Chapter 4: Men of Bark
How seconds can feel like hours,
Forever afloat in a sea of darkness.
Yet the moment you give in to the almost unimaginable lightness,
The gravity of the situation sets in.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Stride screams as the ground hurtles towards him, where little white dots begin forming.
His intention to spite the three-eyed demon does not rule out his fear of death.
To mitigate the impact, he desperately manages to turn himself to his back whilst he flies in the air. The little white dots become bigger and begin taking shape. They are skulls.
*THUNK*
He crashes down to the ground. An overwhelming pain runs through his body from the impact of the fall. He coughs up the dust and debris of the broken bones that cushioned his fall.
“Arrnggh,” Stride yelps, feeling a sharp pain in his side where a bone has pierced his flesh.
This must be my lucky day. Stride grimaces.
A few centimetres to the right, and I would have been impaled.
Even through the pain, he still feels the three-eyed demon’s presence linger. He squints his eyes to look up in the darkness above him. Is he still standing there? He thinks to himself.
Far, far above him the three-eyed demon stands atop the abyss, staring at him. It does not smile any longer. Stride did not get ensnared by the fear the demon’s gaze instils upon those who look at it.
The demon is not angry with Stride but rather puzzled how the weak human broke free from his fearful gaze. The demon runs its tongue over its thin lips, salivating over the outcome. It has found prey worthy of capture. It looks down upon the idle young man with an insatiable hunger.
As Stride tries to move, he feels his body ache. His back is bruised, and his arms and legs refuse to make any ground. The injury in his side feels like a dagger piercing his stomach with every little attempt he makes to stand up.
Stride lies still, broken from the fall.
“It is alright. I have proven to myself that I will not succumb to my fears. I had already accepted death.”
He slowly closes his eyes while his mind starts to drift away amongst the hundreds of skeletal remains that have fallen beside him. He wants to express that it is okay to surrender.
Wait…
Why do I still move when my body longs rest?
It is alright to give in, is it not? Am I not in pain?
Stride…?
His body instinctually refused to surrender. Even to his own disbelief, he gets up on his feet, refusing to listen to the pain in his body. As his conviction wavered, a ray of light shone through the end of this tunnel. An opening to escape was right in front of him.
It is too dangerous to stay here. I cannot, no, I will not give up just yet.
As if all the pain in his body is merely an afterthought, he does get back on his feet and stumbles towards the exit. With every step, it is as if his body is healing itself and his slow stumble turns into a walk. Stride leaves the cave.
The warmth of the sun caresses his roughened skin as he shields his eyes from the blinding light. Carefully, he lowers his arms and opens his eyes to inspect his environment. He stands in an open clearing at the edge of a forest as far as the eye can see. He can see glimpses of the mountain peaks over the treeline.
“I made it outside…” he says bewildered. He adjusts to the brightness of the daylight. He can hardly believe that he not only made it out of the cave but even escaped death itself. At least for now, he is safe from the monsters that tried to kill him.
“I must have been walking in circles.” Stride acknowledges. Still hearing the faint sea waves close by.
The earth starts to rumble.
“Not again…” he says incredulously.
Just as he escaped one demon, an old one reappears. The gigantic sand serpent peeks its ugly head around the mountain corner. Blood dripping from its mouth, having feasted on other unfortunate souls in Stride’s absence.
The trees! Stride quickly snaps back to reality.
In no mood to become the serpent’s next meal, he braces his injured body. Too weak to look back, Stride’s sole focus is on his feet. He sprints towards the edge of the forest.
Finding cover in the woods, the serpent remains far behind him. It seems to have given up the chase. But Stride is not looking back. His attention is focused on the many tree roots that lie in his path. One should err on the side of caution when the terrain shifts. Stride knows he must establish familiarity with his environment.
The pain of the fall, the injury in his side, the blisters on his feet, they all subside for a while. For some reason, at his lowest and most broken, he feels reinvigorated in his struggle to survive. He continues to run for what feels like hours, deep into the woods, until his surroundings turn from light to dark again.
He still feels the weight of the three eyed demon’s gaze as he makes his way deeper into the thicket. He hears faint cries for help in the distance.
It must be my imagination. The voices indeed stop, fading away deep into the dark forest.
Enshrouded in darkness, the canopy prevents light to reach the ground. There is little shrubbery apart from a few thick plant leaves. The soil feels moist but soothing to his feet.
He made enough ground to be far away from whatever could have pursued him. He finds himself lost in the woods. Unable to contain his emotions any longer, he breaks down after all his narrow escapes from death begin to sink in.
