It’s a funny feeling to close your eyes, even for a split second and open them in a completely different place. One second to be falling asleep in your new dorm room and the next feeling a gentle breeze hitting your face while a flutter of tall grass pushes against your thigh.
I looked around, turning as best I could, and realized I was alone in the middle of a tall grassy land. A tree stood in the distance, old, gnarled, and leafless.
As I trudged toward it, hoping that the area would be cleared, the grass appeared to bend out of my way, bowing in a somber retreat on either side of me. The movement scared me at first and I stopped, pausing to see if they’d attack. When the path ahead became cleared, all the leaves bending out of the way, I moved forward being careful to not step on a single blade.
I reached the tree and looked up at it. Seven thick, blackened branches hung from the trunk, which from them had thousands, maybe millions of spindly, twig-like branches. I reached up and took hold of one of the spindles, breaking off of the branch. For a second, the twig appeared to have a heartbeat, which suddenly stopped. Bringing the twig closer I watched the core fade from a brownish red to a dark brown before turning black.
“I killed it.” I yelled out, questioning what actually happened. The tree seemed to feel the despair with me as I watched the trunk’s core also fade from brownish red to black.
“No,” I held the twig back up pressing it into the spot from where I took it. I watched as the black twig seemed to bleed on my skin, the darkness creeping down my arm toward my chest. “From what was lost, regain anew.” The words came from my mouth, but they weren’t my own words.
Once the words were said, the tree took hold of the little twig and consumed it in fire, growing it back out of the branch, renewed again.
I watched as the heartbeat steadied and the twigs color changed from bright golden yellow to deep amber red. The little twig in an instant went off like a bomb and I was shot back into the embrace of the tall grass. When I looked up the entire tree was lit on fire and spreading toward me. Seven streaks of fire broke out, the grass leaning toward it, looking as though each blade wished to be consumed.
I closed my eyes and woke up in my bed, again.
Excerpt from Seventh Rays of the Sun.
All rights reserved©️2018 Dereana Murcia
Want a pre-release preview of Seventh Rays of the Sun?
Dereana Murcia 