Eyes like the Forest (Intro/Teaser)
#1 of Eyes like the Forest
Intro to a serial I'm doing. My attempt is to add a part every Sunday. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. This stuff was started a few months ago, when I was rusty to solo stuff, so forgive me if it's not that good. Trust me, it gets better.
"You must keep going." The voice from the darkness. No form, no shape, no color, merely an empty echo, void of emotion. "I'm trying! ... I'm trying..." I answer, my own voice strained and weak, weary from my seemingly endless work. "The balance must be preserved." "I know, it's just... so hard." I shudder, muscles trembling. "Can't I just rest? Can't another pick up the mantle?" "The balance must be preserved." "I know! You think I don't know?! I have seen too much to deny it!" It is almost a scream, but comes out as a hoarse whisper instead, my body unable to produce much more than that. "Others would fail, you must keep going." "... Am I truly the only one?" "Yes. You must keep going." What can I do? What can I say? If I give up now, all will fall, everything I've done would have been for nothing. How long can I continue, though? How long can I keep this up? "I understand... Tell me what it is I must do."
Images, places I've never seen, people I do not know, a crying voice, a pained face, and blood... A wooden sign with a name, Tarrensford, scrolled in red. A shack, flimsy, made of sticks with a thatched roof. The face of a young girl in the blossom of her childhood, no more than twelve years old, with flaxen hair and eyes the color of the forest. It drives into my mind, cold, forceful, and unyielding, like a shard of ice. My body is wracked in pain and I double over, falling to my hands and knees, face pressed against the cool ground which feels like stone, but isn't. I cannot breathe, I cannot move, it is as if a great weight is forced upon me from all around, as if I was suddenly submerged into the inky depths of a vast ocean. When the torrent of knowledge stops, I gasp, drinking deeply of the stale air, as sweet as perfume after being deprived of it for so long. A long moment passes as I recover, as best I can in this place at least, and when I can manage to speak... "... I understand."
The darkness recedes, pulled back like a sheet of silk, taking the voice with it, and once again I am in my room at the inn, lying upon my bed. Sunlight filters through the crack in the shutters, laying a sliver of gold over my legs, illuminating motes of dust as they dance upon the air. To exhausted to move, I allow myself to fall into that peaceful sleep that presses upon me. I will rest as I can, for when I awake I must make my way to Tarrensford, to find the girl with flaxen hair and eyes like the forest.