FATA MORGANA

EPISODE ONE: SOOTHSAYER REVELATION

EPISODE ONE: SOOTHSAYER REVELATION

For the last 3 months, Mckayla had woken up to the same dream. It didn’t scare her. It didn’t even worry her. She just took it as a warning. A dire warning of what was to come and what could happen. Death didn’t scare her. There was much more to worry about. Today was the day everything came together and the most irritating part was that she could do nothing.

She was stuck at work.

Today was the grand opening of DELIGHTFULS: Lunch, Ice Cream, and Homemade Chocolates and it was going to be big. Every year, a new store, or attraction or something would open on the 15th of July ever since Mayor Rhineheart became mayor. It was to help remind people to go forward with their lives because their town was.

In 2004, the small city of Piton Lake, was drowned underneath water after a little asteroid crashed

landed into the lake of the same name as the city. It wasn’t anything as bad as Katrina but it did take 4 weeks to drain the city completely of water and left Piton with 1.5 billion dollars in damage.

That year just happened to be an election year, and the young visionary that barely anyone knew

won the vote.

In the last 4 years he’d been mayor, he had at least kept one promise he made during that first campaign (which is more than many other politicians can say). “I’ll make sure to open something new every year on the July 15th anniversary of the asteroid striking bringing in new jobs and to help show that this town is ever moving forward!” Owen Rhineheart promised.

And he delivered.

Mckayla, hadn’t been in Piton Lake when the asteroid had struck. She moved there 3 years later. People would ask her why. Even though, the mayor was able to raise something new every year, everyone in the state knew it was still a major cesspool. Her answer to their question was always the same, “It’s where I have to be.”

It was cryptic and vague but that’s all anyone would ever get out of her.

It’s all anyone needed to know.

She wasn’t one to give out secrets.

To anyone.

So that’s why, on her way to work, cutting through the back abandoned alley ways of the city she had come to know, Mckayla stopped dead when she heard a gentle hiss of a whisper upon the wind.

“Your name will be written upon a tombstone!”

She turned around slowly and besides an overflowing dumpster she could just make out someone in the shadows.

“Who’s there?” Mckayla asked sharply.

“You’re name has been whispered upon the wind so much but you’ve only ignored it’s gentle touch upon your cheek,” the person whispered.

“What are you talking about? How’d you know about the tombstone?”

There was silence. Utter silence. The only thing Mckayla could here was her heart thundering against the cracking pane of glass of her ribs. A gentle acidy breeze swept between the alley.

“How’d you know about the tombstone?” she asked again.

“To understand is to bleed into the parallel fabric where they are coming from. Do you not want to face the facts of the enduring public that is you in your own bug box? The little needles are all that you want and all that you need?”

Mckayla, rubbed her arm, “Who’s coming!?” she hissed.

"Where they cam from," corrected the voice. “Ah, this is the tide that turns and swallows us whole. In the hole you go! Nothing but a rabbit and I fear the sanity is a price you pay at birth. Don't you ever forget! And every time you arrive back it's a blessing you must count. You’ll only get four. Use them wisely.”

She wanted to leave. But metal chains seemed to weld her to the spot of ground she stood on. Every time the person spoke (she couldn’t figure it out if it was a guy or a girl: the voice seemed to flux with every sentence) an ice cold shiver ran up her spine like a dark current of electricity.

It was the words! Something in the words was holding her fixated. Ran her pallet dry. Made sweat bead on her forehead. Forced her to speak.

“I will. I’ll use them wisely.”

“Good,” the person almost cooed. “The ones that are here just want to be above us all is nothing but below us quakes with fear and eagerness to grab you and drag you down. Don’t fear. It’s just life. Live it whatever way you can. I try. I fail and I try. But they are always grabbing.”

“You have no idea how right I am things are all around us. We are made up of it all. Nothing can say anything but we don't listen to nothing. Ignoring everything. Open your eyes and see. I’m just a poor boy. And we are majoring out the moon. It’s pretty. But owned by corporations already. Seek and destroy. Human nature. Deceivers all!”

None of it made sense! Yet, through the nonsense something was coming through. A warning. Not unlike that of what a cat’s breath against a mouse’s cheek would be like. This person knew about the tombstone. The one in her dreams. Did the voice mean death to her? Or her plans here? A slight tremor twitched between her thumb and fore finger. Her head seemed to spin and she felt like she was going to collapse but she stared at the person of shadows.

In her brain she heard herself screaming in pain but all that escaped her lips in a restful sigh was just an echo of something she had long know about this city, “Deceivers all…”

“OF the last testament of the high I have the parting gift of words to bestow upon you,” came the voice. “Come to me my child.”

A long gangly arm that ended in a gnarled and twisted hand protruded from the shadow,summoning her closer. Her legs moved. But she didn’t will them. Or did she? She couldn't tell anymore.

Mckayla bent down upon her knees. The cold dirt of the ground sent sharp pains into her knee caps. She raised her two hands before her face and joined them as if she was praying.

The shadow moved. Closer to her. The gnarled hand rested upon her shoulder as it leaned in.

“Do you wanna be who you are?” whispered the voice into her ear. Tears slid down her cheeks. Everything was so cold! “But is it really you? Or are you someone that wants to be someone who is someone else? Roots are dug deep. But are they planted by you? You aren’t who you are before the third strike of true form.”

Blackness stole over her eyes and it only seemed a second before she reopened them. She sat up off the dusty ground and realized she must have fallen (or collapsed). She looked at the spot where the shadow had been and she felt a tremble of fear erupt all over her skin as if bugs where crawling inside her.

Nothing was there.

Just a pile of boxes and rotten smelling fish. She shook her head and rubbed her forearm before she got back up.

What had happened? She’d suffered from migraines before and had passed out because of them. This was something entirely different. Everything in her told it was.

It had happened.

But she couldn’t think about that now.

She hurried off to work. Walked the entire way but stuck to the main streets. She arrived at Sweet Sarah’s at exactly 6:42. She stuck the key into the back door unlocked it and slipped in. As she turned and closed the door behind her she saw it.

In the window of the shop across the street there was a slab of granite rock and on it was the words:

MCKAYLA WATSON

SHE HAS NOW FLOWN TO A BETTER WORLD

She just paused for a moment and blinked.

She turned her back to it.

“I guess the future is written,” she muttered.