Read Part OneRead Part TwoRead Part ThreeWith a squelchin...
With a squelching sound, the grasping arms of velvet mud yanked down on him and he went sprawling into the dust. Ripples spread outward from the point of his impact even as dust and gravel bit into his skin as he skidded across the solid surface of the ground. Coming to an abrupt halt, he cursed and spat out the debris that filled his mouth. Shaking his leg, he tried to free himself of the clasping tentacles pulling him backward into the quagmire of slime and muck that seemed to exist in the same space as the gravel he’d fallen onto. He scrabbled forward, away from the grasping mud, but the landscape absorbed the sound as if he spoke into a pillow. The deep baritone of his voice was insignificant and almost feeble, but it instigated an immediate response. An onslaught of vicious laughter. It echoed from nowhere and everywhere, swirling around him in a dizzying, infuriating rush and, the moment it began, the sound of her whispers ceased.
Clambering to his feet, he glared around him, realizing, at last, that the sparkles he’d thought were only water molecules in the atmosphere reflecting the odd, oscillating light had drawn closer. Much closer. No longer shimmering in the distance, they hovered directly over him, pressing inward, seething around him like an angry swarm of bees. He even swatted at them instinctively, but in the ethereal void into which he had plunged, nothing was as it should be. The ground was both solid and liquid. The air seethed with glittering sparkles that apparently had some level of cognitive awareness, and no matter how long he walked, he didn’t go anywhere.
Growling with frustration, he glared upward at the mass of glitter spiraling around him, seeming to glare back. He turned his back to the bog, challenging the mass with repeated shouts of “What?” “What do you want from me?” They didn’t respond, but in his distraction he didn’t see the enormous tendril that reached up from heaving muck behind him, encircled him like a viper and immediately began to constrict.
Screaming, he flailed wildly to free himself, but the air was expelled from his lungs with such pressure he could barely draw another breath, let alone offer any sort of resistance. Pulling him downward as the thick tendril compressed the air from his lungs, the leviathan creature, or whatever it was, laughed again.
Seconds twisted into hours.
Breaths became blades.
Blackness swirled at the edges of his vision.
From above, a shrill sound pierced the heavy atmosphere. The twinkling lights that had danced and sparkled harmlessly spiraled into a blazing maelstrom. The dark, rippling surface of the ground retracted from the glaring light as it streaked downward, surrounding him and the gargantuan arm that constricted around him with seething, intense energy. The shrill cry resonating from within the searing light was piercing and he cringed from the sound. The delicate sparkling light was suddenly as intense as lightning, stabbing and arcing around him at the thick slime slowly dragging him down into the mud. It reacted by rearing upwards and swinging first in one direction, then another before it shook violently, but the marauding swarm of light persisted in its attack.
The compression against his body began to ease and when he looked down, he could see the ropy tendril was melting, falling in great globs and droplets into the muck from where it came. Fighting to free himself, he drew a deep breath and fell to the ground even as the swarming lights pursued the rapidly disappearing tendril of slime. Scrambling away towards safer, dryer ground, he didn’t stop until the laughter and high-pitched screaming faded into silence.
Then and only then, he fell onto his back, coughing and gasping for breath and watching as the vortex of blazing light disseminated outward into a sparkling cloud once more. It hovered over him, moving like a murmuration of birds and he became aware of the female voice once again. Soft and soothing, her intonations were echoed by the collective lights and he stared up at them in amazement, realizing suddenly that they were not simply emitting sounds; they were communicating.
.
The Story Finale remains….
Words and Art by ~Morgan~
If you’d like to keep up with everything I’m doing, sign up for my monthly newsletter by visiting my author website
If you’d like to see more of my artwork, please visit my DeviantArt page
