I raced into the inky hallway, too afraid to worry about where I was going. My hand trailed along the wall, a guide in an unknown land. The hallway curved to the left and I stumbled as the grade dropped sharply, a tight corkscrew spiral, going deeper into the belly of the earth. How could I explain this away? There had to be a logical reason for all of this. I had to be dreaming. I had been watching too many horror movies lately. Movies creep into your subconscious and play out old story arcs in new and bizarre ways.
Abruptly, the ground leveled and the path straightened. A faint light, shining like a beacon of hope and safety pulsed in the distance. I allowed my hand to drop from the wall and picked up speed. My shoes began to squeak on the stone path as it grew damp. Cool, moist air soothed my ragged lungs.
Suddenly, I became aware of a strange chittering, whooshing noise chasing me; growing closer the faster I ran. Had the draculian man morphed into a huge hawk hunting its prey? I didn’t dare look over my shoulder, the memory of those gleaming teeth and predatory stare kept me focused on the light ahead.
Just as I reached another circular room, a swarm of sparrows rushed past me, wing tips grazing against my face and arms as they flew. When I slid into the open space I saw that the light was being emitted out of a well in the center of the room; an eerie glow erupting from the earth. My panting breath sent a crystalline fog up around me.
I flung myself against the far wall and watched in horror as the sparrows started flying in tighter and tighter circles, eventually coalescing into a man.
In short bursts I said, “Who… the hell… are you?”
“I brought you here, you are the last hope,” his voice ground out of him like rusty gears that had long since been still. Forced into movement by the urgent need to communicate.
“Hope for what? I don’t know how to fight ghosts!” I exclaimed before I thought about what I was saying. Ghosts? Is that what those… creatures had been? I didn’t believe in the spiritual world!
“They aren’t ghosts, they are as real as you are.” The oil of use had started to loosen his tongue. Giving a sharp cough he said, “In 1855 they drank water from this well. They weren’t searching for immortality like others do, they were tricked into it,” the words rushed out of him as if there wasn’t enough time to say everything that needed to be said.
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. How do I get out of here?”
“They’ve gone mad with time,” he whispered as if he hadn’t heard my refusal. “They all do in the end.”
Cultivating Sunshine 