BLUE VENOM

Seven - The Glimmers

When I came to, I was surrounded by hanging lights. girlands of flowing light balls where hung in the vivid green jungle trees. I sat on top of a flat hill, tied to a post by thick, ivory white ropes that cut deep into my wrists, stomach and ankles.

In front of me, the hill was sloping down in a big opening that was surrounded by the alien jungle with not only poisonous looking, tall trees, but all kinds of unfamiliar plants. High, jagged maroon leaves, shady cobalt bushes, glowing cerulean flowers. A thin, sour tasting drizzle rain fell but it did nothing to put out the huge ball of fire that shone downhill.

Inside a circle of tall, glowing blue rocks, a campfire as high as two floors of a house burned. In the damp earth all around us stood thick, calcium white pillars with carved in, red runes in them. These signs looked like somebody had slashed them in with a knive and made the white of the pillar bleed.

Downhill, there were also a dozen of strange cylindrical shapes made from bubble covered black rock. They had entrances that were hung with Reed like curtains and looked like funny tents.

I had a slow coming to process, blinking with all that I saw. My hands were twisted painfully to my back.

In the middle of the opening, my eyes caught onto another strange thing; a flat, even, hexagonal, dark grey platform with a lilac shine was the center of their little village. There was nothing on the platform but a few fine cracks in the unearthly stone. The shimmer that lay over it made the surface look frozen. Around the platform stood black baskets with contents that were covered in sort of linen textures.

In the very far back, where the jungle began, there was a big white, rectangular building. No windows, just one gaping black hole as a door.

Then I turned around and realized that we were sitting at the edge of another platform, some sort of rough black stone platform on top of the hill. And inside the hill were glass like panes, reflecting in diagonal, shard like windows. Behind me, tied to other pillars, were my companions. Well, one of them. Kain. The other were nowhere in sight. Then I realized why I couldn't speak or why Kain didn't. We had tied mouths. Some thick, waxy, white and yellow cloth covered my jaw. I bit on it and it was a strangely dense material. Tasted like rubber.

Behind us, on the platform where actual white tents with red signs painted onto them. A huge tree seemed to be the center here. It was lilac, with a glowing grey, black and lilac stem tagt looked like it was pulsating, like it had veins and was breathing. The tree roof was very far up and there hung cards of some sort from the branches.

I met Kains green eyes - he sat across from me - and he raised his eyebrows as if to ask wether I also thought this place was away with the fairies.

I tried to move my wrists in the rope but it cut deeper into my skin, until I flinched, searing pain forcing me to still.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you", a soft voice spoke. My head shot around. A smaller woman had emerged possibly from one of the tents - and suddenly they were everywhere below the hill. The alien men ran around, yelling in that gibberish language and going from house to house. Somewhere in the back, deep, hollow sounding drums where beaten. I watched in awe as two eight foot tall, muscular outlanders walked past with shaven head and cobalt and red arrows and runes painted onto their shimmering, bald heads, their ears decorated with prolonged white feathers dangling from their ears. They also were clad in blue cloths and they carried sharp looking, white blades. Luckily they walked far away from our platform and my attention snapped back to the woman that stood there with her small hands folded, smiling gingerly at me .

She had cinnamon colored skin with an ethereal white glow over it, like she had bathed in snow. Or frost. She wore a flowing red tunic and a white skirt that reached the floor and seemed to dissolve into blue silk at the bottom. In her ears where two short black spikes as well as a number of smaller white pearls and her upward slanting, big black eyes looked at me with the weight of somebody who knew things. She had a calm air about her but I obviously didn't trust the alien woman one bit.