The Onyx Prince

File 3

March - 18 - 1979

Orchard of Destruction, somewhere deep within the Allium.

Alex hit the ground rolling. He kept rolling until he came to stop in a shallow ditch at the base of something large. He didn't move for a while. He just lay there, panting.

Each breath he took felt strange. As he inhaled, the world seemed to bend. When he exhaled, it shook violently. Alex was caught in the rhythm until suddenly, he was somewhere else entirely.

I stared at the open door. The corner was splintered and the bronze lock that held the handle glowed red-hot. The wood around it was charred and black. The smoke made me blink back tears. I couldn't remember when I had begun to cry...

Alex sat up. He dug his fingers into the soil to ground himself because his body was shaking uncontrollably.

The dirt was like sand. Finer than sand. Each grain was so small and smooth, it could have been dust. He didn't understand how anything could grow here. But grass grew up to his knees, as far as he could see.

Alex brought a fistful of the sand up to his face so he could examine it. It was grey, but of course it was. It just made sense. After all, everything around him was grey. The grass was grey. The sky was a dreary grey. The sun itself was black and had a dark corona that flared violently and smeared the sky as if bombs were being set off on its surface, over and over again.

Shouldn't grass be...green?

What was green?

How had he forgotten...and why did his head hurt so much. It felt like something inside of him was splitting his face apart and clawing its way-

"I can feel the magic within you, Alexander. You are powerful. I don't doubt that you will one day grow to be stronger than me. All you need to do is believe it yourself. Do you?"

I squinted up at Mr. Clark.

"See! I can't do anything."

I collapsed to the ground and yawned.

"I'm so tired..."

Mr. Clark stooped down to pick me up and I grabbed onto his strong weathered hands.

"But Alexander, I'm only trying to help you understand."

Understand what? 

Wait, what?

Alex got on his hands and knees and slowly climbed the hill he had rolled down. It was difficult. The hill was steep and the dusty dirt was impossible to grasp. At times, he held to the grass to pull himself up, but it kept crumbling away.

When he reached the top, he realized just how massive this grassland was. The horizon bent backwards like rolls of old film, and in the distance, giant grey mountains stood proudly.

They seemed impossibly far, as if he could walk forever and never reach them. He stood on the only hill he could see. The only landmark he could make out. This place, it was all the same. It was nothing at all.

Alex's head throbbed again, and then he was gone.

I ran to the well. I hated the well. I wasted all my time on summer nights like these trying so hard to make the water move. To just budge an inch.

Nothing ever happened.

Would I ever find my magic? Did I have any at all?

There was a door standing upright on the top of the hill. There were no walls around to support it. The door was open, but looking through Alex could see that it led to nothing.

Beside it was an old tree. It looked something like an oak. But everything was black and white, and there was no color at all.

He moved closer. He walked around, examining the frame and the peeling grey paint of the door. He could walk in a full circle around it. There was nothing holding it up, and yet it seemed so sturdy.

Soon his curiosity grew overpowering, and he dared to touch the handle.

"Of course you have magic. That's how we are. You do have a soul, don't you?"