The Great Rift

Tinder and Kindling

It was a wretched jagged thing. The rift that was meant to have torn the world asunder.

"It might as well have" young Thadius would often mutter to himself at the mention of it.

For you see, it had torn his world into two. His body on one side of those craggy edges and his heart on the other.

Sarah, a young girl
whose features were as dark as the rift's, laid on the other side. They spent their days shouting conversations across the mile long gap. The young lovers would shout until their voices became harsh from the strain and grew too weary to carry on. It was also quite often their words would be swept away by the wind.

So, Thadius, being the intelligent boy that he was, came up with a plan. He gathered as much wood as the dry arid landscape would offer him and stacked it on the edge of the rift. The pile came no higher than his knee, but this did not stop him from noting it to be worthy of the gods. As the sun was beginning to set, he drew a lighter from his pocket and set the wood ablaze.

It could not have taken longer than 10 minutes for his beauty to arrive. When she approached the edge, he stood tall and proud next to his fire.

He began to shout "Sarah!..". He drew a deep breath and continued " For as long as this fire burns, know that I love you! On the days that my voice is too weak to carry my love or the wind snatches it away like a thief.." he could feel his heart beating faster as he inhaled to continue " you will see this fire and know! Know that I am here and I love you! I will never let this fire go out!".

With a grin bigger than the rift, Sarah screamed out "You're so dumb!". Her laughter rolling over the hills of the valley, she exclaimed "But so sweet! I will always love you, Thadius!".

As soon as her words got to his ears, so did another's. It was his mother, shouting his name. His parents were racing towards him with their weapons drawn. Tall and with a fair complexion, you would have surely imagined them to be ghouls moving across the desert floor.

Sarah disappeared into the setting sun at the first sight of them. The rifles they carried let out a crackling thunderous boom as they arrived at the fire. A warning to the dark haired girl.

"Thadius!" Came ringing out of his father's voice almost as loud as the bullet rang out of his gun. "How many times have we told you not to come to the edge!?" You could see the sorrow well up on Thadius' face as his parents began to scold him. "You can not talk to those people on the other side. They are savages, they are not like us. You will be a soldier soon and you need to learn this".

His mother gripped his blonde hair and began to drag him away from the rift, his fire still roaring. "I will never fight the other siders" Thadius thought to himself. "I'll push the rift together with my bare hands if I have to". His thoughts continued to race until they overwhelmed him and he screamed out "Never!".