I was going to die if the bodies and bones had not broken my fall. I would not be alive right now if it were not for the people who died before me and were left to rot in the abyss.
“HEEEEEEELLPPPP!” A distant scream interrupts his sorrow. Was it not his imagination playing tricks on him whilst he ran through the trees? Perhaps there were real people crying for help.
“Is there someone else?! It cannot be.”
“HEEEEEEELP!” Says the voice of an old man.
Stride runs towards the shouts, not worrying about his own safety. As if his salvation depends on the presence of another person.
“HEEEEEEEEELPPP!” The old man repeats.
The moment Stride catches a glimpse of the man, he ducks behind a tree.
A giant centipede-like creature parades the forests. Human heads are mounted on the spikes on its back. The centipede has two heads of its own. A gleeful anthropomorphic head with two curved horns at the top and an insectoid one with fearsome mandibles below it. The top head of the centipede smiles as it gallops through the woods. It uses the heads on its back to lure unsuspecting humans; humans like Stride.
Please go away.
Fortunately for Stride, the beast pays little attention to its environment. If people feel the need to aid the wailing voices, they will come for it. And sadly, the six heads on its back prove this strategy’s effectiveness. One of the human heads on its back catches his eye.
That face, I know that person. I saw him in my visions back in the cave. He was one of the prisoners caught on the ship. This means that I am not the only one who made it to this land! Are there truly other survivors?
The centipede turns its head. However, it acts too impatiently and doesn’t have a clue as to Stride’s whereabouts. Once it has assessed there is no prey, the beast continues along its intended path, running at full sprint through the forest. It’s frighteningly fast: it must be at least equal to the speed of a horse.
Stride hides until the monster is far out of sight.
Stride contemplates his current condition I have a few days before I collapse from exhaustion or die from an infection of my wound.
In order to survive, I need the help of others… And I need it fast.
He takes off his shirt and looks at his wound.
I badly need treatment, but waiting around is not going to help me.
He applies some of the dirt on his wound in an attempt to limit the bleeding.
I need to climb somewhere up high to get a better view of this place. Find a water stream, maybe even some food.
For the next few hours, he walks. Through dense forests into large open fields, and back again to dense forests. No matter where he goes, there are trees as far as the eye can see.
Whenever he hears the loud cries for help, he hides. He realises a multitude of centipedes roam these forests. Stride can differentiate them by the number of heads they carry.
If he has time to look at them properly, he tries to identify the faces from the people he had known on his ship. So far, only one of them matches a familiar face. The one he saw on the first centipede.
Wandering the open plains, the few large trees have gigantic heads embedded on top of them. During his travels, he has seen many heads plastered on the trees in all shapes and sizes.
Is it these trees that create them or something else entirely?
One thing he knows for certain: they are a bad omen for what is yet to come.
Large, skeletal-like beasts roam the open plains. Stride hides in the tall grass as they pass him, they seem unaware of his presence.
“How am I so calm?” he asks himself in confusion.
It is an unnerving feeling; a monster that he would normally shy away from in absolute terror has become something to expect in this world. His ability to adapt and accept his circumstances startles him. Not even a day ago, he would have been too scared to move, now he feels composed and determined.
“Acceptance is to question one’s perceived reality.” He whispers. A saying his father often challenged him with.
Apart from the centipedes that roam the forests, there were other forces he had to avoid.
The forests seem to be patrolled by knights clad in dark black armour. What surprises him is that they apparently do not target humans, the trophies they carry are the heads of other forest dwellers.
Stride’s whole life before he was captured as a slave revolved around theft and violence. He was part of a group of smugglers and thieves in the Capital. The man who took him in, Otto, was something of a father figure towards him. He treated him well, but even Stride understood that his kindness was due to his particular skills. He had a talent for thieving and stealth; it was all he could remember doing. If it was not for these skills, he could have never survived this long.
“Our way of life is a direct reflection of the world we were born in, harsh but opportune.” Otto would tell him.
“The skill is to act upon it.”
Otto was a smart man who had travelled and experienced the world. As his adopted son, Stride was not allowed to become a dull, simple-minded boy. Stride had been forced to learn how to read, to write and to speak properly. But most important of all: to observe the world around him, to train his eyes and ears to perceive. The truth is always hidden somewhere between the lines, the little nuances that reveal a person’s true intent. Of all people, a thief must be able to trust their gut instinct from what they cannot see or are not supposed to hear. A skill acquired through experience, lots of experience.
For us, that trust is life or death.
