Craaven

Chapter 10: Unknown Area 1979 August 12th

I stumbled around the shore like a drunken sailor, my arms limply swinging against my side and occasionally slapping my weakened and sore legs. The freezing cold temperature that the storm left had numbed the pain that pulsated throughout every corner of my body but I still limped nonetheless. It was so cold that my drenched clothing had developed a thin layer of frost and my hair felt heavy from the frozen droplets that rested there. The forest that surrounded me on all sides seemed mournful from the grey skies and black lake water that flowed gently now that the worst of the storm had passed. Everywhere I looked, I couldn't help but think of ghosts crying and wailing over their own deaths and not knowing how to escape.

Each step that I took felt as if I were fighting my own joints that were turning to stone. Only the pain of walking on my beaten, bruised limbs kept me from completely stopping and falling back to sleep, never to wake up again.

Just then, a strange shimmering in the grey, foggy treeline caught my eye; a faint, dull sparkle that I almost mistook for an actual ghost or fairy that was starting to play with my exhausted mind. I turned my stiff neck to look at the shimmering and mindlessly wandered over to see what it was. It glimmered and reflected what little light poked through the clouds and drew me in like any other shiny trinket does to a crow or a raven.

The blood that was splattered across the metal shard barely phased me. As did the body that lay beneath it. Not a single emotion could be found as I stared blankly at the grizzly scene. The body was of a large black bird and it should've clicked with me right then and there but it didn't. I was too tired and cold to be thinking.

I wanted to react in any way but all I could muster was a feeble, "Will...?"

The detached head was staring up at me with a look of horror in its eyes, staring at me in fear as if I, personally, was the one who decapitated him. Still... I couldn't react. I was numb to the pain and didn't have the strength to grieve. I stood there, frozen and staring into the bird's dead eyes, slowly convincing myself that it wasn't Will at all and that it was just some bird who looked remarkably similar. I couldn't have been able to recognise him dead anyway because I didn't know what he looked like dead.

My feet felt glued to the ground and I couldn't move no matter how much I wanted to stop staring at the grizzly body. I was almost half-expecting it to jump up and be perfectly fine and I was getting my own hopes up by imagining it happening, only to be knocked out of my thoughts by nothing in particular and focusing on the dead body again... and the process repeats.

I was so deep inside my own imagination that I never felt the tears leave my eyelids. I stood there, unblinking with hot tears slowly seeping down my cheeks like a statue in a graveyard. I stood there so long that I lost track of time. The cold grey morning slowly grew warmer and the sun revealed its face through the thick grey clouds and transformed the mournful black forest into a mystical fantasy world. It was as if the world was getting over the tragedy without me.

It seemed like a whole new day by the time I found the strength to move my legs. Or maybe my legs just grew impatient with me and moved away without my permission. I was suddenly on autopilot as I slowly hobbled away from the scene and kept on walking down the shore of the lake.

I don't know where my mind was at while I walked. I don't remember. But whatever it was, it occupied my mind so strongly that hours felt like mere minutes and I forgot about my painful injuries until they became too painful to ignore. I just resorted to flying to give my legs a break but it wasn't any sort of relief for my sore arms.

The trees melted away into a vast, rolling sea of green and brown that went on for miles in all directions. The beauty alone was enough to keep me from my thoughts for just long enough to breathe. There was no break from the mountains in any direction and down below where all the ranges joined together was one small flat plain. It was a small town and in my current state of mind, I made a mental note of it.