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He started to tip
backwards, both balance and gravity were now against him, and the weight
of the prize he had won was bearing down heavy in his hand. His line of
vision changed from the cursed person on the ground before him nursing
his hand. It changed to become the darkness, and the smoke above him,
and through the smoke and the haze he could see a star, shimmering in
the heat.
Falling faster now,
he toppled right over and his view changed again, but this time he saw
what was below..... the intense orange red of a force more consuming than
any minds desire, and it was rushing up to meet him.
He cried out, and
let go of his bloody prize. It started to fall away below him faster,
and as it fell he could feel the heat building. He watched in awe as the
gold ring started to glow, but the finger still within it turned white
instead of scorching, then turned into a vapour which curled around the
rings rim. The gold and the white mist of the flesh now began to merge,
and is it did so the walls of the great volcano began to shudder. The
sound of a thousand voices began to cry as they turned their faces to
meet the moment of thier doom.
And still he fell,
but now, resigned to his fate, he felt a longing and a sadness deep within
his heart. He watched in silence as the ring spiralled downwards, and
finally with a shower of silver sparks it hit the glowing mass far below.
The mountain shuddered
again as the ring sat on the surface of the molten lava, before it slowly
started to sink.
But instead of receding
and becoming one with the white heat, it began to increase in diameter.
And as it widened the middle darkened.
At the outermost edges,
fine red tendrils began to appear, which thinned and spread over the surface
of the yellow lava, like fine veins, yet they had a form, some kind of
meaning. He thought that they looked like letters or words even?
Then the darkened
middle became black, and grew wider still moving out towards the edges
of the volcanoes shaft, and as it did so the voices grew to a tumultuous
fury. Thin wisps of mist started to fly toward the increasing circle of
the ring, clinging to the surface of the lava, and he saw that at the
front of each thread of mist there was a face, crying out in agony, or
was it relief?
Now hundreds of the
ghostly faces, were shooting past him, faster and faster, and every one
suddenly became a tiny star as it shot over the ever widening rim of the
gold band, and then flashed in a brilliant pin point of light into the
depths of the strange blackness at the centre of the volcano.
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