Pointing to You : Land Beyond the Horizon

The Stranger

This night in the city of Dalim was not kind. Unfamiliar beasts were entering the city. These monsters were coming from the mountain range where the neighboring kingdom stood. These creatures crawl and others fly. Despite that, they all had something in common. Those haunting blue eyes and skin stained with blood.

A man walked among the empty streets of the borders of Dalim. His long gray hair was stained by dirt, and one of the lenses of his glasses was gone. His suit was covered with dirt and holes. In his left hand, an old book tightly gripped. On the path he was walking down, the husk of the townsfolk lay still on the pavement. Eyes wide open with a stiff expression of horror. The air was clogged with a rusty smell and char brought by the wind from the East. It was quiet.

The silence was broken by the sounds of the crunching of bones broke. At the end of the road, there it was. Its skin was black and covered with a tar-like substance. This beast stood, hunched, in front of the man. Its stature was twice a person despite it being hunched down. Between its hands was a head, half-eaten. The man walked towards it. As the man approached, the beast stopped gnawing and turned its head. It looked at the man while making a low gurgling sound.

"There you are... it was such a hassle to find you," said the man.

The beast dropped its head and growled. It then ran towards the man on all fours. Before it could reach the man, he swiftly flipped through the pages of his book, and from underneath it, dismembered pale hands climbed from the ground.

First, it was only a hand, barely gripping the leg of the beast. Then there were two, then four, then eight, and soon the being stopped pursuing.

It struggled before finally, it stopped, out of breath, unable to move.

It looked at the man who was right in front of it. The man was able to see into the eyes of this creature.

There was desperation within it.

The man gently stroked the head of the ferocious being.

"You can rest now."

The twisted creature was slowly calming down before letting out a shriek. The grip of these hands crushed the beast down, pulling it onto the ground. The painful cry echoed through the empty streets. And shortly, the cries faded away too.

Left from it was a puddle of mush. The street was once again swallowed by quietness until a cry rang in the street. It was not a cry of a beast. However, it sounded like it was a cry of an infant.

The man closed his book and followed the source of the sound.

There, from a bucket by a ruined house, a baby was crying. The man looked around and was unable to see traces of people. How did a child survive? The man thought.

The man knelt and picked up the baby. The man saw the child and was shocked at what he found.

The baby had the eyes of the beast.

*****

The warm yellow light hit the worn rooftops. The sky was colored with shades of blue, gray, and yellow. The looming trees cast shadows on the pavement below. Among the scenery, a young girl with her hair tied up was walking through the street.

She wore a washed-out blue shirt and shorts. Her hair is brown though a glance at her eyes tells you the girl didn't come from this town. Her eyes are the colors of the ocean and rusted copper. Her skin was pale, but she was not sick. A leather bag was strapped across her chest down to her waist. Her hands are gripping one of its straps, supporting its weight.

She was walking hurriedly until a pleasant smell caught her attention. The smell came from a window of a house. When the girl looked through it, she saw a tray with freshly baked buns. A woman with her hair tied up and bags under her eyes held the tray. A small girl and a boy were running up to this woman. The boy instantly took one of the buns as the woman huffed.