“Uhhh huh…”
“Maybe that’s what the Council is hiding. Maybe there are no secrets. It’s all just a ploy to further maximize happiness… To give people like me meaning… a purpose. When I discover, at the end of my years, that it had all been a lie, they can tell me with utter sincerity that it had all been constructed for people like me. That I reaped the benefits of the ultimate secret: the secret that there are no secrets. That all of those years, I had wandered with a sense of purpose while they bore the burden of the existential truth. Surely, they will tell me that my new knowledge doesn’t taint my past. Happiness, they will argue, is not a retrospective process. And then… they will say… that it’s my turn to bear the burden.”
“Uhhh huh…”
“Well… it won’t work. That isn’t how I operate. I don’t care about their optimizing calculations. I want truth and I will not lead people astray. Ignorance may be bliss but that doesn’t mean it is foolish to seek truth. The only question is—”
“Ember! Look!!” Maggie said with such urgency that Ember snapped upright and nearly fell over the edge.
“What? What?!” he said, looking around frantically.
“Look, over there!” she said, pointing with her index finger. Ember looked at her focused, piercing eyes and followed its gaze down her arm, to the tip of her finger and down to the forest floor. She bore the face of focused bewilderment, yet held a twang of immense hope—a thing so great, that if true, seemed as if it might conquer the world.
He squinted his eyes hard to make sense of the dimly lit floor. “I can’t see anything. Where is it? What is it?!”
“There! Over there!! Look! Quick, it moved!” She adjusted her index finger accordingly.
Ember squinted harder. “It just looks like a big shadow… Is that what your talking about? There?” He pointed.
“It’s not a shadow! Look, it moved again!”
“Shadows move you know?”
“Ember, it’s NOT a shadow. Look.”
Suddenly the dark blob groaned. A clear, unambiguous croak. Ember and Maggie looked at each other automatically. “Did you hear that,” he asked unnecessarily.”
“Uhhh huh,” she said with a serious nod.
“What is it?”
“Not exactly sure just yet.”
“How… How do you do that?!”
“I look and listen to what others don’t. You’ll never discover anything new if you see the world through the same lens as everyone else. When it’s dark and quiet… when no one thinks you’re watching… when it’s unsuspecting… that’s when you know to look. Mysteries lurk in the shadows. It’s just the gossip of the natural world,” she explained without a touch of modesty, as if she had been waiting a long time for her brother to appreciate her investigative skills.
“Is it a beetle?”
“Too small and slow to be a beetle,” she explained as if she alone was the authority on the matter. “Plus, the movements are too concerted and purposeful.”
“I think I see an appendage of some sort.”
“Whatever it is, it’s hurt or trapped.”
Ember and Maggie stared intently at the convulsive blob. Maggie leaned her head forward and put her hands on the side of her head to block out the distracting peripheral vision. Ember squinted harder. Suddenly, the creature jerked forward to a spot of land well lit by the full moon. It reared its head and left bare for the world to see the terror of its demented form—a ghostly pale human face, contorted and savage, the likes of which they had never known. It screamed out with a violent anguish like the howl of a wounded animal.
Ember jolted back impulsively, and Maggie nearly toppled over from fear. Their hearts beat fast. The horror wiped clean the color from their faces. Maggie’s lips quivered and Ember’s eyes blinked rapidly. Without so much as a word, Ember crawled back to the edge of the platform on his hands and knees and slowly stared back at the creature. Maggie did the same.
There it was, the same horrid man. The same long, pale, contorted face and dark, dying eyes. It reached one of its long hands up, out into the air as if looking for something to grab onto or for someone to help. Ember and Maggie jolted backwards again. It cried out frighteningly, “Ahhhhh! Ergh!!!”
