This made me think of a Sargent painting. Of course I had to abstain from voting, knowing that only a certain 2 people besides myself could have taken this shot. :)
He awoke suddenly, laying there on the ground, pains all over his body. At first he did not know where he was, what he was doing there. All about him was a dense white fog, and a silence that seemed almost unnatural. He struggled for a time to remember. What happened? What was he doing here. He tried to sit up and his head exploded in pain, causing him to wince and grab it in his hands, feeling like he was going to throw up. Somehow he forced himself not too, and soon the sudden pain began to fade, and his eyesight became clearer, and that's when he saw it.
The shadow looming in that mist. Large, and long, and a glint of light hit something on it and suddenly he saw it for what it was, the shattered remains of the fuselage of the plane he'd been on. Yes. He'd been flying. Flying back home after... and then it hit him. The engines going out, the screams, the chaos, the crash. It all came flooding back to him and he stared at that shadowy hulk for what seemed like an eternity.
Eventually, he began to take stock of himself and his surroundings. He was in some pain, but could move. Was he the only survivor? Were there others? He began to call out, but his cries echoed away in that mist. He slowly began to search around, and began to find them. The bodies. The dead. As he found them, he began to despair, and it was then that he saw the movement.
Saw her.
She came out of the mist like an angel through the air, silently, seeming to float there. He stared for a moment, wondering if he was possibly dreaming, and closed his eyes tight and pinched himself, but when his eyes opened once more, she was still there. A little girl, clothed in white, beckoning to him. Suddenly, another memory struck him. On the plane, before the panic, before the crash, he remembered a face peeking at him from over the seat in front of him. A face that had, for a time, played a game of peek-a-boo with him, that had resulted in a fit of giggles from them both, before her mother had sat her down and she had settled in for the long flight, and had eventually fallen asleep.
Now, as he stared, that face, those eyes, that had peeked at him so gaily a lifetime ago, now looked at him from out of the mists. She said not a word, but smiled that familiar smile and beckoned him once more. Then, turning, she began to disappear back into the fog. With a cry, he leapt to his feet, ignoring the pain and began to follow, calling to her. There was no answer. Further and further she led, and it was all he could do to keep her in sight. She would answer none of his calls, none of his questions, but kept a silent and determined trek through the mist.
He did not know how long he went on, following the girl. All he knew is that he lost all sense of time and direction, and was about to collapse from exhaustion when suddenly, he found his feet hitting pavement. He stopped, shocked, and stared. A road. He was on a road. Then, as if from nowhere, a set of lights shone through the now thinning mists and highlighted his form, and brakes squealed and the car came to a stop before him.
As the fog lifted fully, and from somewhere that seemed so far away a voice called out to him asking him if he was mad, what was he doing in the middle of the road, where the hell did he come from, was he ok? From the other side of that voice came another. From a patch of mist on the far side of the road, a pair of eyes gleamed out, and the tinkling sound of a child's laughter dispersed upon the breeze and was gone.
He blinked, and tears formed in his eyes, and he knew in his heart then that the girl hadn't been alive, but had led him to safety, somehow. She'd had one final task, and had delivered him, and for as long as he lived he would remember the peek-a-boo girl.
This is one of my favorites for the challenge, the fog is perfectly done with her head showing thruogh enough to create a real dramatic shot. Well deserved 10.
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