Mirror Images

Chapter 4: Vivid Vicinity

I ran fast and hard. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. My mind lived in its own world, where it went through thought after thought. I reviewed and filed information in my head for later use and when I was done, I did it again.

Then, I nearly fell over a bush. I had managed to make it through the woods unscratched. I wouldn't even necessarily call them woods, more like a gathering of trees that stretched from the back of our house to the fields that reached beyond.

I stood up cautiously on my legs and brushed myself off. This was the first time I had stopped running since leaving the house. It had to be a good half a mile. A field lay in front of me that I had seen many times before because my mother used to take me out here. She said it was one of the only places in the Province that was still rural. Most of it had been turned into buildings for the Influence, who lived in Purpura, the capitol city that was in the center of the Province. All the land and people in between lived in what was referred to as the Milieu.

I've never seen the city because we lived at the edge of the Province, but my grandpa has described the inside of it to me. He used to live there, in the townhouses, when he was a part of the Influence. From what information I can gather, it must be a beautiful yet terrible city to live in. Grandpa said that the architecture was beautiful, but it was hard to focus on the buildings when the city was so polluted.

The barren fields sat motionlessly waiting for me to move. I had stopped at the edge to take a cautious look around. Most of the time it was empty, though I had seen some strangers wondering around here a few weeks ago. Most likely they were just visiting, but it was possible they could still be here.

It was quite easy to look around the landscape considering it was stretched out so far that I could see a good half-mile in front of me. So, I began to walk across the dry dirt with my bag still slung over my shoulder. The whole Province hadn't seen rain in over two weeks, so all the wild plants that usually grew here had died. I could remember when my mom would take long walks through the forest to this field. At the time though, when I was about four years old, I hadn't known where she was going or why. When I turned five she gave me an answer by bringing me along on her next walk. When we arrived at the fields, it felt like I had taken a step into a different universe. Bright colors burst forth from the blooms of wild flowers and the air smelled so clean and crisp, which was the contrary to our dull town. It was nice to see that the world was bigger than what I knew. She used to take me at least once a week, but the number of walks had slowly decreased as father became more involved with the Influence until she was working full time by helping him.

By the time I was ten or so, I knew the woods well and was able to come here often. Mother has probably completely forgotten about this little haven that used to be so beautiful. So ever since then it's been a place of escape for me.

"I've missed you.", I said speaking to the wind.

It seemed to respond by gently blowing up against my cheeks. My long hair and dry dirt blew behind me as I made my way through what used to be a row of crops planted out here long ago.

All of a sudden the silence was broken by a faint hissing noise. I looked above at the trees thinking it was just leaves rustling, but the wind had stopped. Nothing seemed to move and a erie feeling crept over me. The hissing got louder and closer by the second and by the time a realized what it was it was too late.

A snake greener than the trees with glowing emerald eyes slithered right next to my left foot. In a split second he struck, lungeing out and sinking his long fangs into my skin right below my ankle. At first, I felt no pain, probably because I was in shock, but then it hit me. I fell to the ground landing with a hard thud and the snake calmly slithered off as if nothing had ever happened.

I could feel a violent stinging as the venom entered my bloodstream and began rushing through my veins, but there was nothing I could do. Panic took over my mind while I laid helplessly on the ground shivering. What could I do? There had to be a way to stop this, but these thoughts all came too late.

My eyes flickered shut and my pulse slowed down. Then slowly, I drowned in a pool of purple.