Time

A Chapter by Vilkata444

The ground beneath me shook. I couldn’t see or hear anything because the monks had not unlocked the door yet. I could hear voices, cries. I moved toward the door and heard a noise that I had never heard before. As a child I had much to fear from the world but as a woman with the training this monastery had given me there was so little that I thought could actually hurt me. The sound I heard next rattled me so deeply that I couldn’t imagine what kind of creature could make it. The metal in the door shook and the bricks around me became unsettled. The latch holding the door lock moved and the door clicked as it slid easily from its frame, opening just far enough for me to see the darkness outside. Fear gripped me finally. Darkness. Darkness had no place here. There was no darkness here other than in the shadows of my room as I slept. In the seven years I had been here I had never known even a cloud to cover the sun here. I watched the monks run by, some looking up and as I stepped out of my room and moved down the hall it felt so surreal, like a dream. The shock of all of the noise, all of the fear, it surrounded me. The entirety of the monastery was permeated with it. The fear in their faces made me afraid. Instructors gathered students toward the courtyard where a crowd watched the skies. When I stepped into the courtyard I beheld the most horrid thing imaginable. A giant cloud covered our sky and in it were enormous tentacles moving through the cloud like a worm might be seen moving through loose earth. There were hundreds of tentacles larger even than the monastery. They writhed and moved with a hideous, slow, pointed direction. The sound came again, so loud that we all covered our ears. I would say that it sounded like lightning and it did in a way. Like a beast’s warning cry mixed with a crack of thunder so loud it shook everything. But then I didn’t know what lightning might sounded like. I had never heard a beast’s battle cry. So I use the words I know now to describe what I was hearing then for the first time.

A crushing weight of dread, fear and hopelessness filled me. I wanted to weep. I wanted to run to my mother’s arms and watch my father and the tribe’s men fight this threat off through the hatches of my hut. I wanted my mother to tell me that my father was strong and that this enemy too would fall. That didn’t happen. All the chaos, all the fear welled up until what seemed like the center of this faceless beast stopped just above the monastery. The tentacles began to come down with incredible speed, smashing the ancient brick walls apart while the wailing monster above screamed its fury down on us. I ran to the gates of the courtyard with every ounce of energy and speed that I could drain from my legs. Over my shoulder I looked back at my brothers. Gray tentacles grabbed them, squeezing them to death or tossing them, some tentacles even pulled them up into the clouds where an enormous mouth with rings after rings of sharp, black, shining teeth devoured them.

A man emerged from the temple who I had never seen before. His flesh was tinged with an olive complexion that was foreign to me. He carried a long staff and moved with a slow grace that was strangely familiar. He made his way to the center of the courtyard, paying no attention to the tentacles that came lurching down, paying no attention to the dead scattered at his feet. His dark brown robe drifted just above the ground. When he stopped he looked directly at me, his eyes deep and knowing. His hands both clung to the top of his staff and he looked up toward the beast. There was no surprise or fear in his eyes. There was no scream or terror in him. A tentacle came down toward him and I yelled for him to look out. It wrapped itself around him and drew him up toward the clouds, toward its tangled, writhing mass and snapping, hungry, slithering teeth. Everything was still. Nothing moved around me. It was difficult to move my head. The tentacles had slowed to a stop as well. Out of the corner of my eye as I marveled in all around me having ceased its movement I saw the old, robed man move. In the tentacles grasp his body contorted and a great dragon burst free from the hold of the beast. Its golden scales shone brightly in the sun’s light as time began again.

The dragon moved through the air without wings, gliding through it as easily as it might move through water. Its long, nearly worm-like body slid through the lunging tentacles nipping at them as they passed. It was not furious as the monster was. The still peace of the old man was clearly communicated through this majestic, powerful beast. A long battle was forged and I barely noticed when the heavy rain came. I held my hand over my face so that I could watch the two creatures in the sky attempting to kill one another without getting any rain in my eyes. The wind began to blow and this did startle me. In all the time I had spent here I had never once felt a breeze. The tentacles of the monster in the clouds got a hold of the great bronze dragon and another, then another. With a slow draw towards its mouth the dragon in its grip began to kick, bite and cry out in a hideous, pitiful squeal that shook the heavens. It was losing this fight. The dragon bit into the mouth of the monster and one of its teeth shook loose, falling to the ground at the other side of the gate at which I stood but I didn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off that poor, beautiful, elegant creature in the mouth of the monstrosity. From behind me a hand struck me. It grabbed my robe and spun me about. It was the blue priest. He pulled me toward the gate. Questions filled my mind. Where had he been? What was he doing here now? I wanted to talk to him, I wanted him to tell me what that thing was in the sky, all I could do was point and mutter, “The shining one, it was a man..” He nodded, taking my hand and pulling me quickly behind him. “It is a dragon. He is a man that can change into a beast. He is all of time. This place is his home… You have to go, you can’t stay here… Here.. Take this.” He picked up the tooth from the ground, tore a strip of his robe and wrapped it around the base and root of the thing. Blood was still on the tooth, black and slick. It was soaked up by the cloth. He turned and reached out, pressing it into my hand.“Keep this close, don’t lose it. I will find you. Go.” How quickly we were at the edge of the water. His small boat sat at the edge of the crystalline, still wave, the water past it thrashed violently and my heart sank. I didn’t have time to argue. The blue priest pushed me into the boat and the violent water pulled me quickly out away from the monastery where I had grown into a woman. I had been afraid when I arrived and although I thought I had spent my time here preparing for anything, I was just as afraid when I left. I clutched the obsidian blade tightly to my chest and remembered the one thing I had forgotten to ask. It was the one thing I always wanted to know so I screamed so loudly as I watched him running back toward the gate that it hurt my throat,“What is your name!?”

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© 2013 Vilkata444

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Reviews

Suslik

Ok, i found "Time", and it did not disappoint! It is really very good. The scenes are engaging, you feel like you're INSIDE there, and the whole thing is happening right in front of your eyes. Now, did you try to separate the passages for easier reading?