Jade Horizon

The forest path climbed higher and higher, flies buzzing in a quiet rhythm. Odd. This way always led to a valley with a gurgling brook, his favourite spot for picnics and contemplation. He must have taken a wrong turn. Impossible! He knew this path like his own home. He paused, noticing the sky’s green tint and the faint glitter on the oak trees. Unnatural... He reached out and touched a nearby oak. Green sparks leapt where his skin made contact. He pulled his hand back, searching frantically for injuries, unharmed though shaking, but not from pain. Frightened by the tree’s absurd and violent behaviour, he turned back, but darkness swallowed the hill’s base. A gloom deeper than the dulling sky, the sun setting in a vibrant orange haze shot through with unwelcome teal streaks.

Move. No choice but to continue on. He ran to the hill’s summit; the trees thinned out, revealing a lush green meadow. Eager to put distance between himself and the oppressive forest, he continued downhill. The buzzing flies in the forest replaced by odd birdsong in a harsh, almost rasping rhythm. Sometime later, he reached the meadow. 

Warmth. It was a great deal hotter and brighter here than in the forest, and the sun seemed to rest higher on the horizon. Wasn’t it beginning to set a good half hour ago? He cast a glance back towards the now distant forest where the sky’s colour cut from a bright mint tone to a sombre black. Relax. A shrug and a grin dismissed his unease. The rising heat and the rich scent of the vanilla flowers (oddly exotic in a Yorkshire meadow) calming his fears but dulling his instincts. His thoughts continued to glide like meandering trains, punctuated by louder urges at regular intervals.

Look. A distant log cabin caught his eye, the sickly green tree trunks that comprised its walls, cut and stacked at odd angles, giving the building an almost surreal facade. The wooden walls seemed to glow, perhaps even sparkle, casting light upon the ground where they should have cast shadows. Enter. The wooden door stood tempting ajar, an even brighter light beckoning him from within the cabin.

The cabin’s interior presented a homely scene, the room bathed in a rich golden glow that seemed to pulse more from the walls than the rough wax candles dotted around the room. A small defiant shadow in a corner of the room resisted the enclosing ambient light. Atonal ticking of a gold clock on the mantlepiece replaced the birdsong still droning outside. Its mechanism rasped unevenly as the long gilded minute hand swept from six to five. Quaint knickknacks and ornaments lined the shelves, somehow misshapen like the rough wooden chair and table in the room’s center. Sit. A commanding voice pierced his relaxation. Was it a thought or an actual sound? The room certainly seemed empty. He took a seat on the odd stool, almost stone-like in its appearance. He stretched his legs underneath the table, relaxed by the jovial atmosphere, but with an expectant nervousness rising in his chest.

Hello. The voice, though smooth and reassuring, made him jump. A beautiful woman entered, fresh-faced and youthful, but a knowing sadness touching her eyes. Her skin seemed almost translucent, lit from within, turning the already bright room into a white haze, tinged with a familiar green glow. The shadow shifted almost aggressively. They chatted and laughed; she danced for his amusement, throwing clouds of feathers into the air. Time seemed to stand still, yet the hands of the gold clock swept ever further backwards.

Drink. Another command struck his mind. It had been sometime since he had felt these quick thoughts. They had been a regular, healthy heartbeat all afternoon. She presented him with a tall glass, the liquid within blazing with green fire. The light grew to an almost unbearable brightness. The drink fizzed with a rhythm similar to the clock’s wheezing ticks, but this sound resembled desperate gasping breaths.

He reached out to take the glass, just able to make out the eager, almost ravenous smile touching her lips through the permeating glare. Pain stabbed his hand. He looked down to see a sleek black cat slashing at his hand. He snapped back, examining it. Strange. No blood. He stared horrified at his skin, now as translucent as hers.

The faerie woman advanced menacingly, “OUT LITTLE BEAST”. The little cat glared at her. She stepped back, a look of fear replacing her eager wolfish grin. The cat then jumped on his shoulder, weighted and real in the delirious emerald haze. Soft purrs sounded in his ear. He believed he could hear words in the gentle rumbling. “FOOL RUN NOW!”

Go. The familiar rhythm pounded his head and chest. He realised something was missing. He held a hand to chest. Nothing. No gentle rise and fall of lungs gathering air. No pulse of a beating heart. Just urgent instincts pressing him at regular intervals, becoming slower and weaker, and the ever more troubled ambient sounds like struggling lungs. The faerie woman’s expression now turned truly venomous - her mouth twisting into a snarl, revealing pointed fangs.

Move! He felt her fingernails cutting into his shoulder as he turned to leave. Sinking to his knees, he heard the little cat hiss. The sound grew in pitch and volume until the very air shook with the noise, his eardrums on the point of bursting. The faerie woman staggered, then fell against the opposite wall, her pulsing glow substantially dimmed. He rose unsteadily and bowed in gratitude towards the cat, who gave a subtle nod of his imperious head, his almond-shaped pale gold eyes sparkling with amusement.

Hurry! He ran out into the dulling vanilla meadow, the clock’s erratic ticking replaced by the gentler but still arrhythmic birdsong. He sensed rather than saw a growing light behind his back - a human shaped glow a few yards distant but coming ever closer. He stumbled through the meadow, the sickly scent of the flowers clogging his mind and threatening to overwhelm him, the glowing figure following steadily.

He leapt up the hill, flies buzzing musically in the waiting forest gloom. Darkness called him forward, light in relentless pursuit. He plunged into the forest, brambles snagging his legs. Glowing fingers clawed at his arm as he fought thorough the undergrowth. Screaming desperately, he dived into the uncertain darkness.

Black. He floated in an endless void - no sensation but the rise and fall of his breath, and the smooth heartbeat is his chest. He sighed, a little relieved despite this even more alien environment. Wherever he was, at least his physicality had returned. A huge, soft hand replaced his weightlessness, cushioning his back and shoulders. His hands stroked the soft velvet of the couch he was now lying on. Pain blazed above his eyes, which he realised were fast shut.

He jumped up from the couch with a start, taking in his familiar study - the latest publisher’s rejection letter crowning the mountain of his older brothers. The empty bottle of absinth lying askew in a pool of its shining green poison, the green fairy glaring menacingly from the label. The sickly vanilla scent rising from it made him gag. His fountain pen lay in direct opposition across from it. Black ink spilling from its pale gold nib in an almost feline shape. There was an odd space between the spilled ink and the absinth, almost as if the woeful drink dared not invade the noble ink’s territory.

He threw the empty bottle into a nearby wastebasket with a look of disgust and raised the sharp blade of the pen nib like a sword. He attacked the mocking, white emptiness of his notebook.