Fairytale
// GRID: SDR ONLINE, CMLD ONLINE
My eyes were so puffy I could barely open them. You know how it feels when...
Wait.
You know how it feels when it is warm under the covers and everything else behind a slightly colder haze? This felt nothing like that.
Well, that is what you get when you clone jump: surprises. I breathed in and the air was cold, crisp; I could hear soft noises all around me, mostly sounds of nature - the wind, creatures calling or buzzing by, water in the distance. Over everything, a sound I had not heard in a long time, not ever since I was a little girl: the rustling of leaves. Was this on my egonics?
I opened my eyes.
There were trees right in front of me, tall, moving to the wind, bathed in a soft orange-red glow, as if illuminated by a bonfire. A forest? No way. I felt warm all over -not just my back to the fire- and weightless. A Holo? I turned around to the face the fire.
And I kept turning. I could not find it, nor the source of the glow.
I heard a twig break and that is when I saw this man, standing in mid-step between two trees, his eyes wide open and an expression of surprise. He kept still and tried to blend with the dark. As the expression on his muddy face changed to one of fright, I felt scared for the first time.
I turned around, again, to face whatever it was, and found nothing. What was he scared of...?
I faced him again and said "Hello?", trying to sound friendly.
His face turned to sheer terror. He dropped the firewood he had been carrying in his arms, and ran.
"My Lord, my Lord! Help!"
I am not sure why I chased, but I did. I don't know, if Firewood was running away from something nasty maybe I should too run like hell -I looked behind me, just to be sure,- or maybe he was my ticket out of wherever, so I chased. I do not know. His sprint was noisy, clumsy and I -not that I am any athlete- was somehow silently and effortlessly catching up. As I ran, I noticed the shadows moving. The glow was moving with us -no, wait- it was moving with me. And I had no shadow. Because I was glowing red and had no hands.
Puzzled, I stopped chasing just as he looked back over his shoulder. The last expression I saw on Firewood's face was of relief as he put more distance between us. He then ran into a thick tree trunk, head first, lost his balance and fell onto the ground. He remained down with his head tilted at a funny angle.
I ran away.
Rather, I glided.