1. Awakening
He awoke to absolute darkness. The kind of inky black that makes one see shadows within shadows. There was no sound at first, but he could feel the ground beneath him, cold and damp. Wet Twigs and leaves of some sort stuck to his body, clinging to him as his mind began to awake. He lay on soft yielding earth, curled into a ball.
A trembling weakness was in his limbs, like that of something newly born, and he could remember nothing of before. For a while he did not move, trying to see something other than the black that surrounded him, or hear something through the shadow.
He he ran his hand over his chest, it was covered in some form of rough cloth. The cloak, such as it was, barely extended like a ragged poncho to his knees. He could feel his waist and thighs were wound in similarly rough cloth, tied off loosely at the hip.
The cloth slid roughly on his shoulders as he turned and sat up, trying instinctively to see or hear anything at all. But the the silence remained unbroken by all but his own movements, and the darkness sat heavy and still over his eyes. The air smelled of mold and rotten wood, with the pungent earthy smell of upturned dirt.
Where am I? He wondered, feeling around himself with outstretched hands. An afterthought fluttered through his mind weakly, who or what am I? He couldn't even remeber his own name, if he had one.
Frustratedly, he wondered why he could not see. He felt that he ought to be able to perform the simple task of sight, however nothing touched his eyes but the surrounding dark. It was as though all his instincts where telling him that his eyes should be able to pierce the darkness around him. The lack of vision made him uneasy.
He rose unsteadily to his feet and drew a shaking breath. His body felt weak, untested. Thoughts continued to flit through his mind, most of them questions. Underneath it all was a current of frustration with his blindness, was it dark? Or was he blind? There were no answers to be found among his own thoughts. If there was anything in his past to recall it stayed hidden. No memories, faint or otherwise, sprang to mind.
Feeling around himself, his hands met rough bark, slightly damp like the ground. Bits of lichen and moss dropped to join the leaves beneath his toes as his fingertips began to grip the surface next to him. He clutched what felt like the rough trunk of a tree as he stood, his breath sounding unsteadily in his ears.
Other than the sound of his own breathing, which was becoming more steady, nothing broke the silence. Then the dripping sound of water began to join his heartbeat and breath, breaking the numbing quiet. A light rain started, dripping on his head and pattering on what sounded like leaves around him. His rough clothing stopped none of the moisture from reaching him, and he began to feel cold.
His eyes ached desperately to see something, straining against the shadows as if he could pierce them by force of will.
He took a careful step forward, his foot finding mud and roots. With one hand on the tree trunk he began to feel his way forward. The ground was soft and uneven beneath him. Mud and leaves began to coat his feet like a poor attempt at shoes. Roots stabbed at the bottoms of his feet causing him to step slowly, moving with both hands extended before him.
His hands found another tree trunk, covered in the same rough bark, a few more steps to his left and he found another. he turned to his right and his forehead promptly made contact with a low hanging branch. He rubbed his head trying to take the sting away, and began to make his way through what he assumed was a wood. His arms were barely enough to encircle the smallest trunk, and some of the trees were too large to place his arms around. The branches that hung through the air were thick and twisted, and he felt few leaves on them.
Everything seemed to be mossy and damp. The smell of mold hung in his nostrils joined by the thick, musty aroma of rotting wood and fungus. The rain came and went, sometimes all was absolutely still, yet other times the tapping of rain drops against the forest was loud enough to drown out the sound of his own movements.
He hoped that he was going in a straight line, but in the darkness he constantly had to avoid new trees and branches. He made his way over fallen logs, and through gullies where water trickled. The roots and logs he crossed were often slick with moss and rain, which made his way even more treacherous. More than a few times the combination of roots and branches caused him to take nasty falls, and his body began to collect scrapes and bruises.
He felt a slick liquid on some of them and he hoped that it wasn't his blood. Who knows what might be attracted to the smell of blood in this place, he thought. A small shudder went down his back and he quickly thought of something else, as though even thinking about danger in the darkness might somehow call it towards him.
He began to hope even more desperately for a bit of light.
The thought of others unnerved him. Would they be like himself, newly awake, with no memory or thought of anything other than this place? Would they be friend or foe? Anyone would be better than stomping through the dark alone, he thought to himself.
