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Member
Join Date: Nov 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 7
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Microcosm
Microcosm
Chapter One – Is this the place that you called home?
The sky shook, and birds flew south. Samuel opened his eyes, and watched their shadowy wings unfold with haste. He remembered where he was, laying on the belly of a green hill and staring up into cloud shapes. His eyes, he recalled, became heavy, and the cold grass felt good on the back of him. It was odd to him that he would fall asleep in such a place. Samuel could see an air mill, but the blades had not spun for a hundred years.
“Damn,” he thought aloud.
He looked at the clouds as if he didn’t recognize them any longer. His life was much simpler before he awoke. And the clouds, like close friends, helped him to his bed. Samuel lay with them for hours, but now, it seemed, the sky was dark and upset with him. It was time to leave this place.
He called this place home. It was here that he spent most of his life, but remembered none of it. Still, it was nostalgic for him, and he believed that some day he would remember.
Samuel carried his military-issued, Echo-5 rifle over his shoulder as he walked. He poured some canteen water over his head, and his hair became a much more sinister shade of brown, almost black. Strands stuck to his nose and ears, and he noted the increase in humidity with the approaching storm. The water was cool against his feverish skin, much like the grass had been.
Samuel knew that he must have been sleeping for some time. It’s silly, he thought, and he was somehow amused with his irresponsibility. Samuel quickened his pace, knowing that if he did not return before the storm came, people would start looking. If he were found out, he would surely be demoted to Field Rifleman.
“Don’t go wandering off like a child,” Zelda would say to him when he reached Duro’kovok, the checkpoint. “It’s unbecoming of you.”
Samuel was treading north, toward the camp zone, when he felt a single drop of rain on the back of his hand. He stopped and gazed up. Disquieted, he found a vortex – a slow swirl that funneled from the rain clouds. From it was a long wisp of black, like a reaching hand, that touched ground. Indeed, it was a hand, and it was penetrating Duro’kovok. Samuel saw how it stained the air around it with a horrific black ink.
He jolted in its direction. Running too fast, his heavy rifle would pound mercilessly against his unarmored body. He held it by the neck instead and ran faster, with his eyes fixed on the hellish scene.
Upon arrival, Samuel could not tell if they were dead, but the black ink smothered them like flames. Most lay on the ground, being consumed, and some yelled out before it flooded their mouths. The ink flurried off of their bodies and then disintegrated. It left them as null, motionless corpses.
The hand did not destroy anything, rather, it was browsing. It ran its fingers over the ground, and left little black specks on the blades of grass, but soon, the ground was unscathed again. Swiftly, it fell forward and seeped into the tiny verges of tents. Samuel could only hear the vortex flow above him, like molten lava. The hand, he thought, is looking for something.
It was then that Samuel noticed Zelda. She was huddled against a depressurization chamber, which soldiers would use post-arrival to this dimension if they suffered from the bends. The magic was crawling up her at the neck.
“Don’t touch it,” she warned him.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. But I can’t move. Leave us Samuel.”
“I won’t.”
Zelda’s hair was still neat, as she kept it. It was a short, light blonde. Samuel looked at her, and he wanted to tell her so many things. She turned her head away, and Samuel could see the sadness on her face. It was a sadness that Samuel could not understand.
With soft lips, she uttered, “Idiot.”
Samuel stood up and left the pulse rifle where it was, feeling it was useless if this hand had laid waste to so many soldiers. He stepped out from behind the chamber.
“Hey – over here!” Samuel yelled at it, waving his arms to get its attention.
It slinked across the ground, and stopped before him. It was monstrous, and its stillness granted definition to the shape of the hand. It hung lazily by its black wisp, which danced madly in the skies, and into the vortex above. Samuel could think of nothing but to reason with it.
“I’ve heard rumors of you in my home-dimension. It was said that the Storm God enters the Earth through the sky and lends its people its hand. But… they said that you would only grace us when you felt something needed to be set right. What is it that you want to correct?”
It said nothing.
“These people are suffering. It’s your fault if they die. You know that, right?” Samuel spoke loudly.
Samuel waited, but he was not dignified with a response. Still, he did not give up. He somehow felt that his words were being heard.
“Take me instead; I will help you find what it is you are looking for.”
Samuel could see the storming vortex become larger. He decided that it was pulling its self closer to him, or maybe the Earth was doing the pulling. It was as if it came closer for a better look at Samuel. The hand began to move, and it floated toward him. Its fingers ascended like fangs on a spider, and carefully, they examined him. Samuel wasn’t affected by its magic, so he deduced that his words had gotten through. Slowly, they enclosed, and Samuel had time to free his arms from its grasp. Samuel was lifted and the hand was being reeled back into the skies. He and the Storm God had reached an agreement.
Below him, the magic was dispelled, and the bodies that were once diseased with the strange ink were cured of it. He watched as the wisp flew madly above him, and the blackness was being sucked back into the vortex. As it all passed Samuel, it seemed to him as though it was raining in reverse. For a long time, Samuel could only hear flowing, and it sounded much louder than before, almost deafening.
Samuel thought that he could hear Zelda’s cry through the bellowing of the storm. He could no longer tell how fast he was being pulled, but he was pleased to feel the cool mix of weather against his skin. Before long, the long wisp shook and pointed out and away from the currents like a bending elbow, while the fingers around Samuel loosened. The hand's palm was turned up, and hurriedly, Samuel was fed into the swelling vortex.
In the moment that it swallowed him up, the storm vanished and the dark clouds surrendered themselves to the morning’s vibrant colors. It was as if the vortex and its extension had never been.
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