Coming Home, pt. 3

    He kept his eyes fixed on the slowly growing dark spot. It was larger than he'd thought. As he came within a hundred strides of it, he realized that it was some sort of structure unlike any he'd ever seen. A square slab of gray stone stood 30 feet from end to end and twice the height of a man. As he stumbled into the cooling shade it provided, he looked in amazement at the stonework. It must have been carved from a mountain, he thought. To his right, a metal door was set into the stone with no obvious means of opening it.

Coming Home, pt. 2

    Time passes.

    He felt the burden of the curse upon him still. The black mark, spreading across his chest like cobwebs, felt numb and cold to the touch. He could no longer feel his own heartbeat. The pilgrim let out a half-choked cough and spat a drop of grimy saliva on the dry and cracked soil. His last drink of water had been almost two day ago, and it was starting to show. His legs felt incapable of supporting his gaunt and corpse-like frame. His boots dragged on the ground. His mind seemed to try to escape from the confines of his sagging head. If he had been a romantic, he would have said that he could almost hear the angels calling his name. But he wasn't, so he didn't.
    A dark spot in the distance caught his attention. The distance was too great to make out what it was - if anything. Likely it was just another mirage. He'd seen plenty of those the last couple of days, his hopes crushed time and again.
    Didn't make much difference, really. He was still going to keep walking, follow the sun. Keep heading west, he told himself, and eventually he'll find his home.

***
Author's note: The 'Coming Home' stories are inspired by The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Credit where credit is due.

Coming Home

    The soft chugging of a locomotive reaches the pilgrim. He sits atop his white horse, overlooking the prairie. As he shields his eyes from the noon sun, he can just make out the flickering line of black train cars moving across the horizon, leaving black smoke in its wake. He rolls his shoulders to work out the stiffness. He has been away for a long time - too long, Mariah will say - and he doesn't know what's going to be waiting for him. He hopes it will be his family. He hopes it will be the child he hasn't yet seen.