Chalice Option A: Up

Chalice Option A: Up

Without anything more to guide you, you shrug and decide to head up the stairs. As you climb, the roar of the waterfall grows until it throbs in your ears.

Because of the overwhelming thrum of sound, you don’t immediately hear the other noise. Some sixth sense stands your hair on end, making you look over your shoulder.

The stairs are empty except for the steady blue glow but as you stand there perfectly still, you catch a scraping like metal on stone. You hold your breath, hoping it’s your imagination, but just as you’re about to turn around, the sound comes again. A barely perceptible scraaaatttccchh below the roar of water.

Your teeth feel like you ran your nails against a stick of chalk. You back up until your shoulders hit the outside wall. Then you slowly sidestep up the stairs, swinging your eyes up and down to keep everything in sight.

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch a shadow. With the ever-steady, blue glow, the shadow’s faint, just a shade darker blue on the wall below you. When you look directly at it, you can’t make it out but when you turn your head and glance out of the corner of your eye, it’s there, like a flicker of light on a window.

You continue sidestepping upward and keep your head tilted so you can see that faint but darker shade of blue. It follows you up the stairs, growing bigger by infinitesimal amounts.

The stairs end and you find yourself on a broad balcony with a river cutting through the middle of it to run over the edge and

Photo Courtesy of Arthur Rousseau with Hope for Haiti.

plummet into the cavern below. The river flows from the cavern wall to your left. At the other end of the balcony is a solid wall. No more stairs, no more rooms. It’s just the balcony and the river.

You’ve nowhere to go but you’re sure whatever’s following you will catch up soon. With an effort of will you keep the image of a sharp-toothed drake out of your head.

A shimmer in the water catches your eye. You have to squint to make it out under the waves but right at the edge of the waterfall you see the wavery outline of a cup.

The Chalice.

Approaching the edge of the balcony, you keep from looking over the edge into the chasm below only by keeping your eyes firmly on the cup in the water. It isn’t laying on its side like you expected but standing up in the water, creating a small eddy around its bowl.

You lay on your stomach at the edge of the river and reach into the rush of water. The current pulls hard and you tilt your body to keep it from pulling you toward the chasm.

As your fingers close over the cool crystal of the Chalice, a grunting roar comes from behind you. You glance back.

Sharp toothed barely touches the surface of this monster’s description. Its teeth hang over its lips almost to its chin. The scales along the legs and back come to points like the spines of a plant. Golden eyes glitter at you with horrible malice.

The drake breaths in a heavy gust of air and then huffs out a small bit through its nostrils. Gouts of blue flame sprout from it and you’re pretty sure the drake smiles as its chest expands on an even bigger intake of air.

You’ve nowhere to go except into the water. Do you…

Aa. Dive over the Waterfall?

Or

Ab. Swim Upstream?

Blessings and see you next week =)

Jennifer