Part OnePart TwoShe stared for long moments the fear and panic creating a painful burning sensation in the back of her throat. She could see the desert stretching out around her, feel the warm sun on her face, the cold packed earth beneath her feet, smell the dry dust everywhere around her and she dropped to the ground in relief.
A dream she thought nothing more than a dream. She had dreamt the world around her had suddenly blinked out of existence. It had just been a dream, a dream so realistic that it had quite nearly driven her insane. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stop the laughter that threatened to bubble up at the thought. She was quite sure if she began to laugh right now that she would never stop.
“A dream” she repeated aloud as if hearing it would make it seem more truthful and yet it did not. Everything still felt wrong but she was so grateful at being able to feel anything at all that it didn’t matter.
She stared at the horizon and at that great big beautiful ridge which would lead her into town. Slowly she walked towards it and as she did she felt the dream slipping away. She could only remember the joy she had felt when she had opened her eyes, not remembering having shut them in the first place, and the terror which had gripped her but the details were fading away.
Now the sun was rising and the world looked even better with the sun just above the ridge which would lead her, while not home, to safety. She would be fine she would just keep walking, she was bound to reach town before another night fell. She would spend tonight safely locked in her hotel room with the TV and every light on, wrapped up in all the blankets she could find.
She paused for a moment sitting down to rest her feet the thought of the warm and comfortable hotel soothing her mind like a balm. She took out one of the water bottles from her backpack and drank half of it down before climbing back to her feet and beginning to walk again.
The ridge looked different somehow, Joelle shook her head, no it was just the after effects of that terrible dream playing tricks on her mind she thought and continued to walk forward the ridge becoming clearer with each step.
The closer she got to the ridge the more convinced she became that something wasn’t quite right and as she walked to the top of a small hill leading ever closer to the edge of the ridge she looked up from her feet to the sky and stopped dead.
Hanging above her head was not one sun but two. Both blazed their heat down upon her and as she stood staring into the sky she heard a wet squelchy sort of noise from behind her.
The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she remembered that warm and wet, somehow alien feeling, she had experienced in her dream. She refused to look behind her and indulge herself in this new paranoia, and yet the two suns hanging in front of her was just as insane to contemplate as considering what in the middle of the desert could have made that wet noise.
She gave her head a little shake instead and stared at the ridge over which the second sun had just risen. It must be a mirage, or a hallucination she thought. Maybe something had gotten into the water bottles she had been drinking. With determination she set her mind against her imagination and set off towards where she knew the town lay in wait.
Once she got there she would instead of heading straight for her hotel room head for the nearest Doctors office instead. They would be able to figure out what had suddenly gone so wrong with all of her senses. They would fix it.
The ridge she now realized wasn’t that far off anymore and she probably could have made it the night before if she had just kept going. She would have seen the lights from town before long and could have followed them to safety.
Of course she was still going to get there safely. There weren’t two suns she told herself sternly and she certainly hadn’t heard the sound she thought she had, there was nothing here. She had just gotten stuck a little ways outside of town and had to walk back that’s it nothing more.
Sometime later just as the ridge began to rise up to meet her she heard that same wet sound behind her. This one was followed by another and another wet sound and she began to run towards the ridge, towards the light of the two suns. Faster and faster she went as the sounds behind her seemed to get louder and closer and somehow more excited.
She was scrambling up the hill leading to the top of the ridge in front of her when she felt the first brush of warm wetness against her ankle and she screamed just as the view beyond the ridge came into sight.
She found her footing and stood on the edge of a great chasm. Where was the town, where were the people, the buildings, anything. There was nothing just those two suns high up in the sky and the noises behind her.
Panting she shaded her eyes and searched the horizon for some sign of life but there was none. An alien landscape spread out in all directions before her, the noise from behind came again followed by a sensation of that sickening warm wet thing against her leg. The sound became a happy gurgle and Joelle shuddered.
She took a deep breath and finally turned to look down and back the way she had come. She finally had an image to put together with that noise and that warm wet feeling. It was worse, much worse than she could ever have imagined.
She had apparently driven much further away from town than she had thought, or perhaps she had walked further. All she knew was that the wrong turn she had taken had been more wrong than she could ever have imagined.
With a final scream of terror she threw herself from the top of the ridge into what she hoped would truly be nothing.
