Author's note:
Hi readers, thanks for taking the time to check out my work!
In this piece, I chose to experiment with narrative tense more than I usually do. I want to give you a warning before you start, so you can decide if you want to read on.
In this piece, the POV character is narrated in second person, present tense. ("You look away." "She touches your cheek.")
This is not an accident. Whether it's a poor choice is certainly open for debate, but I wanted to know how it would read, and how it would feel to write.
The POV character in this story is still a distinct person, with a history and a unique set of traits. This character is not a "neutral mask" - it is not my intent to invite you to imagine them as a version of you, but rather to set yourself aside and imagine having their life experience.
Among others, one thing I was curious to learn was whether putting the reader in the place where they learn about 'themselves' (so to speak) through the course of the writing would be interesting and fun, or just confusing and frustrating.
If you have comments about this, please share them!
I understand that this will likely feel strange for some readers, it's not a common way to write (and maybe for good reason!)
I also understand that it could be uncomfortable for some readers.
It is not my wish to make you uncomfortable, so I'm adding this note in hopes that it will enable you to decide if you want to participate in this before you dive in.
If you would rather move on, you have my thanks for giving me your attention thus far, and I hope you find another piece that suits your interests.
If you have any interest in any of my other work, rest assured that while I tend to like to use present-tense, nothing else I've written is in second-person.
Thanks for reading <3
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It's on an unseasonably wet morning in late spring of the 203rd year of the Age of Smoke (by the Almajan calendar) when a glory-addled trio of tomb pillagers from the western reaches of the Starlight Dominion, following an ancient legend deep into the wild lands above the Vermilion Coast, stumble upon a particular mausoleum which was never meant to be found.
When they shatter the delicate binding on the doors, the divine miasma accumulated over seven thousand years from the rotten husk of the nameless demigod within erupts in a cataclysmic black wave that flows across the land, devouring all it touches.
This curse spills through the wild mountain valleys, seeking life like water seeks the ocean, until it belches forth upon the frontier of a remote kingdom at the northern edges of the known world.
Something less than a dozen years ago, you had spilled forth from another forgotten hole in the earth, a bedraggled black-haired adolescent, pale and silent as a ghost.
You wandered without purpose or strategy from alley to field, learning the language and custom of the land in bits and pieces in between stealing livestock to eat and doing petty favors for petty coin.
As you grew older and more jaded by the casual brutality of a life lived from gutter to field to alley, you began to learn instead to speak the language and custom of the trackless wood that crowds in on all sides around the ever-vanishing wagon tracks and remote towns and villages that you had roamed for survival.
So it came to be that four years hence you had abandoned the byways of that land and struck out alone into the deep forests on the frontier of that selfsame remote kingdom at the northern edges of the known world to make a home for yourself.
When the black wave spills down into the last wild valley before the settled lands that stretch to the west, it's a chance twist of fate that sends a warning to you in the form of a doomed wolf, running even as its flesh is eaten from its living bones.
It's likely worth your life that even after three years, you haven't learned to see your remote hermitage as a true home. Your instincts for the rhythm of the wood tell you something is terribly wrong, and you waste no moment agonizing over leaving the meager accommodations you've built for yourself. Taking to heel without hesitation keeps you ahead of the wave for the three days it takes to reach the first outpost of the Human lands.
Reaching the rotting wooden palisade that shields the sleepy, worn-out town of Thrinewell from wolves and winter wind a half day ahead of the black wave, you hammer on the rotted sally gate until a startled passing villager opens the door to see what the ruckus is.
You have little love for the place, remembering the little love they had for a strange-faced stranger with an accent nobody could place when you first passed through. However, you cannot help but see that this is a true home for them who call it such, and it sits ill with you to leave them to their imminent fates.
You spend a precious hour of the lead you have on the sweeping calamity on the horizon accosting people in the muddy streets of the village, insistently telling them that death is coming and there's nothing for it but to flee.
