Lawers Office
2:30pm

Stuart Middlemis sat patiently facing a large, gray suited man as he fussed over the documents piled neatly in front of him. The downtown firm was used locally by head office, and they specialized in Conveyancing and Contracts.

The office was overfurnished and cluttered, with a haze of dust filtering the yellowish sunlight as made its way through the pebbled and dirty window situated high against the wall.

“And we are all done!” the gray suited man said, shuffling the last of the paperwork together. The man’s eyes flicked beadily up at him as he reached a meaty paw across to shake Stuart’s.

He firmly grasped the offered hand and the man’s jowls wobbled as he nodded his head in affirmation. “Thank you for making this easy Mr. Middlemis, it was a pleasure doing business with you…”

***

Middlemis Holdings
5pm

“…will not believe what this chick can do, man!” ranted Matt. The shorter man pulled him along as he held his neck in a loose and brotherly lock. Half dragging Stuart through the office, he continued his rant, “I mean, dude, the ping pong balls literally hit the back of the room!” He gestured, imitating the ball’s progress.

Stuart managed a small smile as he unhooked Matt’s arm from around his neck and stood up straight once again.

“As awesome as that sounds…” he replied, raising his hands defensively as his friend gave him a mocking look of disapproval. “I’m afraid I’ll have to forgo the pleasures of Madam Lin for another night...” He grinned as Matt’s scowl deepened. “But please, don’t let me stop you.”

“Man, you always do this! Every time you score a deal, it’s ‘Oh no, I need to do this’ or ‘I’d like to, but I have to do that'. I swear dude, you need to cut loose when you win like this! It’s like you don’t even care!” Matt sighs, throwing his hands dramatically in the air leaning back, as if appealing to a higher entity.

“Why, oh why can’t you at least go out and get blind drunk!?!”

Stuart gave a chuckle at his friend’s antics, opening the glass door leading to the lobby.

“I’ll see you on Monday, we have to go over the payroll for the new employees and audit their time sheets. I’ll catch you then.” he replied, giving another chuckle as he exited the door, his friend remaining in his comical position, but rotating his hands to give him twin single fingered salutes before slumping back down defeated.

***

Southbound
5:30pm

Rain pattered against the windscreen, starring the yellow streetlights as they flicked by in an even pattern overhead. The traffic was light at this hour, and ‘Hits from the ’90’s, Yesterday and Today’ were drifting by on the radio as Stuart smiled and tapped out the beat on the steering wheel. It had taken all week, but he had just closed the deal on the last of the franchises in the area, achieving the goal he had set for himself when he decided to go out on his own.

Working his way up from the bottom, Stuart Middlemis, age 31, had gone from an out of work mechanic, to working in the Parts and Advice section of one of the biggest auto parts franchises in the country. Not content to sit idle, he soon made Deputy Manager and then Store Manager. Even then, the thought of lining someone else’s pockets was too much for him, so he scrimped and saved until the opportunity arrived and he was able to buy into the business for himself.

Whilst Matt had insisted that they go out and enjoy themselves, Stuart decided that a weekend not recovering from a hangover could be better spent going over the financials of his new acquisition.

The man whom he had just met with (he had never bothered to remember his name…) was a Contract Lawyer. He had dealt with him in the past, but today was his day! After five years of wheeling and dealing, he had closed the deal and now owned all the stores in the area. He now owned five stores. Well, the bank owned two; he still had business loans out on this one and the Smithfield store, but damn it felt good to finally look back and see all that he had achieved.

He was still smiling as he took the off ramp, heading away from the motorway and through a scant few outlying suburbs before the road snaked its way down through a steep gorge and up out the other side. The road itself was a narrow and twisting blacktop, well maintained for seasonal tourists and the more affluent local residents. The drizzling rain hardly bothered his car as he made good time through the winding bends. Stuart had grown up on these roads, and knew every twist and turn intimately.

Unfortunately, intimacy had always been an issue for him. He’d had girlfriends and ‘acquaintances’ in the past, but recently it seemed his relationships were more one sided. It wasn’t as if he disinterested in a relationship, it was just… he didn’t want one with any of the girls that he had met.

Sure, he had a few close friends. Matt, for example. His Personnel Manager at Middlemis Holdings had bought him on as an office lackey, but he had quickly shown he had merit, so Stuart had put him on as the Payroll Manager. He was a great guy, a little full-on sometimes, but good for a laugh and a lighter perspective on things.

And… well, a few of the folks that he went to school with still waved back when he saw them on the street… mostly.

