by Galdors

Created on: October 24, 2008

It was as if he were in a dream.

He sighed and stretched in his high backed, polished stone chair. A rose coloured disc, set high in the cavern's rocky ceiling, threw rays of sunlight over the chair. He was mesmerized by the flickering shadow made by clouds racing between the sun and the rose disc. It was enough to put someone to sleep, what with the gurgling of the clear blue stream running in a circle around him and the somehow strange warmth that seeped from the rocky cavern walls.

It was as if he were in a dream.

A deer, grazing near the entrance to the cavern, looked up and sniffed the air. The movement caught his attention. Subconsciously, his eyes followed the deer as it walked away. He had never noticed it before, but outside was as beautiful as inside his cavern. Tall trees twisted towards the sky as racing to be the first one there. Every kind of plant you can think of was somewhere, either scattered on the outskirts or deep within the forest. And it seemed that the longer you looked, the more animals would peep out at you from their hiding place.

But the thing that caught his attention most of all was the colour. The brilliant, bright colour that was almost blinding but not harsh. He had never seen such colour!

It was as if he were in a dream.

All of a sudden, a gunshot was heard. Startled, he jumped from his chair and splashed through the stream, somehow feeling the relaxing coolness but not getting wet. He ran out of the cavern and stood there, staring at the scene in front of him. Lying dead on the ground was the deer. A bullet had pierced its heart. Tears welled up in his eyes. Who could do such a thing? Already the world looked just a little less bright.

It was as if he were in a dream.

An almighty crash made him turn around. One by one the trees were falling over. Why? Why this sudden change from peace and happiness? Startled animals ran helter-scelter, this way and that. He was confused. Was it something he had done? Or was it something he hadn't done? This dream was getting worse and worse. Why had he not noticed the wonderful things surrounding him before? Why had he wasted his life sitting in his chair, taking all this for granted? Why?

It was as if he were in a nightmare.

He was standing there, in the middle of a barren wasteland, fallen trees surrounding him. All the colour had gone. The world had turned a shade of dusty orange. But he wasn't alone. Before he knew it, buildings were rising up. Rising and rising until they were taller than the trees used to be. They called them factories and sky risers. The more of them that came, the more orange the sky became. And it didn't stop. He cried out to them to stop, but they didn't listen. Deep down he knew that this was the end. There was no way of going back to the happy, peaceful land that it once was.

It was as if he were in a nightmare.

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