A little teaser of the second in The Lands of Power series, entitled, 'Deception.' Hope you enjoy.
Dreams of Jason swam through Phil’s mind like darkened
clouds over an irrepressibly black sky. His betrayal, Phil’s naivety. The
conversation he had with him in the limo, the one in which all truth emerged.
Phil’s dream saw it as a snake. Blacker than the sky that it fell from. It
landed heavily, sending dust into Phil’s eyes. He squinted past the tiny grains
of dirt that still circulated in the sky.
He could see the snake, rising slowly, precisely from its
coiled heap it had landed in. Its head bobbed slightly as it spotted Phil, its
pink tongue tasting the air, sampling the fear which now radiated from Phil. He
was sweating; he could feel his brow grow wetter. The snakes eyes glowed a
blood red, locking gaze with Phil, unable to break the hypnotic stare.
The snake gave a smile, not just a smile but a smile that
Phil saw to be Jason’s, not his usual smile from before the truth emerged but
the smile he had given in the limo. The smile of knowing that the news was all
new to Phil, that Jason had been the more knowledgeable one the entire time. It
was a smile of satisfaction.
I lied by the way
Phil, when I told you my dad had a gun.
Jason’s
voice floated through the black air. Phil was stunned to silence, he couldn’t
move he stood there, frozen in the hypnotic stare with the blood eyed snake.
The snake slithered closer and closer, a grin beginning to form on its
serpentine lips. Then the snake stopped in its tracks and for a moment Phil was
relieved. Then the snake began to open its jaws wide. Its sharp fangs hung down
from the roof of its mouth like menacing stalactites. The ends were covered in
blood. Then Phil saw the most menacing thing of all.
Upon the snakes tongue was Jason, back in his suit, his hair
slicked back. He looked much older now, as if it had been years since the incident
in the limo. He walked down the snakes tongue and stood on the forks, each foot
on each fork of the tongue. He was a good 2 metres above Phils’ head but stood
with confidence despite the height. He smiled, the same smile that the snake
had replicated only seconds before. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and
pulled out his gun, the gun he had in the limo.
The words Jason had spoken in the limo came to Phil’s mind seconds
before Jason spoke them.
“It’s mine.” He uttered and then
the gun exploded.
Phil’s eyes flashed open. He was
on the apartment floor, the covers clung to his sweating body. He was out of
breath and his heart was racing like it did when he ran. He sighed, he was
safe. The snake was just a figment of his imagination and Jason had no idea
where he was, for now he was safe. Phil took in the surroundings of the
apartment, something he often did after his nightmares, familiarise himself
with the real world to confirm he was once again awake.
But there was something different
about the apartment, something he couldn’t put his finger on. The lights of the
city were on but they seemed dimmer than usual, as if Phil was much further out
of the city than he had been when he had fallen asleep. He compared it to the
stars over London, back home he could see hundreds of stars in the sky, in
London he could see half as many on the clearest of nights. He had learnt why
in school, the light pollution meant that light from stars, which are further
away is blocked out by light which is much closer to the eye. It hit Phil like
a train.
The reason the city lights were
dimmer is because there was a light closer to his eyes that was on, more
specifically the bedroom light in which he had been sleeping in was on. And the
owners were home.
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