The Man in Black was in bright sunlight.
On a straight dirt path leading towards a tunnel, he walked, and Ally followed.
A forest was to her left, and on her right, rays of light shone down on mountain slopes littered with pine trees.
Crisp autumn air brought forth images of jack-o-lanterns and the scent of cinnamon. She walked for the tunnel, the mouth of it visible, open wide like a serpent lying meditatively in wait for its unsuspecting prey to wander too close.
Soon he was gone, moving into the tunnel as a puff of smoke. It started to rain, and the forest became dark and scary like the night, but still, Ally pursued.
She was carrying something heavy - a backpack that she only became cognizant of when she felt the first ache still a mile from the tunnel. She persevered, attempting to get used to the hurt, and by the time she entered the underpass, the ache was a buried, distant memory.
It was dim, dark, and cold inside, but she was calm, and her mind was blank.
Mist and raindrops fell from a ventilation shaft overhead. As did golden light. The light illuminated rusted and bent railroad tracks that no train had dared to traverse in many years.
She gazed up again, squinting in the sunlight that made transported her to a playground where she skipped with Amber and sang a song that she could no longer discern the lyrics of. A joyful, calm mindfulness filled her being.
Once out of the light, she was no longer in memory, until the next golden fountain where she returned to the sands of her youth. Her father was trying to teach her to surf, even though he wasn't very good at it himself. She laughed, and her laughter made him glow.
She attempted to linger but drifted along against her will. Her throat tightened when the beach was gone. When the smell of the sea was replaced by the rain.
The backpack lightened after passing under another cascade of light, and while she was initially distraught with a deep sense of loss, as she kept moving, the aches lessened, and her legs regained some vigor.
A pinprick of light soon enveloped her, and then she was barefoot in a lone patch of grass, on the side of a mountain canvassed in white. Blue horizons lay before her, and her shoulders heaved until the backpack slipped off of her.
The wind was harsh, crashing into the surrounding peaks, and into her. She shivered, but only briefly, as soon the rain capitulated, and salubrious sunshine caressed her pale skin.
She began her descent down the slopes, soon coming to a chaparral where the embers of a campfire danced towards the sky, unaffected by the gales tossing rocks and dust about all around her.
At the fire stood a hermit in nothing but a loincloth about his waist. Thin strands of white hair fell down his back, which was turned to her, and covered in patchy, burned flesh.
He turned to her slowly as if drawn to the sound of her breath.
Her heart thumped in her ears, and her lips parted to scream, though the noise was swallowed by the wind.
The man looked at her, he was indifferent.
The man had no eyes.
YOU ARE READING
Amberian (Gods of California I)
Teen FictionAlly Shepard is having the worst year of her life. Her dad's Gone, and her best friend, Amber, has moved to some town nobody's ever heard of. Mom's always working, and she holds a lot inside. There's Ethan, he's nice, but he's not Amber. She's depr...
