In Between The Ends

Chapter One

I've always been right here, haven't I?

It felt as though this dream had only just begun, and yet I couldn't remember anything that came before this place nor anything that comes after. Perhaps nothing ever had.

Spanning out infinitely in all directions was the gentle rise and fall of waves. Blue and almost opaque they extended out to greet the horizon, smooth and unmoving in the night.

Wait.

I had never laid eyes on the sea, but the stories I had heard spoke of the ocean as a moving body of water; an overwhelming force that rolled and churned and threw itself at the coastline, yet the large expanse that laid before me was completely still, as if frozen in time.

Reaching down to run my fingertips across its motionless surface, I realized my mistake. Clenching my hand around it, I lifted a fistful and allowed it to slowly slip out of my grasp, forming a small mound at my feet. It wasn't water: it was sand. An entire sea of soft sand dunes as far and as wide as the world.

Though the night sky was dark and full of stars, the ocean of sand was bright. The light that reflected off the trillions of particles was not golden from the rays of the sun, but rather a cool ethereal blue that aided in the illusion of a vast-expanding sea. I could feel the origin of this light somewhere behind me, pouring over my shoulders and passing beyond into the gradual darkness. The pressure of it was subtle yet undeniable, as if begging to be known.

I turned almost unwilling, eyes growing wide as I took in my first view of the source.

There before me was a colossal tree composed of pure light. This bastion seemed to pour up from the ground in rivers, flowing up towards the sky where it split off into tendril-like branches that reached out into the night.

It was all-consuming in its beauty, yet dread trickled down my spine and pooled in my stomach. Sweat beaded at my temples as my heart started to race, and yet without hesitation I began taking slow and deliberate steps forward as if a cord had wrapped around my chest, pulled on from the far end by parts unknown. The message was clear:

Come to me.

After a few moments -or perhaps an eternity- I found myself cresting a small dune near the base of the tree; a truly monumental swirling talisman that travelled into the heavens. It was as my gaze slid down from the ever-reaching branches and along the shimmering base that I saw them. Fear prickled at the back of my neck, but it was as if any fight or flight instinct I possessed had left me.

The two figures had their backs turned to me, as still as statues in their silent vigil. A young woman, blonde hair hanging around her tensed shoulders and cascading down the back of her dirty clothes, had her hand resting on the shoulder of a man who was kneeling in the sand. His head was hung as if in prayer, dark hair obscuring his eyes and his hands resting limp and shaking in his lap.

A desperate need stole over me: I had to see their faces. I needed to know what they could see in the light; it was the only thing that mattered now.

Coming to a stop only a few feet to the pairs left, I once again took in the Tree's awesome glory. Hues of transcendent blue rupturing from the earth and reached out to time itself.

This is the center of life. I thought to myself. A smile began to tug at the corners of my mouth. I wanted to share this incredible sight with my new companions, share in the magnificent life force of the cosmos.

Turning my head to the side, mouth opening to begin a million questions, the smile suddenly froze on my lips. My blood turned cold and sluggish in my veins and the air in my lungs evaporated. Undiluted fear saturated my body, pulsing hot and thick as I took in their faces.