by Douglas Falk
“12:15.”
“Jesus goddamn Christ. No, I’m not going to set up camp after just two hours. Let’s continue.”
William spun around and stared at him. “Keep going? How? In just half an hour from now we won’t even be able to see our own hands. How could we keep going, with a sled no less, when we’ll stumble around like drunken village idiots?”
“We’ll figure it out. I’m not going to throw the very last day we have provisions to sit on our asses immobile and munch away the very last of our scraps. Who knows when we’ll see the Sun again if this pattern continues?”
He walked towards the sled and rummaged through it ferociously.
I need to start a fire. I need to make light. There…there’s something down there. Yes. Yes.
He found the very last cache of the firewood, which consisted of two large logs, and unsheathed his knife. He began carving the logs.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you sculpting?”
“I’m carving the wood. Torches, they’re supposed to be…I hope.”
“Torches?”
“Yes, torches. Ever heard of them?”
Stubborn as he was, he ignored William’s cynical cries that ranged from waste of time to you don’t even know what you are doing. He carved the logs until they were thin enough to hold in one hand and went back to the sled in search of the paraffin lamp they had used the nights before. He emptied the contents of the lamp and poured the kerosene lamp oil over the logs and smeared it gently with the help of a blanket. He took out a matchbox from the sled and lit it up, and slowly placed the match just above the oil-drenched log.
Come on now. This is going to work. This will work. You will catch fire. You will!
The log heard his plea and ignited into flame with a thousand red sparks bursting out of it. He put the second log next to the burning one, and the latter caught fire as well.
“Ha! I did it! We have two working torches now.” He carried the torches with both hands and handed one over to William. “No more excuses now. We are walking, and we don’t stop unless the Grim Reaper himself shows up and cuts us down. Let’s move!”
William was shaken and stirred, but he nodded after what appeared to be a moment of inner contemplation. Onwards they went with the torches, and John was surprised how well they worked.
They provide just enough light for a decent field of vision ahead.
They walked through the dark with their torches guiding the way. William took the lead with John pulling the sled with his right hand and carried the torch with his left. What would have been nigh impossible only days before, dragging along a big bulky cart with one hand, went surprisingly well.
There’s barely any snow on the ground to wade through anymore. I can walk through this about as easily as taking a stroll in the park on a winter’s day. Or a summer’s day, more like. Do I even need to wear my coat any longer?
John unbuttoned his coat, and to his surprise the warmth he thought he felt seeping through his body was not imagined.
It doesn’t only feel temperate…it’s a whole other type of feeling. A soothing warmth tingling through my spine. What is this sorcery?
They had not walked for more than an hour when John suddenly halted. He felt something under his boots, something other than ice or snow. Being used to the crunching sound of jamming his boots on snow for a whole month, he instantly recognised that there was something afoot with the terrain. He put down the sled and went down on his knees, and gasped.
Grass. Blades of grass. Is this an illusion? Like in those old swashbuckler movies when the hero has walked through the desert for so long that he is starting to lose his mind and he begins to project imaginary things, like a fresh pool of water. Could this really be grass, or have I been here for so long that I can’t even recognise it?
He removed his gloves and unearthed a handful of green straws from the ground.
“William!” he cried, as William had kept walking and didn’t hear him stop.
“William! Stop! Look down, on the ground!”
He laughed out loud for himself and waved the blades of grass in front of William, who came hurrying back. William knelt by the ground and lowered his torch to the vegetation. William’s torch licked the straws, and one of the blades caught fire and burnt to a crisp.
Definitely and unquestionably grass.
William rose up slowly with a frantic look on his face.
“John, my dear friend. I think…you did it! No, we did it, my beloved companion. I don’t know whether we’ll live long enough to tell the tale, but I think we might be close, very close, to discovering something monumental,” he said. and he walked up to John and embraced him. John hugged him back tightly.
“I think so too. Let’s push onwards. Just a little bit longer…a little bit! Come on!”
Re-energised by their discovery, they quickened up the pace and marched faster than ever before. John noticed that the terrain started shifting dramatically—while it was still pitch black and the same old plain desolation all around them for as far as the eye could see, they guessed that if they could see through the thick of it, the landscape would be different than before. Only small strips of snow now covered the ground—what they walked now seemed to be a grassy knoll or the like.
One thing is certain. We are no longer walking on tundra, glacier, nor a snowy heath. This is different. This place is special.
As they kept their course steady in the darkness and marched ever onwards. John waved his torch around in all directions, eager to discover something new. As he once again lowered his torch to ground level, he saw something colourful flash by.
What was that?
He crouched by the unidentified object that sprang out of the ground. He placed the light by the plant and ripped it out from the earth.
A flower…it’s beautiful. Of what kind, I have no idea. Maybe I should have become a florist instead of an adventurer for a living.
The flower was strikingly elegant and had a green stalk, and its petals were purple. He looked underneath the petals and saw that it was blue underneath. He held on to it gently and gawked around him in amazement.
What is this place we have come to? This Garden of Eden, hidden in plain sight?
