On the edge

I can’t open my eyes. I feel confused. This is how I imagine being drugged feels like.

Trying to stretch my fingers but I can’t move. I would have anxiety if I could move but I simply can’t.

Struggling to open my eyes. My eyelids slowly moving and I manage to open them up. First I can’t see at all. There’s all black. There are lights in the room, I figure out at last. They’re all over the room. Like stars on midnight blue.

I start to feel my body. I can feel my feet. And I lay down awfully uncomfortable! I’m trying my fingers again and this time I can move my right hand so that I can see it. This is a little freaky. First of all, where am I? And second, why?

My toes are moving slightly. This is completely bizarre!

No, there is no time for this. I have to stand up.

I rest my hands to the ground and then I use all my powers to get up. Wow, this worked way to fast. When I get up on my feet I fall at my knees after wobbling back and forward. I’m not feeling very well. I might throw up if I not get the balance back. When this happens, you understand you’re in a dream usually. I close my eyes, pinching them together, put my fingers against the temporal globe and repeating the same phrase over and over again. At least ten times. “Time to wake up, time to wake up!”

I decide that I better open my eyes up and meet the alarm clock as always.

But the alarm clock doesn’t show anywhere. The nausea is at least gone. I can, without trouble, get up on my feet and get a closer look at the room I’m in. It’s round! Like a globe or something.

It’s giving me this strange feeling. First of all, I feel observed right now. And I’m more afraid than ever.

I’m walking towards the bending of the wall. This is so strange! There should be a door out somewhere!

I’m reaching the flexion and put my foot as high as I can. Suddenly the room starts moving.

I fall to the floor, or at least what I thought was a floor before. It has now become a wall. And I’m falling down from it. This is definitely like a hamster wheel. And that means I have to stand up, run the other way and make the globe stop. It takes a while before I find the pace but when I get it I manage to stop the wheel or whatever it may be.

The roof has become the floor. I trip over and find myself lying down again. What made me tumble? I find this loose end of the fabric the room is dressed in. I decide to jerk it and I tear up a big piece of fabric.

“Yes” I mumble. Not because of the fabric. I find myself with an ounce of hope when I see a small door. I start to pull the door handle up and down so that it’ll open up. At last I get it up my way. The only problem is that the door is below me. And the ground, covered in grass, is covering my way out. I have to turn the globe further. That I do. But since I’m so excited or terrified, term it however you want, I turn the globe too far. There is no time for being careful! I succeed my mission at last. I’m climbing through the door and what I see is nothing. Great! I’m blind again! No, wait. I look up to the sky and find out that there are stars there. It’s nighttime and I’m in a forest if I’m completely right. I turn around to look at the globe but a big nothing is what I see. Where did the globe go? I squint uncertain of my thing.

I can finally see the door. The freaking globe is invisible. But I have to calm down because panicking won’t help at all. Anything can happen, apparently.

But if the globe truly is invisible… it could be an advantage. I grab the door, climb back in, and manage to get some of the strange fabric with me.

I’m ready to walk away from the globe; it feels unsafe to stay here. I’m just about to walk when I hear this whisper from the forests.

“This way” It says faintly. There is nothing left in me but instincts and the will to survive. Somehow it feels right to follow that voice.

I walk without doubt against the whisper very slowly.

“Come closer” I hear. The voice is very pleasant and soft. And I know where it comes from, there is no doubt about it.

My perspective is distorted and I have no idea what time it is, beside nighttime. There seems to be something watching me. I practically accelerate.

I can hear the whispering voice better. I’m getting closer. A fainting light is a bit forward and it feels welcoming. When I get there, at last, the light turns out to be a pearl.

A whispering pearl? All right, anything can happen.

“We have to go now. I’ll lead you.”

“Am I persecuted?”

“You’re actually being haunted, there is no time for talking and we have to go now!” I grab the pearl fast.

“Okay, I hear you!” impatient pearl! I just found out about all this.

“I can hear you.”

From now I’m trying to be discrete with my thoughts.

The journey continues. I’m walking as fast as I can and is constantly looking behind my back.

“Can you see it?”

“What?” I ask in a restive way.

“The light.”

I look up from my thoughts and I’m almost blinded by the light.

“What is that?” I feel so unaware of everything. I have to be bright both physically and mentally.

“It’s your chance, remade into a protection in a shape you can touch.”

“I don’t get it. What do you mean?”

“Just take your chance. Because, this I will only tell you once, is the only chance you’ll get.”

I inhale for way too long.

Stepping forward is creepy but once again I get the feeling of doing the right thing.

A shield is lying on the ground. It’s glowing. It looks like if the grass around it is sparkling.

“It’s yours” the pearl whisper, like if the shield took its breath away too.

After hesitating, I bend my knees. And I grab the handle of the shield.

The glowing stops immediately.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No”

Those unsatisfying answers won’t take me a long way.

“We have to move forward even faster. It’s catching up on us.”

