The Storm
I blinked a couple of times and then I reached up to feel at my very sore head. Someone had wrapped a bandage around it and the smell of dried blood was heavy in my nostrils.
I was still in the wheelhouse, but no one else appeared to be. Alarm at that helped drive me painfully up to my feet.
I clutched onto the wall for a moment as I'd risen too quickly and the world was spinning. I suppose it was still spinning wasn't it? Or did the world above spin upon this inner world?
It occurred to me that I didn't know as I didn't know much about any of what was happening. I didn't know from where all this light was coming from for instance.
I stumbled out of the wheelhouse holding onto the railing as I went. Looking up I had my answer as to the source of the light and yet I didn't.
I could see where the light came from now, but I couldn't explain how it was being generated. We were upon a sea and above us was a vast dome like ceiling of clouds. How high up I couldn't say, but it was high.
The top of the dome like enclosure was a mass of shifting clouds that strikingly resembled the Aurora Borealis or northern lights of the northern hemisphere. Instead of the blues and greens though the colors shifted from yellow to orange and then red.
The light given off wasn't as bright as the sun, but it more than lit up the place with a hazy twilight glow. I would never have believed that such a place as this was possible, but seeing is believing.
I could only guess as to the makeup of the clouds overhead and the curious reactions taking place causing them to give off the shifting colors that they were. Perhaps gases interacting with the heat of the magma above, who knew, but what I did know was that we weren't in the dark without light. I was grateful beyond words for that, even as I was pressed for words to describe the shifting beauty of the clouds overhead.
The others had all been gathered outside and I walked up among them as they all stood staring upward.
"Beautiful isn't it?" Matt said, as I came to a stop beside him.
The sea around us had a hushed awe to it as if the calm before a storm. I didn't care for that sensation, but ignoring it for the moment I nodded in response to Matt.
He tore his gaze away from the mesmerizing clouds overhead to me, "How's that head?" He asked.