He showed the flower to William, who in turn had found a flower of his own. A scarlet orchid-like flower. William just stared at him with an empty look.
“What is this place? Where are we, John? Could this…could this be the place Admiral Byrd discovered sixty years ago?”
“I really have no clue…no clue. But I’m liking these early signs, I’ll tell you that much. But we have to keep on moving; our torches will burn out in an hour or two.”
John pocketed the flower in his inner coat sleeve and picked himself up with hope in his heart. For the first time since they left Amundsen-Scott, they were now walking downhill. They walked through the darkness with their dying torches.
Twenty minutes left…thirty tops. We have to make it before the lights go out.
The slope was followed by a steep uphill terrain. Now John fought for his very life as he carried both the dying torch and the sled. They went up, up, up…ever upwards.
Are we striding up a mountain?
He lit up the ground by his feet and saw that his boots stood on a rocky surface. He touched the stone mound to confirm his suspicions.
We are at the foot of a mountain, or a cliff, from what it seems.
The mountain slope began to feel almost impossible to walk as it became steeper for every step they took. The higher up they got, the harder it was for them to balance themselves. John began to realise that one misstep would be the end of him. If he would slip and fall, he would descend hundreds of feet below in darkness and break his neck, no doubt. Sweat came pouring down his face as he grunted and dragged the sled upwards, fuelled by shear power of will.
“William! Come back here and help me. I can no longer carry this monstrosity on my own. Push!”
They both pul
led with sheer brute force as the rock they walked steeped even more.
Soon we’ll be climbing up a vertical hill, if this beast of a mountain will keep sloping like this. If we fall now, we’ll die. No ifs or buts about it. And we don’t have any grapple hooks, so be kind on us, God. We’re so close!
John raised his torch above his head and saw what was ahead.
A plateau! We just have to make up there. Just a few more steps…a few more steps…
They threw their torches away in order to thrust the sled from behind with their full potential, one final push.
“Fight! A bit more! Just some more, William! Nearly there!”
With the greatest push they had ever made in either of their lives, they managed to lift the sled up on the plateau, and they rested for a while before climbing up on it themselves. John grabbed hold of the stony mountainside and heaved himself up to the plateau…and was nearly blinded as a result by the most intense rays of light he had ever seen. He wiggled around on the rocky plateau and rose to his feet slowly.
Holy mother of God. The Sun is up again. How…how could…
It was then, in that moment, that John understood. All the pieces came together as he shut his eyes and tried to visualise that image William had showed him a long time ago.
We are in another pocket! Another pond, another crater. An adjacent Earth crater…with another Sun. A different Sun than ours. So it must be. It has to be. Oh my God. Oh my God!
John’s eyes had been so busy gazing at the Sun that he had yet to marvel over the landscape that spread out underneath him below the mountain. He saw the tallest trees he had ever seen as he overlooked an enormous forested area that spread out for miles, as far as the eye could see. William breathed a sigh of relief when he finally made his way up to the plateau and saw the same unearthly sight. The sweat came pouring from the cheeks of his friend, and he ripped his winter clothes off and threw them on the ground. William just sat there and looked at the view.
“John, old friend. I think we did it. I think we just did it,” he cried, exhausted beyond words.
John walked up to him and placed his right hand on William’s shoulder. “William, you son of a bitch. You mischievous, unconventional, son of a bitch. You sly bastard. You were right all along. You were right! We found a world beyond our own. There is no doubt. There is no doubt. Just look at it.”
“I just wish folks back home could see us now and see what we see right here. Oh, how I wish…how I wish they could see. This new world better have some kind of food to offer, or a McDonalds, because I want to live to tell the tale of this place,” said William, and he laid himself to rest on his back, as they bathed in the blinding light of the new Sun.
23
“We’ll rest here for a short while and regain our strength. Then we’ll climb down the plateau, slide our way down the mountain, and head into this forest.”
“I don’t need to rest, nor do I need to sleep for that matter,” said William and rose to his feet on shaky legs. “I need food and water. In case you forgot, we ran out yesterday morning.”
“I am familiar,” said John. “There might be nutrition to find in this forest. Who knows? Berries, mushrooms, even wild game. You still have that gun, right?”
“I sure do, John. I’m not a hunter, and I doubt very much that a Glock is the first choice when shooting wild game for food, but I guess it’ll have to do.”
“I’m not a hunter either, but Seydoux’s pistol should be adequate enough to take down a deer or a moose with a steady arm and a good aim,” said John.
“Sure thing. Oh boy…this place. I haven’t felt this good in body and soul since we were in Australia, disregarding the hunger issues. Are you sure we just didn’t freeze to death on the way here and our souls wandered off into paradise? Maybe this is some kind of limbo, or purgatory. A purgatory without, you know, the painful parts.”
“Ha! I saw Lost too. Now quit yapping; let’s go find us some food.”
