“The hell with this,” Nick said, turning to head back the way he came, back through the winding way towards the parking garage, back to his daughter’s… well, back to his daughter.
Then…
“Daddy?”
The voice was faint, distant, and echoing… coming out of the dark corridor that had been the left-hand path as he’d made his way inward. If the tunnel hadn’t been so completely silent, he might have missed it. As it was, he still halfway thought he’d imagined it, but then it came again.
“Daddy?”
“Karrie, baby, is that you?”
“It’s me… where’s Reggie?” Karrie called. “Is he with you? He said he was going to help me…”
Reggie… was that the son of a bitch’s name? He filed it away. The bastard would get his, to be sure, but first things first. He had to get Karrie to safety.
“Reggie’s not here, sweetheart,” Nick said.
“Where’s Mom? Is she with you?”
“Your mother’s not here, either,” Nick said. “It’s just me… just Daddy. I’m going to help you, okay? I’m going to take you back to your… back out of here.”
“It’s dark…”
“Stay there,” he said, thinking. He had the string, so he couldn’t really get lost. “Stay where you are. I’ll come to you. Just… don’t go any farther, okay?” he called, not sure why he was specifying this. Farther what… farther in, farther on, father away? He had no idea. It just seemed very important. “Whatever you do, do not go any farther.”
He had become so accustomed to the lights flickering to life before him that he noticed instantly when they failed to respond to his first step forward.
“Daddy?” the voice called again, plaintively.
Nick hesitated. He swallowed. He closed his eyes, to see if that would make stepping from the light into the darkness any easier. Realizing it wouldn’t, he opened them.
“Daddy?”
“Coming, sweetheart,” he replied, but it was still an uncomfortably long time before he managed to take the first step.
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I do believe he is starting to think less and act more.
he is figuring out this game a little bit
I wouldn’t be surprised if he wakes up in the end and finds himself lying down on a couch having been under some kind of hypnosis. The story really sounds and feels like its all in his head. I keep waiting for a fraggle to show up and lead him around or something lol. Great story and character development like this always keeps me coming back for more. I know its too much to ask for it to be longer each installment but thats only because i like it so much. Fantastic work AE and I hope you found time to rest some over the weekend.
Making it longer in each installment eL would destroy one part of it’s charm, something that each and every issue still atonishes me that it flows so well and doesn’t seem forced that they all have 333 words exactly.
Alexandra I don’t know how you do it…
Gnorm
This instalment sent chills down my spine, much more than the previous ones. I guess there’s something about children calling for their parents…
@eL: Nah. Making it all a product of hypnosis would be a very lame cop-out, and I think AE is a good enough writer to avoid making that kind of cop-out.
I love the logic in this; thinking about things makes them happen. Brilliant. If MU can have its “general magical fiat” approach to logic (and it can), then why can’t Tribe have its own variation on “magical logic”?
So, yeah. It’s not just in his head. This is just the way magic works in Tribe. Don’t think about it too much or you destroy it.
I’m not going to alter the length of the installments but once I’m writing fulltime I may very well make this a daily story again.
I’m really starting to like this story. Well played ma’am.
I like Tribe. For some reason, all my life that I can remember, I have felt that if I didn’t think something it might not happen. That is, if I was anxious about something or dreading something, I was afraid to let myself think about it enough to put it into words. Somehow the premise in Tribe that if you don’t know she’s dead, she doesn’t have to be, makes perfect sense.
Mmm, he’s starting to believe (again?).