Orange Fable by Alexandria Smith (the reading list book .TXT) 📕

Forbidden Terrors

It took two hours to travel from the city to her uncle’s mansion built in the middle of unused farm lands. She wanted to stay in the shimmering city; it had manicured landscapes, clusters of busy attractions, and the slight smell of hospitals. However, he had things to do. He left unsigned documents on his desk and fretted about their importance.
The mansion stretched in more directions than she expected and the sun glimmered off two dozen or more large windowpanes. “They don’t look right.”
“They shatter,” he said.
“Why would you want that? Someone could get in…”
“We could get out,” he said.
Basic rooms were on the first floor. There was a kitchen, living room, dining room, den, several over-sized bathrooms and a few guest rooms. The second floor seemed more interesting. Her uncle’s personal preferences dominated through the number of whiskey bottles at the bar and a balcony facing the west. In the study, three walls were covered in texts.
“You shouldn’t have these…” She picked up a book from the shelf, examining the identical sheep on the cover. “Science like this is banned.”
“Heh,” He said, looking up from the paper work on his desk. “Too late to take them away now.”

* * *

The night’s stillness was disturbed. She woke, eyelashes battling against the darkness while trying to differentiate reality from dream. Air shuttered. Footfalls created the disturbance, most not her own.
“Shh…shhh...” her uncle said. He paced outside, unraveling rope from the sides of the balcony. A huge air balloon floated above and blocked the moonlight.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, loudly.
“They can’t fly,” he said.
She looked passed the balcony’s edge. Shadows within shadows shifted. Unnatural creatures of the night crept. Sharp eyes reflected hidden light as a hint of their alerted existence.
“Where are we going?"
“The city. We have to stop them.”
“How?” She trembled now.
He looked into the distance as if contemplating how. Orange glowed in the east like a rising sun.

* * *

Hell rests in the soil of the planet. There the demons play, feasting on the flow that causes leaps to temptation. Red smears the dirt and brings forth realization. A seed of truth can then sprout and grow into redemption.

* * *

The air balloon drifted down as soon as her uncle’s operating skills let it. She eyed the burning city, the humans that weren’t humans crawling over everything like a plague, and held back a wail. “What are you doing?”
“The demons must be stopped,” he said.
Of course it couldn’t be done. Only so many were quarantined before their number became overwhelming and there was nothing left to do... He told her to escape. She hesitated. “Go!” he demanded.
She fled. The second vehicle she found started. None of the creatures looked to be following her, but she still panicked. Her foot stayed on the gas pedal till the fuel ran out. Then, she got out and ran as fast as she could.

* * *

A trucker was the first vehicle she saw on the road. He offered her a ride. “Where you going?” she asked.
“That way,” he pointed approximately south, nowhere near the city.
The road seemed narrow in such a big vehicle and the conversation was limited to cargo and weather. They stopped at a small gas station. The sun shone about their heads, just after noon. She stayed by the truck as he went in for the bathroom and a new pack of cigarettes.
A pipe covered with oil sat beside the pump. She picked it up, absently, wondering why it was left there. The black liquid coated her hand and for a moment her eyes flickered and the substance appeared red.
A shadow stretched from behind her; a distorted figure with abnormally long fingers that reached for her. She panicked.
“Hey-“
She swung around. The pipe hit the owner of the shadow right in the head. The impact caused a hallow sound and was so powerful she felt the blow ache in her fingers. The trucker dropped to the ground.
Shaking, she glanced at the blood creating a halo around his head and at her aching hands. Her fingers seemed different. They looked longer and gnarled, aged almost. Altered.


