Its been a little bit since I posted here. I’ve been a little busy with Thanksgiving and some other stuff, but I’ve got a little bit of stuff ready anyway. Another scene connected to Toward the World Tree, this is probably going to be a flashback to fill some of the important background stuff. This is just a fragment of what this scene will become, but I can’t give everything away just yet.

Through swollen eyelids, Antonio watched the rough-hewn ceiling move. Two white robed figures, one ahead and one behind, carried the stretcher on which his broken body rode. Everything swayed, and with lolling head, Antonio glimpsed an enormous set of silver doors. A third robed man was struggling with the doors, prying them open inch by inch. A bar of white light slashed across the man holding the back of the stretcher, glinting from the smears of crimson soaking into the thick fabric of his robe. The bright light hurt Antonio’s struggling eyes and his eyelids pressed themselves together. The stretcher swayed, the two bearers taking careful steps forward into the source of the blinding light. Through his closed eyelids, Antonio could see a red haze.
A steady tap-tapping followed the stretcher forward. As Antonio forced his eyes open a slit, he could see it was the sound of blood overflowing the edge of his torn flesh. As he and his bearers moved forward, though, Antonio knew he should see a trail of bloody droplets behind them, but the snow-white floor showed no stain. Even as he watched his own life pour from his wounds and dribble to the ground, it was absorbed as if the surface were as porous as sun baked sand.
Antonio’s vision swam, and the glare from featureless, white walls nearly overcame him. Nothing seemed to divide floor from wall, wall from ceiling. Everything melted into everything else, leaving no seams or hard edges.
A powerful voice filled the chamber, arcane words nearly incomprehensible. Antonio craned his neck toward the voice, some deep part of his pain-skewed mind recognizing the supplication to the Medicus Spirit. Only the most desperate cases were brought before the Spirits. There was always a small chance the Spirits would choose to intervene in the crises of mortals.
Peering, with some difficulty, down at his own body, Antonio wretched. Where there should have been legs, there was little more than ground meat. His right arm lay askew. Everything was pain. A powerful cold seemed to blanket everything, slowing the world to a crawl. Antonio could feel his own death approaching.

Response to The Daily Post