For Critique: Crossroads

I first started writing Crossroads a month or two ago, and though I love the idea, I haven't been able to find the prose for it yet.

Essentially, this story is about the final destination that all roads lead to. It is told in past tense third person limited and is designed so that the reader shares the confusion and trepidation of Sean, my POV character.

Sean has come to a barren tree at the end of a long and winding road. There he finds a peculiar Inn. Within, there is no sound or colour. Each patron currently there is a whisp of themself, barely visible, and the bartender is murky, indistinct, difficult to look at.

Around the Inn is a vast plain of what looks like grass. Though a gentle wind blows across the place beyond, the thing that is not grass blows in the opposite direction, writhing almost like something alive.

I know exactly where the story is going, but I'm less certain how to get there. If you have any initial comments or bits of advice, please let me know :)

-0-

Story begins:

A gnarled tree stands alone at the end of a long and winding road. It marks the end, and yet not the end. Before its twisted, ancient trunk, the road splits in two, the only place since its beginning when it had done so. To one side or the other, all travellers must go.

Eventually.

-0-

Sean stopped before the tree and looked up into its leafless branches. It was not a kind he could remember ever having seen before, though the thought does not intrigue him as it might once have done. He stood beneath its spreading boughs, aching feet weary from the long, long walk to this place and turned to look behind him.

The road was long, though he can see most of it from where he now stands. Perfectly straight runs the last stretch of it, his own footprints still visible in the brownish dust. Something tugged at his memory, something important though he cannot quite nail it down. With a shrug, he marveled at how far down the road he has come. His knees and back were aching, it must have been a very long walk.

Shading his eyes against light from the overcast sky, he tried to see where he has come from. Up to a point, the road was clear and he could even see a few tiny, almost familiar, figures of other people on their own journeys. Beyond that the world was… not dark, though it could not be seen. The limits of his vision, maybe.

With a shake of his head, he turned back to the tree and listened to the creaking of its branches in a wind so gentle he could barely feel it against his exposed skin. Reaching out to touch the bark, he marveled; the texture of it was familiar to him, as though he had run his fingers down this same spot countless times. Again a memory tugged at him, as gentle as a child’s hand on his sleeve, but evaded his remembering.

Music, soft and gentle caught his attention. Turning around again, looking back down the road, two buildings swam into focus. They stood on opposite sides of the long and winding road, their walls flush on two sides with the main road and its branches. Over the door of each, in plain script, read the words “Inn At The Crossroads.”

Pushing through one of the doors without thought – the buildings were the same what did it matter which one he chose? – he threw a look over his shoulder and saw another figure pushing into the inn opposite. That brought him up short, and the other man too, also looking at him. Again there was the strangest sense of familiarity, but again the thoughts skated across his mind as though there were a skin of ice between them and him.

Clad all in grey, the other man look at him with bewilderment. Then blankness clouded his features, and Sean turned away, entering the building.

It was warm inside. He hadn’t noticed before that he had been cold. Sensation bled into his fingers as he stood, looking into the comforting gloom. His ears burned and aching joints cried out for rest, desperate to ease the burden after so long on the road.

Draft ends.

-0-

I know it's not much. Not even 600 words yet. But I feel it in my left knee, the way I can sometimes predict the weather, that it's something special. I already have a cover image (generated by AI) ready to go. But something is missing, holding me back from finishing this piece.

Already on it's third draft, having been stripped down from nearly 2,000 words, I'm floundering on what to do with it.

Like I said, I already know what is supposed to happen. But I'm more than a little stuck on how to get there.

Lots of love,

Alex