Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Hide and Seek (08/07/08)
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TITLE: Seeking Aeneas | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tiffanie Chezum
08/13/08 -
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The blue beam from the drone narrowed and shined at her face. It moved toward her.
I squatted behind a nearby boulder, careful not to attract the searcher’s attention.
The light grew bright.
Annikah winced, holding her hand out to shade her eyes. She looked straight at me. “Do not give up. Do not grieve.” She stepped off the cliff.
“Annikah!” I yelled.
The drone spun around. Its grey, featureless face scanned the area; the glare from the blue light swept past me. The sound of many drones echoed in the distance.
A hand grabbed my shoulder. I cried out.
“Be still, my love.” Annikah caressed my neck. “Do the dreams return?”
“They worsen.” My body shivered from the chill of my sweat soaked tunic. “We must continue. They are close.”
We gathered our meager belongings and headed across the moonlit terrain.
“You are weary, Gunnar,” my wife stated. “You need rest.”
I glanced back across the auburn horizon. A hazy blue glow scoured the skyline. “We cannot, Annikah.” I hoisted my pack once again. “They are too close.”
“Your visions, they upset you?”
I paused for a moment, gazing at her hazel eyes. “They frighten me.”
“Tell me what troubles you,” she pleaded.
I turned away, striding at a quickened pace. “Aeneas said to find him and he would save us.”
She heaved a forlorn sigh.
I glanced back at her. “We must locate the village.”
She walked toward me, wiping a tear from her eye.
Jagged rocks cut into our blistered feet as we struggled up the steep hillside. I wiped perspiration from my brow. “The village lies on the other side of the ridge.”
“Are you sure, Gunnar?”
“I am sure.” I pulled myself up to a plateau. The sun cast dancing shadows across the land as trees from a nearby grove rattled in the breeze. Gazing across the landscape, I pointed into the distance. “There, see? As I knew it would be.” The silhouette of a small community shown through the haze in the valley below.
Annikah stepped up beside me. “As it was in your dreams?”
I nodded.
“Perhaps there is a path.” She walked toward the ledge on the far side of the highland.
“Annikah, wait.” I gestured to a large rock close by. “We must wait here. Be stealth, my love.”
She knelt beside me, confusion etched on her face. A blue radiance emanated from the woods.
She gasped.
“Shhhh.” I held her hand, my heart pounding with fear.
The drone appeared from the row of trees. It paused, turning its expressionless face toward us. The ray swept across the rocks, then back toward the cliff. The hunter moved methodically, vanishing down the path we had just traveled.
Annikah’s eyes grew wide. “Was this as it was in your dream?”
I touched her cheek, my heart still racing. “We must continue. There are others.”
The sun sat low on the horizon as we entered the town. Eerie silence filled the air as we walked down the vacant streets. “Look, the same symbol Aeneas wore.” I motioned to the cross shaped structure on the top of a distant building.
Shards of colorful glass lay strewn across the floor as we walked through the door. “Aeneas, we are here.”
There was no reply.
“Aeneas?”
“He is not here, my husband.” Annikah placed her hand on my shoulder.
I grew angry. “Why were we led all this way? There is nothing here for us.”
She stepped further into the tiny structure.
I clenched my fists. “Aeneas, you promised to save us.”
“Gunnar, look.” Annikah brushed dust from a wooden podium, exposing words etched into it. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”
I stepped forward, my mind awash in uncertainty.
“Perhaps we were not meant to seek out Aeneas.” She turned toward me, her eyes beaming. “Is it possible Aeneas wished for us to seek God?”
I stepped to the other side of the stand. A book, its pages torn and tattered, lay open upon it. A shaft of light from a broken window shined on it, as if beckoning me to read it. I held the edge of the page and read aloud. “And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.”
“You must continue reading, Gunnar.” Annikah stood beside me. “Perhaps Aeneas helped save us, after all.”
Bible references: Matthew 6:33 & Acts 16:31 KJV
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