Little Place of Forgetting - Brass Window Books

One of the creatures of the forest ran over and stood above
the fallen man. It was a panther, lithe and black. Its yellow eyes
glowed with malevolent intelligence. It spoke, and I could hear for
the first time on that island.
“We were almost too late this time,” it whispered with
satisfaction. “It cannot go on much longer. Thy enemies were here
only moments after the Rite was completed.”
It leaned closer. “It hurts us so much to fulfill thy
commands. It injures us to provide aid to thee. But our death will
come to thee.”
Its familiarity sounded deliberately insulting. Then it licked
the man’s face, under his felt hat. I started to project forward again,
and the panther looked up at me.
“Follow us,” it said, and I did. But I wasn’t sure whether the
panther referred to all of the island’s animals, or to itself; when I
looked closely at its skin, I could see a worm-like writhing of dark
shapes, which cooperated to form the creature.
In any case, the forest moved on every side as the animals
left the trees and walked out ahead of me. We went to the other side
of the hilltop and looked out. The ocean I had expected on the other
side was not there. Instead, there was a wide panorama, filled with
tiny pairs of moving lights. I could see flat gray strips like dull
rivers. Apparently, they were roads. They stretched from one side
of the horizon to the other, and the lights hurtled along them at
staggering speeds.
The gray roads ran parallel to each other. On one side, the
lights were coming in our direction. On the other side, they were
moving away from us. In the distance, to the right of me, there was
a huge city. Its lights glowed brightly in a wide circle. At the center
of the city the buildings were too high, far too high. Their size
defied anything my mind could accept. The rows of lights were
stacked on top of each other halfway to the sky. Although I could
remember almost nothing of my own life, I knew I had never seen
anything remotely like those terrifying structures. The thought of
people living in such buildings made me sick.
The panther must have seen my face. He looked at me with
his yellow eyes, and said, “This is the beautiful new world we are
building in your hearts.”
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