The Echoes

They called them Source Crystals, these stars that fell from the sky. They brought prosperity and peace in a world torn by war. But then the black crystal changed everything...

Chapter 1

 

 

I remember looking up and seeing the sky crack open as the stars started to fall. A storm of fire stained the sky and painted the clouds blood red. I held a little girl tightly against my chest, but it wasn’t Keira. This child had short black hair and long thick lashes. Her eyes were closed and she was still. Outside my dream world I heard my name being called.

“Adam.”

I kept hold of this girl as I watched the sky break apart washing away the blood and revealing the empty sky. The stars floated down closer to us as if they were leaves falling from a tree in autumn, without haste but with graceful formality.    

“Adam. Adam!”

A star fell in front of me and floated over the little girl. I looked at the star, the white, pearly colour was shining so bright, and I could see what it really was. It was a Source Crystal.

I woke up and the dream was gone. Every so often, I am that boy again, searching for something in my dreams. I hold that white crystal in my hand and keep it with me at all times. I wake clutching nothing at all.

Sometimes I face adversaries of sorts, this other boy soaring toward me, covered in flames. I began writing down these dreams and they seem to make a story, but they’re so different and confusing I can’t figure out what they’re telling me. They’re like faded photos with faint lines and diminished colours. When I try and remember, it slips through my memories like grasping sand.

This alternate world I walk in seems so real and it feels like I’m in it for days. Keira, my little sister, wakes me up because I talk in my sleep and it scares her.

“You sound like a monster,” she says her voice cracking with concern.

“I’m sorry,” I say and promise her I’ll stop. To be sure I won’t frighten her again, I buy her ear plugs.

She’s gone through enough nightmares during the disappearance of our father. I promised myself I’d protect her, from our mother, our poverty or even myself and my secrets.

Tonight I decide to record myself. I want to hear what I’m actually saying. In my dreams when I am speaking, I can never remember what I’m saying or when I do, it just sounds like mumbling or gibberish.

“Tell me a story, Adam. I can’t sleep,” Keira asks from her bed pulling the covers up to her chin.

I sit on the side of her bed dimming her bedside light. “Like what? I know a lot of stories,” I reply.

“The one you put in your journal,” she says pointing over to the notebook that lies on my pillow.

“Those aren’t stories to share, Keira.”

“I want a story!”

I think of the little fragments of my dreams that I’ve written down and can only think to tell her one. Something a four year old can comprehend. “Fine. It’ll be a short story, okay?”

“Okay,” she nestles herself into her blankets.

“A long time ago, there was a world before ours,” I try recalling that one memory, one of the only nice dreams I’ve been having. “It was just like ours, with flowers, lush forests and many miles of green fields spotted with daisies. Then a war started. It burned everything nice and destroyed most of the good people. Ash covered everything like thick blankets of grey. There was no more colour in the world.”

Keira’s eyes get wide as she visualizes the story.

“But then one day, Source Crystals fell from the sky and destroyed the bad and started making the good again…” I pause trying to make up the next part since I don’t actually know where the story goes from here.

“What are Source Crystals?” my sister asks.

“They are crystals that power our world and keep it alive. Red for our heat and energy, Blue for water and power and the Green is the life and breath of nature. You know what nature is, right?” I ask watching her nod. “Green Crystals fell from the sky and started bringing back the beauty that was in the world before ours. Understand?”

“Yeah, did they live happily ever after?” she whispers, her eyes drooping as she falls into her own dream world.

Thankful that she was easy to please, I stick the ear plugs in her ears. Placing the recorder on my bedside table, I glance over at Keira and make sure the ear plugs are securely in. I hit record and lay back onto my pillow. My sheets are thin and pulled over my shoulders as I turn to my side ready to fall asleep.

Then, there I am, in a forest verdant and alive. A little girl bounces in front of me and for a second I think it is Keira. I see that as she runs, flowers grow in her wake. The trees around become greener and grow wildly around, as if the girl is commanding them to. She’s so far ahead that I lose sight of her and the minute I do, a scream erupts in the distance.

The trees suddenly die and my heart races as I run to where the girl might’ve gone. There’s tightness in my chest, as though it’s Keira that’s hurt. I enter a clearing and see the little girl lying motionless on the damp earth. The boy with flames stands in a clearing, overlooking the girl and rage wells up inside. I shout something at him, an accusation and he turns to face me. We charge at each other and before we collide, the white crystal in my hand lights up, expands and then unexpectedly turns black, wrapping around the boy. There’s no scream or sound that follows when it tightens the hold and bursts into black dust.

I look at my crystal; it’s black and pulsates through my veins taunting me with its power. Without thinking, I grip the crystal so hard that it digs into my palm. My hand starts to shake and the crystal begins to morph into my hand. The ground rumbles beneath me and the black erupts and wraps around me.

I feel darkness.

Then, pieces of my vision begin appearing and I’m somewhere else, somewhere far from where I started. I don’t feel like myself, like the person who I’ve been in my dreams.

My hands are covered with a black glow and this power circles around me like an aura. Everything that is going through my head is evil. I want to destroy everything with this power and darken the world with its wicked shade of hate. Right at this moment I feel powerful, like I have nothing to lose. My body is tense and there’s a hollowness within me that makes me feel like I’m severed in half. The part of me that has reason and compassion is gone, taken over and destroyed by this darkness that consumes me.

In front of me is a slab of stone sticking out of the ground. It has four concave holes, big enough for a Source Crystal in each. Somehow I have the other crystals, red, blue and green. Putting them in the stone, I look at my hand with the black crystal embedded in my palm.

I say something before putting my hand down upon the stone. Everything vanishes and utter darkness is left around me. A frame rises from the depth of the black, showing my mirror image inside. Even though there is no light to see, I can clearly make out the reflection. Trapped inside the mirror is not I, but a boy, my age and height who could be mistaken for my brother. His matching brown hair wisps to one side and he darkly gazes at me with the same piercing blue eyes as mine. His lips part and the voice that comes out is deep and possessed. As I listen, a lump clogs my throat and I swallow hard.

            “You don’t need to hide, Adam. I brought darkness and I am just like you.”