First, you're ignored. Then, a handful of peevish and poorly-equipped militia reservists attempt to threaten you into silence. After a protracted argument in the street, which clearly nobody is enjoying, they grudgingly agree to send a pair of scouts up the lookout trail to the tower on the foothill and report back. When they finally do, the lot of them immediately fall to arguing about what to do and who to tell.
Drawn by the raised voices, a crowd begins to grow in the street, with each new arrival demanding a summary of what's being said and why. The crowd swells and the arguing grows and you seat yourself nearby, waiting for a conclusion to be reached, hoping a mob doesn't form first from the unruly throng.
It's about this time that voices in the crowd begin to yelp and shout, and flailing hands slap bare skin. The gang of biting flies tormenting the crowd thickens with alarming rapidity into a swarm, and people begin running for shelter.
Diving after them with several bleeding bites of your own, you find yourself shut in the common room of a tavern with a dozen ill-humored townsfolk all shouting and cursing.
This time when you repeat your warning, the reactions run more to panic and horror than annoyance and distaste. Several of the crowd throw heavy cloaks around their shoulders and rush back out into the fly-plagued street, bound for homes nearby to collect what's close at hand that could be of use on a sudden flight westwards. Others head for the kitchen and begin rolling food into bundles for the road. Two dash out the door and simply begin running.
With your patience wearing thin, you set your feet on the road once more and set a brisk pace west, doing your best to swat away flies until you're out of the thick of them. In short order, the road is packed with hustling bodies, carrying packs and bundles on their backs, or simply holding what they could grab in their hands.
Over the course of the next half mile the throng begins to coalesce into a coherent group. Every head is speaking or listening to someone beside them, trying to locate friends or family, speculating about the future, or asking after some overlooked necessity in the hopes that someone else will share. As you've learned to expect in these lands, the crowd is composed overwhelmingly of humans, and the few of you who are not stand out starkly.
It's not long after that the first screams are heard in the distance behind you, echoing distantly through the trees. As one the group falls silent. Many seem to be trying not to think too hard about what awful end is in store for those who stay--or are left--behind. It's a half hour or more before anybody can start a conversation again without being interrupted by the distant cries of some hapless soul who was too slow or too dim to get away while they could.
After dark, two days' slow march from the false safety of the palisade behind you, you're slowly pacing the eastern edge of the sprawling camp of refugees, watching the road back the way you came for any sign of the black horde devouring the land behind.
This is how you are when the lizard-headed soldier you'd seen walking in the crowd finds you. You hear someone approaching, but where you had been expecting a sleep-addled peasant to stumble past you looking for somewhere to pee, and you're surprised and slightly alarmed to see her imposing frame facing you. You're near the same height, but where you're willowy, she's thick as a bull. You feel small in her presence.
She addresses you in a soft, chesty rumble, pitched to not wake the sleeping bodies nearby. "Rumor says warning of the swarm was first brought by a wild ruffian who looks like a spirit that rolled in berries. I guess that must mean you."
You gauge her attitude carefully, and realize you're reaching to rest your hand on the hilt of the great rime-crusted war sword belted high at your waist in time to stop yourself. You clasp your hands behind your back instead to reassure yourself. "I brought warning, but I'm no ruffian. I was driven from my home like them, only my home was farther east."
She regards you for a moment, and you can see she's not so blind as the rest of them in the dark. Whether true or not, she's been with you on the journey and is doubtlessly well aware how different you look among the plain townsfolk sleeping on the road all about. "Another settlement? It must have been a long journey, there's nothing but wilderness for two weeks by foot. Is... your tongue blue?"
"There is no home for me with people like them, so I live alone. In the wilderness." You turn back to watching the eastern road, hoping she'll take a hint and ask no more.
She seems only more interested now, her voice taking on a concerned tone. "Why not return to your people then? Were you cast out?"
You feel a familiar tension seize your jaw, and it colors your words more than you intend. "I have no people. There is no one like me. I do not wish to speak of this, please leave me be." Silence hangs heavy at your back for a few moments, before it's broken by a murmured apology.
She steps forward to stand abreast of you, a respectful distance away, and joins your silent vigil.
