GODS AT THE CENTRE ( EDITING)

CHAPTER XXVII,ARIS: The Beginning That Never Was

By now the dream was so familiar that he could tell its scent. Do dreams normally have scents? He wasn't sure.
He could tell its darkness from other blurring dreams. The deep darkness that promised to swallow all hope of light. The same chill that climbed his back, fear boring into him, reminding him that he had been here before. This place! The darkness recognised him. It had been waiting.

A disembodied growl hung in the air.  That was new. It was always a screech or a hiss. He rose to his feet and steadied himself for the monster that would emerge: the blood fires and contorted shadows.

He waited and waited.

Nothing came, nothing!

A crack ran across darkness like the face of glass. Then it shattered into dust.    He was now in a garden. Strange flowers towered above him, he could only touch their green stems. Green, white, blue petals and all lovely rose to the skies.
Birds of colours so bright chirped in between flowers.

There was a rustling behind him. He wasn't alone. Dreadfully, he turned around.

"Tell me your name?" But the question wasn't for him. There is a clearing behind him, a young man with a hard face, was talking  to a woman whom he was helping to her feet. The woman! Aris had never seen any like her. She was beautiful, too beautiful for any mortal woman. Her eyes were like burnished glass that held stars. Flowers blossomed in her dress. Her skin shone like polished copper, smooth as a pebble at the bottom of the lake. Her voice when she spoke was softer than his feather pillow. It was the sound of a gentle trickle. She said: "I'm Aria, daughter of the Earth."

Aris knew where he was! He knew who they were! The stories! The stories!

A roar filled the air. A voice mocking: Unbidden, I have come! "
It grew into a whirlwind dragging him, swallowing his screams up into an abyss. The flowers and Arin and Aria disappeared.

Above the being of light glared down on him, its gentle rumble filling his ears. "Unbidden, I  have come."

"No!" He screamed but the wind snatched it. He was drowning in nothing!

"Aris!"

The slap stung  under his tunic.

"Wake up!"

Reality flooded in, his room becoming clearer with each blink. It was still dark. Surely not much past the first cockcrow.
Someone waved a lamp in front of his eyes.

"Get up!"

It was Father—Emmeso. Aris  couldn't see his face for he held the lamp away from him but he couldn't mistake his voice.

"Follow me" His voice had a firmer edge than usual. Oddly, it reminded Aris of one time ago, when he was still a child. When Emmeso had flogged him for injuring another child in a rough play. Emmeso's voice had grown cold then.

"Stretch your hand." He had said. With a cane going up and down and an utterly emotionless face, Emmeso had whipped him. He still remembers his cries, his screams of disbelief. Not at the hurt of the came as much as the fact that father would flog him.

Emmeso left the room not looking back to see if he would follow. Yawning, he followed, through the corridor. The house was still dark. Was anyone even awake? Where was Emmeso taking him?

Emmeso stopped at the living room. Someone had lighted a candle there. It was Iyuca. His lips were moving in a silent chant. He was praying. They moved past him.

At the end of the passage, Emmeso opened the door. Aris could have sworn that the early morning chill had fangs sinking into his back. With rattling teeth, he followed Emmeso out to the courtyard.