The Power of a Few

The Guardian ~ 5

   Myra lounged, once again, on the delicate green grass, wishing time would stop. It was noon and the sun's bright radiance cast a reddish tint on the ocean which trickled through the murky blue water. Soft clouds floated overhead and a promising scent of spring showers swept through the air. It would most likely rain tomorrow, something the village crops needed.

   She gazed in wonder as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, taking away its warmth and light but promising to greet her the next morning with equal, if not more, vivid color than today. Not much time passed by before soft lights blinked into existence in the darkening sky of the night and a full moon cast its pale light over the land.

   Every day the transfer of this duty of lighting Myra's world occurred, and every day it struck her with such awe and amazement she couldn't but help send up prayers of praise to the Maker. He continued to paint her a new morning with every daybreak and sketch a calm night with every nightfall. He was a benevolent and merciful Creator.

   Nocturnal sounds of owls and wolves accented the cool twilight and Myra's ears tingled upon the sounds. The wolves around her village were harmless loners, so she had nothing to fear. People said a boy from a neighboring village found an orphaned pup a decade ago and the two became the closest of friends. But, they had vanished. Myra still remembered the day her village sent out a search party to find the two, but the boy and the wolf disappeared without a trace and everyone suspected that they had died. She preferred to imagine that they were still alive and dwelled somewhere beyond the dense woods of the west, like the stories in the books Sree read to her.

   It was a childish thought, one that didn't belong in the mind of a girl nearing adulthood. Another week and she would be twenty. Marrying age. It was a custom in her village for the father to find a suitable young man to marry his daughter on the month of her twentieth birthday. But her father would never do that. He loved Myra too much to force her into a covenant not chosen by the Creator. Myra believed with all her heart that her Maker had chosen someone out there for her. Someone handpicked by God, himself. A man, fashioned and sculptured to meet every desire of her heart; and Myra, for him. A bond formed in heaven, itself by the gentle hand of the Most High. Myra's heart always beat a little faster whenever she dreamed of the husband promised to her. She had never met him, didn't know his name, his face, or even his personality, but she knew he would love her with all his heart. Some people may call it naïve or impossible. Myra called it heavenly.

   What's that? She thought.

   A sound, small but steady, rose all over the village. Myra strained her ear to hear better. It sounded like... a scream. The cry gradually increased and was soon deafening. Myra covered her ears and clenched her jaw. The scream penetrated her mind and seemed to shake the ground beneath her. Myra scrambled to her feet and twirled around to face her village. The ground was shaking, and so were the buildings. She cried out in terror as the Holderson's house crumbled to the ground. Soon more homes fell apart. Building by building her village was nearing destruction. Then, the earth beneath her feet crumbled, and she plunged into darkness, the banshee-like screech resonating throughout her body.

. . .

   Myra woke from her nightmare only to be greeted by something more terrifying. Her room was shaking. The shelf on which her mother's books sat fell over with a loud CRASH. But not even that noise could cover Sree's scream. Her sister was sitting straight up in her bed, blank eyes wide open as a shriek identical to the one from Myra's dream issued from her sister's gaping mouth. Myra jumped out of her bed and stumbled across the trembling room to her Sree's side.

   "Sree! Sree, wake up," She yelled at her sister. Sree continued to scream, her face frozen in sickening horror. It wasn't until she tried to shake Sree that Myra realized her sister wasn't just screaming, she was trembling. She was... vibrating. And her vibrating caused the shaking room. Myra kept trying to wake up her sister, but nothing seemed to work. Desperate, she cried for her father.