Creus(Full Book)

Part 15

He woke up. On the shore, near the waterfall, which lit up with grey. Around him, everything glowed. A dome of blue, red, and gold. An aura of light, too bright for his eyes, surrounded him. It shone in beams onto the ground, but never touched him, stopped by the cliffs around him. The dome heated everything. His lips cracked and his skin peeled. The water bubbled and turned into mist when it splashed into the air. The smell of metal and rust permeated the air; he wrinkled his nose.

He shivered; then felt his muscle contract; his bones snap and crackle. It rushed through him, like teeth gnawing at his body. A constant aching, radiating through his body, made him itch, it made him weak. Spikes slowly tearing into him. He reached a hand forward, into the light, but shrank back. Into the darkness again. The light had torn into him, burned him, added more pain. He looked at his hand, now red and scarred, and spat on it. He let it dry. He tried again, to clean it, to ice the heat away, but it remained. He opened his bag and he ate some bread, the last of it, only a lump of hard bread. He ate it all and rested. Waiting for the heat to fade away, and the dome to darken.

The night came, and the world around him darkened. He stepped forward, colder, his feet were bare, he was wet. He tried to get some heat into himself. Rubbing his hands together. Every breath formed into a small cloud and faded away.

He almost tripped, and his foot dipped into a pit. He stumbled forward and looked into the pit. Blue, dark and long. It continued past the Abyss, past him. It went into the core of the earth itself. He walked backward, away from the pit, but his legs gave way to nothing. He balanced, and turned around, around him were more pits. All filled with dark blue, radiating light outward onto the ceiling. A shard of light shone like a torch through a sheet of glass. He stepped around it and neared the dome of light.

A faint sound near him. He cupped his ears.

Something scurried away, near him, close, left or right, he didn't know. David crouched down onto the ground. The sound echoed, a silent Tick, tick, tick, like the pitter-patter of claws. Then it faded. He stood up and turned around. No footsteps, no scrabbling, not a sound, silence. The world had bottled it, deafened it. And now, only his heartbeat rang out. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Faster now. He could feel the cold getting to him. It numbed his fingers, toes, and face. Nothing, just a sound that echoed through the caverns, no life, nothing. All alone now, by himself, near the dome, on the rocks.

He existed in a world of nothing. Near tawdry creations, he walked. Inside nothing, shaped by an oblivious world, alone, by himself. He lived on an earthen sphere, watching the fiery sphere, standing underneath the glowing. He lived by himself, without reason, without comfort, without anything.

He could feel no happiness, no sadness, no horror, no fear, nothing. Because he lived alone........ He could go anywhere... Somewhere... back.... Back to his village.... He wished he could... But nothing, nothing for him, nothing with him, nothing in him... Nothing, not anymore.....

He slept, shutting his eyes. Underneath the ceiling, nobody near, nobody with, nobody, nothing, nothing...

He missed them all, Bernard, Osmond, Rickman, Darrell, even Darrell, poor, poor Darrell. All searching for nothing, he wished for something they could all hold, he wished for the Prophet, he wished for Protennesen, he wished for the gods, but they watched, watched as ants scrambled around an ant-hill. An ant-hill nobody could see.

He woke again in the shadow of a boulder. He turned around and saw the dome glow. Glowing above him, heating everything. Red everywhere, the heat... blurred... everything. He squinted. Past the dome, a river, a lake... Full of blue water, no, no, he should avoid the water, around it then, around that. Then above that, a cave...