The Oasis
Posted By Olivia on June 15, 2009
The sand crunched beneath her boots…the only sound she had heard for days. At least she thought she heard it through the glaring sun and the nightmare. Stumbling ever forward, the ability to reason any direction long gone by now.
Her eyes trailed back to her companion. Her friend of so long looked a shadow of herself. Brown hair that was once luscious and shining now hung limp and faded. Green eyes that once gleamed with intelligence and wit were glazed over and deadened. Still the sand crunched as the sun moved towards the distant horizon, soon darkness would fall onto them.
She saw green in the distance, leaves dancing in the soft wind. Was it real this time? Trudging endlessly forward she went, scared if her feet stopped for a moment they would be stopping forever. She looked back again to make sure her companion was still with her, she was. The two figures moved inexorably forward as darkness cloaked them. That is when she saw it, the glinting of the moon upon water, the bend of trees across the night sky. Her heart came to life and her eyes brightened as she gasped the words out to her friend, “water…water…water!”
Moving as quickly as spent legs could carry them they both rushed forward the trials of the previous days melting away as the reached the water. They fell down flat and pressed lips to the crystal clear water, feeling it soothing parched throats and bringing them back to life.
She looked across the small clear pool at her companion, her green eyes shone again as if the light had been let back in. The wind blew softly across them as they shared a smile, the setting was idyllic as she turned to take it in. It was then with her back turned that she heard the sickening wet crunch.
Eyes wide and still low to the ground she turned back towards her companion. She saw her still flat on the ground her eyes wide with terror and her mouth silently mouthing the word help over and over again as her arms and legs twitched and spasmed then went still with obvious paralysis. Frozen with fear she saw her companion’s paralyzed body drug suddenly back into the trees and out of sight.
She was unsure how much time had passed as she stayed still and frozen in fear and unsure of what had happened to her companion. She knew she had to do something so at last she rose to her feet and slinked as silently around the pond and into the treeline to follow the distinctive drag marks in the sand.
It was not a far trip to find the answer as the trees cleared and she saw a black pit of a cave going down into a squat rock hill. What was in front of it however was her answer as at least twenty human figures stood in various stages of decay and ruin. Her friends eyes showed she was still alive, wide with terror and pleading for help. But the rest of her body was no longer showing such signs of life, her clothes lay in tatters around the ground and the pedestal her friend stood upon her body rigid and standing straight up. Her companions skin was looking darkened and as if it was quickly hardening into some kind of shell.
Staring into her companions eyes she knew there was no way to carry her from this spot. She motioned to her friend that she would return and dashed into the trees behind her. Back through the beautiful oasis they had found. This wonderful place of dreams, her legs that were near death not long ago now carried her swiftly back to the pond. Kneeling down quickly to fill her canteen her thoughts raced trying to think of any way to find hel……..She felt her body go numb as hot lightning pain shot from the back of her neck through all her limbs and her face splashed into the water. Gasping she felt her lungs take in some water before she was dragged unceremoniously out of the water and through the sand towards the cave.
She felt her clothes being ripped free from her limp body, all of her was numb except the back of her neck, there she felt a dull throbbing pain from whatever had “stung” her. Her mind neared panic as she felt herself stood up on a pedestal facing her companion and some of the others. Looking down she could see her skin solidifying, becoming almost shell like. She met her companions eyes as they shared wordlessly the terror of what had befallen them, what she wouldn’t give to go back and perish in the desert now.
Death would come soon she thought, death would come soon, just a little ways to go of suffering then it would be over she thought. Her eyes trailed across the other figures standing on pedestals within her vision. She felt one last cold chill go up her spine when her eyes came across a figure who had one remaining piece of clothing on his body. A short man frozen in the skin become shell. Over his body was the timeworn ancient breastplate of a Roman soldier. How many hundreds or even thousands of years had he been frozen here she thought as her eyes locked with his still living eyes.
A sickening wet slurp drew her eyes back to her companion, a place she wished she had never looked. Standing behind her the dark chitinous figure looked as if it were some cross of man and spider and it was drinking from the sting at the back of her companion’s neck. Vainly she tried to scream, to run, to do anything, anything at all as she heard the heavy steps in the sand behind her and knew what was coming next. Wild with terror and panic her eyes darted to the Roman and she knew that tonight was only the first night that she would spend wishing, praying and hoping with all of her being for death as she felt the creature behind her start to feed.
But I don’t want to see overzealous people looking to find something wrong in everything to cause their name to go away, that would just be sad.