[Prologue]
On this page, we were still children. The waves crashed against the rocks and I could taste the salt in the air as the wind carried the brine up the beach toward us. Gulls chirped loudly above and around us hoping for food. The sun beamed down on us, burning me even, but the cool ocean spray took care of it. And in my playful frenzy I wasn't bothered by it or the sand clouds stinging my eyes anyway. As long as we weren't being forced to study nothing could destroy this moment.
This was a perfect day.
My brother Edward sat across from me, twig in hand, trying his best to draw brick patterns in the walls of a sand castle. His eye for beauty was keen and each stroke intentional. The towers of his castle were built to scale and the intricate details etched into the walls couldn't have been more perfect. Seashells lined a little walkway into the front gate and he'd used a small piece of wood that I'd found earlier, presumably from some wreckage that had washed ashore, as a drawbridge for his tiny moat. He'd sneaked four matchsticks from the fireplace at home and stuck them into position atop individual towers along the ounter wall. Toy soldiers and animal figurines littered the busy little streets in the castle square.
Mine still looks like the pale I'd shaped it with. The brick pattern was crude and mounds of sand I'd squeezed together to form walls surrounding my own kingdom were passable at best. But it didn't matter. I was happy.
Edward looked up at me and smiled, squinting. Little specks of sand dotted his short cut mess of brown hair. He mirrored me in every feature. Only he was clean, prim and proper where I was a mess of scuffed patches of sand and dirt. Any chance that someone would recognize our matching outfits for what they were would be hard pressed to find a spot on me that wasn't the opposite of his. I never understood why they always insisted on dressing us the same anyway.
Even the way he smiled seemed elegant and mature where mine seemed childish and cute. They said it made me look like a girl.
I smiled back with a devilish grin, thinking about the hermit crab I'd hidden in a hole dug behind my castle. My moat monster. He was going to be in for a surprise when our battle began.
We went back to our work on our castles.
I loved this moment. Spending time with Edward made me feel close to him. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be without my brother and yet the knowledge that he would be leaving soon nagged at me.
Suddenly Edward removed a wooden dragon from his pocket and smashed it against several soldiers along the outside of my fortress, knocking them over. As expected. Father had carved that for me on a previous birthday and I'd seen him sneak it along with the match sticks.
"I breathe fire into your guard! Down with the imperials," he shouted.
"Catapults fire at will!"I shouted back, returning fire by tossing a few small rocks the Dragon.
The battle began with a series of thrown rocks and crashed castle walls. I soon released my secret hermit crab monster from the depths to do battle with the Dragon fiend as my men fell one by one against it’s might. We began spouting various banter about royalty, knights, and the law of the kingdom. Most of it made little sense but it didn’t matter? We were just two ten-year-old kids having the time of our lives.
I basked the nonsense, enjoying every moment. But as moments do, and time went on, it ended. The vast kingdoms before us stood ravaged and wasted. Bodies littered the streets, walls crumbled, and I’m pretty sure that Edward had enough sand in his hair at this point that even his poise couldn’t mask it.
We laughed and dismantled what remained of our battleground. Edward began gathering up figures while I collected shells when suddenly there was a sort of jolt in the air.
I looked about frantically; my heart suddenly raced. A ripple in the water that seem to continue out of the ocean and somehow passed on through the physical world. The shock of it knocked me on my back, tossing me some yards away from where Edward crouched. He continued on however as if I'd never moved.
I panicked, searching for the source of the disruption but I couldn't find anything out of place. I called out to Edward but, once again, he ignored me.
There was another jolt this time it was louder and more powerful. It hit me so hard that I convulsed. It came from the ocean. Hunched over I raised my head and looked out over the horizon. The source of the shock was out there; I could see clearly now. It was like something had slammed against the horizon. The line dividing water and sky suddenly thrummed and vibrated as if some large finger had plucked it like it were the string of a harp. The line wavered at incredible speeds causing the vibration to spill out across the world and sharp all of power and discord. The waves were getting louder.
I turned Edward but he still hadn't noticed anything. He seemed to be talking to me, but it was barely audible over the hammering ocean.
I turned back to watch the tide wash up the beach. Louder and louder, the water pounded against the sand until it was almost a deafening roar. The bursts from the horizon pushed outward and force the water against the beach harder and harder. Every splash against the sand scattered into the air becoming waves light that rippled out through everything on the shore.
I collected every bit of will that I could manage and calm myself. Memories could do that to a reader. They alter one's perception, make them believe that the world around is real. The emotions a reader could feel coming from inside of the author's head were real enough but the panic and sheer terror that could be inflicted from a disturbance outside were sometimes just as strong as the events happening within the memory themselves.
I took a deep breath and clenched my fists, trying to stand my ground without being knocked over by another blast from the outside, but it did little good. The world around me was falling apart. There was another shock, another convulsion, and I felt myself being disconnected it.
The sand melted beneath my feet and the warmth from the sun suddenly became a slimy cold. Gravity took a strange lurch in the opposite direction and I felt as if I were being dragged backward. My feet slowly left the ground. I felt filthy, wet, and my bones suddenly felt as if they were no longer part of my body. Everything inside of me turned to water. My eyes would no longer blink, if they were even eyes at all. I became shapeless, formless, and felt like I was going to melt away into nothing.
There was one final boom from the horizon and the pulse that followed came with such force that it pushed me off my feet instead of passing through. An invisible wall slammed against me and I flew up and up. The gut wrenching sensation of falling was still there though, and it filled me me even though I was being lifted. The beach shrank below me. Everything began to blur as I rose faster and further. The very air seemed to collapse around me, folding in on itself and with it I began to fold in on myself as well. Pressure came from all sides. It pushed on me, compressed me. I became smaller and smaller while the force around me grew more devastating, and everything began to fade into the deepest of blacks.
And then it ended abruptly. Sheer torture to normality in an instant. All of my discomfort, all of my pain, dissolving as if I had completely imagined them. The sensation was frightening. And then it was over.
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