SEPTEMBER 31st: A Bad Day in Shine Valley

CAREY'S DECSENT

Carey Muldoc exhaled loudly. He let his body fall against the thick trunk of the tall tree in front of him. The rough bark of the piny sentinel kept him from stumbling down the steep slope. His racing, rasping breaths washed over the dark wood. He let the rest of his weight slump against the tree, his arms practically hugging it. The sweat on his face dripped onto the ruddy surface. He didn't watch it, keeping his eyes closed instead. There was nothing around him that Carey Muldoc wanted to see. He only wanted to rest for a minute, to catch his breath in the thin, bitter air. Then, he would keep going. He was trying to get down the mountain, to get back to town. Carey knew he had to warn them. But, more importantly, Carey knew he had to get away.

The sound of the screams from farther up the slope behind him made Carey jump. He felt his pulse start to race again. His brown eyes anxiously searched the mountainside around him. Acrid smoke swelled and swirled around the trees. One second, Carey could see a hundred paces in every direction but one: the way he had come. A second later, he could barely see an arm's length away. It made sense it would be the worst behind him. That was where it was coming from. The mine was back that way. The fires...the screaming and the blood...it was all back that way, up the mountain. Carey could have been one of those screaming...one of those others bleeding and dying. He almost was.

Suddenly there were more screams. The shrill shouts of panicking, dying men echoed hauntingly through the smoke. They were some of the others that had managed to escape at the same time Carey had. There was another noise just then. A series of sharp, violent SNAPS shot through the choking envelope. Carey knew what it was almost immediately. His heart began to beat even faster. A cold chill coursed through his trembling body. The merciless shattering of tree limbs, the loud, haunting crunch of smaller rocks and boulders on the slop somewhere just above him, and a terrible scream being suddenly silenced: it was the death from above coming toward him again.

No!

Carey was running without a second thought. The noise behind him was still getting louder. He ran faster, his tired feet pounding against the rock and soil with each hurried step. More than once he felt himself start to slip on the damp moss and loose pebbles. He cringed at the sharp pain that would shoot up from his ankles and then his knees. But Carey didn't stop. He couldn't.

The pulverizing sounds bellowed in the smog behind him. At first, it seemed like it was barreling right at his heels. Carey shifted his gait, pivoting slightly left and then back right. The sounds behind him shifted as well, the terrible noise moving away to his left. Carey let himself glance that way once. He didn't see anything, at least not at first. But it only took a breathless second before he saw the curtains of smoke begin to bend and stream away from the oncoming object.

Carey yelped loudly, the sound of his voice seeming louder as it bounced right back to him off the heavy, gray clouds floating above the ground. He pushed off from another tree he passed, giving himself a little more speed. The awful noise behind him only grew louder. The tree he had propelled away from suddenly exploded in a crackling shower of shards and splinters. The unstoppable force stalking Carey bulldozed right through the center of the tall trunk. The collapsing top of the evergreen sank through the smoke, ricocheting almost noiselessly onto the mountainside.

Carey looked back over his shoulder. He probably shouldn't have. He never would have seen the thing moving faster toward him. He also might have noticed the sudden drop of the rocky slop he was descending.

Carey was still looking back when he suddenly felt the ground disappear from under his feet.