Week 6, Title: Tread

[swirlsofpurple]

Feet tread carefully over parched yellow-caked earth.

“Don’t step on the cracks,” a mother tells her child, voice firm but tainted with fear: at the inevitable doom of unstable child-legs walking over crumbling terrain.

(Tiny lines spread along the land, long and thin and seemingly harmless: until they widen. Plates shuffle under our feet. The evacuation order comes. People panic. Cars race to escape too fast and drown in sink holes awaking beneath them. Buildings shudder and collapse, as the ground opens its jaws and swallows them whole. The only chance is to walk.)

Eyes dart out at the sound and dart back again. Looking down. Everyone looks down. The people who don’t are already dead.

(Smoke and dust and gas rises in clouds from the holes. Cracks mar earth like a body of poisoned veins. Sometimes hurried shoes come down on them. The cracks stretch, dirt clods fall, a chasm appears. And anyone nearby is gone.)

Steps are careful, weight shifts from one foot to another. Teeth grit against the cough rising in our throats, the resulting vibrations would be dangerous. The smoke though long gone remains in the searing of our lungs.

“Don’t step on the cracks,” echoes again. People are moving away now, sensing what is to come. The child is tired, making mistakes.

Heat encases, suffocates. Sweat trickles sticky down backs. Broken land stretches out, elongating, in the search for solidity. Air ripples. Earth rumbles and yawns underneath us, but no one runs. The people who run are already dead.

(The crust fractures with keening hisses. Movement quickens in the struggle to get away. Thumped treads pound breaks into the fragile floor. And they’re Falling to oblivion.)

“Don’t step on the…”

Comments

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

I just love this! Mysterious and vivid.

[kagomeshuko.livejournal.com]

Oooh, the suspense . . .

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, glad you liked it :)

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

[eska818.livejournal.com]

This is beautifully told. I like the ambiguity and the focus on description and vivid detail.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, glad you liked it :)

[waltzmatildah.livejournal.com]

I am so late to the party this week... but, better late than never, right?

Anyway, this is haunting. I love the imagery.

And this was my favourite line: Eyes dart out at the sound and dart back again. Looking down. Everyone looks down. The people who don’t are already dead.

So stark and chilling.

The whole thing is lovely and you captured so much in so few words, which is always one of my favourite things.

GO YOU.

[penpusher.livejournal.com]

Wow. So quiet and tense and frightening.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the lovely compliments, so glad you liked the imagery and that line. I liked that line too :).

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, so glad you liked :)

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

Really creepy- well done.

[faerie-spark.livejournal.com]

Reading this, I can taste the grit, feel that oppressive heat, and detect that uneven surface.

I don't know whether you intended this as actual or symbolic, but it makes me think of people escaping political violence on foot, never nowing if they're going to make it to safety or not.

[karmasoup.livejournal.com]

Oooh... Intense and foreboding.

[solstice-singer.livejournal.com]

I love how descriptive this piece was. I could feel their fear and their need to get away from what was certain death.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, glad you liked it :)

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, so glad the feel came across :)

Ooh, that's an interesting interpretation. It can be both actual and symbolic but I hadn't thought of political violence, I can see it now that you've mentioned it though :).

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, glad you found it intense :)

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm so glad the feel of it came across :)

[mamas-minion.livejournal.com]

Nice imagery, I could really see the scene this was taking place in. spooky.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, glad you liked :)

[itsjustc.livejournal.com]

Really creepy- well done.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

You gave a good sense of the environment in just a few words. Must have been one heck of an earthquake or whatnot!

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Oh my! this made me shudder..good description ..it did come alive..well written!

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Thank you, so glad it came alive for you :)

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I hope they make it to safety.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

The outlook seems bleak, but fingers crossed can't hurt ;)

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Eeee. What a very doomed world!

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Yep :). Thanks :)