There we stood in the center of the jagged, craggy rocks, wondering how to reach beyond the light. “What now?” Gabe asked.
I thought for a moment. “I—I guess we should close our eyes.”
“Okay, let’s go on three.”
I nodded, “One ….” I wanted this more than anything I had ever desired. Answers, the solutions to my curiosity, the revelations I longed for were finally within reach. My reality was to be rendered; the beautiful gift of innocence was to be taken by the inhumanity of the human spirit, the boorishness of a sickened demon.
“Two ….”
The apple of my heart was to rot, then be submerged in the blood of sin.
“Three.”
We closed our eyes. Pitch-black was all I could see, but a new sound greeted me in the darkness.
“Luke … Luke,” a girl’s voice called to me.
I started to shake. “Y—yes? How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“Luke … Luke … come here—come here to me.”
“How? How can I get to you?” I awaited a response but heard nothing more. “Please! How can I get to you!” I shouted, only to hear a man’s voice interrupt our conversation.
“You get back home Gabriel! I’m tired of this!”
I was pulled from the darkness when Gabe violently shook my shoulder.
“Hurry! Over there!” Gabe cried, pointing to one of the machines. We hurried to it and hid. I peeked out to see a tall man stumbling through the surrounding woods; he was wearing a filthy, stained white tank top and dark-brown shorts. His hand was stuck to a bottle of beer as if they were super glued together; he sipped from it, then continued to shout at us.
“What should we do?” I whispered to Gabe.
“Just stay still,” he responded. “Let’s wait until he leaves.”
We remained kneeling behind the machine. I kept my breathing slow, and even though I knew we were not within the drunken man’s field of vision, I remained as still as a fossil.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
“That’s my father,” Gabe replied.
“What is he doing here?”
“Looking for me.”
“Why would he be looking for you?”
“Because I’m not supposed to be here, now shush.”
A loud wind filled the sky, and a rancorous thunder followed. Hell’s malevolent concoction was stirring above us, mocking us as we trembled in fear.
“If you don’t show yourself right now, I’ll bloody up that Wilson wimp! You’re with his son, aren’t you! I knew it! You were supposed to stay away from him!” his father shouted in harmony with the raging thunder.
The sun had disappeared; night was upon us, and surely the violent flashes of lightning were not enough to guide us home through the somber woods.
“What should we do?” I asked in panic as his father started making his way into the quarry.
“There’s nothing we can do—now shush,” Gabe answered.
We were helpless, with Mother Nature and a father’s drunken hatred standing in front of us on the battlefield.
“Gabriel! Show yourself and I’ll go easy on you!” his father shouted as he broke the bottle in half on a boulder. “Come here, boys! Daddy’s gonna make you wish you were dead!”
Shrouded in darkness, we faced death itself; we needed to escape, but there was nowhere to run to, no light at the end of the tunnel.
Gabe shook my shoulder again. “Luke, what are we gonna do?”
“I think—I think we have to go to the garden.”
“I’ll give you one last chance!” his father announced in fury. “Three ….”
I frantically shook Gabe. “We have to close our eyes!”
“Two ….”
With a flash of lightning, our location was revealed. He moved towards us, angrily clenching the bottle and grinding his teeth. Then, when our eyes met, I quickly shut mine.
“One!”
He grew closer, but before the razor-sharp edges of the broken bottle could snatch our souls, lightning struck us. And with the disappearance of the flash, all became dark. I was conscious, but could not see. Breathing, not air, but rather an element far purer than Earth’s oxygen. When light became visible once again—as well as the wondrous flora I had once observed from afar—I realized that I was finally within the garden I had waited so long to enter … a forbidden piece of heaven.
Thank you for reading this excerpt from my short story, Trinity’s Garden. The full story is available on Amazon in eBook (0.99), paperback (3.99), and audiobook (3.46). Any feedback would be deeply appreciated. Thank you, and happy reading!
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All the excerpts from Trinity Garden was amazing, you have a real ear for the English language. Good luck with all your writing!