The Misvan Gatu: Intentions

Chapter Four // Eric

Eric

It was peaceful. I had lain here for a long time, watching a breeze wash through the leaves above me. There was no urgency, time was endless. Light and dark had stopped still, caught in a balance. An eerie, grey glow had settled over everything, only a dim hue of colour filtered through. Tall oak trees arched above me, their branches reaching out towards each other. The air was cool and damp but I wasn't uncomfortable. I was lying on a bed of dead leaves, but it felt like I was floating. If there was a time before now I didn't remember, there was only now. I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, a fragile breeze stroking it's fingers through my hair, my eyes closing and a sigh whispering through my parted lips.

"Eric if you can hear me..."

Distorted patterns of shadows moved all around me. The forest was alive all of a sudden, the oak trees that once stood still, came alive, groaning under a heavier wind. Fear spiked a hole in my heart. Something was wrong. I wasn't alone any more and I was cold. The dead leaves scratched at my back, like thousands of little claws. I clambered up, dizzy and confused and span on the spot, looking for a way out; an escape from the depths of the forest. 

"-They still have me injecting you with A.L 6. You have been clinically dead for three days..."

A stabbing pain lit up the nerves all over my body and I contorted; falling to my knees. My nails bit into the palms of my hands, blood oozed, thick and dark through my fingers and I cried out.

"I miss you Eric, why won't you wake up? I can't survive this on my own..."

I needed to find a way out. I had to get away from them. My heart thundered inside me, my head ached, I couldn't remember.

"Please, Eric. Please hear me!"

Lisa. It was Lisa. I stood again, a strength that I didn't realise I had, urging me on. I started to jog to the sound of her voice. I knew her, she was my friend. My pace picked up, the powerful need to see her again making my eyes sting with unshed tears. Sweat trickled in-between my bare shoulder blades. I was running faster and faster through the maze of oak trees. They screamed at me the faster I ran; high pitched shrieking, weakening my resolve. I couldn't stop them but I couldn't give up.

"They disposed of John. They got a woman called Leo, to do an extraction on him. If they took your soul Eric, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I know I can save you. I can save you Eric ,but only if you want to be saved."

I remembered. Box, Frog, Moss, Buff, John and Lisa. I remembered what they all were. I yelled out in frustration. My whole body shook with anger and pain. I had run so far and gotten nowhere. I couldn't escape, I was dead, they'd killed me, but how was I here? How was I anywhere? What the hell was going on? I gasped for breath against the wind that now howled all around me. The trees creaking in protest, the leaves on the ground twisting in a nightmarish hurricane. Flashes of the experiments blazed across my mind. Purple liquid. Needles. Souls. The table. The straps holding me down. The pain. The horrifying realisation. Tears streamed down my face. My body felt battered and bruised, my strength quickly drained. 

I closed my eyes, defeated, and before I could open them again, it stopped. The wind disappeared, the leaves dropped silently to the ground and the trees parted. In the near distance a woman stood at the mouth of a large wooden bridge. Where the bridge ended I couldn't see, it was too dark. Shadows masked the other side. I put one foot in front of the other and approached the woman slowly like a moth to the light.

She was glaringly beautiful, angelic. Her face was all soft angles and her lips full and redder than a freshly picked apple. Her eyes an ocean blue, wide and innocent. Her hair was a dark, chestnut brown and fell in waves down her back and over her shoulders. I could see everything, every inch of skin, pure and as white as ivory. It glistened under a strange light, cast from the clear sky above. She wore no clothes but I didn't look at her sexually, I just stared at her, amazed at her presence in this horrid place. I wet my lips to speak, but found I had nothing to say. 

As I got closer to her, my heart slowed. The pain and sadness from before were forgotten. I couldn't quite grasp what I was running from earlier. The answers were there in my mind somewhere, but I just couldn't quite reach them. She turned away from me just before I could reach out and touch her. The curves of her waist drawing my eyes lower. A fire had started inside my heart and I just couldn't think. I loved this woman. I loved her and I couldn't remember why I did. I reached out and touched her shoulder, she turned and looked me right in the eye and smiled. Her beauty was dazzling, she had removed any fear that festered inside me.

 I sighed, and took her open hand in mine. Her skin as soft as a feather from a baby bird. I ran my thumb over her knuckles, just appreciating the warmth and the silkiness of her. She fascinated me, captivated me and I found I had never felt so lost. Lost in the deep blue of her eyes, lost in the maze of emotions she caused inside my soul. She pulled me forward, stepping onto the bridge before I stopped her.

Wait. I didn't want to stop her. I gripped her hand tight and tried to follow her. She just stared at me her eyes sad. I looked down and saw the roots from the trees curling around my ankles, gripping tighter the more I struggled to move.

"Ašavan..." 

She shook her head addressing me, her voice so familiar, so comforting. Sweeter than any lullaby I ever heard. I frowned at her, I didn't understand.

"Ašavan, you cannot cross with me. It is simply not your time. I didn't realise it until the forest showed me."

I looked down at the roots trapping me and then back up to her gentle face. A tear slid down her left cheek and fell to the ground. The ground touched by the tear shivered, and in mere seconds a white rose unfurled, it's petals the same colour as her skin. 

"I don't understand. I want to come."

"You have walked the path of truth your whole life. You are a righteous man Eric. You have been granted more time."

I shook my head. I refused to believe I had to stay here, that she would leave here. My heart was breaking at the thought, I just couldn't bear it. Sorrow filled me up until I felt like I would explode. I was so alone. I didn't know what to do. She tilted her head to the side and let go of my hand. Before reaching out and touching her fingertips to my temples. I closed my eyes, soothed by her touch. The heartache melted away and courage filled me up until I was smiling. A joy that I never could have imagined bubbled up and I found myself laughing. A loud, booming laugh that gripped my heart and burst like stars of sound around us.

"Eric, you're coming home. You have a new body Eric. You have to find it. You have to escape. You have to get out NOW!"

Lisa's voice whipped through the air like electricity; interrupting my happiness and snatching the white woman away from me. I snapped my eyes open and watched as she flew up into the air wailing and disappeared into the shadows. Silence fell and the roots shrunk away from my feet. I watched the darkness swallow the forest whole until it was just me and the bridge. 

I couldn't waste any more time. I took off fast, my feat pounding into the rotting wooden bridge. A terrifying wind blew across me, nearly knocking me over. The bridge creaking under the weight of the unrelenting wind. I ran faster, anger and courage fuelling my rage. Loud snaps of the wood buckling underneath, warned me that the bridge wouldn't last much longer. I would fall. I was halfway across before the remaining strength of the bridge broke, and I plummeted with one last scream of defeat into the dark shadows below me.