In reckless dreams I stalk the streets of a darkened city as blood pools and seeps through the cracks in the cobblestone path beneath my feet. In one hand I hold a sword wreathed with blue flame and in my left a flashlight burns.
My light skips and jumps from shadow to doorway to overpass and buttress. I am searching for something in the dreams, but I know not what. Something finds me, it is inevitable. It comes creeping at first, hiding from my senses as though frightened of me; all I hear is the skittering of disturbed gravel or the crack of a baked clay tile snapping under foot.
The city opens up around me as my path leads me up a hill. Narrow alleyways become first roads and then thoroughfares and I begin to see the bodies. They hang from light poles and lay sprawled in the streets. I can sense the thing that is following me, and instinctively I know that there are more of the creatures. They are beginning to surround me. I have to get to higher ground.
I begin to run, no longer the hunter. I am now the prey. I leap over half-seen bodies and blasted piles of rubble as my hand light casts a strobe-like effect over the scene. I can hear them now. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of one, a scaled hand or snapping tentacle at the edge of my vision. My blood pounds in my ears and I push myself faster.
Houses fall away on either side of me; tenements become houses and then mansions, each one set further from the road then the one before. It is a part of the city that I don’t know at all and I begin to feel terribly exposed, but now at least I can nearly make out my pursuers, dead eyed and red mouthed.
All of a sudden I come to the precipice, a great jetty of stone shooting out over the greater part of the city. Over the narrow places, the dirty places, where the real people live, and I can see the skyline shrouded in fog. There are lights at the tops of the buildings, burning gold and pale; beneath them, mystic green, glowing spires stab towards the sky.
I stop for too long, staring entranced, and when I look down I see that my pursuers are crawling up towards me, swarming up the rough worn stone. Behind me they are closing in, I cannot get out, cannot escape.
So I rush back to the street and there, in the ring described by a wane streetlight, I drop my light and take the sword in both hands. As the flashlight rolls into darkness my foes flinch from its rays. I stand, feet apart waiting for the first of the things to enter the ring of light. I wait, jaw set, to die.
They encircle me, taking all the time in the world—but always, as the first darts forward, I wake up.
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Stories in the Ether, Issue #4
A Digital Storytelling Anthology
$2.99
Stories in the Ether is a quarterly story telling anthology of fantasy, steampunk, and science fiction short stories from Nevermet Press. This issue features 11 compelling works including:
- The Gorgon’s Love, by Martin Shelby
- The Stars at Night, by JC Hemphill
- Big Heart, by David J. Fielding
- The Chase, by J. A. Gonzales
- A New Beginning, by Colin W. Campbell
- The Mechanical Turk, or All’s Well That Ends, by Tucker Cummings
- Shelled, by M. R. Williamson
- Exodus, by Eric Staggs
- The Emerald City, by Per Wiger
- The Occurrence of the Cavalry Horse, by Teel James Glenn
- Empyrean Skies, by David Gaither
With artwork by Paul Hagwood
$2.99 in ePUB for all eReaders from Lulu, DriveThruFiction.com, Smashwords, B&N Nook Bookstore, and Apple's iBookstore. Also available from Amazon for Kindle.
