NEW: Avenue of the Dead.

 

The dead gathered quickly, crowding the boy, trying to reach out to him with long shrivelled fingers as he walked through the crisp heather. He was the warm naked flame of the living, and they - nothing more than cold bones, were drawn - with a yearning - towards him.

They started to whisper pleas that wriggled their way into the boy's head - one, then another, then another. Voices folded in on voices, until the sound became a roar in the boy's head, a rolling scramble of pleas in a desperation of need.

The boy soon collapsed onto his knees, his hands gripping the sides of his head, trying to make sense, make order, but there was nothing he could do to stop the invasion, as voice, after voice, after voice, piled into his head, his skull beginning to implode.

The voices of the dead collected, then soared into a primeval wail, a gut-wrenching wail of need. The boy opened his mouth wide, and every collected wail, every plea for more life, another life, any life, focused themselves into a sharp, bitter point, and shot out of his mouth, searing across the heather, ripping through the mist, through the ether itself, splitting the world into two, and between the two halves, a new pathway formed.

The dead stood silently on either side of this rip in the world, a new pathway forged by themselves and the boy. Shrouds wrapped keenly around their narrow bones, they stood - an avenue of faceless sentinels.

The boy sighed with relief as he got up off his knees. It was done. Before him stretched a giant shimmering canyon separating the world. With silent deliberation, he walked forwards, his sneakered feet taking the first steps on the shadowed avenue of the dead.