So menacing was the figure that it seemed to instantly pervade and haunt their minds. Regaining control of his senses, Ember once again stared back at the man, but this time he did not jolt backwards. His fear turned into an insatiable curiosity that grew with each passing moment. The lust for truth, the promise of mystery, the potential for change, so great that fear was all but expelled from the crevices of his consciousness. True elation and hope, the likes of which he had never felt before, seized him by the throat. He struggled to breathe. His eyes twinkled.
“Let’s go,” he managed to communicate to Maggie, who had, in her horror, crawled back to the base of the tree, and was practically doubled-over. Her arm over her eyes, her chest heaving up and down with each breath. The image of his cowering sister seemed to restore some sense of sensibility. His heart softened. “It’s okay. It’s going to be alright.” He put his hands on her shoulder and brought his forehead to hers. “We have to go check it out.”
“It’s… It’s… It’s… HUMAN!” she cried hysterically.
“I know. I know. We have to check it out. We have to help it. It needs our help.”
“It has a face, Ember! It has arms and eyes, like you and me!! But they’re not like ours! It has a brain. It’s thinking too!”
“I know… shhh… it’s okay. That’s why we have to help it out.”
“Is it safe?” she asked, finally opening her eyes.
“Yes, it’s fine. It’s okay,” he reassured, helping her to her feet. “Remember, I promised Mom and Dad that nothing bad will ever happen to you. I promised them that I would protect you. I won’t let anything bad happen. Promise.” Ember tried to speak calmly, but his inner voracious intensity was impossible to conceal. It was painfully obvious that he would say anything to convince her.
“We should tell the others,” she said sensibly.
“No!”
“Why?!” she inquired, seriously questioning her brother’s judgment.
“It might be too late then. Plus… They will want to hide it. We need to find out first. We need to get to it first. Before they can hide the truth!!”
“Okay,” she breathed.
“I… I can go alone if you want,” he suggested, knowing full well she wouldn’t accept the offer.
“No… Together. We’ll go together. It’s safer that way.” They peered back once more at the blob-like man. Its head was hung over so that only the muddied nape of its neck was visible in the moonlight. Maggie gulped audibly. “Ember, you know he’s not from around here?”
“I know,” he said, his heart pounding with reckless abandon.
Chapter 6: A Slippery Slope to the Underground
Ember approached the decrepit man with trepidation. Maggie slinked back cautiously to Ember’s side, clasping the torch firmly with both hands. The air was cold; the floor was colder. Though it was dark, their heavy breaths were visible against the forest’s moonlit murmurs—the warm air of their lungs vacuumed out by the immense, un-imaginable darkness. The same dew that in the morning would abound with moist fecundity was now frigid and sterile. It clung to their bare toes and made them numb.
There was an unshakable sense of quiet foreboding that drew together the kindred souls of all forest dwellers. It was a symphony of elemental struggles: the individual vs. the forest, the mind vs. the body, the desires vs. the instincts. The cold, dark air of the nighttime forest seemed to descend on them as a deep and heavy blanket—seductively reckless yet painlessly simple. The whole world seemed cloaked in an inescapable sleepiness. Acceptance was alluringly easy. The forest and the darkness would swallow one whole, all one had to do was lie down and wait. A cold and dark forest is, in this way, surprisingly comforting and inviting. Yet, to resist—to remain vigilant against all desires to the contrar
y—was to survive. Darkness’s solitude may fool the body, but not the mind. Now, more than ever, threats loomed greatly.
Already Ember could feel the lethargy growing upon him—dulling his mind and numbing his senses. It started as quiet contentedness and took hold as a creeping coolness. It had first to compete with fear and curiosity, but as Ember drew nearer to the old man, it had only the latter to contend with. Even Maggie, who just now whisked her torch around—ever mindful that it wasn’t only the mysterious man who posed threats—began feeling the forest’s chilly invitation.
“We shouldn’t be here,” she warned.
“If he’s hurt, we’ll need to help him,” he said not so much defensively as matter-of-factly. Ember and Maggie inched forward to the deranged blob, which had just returned to its stirrings. The bewitched creature moaned compellingly. Ember looked back at Maggie to share an understanding nod. She put one arm on his back as he made his way closer to the creature.
