The Suggestion Box (Volume 1)

List #12 (Paranormal)

The List:

Name: Ashuria

Place: Citadel of Natalys

Time: a century

Object: Fountain of youth

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Stamp-stamp... Stamp, stamp...

Wait for the noise to die down.

Silence.

Count for a buffer.

Five...four...three...two...one....

Zero.

Ashuria tied her cloak firmly under her chin and pulled the hood over her head to hide the violet hair that betrayed her rank. She had twenty seconds to reach the main chamber of the citadel before the next rotation of the guards. She checked the bed to make sure the curtains were drawn. Over the last week she had taken great pains to ensure that drawn curtains meant "do not disturb on pain of punishment." So long as no one opened the curtain and threw back the coverlet to expose the pillows underneath, no one would miss her. And it was vital that no one know of her absence until she had completed the mission.

Ashuria rounded the corner and heard the stamp-stamp of armor-plated boots heading up the corridor. Desperately, she yanked the grey hood low and pressed herself against the wall in an alcove. She held her breath as they passed by in the main hallway.

At last, the sound faded, and Ashuria gave herself another five-second count before continuing.

At last, she made it to the staircase away from the castle. Here, she did not have to hide her face—but she still wore her hood, at least until she reached the market square, halfway to her destination:

The Fountain of Youth.

Ashuria shuddered at the thought.

She made it past the wandering townsfolk and royal courtiers, and with a sigh she removed her hood. She stood now in the wide courtyard that used to he filled with bustle of people selling fresh foods and fruits and wares of all sorts. Now it was empty, and quiet.

"Ashuria!" A young man hailed her, coming from the far side.

Ashuria looked up and squinted. "Mr. Konner?" she gasped. When she'd seen him last week, the grey hairs were beginning to give way to white. Now he looked as fresh as if he had shed twenty years in only a few days, or even fifty in only a week's time.

Damyen Konner grinned and ran a hand through his dark, shiny hair. "I've been at the Well; what do you think?" He stood at the best vantage for Ashuria to survey his revitalized physique. The wrinkles were gone, the skin full and smooth. One wouldn't even tell that this youth had been well past seventy when he first arrived in Natalys—when they discovered the Fountain, converted to a Well over the course of the last century.

Ashuria fought to stay civil. "I—I hardly recognized you," she faltered.

Konner grinned, showing perfect white teeth. "You stay the same, though; in fact," he reached up and stroked her cheek. Ashuria flinched at his touch.

"You look a bit older," he murmured softly.

The water from the Fountain gave his eyes a strange glow. Ashuria backed away.

"I have to go," she muttered, and slipped away.

That cursed fountain! Ashuria did not stop moving until she was out of sight from Konner, but by now she was moving through the township of Natalys. All around her milled people of the same unnatural bloom of youth. Ashuria even caught her own reflection and gasped. She did not appear to be a day over sixteen—yet like the others she had been living in Natalys for one hundred years.