He lived in Glenmour, a holiday community and quiet little town where not much really happened, and old people came to spend their children’s inheritance before they no longer had use for it. It got busy in the Summer and the holiday seasons, but other than that it was a sleepy village with a small and private population.

The small town had made its home in the nook between the steep Glenmour Gorge, and the lake that it backed on to, the not so surprisingly named Lake Glenmour. It had been formed by a hydroelectric dam that had been constructed almost a century ago, but it still drew a crowd of avid water-skiers and fisherman in the summer months.

Its streets were deserted as the beams of his small white sports car swept over the Ma and Pa shops, gardens, and homes of its residents. The still lake took on a shimmering quality as the drizzle eased and the moon broke through the cloud cover, lighting the scene in an eerie glow.

Stuart guided the low-slung car into the short drive that led to his front gate on the far side of town. The gravel crunched wetly under his tyres as he slid down the driver’s window and swiped an RFID card on the small black box positioned on a post outside his gate, and waited as it rattled its way across before driving in.

Similarly, his garage door rose automatically to welcome the car into the three-bay workshop, lights flickering on so he could see once he alighted from the vehicle. Popping the trunk from a button on the dash, he climbed out of the car and walked around to the garage door. Pressing a large button inlaid between the bay doors activated the gate and garage door again, the latter shaking its way down and slowly blocking the floodlit gravel courtyard as it lowered.

Stuart flipped the trunk open to retrieve his leather attaché case, before closing the lid with a heavy ‘thunk’. Squeezing past a cloth covered shell that resembled the outline of a sedan, he ducked under a truck still up on the hoist and made his way to the door that led to the inside of the four bedroom, two bathroom modern stilt-house he had lived in most of his life.

It had been his parents’ dream home, and it was quite large and spacious. It was Stuart’s now, his father passing away from a sudden heart attack the year before, and his mother having gone missing shortly after his birth. Her disappearance was part of local legend. A new mother disappearing without a trace from her very home. There were stories about her drowning in the lake, throwing herself from a cliff, and even some involving UFO’s.

All baseless and things of gossip and speculation. The police had searched all these places, naturally, but after seven years missing she was legally declared deceased and the search ended. His father though, had never stopped searching for her. His tireless endeavors adding to the legend. It also left him broke, alone and in failing health. However, he had refused to sell the house in the belief that she would someday come home… a faith that was never rewarded.

Lights flicked on as he ambled his way through the house. Making his way to his study, he placed the leather case down and switched on his office computer. Noting the flashing red light on the office phone, he tapped in a code on the pad and waited for machine to replay its messages.

The first was from his old boss congratulating him on the deal. He gave a short laugh. Stuart got along well with Andy, who still ran one of the stores he now owned. The message read as much about Andy’s part in his success as it did his own. As it played on, he parted the blinds and opened the sliding door of the study that led out onto the timber deck outside.

He let the damp air in, still smelling of rain and wet earth. He breathed it in deeply as he stood facing out over the gorge.

Next message was from a girl… ‘Maree? Marly…? Something like that…’ He thought to himself. She didn’t sound pleased. They had met at a bar, had a few drinks, and he had brought her home. They’d had fun. And that was it. Sure, he hadn’t called her back; he didn’t even have her number, having never asked. However, she had called back a few times, and he had for the most part ignored her.

Something out in the darkened slope out caught his eye, and he squinted in a vain attempt to see further out into the dark. He wasn’t sure what it was, so he stepped out onto the deck to see if he could get a closer look.

He owned a good portion of the land below the residence, having never been any good for farming or building upon.

‘No good for anything else, either,’ he thought to himself, remembering his father telling him how he and his mother had got the land relatively cheap.

‘The two of them being in real estate had to have of helped,’ he smirked.

Whilst the steep block was no good for construction or cultivation, it was fantastic for small game. Unfortunately, others also liked to take advantage of the forested block, and on numerous occasions his father was forced to call the police after hunters had made their way onto the property. Not that he had minded overly, all they’d need to do was ask. But it was the ones who neglected to do so and didn’t care where their shots fell that were the issue.

Looking out over the railing, he could make out a faint bluish white glow about halfway down the sloping rocky block as it fell away from the house. He couldn’t make out the source of the light, but it was faint enough that it was barely visible. Stuart walked back through the hall and to the kitchen where he retrieved a flashlight from the pantry.

