Salvatory Rising

“I wish to thank Miranda at Finding Clarity a great website for writers. She provided this Mid-Week Flash prompt with its wonderful crinkle-crackle wall photo. It was taken by Steve Bougeno in the Missouri botanical gardens. I saw it and fought all day with the urge to write for it and finally gave in. Here is my story.

Salvatory Rising

A blinding white flash tinged with electric blue. Had I dreamed it?

By lunchtime, the flash was still vivid when I closed my eyes; yet faded like any bad dream. The day had been normal until I swallowed my last mouthful of ham-and-mustard sandwich – then it changed.

“Edward – something happened!” screamed Melody, my sister, running into the dining room.

“What?” I sighed as she crashed into my chair. The ten-year-old was prone to theatrics.

“I can do magic — real magic!”

“Don’t be,” she was red-faced, sweating. Her wide eyes brought rising dread to my tightening chest, “stupid.”

“You never believe me! I hate you!” Melody kicked my chair and stalked from the room.

“Mel, wait!” I leapt from my chair to pursue her.

The back door crashed into the wall, she was going outside.

“Mel, wait!”

“No, leave me alone!” she skirted the lawns making for our private woodland.

It was a pity I was running; what with autumn in full swing, the bronzy leaves against the blue sky created a pretty picture today. “Mel, stop. What magic did you do?” I called as we approached the red-brick boundary wall. Straight and solid aside from certain gates it surrounded and protected the house.

“Why do you care!” she faced me revealing cheeks glistening with tears.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I caught her shoulders and heaved a deep breath from running. She sagged in my grip but focused her emerald eyes, darkened with disdain, upon mine. With a nod of understanding, I released her. “Show me.”

“What so you can laugh at me again?” Melody stepped away.

I shook my head, “Show me!”

“Fine!” Melody made claws toward me and she screamed.

A fire ignited in my brain. Something surged through me. I felt like my soul was torn from my body as the world distorted out of existence. Then I was down in the leaf litter, ears ringing and panting as if I’d run a marathon.

“Edward,” footsteps crunched through leaves toward me, “oh, Edward are you okay?”

“Argh! What —the hell — was that?” I wiped my nose; blood pooled on my hand.

“Told you I could do magic now,” Melody crouched beside me.

Still dazed I flopped against the curved wall —I flinched away faster as a wave of adrenalin set my heart pounding. The bloody wall was a flat square moments ago.

Jumping to my feet was a mistake. My head seemed to fill with water that increased the blood flow from my nostrils. Still, I clambered onto the wall and felt my jaw fall open. The brickwork was no longer straight; it resembled sound waves on an oscilloscope.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” Melody smiled for a second and approached. “I’m sorry I hurt you though.”

I jumped to the other side of the wall. Who was my sister? Whatever she’d become it terrified me. “What on earth did you do? Look at the bloody wall!” I yelled.

“Oh, don’t worry. Watch …” Melody raised her hands and emitted a low-pitch squeal.

My vision wavered as a second soundwave ripped through my molecules. Before my eyes, the wall snapped straight in a cloud of dislodged cement dust. Pain blew out my senses and crucified I fell to my knees.

“There straight again,” Melody said, now standing over me.

“Please don’t scream anymore!” I begged while pushing myself away from her. “How did you learn that?”

“I didn’t,” Melody pointed to the sky. “They gave me the magic.”

Floating high above us was a shining silver sphere turned amorphous in the glinting sunlight. “Is that a government drone?” I read they abducted people to do heinous experiments.

Melody shook her head.

“Then what?”

“Us!” hissed a genderless voice.

It was humanoid but not of this earth: not with metallic blue skin and grapefruit-sized black eyes.

“What are you?” I asked.

“Salvation,” the alien revealed a glowing sphere hovering above its three-fingered hand. “You’re next.”

Before the scream escaped my lips, the green light hit and seared into every cell in my body. When it released me I was no longer human.

Rising I flexed my muscles; each enlarged to an abnormal size. I tore a birch tree from the ground with ease. “Holy shit!”

“Right? Now your girlfriend will have real fun with you,” Melody said with a churlish grin.

“Later! We have a world to save,” remarked the alien.

My vision flashed; teleportation brought us inside the spacecraft. My life as an ascended human Salvatory had begun.

The End

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