Alyssa Devine is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.)
Without further ado, here’s the winning story:
The Mountain
by Alyssa Devine
“Isn’t it magnificent?” Iona enthused as she turned off the vehicle’s ignition and sat back in the driver’s seat.
I was astonished. The sheer majesty of the lake and mountain that lay before us was overwhelming, the images overpowering my senses, each one more stunning than the last. “Now I know how Lewis and Clark must have felt heading west out of St. Louis, up the seemingly endless Missouri River until they ran into the Rocky Mountains. Remember what they said?”
“You mean the part about how they would get to the top of a ridge, only to discover huge ranges of high mountains to the west they still needed to overcome?”
“How hopeless they must have felt.” He paused and took a sip of water from the container they had stowed in the truck’s console.
“I know. Just look how long it took us to get up here from the base, even given what we’re driving. For a minute there, I thought I was going to clip that rock wall back down the road . . . you know, where the road thinned and the drop off looked to be a good two thousand feet or more.”
“Yeah, but I knew you’d get us here,” he chuckled, though his tone betrayed concerns for the dangers they faced. “Still, given the preternatural beauty of it all, I wouldn’t have missed this for anything!”
“I know,” she responded wistfully. “It makes me homesick for Earth.”
Alyssa Devine had my mind dwelling on the tortuous Louis and Clark expedition.