Time Graveyard

By Hanna Kiv

“I had a strange dream last night. A very odd dream indeed. I was married, in the dream.  My husband was off at war. I was alone, and I lived in the middle of a forest. It was not so much  isolated, but rather private and it brought me deep joy for myself and my heart to keep to  ourselves out there all alone. The closest town was about a day’s walk round trip, a trip I had  taken many times by wagon or foot. 

“One day I was out in the garden, tending to the crops, and I felt something in my womb.  I knew at that moment that I was with child. 

“So I set out to the town, in order to deliver a letter to my husband, informing him of my  condition. I trudged through the woods, which seemed to close in on me as I got further and  further from my house. I knew the way, for I had taken the path many times before. This time it  seemed different. 

“As the wood pressed me in closer, I started to hear a faint humming noise. As it grew  louder, I deciphered that it was a creature lurking in the trees. Stopping, I peered through the  brush at the glowing red eyes that followed my every move. For a moment, I was immobilized,  paralyzed venomously dead in my tracks. I started to walk again, fearing that if I stopped it  would be the end of my life. The creature continued to trail me. 

“Through my peripheral vision I could make out that the creature had an incorporeal  body; it moved and ebbed like a black mist. Its head was physical, a roundish black fuzzy shape  with gray wired whiskers and tufted ears. It had appendages like a paw, printed and furry as well.  It tracked me, humming louder and louder as we walked. 

“It's murmurs turned into whispers. Whispers that raised the hair on the back of my neck.  Whispers directed at me in my own tongue. 

“‘Treacherous wench,’ it mewed. ‘You will not make it to the town. I will stop you and  eat you before the sun sets.’ 

“And it continued to purr and prowl and growl obscenities towards me. I hurried with  great celerity, moving as fast as my garments would allow me to go. But the vile creature  pursued me still. It followed me deep into the heart of the forest where barely any light touched  the earth. 

“I found I was lost. Disoriented from the path I’d walked for years and years.

“We came into a clearing and suddenly there was a faint illumination from the fungi  littering the ground. The monster swirled around me, rustling susurrations into my flesh and soul  and bade I fell and lost my way. And in the clearing I fell to the forest floor, my skirts bunching  around my abdomen, only one shoe remaining strapped to my feet. 

“‘Please go,’ I begged, and regarded the tree line of the clearing in an attempt to locate  where the vile brute lurked. ‘Please let me be-- I must reach the town before the sun sets.’ “A hollow and disturbing chittering laughter filled the air. 

“‘I am hungry.’ 

“And then the demon lunged at me. It struck at me with great force, and thrusted itself  over me. The dark hell-mist wafted around it like a heavy cape. I struggled away, clawing at the  dirt and craving a form of escape. But there was no living creature there to save me from the evil  that towered above me. 

“Suddenly, the demon’s form morphed, and the mist subsided into something more  physical. Its body split into a swarm of smaller demons, which began to claw with their tiny  paws at the entrance into my womb. I screamed in horror but was immobilized by the number of  tiny fiends infesting my body. They clawed and clawed at my stomach, ripping out blood and  guts and stuffing their mouths full of my unborn child. 

“Then they finished, and they vanished into the dark woods. I cried out in pain, and sat  up. Tears poured down my face and I attempted to stand, before collapsing once more onto the  ground.” 

“It is unwise to allow dreams to cloud your consciousness. We have much work to do,”  The man blew a ring of smoke and from his breath drew the wisdom of a thousand passed  scholars. From the shelves he retrieved a scroll, lengthy and crackled from misuse and  mistamperment. His fingers lingered over the words, his eyes shut, yet they remained active  under his closed lids, fluttering in a constant understanding of the weight of the words he refused  to recall. He set his wooden pipe down. His eyes remained closed as he whispered to the woman  that sat across the room. 

“She hears the sounds of ghosts everywhere.” 

“I fear I am unequipped with the task at hand.”

“You mustn't have fear, child,” he murmured. “Fear will only cloud your judgment. When  waging war on the unattainable, you must rise from uncertainty and combat what scars you  most.” 

“I fear I’m not ready.” 

“You will be child.” 

The man called her child though they had been born within the same eon. He caressed the  scroll between his fingers and finally slid his eyes open to rest upon the words which had been  etched so carelessly onto the parchment. Ink leaching into his mind as parasitic as he had once  been in his past life. A thirst for knowledge as unquenchable as the legend of the fallen dessert. 

I yearned to scream at the man. I longed to shout at the top of my lungs, as much as my  body could handle, but I fell silent and became a phantom etched into the walls of the library as  the words he carried into the scroll. 

We didn’t have much more time before everything would crumble. There was never  enough time. I reached into my chest and pulled out one of my ribs. I ignited it and as it erupted  into flames I wondered if we’d all be able to live in harmony. How many more ribs shall I break  before all the scrolls topple down with me? 

Time is but a figment of human creation, but my time has fallen short. Hence now I wait  and watch and relinquish control to the souls around me immersed in their flesh and blood.  Taking for granted the little time they have left; with no understanding that we can’t live a few  hundred years.