Vision

Also by N. D. Hansen-Hill

Relic
BloodWorks
Static

The Elf Chronicles
Elf
Trolls

The Light Play Trilogy
Light Play
Light Plays
Lightning Play

The Grave Images Series
Grave Images
Graven Image
Grave Imagery
Grave Image

The Trees Series
Trees
Crystals
Mud
Shades
Fire
Light
 
  ;

N. D. Hansen-Hill

Vision

©Copyright November 2001 by N. D. Hansen-Hill. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author or publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 0-9582023-9-7
February 2003 by Parade Books, an imprint of Argyle House Press.
Cover painting and design by N. D. Hansen-Hill

Printed and bound in:
- Australia by Digital Print Australia, a division of The Bureau (SA) Pty Ltd.
- Canada by InstaBook, Canada
- USA by InstaBook, Florida
- Worldwide by Booksurge, LLC, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

Electronic editions 2002 by 1ebooks, Free-fiction; 2003 by Fictionwise

First published electronically in 2001 by Parade Books
*For more information, email ParadeBooks@hotmail.com

To Gordon L. Hill, Sr.
 
 

Vision

The blind illusion of logic bent,
Clarity strewn when reason went,
Torqued and bloodied thoughts adrift
A truth-entangled genetic rift.

So, clear the head and fill the mind
As past and present are left behind,
Blow the then and blast the now,
History shorn in a shattered vow.

Enter the beasts and demon spawn
To manipulate the naive pawn,
Genetic mayhem and twisted schemes
Cursed in parabnormal dreams

Where prophecy rules the first is last
Death reverts to life aghast,
Insanity reigns - there lies the fault,
Only murd'rous mayhem can force a halt.

by N. D. Hansen-Hill

 
Prologue

 The day was split - overlain with the shuddery thunder of a heavy tread on sedimentary soils.
 Soils that were soft and non-impacted.
 Soils that were still new.
 He stood there, blind and deaf to any world but this. His vision was trapped here, while his body lingered in a world a hundred million years - maybe several hundred million years - away.
 Past experience had warned him not to move. In a place like this it could be deadly. Because, over the aeons, so many of the land's physical features had changed.
 What you see is not always what you get...
 He could only watch, paralysed by his vulnerability, as the monstrous shape came toward him. His eyes fixed on the long talons, the ripping teeth, the daggerlike spine - almost like a scorpion's stinger - at the end of the tail. The stinger was what caught and held his eye. He forced himself to focus on it, as the creature did a series of bounding leaps in his direction.
 It can't see me, he thought, trying to bolster his confidence.
 It didn't do much to help. Because there was a gleam in the predator's eye now, and Dustin could swear it was aiming right for him.
 The mud slapped with each heavy step, and now, there was mud flicked in his eyes. Flicked in his eyes and flecked on his face. Sweat on his skin and terror in his heart.
 The mouth opened so fast, he knew he'd never stand a chance. No hope to outrun it on terrain he couldn't even see.
 Not true. It's because you see too much...
 It's not here! You're not here!
 But it didn't help. He was in a world stinking of methane and sulphur, and rotting meat on three-inch teeth. Where enormous lizards snapped jaws at man-sized morsels.
 And it didn't do him a damn bit of good to tell himself he wasn't here.
 Because he'd never tested it before. He'd learned not to move, because his own world could kill him.