He awakens to the echoes of his dream wife's final words. The sun is rising from behind the jet turbine, just grazing the tips of the trees across the stream.
Slowly, achingly, he stirs from his resting place amongst the moss and wildflowers. It's been almost a full twenty four hours since he'd first laid down here. He looks about the interior of the turbine, blinking to himself.
See below… With a short sense of apprehension he spots a hole in the ground, nestled up against the turbine blades . And from within this hole there is… light.
Grunting to himself, he crawls over the moss and makes his way to the hole. He can just barely see down there, the strange bluish light revealing shapes to him through the opening in the ground. There are wooden steps leading down to some sort of a platform.
Just as he is about to steel his nerve and make his way down, something else catches his eye - a piece of paper fastened to the interior wall of the turbine space, just above the hole. It's a drawing. He pulls the drawing off of the wall and examines it closer. Some sort of giant wooden duck…
A sound from behind causes him to spin around and face the opening to the turbine. And this is when he first meets the deer people.
The fourth Chapter in a serialized series based on @mariannewest's daily freewrite challenge:
Written in five minutes from the writing prompt, "image prompt" as part of the #freewrite exercise. Image by @marinaart. You can view the prompt here and check out the other entries; well sketched out word doodles in abundance will delight your mind and senses. Thanks to @mariannewest for creating and running this daily imaginary evocation.