Post by Ethereal on Jun 6, 2012 18:02:17 GMT -5
Ash. Ash and blood and burning. Screams. My screams. More fire. More ash. The images raced through my mind like wildfire. Horror simmered in my stomach like a fly in a vat of oil. Clenching my jaw, I forced myself to sit down. I wouldn't get anywhere very quickly if I was noxious the whole way. Not likely.
The mountains were everywhere. Each way I looked, shadows engulfed the cropped slopes. Through the gaps in the trees, I caught a glance of the forests further down the hill: one was shadowed, like the trunks of the trees around me, the other lit by sunlight like a jewel reflecting off of a gold plate. I remembered hills in my old home. They were so lovely. Not towering and monstrous like these. Just soft and sloping, and golden like the lightest honey. Naturally that thought made me hungrier than I already was, and I wished--not for the first time--that I had had the sense to stock up more in the last city. But as a mutant you never knew when you were safe or when you had to run. So the result was an acute paranoia that prevented me from spending much time anywhere, let alone in a public place.
Pulling my sweater more tightly around my shoulders, I looked up at the sky over my head. It was framed by thin pine needles, green in that way only summer things can be. My bright red hair fell into my face, the ugly cropped bangs tickling my forehead and my eyes. But I didn't mind that much. I was used to it. Still, as I hoisted myself back up onto my feet, I pushed them away from my eyes. They were strange eyes, I knew. The sorts of eyes that scared people away. Maybe that was why my hands moved on instinct to draw my hood up around my face. It was better to hide them, I thought. Better to hide myself. The darkness that shadowed my face reminded me of another darkness, and a shiver ran through my body like bolts of lightning. Enough. The memories had to stop. I shook my head to clear it and began walking across the hill again. Rumors had been brought to my attention. It was time to travel again. Part of me was excited about the prospect. The other part... not so much.
I'd been traveling for many years. Ever since I was a kid. Locked away. Alone. Abandoned. A part of me sort of believed I deserved it. I thought that maybe those around me were right, that I was a monster. Possessed. Evil. It wasn't until I escaped that I realized I was just different. One of the people in the world who had evolved into something more. And the people living in the past wanted to stay there because they were afraid. I saw that fear in their eyes every time my power slipped through my hands, touching the lives around me and affecting them in good or terrible ways. They weren't ready to face the power of people like me. But then, I wasn't sure I was ready, either.
Still, I wanted to know if the rumors were true. If there really was a place for mutants, where we could live in peace--or relative peace, I suppose. Hiding, maybe, but that's better than nothing. At least I would know others who had suffered like I had. Who had been kicked and punished by those they lived simply for being who God made them to be. But then, I wasn't sure if I even believed in God anymore. Not after them. Not after the people who called themselves my parents did all that to me. All that torment to a mere child. In the name of God. It seemed that years later I was seeing them in the light. I was locked away in the dark before, but eventually I was able to see them and their "religion" for what it was: spiteful, dark, and hypocritical. But a part of me still remembered sitting in the dark with only my reading light beside my sleeping bag. The dark floor of the cellar had been cold, even through the scratchy material I slept on, but I barely noticed it. I would pick up the Bible that my parents had thrown into the room with me and I would read not of hatred and horrible men being damned to Hell, but of forgiveness and love. I thought, If only my parents knew about this side of God. But then, I thought as I stared up at that Montana sky, That's really the truest side of God, in the end.
Shrugging my shoulders, I trekked onwards, positioning the setting sun on my right. If I continued going south, I would find the rumors eventually.
Or maybe they'd find me.
The mountains were everywhere. Each way I looked, shadows engulfed the cropped slopes. Through the gaps in the trees, I caught a glance of the forests further down the hill: one was shadowed, like the trunks of the trees around me, the other lit by sunlight like a jewel reflecting off of a gold plate. I remembered hills in my old home. They were so lovely. Not towering and monstrous like these. Just soft and sloping, and golden like the lightest honey. Naturally that thought made me hungrier than I already was, and I wished--not for the first time--that I had had the sense to stock up more in the last city. But as a mutant you never knew when you were safe or when you had to run. So the result was an acute paranoia that prevented me from spending much time anywhere, let alone in a public place.
Pulling my sweater more tightly around my shoulders, I looked up at the sky over my head. It was framed by thin pine needles, green in that way only summer things can be. My bright red hair fell into my face, the ugly cropped bangs tickling my forehead and my eyes. But I didn't mind that much. I was used to it. Still, as I hoisted myself back up onto my feet, I pushed them away from my eyes. They were strange eyes, I knew. The sorts of eyes that scared people away. Maybe that was why my hands moved on instinct to draw my hood up around my face. It was better to hide them, I thought. Better to hide myself. The darkness that shadowed my face reminded me of another darkness, and a shiver ran through my body like bolts of lightning. Enough. The memories had to stop. I shook my head to clear it and began walking across the hill again. Rumors had been brought to my attention. It was time to travel again. Part of me was excited about the prospect. The other part... not so much.
I'd been traveling for many years. Ever since I was a kid. Locked away. Alone. Abandoned. A part of me sort of believed I deserved it. I thought that maybe those around me were right, that I was a monster. Possessed. Evil. It wasn't until I escaped that I realized I was just different. One of the people in the world who had evolved into something more. And the people living in the past wanted to stay there because they were afraid. I saw that fear in their eyes every time my power slipped through my hands, touching the lives around me and affecting them in good or terrible ways. They weren't ready to face the power of people like me. But then, I wasn't sure I was ready, either.
Still, I wanted to know if the rumors were true. If there really was a place for mutants, where we could live in peace--or relative peace, I suppose. Hiding, maybe, but that's better than nothing. At least I would know others who had suffered like I had. Who had been kicked and punished by those they lived simply for being who God made them to be. But then, I wasn't sure if I even believed in God anymore. Not after them. Not after the people who called themselves my parents did all that to me. All that torment to a mere child. In the name of God. It seemed that years later I was seeing them in the light. I was locked away in the dark before, but eventually I was able to see them and their "religion" for what it was: spiteful, dark, and hypocritical. But a part of me still remembered sitting in the dark with only my reading light beside my sleeping bag. The dark floor of the cellar had been cold, even through the scratchy material I slept on, but I barely noticed it. I would pick up the Bible that my parents had thrown into the room with me and I would read not of hatred and horrible men being damned to Hell, but of forgiveness and love. I thought, If only my parents knew about this side of God. But then, I thought as I stared up at that Montana sky, That's really the truest side of God, in the end.
Shrugging my shoulders, I trekked onwards, positioning the setting sun on my right. If I continued going south, I would find the rumors eventually.
Or maybe they'd find me.