Where Dragons Play

Eyes Closed

Dan thrashed and floundered facedown in the heavy depths of sands. He pulled himself upright, as though rising from a pit.

Silent stone buildings loomed close, etched with sharply defined geometric hieroglyphs, keys of time. He advanced slowly, conjuring swirling sandstorms with each step.

A solid wall halted him, a giant, expressionless stone head molded smoothly into it. An echoing, crumbling crack—the face split straight down the center. The two halves slid apart, revealing an opening reaching deep within.

He stepped through the portal, which slid shut thunderously behind him.

Down the passageway stood an enormous luminescent hourglass, hissing with the sound of sand sifting down. Pausing to peer through the murky glass, he jumped back in horror when he saw himself, trapped inside, flailing underneath showers of sand.

Heart pounding deafeningly in his ears, breath barely coming, he backed away until he was pressed against the faintly glowing split where he had entered. He pounded on the separation, which parted with a scraping groan. He shouldered through the narrow opening towards the sliver of light.

The window of space between sheer stone walls closed in on him. Dan shoved sideways and yanked himself out into blinding sunlight as the two halves of the stone face met with a resounding thud.

The sandy ground he came to his knees on collapsed under his weight. He desperately wallowed facedown into endless, free-flowing grains of quicksand that wrapped him in a drowning embrace.

***

Dan slowly became aware of his shattered windshield, the steaming, smouldering engine. A knife-like pain throbbed in his head. He pried his driver's door open and slid out onto the cold pavement under the moon. Picking himself up, he staggered down the silent, foggy road, past the streetlight twisted over his car, feeling himself for broken bones.

Word count: 298.
Written for "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge" 
Keywords: "key, window, moon."

To be entirely honest, I was describing a few scenes from this music video that had just dropped that same day. Imagine Dragons is one of my favorite bands, and this was dominating my mind.

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