SEPTEMBER 31st: A Bad Day in Shine Valley

CHAOS ARRIVES

Carey could see the town below the smooth, mud-covered rocks and towering trees. The undulating slope had barely begun to level out. For the first time since everything had started late in the night, Carey felt a flicker of hope. He would be safe in the town. Someone in Shine Valley would deal with the damned thing chasing him.

Wait, Carey thought to himself. He skidded to a stop, bracing himself against one of the looming trees. He took a second to catch his breath, ignoring the sting of his sweat dripping into his eyes. The mountainside behind him had grown quiet. The hazy, morning light was making the shadows of the forest stretch out in weird ways, masking the steep incline Carey had just descended.

Where is it?!

Carey jerked his head left, then right. He squinted his eyes, trying to peer deeper into the filmy shadows. The seconds were ticking by. Carey wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. He wanted to believe he had outrun it, that it had lost track of him. Maybe it was how close he had gotten to the town. He wanted to believe any of this was true. But he didn't.

Then, the forest began to stir. Branches snapped violently apart, the devastating noise echoing between the trees. Plumes of dust billowed through the thin smog choking the mountainside. It only took Carey a second or two to spot the movement up the slope. He watched with terror as the boulder's frightening shape burst out of the greasy smoke.

"Shit," Carey exclaimed.

He pushed off from the tree. And, then, immediately tripped. There was a stone at his feet he hadn't noticed before. It was chevron in shape with a chipped tip protruding from the soft soil. Carey's acceleration away from the towering conifer was too great to recover and keep going. The little half-hidden rock, barely the size of a hand but as thick as a fist, brought the lanky, young minder back to the dirt.

Carey grunted as his weary body sunk against the ground. He started to curse at himself in his head as he moved in a panic to get back on his feet. The tremors racing through the ground ahead of the cluster of sentient stone had Carey's heart beating madly. He couldn't catch his breath as crawled forward.

All at once, the subtle shaking in the ground stopped. Carey had started to push himself upright when a cold sound suddenly overwhelmed the crazy pulse of his heart throbbing in his ears. A pale shadow swept over the ground. Immediately Carey dropped his weight back against the dirt. He heard himself scream in terror as the body bashing boulder soared through the hazy only an arm's length above his head. Bits of loose gravel sprayed across his sweat-soaked back. A few dozen paces away, a tree trunk exploded under the sinking mass of the wannabe meteorite. Carey watched it kiss the mountainside then skip away farther down the slope.

He was back on his feet so fast his mind needed a second to catch up. He had veered away to his left within the first step, his hurried run a frantic sprint for his life. Already, the boulder was correcting its course. More of the towering trees suddenly broke open near their base and collapsed, opening the sparse canopy above the forest floor. Carey glimpsed the awful rock at the edge of his vision. He grit his teeth, trying to make his legs move faster.

The gentle slope became steep again the closer he came to the edge of town. Carey jumped ahead, tumbling painfully for several meters before he was back on his feet. He was upright just in time to find himself at the edge of a sheer drop above the back row of buildings. Carey didn't think about his next move. A flash of instinct told him jumping would be bad. So, he slid instead.

The open air wrapped around him for a fleeting second. Then, his body hit the ground. The exposed, damp clay behind the buildings was soft, but not soft enough to keep the impact painless. Carey cried out from the powerful jolt of muscle-wrecking sensations coursing up his feet and legs. He had known well enough to keep himself slack as much possible, preventing more serious damage when he landed. The clay was cool against his exposed arms and the sweat-lined skin of his face as he rolled awkwardly away from the stout bluff.