The Horizons Series - Prologue

Focal Point

August 28, 2019 - 5:30 PM
[LITH JEDEN]

When Adrian died, the world shifted.

Not a metaphorical shift, but a real distortion.

In the middle of a storm, he left the house in a hurry.

Before I was on the lawn, I was in our room, reading. A dreadful feeling rose in my heart as my concentration failed me. There was a sentence my eyes would drift to every few seconds, and each time I turned the pages, I was compelled to go back and reread it.

Over and over.

Until I could hear the bells ringing. It wasn't the slow, powerful tolling of a church bell but a soft jingle.

The source of that noise must have been small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Such softness had no place in the middle of a storm.

Where was this noise coming from?

I kneeled on the mattress and wiped the condensation off the bedroom window.

Outside, the wind howled. Emotionless, yet it displayed terrifying rage. Seemingly immovable a few moments ago, trees were fighting for their lives as the storm severed them from their roots.

Raindrops pattered against the glass pane. Within seconds, the condensation reformed. Again, I wiped the pane with my sleeve, but in less than two seconds, the glass was clouded again.

Usually an impatient kid, I was unbothered. I climbed onto the bay window sill and stared at the cloudy screen.

Nothing on the other side was visible, but rocks twice the size of my head were periodically thrown at the window pane.

CRACK!

A vertical line went right down the centre of the window.

The chiming continued in its stubbornly low volume, louder than rolling thunder and pouring rain. In a trance-like state, my sense of time dissolved. It could have been minutes or hours.

With each passing moment, my vision became blurrier. The world on the other side was a mess of shapes; anything a greater distance away than the window lost its meaning.

At some point, the wind got bored of playing in our town. And as the sun's soft rays pierced through the exhausted clouds, the world regained its colour.

The soft jingling was growing quiet now.

Everyone else was probably celebrating the storm's passage, but I was still.

Tink.

A piece of the glass fell out and shattered against the earth. The previous crack divided the pane in half; now, an entire half was missing.

Warm air rushed in through the hole and brushed against the streams falling from my eyes.

When the bells stopped jingling, my world would change.

It was fading...

There was no point in hoping. It won't prevent the coming storm. Just listen.

Fading...

Powerless to prevent change, I opened my eyes and adjusted to my blurry vision.

Fading...

Then threw the comforter aside and squeezed through the hole, mindlessly stepping onto the wet grass. One last jingle, then it was...

Gone.
***

"I'm going inside now, Lith." David declared, standing. "I uhh... have some stuff to take care of."