Belariath

This week's topic is Fear or Fearless. Please enter your original Art, Stories, Poems, or Photography.
Everyone is welcome to come back and comment on the entries.

This doesn't have to be based on TLI. Enjoy!

I don't remember how old I was, or how tall I was, but I was certainly under five feet tall. I was living in Indianapolis at the time, the city where I grew up.

It was a lovely summer day, and my family was enjoying the swimming pool in our apartment complex. I miss having that particular amenity; it's been a decade or so since I've lived in a place that comes with a swimming pool. I really ought to sign up for the Y sometime.

Anyway, it was a lovely day like any other, until I went a little too far into the pool. I had moved from the three-foot space to the five-foot space, and I didn't know yet how to tread water. Lacking this fundamental ability, I sank like a rock, and started panicking. I remember seeing a white light.

The next thing I remembered, my dad had pulled me out, and that was all the fun we had for that day. I was lucky Dad was paying attention, or I might have drowned.

That day has burned brightly in my memory ever since, but you know... it wasn't really a terrifying experience for me. On the contrary, the white light that I saw brought to me feelings of warmth and reassurance.

Darkness. Utter and complete darkness. Then, just beyond vision, a light. It approaches, closer and closer. Finally it coalesces. Neither a flickering torch of salvation nor the eternal light of finality. Nay, instead the steady, familiar red glow of heated metal. Fear, and a knowledge of what was to come. The questions. Always the questions. There was a certain comfort to be had in such things though. A routine established a lifetime ago, the relationship between them born. It was a brotherhood of sorts, both governed by powers well beyond their own control. Both trapped in the same musty room, both with a gruesome task to undertake. Did the other feel sorrow or regret? Or had he also been forced to turn off? To become something other than human to survive? Such questions were elementary though, the answer already known. This was not a place for humans. For people of mere flesh and bone. It was a place of order and routine, of control and submission, where every action was carefully planned. Theirs was a bond that went beyond love, that transcended master and slave. It was an understanding, utter and complete.
But the time for contemplation was over. The red glow illuminates eyes devoid of emotion, reflecting the image of his terrified partner. Then the first words of the day, spoken without mercy, without care. “It is time.” The fear fades, replaced by a serenity. A reassurance of roles, of relationship. No response given nor none needed, for both knew their place, both knew what was expected of each other. The red light is extinguished, the endless cycle continued.

Thanks for the stories, I could relate to Callie's story with a similar experience.

Rhezha nice story, and you both should tell your friends about it since we have such incredible writers.

More Fear AND fearless ..

SB Great nightmarish scene!

Ehl another great depiction of fear.