Ink

Written in ink that had began with an iron rich, red hue and faded into a crusty brown, the note read like a map. One I was never taught to read. It was written part in some odd binary, and part in a language that had been lost to time. I held it in my hands and shook with hunger and frustration. The fish were gone, the water was gone. Many of my supplies had come up missing. I walked south with my eyes fixed on the paper. I dodged what I could find in my periphery and stumbled over what was in front of me. Stones may as well have been half walls and the crumbling, ancient paved road might have become one long pitfall. My feet dragged as I carried on.
Day burned into night. The sun nestled itself in the crook of two sand dunes. A windy chill overtook the warmth that had embraced me. Finally I was forced to pocket the note and pause. There I stood, uncounted miles from anyplace I had ever known. Face to face with someone I had never met. Someone who stared at me head on and unfeeling. Stoic, and beautiful. A man, likely a scouting armadillo. This one, however, hadn’t drug me down yet. A shot of adrenaline ran down my spine and suddenly the cool wind felt like ice pricking my skin. My pulse jumped and I suspect my feet did too. I slowly, steadily, began to reach for my shotgun. It began to walk toward me at an increasing pace. I aimed and steadied my breathing, ready to take my shot. Then everything went dark. I could not see, hear, or feel. A small purple dot appeared in my vision. I tried to focus on it.
I could see it growing and there was something inside. I waited, a d watched as a scene unfolded. I was standing in a land with bright blue skies. Golden fields of grasses and fat black birds. I looked down at my hands. I was holding a large stick. Why? I wasn’t sure. A voice spoke. “Earth, are you coming?” I swallowed a mouthful of painful air and turned to see my sister. Rain was just to my right and a short sprint away, but I had no sense of where my feet were.
“Come on Earth! The kindling is going to burn out!” I’d forgotten the fire we were building. I let go of my sense of physical presence and ran. I ran to my sister. I threw down the log and hugged her. Whimpering, crying. She hugged me back but I couldn’t feel her warmth. Her brawny squeeze. She wore something that she would have rejected until the earth boiled over. A short pink dress, a white apron, and a loop of flowers in her hair.
I pushed her back. “Rain..” I stared at her. Her eyes, in my whole life, had never been that color. They were quick to flash from green to brown, sometimes across a spectrum from black to grey it seemed. Even red once. Never this shade of blue. And her hair. Long, flowing, healthy. She had always cut it short no matter what tools were needed.
This couldn’t be Rain. Not my Rain. “It’s good to see you Earth” she smiled. And there. The thing that finally broke the illusion. She had all of her teeth, lined in uncomfortable, perfect rows and so white they seemed to reflect the very blue of the sky. I began retreating. “What’s wrong?” her head tilted curiously.
I looked around. A red barn stood proudly against the cloudless blue sky. I ran toward it and tripped. Looking down it seemed I fell over a snake but when I lifted its body, I could find no head. Only more and more tail. I dropped it and continued for the barn. I was yanked harshly back and watched the world fade back away from me into the purple dot it started from. My feeling returned and boy was I in pain. Every inch of my skin was on fire. I screamed, I shook, I fought blindly at the nothing until I had hold of something warm. Flesh. I was holding a wrist, or a leg. I closed my eyes and explored its texture. I decided it must be a wrist. I called out “Help me!” and heard a barrage of panicked voices and footsteps retreating and returning. The image tried to return. I closed my eyes to shut it out and brought my hands to my face. Across my face was a mask of some kind. I began to rip and claw at it. Finally it came loose as bolts clattered to the floor. They plinked against tile. I opened my eyes and was in a sterile white room surrounded by pale white faces. “Where am I?” I asked.