Tears

There in the distance a faint glow - a red flickering ball in the blue sky above.

I see black smoke rising and a whisper of men and women screaming resounds in my ears.

“Where am I?” I wonder, scoping my surroundings in curiosity.

The floor is tinted in a bluish gray - the ground I’m seated on feels hard.

I look to my right and see a steep hill rising. There are lush greens on the top, but the rising is a deep brown.

“Uh- ah-”

A tiny voice awakens left to me. I turn around and am amazed.

There is a small girl lying just next to me dressed in an all gray gown.

I observe her for a moment. I wonder if she’s alright.

“Who are you little girl?” I ask her. Maybe I should have started with how are you doing, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“Where-” she starts “am I? Who are you? What!”

She stops in mid-sentence as she catches a glimpse of her clothing.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY DRESS!” she calls out to me.

“Calm down, will you? How should I know, I’m just as surprised as you are. One moment I’m in the market buying some fish, the next I’m here lying next to you!” I explain.

Well this is awkward. How could this even happen?

“My mum, where is my mum?” the little girl says while fervently looking all around her.

“HEY!” I say in a slight louder tone. “Calm down already!”

“But, but my mom, she was just holding my hand!”

“And the next moment you found yourself here. I know. Same thing happened to me. So let’s be calm and try to figure this out, OK? For starters, what’s your name?” I said.

“O-OK!” she says. Her voice gives away the rising insecurity.

“M-m-my n-name i-is Leya!”

Leya huh, doesn’t sound like she’s from around the same part of the world as I am - or was.

“Leya, look at me. Leya, we’ll figure this out, OK? We’ll get you back to your Mom. My name is Srax.”

As I try to calm Leya, an interesting thought occurs to me. Why the hell am I so calm about all this? Maybe I’m trying to act calm and am really freaking out on the inside. Maybe it’s because of Leya, a little girl all alone and afraid, maybe I feel I have to be courageous for her. That’s the mature thing to do. Or at least I think it is.

The red ball of light is still up in the air, it’s luminescence is really powerful I think to myself.

Suddenly, the sky turns red and I surprise I rise to my feet. “Get up!” I implore Leya and she instantly lifts herself from the ground as well.

“Follow me Leya and stay close, will you?” I command her.

Our front view reveals nothing but the red sky. I imagine we must be on high ground.

An unexplained fear grabs hold of me. This sudden change in color of the sky can’t mean anything good. I rush forward with Leya and soon find an edge, an end to the road you might say. Carefully I lie down and try measure how high up we are. But -

THERE IS NO GROUND! It seems like we are floating on a rock in the air.

“What! This can’t be! How!” I rumble in front of Leya.

“What is it mister, what’s the matter?” she asks frightfully.

“N-nothing. Don’t look down, OK? You might slip.” I say. I can’t have her freaking out about this now.

“Let’s try the hill. Let’s climb it, huh?” I say and drag her along with me.

After a good while we reach the top. I expect to see some settlement, because of the voices I heard, but then it strikes me.

“Wait, wait, wait…” I mumble in shock. “But the smoke screen, it didn’t come form this direction, it came from the other side. But there is nothing there. How- how could this be!”

My eyes open wide and now I’m totally fear struck.

“How- WHERE-” I start to myself.

“WHERE THE HELL ARE WE!” I finally scream. Leya tries to escape my firm grip, but I don’t let her.

“Leya, I’m sorry, d-did I make you afraid?”

Come to your senses man! Don’t let yourself go crazy - that girl needs you.

“Please mister” she says. Her eyes are teary. She’s about to cry. “Please mister, I want to go to my mom!”

“I know… I know… I’ll do my best, I promise!”

The luminescence of the red ball in the sky gets stronger and stronger, I can feel its power.

When I turn to have another look at it, I’m surprised to see that it has shrunk in size.

“How can that be?” I whisper to myself. I am frightened. For some reason I know that we won’t make it off her alive.

And then, without a warning, the red ball expands rapidly in an instant. It’s getting hotter and the surroundings start to shake.

“Leya… come her Leya, don’t be afraid” I say to her and take her in my arms. I gently stroke her had. Are these tears welling up in my eyes?

“All we’ll be fine. You’ll soon see your mother.” I say to her. I try to smile as best as I can. The shaking gets more and more violent. The air is literally burning.

“Mister, mister!” she whispers to me.

“Yes, dear!” I answer her.

“C-can you hear them, too? The voices? Can you?” she asks me.

Voices? Does she mean the screams I was hearing when I woke up?

She drags on my arm. She wants to ask me yet another thing.

“Yes, what is it dear?” I say, trying to avoid giving away the fact that we’re about to die.

“Mister Srax… it’s so hot, I have trouble breathing” she says. She seems exhausted and tired.

I once more stroke her hair gently. “I know, I have trouble breathing, too.”

“Mister” she says one last time.

“Yes” I answer.

“Why are you crying, Mister?”

In a sudden we’re covered in white light, the rock under our feet tore apart and just as I was thinking we were falling, everything ceased.

We were dead.

I knew I was dead. That was strange.

But then I suddenly woke up and found myself on the floor right next to the stand I was buying fish from earlier.

I looked around me, desperately seeking for Leya. But she wasn’t here.

Still in shock, I tried to focus.

I wondered, was all of it a dream?

It didn’t feel like a dream.

The pain was all too real.

I slowly rose up to my feet. The people all looked at me disapprovingly. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to head home as soon as possible.

The moment I was on my feet though, I felt some wetness on my chest.

My top had tear marks all all over.

I reached with my hands to my cheeks to check if I had been crying, but my face was dry.

Those were someone else’s tears.

Those were Leya’s tears…