With wide-opened eyes I run. The fastest I can. I must have gone kilometers through these woods. And the piece of fabric from the globe is now my cloak. I wrap it hard around myself.

I don’t know what is the scariest, that I seem to be stuck in a nightmare or the content of it. And the fact that I don’t know what is following me. I’m afraid I’ll get to know very soon.

I feel clumsy when running and my legs is starting to numb. I stumble over and over again. These woods have really long roots which is a disadvantage for me. When I look up, hoping for a glint of the sky above, I only see these tree trunks and the strange shaped leaves they have.

I look down again. Disappointed.

There’s an end of the ground. Seriously! It’s an ending.  I’m slowing down so that I won’t fall in the hole or whatever it is. I manage to stop in time. I have to breath as regular as possible. Or else I’ll start hyperventilate and faint.

“Don’t look down” says the pearl.

It’s too late. I’m walking towards the gap in the ground. My sight is an enormous, endless abyss.

“Where am I supposed to go now?” I stutter. My voice is squeaky of fear.

The pearl is just about to say something when someone else says:

“You are not going anywhere.” I shiver by the inhospitable voice. My knees are shaking more than just a little.

“Who’s there? I say, incredibly clever.

“Me.” The other voice sounds almost provoking.

And it steps out of the shadows. In front of me, the most terrifying beast I’ve ever seen.

“You better be ready with that shield now!” The pearl whisper.

“I guess you wonder why you’re here.” The monster says properly.

I nod because there are no words to find in my throat.

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Aurox and I brought you here because I love the haunt of human beings. My ancestors have been chasing humans for thousands of years. Am I right if I say that you have a pearl in your hand?”I just squeeze the pearl even harder.

“What you don’t know is that your precious pearl is containing your most precious family. Your dear ones are gathered in this pearl. And they all know what is going to happen to you.”

I have barely dared to look at the creature in front of me before. But while I try to understand the meaning of the words it’s speaking, I look at it.

The beast is completely in grayscale. Big feet, looking like claws. They blacken in its claw tips. Its legs are reptile-like and on its chest hang this electronic equipment. Blinking buttons in red and timekeepers is what it looks like. Over the equipment are these arms. One arm is incredibly muscular and wiry and ends in this claw looking hand. The other arm looks like completely made of bones and other parts that should be inside of the body. That arm ends in an electronic, unnatural claw, even sharper.

A thick neck full with these tensed veins ends in a horrifying face. It looks like a large overbite and in the corners of its mouth are these saber teeth. A lot of other sharp teeth are showing between the corners. Ridged skin is hiding underneath but most prominent are those red, glowing eyes without pupils. They emerge under its frontal bone which is huge. On top of the head are two horns. It starts to walk against me and that’s when I see the long tail, rocking from side to side.

I step backwards but find myself on the edge of the abyss. There is nowhere to go.

“Why are you doing this to me? Why did you do this to my family?” I scream when my ability to speech is back.

“There is nothing as boring as grabbing a human and just kill it. You are a magnificent example of a human. There is so much more fun in the hunting. But I understand that your brain power isn’t much to boast about. What you needed to manage through this forest was a living clue. And who would like to help you more than your family? But I had to be in charge. Those answers they gave had to be small and incomplete so that I, in the end, got you.”

“Kill me but save my family!” I scream.

“I’d rather kill all of you.” It says and takes another step forward. Then I decide to do something incredibly brave. Or is it just stupid? I can’t tell them apart.

I run against the creature, it is over two meters tall and I can in a graceful way slide under its legs.

Fortunately I have my shield raised, the beast tries to knock me but I’ve already slipped away.

Its attacking way faster than I expected, I run with my shield raised and tries to feint it. But it grabs my leg before I run away. I feel how I’m suddenly upside down and being thrown back against the cliff. In the air I can see my cloak sink down on the ground. Then i crash.

I try to stand up but find myself with pain in my head. I touch my forehead and find my hand covered in blood. The beast is running against me, ready to do the final hit but my shield is up in time. I want to protect me again with it but it’s now sliced in two parts.

I have to roll to the side. I manage to avoid those dangerous claws once again. I get up on my feet again; I’m in such a disadvantage when I’m lie down.

But I’m now even closer to the edge of the abyss.

“It’s over” the monster says slowly, walking towards me. “You’re about to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

That’s when I see this, so clearly.

“Maybe that’s true, but you can’t do anything about it either!”

Aurox understands what I’m about to do. He run against me, ready to do the mortal blow. But there’s no way he’ll make it.

I run against the edge of the chasm, I jump.

It feels so much better to fall this way. I can hear Aurox scream.

It’s all over.

I slowly wake up. I’m lying down in my bed. Sunrays almost make me blind. Stupid curtains, I forgot to pull them down.

The well-known wallpaper is shaded and my writing desk is exactly as messy as I remember it.

“It was just a dream” I whisper to myself. I smile uncertainly.

That’s when I realize my hand is sealed.

I open it up and see the pearl.

“If I were you I would run. Now.”