Vision in Red by Sajjad Rasool - HTML preview

Vision in Red

Amal floated closer to its face.

The face was a mask of tragedy. The mouth was open in a silent scream that mirrored the scream of the bride in Huda's mirror. The eyes were closed, vast domes of granite.

But the most terrifying thing wasn't the size.

It was the connection.

Amal saw that the "Watchers"—The Tall Ones, the Red Eyes—weren't separate entities. They were extensions.

They were like hairs growing out of the Giant's skin. Or pores. Or sturdy, black stalks.

They rose up from the Giant's body, punched through the soil, and emerged on the surface to feed. They were the harvesting limbs of this sleeping god.

They are gathering, the Key whispered in her mind.

Amal looked down at her hand. In the dream, she was still holding the iron key. It was shining like a star.

They are gathering the silence to wake Him.

Amal looked at the Giant's chest. It was rising and falling, a slow tectonic breathing.

If He wakes, the Key whispered, He will shake the world off his back like dust.

Amal felt a sudden, piercing sorrow. The Giant wasn't evil. It was... suffering. It was made of suffering. It was the physical manifestation of seventy years of pain, compacted and pressurized until it became sentient.

"You're not a monster," Amal whispered. "You're a scar."

The Giant's eyelid fluttered.

A tremor went through the earth. Amal felt it rattle her teeth.

The eyelid opened just a crack.

A red light, brighter than the sun, spilled out. It was the color of fresh blood. It was the color of the siren.

The eye focused on her. On the tiny speck of light she held.

IBRAHIM?

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