A Rising Fall

by C. Sean McGee

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  “Go,” she said, her long hair covering her face, her hand reaching down to the boy curled on the floor pushing him into waking panic.

  Ruff was on all fours barking at the girl, pouncing back and forth with saliva pouring from his mouth, his fur on end, his ears pinned back and his tail low to the earth. The boy jumped from the floor and reached for the hook, but it was too far from where he stood; leaning backwards with both hands held high defensively, protecting his face.

  The girl stepped around the dog who avoided her direction and instead continued pouncing away and barking, far from the potential swing of her arms of legs. The boy was stepping back and cowering.

  The girl laid her right hand on the boy’s shoulder and her left on his face; the warmth from her hands healed the cold disappointment that bored its way from the centre of his heart through to the pores of his skin. Her hair covered her face, but he could see the morning light reflecting in her eyes and there was a colour he had never seen before; an emerald green and skin so fair; unhurt by the age of abandon.

  “Donal, we have to run, a storm is coming,” she said.

  “I don’t know who you are. I’m waiting for my father and my sister. They’re meeting me here. I have to wait” said Donal, his bravery taken away from his voice, now sounding like a forgotten Child; stranded by the side of the road, catching every second that passed by, waiting for mother and father to remember that they had left their son behind.

  “Your father has gone on without you. I saw him; I spoke to him and you’re your sister, Safrine. They are safe, but we must go, we are At Danger here. They will meet you by the boat. Your father asked me to help you get there. You have to trust me, Donal, we have to go” she said with urgency.

  The dog was still barking, but his eyes were out in the distance where the sound of thunder roared louder and from the horizon, a thin line spread up over the sky, growing like the rising of a black sun; a wave of uncelebrated devastation; coming, as one, with destruction as the principle of its canvas.

  The boy stood aghast and not believing; he had never seen such an amount of people in his life. His grandfather had told him about this; that this would come, but he had counted it as just another drunken tale, something to keep the Child at fright so they didn’t wander off alone in the night. There was a poem he would tell the kids to scare them into sleep;

  “When the tide of man lashes upon the tragedian shores, only the flight of love will carry you to salvation’s door,” said the boy, recanting what his grandfather had sung to him as a young boy.

  He looked out in all directions and felt the stampede vibrating to his feet through the loose gravel and shifting earth. He looked down to the dog which was by his side barking and growling at the coming threat, then looked at the girl standing before him, pulling her long black hair from her beautiful face, her emerald green eyes glimmering against the morning light, and a large black heart, drawn upon her chest.

  His eyes cast on the heart as he recanted the song again. As he sang, his mind filled with the words while his eyes followed the girl’s moving lips, but there was no trace of her words.

  “The flight of love,” he said, looking at her chest.

  “Donal, we must go” she kept screaming eventually getting through to the boy who took her outstretched hand and ran with her back along the alleyways out in the centre of town where hundreds of White Hearts paced nervously and ran about shouting incomprehensible orders.

  They ran past the Child Market where Donal quickly turned his sight hoping in vein to see his father or hear his voice and then again, as the flood rushed upon them, he hoped that his father and sister were safe, far from this imposing danger.

  As they passed the cathedral they saw an old man in black with a white collar around his neck; on his knees speaking to his palms; the heels of his feet shaking wildly in the air behind his body as his head bowed into wilful submission and fustian prayer.

  The girl pulled on Donal’s arm and; with the dog in tow, they continued their dash past the cathedral, down along the winding streets, past the tallest building downtown where the main entrance stood for once; unguarded. Down they went for several blocks with the horrendous roar on their shadow still deafening and urging them on.

  They ran until the boy collapsed under a sign reading Metro; out of breath and accepting of whatever fate scoured through the streets glued to their scent. The boy keeled over, the strength in his body obliterated. The dog lay down beside him, its hind legs pulled flat against the ground stretched out behind its body and the girl in white with a black heart on her chest, standing upright, seemingly unfazed, watching as the dog and boy fell into needed rest.

  “My name is Eve,” she said.

  “I’m Donal,” he said.

  “I know” she replied.