foreshadowing scene, So I'd like whatever help you can give me on it.)
I am looking specifically for help with style, since I haven't really developed a very good one yet. Any suggestions welcome.
No Going Back
In the beginning, there was Nothing...
There was nothing but dark and fire, the Book with its pages lit by flickering phantoms. The Boy sat in the Nothing and read the story. It was not finished, but it was important. It spoke of an entire race and their struggle for survival.
It spoke of good and evil.
It spoke of dark and light.
And it was his only way home.
...And all creation came from its lonely thoughts.
In the beginning, there was Nothing...
There was nothing but dark and fire, the Book with its pages lit by flickering phantoms. The Boy sat in the Nothing and read the story. It was not finished, but it was important. It spoke of an entire race and their struggle for survival.
It spoke of good and evil.
It spoke of dark and light.
And it was his only way home.
...And all creation came from its lonely thoughts.
“Hey! No peeking! It’s not finished yet.”
The spell was broken even as the Book was jerked out of the Boy’s hands. He blinked at the sudden rush of sunlight that came to his senses at last. He looked up, shielding his eyes from the glare of the unforgiving sun.
He was back in the valley. The winds rustled softly through the leaves overhead. A bed of grass and clover cushioning his seat, cradling him between two of the old tree’s roots. It was a peaceful place, and somehow he knew it was the only place of its kind in the entire world. The steep walls of this crevice in the mountains enclosed a truly hidden vale. No one would ever find them here-
His mind snapped back to the reality of his predicament about thirty seconds too late. The Book was gone. He sprang to his feet, looking around for the Girl who had taken it. She stood not ten yards away looking back. Her hair was glittered golden in the sunlight with a flash of green from her barrette. Her eyes showed a glint of unearthly depth that might have been something or everything, or nothing at all. She held the Book at her side, its intricate spine concealed by the arm that held it.
“Give that back!” he cried out in alarm. She saw that he was standing, displayed a dazzling, impish smile and ignored his demand.
“Come on, if you want it, you have to catch me!” She laughed back at him as she turned and began… running? ...Skipping? Moving across the turf. Why did his mind keep wandering? It didn’t matter. She was getting away! He couldn’t get home without that Book.
“Wait! You don’t understand! I need that!” She had to understand. He began to move as well, first slowly, then faster as panic struck him. His foot landed in the stream at the base of the hill where he’d been sitting. He stumbled and fell. Why the hell were his feet bare? Never mind, it didn’t matter. He swore and scrambled to get his footing once more. He’d lost precious seconds; seconds which the Girl used to reach the edge of the valley, where she paused at the mouth of an opening in the rock face. Even as he finished processing the scene, she slipped inside. He hastened to the cave mouth and then stopped, hesitant. He’d never been outside the valley. The reluctance to leave seemed to pull the bottom out of his stomach. Something terrible waited inside the tunnel, he could feel it.
And then as he moved his hand, he could feel it, like moving through molasses. Something was repelling him. Not physically, it was just as if he just couldn’t move his arm very fast. The Boy stretched out his hand and stopped when he couldn’t move any further. Half extended, something was pushing back on his arm. He wasn’t supposed to leave. He couldn’t leave. He was never getting the book back.
“No.” The defiant phrase left his lips before he had consciously thought it. He would not give up so easily. He needed that Book. He had to get it.
Then, suddenly, his fingers slid through the air. His hand entered the cave. An expression of confusion clouded his face; he stepped forward. The barrier had disappeared, it was just normal air again. He took a few more experimental steps. As if nothing had ever been there. No matter. The Boy cast the thoughts aside and ran into the darkness.
The echoes of his footfalls traveled far ahead of him, magnifying and reverberating around what must have been irregular cave walls. The passage turned gradually until he lost what little light of day had filtered from its entrance. True darkness set in. Unperturbed, the Boy slowed down to a fast walk, using his left hand to feel his way along the wall.
Then he paused and waited for what seemed like an eternity until his echoes faded. Silence followed. Why didn’t he hear the Girl’s footfalls? He couldn’t be too far behind now. Had she stopped? He pressed on until, gradually, the darkness wasn’t as complete anymore. The light came from further up the passageway. A dim light, not nearly enough to be the other side of the tunnel. Night could not have come already.
The Boy turned a final corner and found himself in a larger cavern. This one was obviously man-made, much different from the rough-floored tunnel he’d left behind. Smoothed surfaces met his fingers and feet, and in the dim glow that to came from high-up windows he saw columns of colossal size. They were square in shape and were placed at regular intervals along the edges of the room. And in the column-less space of floor a raised platform housed a larger, irregular stone.
But the magnificent room was long abandoned. He had only seen it, for a moment, as it once was. Many of the pillars were cracked in places or had chunks of the edge fallen off. Many of the high windows had caved in, restricting the amount of light that gained entry. A thick layer of fine dust covered the floor and had no trouble clinging to his slightly damp foot. It was not uncomfortable, he paid it little mind. His thoughts were consumed elsewhere.
The Girl with the Green Barrette was not there.
Had she moved on? The Boy, unsure now that his burning determination had subsided, moved toward the irregular central pedestal. Only to find that it wasn’t just a stone on the pedestal, but a sculpture. Two people, one upright and the other lying at the first’s feet, preserved by some will of providence. His curiosity tugged him closer and then it abandoned him, leaving him sick as he realized what it was.
On the altar-like stone table there was mounted a life-sized statue of a youth who stood over an angelic being. In his hands he held an ornate spear and he stood triumphant over the stricken feminine form, his weapon stabbed through her wings. They tried to fold against her back, but lay pinned to the ground, frozen in struggle as she writhed to break free. The Stone Man looked off to a distant, nonexistent horizon. He could not see the Angel’s face; it was facing the other way. A horrible image, and yet at the same time in intrigued him.
The youth’s face was not demonic, but merely sad and distant-- a human face. The face of a hero, weary after his long toil. At what? Slaying the Angel? Had that been his task? The Boy walked around the unmoving stone figures to see the woman’s face, and to see her story as he had seen the man’s.
And then it was there. He could not believe his eyes. There, in front of the woman’s head, lay the Book with its leather-bound cover. He reached out his hand to brush the design of the tree painted in a delicate hand. Then his eyes wandered up to the woman’s face. He recoiled as if bitten.
She looked up at him, her eyes laced with hate and her defiance in her grin seemed to sneer at her own downfall. He could almost hear her utter a curse upon this foolish man who had dared defy her and win. A thousand tortures and a thousand days of darkness for him and all like him.
He backed away. And then, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled up. He was not alone. He twisted around, wishing nothing more that to have a weapon in this cruel place. His eyes met the stranger’s and for a moment he was struck dumb. Standing behind him was the Girl with the green barrette. And impossibly, she also held the Book that had been on the pedestal only moments before.
Her golden hair was dimmed and her gray-green eyes held no spark. On her face was a look of such sadness and guilt that he could not help but feel that something was very, very, wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she said, disturbing the silent air with her whisper. “There is no going back.”
The Boy stumbled backward as if struck, and reality dissolved around him.
He sat bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat as lightning struck outside the window of his bedroom. The storm was getting worse outside, but inside the young teen pushed his fingers through his damp hair as his mind worked through the inner turmoil that now consumed his consciousness.
His eyes finally focused as all his raw emotions finally forced themselves out as a question to the darkness.
“It was… Just a dream?”
