A Part of "The Path Retaken"

As a gift to you, my audience, I've included a snippet from my third novel. I hope you enjoy the piece...

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Gabriel was lost in the valley, sheer cliffs rising on either side. He traveled the pass looking ever upwards to that sliver of day peeking through at him, an eye of indigo with the sun its glowing pupil. The wind howled at him from overhead as he tripped and stumbled along the rocky ground. There were only two directions to travel: to the front and to the rear. Neither one seemed to offer the better option, that same shadowed path stretching in either direction. Rather than question the why or the where he just kept pushing forward sure that what was behind was best left there.

As Gabriel struggled ahead he discovered a figure standing in his path. It was a collection of the very shadow that hugged the craggy walls that eliminated choice. The wraith simply stood there staring at him. “Excuse me,” Gabriel said. “I think you’re in my way.”

The wraith curled a talon at him as if to beckon him to his side.

Gabriel thought the offer over briefly. “No I don’t think so.” He turned back and began another journey only to be stopped by what echoed up ahead. Hoarse voices cursed and coughed. A strained squeal was punctuated by a sharp scream. Maniacal laughter lapped at unintelligible pleas. It was all so guttural. There was an order to the chaos, a symphony composed of suffering. Eyes glistened darkly there in the void. They were set into something pale and dead, lifeless meat given poor animation. They called to him. He sensed that as readily as he felt their tendrils snaking out to snatch him to their lair of bleached bones and gore streaked walls.

Terror stole his breath as fear froze his feet. He had no words to combat what surrounded him. He was impotent. Gabriel did not turn at the sound of steps behind him. The rock crunched beneath unseen boots as the wraith drew near to his rear sucking away what warmth shielded Gabriel’s shaking form. Cold blew across the nape of his neck causing it to bend back as ragged fingers found rest on his shoulder.

“Do you hear them?” it rasped. Its hand squeezed painfully surely drawing blood. It wrapped another arm around his waist. “Shall I hold you against the world? Shall I protect you from the pain?”

Without warning Gabriel was ripped from the ground, the force almost splitting his back. The path quickly fell below as the pair soared into the sky. The darkness of the valley seemed a wound in the flesh of Earth as they went ever higher towards the heavens, towards the home of the sun and stars. As they soared all went frigid, the warmth ebbing before the void. He found himself submerged in the arctic air, the wind slicing deeper and deeper towards his heart. He looked down at the world as it drew away in revulsion. He did reach in futility to that retreating mortality. To Gabriel’s surprise the cold did surrender to the heat of the sun. He felt the numbness of his body begin to subside.

But then the warmth began to fail once more and clouds hid the ground. The blue of the sky started to deepen, darken, and disintegrate into new blackness. The sun pulled away as the stars gazed at their new visitor. He was delivered of the world as if birthed from the womb of the globe. There he was held before the world staring down on a face few ever witnessed.

“Do you see what lies up here?”

Gabriel looked to the abyss he found himself in, the scattered, shattered light.

“Light…life…is but the minority. Beyond the sky…there is nothing. Nothing here. Nothing for us.”

“No,” Gabriel stuttered feeling the cold munching on his bones.

“We are fleas to that place,” it choked out releasing Gabriel’s shoulder and trying to impale the globe with its finger. “Vermin that crawl over its body. Rats.” That last word was the sound of burlap ripping. “We are nothing more than shadows and dust.” The grip tightened at his waist. “What do you see when you look upon the face of Earth?” It did not appreciate Gabriel’s silence. “What do you see?” it asked again, its grip fracturing ribs.

“I don’t…I don’t…know,” Gabriel gasped as his lips cracked.

The mocking giggling, charnel cackling like grinding gears in his ears, caused him to shutter. “Exactly. So let it go, you fragment of me.” Its voice bored into his ear. “Let it go.”

With that the grip at Gabriel’s waist released and he fell upon the world streaking like a fallen star as he scorched across the sky to the ever approaching ground, back to that gaping wound set in the bosom of the world.

Gabriel slammed into his body waking up in the hospital. He struggled for air as if drowning, the monitor at his side spiking as the readings banged up and down trying to break free of the box. The sweat on his face traced a path down to his lips leaving a taste of salt in his mouth.