DUSKLIGHT ODYSSEY

Chapter 11

Terror turned to panic as Ion jumped back. His feet landed on the edge of the raised platform, causing him to fall backward to the floor. His metal cross beside him, Ion quickly used it to push himself off the ground. He held the cross as a spear, primed in a half-crazed defensive stance.

Beads of sweat turned Ion's dust-covered face to mud. The statue's piercing eyes continued to follow him from whatever angle he viewed them, but they were lifeless stone, and nothing more. Even so, Ion refused to shift his gaze from off the man on the cross' eyes.

It blinked! I saw it blink!

"Ion...?!" Naim's soft voice was tinged with shaky concern, as if she didn't know whether she should be panicked as well.

Ion looked over at the girl, for just a moment. In that moment he saw Naim stood fully alert, clutching Vio in fear.

"I..." Ion had no words. "You saw it too, right?" Ion was hunched like an animal.

No signs of understanding crossed Naim's face. Her brow only furrowed into further confusion.

Ion's eyes darted back to the statue. No movement. No life. No blinking. He let out a ragged sigh as he slowly straightened his posture. He wiped the sweat from off his brow, smearing the wet dirt across his face. Ion's eyes were heavy. "The statue... it... it blinked."

Naim's concern did not fade from her stance or her voice. "Ion, you look exhausted."

She was right. Ion's limbs were as weak as his mind was fogged. The world itself was as a dream, and Ion longed to rest. He looked at the windows of stained glass. Judging from the light, the sun was high in the sky.

"I'm tired... how about you?" Naim's voice, though still carrying with it the uncertainty of bewilderment, was comforting to Ion. "It's time to sleep."

Sleep. The word was a curse. Ion sighed again, and sat on the pew. "I wish I could," he said.

"What do you mean? You've had trouble sleeping?" Naim sat beside him.

Ion forced a chuckle. "Sleep is yet another word I hardly know the meaning of." He turned to face her. Naim's wide, brown eyes stared back intently. "What's it like? To sleep?"

Naim's eyes fluttered, taken aback. "You can't... you're saying you've never slept?!"

Ion nodded his head with aching lethargy. "Not since... my mother..."

Naim leaned in closer. "What about your mother?"

"Not since she died."

Naim sat back and looked down at the giant egg in her lap. "Oh."

There was silence for a time between the two. Ion rubbed his burning eyes. It felt good to close them, weary as he was, but when he felt as if a gentle rest would overtake him, his psyche slipped back to a state of 'almost, but not quite,' as if sleep was left dangling, mere inches away, but snatched up at Ion's attempt to claim it. It was torture. Ion opened his eyes again to look at the man on the cross. His eyes were forever open, too. How he must have longed to be taken from the cross and laid to rest. Yet, carved of stone, it was on that cross he'd ever stay. Ion almost shed a tear for the man, but he shook his head and looked away at some dark corner.

Naim spoke up. "Could you tell me about her...? Your mother." Her voice was gentle, as if coaxing some small animal from its cage.

Ion didn't want to. He didn't like to think about her. His memories were tarnished and torn by the image of her final moments. "All that comes to mind is how she died... taken by those things."