Beating (Book 1: Acts of the Hearth)

Chapter 18

Among piles of rubble, dust and debris, the group remaining at Hearth commence their search for Damen. The morning sun begins to rise as they search. Vivian has taken a nap using a dusty pillow she found among the pile of crushed bricks, that used to be the inn and diner.

     As she sleeps atop the scatters of broken stones, the men continue their search. Despite the area lacking strong drafts of wind, a stream of dust and small stones move along a path as if they were guided.

     The stream crawls along Vivian’s head and down to her stomach. Some of the dust finds its way into her mouth, causing her to quickly sits up and coughs out a cloud of it.

     The cloud floats in front of her and resettles itself before it leaves to catch up with the rest of its kind. Vivian stares at the odd occurrence before her with half asleep eyes and watches as it leaves to be with the other traveling piles.

     “Okay…? Just what the hell am I watching?” she says rubbing her eyes. The young woman rises from the pile she slept on and dust herself off. She follows along with the stream of broken rocks and dust.

     “So, where is it all going?” Vivian ponders as she looks around and notices that other bits of debris are moving about on their own as well; spotting this phenomenon interests her.

     “Hey, someone come check this out! I want to make sure I haven’t gone loony!” Vivian yells, giggling at the ridiculous occurrence. A few of the men come over. Some scratch their head, while others try to block the path of the automatically moving rubble.

     The dusty remains climb over the men and proceeds on its way. Those curious in the group follows the interesting development to its destination. What they witnessed seemed unbelievable to all who looked upon it. The guided piles of dust and debris were purposing themselves and rebuilding a wall from one of the destroyed structures.

     “How is this possible? What’s making the material fix itself?” Vivian wonders as she watches the piles work together. “What’s everybody looking at?” Ode says as he walks over to the group.

     Vivian points at the small reconstructing corner of a wall.

     The burly man puts his hand over his mouth and rubs his thick mustache. “Okay...what the hell am I watching?” Vivian laughs at the man's question. “That’s what I said too!”

In the eyes of a Seer…

 

     A black and white scene plays out before his closed eyes:

     Withered trees lay out in a muddy wasteland. Underneath the surface of this land lays a motionless body of a woman with her eyes wide open. Above her, a vast amount of people living in slanted tents with a multitude of spit-roast and fire pits in their encampment.

     A man stands with his young son that attempts to pull him back as the mother stands beside them. The boy clings on, until the man pulls away from him. The man is wrapped completely in gray as he vanishes before the boy.

     The boy moves to stand in the same place as the man. Gray shadow-like images wrap themselves around the boy's right arm as the vision pulls its’ viewer further from the muddy lands.

     The next scene plays as if it were dragging the viewer from the previous one. In a forest, roots of trees spring forth from the ground and reach out to grab the observer as they pass by.

     Next, he watches as creatures who walk on four legs with sharp fangs and a line of spikes down their backs stare curiously back. They all snarl at him as he passes by.