The Ascension (Book One): Toss the Dice

Chapter Twenty One

The faces of everyone around me seemed large. They hung above my head and taunted my like ghosts. I stared at them, unable to drag my eyes away from the horrid sight. I cringed and the faces around me simply smiled, as if they were happy to see my pain. They circled around me, as if they were trying to see me from every possible angle. But then pushing through all the faces was one face that shone with a light that made all the faces around it seem dark. That face smiled at me and took my hand. It began pulling me away from the other faces around me and the farther from the dark faces we got the easier it was to hear. The sound of the world around me was suddenly there. I could hear the birds whistling and the air as it rushed through the grass and the trees. The world around me no longer seemed like a blurred mass of gray. It was bright and vibrant and filled with hundreds of different things to learn and different things to see. I stared at the world around me in shock that there was such a large thing with so many people in it. The glowing face smiled at me and spoke.

"Welcome to the outside world my dear." She said. "I'm your mother."

"Mother." I said, not exactly sure what that was but the word itself gave off a glow as it escaped my lips and floated up into the sky.

The glowing face that was my mother smiled again and nodded. "Mother." She said. "That's right."

Another face was coming up the green hill we were now standing on, making its way towards us. This one was glowing just a much or maybe even more than mother's face. This face was the same as mothers but also slightly different, more defined, more square but just as friendly. The second face joined us at the top of the hill and smiled at me just a mother's face had. He looked happy to see me and I felt him pick me up and spin me around.

"This is your father." Said mother.

"Father." I said. This word also glowed and shined as it popped out of my mouth like a little round light that floated towards the sky.

"That's right." Said father. "I'm your father."

They both took my hands, father on my left and mother on my right, and we began walking down the hill hand in hand. Both mother and father seemed very happy to be around me and I was just as happy to be around them. I saw the world around us swirl and suddenly we were standing on a street. The ground beneath my feet was cobblestone and the houses around us were made of pink and yellow and purple swirls of color that shifted as we walked past them. Mother and father laughed and talked to me as we ate food along the street. I had a feeling in my chest but I wasn't quite sure what it was and so I asked mother exactly what she thought it was.

She laughed and smiled and turned to look at me. "That's called feeling happy my dear." She said.

"Happy." I said, remembering the word. The word happy floated away from my mouth, glowing just as brightly as the words mother and father had, blending into the sky made of colors.

The world turned into swirls again and I was in a room with mother and father. Father was sitting in a chair, a book open in his lap, his head leaning back where he had fallen asleep. Mother and I were sitting in chairs across from each other. My stool was a little smaller that mothers but it still made me feel like a big girl to be sitting on a stool and not in one of my parents lap. Mother opened her mouth and a beautiful noise came out that I didn't know the name of. I asked mother what it was.

"It's called singing my dear." She said.

"Singing." I said as the word floated out the window and up into the sea of glowing lights that had grown as I had learned new words that made me feel happy.

"Yes singing." Said mother. "Would you like me to teach you how to sing?"

I nodded and mother began teaching me how to sing. Mother taught me to sing and father told me it sounded beautiful. I was proud of myself for sounding so beautiful.

Mother told me that she would take me outside our house to sing for the people who walked down the street. So mother took me outside and brought an instrument. As she played songs on the instrument I sang them and sometimes, when I felt like it, I would dance. Mother laughed and I sang and father clapped along to the happier tunes. Some people stopped to listen to us and would give mother or I money for our playing. I was happy and content playing songs for the happy glowing faces of the other people who went by. But suddenly the pink and yellow and purple walls of the houses turned grey and the people's faces grew dull like the scary faces of the people who used to stare at me. Mother and father both stood, looking afraid. I stepped in between mother and father grabbing their hands in fear. Father's grip was strong and mother's hand was sweaty. The darkness advanced towards us and the faces that had stared at me and made me scared came down the street towards us. They attacked mother and father and mother yelled to me.

"Run!"

"Run." I whispered to myself and the word floated into the sky above me, a dark gray bubble among the glowing happy ones. I turned and ran, up the street and away from the gray faced people and the houses that were turning black and dark. I screamed and ran for my life, away from the things that scared me. The people around me didn't try to stop me from running away from the scary faces but they stared at me, their faces morphing into those of the scary ones. I screamed again and ran and ran down the winding streets always just barely in front of the darkness that followed behind me like a crackling wave, threatening to overtake me. I ran into an unfamiliar place. There were no houses, and the world around me wasn't filled with pink and purples and yellows. It was all blues and I stared at the large mass of blue that went out around me in a large area. I turned to see the darkness coming for me and I ran towards the blue but I felt something grab my foot. I looked down as I began to fall and saw a gray hand sticking out of the ground below my feet. I screamed as I went down and saw the blue ground growing closer as suddenly my face hit it and my mind went black.