The Summoning

IV - Take Me Back To Eden

The first thing I noticed was the sound of birds and the warm light flooding over my eyelids. Groaning, I tried rubbing the sleep from my eyes, hand fumbling and accidentally touching the delicate spot over my cheek where I had been struck with a gun. Pulling my hand away, I narrowed my eyes to the bandage wrapped around my left hand. I had cut it, didn't I?

With the memory of what had happened suddenly flooding back into my mind, I shot up, gasping for air and furiously blinking away the light in my eyes.

For a brief moment, my mind thought I've died and gone to heaven.

I had been sleeping on an old, wooden bench that overlooked a gorgeous field of poppies and tulips. The bench sat on a dirt hill overlooking the scenery and a building that looked like a cabin was to my right, down a hill with a beaten path that led there. Birds were chirping in the faint morning sun and trees swayed lazily in the cool breeze. 

Despite the chill in the air, the fluffs of cotton floated around the field as if it were a warm summer evening. I pulled my jacket over me and tried to stand, only to be filled with an immense fatigue that overtook my shaking legs. 

There was a ceaseless shuffle to my left and a hushed murmur before I turned and found a dark cloaked figure pacing in the dirt back and forth, hands clasped behind his back. The cloak billowed in the breeze and I found that his entire body had been painted black. 

"Vessel." I startled, at first thinking it was the voice that had spoken to me before, only to turn and find the man that had knelt beside me before I had passed out. He was standing behind me, to my right and keeping a safe distance.

At this, the cloaked one stopped in his tracks and snapped his head in our direction. My heart flipped in my chest at the sight of a white mask covering his features. It allowed only the bottom of his face to be uncovered, though that had been painted black as well. Had he been wearing the mask before? 

The memory of last night was foggy in my mind, but I recalled only the darkness deep within the hood of his cloak and didn't know if there had been a mask under it. 

Vessel. That's what the voice I heard had called him. So, I hadn't hallucinated the whisper that had spoken to me. 

Vessel started in our direction and I had the urge to stand and run, but knew I didn't have the capacity to with the dizziness still in a hold over me. I settled for bringing my knees to my chest, leaning as far away as I could from whatever the man was that had summoned the monster last night. Had I imagined that? 

When he knelt before me, the cloak fanning around the ground beneath him, I suddenly felt self conscious. He seemed to study me for a moment and I waited for him - for anyone - to say something, but it was silent, save for the morning cicadas singing in the rising sun. 

"Where am I?" My eyes darted from the one called Vessel to the man behind me that was taking slow steps around the bench to face me. 

For a long moment, as Vessel studied me, there was no answer and my heart was in my throat. I was trying to breathe past the fear, but the silence that stretched didn't help the memory of what had happened the night before. 

Without a word, his hand reached out to touch the bruised skin around my cheekbone. I winced in pain and he tilted his head, as if in interest, before standing so suddenly that I flinched back. Without a word, he traversed down the path to the house down the hill, leaving me with the other stranger. 

I turned to him for answers instead when silence fell over us again.

"What do you want with me?" I asked, finally able to pull my body to stand.

The man started forward before thinking better of it as I stumbled back, gaining my footing again.

"We want for nothing." He answered and it felt like some sort of old riddle that I didn't understand.

"What?" I breathed, rubbing my eyes and touching my fingers to the tender spot on my cheek that Vessel had touched moments before.

"You summoned us." He answered, speaking slowly and raising a hand in offering.