Eventide
I had every intention of working on Twilight’s Magic Garden today but this image kept getting in the way. So I decided to write it down for now so that it would stop interfering with my other story lol Anyhow, I’ll let this one sit and percolate while I get back to work on the other.
Eventide
By Ben Marroquin
StoryMask.com
I walk in a town of labyrinth roads passing homes and brick buildings sprawled against an ethereal landscape. Rivers run oily blue, invading streets and filling them with dark watery creatures flitting about with gnashing teeth in search of food. The windows are lit with soft candlelight as humanoid shadows walk by.
I look for a reason why I’m here, but there is none that I can tell.
A girl approaches, face powdery white and eyes like oily onyx. She opens her black lipstick mouth, but has no tongue to speak. She lifts a gothic dressed china doll with raven hair and red lips; it begins to speak for her. “Our world has changed, become starkly dark the night it arrived in town. Now, no one walks these streets… well, at least, no one sane lest they wish to be fed to the Styx.”
I stared at the little girl and her china doll, confusion evident on my face. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are or what you mean. What is a Styx and where in the world am I?”
“My name is forgotten, of little consequence and you will soon learn what sorry truly means. As for the Styx, it is the river of gnashing beasts that invade our streets from time to time. As for where you are, you are in and not in this town of Eventide.”
“What do you mean I’m in and not in this town? Everything is so strange, this can’t be real, surely I’m…”
“ All who visit our town in the real world, eventually end up here, ever since ‘it‘ arrived. It waits till you sleep in the real world, then invades your mind, your dream and brings you here to its nightmare town. Live or die here and you‘ll live and die there… in the real world.”
Just then a flash of light from above caught my eye, I looked up and noticed that the sky was teeming with life. Strange luminescent jelly fish like globes floated along the air currents like mini hot air balloons. They had long thin neon hued tendrils that squirmed below and unique colorful flowers above. And in the center of their transparent globe shaped bodies swam small finned beasts that only had one eye.
And fluttering around these globes were fairy like creatures; some had butterfly wings, some were like dragonflies, and some even had feathers. They would perch on the flowers on top of the globes and glow as their hummingbird beaks drank what I could only assume was nectar. And every now and then, these globes would capture a careless fairy creature with one of their tendrils and feed. It wasn’t a pretty sight, seeing these fairy creatures floating around in the globe’s body in pieces, but the small one eye beasts seemed to like it.
When I looked back down, the girl and her doll were nowhere to be seen, but I knew that if I wanted to leave I’d have to find the “it” that arrived in town.
(to be continued)