Sorry for those who dont like reading long texts, tommorow I will post something more visual. Anyways as promised Chapter 1 - Part 2
Gloria felt like she had some sense of duty over Christian especially when his curiosity wouldn't be curbed by her warnings and advice. She wondered, sometimes, in the dull summer hours whether Christian even possessed a sense of danger, whether he could even start to imagine the terrible consequences every one of his actions could possibly have and even whether his heartbeat quickened and palms perspired when he faced most horrible terrors. And, despite the fact she was several months younger than him, Gloria often took the mental mindset that she was his big sister who needed to protect him, give him guidance, help whenever she could, with a cool head to contrast his.
The strange, orange haze hovered after the deer left, it seemed to be glittering. Then, in spirals up into the air the mist disappeared. It seemed there was a certain point that it could get up to in the sky before it broke apart, into infinite tiny pieces so you couldn't see it any longer. They watched, fascinated, frightened by the phenonemon, but neither could say anything about it.
Christian unzipped his rucksack and pulled out a clear, plastic tub filled with sandwiches, "Want one?" he asked, his voice slightly higher than usual.
"Yes, please. Ham one, if you've got it." Her hand tugged at some blades of grass, she pulled them from the earth and scattered them into the air, they rushed past Christian and fell abruptly a few feet away. Gloria wanted to find them and throw them again, out of the moor so they could land and grow reproduce somewhere else until there was enough for another moor. Another moor where two barely connected friends could sit and have a picnic, see something impossible, then continue like the impossible thing never happened.
Her gave her the sandwich she requested. Gloria bit into it, she could tell that the meat was cheap, it was slathered in too much butter so that her mouth was coated with it, she gulped trying not to gag as the contents slid horribly down her throat.
"Can we talk about something?" she asked, when the taste of butter was definitely out of her mouth.
"Sure - what?" Christian replied.
"I don't know! Anything!" her arms moved up into the sky and down again with each syllable, as though a sudden burst of energy overcame her. "Like... how was your holidays? I mean, [i]really[/i] how were they?"
"Uhm..." Words failed him. He stared dumbly at Gloria, his eyes barely focused, his mouth hanging absurdly open, half-forming words that he hadn't even thought of yet.
"Uh-uhm, well, Mum's been really irritating. Stupid woman thinks I need to 'try harder' in school, well that's just 'er way of saying I'm dumb. I am, as well - school was better when you were there to help me."
"By 'help' do you mean copy off me?"
"Uhm, no, jeez, Gloria whaddya take me for? A cheater?"
"Of course not, Christian - you're a sweet little angel, with a heavenly choir to lull you off to sleep at night, and polish your halo, and fluff up your little angel wings and smite those guys that used to call you a dork at school and make it look like an accident." She gave him a mean sort of smile, he returned it and wrinkled his nose at her. "So... Mum's annoying, you're no angel - what else?"
"Well..." She had gotten him going - talking about school, home life, his thoughts - even girls whom he liked. It never took a hammer break open his shell, not a big hammer. A tiny ice pick, perhaps, she thought.
"There was this one girl, Alex - but she went off with Jordan instead, he bought her a necklace for Valentines day and all." his face turned down in sadness.
Gloria grinned. "Hey, you've got some butter on your face." She could barely conceal her laughter.
"I do no-"
"Do now!" She threw half of her barely eaten sandwich at him, he jumped back in shock, but laughed along with her. "It's nice to be stupid while we can - y'know what I mean?"
"Not stupid, Gloria," Christian corrected, "Just... more interesting," his eyes twinkled with sheer childlike glee.
Gloria just had to smile back at him. In those few seconds a friendship resting on a dying ember was roaring merrily, expanding every second after.
A dark mass of grey rain clouds had gathered ominously above them, ready to burst and flood the beautiful moor with their eminent down pour. Both Gloria and Christian could feel it. It plunged the moor into darkness, it cast dark shadows on their faces, tricked the eyes so their cheek bones jutted out like skeletons, placed dark circles under their eyes and reduced their complexions to ghosts of their former selves. Even in the air there was a certain, unseen darkness - the chirps and creaks of the outside world around them dwindled down to an unnatural silence.
"We should go," Gloria's voice came out darker and harsher than she had anticipated.
Christian nodded.
With barely so much as a glance at each other Christian and Gloria parted, he with his rucksack and the tub of unfinished sandwiches, and she with nothing to carry but her own odd feelings of abandonment. The feeling that she needed to say goodbye, but couldn't because her vocal chords just stopped working, she knew they'd start again as soon as she couldn't see Christian but that knowledge didn't help anything. It just seemed to anger Posiden, the Earth seemed to shudder, the rain started - it was as though someone was tipping water out of a bucket from the clouds above. The air tasted strangely metallic, everything looked cold and wet and grey. Even the moor's dew drop rainbows stopping shining. The muted light from the sun through the clouds didn't even try to struggle out into freedom. The weather had given up on Christian and Gloria.
To see the rest of the story please visit http://stories.mibba.com/read/301444/Launsprona/
To see the authors (Dakotas) blog click here
To see more of her storys and poems click here
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