I will not be posting much of my story here. especially since people tend to take things and claim them as their own. However I did want to share some of the early work of my fantasy creation. A small excerpt of the main character, Sai, encountering an odd occurrence in a nightmare world. all the works below are my own and the rights held by me 🙂 the author. I have not done any editing and there are surely mistakes. This is an absolutely rough first draft. Enjoy
Sai finished another row of the palpa field and unhitched the oxen from their hard task. He began to lead them back towards the homestead and the shelter that housed the work animals. The sun already seemed to be making its decent towards the west and the Sun’s rest mountains. It hung at it’s apex for just a bit before heading back towards the darkness of the horizon that was to come. The chill was out of the air and the work in the fields had brought a sweat to his brow. Sai wiped at it as he finished leading the cattle into their pens in the shelter. He leaned against the doorway that lead into the yard and looked towards the road that lead into town. His pap would be back soon and surely his mam would be making a hearty lunch to steady them against the work to finish the day. As he looked the song of the wind began to dull him again. The sound was so sweet and so barely there that to focus on it was to hear less. Not actively listening he thought he could hear a voice to the melody. The spots of light began to play at the sides of his vision again .
Furiously shaking his head he dug the palms of his hands into his eyes until spots and stars appeared. He blinked into the light of the day and wondered if he was losing his mind. He put his gloves in his back pocket and left the shelter behind walking towards the main house of the homestead. Off towards the right there was a small bunk house that was occupied by the hands that stayed on year round at the farm. There were a handful that had such positions. Someone to help with the animals and some to work in the press house. They were all rather good men and they liked to give Sai a hard time as well, but mostly for some good natured fun. Some of them were coming back from their duties, grabbing a quick bit of food to tide them over before the dinner his mam and the house marm would have prepared for each night. They had one large common room in the house that had a huge oak table. Come dinner it would always be laden with enough to fill the stomachs of the hands and the Serik family. In all aspects the whole group was a family and Enoch made sure they all knew that. It was a good reason why some of the hands had been around all of Sai’s life. Some of them had surely been around in the time of Sai’s grandfather, back when the ranch was his and Enoch was Sai’s age.
Some of them nodded at Sai as he made his way towards the house. Lunch in the great house was reserved for the family only. It was really the only time that they could eat together and alone. . Breakfast was always a quick affair, some hard bread and butter and off to the fields to get as much work in as possible in the fleeting daylight. As he reached the steps onto the large porch that circled the house the melody began to grow in his ears. The dull sweetness took his mind and he saw one of the spots of light come right in front of his face. a soft voice called out against the melody. “Be Still” the two words said and at that Sai collapsed into darkness.
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A buzz flowed through his thoughts as he opened his eyes. He was standing but he did not remember getting to his feet. The world around him was devoid of colors. That was not entirely true. Faint lines and whisps seemed to flow from object to object. Light strands of gold gossamer thread flowed and hung in the air. They wound and past through the trees, the grass and all that was. Sai looked around in detached wonder. He held his hands up in front of his eyes and gazed at the golden threads that emanated from his fingers and connected the landscape around him. The flow of the threads passed through him and as it did he could feel the warmth and vibration, a tingle that traced his body. The hands in front of him though were somehow different, not his own. He looked at them again and with detached effort let them fall to his side. Moving now he was walking in a clearing, the muted colors around him eerie. The once vibrant autumnal colors gone into varying shades of gray. Sai gazed into the woods that circled the clearing. His vision could not see past the first few trees. Deep infinite blackness saturated beyond. The seemed to move around him instead of him through it. The clearing center was now behind and the line of trees closer and closer. The golden threads seemed to spark and shimmer more and more clearly as the darkness approached. He willed his hand to come up and feel their warmth again but it would not listen. A drumming began to fill the silence, a lub dub, lub dub, lub dub. His heart beat pounding forcefully in his chest and head. The pain of it so intense thoughts of death came to him. Let go. He wanted to just collapse right there in the clearing the the black forest came closer greeting him with its cold outstretched limbs.
The flowing threads disappeared, the woods claimed him, claimed his vision and the clearing ceased to be. The beat of his heart was unbearable now, the pain so great he would cry out if he could. Blackness filled his eyes but his mind sense the world moving around him. creatures filled his mind. Black beasts that melted into the night. The world began to close in. The phantoms circling about closer and closer. Claustrophobia, panic.
A light broke through the darkness, It was of pure white. The light that twinkle from the stars of the night sky. The light came closer and barely larger. Its glow an inviting break in the abyss that was his world. The light came closer and Sai could make out a tiny creature. It looked like something that the old men of the village would tell of in their stories, myths. A sprite. Sai desperately wanted to say hello. However his mouth would not work. He tried to feel his tongue but it was not there. The creature came right up to his eye, so close that any closer it would have been a blurry spot. It looked at him and smiled. If he had to say anything it was a she. Her image a pure white body with a furry glow where arms would have been. She had the palest skin that he had ever seen, white with specks of gold that seemed to be jewels adorning her cheeks and legs. Her smile was reassuring and mischievious at the same time.
“Be Still” her only words to him and in a blink she was gone, the world was rushing up around him, still blackness. With greater and greater speed. The blackness, the phantoms and the beasts of nothing flew up around him. Sai began to scream silently in his head. Nothings lurched for him, touching, clawing. His body began to twist and tumble. Mumbling grew into a roar filling his ears. Jolting, shaking. “ Sai…..” A faint calling through the noise “Sai” He called for vision, he pleaded for light. He begged to be released from the nightmare that wanted to devour him “SAI!”
by Dan Bahr
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Cracked Illusion 