Photo by James Hammond on Unsplash
"Brown eyes. Very long trunk. Gray, graying skin..."
"Shaun! What are you mumbling about?" Quentin asked standing almost behind him.
Shaun immediately turned around and changed his face. "Nothing! Just... thinking out loud," he asserted. Quentin grimaced and then sat down in a chair.
"You're so weird, yesterday you were just talking about invisible elephants and now you're whispering things. I know you're going through stress right now, but seriously, you should calm down."
Shaun sighed, and nodded his head, he knew that, if he told Quentin his secret, he would take him for crazy and probably get fired from the mansion.
"I'm going to fix up Mr. Owen's room," Quentin said. "Start by cleaning this room, then I'll come to help you."
Young Shaun nodded affirmatively, waited for his friend to walk through the door to look out the window again. When he did, the elephant was gone and the whole environment was back to normal.
The boy knew he had to concentrate, he didn't even want to think that he was going crazy. He looked in the mirror to see if he noticed any changes or signs of illness. He checked his eyes; they were still the same olive green color. His pupils were not dilated. She had no dark circles under her eyes, or anything like that. His skin was still white and his short curly hair maintained its characteristic dark brown color.
Shaun stood his ground and pushed the thoughts out of his head, he didn't want to get fired from that job he had barely been at for two months.
He picked up the broom and began sweeping. As he wandered around concentrating on the cusp of calm, he heard a sweeping sound that made him shudder. It came from outside, Shaun immediately glued himself to the window but saw nothing, yet he could still hear the sound emanating from the elephant's trunk.
He ran out of the room and into the main hallway. He went down the stairs very carefully, but quickly, fortunately, no one saw him cross the front door. When he came out, the elephant's barking could no longer be heard, but the atmosphere surrounding the mansion changed completely.
Shaun found himself in front of a field full of small bushes like in a savannah. The coppery color of the plants caught his attention, as he had never seen anything like it before. The sky had an amber hue reflecting the light of a reddish sun. The biome of sparse small trees seemed to move slowly; as if they were being pushed by a bunch of invisible ripples moving beneath the earth.
Like a startled deer, Shaun began to walk through the field taking uncertain steps, until he heard the elephant trumpeting again. The animal was there, almost standing next to him, Shaun was perplexed by its huge, brown eyes. He approached cautiously and reached out his hand to touch its trunk. As he did so, he felt his body being sucked into a portal. And there he was, roaming the vast savannahs of the Congo, with dozens of giraffes, zebras, rhinos, and antelopes all around him.
He was driving around on top of a Jeep with two people older than him: a woman and a man. The woman turned to look at Shaun and smiled at him.
"Are you okay, honey?" she said, Shaun didn't say anything or nod his head.
"We're almost to the settlement," the man asserted. "The hills in that background look beautiful with this particular sun."
Shaun seemed to recognize everything; the scenery, the route, the people beside him. He was at the mercy of a web of confusion and then his head began to ache. They arrived in front of some hamlets that appeared to be empty. When Shaun noticed this, he realized that the people accompanying him were gone. He got out of the Jeep and looked around. The strong wind ruffled his hair and made him walk a few steps until he ran into the elephant again.
Shaun didn't understand anything, but he felt safe next to the pachyderm. He let his body rest on the elephant's huge side and asked the elephant to take him back to the mansion. At that instant, the animal barked again and Shaun's vision blurred into darkness.
When he regained his sight, the first thing he glimpsed was his room, then Quentin's worried face sitting next to him.
"Are you okay, buddy?" Quentin asked.
"What... what happened?"
"You passed out in front of the mansion door, we've already called a doctor to check you out. Are you in any pain?"
"No, I think I'm feeling a little better already." Shaun exhaled with half-opened eyes.
"I'll get you some water, stay here."
After Quentin left, Shaun pulled out an object in the drawer of his nightstand; it was a small clay figurine in the shape of an elephant, a treasure dear to him as it was the last thing he received from his parents before they disappeared.
THE END
