Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK I - Chapter 22
Julen was in a deep and restless sleep. Finding himself drifting aimlessly through the streets of Patina he wanted to run, but couldn't. Instead he just wandered, ghost-like, through the side streets and alleyways that he'd walked just half a day or so before. The sea in the distance was black, and the sky was a black-blue. With the dark red blood on his sword visibly reflecting back the white icy moonlight. He could see the 'masked woman' in the distance. Staring down in judgement. Her eyes, much larger than before, like huge sapphires. He felt his hands burning, and could hear the waves of the ocean roaring and crashing - as if they were hitting against the very alley walls beside him.
Looking down he saw his assailant. Powder white and deathly. Motionless. The moonlit blood on his sword creating a beautiful contrast in comparison. Like a fresh red rose petal against a bleached white skull. He now froze, unable to move, nor speak. The sense of guilt and despair filling him with an inescapable hopelessness. He wanted the waves to consume him. Looking back at the masked woman again she now looked taller. Perhaps fifty or a hundred feet tall. As he tried to comprehend this seemingly strange trick of perspective he scrolled his eyes down her long hooded gown, from the top of her head, where strands of soft white hair were visible, to the very bottom. Where the folds of material fell weightily on top of one another.
As he reached the foot of the gown it kept on falling. Falling and falling. Flowing over the ground around her feet, then the entire rooftop of the tall building she was standing upon. Then further still, out over the accompanying streets and inns and houses. Blanketing everything. Spreading ever further. Like an endless sackcloth covering the entire town. As he looked back up the masked woman now looked a thousand feet tall. Like a giant lighthouse with two blue beaming eyes.
Julen felt a great malevolence fall. As if a great flood was submerging the entire world. Sparing nothing. As the exponentially growing robe of this female lighthouse came ever nearer and faster towards him he saw a single shooting star zip across the sky like an arrow. He clutched his blood-stained sword ever tighter. In his other hand he now had a bright green apple. All went black.
Looking down he saw his assailant. Powder white and deathly. Motionless. The moonlit blood on his sword creating a beautiful contrast in comparison. Like a fresh red rose petal against a bleached white skull. He now froze, unable to move, nor speak. The sense of guilt and despair filling him with an inescapable hopelessness. He wanted the waves to consume him. Looking back at the masked woman again she now looked taller. Perhaps fifty or a hundred feet tall. As he tried to comprehend this seemingly strange trick of perspective he scrolled his eyes down her long hooded gown, from the top of her head, where strands of soft white hair were visible, to the very bottom. Where the folds of material fell weightily on top of one another.
As he reached the foot of the gown it kept on falling. Falling and falling. Flowing over the ground around her feet, then the entire rooftop of the tall building she was standing upon. Then further still, out over the accompanying streets and inns and houses. Blanketing everything. Spreading ever further. Like an endless sackcloth covering the entire town. As he looked back up the masked woman now looked a thousand feet tall. Like a giant lighthouse with two blue beaming eyes.
Julen felt a great malevolence fall. As if a great flood was submerging the entire world. Sparing nothing. As the exponentially growing robe of this female lighthouse came ever nearer and faster towards him he saw a single shooting star zip across the sky like an arrow. He clutched his blood-stained sword ever tighter. In his other hand he now had a bright green apple. All went black.
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