The creature grabbed Ember’s ankle with such suddenness and astonishing strength that Ember fell hard to the ground. Maggie instantly leapt forward and flashed her torch at it menacingly.
“Where is it?” the man called out, as if addressing the whole of the forest. “Where is it?” Ember clumsily scrambled to his feet. “Others… There are others.” The man’s voice was tired and raspy. “I knew there were others… and… here you are… Can… you… understand… me?” he asked slowly, as if each word was but a pause in his death.
Maggie stopped waiving the torch around. She peered closely at his pale, homely skin and drooping eyes and suddenly became unafraid of it. Even in the darkness, she knew he wasn’t well. “Yes, we can understand you,” she said, answering for Ember, who was still catching his breath.
The man smiled a smile so great and so enlightened that it seemed as though all his prayers had been answered. “Tell me,” he said, closing his eyes briefly in utter ecstasy, “are there others like you?”
“Yes, there are others like us. We live in the trees,” Maggie replied, not wanting to deprive him of enjoyment any moment longer.
“Where are you from?” Ember asked.
“Oh, but of course!” the man squealed in sheer rapture, “You live in the trees. Yes, there are others like you. Of course! You live in the trees! Lots and lots of others… just like you… like us… but they’re not in the trees!” Each word ended in a high pitch note of undue, but elated intonation.
“He’s delirious,” Ember said to Maggie.
“Oh!! He’s delirious,” the man parroted. “He’s delirious. Oh!! That’s what they said. They all said that I was delirious. But oh, here you are! Here you are! I knew you were here all along. But did you know about us?”
“Huh?” Ember expressed.
“It’s no matter dear. It’s not important now. But do tell me, where is it? Where is the sky?”
“The sky? It’s only nighttime. You’ll be able to see it when the sun comes out,” Ember offered.
“Oh! The sun. It is a shame though… I did hope I would be able to see it before I went.”
“But you will! We will help you!” Maggie said, finding strength in her nurturing nature.
“So,” Ember began, his heart beating fast, “you’re not from around here, are you?”
“Oh! From around ‘here’? I don’t suppose your ‘here’ and my ‘here’ would be referring to the same thing, now would it?” Though the man was smiling, there was something deeply worrying. It was the smile of delirium—the smile that quite clearly belied its bearer’s fatal fate. It was a natural defense mechanism of sorts—the body’s way of making death’s imminent reprisal more approachable.
“I mean, are you from Erosa?” he clarified.
“Errr-ooo-ssaaa,” the man pronounced slowly. “Oh no! I am not from there.” The man closed his eyes once more to enjoy his smile—as if aware that it would be his last. With his smile still in tact, he grew limp and fell backwards into Maggie’s arms. The smile slowly faded. Peering down at his sad eyes, it now appeared to Ember and especially Maggie, that this was the face of a man that only once felt true happiness.
“What can I do?” Maggie asked, speaking at once to the man and Ember.
“Is he dead?” Ember asked back.
The man opened his eyes and stared helplessly back towards Maggie, as a child would to his mother. Then, as if suddenly struck by the remembrance of some somber onus, his eyes became sharp and intense. He grabbed the back of Maggie’s neck with his long and dirty fingers and peered intently into her eyes. Ember quickly motioned to defend her, but Maggie looked at him as if to signal that all was all right.
“There are others,” the man declared gravely. “You must help them. You must tell the others. My trail of blood will take you there.” Maggie looked onwards with the expression of one who was trying to decode a cipher. “Listen to me. This is important. Not all the ground you stand on is solid. This isn’t the first time the Underground spat out one of its own.”
With his free hand, the man lifted an object from his neck and gave it to Maggie. “You will know when to use it.” It was a small silver key with ostentatiously carved embellishments at its base and through which a light gold chain was threaded. The necklace was, considering the muddied appearance of the man, quite incredibly clean. “And please, if you ever see her, tell her that I love her. You will do this for me? You will help the others? You will… promise?”
