Three Scenes
ONE…
The chains hung to the ground, flacking off bits of rust and dried blood. The iron tendrils rattled, chimes of imprisonment, as they were dragged across the floorboards. Without that slight music, the house was silent.
It stopped at a grime-encrusted window. Outside, below in the driveway, humans were transferring bags of supplies and boxes of equipment from two large vehicles to the front porch. A large male struggled with the front door for a moment, then let out an exclamation once he gained entry. They others cheered.
Up on the fourth floor, behind the filthy glass, it allowed all three sets of jagged teeth to smile.
TWO…
Eyes strained wide with a brutalized innocence. “Why?”
There are red rivulets over his fingers, faster now. Droplets spill on the greenery between his feet, then a stumble and a fall. The blood wells up on his tee shirt, draining out onto the forest floor. A crimson-wet reach out to her, pleading, the word on his lips one last time.
“Because I could,” she whispers.
THREE…
Recalling the words murmured, he stared harder at the artifact in his hands. Contemplation of the litany will result in secrets laid bare. He studied the unknown language that was scrawled over every inch of the clay tablet, arabesque runes that swam at the edges of his consciousness. Carved in meticulous base-relief, the lettering flowed, just as much a message as a work of art.
Its many wonders absorbed his attention, and the professor no longer noticed his surroundings. He didn’t see the light in his attic office grow incorrect when the shadows took on ill-defined proportions. The long and narrow space inside the room, filled with books and discoveries from his travels, lost its cohesion. From area outside reality where his door had once been, something shifted. Then, what sounded like the voices of children.
Brian Fatah Steele, 2012