“But what do I continue to live for? Moments before death, I asked this same question as I jumped into the abyss. Is it guilt, resentment, fear, or my will to struggle?”
Or maybe it is the culmination of everything?
“I have lived through death, yet I still do not know the answer…”
As his mind drifts, a woman appears out of nowhere.
She is… naked.
Not even questioning how she got here, Stride blushes at the sight of her. She gives him a comforting smile as she carefully and quietly approaches him. She seems friendly by nature and carries a warmth over her, which in turn calms Stride. He is too enamoured to speak, mystified by the sudden appearance of this woman.
She moves closer and comes face to face with Stride as she stares deep into his eyes. He is captivated by her gaze, feeling a deep longing for connection.
She smells good, like fresh flowers at the morning markets. She reminds me of home.
Pretty…
She leans in and kisses him.
He is perplexed, but he gives in to her warm embrace. Her soft hands glide down his neck. He is lulled into accepting her sudden appearance.
I should close my eyes and surrender to this moment.
For when you open your eyes,
You return to reality.
He opens his eyes to look at her again, bedazzled by her beauty. But in that moment the subconscious world fades away. A grotesque, moth-like insect is clamping onto his face. Disgusted, he rips it off, but the moth’s feelers have already slid and nested in his throat.
Can’t breathe…
He yanks harder, and the tentacles glide out of his mouth whilst a trail of thick slime follows.
He squeezes the small body firmly as he coughs up the moth’s mucus. Swiftly, he flings the insect against a tree, but in his thrust, he loses balance and falls to his knees.
He is surrounded by hundreds of these bugs swarming above him.
I might have caught a glimpse of these insects in the forest before.
Were the trees always covered with these figures and mutated faces growing out of them? Wait… Was I already entranced by this moth when I got here?
As he tries to swat them away, the moths retreat to the trees with bodies that grow out of them. He connects the dots.
These insects are responsible for these horrifying figures… even the larger creatures have fallen victim like I witnessed before on my travels. I cannot rest here… but… I can barely stand…
Struggling to stay on his feet, the bugs keep approaching. With each defending strike, he feels his energy draining. Pure exhaustion overpowers his withered body. When he catches a closer glimpse of the trees, a sinking feeling of the terrifying truth reveals itself.
“The eyes… they move… the- they are alive!”
The beings plastered onto the trees are being kept alive to feed their young. Upon seeing this gruesome image, Stride is urged to get back onto his feet.
The bugs pursue him relentlessly as he slumps away.
I have not been in these parts of the woods before. Their territory must end at some point. I have been walking forever!
The flapping of their wings becomes louder, buzzing in his ear. He has no strength to continuously fight them off, so he chooses his battles wisely. He feels them land on him, attempting to bring him back into a state of sleep paralysis.
“Aarrgnnhh,” he cries out in pain as one of them slips its tentacles in his wound. Without hesitation, he drags it over the ground and squashes out its eye, letting it whimper in pain.
During his dealings with the bugs, he has failed to notice a figure lurking in the dark. This being is twice his size and looks strong enough to easily take him down. The creature glares at him as it slowly approaches.
Please, God, when does it end?
I cannot run anymore…
He drags his body forward, stumbling past the beastly figure as pain overtakes his body. The animal-like creature closes in on him.
Its face reveals the beast’s true state and intent. Hardly even aware of its surroundings, the animal-like creature slowly continues onwards past Stride, coughing up its own blood. Its eyes are filled with a mosaic of eggs that feast on the remaining cornea. The beast follows the moth like a puppet on a string, for the moth has hooked its tentacles inside the beast’s mouth.
Poor thing.
Horrified, Stride increases his pace as he feels the lingering moths become ever more aggressive. One lands on Stride’s head, but shortly after gets slammed onto the ground. Stride had mustered up one remaining smack. His arms now hang limp next to his body as his feeling of desperation grows. The world begins to blur.
How long does their hive go on fo…-
He slips…
Face first, he rolls down a hill. He balls up to protect his vitals. His body bruises all over as he tumbles, hitting stones and tree branches on the way.
He comes to a stop. No longer can he move. His body is bruised, hurt, and overexerted.
They are still following me, I know it… I cannot let myself end up like that.
“I will not be caged.” He shouts with furious conviction.
He crawls, stumbles, and drags himself forward, forcing every drop out of his body. Using the surrounding trees to catch him when he loses balance. His vision starts to fade as he wanders with no end in sight.
He slides down against a tree. His body has kept him going for so long, but it can no longer match his spirit.
He lies there, in wait of death.
For curious onlookers watch him from the shadows.
End of chapter 4.