The Reborn

CHAPTER ONE: TOUCHING CONSCIOUSNESS

The sable base of a shoe became the whole visible world. His nervous system flashed. Consciousness shattered like crystal and fell away in a thousand fragments . . . .

The cold smooth stone felt shocking against her naked flesh. She gasped. Her veins constricted, pulsing until they coursed hellish fire. Lips curled back, a shriek rattled slowly from the base of her stomach towards open feral maw. Her anguish echoed amongst the ancient wooden sentinels . . . .

Two. . . one. His bare feet slap the roof tiles. Body arching, as his forehead raced towards the cobble stones. The winds fingers lovingly combed back his hair. Blood flowed away from his brain, causing black spots to become a flood of darkness. The last thing he felt was the leaden kiss of cobblestone sinking through his forehead at the same instant that his snapping spine threw his heels through the back of his softened skull.


THE PROPHET (Change point of view based on touch)

The crickets called out to cheerfully to their smiling silver patron of darkness. For hours, the peace of night nurtured their energetic voices. A larger choir of the six legged celebrates hushed as the murmurs of the decaying leaves ousted the closest in a parade invaders. He whispered to himself, “One. Bees wax in ears. Two. Stay behind him and, absolutely, no eye contact. Three. Gag him. Four. Make sure he is unconscious. Five. Don't do anything that might kill him.” The five commandments circled his brain like lead a moth approaching a dim lantern.
He licked his weathered lips, while the adrenaline played the dull thumps of his beating heart on his eardrums. Every step closer to the objective, fear choked his throat and pressed heavy hands on his chest. He clung like a shadow to the sides of the ash marked tree and let his forehead fall on the rough bark. “Wait at the tree marked with white ash until you hear the owl coo five times. Then bees wax in and move fast,” He rehearsed through a rasping throat. Funny how much water could leak from his skin at the same moment his mouth felt like a mattress stuffed the driest goose down, he reflected. For the twenty-third time he asked himself, “Why am I doing this?”
He heard the approach before he saw the figure and he felt it before him saw it. He felt like his insides had been scooped out and replaced by a glacier, which was slowly creeping down his back towards his toes.
A long shadow fled from the feet of the deep cowled wanderer. A huge gnarled staff rasped on the uneven soil, as it felt the way through the darkness like the finger of a great arborous god.
Sss. Thump. Sss.
His dirty nails bit into the fissure filled bark. He clung to the tree as if his feet were dangling over the edge of the world, listening in horror to the language of the staff; A dead tongue of dull fricatives.
It was the prophet.
Thump. Ssss. Thump. Thump. Sssssss.
The moments grew painfully long, as each step the prophet grew closer to the ash marked tree. Each time the staff struck the ground the ambusher felt as though a finger of bone and ice slowly traced the ridge of his unguarded spine.
Thump. Sssssssss. Thump. Sssssssssssss.
A little closer and breath wheezed from the trees shadow. He hears me, he thought. The prophet was so close that despite the deep cowl, the ambusher was beginning to make out the pale skin of the prophet.
Sssssssssssss. Thump.
It was too much.
The constricted air squeaked out of him with the next breath. The hooded cowl slowly writhed, neck twisting, and eyes assaulting the shadow guarding him. Several moments past as the prophet seemed to be tearing open his rib cage with that stare. So the flesh of his heart was laid back, like a child peeling a potato with a rusty knife. He not so much held his breath, but could not breathe while the cowl held him.
Loudly, a chickadee whistled thrice.
Instantly, the glade opposite him ruptured the yawning silence. Two men raced from the woods the cowled head whipped towards them. Attention of the prophet had shifted. The ambushers breath exploded from his lungs, in the following instant his lungs sucked in air in halting staccato.
The scene seemed like a rabbit being chased by a bear. A terror stricken little man fled a fierce larger form. The rabbits boot caught a shrub bordering the trail. He flew spread eagle and landed heavily on his chest with a pronounced squeak. He was caught. The bear was over him baton in hand. “Please. Please, “whined the diminutive creature worming away from the aggressor.
Then the prophet took the bait, as the owl began to cooed. The prophet moved quickly to incapacitate the two actors.
Five. The ambushers calloused thumbs jammed the yielding wax into his ears. Yawning silence swallowed his consciousness. He sprinted, toes tapping the ground, as he approached the cloaked figure. He vaulted a log. Pulling a length of woolen cloth from beneath his cloak wrapping it quickly around his fists. Deftly, he whipped the length of cloth over the cowled head at the same moment driving a knee into the prophets spine. The cloth dug into the corners of the prophet's mouth forcing open his jaw. The ambusher tied off the gag, while the prophet remained bent back over his knee. A hard tug at one side of the gag torqued the off balance figure, causing him to collapse face down. The ambusher fell on top of him to keep him from rising.
The ambusher felt a sigh of relief shutter through him. Only human. After the tales of prophets he half expected his knee to pass through the ghostly form. Or maybe die on contact. Too easy . . . then a fleshy five legged spider crawled onto the back of his hand. Consciousness diffused . . .

The prophet felt his assailants body go limp. And the pain flashed white as the forehead of the large man on his back crashed senselessly into the back of his skull. In an attempt to gasp, he sucked soil into his open nostrils. He pushed desperately against the forest floor, fighting for air. His body formed organic waves, making him appear to be a wriggling like a fish out of water that is pinned by the tail.
The prophets skin was alive crawling with runic tattoos. Each of the arcane convictions were crawling towards his lips like enraged spiders. He wanted them out. The prophets face was a writhing tangle of script fighting for control of his lips. He began clawing desperately at the cloth gagging impeding their phonetic flow. The knot loosened, he rolled over on his back. But all was black. The sable base of a shoe became the whole visible world. His nervous system flashed. Consciousness shattered like crystal and fell away in a thousand fragments.