain pass?

I simply could not make out if what I was hearing was there or not. My ears were picking up on information which my brain could not process.

"I did," I responded, my voice small, cautious. I was unsure if he was angry with me for losing our rides, though considering our current predicament that thought felt ludicrous.

Why would he care?

I kept my still bleeding hands to my sides as I clenched my fists preparing for whatever was to come.

Something gnawed at the back of my brain; something urgent, demanding attention. But he was steadily advancing, and I couldn't think about anything else as he came to stand before me. The wind was still blowing lightly, and I could hear the rustling of clothes, both his and mine.