Returning to the railing, he checked that the glow hadn’t moved. Seeing it still in place, he flashed his light in its direction to see if he got a response. There was no reply. It didn’t move or flash back and Stuart furrowed his brow. There was nothing down there that would warrant the presence of a light, nor would there be any reason that someone would be down there given the weather.

He knew the area well, and worry started to form in the pit of his stomach. The rock shelf that formed most of his property was quite close to the ground's surface. It wouldn’t be the first time that the soil had slipped in the rain, and if some kid had been out adventuring in the scrubby land below his house, they could easily have been swept up in it.

His decision made, he quickly headed down the hall to his bedroom where he removed his expensive business suit. Grabbing a pair of jeans, he pulled them on and slipped an old t-shirt and hoodie over his upper body. A pair of sturdy boots finished the hasty ensemble as he shrugged his way into a woolen jacket, grabbing his torch and phone before making his way outside.

Rounding the back corner of the house, he leapt the cattle fence at a corner stay and made his way precariously down the slope in the general direction of where he had seen the light. About a hundred or so meters down, his fears were realized when he saw a barren scar where low scrub and leaf matted soil should have been.

Swearing to himself, he scampered down, sliding parallel to the slip until he could make out the base. Wary of any additional slips from the unstable earth, he made his way onto the mounded soil and debris looking for any sign of the glowing light.

Looking about, he couldn’t find any trace of the glow until he turned around and looked back up the hill. He couldn’t make it out at first, but the light glowed faintly against the dark backdrop of the freshly turned soil, and he had likely missed it on the way down due to focusing too much on where he was going.

Stuart cursed, and cautiously made his way back up the hill. The glow seemed shielded from view due to his angle, like it was contained within something. Getting closer, it became evident that that something was a shallow cave. There was a small earth and stone shelf at the entrance and something inside was glowing softly blue.

The landslide had uncovered it and although it was quite low and narrow, Stuart could squat down on his haunches and peer inside. The entrance was shallow, the cave turning left almost immediately. The glow beyond the corner seemed bright, and the change of direction was only a meter at most into the cave. He wouldn’t even have to go all the way in, just lean in and look around to see what the mysterious glow was all about…

Common sense was to not go cave exploring at night in a landslide when no one knew where you were, but something seemed to be drawing him to it. It was a feeling deep within his very being, and he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he wanted to. And let’s face it, it was a mysterious glowing thing unearthed by a landslide, who wouldn’t have wanted to check it out.

Leaning in, he poked the flashlight around the corner and saw a passage that led down a rocky incline made of boulders and the roots of the larger trees that had once inhabited the hillside. Deciding it looked sturdy enough, Stuart shuffled his way in and swiveled about so his legs were facing down the incline and stepped onto the first of the small boulders.

It held his weight easily, so he cautiously made his way stooped and hunched towards the source of the light. A few meters in, he could make out a much larger area beyond the small slit he found himself in. It seemed formed of natural Granite, but smoothed seemingly by the passage of time. Rounding the corner, Stuart had to squint, momentarily blinded by the intense light seemingly coming from a small pool that had formed at the base of the cave.

As his eyes adjusted, he stared wide eyed at what he had found. The cave was small but well-lit by the pool, tall enough to stand in though not by much. It contained a pool of iridescently glowing water about two meters across, and in the center of the pool was a… tree? No, not a tree, it looked like the roots of a tree coming straight up out of the very center of the glowing blue pool and forming a cradle of sorts.

And upon that cradle sat something that drew his attention like a moth to a flame. A ball of incandescent energy, with motes randomly spinning and flickering about it, shone in the same iridescent blue as the pool in which its host sat. It seemed to float of its own volition, suspended just above its living cradle. Careful not to touch the glowing pond, Stuart reached across and let his hand hover near the orb.

Despite its glowing energy, it was as almost as if heat was drawn into it, as opposed to being generated by the light. Letting his hand get closer, he could see that that the ball was slightly repelled by his proximity. He hovered his hand about the orb, lightly pushing it about its perch. He continued to do this until his hand made its way underneath, at which point it came away from the pedestal and sat hovering in his palm.

Leaning back away from the pool, Stuart straitened and bought the orb with him. Blinking owlishly at his discovery, he held it closer for a better look. Suddenly, the orb shot straight from his hand and hit him in the chest, and the last thing Stuart felt before passing out was the force of the impact throwing him backwards into the rear wall with a ‘Thump’ that forced the air from his lungs.

Author's Note

Hi! First story so I have no idea what I am doing!!! Let me know how hard I have failed!

Woo!!!