His

Beginnings

In the beginning, it was dark. "In the beginning, it is always dark." Someone once said this, an empress you probably never heard of and it's true to some extent. Even in His story, the beginning was dark. It was dark before He created the light, spoke it into being like everything else, and in her beginning, it was the same. Darkness ruled her world, ruled over everything except for the slight blue radiance that blossomed from the bosom of the earth. That light was weak and damp, though beautiful in its own way. There was only just enough of it, enough of it for her to perceive the objects around her, the trees, the leaves, the fingerlike branches that tore through her clothing, her hair, her skin, her face and eyes. The path, she could see that as well. Scattered gravel flew like locusts beneath her feet. Unclothed, her toes buckled, her ankles twisted. She couldn't see the dirt but with certainty she could feel it. Its snake-like ribbons bound the arch of her lurching heels. The soil poured into the rivers of her footprints making her feet slip and sway, made her steps splatter and stutter like the scattered rain that soaked her skin and hair. Yet in her haste, she didn't dwell on that. In her haste, her focus was preoccupied, split between two worlds, the future and the present.

The future was nestled beyond the forest, the wilderness, this jungle of midnight vegetation through which she raced. Her future was rickety and rotten and rugged. It would cut the skin of her feet, burn the palms of her hands. Yet even that pain she wouldn't feel, couldn't feel, not when the present raced on behind her beating the ground with angry dark paws. Only when she had crossed over that high swung bridge and felt the cold rocky cliff caress the tattered flesh of her feet, only then would she even perceive how shredded they were. Her gaze was too focused to feel her skin tear, her thoughts too desperate to distinguish the smell of her blood. She had seen the other side. The cliff, the island, she had to reach it, cross into it, flee away from the present which fiercely hunted her.

The wolf was big. It was mean with fur the color of the night, eyes the flavor of the sky and sea and her world basked in limited light and unending darkness. In "The Neverending Story," he was called G'mork, the Servant of the Nothing, but in her world he didn't have a name, or if he did, she never stopped to ask. If she did, she would die, turn into dust, dirt, salt and tears. He would slaughter her with those fangs, they, which only seemed to shimmer in the darkness, her darkness.

On her heels, she could feel his breath, feel the wetness of his tongue and dripping saliva sprinkle the back of her thighs. It prodded her on, his breath, his tongue, his presence, until eventually the future peaked through the branches glimmering blue in the light that shouldn't exist. She moaned in hope. He growled in frustration, then roared in anger as her feet tripped over the first wooden rug, stumbled over the thirteenth, the twentieth, the second to last and then the wind bent grass found on the other side. Only then did she turn back knowing that it hadn't followed, that it paced on the other side glaring at the bridge that was too fragile for him to cross.

His blue eyes narrowed. Her own black pupils barely visible in the darkness, her darkness, blinked back tears while a childlike fist reached out to wipe them away. In relief, in sopping liberation, the rain dripped to a stop. The clouds parted gradually and it was then when she finally had the nerve to approach the bridge. Quickly, without thinking, she began to wrestle with the rope. Trudging, ripping, picking up the very jagged rocks that had once cut her feet, she tore through the rickety, rotten and rugged pathway until it faltered and groaned. The rope fell silently to an end she could neither see nor reach. Yet, she could hear the ocean, feel its spray kiss the curve of her cheek. This too she wiped away, shakily, uncertainly.

Looking down, watching the rope fall, a smile spread across her face. Looking up, the smile wilted, faltered like the bridge had moments before. Across the crevasse, her smile glared back at her sprouting like shattered glass upon the muzzle of the beast that had hunted her. It made her doubt, re-think, stumble back in fear and uncertainty upon the summit of that high-rise island, the isolated plateau with no way off, bordered perilously by an ocean and a cliff. The forest sat nestled twenty feet away across a ravine that was as unjumpable as it was untouchable.

"A prison," she thought. "Ensnared?" she asked.

Effectively trapped, unavoidably alone, she was unaware that another had followed unseen. Unseen, He had watched the hunt. Unseen, He hadn't interfered but He, in His compassion, didn't abandon either, even when, in her despair, she found the island's center and began to dig.

He snuck across the bridge and while she dug into the earth, He built upon it creating walls, gates, windows, ballrooms, libraries, towers, kitchens, bathrooms, sitting rooms and bedrooms and a white washed gallery housing nothing but a tree and a throne. A castle soared while inside it, underneath it, its princess huddled alone waiting for nothing but darkness and death, but death didn't come. Instead, a light dawned, seemed to suddenly grow like a rippling vine out of the hole that hovered above her. It brushed the curve of her eyelashes, the soft petals of her cheeks illuminating the crystal-like tear that rolled and fell from cheek to chin, from chin to softly clutched fists. Her gaze squinted, then parted as the soft brush of a whisper lilted from the sudden glow above. It danced as black eyes lifted skyward not expecting the blue and green gaze staring down at her smiling along with a tipped up mouth, corded braided hair, olive tan skin and a gentle hand that dipped into the pathway of the darkness, her darkness.

It was a sight she would never forget.

It was a sight she would never forget, the blue and green gaze that stared up at her. There was worth there, love there, value there, a plan born out of wisdom and stubborn purpose. She didn't understand it.

The tree curled her branches, ruffled her leaves as she peered away to stare at the wine grove swirling lazily around her roots. It was the harvest. The grapes were large and round, a violet that seemed to only deepen as the season carried on. It made her branches dip and sway. Her leaves to fall and discolor. She would have never looked up again if it wasn't for His voice. She was too preoccupied, captured by two worlds, the future and the present.

His Father had come by, weighed her branches, evaluated her leaves, noted the absence of fruit that should have been bulging from her branches but wasn't, hadn't, wouldn't. Death was her sentence, fire and the axe.

If she had eyes, the tree would have clothed them, closed them against the future and the present that hadn't grown, that should have grown but wasn't, dangling from her branches by the stem-full, the barrel-full, the glass-full.

"Not yet."

Even still, in the midst of that darkness, her darkness, a voice called out to her, pulling her back to a present that wasn't her own, into a future she could barely see.

The tree, if she had eyes, looked down and met determined blue and green, a dancing green and blue, the summer sweet scrutiny of the Son staring up at her in the presence of the man who had sentenced her to die.

And looking up into the darkness, her darkness, the Son opened His mouth and spoke. He said, "Live."

I've been staring at this chapter for three weeks. I give up. Have at it! - Calla