Dream Prophecy

The water pelted the canopy of trees below. A soft, mournful sound of wind rushed through branches and pushed dark clouds along the tree line. Birds fluttered and dodged to find a place to hide below the canopy and small rodents left small imprints in the soft mud. Bare feet stepped lightly over sodden leaves. The young woman calculated her moves with precision. She succeeded in traveling through the forest without making her presence known.
Her dark indigo eyes peered through the dense foliage, unblinking. She ducked under a thick tree the same color of her smooth skin for camouflage. Her coconut-colored hair frayed from a loose braid, causing tresses to stick to her sweat glistened skin. Crouching low to the ground, she froze. The whispered tapping of rainfall ceased. A strange silence swallowed the entire forest.
Birds no longer twittered about the high branches and the insects disappeared to their hiding places all at once. Mammals and reptiles alike seemed to have vanished in an instant. Life no longer stirred in the forest and the young woman glanced around with confusion.
“It should have rained longer,” an unseen voice spoke the words to the woman in an ancient tongue.
Her indigo eyes widened as a wolf stepped out from the trees’ dark shadow. He had a pelt as pale as the moon and fangs the color of dark coal. His gray crystalline eyes faced the darkened sky. Clouds hovered over the forest, a silent threat to its inhabitants. The dark woman with coconut-colored hair noticed the wolf suddenly become alert. The pale fur along his back bristled as a deep growl vibrated from his throat, “I would run if I were you.”
A blinding flash followed the trembling of the earth. The woman stumbled into motion and scrambled over the branches littering the forest floor. West towards the river was her village. It didn’t take long to reach the huddle of huts she recognized as home.
The young woman tumbled forward in her eagerness. More streaks of yellow fire spread like spider webs across the clouds. A bat of her eyes and they would disappear and reappear in wild patterns. She sat up, head throbbing. Her vision blurred and the figures emerging from the huts looked contorted.
She gasped in horror. Vision had nothing to do with the figures twisted form. More it had to do with the evidence of violent deaths such as snapped arms and gashes across abdomens. The dead friends and family members staggered forward on weak legs. Legs that shouldn’t move at all. The young woman scurried back on all fours and hissed. Still, the dead advanced. Another strike of blinding fire and the earth moved, letting out a moan of pain.
Once the light dimmed, she noticed the rotting people had inched forward. Their jaws were slack and eye sockets aglow. She made a small, fearful noise and curled her legs to her chest instinctively for protection.
“Why are you not running?” a voice whispered into her ear. She shrieked. The moon-pale wolf ran to her side, growing at the undead and flashing his sharp teeth. “Well, run!” he snapped.
The woman rose to unsteady feet and ran off in a different direction. The blasts of lightning hit closer and she toppled to the ground, mud slid between her toes and fingers. It coated the front of her body. She felt the earth’s pulsing like a heart. It beat loud and fast, fluttering irregularly like a wounded animal running from a hunter.
Then, it stopped. The chase ended and the animal lay dead. Gathering herself into a kneeling position, the woman attempted to wipe mud from her face with a muddy hand. Breath escaped her as she looked across the once lavish land. The forest was gone. Browns and grays stole the trees and blossoms’ colors. The living dead creep from the dark corners of the newly desolate land. They circled around her, chanting slurred words. An inarticulate song of the damned with the affect of paralyzing a person near enough to hear the whispers.
Indigo eyes searched for a way out. There wasn’t one to be seen. The corpses pressed in closer and clawed at her flesh. Gums and teeth scraped her skin and the young woman shrieked, thrashing to escape the slim of rotting flesh. It burned her nostrils. She hit and kicked and her energy quickly drained.
A howl drowned out the chants of the surrounding threat. They parted, eyes following the wolf as he pounced forward to force them back. The young woman opened her mouth but the words she wanted to say wouldn’t form right. She squeaked.
He pierced the barren ground with his fangs causing the undead to stop shuffling closer, confusion crossing their grotesque features. A sound like thousands of drum pounded into her ears and echoed as the moon-pale wolf carved a circle into the ground around her. A glittering blue light rose from the shape. It reached into the dark clouds rolling above. Like water, she saw through it but on the other side it was anything but clear. A wall of black bordered the wash of blue and from it shone the red eyes of the undead, hiding in the dark.
The young woman extended her slender hand to touch the wall. It was solid. She glanced at the wolf that stood beside her. He collapsed into a moon-pale heap and wheezed, “The barrier…will… protect you…” Not knowing what to do, she glanced at the wall and the wolf. Her fluttering heartbeat quickened with each passing moment until it hammered in her chest. The wolf struggled to raise his head. “The earth is dead and I must go with it,” he coughed. “Go to the most central part of earth and bury my fang there. Earth will prosper once more.”
He struck the ground until one of his coal-colored fangs fell out of his mouth. “Take it.” The young woman picked it up with shaking fingers unable to think of anything else other than