Brian Pratt - The mists of sorrow

“So?” asks Jiron.

“So…” begins James, “that might be where the source of this is coming from.”

“How far away is it?” Brother Willim asks.

“It’s not close,” he replies. Opening his eyes, he turns to them and says, “Can’t be sure how far it is. Maybe a mile.” He stands there and thinks for a moment, gazing at the bubble surrounding them and the grayness covering it. “Somehow we are going to have to reach the source of the electrical pulses.”

“How are we to do that?” Jiron asks. “Shouldn’t we first worry about how we are going to get out of here?”

Gesturing to the barrier Brother Willim asks, “Can you move this while we walk?”

“You mean push it under the grayness?” he asks. When Brother Willim nods yes, he thinks but a moment before he says, “Yes, I think I can.”

“They’ve been in there a while now,” says Scar.

They have done nothing but stare at the dome in the grayness where James, Jiron and Brother Willim are trapped since it first covered them. Miko had begun to try to use the Star in some way to rescue them, but Zyrn cautioned against it. He said that it was magic that it reacts to.

Frustrated, all they can do is watch. “If anyone can get out of this it’s James,” says Stig.

“You got that right,” replies Potbelly. “In fact, I remember Jiron telling us about the time they were in this swamp…” He then goes into the story about the complex in the swamp with the skull pyramids and the headless torsos.

“Look!” exclaims Shorty.

Cutting off his story at the point James had found the hidden entrance to the complex, he again turns his gaze to the shimmering field of gray.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Stig asks.

The dome in which their trapped comrades lie begins to move. Not toward them and safety, but deeper into the grayness. “Do you think he knows which way to go?” asks Scar.

“Could be moving blindly in order to find the way out,” suggests Potbelly.

Shaking his head, Miko says, “I don’t think so.” He’s been through too many things with James to believe he would engage in a course of action blindly. “He knows what he’s doing,” he states with conviction. I hope you know what you’re doing!

Moving the barrier while still maintaining an air tight seal to prevent the grayness from coming in, at first was pretty hard. He had to keep the barrier beneath where they are walking stable so as not to trip them. At the same time, he needed to extend the forward area while retracting the rear.

Originally he thought to treat it like a hamster ball, and just have it roll along. But he soon realized that was not going to be feasible, not with the three of them in here. Going slowly at first, he moves the barrier along the ground at a crawl. Though as he continually does it, he finds that it’s growing easier to do and soon doesn’t have to work as hard to keep it going.

Another thing that’s been bothering him that he has yet to mention to the others is their air supply. There’s no way for the air within the barrier to be refreshed. The barrier itself is sizable so if this doesn’t take too long, they may be alright.

As they move through the grayness, he had thought there would be more of a resistance. The rate of the electrical pulses had increased as soon as they got underway which is why he thought something was about to happen. But nothing manifested. The way it reacted to magic, how it moves, he can’t help but think that it is somehow alive. Maybe not intelligent, but definitely alive. It almost feels like an episode of Star Trek where they meet an unknown life form. He wonders what Captain Kirk would do in this situation.

Thinking about Star Trek makes him melancholy. He misses home and the things that he can no longer have or do. What he would give for a pack of M amp;M’s right now! Always a chocolate junky, he can almost taste the chocolate melting in his mouth.

“James!” cries out Jiron.

Snapping out of his reverie, he discovers the grayness has once again begun to seep through the edge where the barrier over their heads meets the barrier beneath them. With a thought he reconstructs the barrier sealing off the grayness that had seeped in, then pushes it out and away from the barrier.

“Sorry,” he says slightly embarrassed.

One last errant thought crosses his mind as he wonders if there is anything similar to the cocoa bean here on this world. Getting back to the task at hand, he puts his idle curiosity to the back of his mind as he concentrates on more immediate concerns.

There’s no way to tell how far they’ve progressed within the gray coated bubble. As near as he can tell they’ve crossed at least half a mile. At one point they passed one of the swords with which Zyrn had marked the edge of the gray area, but that was some time ago.

Grayness above them, grayness below them, it almost feels as if they are afloat on a sea of gray. If it wasn’t for the firmness of the ground beneath them, he could almost imagine being in a gray storm cloud.

“Do you sense anything?” he finally asks Brother Willim.

Shaking his head, he replies, “Only what I originally felt.” Nodding, James returns to the task at hand and they continue on.

The continuous concentration on the grayness has built sort of a picture in his mind of the paths the electrical bursts take as they course through the creature. Creature? he asks himself. Actually he has begun to think of it as something alive. The pulses always follow the same paths, almost like blood being pumped through arteries. There is a definite rhythm to it and maybe it’s just his imagination, but he can almost feel a heartbeat.

“This thing’s alive,” he says.

“Alive?” questions Brother Willim.

“I think so, yes,” replies James. “Nothing like we understand to be sure, but alive none the less.” Stopping, he turns to Brother Willim and asks, “Wouldn’t that mean this creature falls within Asran’s domain?”

“I…I don’t know,” he stammers. Such a thought had never even occurred to him. Closing his eyes, he prays to his god for guidance and wisdom. After several minutes, his eyes open again. “You are correct in that it is alive. Now that you pointed it out, I can easily see it. But as to it falling within Asran’s domain, it does not.” He glances from one to the other then adds, “There are many living beings that do not fall within Asran’s domain. His charge is that of all things that live in nature. Whatever this is, it doesn’t live in nature or at least nature as I understand it.”

“Well,” says Jiron, all nervousness due to their circumstances vanishing. “If it’s alive, we can kill it.” Now that he understands it’s a living creature, his confidence is returned. James gives him a grin and a nod before continuing on.

Another ten minutes or so of walking brings them to a point where their skin begins to crawl. Not due to the workings of magic, but something else. “What is that?” asks Jiron as he rubs his arm in a fruitless attempt to still the sensation.

“I don’t know,” replies James. Sending his senses out further toward the source of the electrical pulses he encounters what can only be called a void. “Oh man,” he breathes.

“What?” asks Brother Willim.

“I’m not sure if I can explain it,” he replies. “Give me a second.” The others fall quiet as he continues his inspection of the void. Maybe void isn’t the most apt term to use but it’s the best he can come up with. In his mind’s eye it appears to be an opening, a rip if you will. The electrical pulses are originating from the other side.

“I think we found where this is coming from,” he tells them. “It looks like a hole, not a hole as you would understand the term. More like a way that is open between this plane and another. It’s through this hole in our plane that the creature has entered.”