Seek Not, Want Not

Ula had found the small sphere only days before, hidden behind the True Spruce Icon her mother had kept from the Stargazer days, but its secrets had revealed themselves to her readily. She could soon see the cloudy insides of the sphere part and reveal the images she so longed to see. There they all were. Her first husband, her long lost child, her beautiful home in Abbertston. How she longed to go there again, to live that life. She wished so much to touch her son's golden hair one more time. She earned to feel her husbands breath on her skin.

Her husband. What did he know of her. An old man, an old man looking to dote on a daughter, not on a wife. "But he is so good to us!" "But he loves you so!" "But he is so well off!" None of it mattered. After her first husband, her REAL husband, died, she lost her heart. After her child, her only child, whom she barely survived, died, she lost her soul. Every warm caress her husband gave her felt like an icy knife cutting at her very being.

Then she had found this miracle. This stone. This clear jewel which promised in the sweet tones of long lost love to return her to her previous life. And so she followed its every whim. When it drew her attention to this house, she went. When it opened the maw into its depths, she lept willingly. And she had landed here, in this dark attic, staring into her fondest dreams and memories.

And as she stared, the images grew clearer and clearer. The details came into focus. The faces became closer and more dear. The scent of the grass filled the room, green as the eyes which stared at it. And the space around her grew fuzzier and fuzzier, harder and harder to make out. She didn't notice this, of course, as she only cared for the images in the tiny crystal.

And soon, all she could see was her husband and son standing before her. Her eyes filled with tears of joy, streaming down her face, making the leaves of grass beneath her sway as they fell to the ground. She ran towards her only desire in the world, ran with all her might, her heart coming to life, her soul alighting upon her as if from heaven.

And the truck came out of the air, and ran them down before her eyes, exactly as she remembered it. And she was standing on that Abbertston street, the blood sprayed across the sidewalk, the truck, and all other human life, gone. And her sweet tears of joy ran bitter and cold. She dropped to her knees and wept, and suddenly remembered where she was -- trapped inside a device of Satanic design.

And as she looked up to try to see a way out of this hell, she saw her husband and son, standing on a beautiful grass field, beckoning to her. Her son's laughter filled her heart with life for the first time in decades. And tears of joy streamed down her face....

(Posted on truehorror.net, August 8, 1998 by user lapduck, claiming to be one Nathan Henn.)