The haunting light

[rewritable]

It’s convenient if your childhood friend is a doctor. A week of sick leave is not that easy to come by, especially with little to no questions asked.

The flight plan was simple – a scheduled liner to New London, then a private shuttle to Gran Canaria. What to do once planetside, Bryan had absolutely no idea. Flight was eventless, on the last leg through Omega-49 Bryan even managed to get some sleep.


“… I really don’t understand what you want to know”, the clerk on local spaceport shrugged for the last time and went back to paperwork, having lost all interest in the persistent stranger asking weird questions.

Thaler sighed and wandered off. Describing a place he’d only seen in nightmares is quite a sure way to be classed as just another mentally unstable refugee. Having tried his luck with at least half a dozen of locals, Bryan decided to take a short break and looked around for some place that might sell coffee and some food.

While news-stall employee was trying to get the coffee-machine to work, Bryan leisurely browsed through a few local newspapers and periodicals. Most of them covered local news of Gran Canaria, and Bryan was about to set those aside when one picture captured his attention.

Only fifteen minutes later Bryan was flying a rented Hawk to a distant area of Canaria. The photograph in an article about ecology of the planet showed a forest. It was taken in daylight, but Bryan was sure he had seen it before. More than once.

As the Hawk slowly descended and landed in the only clearing within miles the sun was already setting. Bryan got out and took a careful look around. He had a strange sense of being here before and it only got stronger as twilight gradually turned into darkness. He noticed a kind of path heading into the woods. After hesitating for a moment and cursing himself for forgetting a flashlight, Bryan finally went along the path deeper into forest.

[font=Book Antiqua]

It was the worst kind of darkness again. Almost pitch-black. Too dark to see any details, too dark to see almost anything. Yet in the same time the light was enough to catch a very vague glimpse of contours of surroundings. Leaving the overworked imagination of a frightened mind to fill in what eyes could not see.

[color=#FFFFFF]But there were no flashes of light this time. A wonderful difference.

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