Excerpt: Beckon the Void

Endless fields spread out before her, shining in the afternoon sun. A gentle breeze stirred golden ripples from the hills. She could feel it all - the sun, the wind, and the urgency of getting as far away as she possibly could. But she could hear everything, too, from the rustling of the dry stalks of grass to the terrifying crackle and hiss of the raging blaze behind her.
Also, a voice. Or was it?
It was as urgent as a dying cry for help, and yet she could not be sure she heard a thing. But when she turned, breathless, to face the valley below that she had so narrowly fled, a figure, undulating, was visible before the blaze. She squinted through the smoke. It was indeed a man, alternately revealed and obscured as he came through the billows of smoke. He seemed a ghost. Perhaps he was. She had no way of knowing, now, and it was the least of her concerns.
She took two stumbling steps toward him as he nearly collapsed on the ground before her, but leaning on his knees, he gasped and panted to regain his breath. Then he stood, with a seeming second wind, and his icy blue gaze struck her still. But though his gaze was steady, his face had panic written all over it.
"Please!" she thought she heard him say, though the movements of his mouth were nearly all she had to go by. His voice echoed somewhere in the back of her mind, deep, locked away and pushing to emerge, but the world crowded in around her. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
"You have to come back!" he shouted from miles away. "You can't leave us! Not now! They need you... we need you!"
Again she tried. But even as her lungs drew breath she could feel it. Though no less real, no less petrifying, no less stinging and hot and bright and golden and however on fire - the illusion, she knew, could shatter at any moment, and all it would take was for her to utter a single sound.
It hadn't been so real for such a long time, but it was no less important to her now than it was when she was a small child. The lives of these people and the chaos that was enveloping them before her very eyes held the weight of her own death bed.
Just one more step forward, careful not to think too hard about the motion of her foot or the distance to travel, only to be close enough. He still stood, much clearer now with his distressed sandy hair stirred by the wind and heat, waiting for an answer that he knew she knew she had to give him.
It was already getting difficult to control. Desperately, she locked on to his eyes. Into them. Through them. She had to tell him, he had to know: if this all disappeared, it wouldn't disappear for him. But now, the tiniest motion would break it.
I CANNOT SPEAK, she thought with all of her will. I CANNOT STAY. I DID NOT INTEND THIS. I WANT TO STAY... I HAVE TO STAY... THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO. Her emotions came through jumbled and confused. She was trying as hard as she could to send the words to that place in the back of her mind where his voice came from, but it was too far away now. His face contorted slowly, from panic to fear. The world was melting around them. The heat, the sun, the grass, the billowing smoke, were seeping together at the seams, but she dared not look away. And so she saw, just before it all fell to pieces -
Or did she?
He was gone.