Sun, It Rises

"Do you usually go on dates this deep in the mountains?" he asked with a bit of nervousness. It's not that he was nervous about the location of the date itself, but more so that he was on a date at all.

"You said you liked sunrises, didn't you? Or did you just say you like them? Well, either way, from up here we get the best view near town," she said with a hint of derisiveness.

'Near town? I would hardly call this near. It took us an hour to get here,' he thought to himself. He was hesitant to push it further, for fear of making himself sound foolish. This was his first time trying to make a connection since he moved. Despite this, impulse got the best of him.

"Well, wouldn't the best view be over on that mountain, and not this one? Won't that ridge be in the way until the sun is nearly risen? Also, isn't it a little early..." he thought aloud, trailing off after realizing the kind of impression his pestering could make on her.

"Look at that mountain!" she exclaimed with impatience, "We would never make it up there. This is the best we'll do. And as for the time, it's not like you'd know what time the sun rose around here. I've lived here all my life, do you think I don't know when the sun rises?"

He dropped his head in shame. 'How did I blow it this quickly? This must be a new record for me,' he thought. Just as his despair was reaching its peak, he noticed a little light coming from over the mountain. He peeked over at her and saw that she was smiling and fidgeting in delight at the sight of it. Just as the light seemed to have filled her with life, so too did he begin to find hope that the date could still be a success. He lifted his head and shifted closer to her.

"Wow, it's so big from up here," he remarked. She didn't seem to hear it. She was utterly entranced by the horizon. He studied her face, unable even to catch her blinking. After a moment, he felt a bit creepy staring at her, so he turned his head towards the sunset.

The longer he looked at it, the more an uncanny feeling began to sprout in his mind. 'It's not possible... how is it so big? Why is it so…textured, instead of being one small spot of yellow? It takes up most of my view...' he thought, growing restless. He went to get up, as if that would help him process his thoughts better; but as he did, an intense rumble brought him back down next to her.

She didn't seem to notice it, what he thought must have been a short earthquake. Indeed, she even seemed to grow giddier. She began to laugh a little, quietly, still never taking her eyes off of the sun.

After he had recovered a bit from the fall, he looked back at the sunset and saw that the sun had just began to clear the adjacent ridge. Beneath the circle of the sun he saw something he couldn't quite understand: there was a dark mass seemingly connected to the bottom half of the sun. It was straight and so black that it nearly blended in with the darkness of the sky. That was another curious thing that he was just now noticing. 'Why is the sky not getting lighter? It's as if the sun wasn't bright enough to light the sky this morning,' he thought. He put it out of his mind for the moment, assuming his eyes must be playing tricks on him.

The earth shook again, more intensely this time. She suddenly began a laugh that started jovial but devolved into an outright cackle. This shook him more than the earthquake did. He stared at her, watching her lean back and forth in ecstasy, laughing joyously while somehow never breaking eye contact with the sun.

At the outset of a third quake, he quickly peered over to the sun to find that it had seemingly gotten larger. With a squint he saw that the dark mass beneath it was not only still there, but seemed to widen below after about half the height of the sun, going off at ninety-degree angles on both sides for quite some distance.

'The sun almost looks like it's... sitting on a neck and shoulders?' Just as he thought this, another quake hit, one much more violent than the rest. From his sitting position he was knocked down hard. He quickly pushed himself back up amidst the stirring, still shaking aftershock, and he saw it: from the shoulders of the beast there was an arm slowly extending, with a hand reaching towards the mountain on which they were sitting.

In a panic, while being embodied by heroic autopilot, he sprung up and shouted, "we have to get out of here!" before giving her arm a tug. Yet she just kept laughing, stomping her feet, reeling back and forth without a care. He stood looking at her for a moment, unsure of whether she or the monster brought him more fear. He decided quickly it was, of course, still the giant monster with the head of a sun.

He reached in his pocket, grabbed his keys, and bolted to his car, which sat a few yards behind them on the dirt road. As soon as he reached it, another quake ensued, throwing him onto the hood. He quickly picked himself up from the blood slathered metal, not at all worried about what it had done to his face. He got in and began to drive.

Not long after he started down that long mountain road did another quake start, yet this one was different from the others, as it seemed to have no end in sight. He struggled to keep his eyes on the road through the vibration. The rearview mirror was useless, though he had no inclination to look behind him.

Down he drove. He was nearly frozen by shock. He could move and think just enough to keep the care driving straight. The difficult part was up ahead: a fork in the road, left going to a road which hugged the side of the mountain tightly and led to the town, and right being a road unfamiliar to him, which was much more steeply sloped and made of dirt.

As he approached the fork, the constant shaking gave way to an explosive burst of energy. The mountainside road, which was already crumbling from a lack of maintenance, outright dropped out of his view. At the last second, he swerved his car to the right and let out a scream. His car wavered a bit on the dirt, but he was able to get it straight.

'This road must lead out of the mountain too,' he thought, 'maybe it leads to the rural outskirts of town.' His resolve was proportionate to his fear, so he sped down the path. As he did, the rumbling decreased steadily. He was relieved, and felt as though he just might make it out all right.

His car pulled out of the woods and onto a level road. He saw that about a mile ahead there was a large lake. The road led straight to it, before it curved to the right and led back off into more woods.

His shock was dissipating, as he had not felt any shaking through half of the frantic drive down. He decided to stop his car at the lake, to catch his breath before proceeding. He put it in park, leaned his head against the steering wheel, and let out a sigh.

After a moment, he peeked up a little, and his eyes met the reflection of the moon on the lake. It seemed so peaceful and filled him with hope. That is, until he got a better look at its dark, humanoid body.