Thinking such grim thoughts did nothing to improve his mood, and he was beginning to feel an aching hunger in his middle.
A log blocked his way forward, it was a large one, one just big enough to place one leg over and slide across. He swung the first leg over and then the next. He stopped to breathe momentary sitting atop the fallen tree, and slide towards tho ground on the other side.
His feet found nothing.
For the first time he used his voice, and something between a shriek and yell came out echoing between the trees. His exclamation was cut short as he hit the ground. It was covered in uneven roots, and his foot twisted underneath him, throwing him sideways. The breath was knocked from him. Rolling onto his back he coughed, the air in his lungs slowly returning. The unpleasant feeling of not quite being able to draw air into his chest began to leave. He sat up and began to clamber on all fours out of the hollow that he had fallen into.
"That was a nasty surprise, no more jumping into the dark for me" he whispered with his new found voice. It fell flat in the stillness as through the air around him resisted sound. His hands found a a log and he sat down. He started to hum to himself, but soon stopped, the darkness felt heavier somehow when he did, and making noise helped him feel no better.
He shifted on his perch, trying to get comfortable, walking had only caused him discomfort so far and he might stay here for a bit, he thought. He looked up, Perhaps he-
Light!
Or perhaps lights, small, faint, or very far away. They hung in the sky overhead, a small patch of multi-hued stars floating briefly, shining through misty cloud. They were every color imaginable, and some seemed to move in the sky.
Then the mist of cloud seemed to solidify and wiped away all sight off stars, or anything else. He waited there for a long time, looking up towards the sky and hoping to see something again. He saw nothing.
"Well, " He breathed softly to himself "at least I know for certain that I am not blind"
The rain began to fall more heavily, and he slid off the log and huddled as far as he could under it, hoping that the lights in the sky would return. The fallen trunk offered little protection from the rain. But the one glimpse of light however faint, had given him hope that something else existed besides wood, rain, and darkness.
Perhaps he would sleep, but he did not, because he worried that he might not wake. What if he had made this journey many times before? Always waking anew and forgetting the past? Was there even an end to this forest? Were had he come from? There were no others like him here, the trees did not think or bleed. Thinking of trees, did this forest end? What where those lights he'd seen?
Questions without answer rushed through his mind. There was much to know, and he could not think of how to know it. If he waited, maybe the answers would come.
He sat with his back now against the log behind him watching where he had last seen the lights in the sky. They had been many colors, some had seemed to drift lazily, as though moving. He could try to climb a tree and reach them. However they had seemed very far away, and he was tired. An aching hunger was in his belly as well, it had only grown worse as he had walked. He would wait here, he decided, and see if the hunger left him. Soon at least he would feel rested and try to climb a tree towards the lights, at least to see them better if they came again, maybe even reach them.
A cold hand circled around his forearm.
For a moment time stopped, and then his heart thudded against his chest and he let out a sound that started as a screech and turned into a roar, afraid and angry at being surprised. He lept away wrenching his arm from a grip that had suddenly clenched down with a fierce strength as though to keep him there.
After leaping away he stood in absolute suffocating silence. The rain from earlier had now stopped and he could hear nothing at first. Then he heard a tentative step from the direction of the unseen hand. Mud squelched under the strangers foot.
His heart lept in his chest "No!" he yelled "No further! Who are you, are you also lost?"
The words came out in a rush, and fell flat on the still air. It was as though the darkness was pressing in to watch this meeting of strangers. Nothing happened. The stranger either could or would not speak. Then a low hissing chuckle sounded, and another squelch on the muddy earth.
His muscles were tensed so much that it felt as though they would snap, his breath came quick and fast. He crouched, What was this other? It spoke no words from the mouth as he did. It had not tried to warn him when it had first approached, maybe the stranger did not know how. Why had it laughed? What was funny about surprising a man in the dark? A sort of indignance fell over him as some of his fear faded.
"Can you speak?" he called out, hoping that the stranger would respond. The stranger did nothing except draw in a hissing breath. For a moment both sat in silence.
