"C" (Writers of Kern A-Z Blog Challenge)

Drawings by my girlfriend who wishes to stay anonymous, even though she's awesome.

The imp danced rather than walked across the dark plains of Krashen. But it wasn’t a traditional dance. He jumped on exposed tree roots. He flipped and tumbled through puddles. He moved with the wind and the roll of the ground below. The sounds of the world were his only music and they spurred him ever forward, exploring the land and the fun it provided.

He pulled the tail of a four-legged grouper and ducked between its legs as the beast turned to attack whatever touched him. From underneath, he tickled its belly and gripped on to its fur. It flinched in surprised and jumped and kicked, trying to get the imp to let go. All the while, the imp laughed at the sheer fun and thrill of the ride.

A short while later, he shot a blue blast of fire up into the air with his left pinky finger. It flew up, straight up, and he danced about waiting for it to fall. When it did, the fire splashed around him like rain and he loved every second of it.

The realm of Krashen was, by all logical description, evil. Its trees were dead and gnarled ghosts of their former selves. Its bushes grew poisonous, purple fruits and had limbs of blackened wood, almost as the life was burned out of them. The sky swirled with dark energy and the creatures that inhabited the lands were only those found in fairy tales. But, to the little imp, it was home, and he loved it.

Today, his dance brought him farther than he normally would have traveled. He was halfway up a spiky tree when he saw it. In the distance, about a mile away, was a small, speck of yellow. It was a strange color to see in this drab place and it captured the imp’s attention immediately. He tumbled from the tree at once and ran as fast as he could towards the oddity.

When he got there, he saw that it was a tiny, yellow flower – its stem, a bright contrasting green against the black ground. The dirt where it sprouted was cracked and streaked with white lines that radiated out like lightning bolts away from the flower.

The imp was mesmerized. He had never seen anything like it before. It was strange, and colorful, and scary. There were rumors floating around from the other implings back home, but it’s hard to believe something so wild and outlandish without seeing it for yourself. And now he saw it.

Carefully, he crouched and reached his hand out to touch one of the petals. But before he could grasp it, there was a familiar tug on the back of his mind. It was an insistent pull that he couldn’t resist. And no matter how hard he tried to fight it, to stay and touch the flower, the magical tether was too strong. It dragged him backwards, across the ground, through a portal that appeared behind him and out of Krashen all together.

“Master! Master! The world! You won’t believe what I just seen!” The imp sang as he bounced around the bright room and crashed into his master’s robes and feet. “I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!”

“Whoa! Wait, Zubilee! Stop! What are you doing?”

“I saw it! I saw it! I saw it!” the imp continued.

The man managed to grasp the imp’s tail as he ran by and he pulled him to a stop. “What did you see, Zub?” he said sternly.

“I was walking around like normal, like I always do, and I saw it!”

“Saw what?”

“I was up on this tree, trying to break off the tippy top branch so I could have a new sword to play with, and there it was! It was there!”

“There what was?”

“And I jumped down from the tree-“

“Zubilee!” the man shouted. The imp looked up at him. “What did you see?”

The imp’s voice was suddenly quiet and terrified and he looked up at his master with wide, distant eyes. “I saw… the corruption.”

The man frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I saw it, a flower, in Krashen.”

The man stiffened and sucked in a hard breath of air.

“It was yellow, and tiny, and cute, and beautiful, and alive, and we’re all going to die!” The imp resumed his wild dancing around the room, shouting at the top of his lungs. “And die! And die! And die!”

“Oh, dear god.” The man whispered. He fell backwards into a chair to consider the information he had just received. Chilling thoughts filled his mind. A flower in Krashen? he thought and he knew it was a terrible omen, for sure.

  

"C is for Corruption"