Genesis [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

That afternoon, the Source sent me a dream.

Or perhaps, a nightmare was a more appropriate term.

The nightmare began in darkness, utter darkness. There was an unbearable heat, sticky and heavy and thick. It intensified the stenches around me; rotting meat, spoiled milk, feces, urine, sulfur. The combination of horrid stenches suffocated me, burned my throat, my nostrils, even my eyes. In the darkness, I could hear a young child crying. A female. I could hear the voices of other children speaking, hushed and fearful and concerned. I heard the sound of something thick and wet popping, like molten lava gurgling through a large cavern. Faint hissing, like a snake, an eerie moan like wind forcing through a long tight space.

And the feeling of despair and misery was so thick.

Confused, I reached my hands out in search of a way to go. I put one foot in front of other, and quickly learned I was not only barefoot, but stepping on something gooey and hot. I gasped in pain, yanking my foot up, then the other, then reached out to grab something as I tumbled backwards, only to smack into more of the gooey hot mess.

Horrified and disgusted, I scrambled through it, attempting to find some sort of solid ground. After a few minutes of blindly flailing through disgusting territory, I was standing on a hard, rough surface. It hurt my burnt feet, scraped and cut my knees and hands, but it was so much better than being in the hot goo.

Suddenly, a light flickered in the distance. Sparks flying, the sound of two rocks cracking together. I quickly started toward it, my feet now numbed from pain as I carefully picked my way over the rough terrain.

As I walked, the sound of children speaking grew louder. I could make out the voices of two male children, a female, and a much younger female sobbing uncontrollably. The sparks flew once more and a moment later, there was a rasp as the sparks caught onto flammable material and exploded into a show of light. The children screamed and the infant female wailed, her voice carrying through the cavern.

"You nearly killed us," one of the males shouted, "What made you think that was gonna work!"

"Shut up," came the other male voice, "It worked. Look." I watched as the shrieking column of flames began to shrink down to a reasonable size. The abrupt light stung my eyes and I grimaced, covering my eyes for a moment, shielding them from the light before my eyes adjusted slowly.

The light spread out to reveal a small group of children standing scattered around it.

Two young males came into better view first. The first one was very young, no older than five years, panting hard with fear. His skin color was indiscernible due to the horrendous state of it; marred by vicious scars, bruises, and caked in a black mud. His long scraggly brown hair was held back from his face by sweat, mud, and grease.

The second male was older, still a child, but old enough to have been the one to start the fire. He, too, was marred with scars and filth. His long black hair was a tangled mess, hanging in his face and obscuring a decent view of it. The only features of his face I could discern were a pair of piercing blue eyes, a blue unlike any I'd ever seen before. It was a shade of blue that reminded me so much of the dress I'd purchased for Lillian. They appeared to glow in the dark.

Next, I spotted not two, but three females. The oldest female was nearly the age of the oldest male, but she was very thin, very frail, with dark hair matted and cut in a choppy style, revealing eyes that reflected the crackling fire. Beside her, the younger female had a similar hairstyle, choppy and caked with mud and grease, and in her arms was the infant female who wailed with tiny fists flinging about in the air.