[Fan] I can see the Past (G)
“I can see the past” Risika
(Author’s note: This is a recurring nightmare I have every year. It’s not set in America, but in a different land.)
It was like any other night. A few friends of my family would come over to the old broken down theatre we owned and would use the small lobby and stage as a place to be merry. I’d sit at a lone table, watching the entertainment, not caring about the ale and other beverages and the like being passed throughout the establishment. At the same time every night I was there, I’d feel a strange presence out in the halls, beckoning me to come to it. Without hesitation I’d quietly pad out, looking in the dusty old hall. Shadows danced in the gutted and ominous room, but I didn’t mind. Walking farther and farther from the lit and noisy room, I lit the small lantern I had brought with me, the firelight dancing into the smallest of crevices.
My natural curiosity overwhelmed me to look into the rooms of the old theatre, the half rotted wood under me creaking with each dampened footfall. The eyes of the old paintings on the wall seemed to follow my every step; the quiet wind disturbing the slightest layer of dust from its perch. Ancient books littered the hall floor, the bookshelves they had rested on for so long broken by time. Torn and water damaged pages lay strewn over the floor, small animal droppings covering the words.
By now, the light and sound of the merry-making had long since vanished from sight and mind, the dark path on which I traveled vine covered and demolished. All I could hear was the pitter-patter of water dripping from the roof, my booted feet stepping into the small puddles under me. Stairs on each side of the small corridor were unusable, the railing and steps rotted and hanging by the most trivial of appliances. Not even attempting to try the stairways, I found a small room, the contents moved only by time.
Old books, furniture and the like were strewn helter skelter, the lamps upturned and shattered all over. Taking to a supposed still intact book, I opened the front cover, the title long since faded from view. To my surprise, the words on the faded pages were legible, and in the language I could understand. Placing the old material into my bag I carried with me, I continued to rummage through the things here, looking for anything good.
Catching a feline stalking up a flight of stairs, I followed in pursuit, hoping to excavate something from this wasteland. Jumping the final stairs to the landing, I craned my neck to take in the view. Shredded papers were piled up in corners, bones settling in the rooted boards of the floor. I uneasily made my way to the small two-step staircase, spinning on my heel to the sound of footsteps.
Somehow, I might have stumbled into an old memory, for an elder with a black oak cane stood before me, his blind eyes staring into my very soul. I shuddered, my long coal hair falling over my face. He beckoned me to follow after him, and by some divine force, I followed the ominous elder, back down the stairway. He halted abruptly, signaling for me to stay.
Clumsily down the way he began, but as he turned to face me, ‘she’ looked like my grandmother. I ran to catch her before it was too late, but fate had other plans, the wood under her splintering, causing her to tumble down the stairs, hitting the cold ground with a sickening crack. I dashed down, gashing my booted foot, but it didn’t matter: my grandmother was dead. I ran a dirt covered hand across my eyes, looking down at her still and cold body. Kneeling, I wrested a book from under her, the title like new. I opened it, and my whole world slowly faded into nothingness…
Please comment and tell me what I can improve on, please! ^_^
11-19-2008, 12:59 AM
