Christopher's journal continues.
This entry shifts from simple dreams into something far more urgent. He has stepped out into nature for rest, but what he witnesses on the trail will not let him rest at all.
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The dreams are wearing me thin. Each night I wake clammy and half-frozen, and each morning I find myself weaker for it. So today, I sought a change of scene.
I am perched now on a cliffside, overlooking a valley awash with green. Sunlight spills like honey over the ridges, turning the river below into a ribbon of silver fire. The air tastes clean, washed in pine and wildflowers, so unlike the stale heaviness of my study. I tell myself a week of this, of sun on my shoulders and earth beneath my feet, might clear the fog the dreams leave behind.
On the path up, I met a curious pair. A husband and wife, clearly of means, their packs too new, their clothes too fine for true hiking. She scolded him sharply when his phone glowed in his palm, insisting he put it away. I caught enough of their quarrel to piece it together: the doctor had ordered him to rest, his health failing, his empire left to the hands of others. The poor man sagged under her words, obeying her command with a sigh heavy as stone.
They will also be on the trail tomorrow. A guide is to lead us through the forest at first light, and I expect the couple will follow. Strange, how even in so open a valley, one can feel a story pressing in from the edges. Perhaps their company will be... instructive.
For now, I will descend to the campgrounds and set my stove, my tent, my meager comforts. The river below sings of peace, and I will let it drown out the whispers, if only for a night.
Note to self to ponder over: The descent to camp nearly undid me. The valley tilted, the air split, and in an instant, the green and gold of the earth were stripped away. I was back in the endless, white desert. My breath stopped, my balance failed, and when the world rushed back, I was on my knees.
The couple had caught up with me. The husband swore under his breath, muttering of vertigo, but it was the wife who stilled me. She had gone pale, her arms crossed low, as if shielding herself from something unseen.
And then I saw it.
For the briefest moment, no longer than a heartbeat, light rippled across her, thin lines of gold etching themselves over her skin like scripture written in fire. Not words I could read, but symbols alive, curling, moving, vanishing even as I blinked.
Her husband pulled at her arm, asking if she was ill. She only shook her head, whispering that she felt warm.
I did not speak. I could not. My mind reeled, but I had to stop on the trail and write this down while the occurrence is still fresh. I am not so young anymore, and memory is a fragile companion.
She does not know what stirs within her, but I know. I felt the same warmth in my dreams, the same breath against my cheek in the desert of snow.
A child is coming. Marked already. Marked with fire.
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This was one of the most important moments to capture: Christopher doesn't yet understand the full weight of what he saw, but we as readers recognize it. The golden script foreshadows what is to come, marking the child who will carry the Flame.
Thank you for reading these interludes. They are written more intimately, more vulnerably, because Christopher is not a warrior with scripture or power. He is only a man with a pen, trying to write down what the Heavens show him before it fades.