The Flight

Looking out across the landscape she could see something shimmering in the distance. Curiosity drew her in its direction. As she crossed the field, beams of light caught the corner of her eyes and created rainbow prisms. A scent both appetising and arousing flew on the breeze and filled her mind with a sharp hunger. The light and the smell conspired to draw her to the far end of the pasture. Dodging piercing rays of sunlight in a haphazard path, she moved closer to her distant goal, weaving a path through branches of over-hanging hawthorns thick with white blossom. The scent of the hanging blooms was heady and sweet, and distracting. Many times her path diverged as she veered to inhale the perfume, but each time she was pulled back to the dazzling light and musky scent ahead. Closer, the aroma from the corner of the field became pungent and strong. It was sharp enough to be almost sexual, yet also filled her with a ravenous hunger as if she was approaching the finest meal she would ever eat. The pull was strong enough now that her path was more direct, following a line to the sparkling skeins ahead. She was so close beams of light were enveloping her, and she barely noticed them wrapping around her body, until she slowly became aware she was no longer moving. Suddenly aware of the trap, she started to panic. Her limbs were tangled in the fine threads of silk, and the more she fought their embrace, the more they wrapped around her, tightening, constricting, and covering her face and eyes in a cloudy mask. She could no longer see, but felt instead the vibrations of footsteps coming closer, as she fought to escape. Almost without warning, she felt an invisible, delicate weight fall close to her body, and she froze with fear. In paralysed shock, she sensed a tightening and thickening of the bonds around her. As they squeezed her closely and strongly, she realised there was no way of freeing herself. Aware of the futility of struggle, she felt an almost pleasurable relief in yielding to her fate. A painful piercing sensation above her eyes was followed by an ecstatic sense of the whole of her being flooding out drop by drop and into the life of the other, before her own light faded into dark.