They slid down the mountainside with relative ease. The slope was not nearly as steep here as it was on the side of the mountain they came from, where they fought like beasts to even gain an inch. They walked downwards and ferried the sled, which landed with a clonk on the leaf-covered ground at the foot of the mountain. William bent over backwards by the sled and unloaded two items from the cargo—the black Glock pistol belonging to the late Jacques Seydoux, and the dire wolf pin needle he had worn prior to the pandemonium at Amundsen-Scott. He pinned the brooch on his sweater and held the pistol in his right hand.
“For safety. While I do hope there’s game in this forest that we could kill, we might also run into unsavoury characters here. I mean, everything is off the charts now. We know for an utmost fact now that this is indeed a deception of unspeakable magnitude, so there’ll be folks nearby, I have no doubt.”
“And that silly brooch you are wearing from that show…Throne of Games? The Lord of the Rings copy. Is that also for safety, or just a harbinger of luck?”
William grunted. “Shush.”
They commenced their walk through the thick, exotic, jungle-like forest, and they began to pick up rare scents and strange aromas in the air. They found it hard to adjust to this surreal new terrain. After freezing for a whole month, they now faced the polar opposite. The trees were enormous, bigger than any tree John had ever laid eyes on in real life. Beech, alder, and maple trees sprang from the ground, towering over them with their majestic crowns blotting out the sunlight almost completely. Their gnarly tree stumps looked to his eyes as if they were thousands of years old, ancient giants that had stood firm from when the Earth itself was formed.
Reminds me of the Mallorn Trees from Lothlorien, or perhaps even the Fangorn Forest from Tolkien’s legendarium.
As they walked under the giant trees in awe, John suddenly heard strange noises from afar. Screeching, cawing sounds echoed from beyond the trees. John halted and tried his best to spot where the sounds could be coming from.
“Don’t stop,” said William, who pulled the sled. “We go straight through. There’s a path here, and we’ll follow it. We don’t know where it leads, but it has to be better than just heading out into that wilderness with no plan.”
“You’re right. We’ll follow this pathway and see where it leads us.”
The air felt thicker than ever before, and they almost had to gasp for breath every five minutes. On the right side of the pathway, a titan emerged from the ground that caught their eyes. It was the most incredible, awe-inspiring tree John had ever seen. A humongous chestnut tree stood before them, with its broad stump that stretched tens of feet wide. Its branches gnarled in every direction.
“Holy smokes,” said William. “We really are in a place out of this world.”
“This chestnut tree has to stand at least three hundred feet tall. I only know of one place in the world where trees grow to a size that could even begin to rival this colossus, and those are the sequoia trees in California. Redwood, I think they are called. But this…this is a chestnut,” said John. He walked slowly towards the giant tree and placed his hands gently on its stub.
It feels like touching an ancient relic. It’s as if my hands are grasping the Holy Grail itself. This tree, this whole forest, feels so sacred and precious. It’s as if I’m walking through the nature equivalent of the Vatican Archives.
Suddenly, the strange noises came back to haunt them. Cawing, screeching, growling noises blew through them from behind the great chestnut tree.
What on Earth could produce such a sound?
From nowhere, a creature emerged from behind the treeline. A large, violet-coloured bird circled around them both and cawed, until the ostrich-like creature froze at the foot of the chestnut tree. The bird’s beak was white and its plumage had shades of beige in it. From the back of his head, he saw a sudden movement by William. He had raised the pistol and aimed it at the creature.
“No! Don’t shoot, for heaven’s sake! We don’t know this area; we don’t
have a clue what else could be lurking in the shadows. Don’t be a fool!”
“I’m starving, John. We need to risk it, whether you like it or not.”
“Don’t do it! Remember that we could be pursu—!”
One, two, three shots boomed through the forest. The sound of gunfire echoed through the trees for what felt like an eternity. William walked up to his prey and investigated it. “Bull’s-eye. Thank the gods for that, John. It’s worth it; we have to eat. We can’t make it another day without food.”
John drew a deep breath and sighed, still shocked over how long the sound of gunfire had rippled through the forest.
I bet they heard that from twenty miles away.
William went to the sled and brought out the small knife they had used for carving logs and began skinning the bird.
“How the hell are we going to eat that thing?” cried John.
“We’ll eat it raw.”
Just as William was about to shove the knife deep into the dead bird’s intestines, a roar echoed through the woods.
The sound of a hurricane…or worse.
He looked up and tried to see the sky above, but he could only catch small glimpses as the monstrous tree crowns provided so much cover that it almost felt like looking at a ceiling. Judging by the tiny cracks in the ceiling, the sky had not changed. The Sun was shining bright, and its rays splayed through the cracks of the tree crowns. There was not a cloud to be seen.
“What do you think it was?” asked William nervously. He held the knife in hand and had paused his skinning session.
“Whatever it was, it can’t be good. I don’t think that sound was a force of nature.”
The noise is even louder now. Humming sounds from somewhere in the forest. They’re getting closer. It sounds like the noise of a thousand engines. Are they coming at us with tanks or the like?
Out of nowhere, a most prepotent ensemble showed up. Through the trees, ten armoured Jeeps raced out from the woods and encircled them at the forest pathway. They found themselves surrounded within a matter of just seconds. John and William just stood there, aghast.