Suddenly, The full force of the stranger's body struck him in the chest, a pair of grasping hands found his throat, and he found himself struggling for his life. He grasped both of the stranger's wrists trying to pry the hands from his throat. He was choking on his blocked windpipe. The stranger was lighter but fiercely strong. The stranger's skin felt as cold and as damp as the muddy ground and slid underneath his own attempts to pull the stranger's hands from his neck. They churned the leaves and mud beneath them as they both struggled to gain the advantage.
He felt his lungs burn, fear shot through his body as he grappled with the strange thing that had attacked him. It was strong and swift, and seemed to know how to fight. A sharp pain shot through his wrist as the stranger bit into his arm wit sharp teeth, and drew blood. He was wheezing through the stranglehold the stranger had on him. His neck felt as though cold iron bands were slowly constricting around it. He dug his fingers into the wrists of the stranger with both hands, pulling against wiry tendons that lined the attacker's limbs. In a surge of desperation he finally managed to twist the hands from his throat.
A second silent force struck him from the side. Sharp claws dug through cloth into his skin. The first attacker combined forces with this second creature and began to dig in teeth and claws as well. The combined weight of the two assailants toppled him to the ground.
I need light! he thought irrationally, If only I could see. They will end me, I do not want to be ended! I have only just seen light for the first time how can I be ended?
These things cannot be like me, what to they want with hurting me? The terrible thought that these creature's were exactly like him, only many days hungrier flashed through his mind and despair almost overwhelmed him.
He could feel blood flowing from bites and slashes, the strangers appeared to have sharp nails at the end of their fingers that he did not have. He flailed and rolled, having no idea how to defend himself, hoping to land a lucky blow in the darkness and drive them away somehow. The attackers did not seem to care, pinning him to the ground and trying to reach his neck with teeth and claw. He crawled and kicked backward through the mud, sliding on his back trying to get away from these horrible things.He desperate for any chance to break away from the two things.
"I do not want to end!" he yelled into the darkness. This is unfair, he thought angrily,He could not fight two of these things. "Why!" he growled at the empty air as much as the creatures attacking him. He was furious, at the others for causing him pain, and at whoever had caused him to to be born into so horrible a place only to leave him.
One of the two things managed to beat his fists out of the way and again fastened a hand around his neck. This time claws dug into his skin.
Oh help me, he thought, I will die knowing nothing. If only I could have seen the light once more, he wished.
In a flash he felt something, a burning glow behind his chest, coming from deep inside him. No, pouring through me, He thought suddenly.
Is this the ending? Dying feels so strange.
If only I could see!
And the burning feeling moved, like liquid fire through his body. He felt as though all the blood in his veins was suddenly and painfully being replaced with molten metal.
I will see, he thought to himself determinedly. In his mind an image formed. It was the image of a lantern, a light making thing. He knew instinctively what it was and what it was called.
Could this be a memory?
The feeling of molten metal moved as if in response to his thoughts and rushed through his body to his hand, it was though bits of burning liquid light forced themselves through the pores of his skin.
In the time it takes to draw in a breath, a bronze ring, glowing cherry red as though newly cast in a furnace, traced itself in the darkness. Another breath, and a three sided lantern, unlit, yet glowing slightly, grew from the bottom of the ring. It was as though he had suddenly painted his thought of a lamp on the canvas of the darkness surrounding him.
The lamp had a pointed top that melded into the bronze ring, three bars curved slightly outward dropped away from the top of the lantern to join a heavy metal disk that formed the bottom of the lantern. It was simple, with no designs or patterns marring the surface. The entire lantern glowed a dull red which was slowly fading as though cooling.
He realized he was holding the ringed top of the lamp, and it merely felt warm to his hand. The lantern had formed in an instant. The two dark forms of his enemies were revealed in the red glow of the newly formed light. Momentarily still, their heads were cocked toward this new development.
One still had its hand and fingers dug into is throat. A trickle of blood ran down his shoulder. His attackers suddenly moved as one, teeth and claws in the darkness moving to finish him.
Light exploded from the center of the lantern. For the first time since one of the strangers had let a cold laugh slip, they made noise. It was a horrible shrinking that split his ear drums and caused him to drop the lantern and clap his hands to his head. Both attackers stopped mid attack and scrambled back continuing a horrible noise that echoed through the trees.
