In Search of You

Chapter 2

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Story co-authored by @strangegrounds

CHAPTER 2

He was already venturing into the Thornhearts when he heard her scream, almost missing the piercing cry that came along with the heavy curtain of rain now enveloping his surroundings. He had hoped to reach the shelter of the gargantuan trees within the Thornhearts, but he stopped and listened, his hands gripping the trunk he was climbing, water running between his fingers. Nothing followed save the sound of rain hitting the leaves above and the ground below. It could’ve been his imagination, an echo from the past, or maybe an after effect of going back. Traces of his previous life sometimes clung to him whenever he Returned every year. The whispers were different every time; his mother’s shouting, his father’s stern tone, his brother’s cry, the sound of his friends laughing together, the sound of a bustling streets of the Metro. But he was certain what he heard was not from his past, the voice had an origin and carried far into the forest.

His thoughts ran back to the elevator ride. He had hoped that he would ride the elevator alone, but when he got to the lobby, there was a girl already getting in ahead of him. He had slipped inside the closing doors just in time, his leather jacket almost getting caught. His fellow passenger didn’t appear to notice him, as expected. Nobody did, nowadays. And so he had resigned himself to another quiet ride up to the enigmatic hallway, returning the favor to the girl and barely noticing her as well. To him, everything in that world was a leaf in the wind on a gusty afternoon. The elevator door opened and he set out to Return, almost sprinting down the hallway like he did every year. This time, however, as he turned at the first corner, he had a nagging feeling in his stomach that somebody was following him. He shook the feeling off as he got dressed back into his travelling gear. Of all his years travelling between the two worlds, not once had anybody followed him into the black hallway. He had all but forgotten about it when he stepped out onto the cliff and noticed that the skies were still red.

Alarm spread through his body as he snapped back to the present. He jumped off the trunk and landed on the wet ground, immediately kneeling and pressing his palms to the ground. He sat there motionless, closing his eyes so that he can better his hearing, listening to his surroundings. The red sky that came every year was a signal that a portal back to the other world was opening. Every year it opened at a different place, every year a little farther from their camp than the last. Elder Kavzan had given him a map of the land, and a trinket that glowed the nearer he got to the portal, so that he will not get lost on his way. It made journeying to the portal easier, no doubt, but no less dangerous.

For some unknown reason, the red sky whipped the wildlife in this world into a frenzy. The herbivores became more cautious, making the likes of deer and boar more difficult to hunt. The carnivores became more feral and were more like to attack their camp, like what happened two years ago. Even the plants underwent changes; flowers became more pungent, thorns became sharper, and a mushroom that gave a person mere indigestion transformed into something that can kill within five minutes. And so the man crouched motionless in the rain, listening for telltale sounds not from the direction of the scream, but from deeper within the forest.

The seconds dragged on, punctuated only by the relative silence that came when the rain let up for a second, only to pour again with the same intensity moments later. His fingers detected tremors, slightly more powerful than the ones caused by the downpour. Something was coming from the deep, no doubt, but he didn’t budge from his spot, not just yet. He listened through the sound of the rain for an idea of what was coming, something he learned during his first years in this world. A few more moments of listening passed when he heard a faint clicking sound came from somewhere inside the darkness. Trusting his instincts, he started sprinting towards the direction he came from.