First Story 2

Stars raced overhead behind a slipping lace of tree limbs, clouds blowing like rags across their gleam, a moonless silver-etched gossamer high in the clear air. She could hear nothing beyond the hum of her blood and the catching sigh of the leaves and twigs as she ran. There was so little time.

In a little while, the twigs below and leaves beside her gave way to a fine sand and free air. The sound beneath became a tiny rhythmic scratching and the constant hiss of a stiff breeze flicked her hair against the sack she carried on her right shoulder. The shine of starlight glinted from ripples along a riverside beach. She veered slightly to her left, avoiding wet sand and the slight sucking sound it would add to her footsteps. A few more lengths and she was scrabbling one-handed over a rounded grassy bank ...

First Story Begins

She ran without breathing, her lungs burning for lack of air. The rush of wind past her face sang in her ears, the sound punctuated with the sibilance of passing leaves, the faint snap of dry twigs under her flying feet. All around her the darkness rushed with her, a palpable presence quiet, full of meaning, redolent with summer, presaging dread