Shattered Consciusnesses Part One

Shattered Consciousnesses

by

Michael Woodard

I

Bleach just ran. He heard something rustle in the leaves behind him up above and he looked frantically over his shoulder. It wasn't the darkling following him this time. It was the vulture. It had left its prizes up in the tree where it had landed earlier. He dared not look back again. The soldiers had found him in his camp!

He was certain he heard the crash of hooves on the ground speeding towards him. Visions of the dead soldier atop his now skeletal horse came to mind and he couldn't shake them off.

If not his former friend whom he had buried; only to have the man rise from his own grave to haunt him later in that village far from the mountain's peak... surely Death himself rode at his back.

A wet pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulder and uprose the panic level again. Amy was also back from her watery grave to claim his soul! He tried to run but the clutching grasp kept him in one spot.

He looked back and no one was there.

The talons of the vulture sunk into the meat of his back and threw him to the ground. Then before he could get a grab at it, it had flown away with a large part of his cape in its arms. His special cape.

He cried and in his sudden despair and he realized he was lost. Laying upon his face, he began to throw a tantrum. His fists and feet banged in the dust as he bawled like a much younger child.

Oh, grow up! Came a voice in his head. He heard it but not with his ears for it had no sound. But it rasped in his mind. Don't you humans spend enough time as babies in your cradles?

“I'm not a baby,” he said aloud, falling still. No longer crying.

Cradles of Sin they be. Sins against the Greater World of Nature you live in. The voice seemed to come from the vulture. Friendless you are... twice a runaway.

“You laugh like that crow had laughed,” Bleach remarked, turning onto his back to look up at his tormentor. “Before my brother had killed it.” Then he remembered the burning casket.

Before he could begin to weep again, the image in his head shattered like a pane of glass. It was replaced by a spark of white light.

If I were a predator, so easily would I have sunk my beak or talons into your neck and drank your blood, said the vulture in a casual remark.

“Well you did attack me, didn't you?” Bleach wanted to know.

“Only because my wings were getting tired from following you.” Not surprisingly, the vulture had chosen a tall gravestone to perch from.

A shadowy figure landed next to Bleach. On its waist there was a scabbard and belt for the dagger. Upon its head it wore the steel helmet. The rest of its features were cloaked. He could not tell how tall this latest arrival was.

Before he could address this person, it spoke. “So a scavenger complains about the chase for you? Indeed. I have been chasing you even further... grandson.”

“Grampah? Am I dead now?” He climbed to his feet and almost fell. Grampah was clean-shaven and was missing his glasses, but he still recognized him.

The figure grabbed his elbow to steady him. “You look older.” He laughed. “In fact you look older than me at this moment.”

Bleach felt his face and found his beard was still there. And then he found out that his hair was a tangled mess as well. “Why am I old?”

“You wished to be older. Older and wiser. But you wished too hard and your age got too far ahead of you. And your wisdom has dimmed.” Grampah mused for a second. “You also have grown more than a little insane since I last saw you.”