Monolith Part III

 Part I and Part II


The girl followed Monolith (as she decided to call him) back into the cylindrical room and away from the dark voices outside. She curled up in the makeshift bed and with a tinge of initial hesitation, drifted away into a world where the dark shapes and perilous voices couldn't exist.

She awoke with a start at the uproarious sound of crumbling bricks as they clamored to the ground in startling subsequence. The tower was often shedding its inner-skin in such a manner. It was old and rotten, like a decaying tooth fixed in a filthy moss-ridden mouth. She clutched the old quilt and backed into the wall, away from the falling stone. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for her guardian. She saw no sign of him. The flames had died out and all that remained of the previous blaze were a few small tendrils of smoke that slowly escaped the dim coals and powdery white ash.

She finished off what was left of the dark soup, despite it being cold and hardened, and ventured out of the spire. Rain slowly drizzled through the air, coating everything in a glossy sheen. The rain somehow made the swamp smell worse as she, who had become accustomed to the stench, curled her nose in disapproval. Despite the odor, the falling water was refreshing. She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve as the water loosened the mud that had affixed like chocolate icing to her skin. Little streams and tributaries of clear water formed and wound their way around her muddy facade. She looked around for Monolith, but he was nowhere to be seen. 

The rain turned the ever-still glassy water into a crowd of clamoring ripples as she moved towards the long forgotten remains of an old wooden dock. She leaned over to look at her reflection as she often did, in an attempt to remember who she was. The swamp water was far too tumultuous to allow her reflection to peer back at her. She sighed in annoyance and got back to her feet. The girl thought she heard a distant sound echo through the bayou. She straightened up in instant alertness, reminded of the voices in the darkness the night before, but the sound was more akin to a large boom than a shrill whisper. She started walking towards where she guessed the sound came from, intrigued now more than afraid.

She saw something move on the ground and narrowly avoided stepping on it as her foot came down. It was a giant, bulbous toad. He was so fat and lazy that he hardly protested as she reached down, wrapped her fingers around his fatty frame and lifted him up. She held him level with her face and moved her lips as if to say something, but stopped as she recalled her last attempt at speaking. Instead she stared intently at the plump creature, in an effort to converse with her mind as she would have with Monolith. It didn't work on the toad though. She carefully lowered him from her face and placed his large girth in her biggest dress pocket. His massive head and tiny little arms poked out in the open as he blinked in what might have been annoyance, but was probably more likely confusion at the sudden abduction. 

That sound. She had forgotten about what she was doing and where she was going. It was easy in the swamp to succumb to its dense sprawl and begin to wander aimlessly like many of its inhabitants. Perhaps the dark figures were once people who had purposelessly traveled in the swamp for so long that they had transformed into the bayou's dark and muddled captives, devoid of thought or love. Nameless, faceless, mud-caked beings fated to patrol the humid swamp for eternity. The girl shuttered at the thought and once again remembered that she was following the elusive sound. 

The more distance that was drawn between her and the tower, the more easily distracted she became. She became concerned about the toad sticking out of her pocket. He looked less lively than he did when she first picked him up. His wide head was now drooping slightly and his eyes would close for a while and then flutter open again as his rotund body bounced with her gait. The girl wondered if he was hungry, or maybe thirsty. She stopped by the water's edge and cupped her small hands together to scoop some of the dark water for the toad. Small eyes of harmless swamp creatures, floating just above the surface, watched as she did so. When presented to the toad, the offer was refused. She lifted a small rock to reveal several worms and maggots wriggling underneath as they were disturbed by the sudden and unexpected arrival of light. Boom. There was the sound again. Right, that's what she was doing. Follow the sound.