Tapestry of Time {Sneak Peak - Rough Draft}
Jeff was in a restless state of sleep, on a soft bedding of dried moss, algae, and seaweed, when Avalon roused him from his nap in the chamber they had shared. Three years had passed since Jeff left the surface world to reside with the Avalonians beneath Hallow Bay; a world that seemed lightyears away in comparison to the simple life he had led with the underground community of aquatic cave dwellers. They spent their days like a hunter and gatherer unit—the men and women of the tribe both doing their share to gather various forms of marine flora and fauna to eat, along with other resources to keep themselves comfortable inside their underground hamlet—but the nights were filled with merriment and storytelling of a history passed down through generations of their people.
“What’s up?” Jeff muttered, groggily, when he opened his eyes to a grinning Avalon.
“Get up, I want to show you something.”
Jeff yawned.
“Can it wait until later? I was finally winding down into a good sleep…”
“You are always complaining about not getting enough sleep like one of the Old Fins, you seemed fine to me last night.”
“That’s because you kept me kind of busy for most of it,” Jeff smiled sheepishly at the thought. “I don’t know, I guess I have a lot on my mind.”
“Like what?” Avalon crouched next to him as he sat up on his makeshift bed.
“I thought he would have been among some of the darkling hordes we have found so far, but after so many years of scouring almost every tunnel this cave system has to offer, we still haven’t found your brother’s body. I am starting to think J’zel is still alive, either as himself or otherwise, but he has made his way to the surface, somehow…Maybe there is another way to access the surface world from the Curruna tunnels? Because he seemed familiar enough with those passageways,” Jeff related to Avalon as his hand reached down to his left calf and lingered on the scar J’zel had left on it.
“He did explore those caves a lot when we were young and was good at avoiding the darklings that were always roaming around.” A look of concern flashed briefly across the young woman’s face but faded after she had mulled it over for a bit. “But if we haven’t heard anything about him for this long, then maybe we shouldn’t worry as much?”
Avalon then reached out and took Jeff by the hand.
“But I came to show you something that might help. Something I should have shown you a while ago, but I kind of forgot…” she blushed.
“Okay, then, show me.”
Jeff and Avalon got up from the floor and made their way through a series of interconnected shafts and channels, passing a few other inhabitants of Lux-dulcibus-Avalon along the way, until they found themselves in an area of the caverns Jeff had not seen as of yet. After a while, the two approached an opening that emitted a glow unlike the bioluminescent worms adhered to the walls around them; and as they entered the room, Jeff noticed a slight humming sound that filled the air as his skin tingled and he felt the hairs on his body stand on end. The room was unusually huge in comparison with the others found in the underground cave system, almost as if some invisible force of energy willed the place into existence. With a few stone columns and other mineral formations littered throughout the space, its walls were abnormally smooth and rounded: free of mood worms but its surface reflected light with a near metallic quality in certain areas. Light that came from a source located by a pair of columns, which immediately caught Jeff’s attention after he had finished gawking at the immense size of the chamber they had entered.
“What you see are images from our past and your world’s present, it has been with my people ever since we found ourselves in your reality,” Avalon explained while Jeff stared, transfixed, at a ball of energy radiating brightly in the darkness; a multitude of scenes flickered into sight and appeared in the undulating orb of light, as it remained suspended in the air between two stone pillars. Visions of events and people, some familiar to him in a cast of strangers, strobed in and out of view like a broken film reel—weaving together a multitude of untold history within the fabric of space itself.
