The Thirtieth Incarnation - Prelude

 Prelude:

 Above a pristine stretch of shoreline, a radiant full moon sat in a steel blue sky like a colossal gold coin, its brilliance casting a silver highway across the water.

On the beach, a lone fisherman tossed his line over lazy waves and let it drift out.  He was unaware of two lovers in the dunes behind him until, he heard a strange sound and twisted round.

Twenty yards away, a young couple stood staring skyward.  Hovering directly overhead was a rolling mass of inkiness and light. It snapped and crackled like hot grease, and long spindly fingers of blinding white light flew out, coiled around, retracted, and then burst out again, touching and moving through the couple.

The fisherman could not look away. And while he stared, the world fell silent and a suffocating void filled his senses. He could no longer hear the waves or the hissing sand as the water retreated. It was as though time stopped.  Nature appeared frozen in place, and he watched as the mass slowly descended around the pair, shrouding them from view.

Within seconds their bodies absorbed the cloud and they collapsed onto the sand.

The fisherman’s line tightened around his hand, cutting into his palm, when something large took the bait.  He felt nothing.  Nor did he see the blood dripping into the sea foam at his feet.  He stood statuelike staring blindly at the prostrate couple.

And though his brain screamed run, his legs were useless. His voice evaporated before it left his lips, and inside, he was beginning to panic wondering if he was breathing.  He could feel the weight of the sky bearing down on him.

And then as quickly as it began, it ended. The pressure lifted.  Everything snapped back into action.  He could hear the waves and feel the wind in his hair and the pain from the taught line that was now imbedded deep into his flesh.  He spun his wrist furiously trying to unbind it. His blood flowed faster and harder. His feet were buried ankle-deep in pink sand.

A loud cry from the dunes directed his focus back on the couple.

The young man bolted upright and then he grabbed the woman, hugging her close.

The fisherman cut the line, abandoned his gear, and ran toward his village in terror.

He never told a soul.  Nor did he ever see the couple or return to that stretch of beach again.

Three years later on his way to market, he was approached by a man wearing a heavy cloak.

“I have a favor to ask of you, friend,” the man said.

“We are not friends,” the fisherman replied, wary of the stranger. He pulled his bag of fish closer and veered around the foreigner.

“I am here on behalf of the couple on the beach,” the stranger said.

The fisherman dropped the sack, spilling his hard-earned catch onto the road, and turned around.

“What I’m about to tell you will frighten you more than death,” said the stranger, “but it is the truth and all mankind needs your help.”

“No,” shouted the fisherman. “I don’t want to know about those people. I never want to discuss that night. Leave me in peace.”  He gathered the fish, refilled the sack, and hustled down the road.  Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. The touch lulled him into a state of complete calm.  The man in the cloak took the sack of fish and walked the fisherman off the road into the hills where he told him of the Allasso.

“They are our only salvation, and it was no mistake your being on the beach that night,” the stranger began.

     That was five-thousand years and twenty-nine lifetimes ago. The world is a different place, but the fisherman, his decedents, and the faithful are still shielding the Allasso from their enemies.