Chelsea Harding
Chelsea Harding is a young writer who lives on King Island.
Silence
You open your tired eyes, the harsh morning sun glaring back at you with an unknown source of rage. You respond to this mysterious anger by closing your sensitive eyes once more.
The sun burns your face, frigid air nips at your exposed skin and goosebumps run up your body, as if competing in some sort of race. Flowers and shrubbery tickle the sides of your face and arms, dancing with the wind, as you focus on the sounds surrounding the place you now lay.
The sound of water immediately fills your ears, splashing and sploshing and swirling in circles, sending a satisfied smile to your face. It bubbles up, then falls down, stuck in a never-ending pattern. Searching for another sound, your focus switches to the rustling leaves, brushing against one-another. You find these sounds oddly calming, like a cool shower on a hot summer’s day, or the smell of fresh parchment in a new book.
You lay still, listening intently to the flow of the water and soft movements of the trees, their leaves and their branches swaying with the rhythm of the breeze, feeling yourself relax at the noise, until it stopped.
Everything stopped.
You force your sore eyes open, despite the pain your eyes endure in the scorching sun, sitting up in your spot. Everything is moving, you think, so why can’t I hear it?. The longer you think, the more confused you grow, like something was digging deeper and deeper into your brain every time you try to focus.
Silence never seems like it’s such a dreadful thing, like it’s something you could easily ignore, but it’s not. Silence is so undeniably loud, so insanely loud it’s irritating. You can hear your heart hammering in your chest. You can hear your breathing increasing by the second. You just can’t figure out why everything has gone so abruptly quiet.
Confused.
Scared.
Alone.
Tired.
The words seem to ring in your ears, engraving themselves in your brain. You feel your eyes closing, pulling themselves shut with unignorable force. You close your eyes, letting yourself click back into a sleeping state, blacking out and forgetting this ever happened.
Everything stopped.
Machines
As the cogs began to turn once again, a flicker of light sparked from within. Watching, waiting, anticipating its the first move, the rise of the machine was imminent.
The light shone brighter and brighter until it was almost blinding. The cogs spun and churned, emitting a swirling rainbow circle of light resembling an eye.
It twitched. Once, twice. With each subtle movement the machine’s confidence grew, blooming like a ruby rose in a field.
It stepped forward.