“I promise,” Maggie swore solemnly with tears in her eyes, knowing that his last moments were upon him.
“Promise?” the man said looking at Ember.
Nearly believing that the man had forgotten about his existence altogether, Ember half expected that he was still talking to Maggie and was a little startled when the brief silence suggested otherwise. “I promise,” Ember said at last.
And with a final appreciative sigh, the man died.
A moment passed before either Maggie or Ember did or said anything. Neither of them had ever seen someone die before their very eyes, and they were both understandably taken aback. In moments like these, it is perhaps natural to appeal to some transcendent source—even if one is not usually apt to believe in those sorts of things. Though neither Maggie nor Ember held any particularly strong beliefs about the afterlife or even a source of universal creation, they couldn’t help but form vague questions that seemed, to some capacity, directed towards somewhere and something external. While Maggie asked ‘why?’ Ember asked ‘how, what and where?’ Though Maggie’s questions were fewer in number, her thoughts were no less profound. In time it struck them just how impossibly unknowable the answers were, just how absurd the universe really was, and just how helpless its inhabitants truly were.
How was it, they both thought nearly synchronously, that I am only now thinking these thoughts. They had both, in fact, thought these thoughts before and upon numerous different occasions. But it wasn’t until now, however, that these thoughts seemed truly important—as if the whole of the universe rested upon the simple fundamental truths that only these questions could probe. Though the answers were far from sight, it was deeply satisfying to be connected, in some sense, to something so unequivocally and supremely important—even if the connection was through unanswerable questions and even if it was tenuous at best.
Deep down Maggie and Ember knew that questions were the only tools that could ever so much as approach these profound truths. And suddenly they both felt a tremendous air of redress—as if this is what it meant to be human. There was a satisfaction to be had in the knowledge that this was the closest that anyone could ever come to perceiving the fundamental truths—if there even were any. They felt a sudden deep connection with the rest of humanity and the whole of existence—all those that lived before, all those that live now, and all those that will ever live. Ember and Maggie seemed to think, once again in approximate unison, The best you can do is glance at meaning through questions, and we too have done that. We too, have shared in this quest.
Their thoughts turned inward for a few selfish moments, as is usual during these circumstances. They thought about the implications of their previous thoughts and what it meant for their own singular existences. Next they considered, Ember in particular, how conversation should be tactfully re-commenced—how to move on without seeming irreverent. In actuality, little time lapsed between their philosophical thinking and their present practical musings. It is, after all, incredibly difficult to sustain thoughts about the exalted and sublime for too long—one can grasp at straws for only so long before giving up and returning to manageable matters.
Ember checked his pulse and announced, unnecessarily, “He’s dead.”
Maggie laid the man tenderly on the ground, but held out her arms for a few moments afterwards, as if still cradling his body. “What should we do?” she asked.
A frigid zephyr blew discreetly, reminding Ember of the sometimes-overlooked dangers of a nighttime forest. “We find the others,” he said heroically.
“You mean, tell the others?”
Ember looked at her inquisitively before figuring out the source of confusion, “No, I mean find the others. You know, the ‘others’ that he kept referring to?”
“I thought he was referring to us… as in the other people in Erosa… I thought he wanted us to help other Erosans… to tell them something.”
“Oh, I see what you mean… I suppose it was a little ambiguous to whom he was referring… but I’m certain he was talking about his own kind as well as ours… I think he wants us to find his people and help them and I think that key he gave you will be the answer.”
“I see,” Maggie voiced, already liking his interpretation better. She clutched the key necklace meaningfully and then put it around her neck. “Still… what should we do?”
“Follow his blood of course. He said it would lead us there.”
“Wait, don’t you think we should wait for daybreak?! Don’t you think we should at least go back first and tell the others?! So at least someone knows where we are?!”
Revolution in the Underground Page 7
