Background:
Back in 2023 I decided to enter I entered a couple of writing contests.
This was one of them, where beside the word count restriction there were a couple of other challenges
(I don’t remember all).
But one of the challenges was to include “Crossing the line” as a sentence or a moment/action.
For some reason I remembered this one painting I did for a weekly Facebook page challenge.
And this short story was born.
With a quick movement he broke the neck of the small rodent.
As he looked up, the pink hue in the horizon was starting to obfuscate the dark blue and big sister was starting to fade as big brother’s rays started breaching the starry mantle.
He hurried to the rock. It was maybe another hour before reaching it.. he moved with haste.
Every bush he passed by he would pick up a handful of leaves and berries, anything would help.
On the back of his mind the silent voice kept whispering and urging him to hurry.
As he approached the rock he looked up. Towered by its height he reached in the makeshift pouch and made sure that the previous night of gathering would not fall as he climbed.
The rock was four times his size but he was a skilled climber.
Reaching to the part where he had stopped the previous day he grabbed the body of the rodent and using his mouth he ripped part of its skin, just enough for him to be able to stick his finger and use the blood to continue the markings on the rock.
There was no time to think, no reason to question the rite, the voice had commanded him long ago to travel to the eye at the center of the south plains where the rock would be.
The markings sang to him, a silent yet hypnotic hymn, spelling enchantments that existed before his ancestors, before the world was formed, maybe before time itself.
Everything made sense, from the moment he had started etching and painting them, especially when, on the third night, right behind big sister he observed it with his eyes.
The time had finally come, and he was the chosen one, foretold by the ancestors and prepared by the shamans, the one who would protect them all from the Sun eater.
As big brother stood high the heat started to become unbearable once again and he sat at the ever shrinking shade of the rock. Sharpening his obsidian blade and chewing on the leaves he had gathered to get the strength to continue for the second part of big brother’s cycle.
He felt a rush on his chest as he looked up and very dimly saw the sun eater chasing after big brother, getting closer than the cycle before.
It was almost time.
As big brother walked beyond the mountains the Sun eater appeared crowning big sister, just as the etchings had told him.
He smiled and took a big breath, the air was cooling, and his hands were aching.
The etchings started to emit a faint glow illuminating the surrounding rocks.
Speaking to the voice on his head he plunged the dark blade on his chest and felt the pain shatter his mind.
For a split second he was everything.
The sensations, textures and sounds all became one in his mind. The voice took the shape of the sun eater as he ascended, with his soul glowing white hot while moving at an unthinkable speed crossing a line in the sky and finally reaching it.
What he had felt, trapped on that mortal shell, was now enhanced by his astral form. He saw how the eye in the plains was one of many, all across the land mass. He felt others, like him who heard the voice and completed the etchings, providing another eon of peace, fertility and prosperity for their people.
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