Time Lapse

Chapter 11 ~Song of the Ancients~

Five years later...

A thinly painted red wagon was steadily dragged along a grassy field of flowers. A young man wearing red and white robes was pulling the cart. It exposed his legs, but an occasional wind billowed his clothes around. The youth walked along the field to gather some yellow flowers, kaviers nicknamed by the locals. But further up the open hill, the youth saw a bright red flower, a pigment close to his lower pants.

Excited, the youth pulled his wagon up to the top of the hill and picked the red flower, placing it along the color-coded layers of other flowers. The red wagon was layered with dark green flowers and bundles of kaviers. Turning to face down the hill, the boy's jaw dropped at the sight of a beautiful field filled with arrangements of different flowers: reds, blues, pinks, and many more. The field of flowers housed many species, nolas, kaviers, whispings, a wide assortment for anyone trying to swoon another.

The boy turned the cart around, the back end facing down the hill, and backed up, diving straight to the flowers in his cart. He held on to the rails of the cart while the wind blew on his face as he rode down the hill towards the field of flowers. The meadow stretched for miles until the haze in the distance swallowed up the sight of little reds, pinks, blues, and more colors. "Someone should paint this," he talked aloud to himself, engraving the field in his head.

Before walking along the prairie, he picked various flowers, red nolas, blue whispings, and more. As he continued dragging the wagon behind him, he closed one eye momentarily, staring far off in all directions. The field stretched seemingly endlessly, except heading southwest. Roughly three miles away, abandoned brick waited, untouched by mankind for some time. Picking back up the handles of the cart, he marched towards the abandoned building, seeking shelter for the remainder of his day.

He walked with an endless pool of energy, his feet dancing along the flowers as he smirked at the graceful sight of nature around him. But as he stepped closer, nearing the lonely building, he saw the high-rise roof with a wooden "F" nailed to the front of the abandoned church. The holy sanctuary, lost to time, was tagged by one of the previous kings, a former ruler of Histolytica.

Smokes of black radiated off the wood attached to the church's tower while the youth searched for a rock. Pitching the hefty stone towards the wooden venomous effigy, the darkness stemmed off before burning to the bright sunlight that filled the grassland. The boy stepped back to his wagon, using his hands to make a box around his eyes as he took in the sight before him.

The abandoned church stood ever still, its ghost still lurking to pass on peacefully. He watched wisps walk out of the church while field sprites ran out, playing with their usual child-like wonder amongst the flowers. The youth smiled at them before the shy creatures hid away in the field of flowers, emanating an array of light as they curiously watched him. Their lights glowed in orange, yellow, and white hues as if blinking in anticipation as they watched their savior. He dropped his hands, the sprites and wisps disappearing from his vision.

Now, closing his left eye, all of his surroundings changed. There he was, watching the church being built by carpentry men. The local priest helping lay brick, and the environment changed again as he blinked. The same priest, now older, began dropping different flower seeds around the church, many of them the youth recognized from his travels, the same seeds he saw covering the grassland around him.

Blinking again, the boy watched several people walk out of the church, smiling with their families while the priest- now a little older - waved them all goodbye. This time, the priest was elderly but still moving with energy as people lined up for service. The priest tried squeezing a village worth inside, laughing with his fellow followers as they huddled inside like cold dogs on a winter morning.