Subterra
You really ought to run right now.
Well, to be fair you really ought to run every day of your life, because they come after you. Monstrous creatures with power over fire and talons sharper than crags. With their harsh screeching voices and stampeding legs they drive you from one alley to another, across centuries and lifetimes. Cuts across your arms and face sting in the salt water of the ocean.
You have nothing else to do but wander, and wander you do under the forgiving white light that erases the pain for a while. From encampment to encampment, hiding in forests and, when the forests are gone, deep into the forests of brick and mortar, which create a facsimile forest from the absence of trees.
But you grow old—yes, so very old, from the dirt in your bones the old earth calls you to return to its grasp, to lay down your tired head and sleep forever, covered by the mist and snow.
You quickly abandon that notion, which insinuates itself each night as you drift from this world back to your home world, somewhere kinder, safe from the searing yellow eye. You abandon it because you cannot truly return, any more than you can turn back the course of time or tell the waves to recede from the shore. You abandon it like the world abandons you every morning, and continue on.
Then, finally, as if the strings of fate have been pulling you towards him all this time, you chance upon a Cheery Gentelman in the street. You try to retreat, recede like a wave into the heart of the ocean, but there is something in his not-right eye and something about his not-right smile that keeps you transfixed on him.
“Hello,” he says, to the air rather than to you. “Lovely evening we’re having, aren’t we?”
You grunt in reply.
“And a prime time to shop for real estate. Now, judging from your generous size, you’ll be wanting something nice and spacey, plenty of room to stay out of sight.”
You look up. The Cheery Gentelman widens his not-right smile and points towards the part of the sky where there are no stars. “See that over there?” You look, squinting your eyes until they blur the black and blue of your vision. “There.”
A white moth, with wings soft as dust, flutters. You stare off and begin to chase it, as it flutters underground.
You’re going to be alone for a long, long time.