The lantern cast light in a ring around itself where it had been dropped on the forest floor. It was at this ring they paused. It was as though the darkness pushed back against the light, trying to subdue it. A small bit of light filtered past this ring, and he could see his would be killers at the ring's edge. The ring spanned only seven paces, but it was more than he had had a moment ago.
He could finally see. He dropped to his knees and wept. Perhaps if someone had been watching he would have felt shame, but in that moment all he could feel was a tremendous gratitude for both sight and life. The lantern light was warm, almost hot on his skin. The two shadows pacing the edge did not seem to want him badly enough to step inside the immediate ring of stronger light that the lantern cast.
The forest had once again fallen silent.
The two strangers looked nothing like him. He bled from multiple wounds, golden metallic liquid dripping from slashes without count. His clothes, shabby to begin with, were nearly shredded to nothingness. His cloak hung almost sideways off of one shoulder, barely clinging to him. His skin was a dirty brown, made darker by the mud that streaked nearly every inch of it.
The strangers were like twisted shadows of him, they had two legs and two arms, but there the similarities ended. Their skin was a pale and ashy grey that darkened to a mottled black in many places. They looked starved and ravenous. A grotesque mirthless grin of a mouth stretched ear to ear, and they had no eyes. Slight dips in the skin where eyes ought to have been on a normal beings replaced any eyes that ever might have been. Two Slits for nostrils stretched vertically up a flat face, looking like empty eye sockets. Their stringy limbs ended in clawed feet and long fingered taloned hands.
Both of them waited silently at the edge of the lantern's inner ring of light. They stared fixedly at him. As though daring him to step outside the line of safety.
He had no such intentions. He lay hold of the top ring on the lantern and picked it up from the ground where it had fallen. Both beings flinched suddenly, and then regained their stillness.
"Don't like light do you?" he said, a slight smile appearing on his face for the first time since he'd awakened. He felt relief washing over him.
He stepped forward. They stepped backward. He stepped forward again this time feeling more sure of himself. One creature suddenly lunged at him, throwing itself through the air, its lips pulled back in a silent snarl.
He yelped and fell back almost dropping the lantern again. He need not have worried. The thing's face met the golden inner ring of lantern light and suddenly it's skin sizzled, and it was thrown back as though it had struck as solid wall.
The second thing let out a hissing snigger, perhaps at his surprise or at the other's failure, he did not know.
He lift the lantern high, a grim certainty settling in his mind. The thing's could not cross into the lanterns light. He charged the two creature's intending to scare them away for good. One jumped the the side and away of the ring. The other braced and against the ground and shrieked at him, a cry of defiance.
The ring moved with the lantern, met the flesh of the creature and he felt the lantern vibrate in his hand, as though meeting solid resistance. He pushed forward at the creature, determined to frighten it away like the other, the creature snarled and held its ground, face and chest pushing into the ring. The thing's skin smoked, wisps of foul smelling steam rising from the places that had made contact with the light ring.
They faced each other, light and dark, neither willing to give ground, the creature shoved forward, its face a rictus of pain, but determined to reach it's prey.
The lantern began to dim. He looked the lantern horrified. No! He thought, It can't Go out now!. He willed the light to shine brighter. A feeling a terrible tiredness swept through him and he almost dropped to his knees.
The thing snarled at him and continued to shove forward.
"No" he whispered 'you'll hurt no one else"
Feeling as though he'd run for miles, he stepped forward. The lantern flared brightly, seeming to pull strength from him, and the ring suddenly extended. The creature's nostrils flared, its snarl dropped from it's ugly face. It turned as though to leave, but it was now trapped inside the ring. The light began to dim again and the Ring to shrink. But the light ring did not dim fast enough to save the creature. Black acid smelling smoke poured from its skin, it had overestimated it's own strength. It fell, weakly struggling to leave the inner ring of light, its skin smoking and shriveling. When the fumes stopped rising only the blackened husk remained.
He looked around, the other creature had fled. He felt so tired, but he did not want to stay here with the dead thing.
I can either stay here, or go onward, he thought.
I must rest, but not yet, I will press on. Maybe I will even find an end to this depressing place. There were still problems to deal with, who was he? And why was he here? He would find no answers standing still.
He looked around himself, lifted high the light, and stepped toward darkness.