Sunrise

Sunrise.
By John Paul Dodds.


Why is it when you're on your way to do something horrible, something terrible.  That's when you see something so beautiful it almost stops your heart.

Streaks of orange pierced the blackness of the night sky, dark and muted but brightening as they reached the horizon.  They lightened the blackness around them to a deep, midnight blue.  And at that horizon it seemed almost like the sky was on fire.

Familiar surroundings I'd looked at but not really seen for my whole life, took on a whole new meaning.  The giant, age old trees and old buildings of my picturesque home town were silhouettes painted in darkness against that sea of fire.  Tiny details I'd never noticed before were permanently etched in my mind's eye.

I wish I had proper words to describe it.  But I'm not a poet.  I'm just an ordinary girl caught up in an extraordinary situation, and I'm terrified.  I can't wax lyrical.  I can't compare it to a flower or a river of colours washing over the landscape, or some other smiley... smilie... simile.  That's the word.

I glance around at the others.  They seem so grim and determined.  They don't seem to have seen it.  It sort of makes me wonder what they're doing this for.  I mean I know they're making the world a safer, better place and all that.  But if they can't see the beauty in it, what's the point?

I feel like a child in amongst a group of soldiers.  Compared to me they're all so tall and grim.  And confident.  Even Casey who's only two inches taller than me and barely more than a child herself.  She's like them;  Competent.  Determined.  Dangerous.  Ruthless.

I clutch the shotgun desperately to my breast.  I know it's a military model because he told me when he showed me how to use it.  And I can feel the unfamiliar weight of the huge knife that's strapped to my leg.  But neither of them are comforting.  I'm not a soldier.  I'm not a fighter.  But I have to be here.  I can't sit this one out.  I just can't.  I owe Alex that much at the very least.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, he tilts his head up to the sky.  Morgainne.  My knight-protector.  Like a hero from those old stories.  Then winks at me.  And I know he's seen it.  I know he understands.