In Black and White

I was in the yard when it happened, the blinding flash, the deafening roar... the feeling of fire that washed over me from head to toe... I didn't know what hit me. When I came to, the rain fell hard against my face, my arms, my legs, my body, bringing me slowly back into the world with each, ice cold kiss. I struggled, rolled over onto my side, and inhaled the smell of the grass as I gasped for air. I tried to force myself to my feet but the searing pain that ran through me was too much. I passed out. I woke again in a puddle of mud, sweat, and tears. I had been crying in my unconscious state. There was something else though, something... different.

A soft hand, gentle and light, placed on my shoulder. I looked up, the white figure that stood over me seemed to smile as I rolled onto my back again, watching them. He smiled again, standing up, holding his hand out toward me. I smiled back, reaching up for his hand. As I stood, I realized that I felt lighter than I had before. It was then that I looked to see that I hadn't really stood up at all. I lay on the ground, a smile on my face, my eyes watching the clouds over head. When I looked for the figure again, he was gone and in his place, a child. She smiled at me, reaching up to take my hand, walking with me into the forest.

She didn't speak, didn't look up. She just walked, her tiny hand in mine. "Where are we going?" I asked her, my voice like a whisper, though I felt like I had shouted the words to her. She glanced up at me with her haunting blue eyes and smiled but didn't answer. She lead me into the trees, the surrounding area growing darker as we walked. After a while, we stopped and she looked at me again before she too vanished as the white figure had. I was alone, and, despite my current state, frightened.

I began to feel a feeling of foreboding as I stood there, spinning around when I felt as though someone was approaching me. A black figure, like the white one that had taken my hand, started toward me, red eyes burning from what I assumed to be his head. I tried to turn, tried to run, but I was frozen in place as he came forward, revealing rows of white dagger like teeth before I found myself in his grasp, letting out a scream as he took over. I stood there, frozen, hurting as I had when I had been struck.

Everything flashed, like I had been thrown in fast forward, waking with a gasp where I lay in the mud. I gagged, rolling to my side to vomit before I gasped again, trying to catch my breath. I sat up, shaking, before I forced myself to my feet, forcing myself to walk inside my home, to wash the mud from my skin and hair, to change my cloths. I walked through the bathroom to the sink to wash my face, freezing when I glanced at the mirror. My eyes... was that a trick of the light? Did they really do what I thought they had? No... it must just be a trick of the light, my mind playing tricks on me from the blow of the lightning strike. I sigh, drying my face and going to lay down to try to recover, unaware of the lingering darkness that stuck to my back, clinging to me, closing in on thing it desired most. A body.