Black Sun Rising
The first you notice is the smell of water, flat and cold upon your senses and the dry shift of sand upon your cheek. All is quiet and the gentle kiss of wind is not enough to stir the grains around you, leaving you in a world where even the sound of your breath is loud on the air. For one interminable heartbeat you lay there on the sand unsure whether your eyes are open or closed for no matter how you try the deepest darkness meets your gaze.
It does not last though and the night is fractured by the deepest blue that picks out the horizon, and illuminates the branches of the trees that mark the edge of the river that slowly makes its way past your resting place. A scene that would be desolate if not for the moving shapes that dot the landscape, people. You are not alone here.
This is enough to force you to your feet and the sand shifts through your fingers, the grains run smooth by the endless passing of the river and it captures your attention with rising shock. It is black like ash, yet it is no powder. The sand of this world is as black as the sun that begins to rise over the horizon. Yet still it lights this world.
The oddity of this place should concern you, you know, yet it speaks to something deep within you and you cannot help but feel a strange sort of peace. Almost as though the problems that burdened you in life have left you for your fleeting time here. Besides those who walk past you in a slow, but endless stream, seem unconcerned; their eyes finding yours before moving on.
Your hand drops and those black grains tumble back into the desert at your feet as a shadow falls over you. Your gaze rising to meet the face of a man who has seen so many years and wrinkled from every time his smile has graced him and, as though it is infectious, you feel yourself smile as well even though you cannot understand the words he speaks. You reply with a shrug that seems so universal as he laughs and only then you see it.
His hand extends towards you as if beckoning, calling you to join him on his journey. Yet through it you see the barest outline of the desert beneath you both. Your foot moves of its own accord and forces you back and away from this dead man; he travels a road that is not yet your own. You wish you could explain but your language divides you still so all you can do is shrug once more.
His face falls and he takes his own step back as his arm rails in your direction as he speaks in rushed, hoarse tones. You take a step towards him seeking to calm his temper even as he scrabbles back towards the river at his back. Was he truly so angry for you not joining him?
It is then you realise his gaze is not on you but behind you.
With growing fear you turn, not wanting to see what could scare a dead man so and you wish you had not looked. You barely have chance to take in the chaotic form, the evil in that gaze before the flash of metal approaches your face.
…
Far away from the desert of strange sand you wake caught in the memory of the place of the black sun.
The dream sticks with you well into the next day. Leaving you resolved that it was far from a normal dream.
You have to do something.
