Chapter 1 - Visions

Crystal Jackson

Lit. & Comp.

Creative Piece #2



Visions



I had been very concerned for a friend of mine. She's had such a turn of personality, there was once a time when she would stride confidently through these halls, queen of all she saw. Now, though, she seems nearly invisible and scurries about from place to place, underfoot like a mouse. She was always so happy, laughing and keeping court over a loyal group of followers, until getting a word with her was really like trying to speak with a queen. Then she grew quiet, and her friends left her, one by one, until there was only me left.

I decided to ask her one day, about what was it that had changed her so. I build up my courage and asked her, in a spare moment as she sat alone outside near the old fountain. I approached her, noticing how her lively, chestnut hair now lay about her shoulders echoing the sadness that seeped from her. I called her name, “Amelia,” I said, and she turned to me, her eyes were rimmed in red and she looked like something hunted. “What is it, that makes you sit alone, out in this cold wind with not a soul to talk with?” She looked away from me then, watching a group of friends stroll across the yellowing grass.

“If I were to tell you,” she says, her voice quieter and more broken than I had ever known it to be, “You would only think me mad, and leave as the others have…” I then grabbed her shoulder, and tried to force her to look me in the eye. “Amelia, if I have not left you now, I never shall.” She looked away then, sighed and began what would turn out to be one of the most horrible tales I have ever encountered in my years.

“ It began only weeks ago, I was walking to my next class, as I do every day and nothing seemed extra-ordinary.” She shifted on the bench and stared intently at her clasped hands. “And that's when it first occurred…” She paused again, and it looked as if there was some monster in her thoughts, too horrible to describe. “You must go on” I urged her, “I wish to have my friend returned to me” She built herself up again and continued. “At first there was only the message, it seemed to be everywhere, people whispered it in the corners around me. Their voices seemed to fill the whole building, telling me to… telling me to...”

“Out with it!” I insisted, as horrible as it may have seemed, I needed to know where she had gone, my friend who had been replaced by this quiet, torn girl. She breathed deeply for a few moments and said, “The visions didn't occur until the next week…” “Visions!” I gasped, and I must admit that at the time I was sure she was mad, and she may have been, but she was also Amelia. “ Visions,” she said, seeming to ignore my outburst, “ Sometimes of the most wonderful things, of fame, of wealth and happiness… but other times it only shows me monsters waiting by never-ending seas, and some concoction to horrible to describe…” she stopped then, and seemed unable this time to continue.

“These visions, you say…” it was I this time who could not meet her gaze. “What do they say to you? You say they have some sort of message?” She laughed, a brittle little sound and replied “They wish me to give up my will to some being even they will not name, other than by calling it a daydream, a hallucination. They wish me to give in to this thing. Its messengers will not even speak of the nature of this hidden thing. And now the people around me cannot be trusted, in meetings they deliver the same message and no one seems to notice but myself. It's driven me half mad you know…”

“But what is it that they say to you exactly, what do they command?” I persisted. She told me then, but barely seemed to be able to form the words themselves, and she shook badly enough for me to see it as she simply said:

“ They tell me, `Submit to Mirage'”

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