Searching for Darkness

by Leah Ward

  Struggling to finish the last two miles with one good leg proved to be quite the task. He had barely been up and moving for a few minutes before he heard nearby movement. He shouldn’t have been so surprised that he kept hearing things, considering his knowledge on the vast wildlife within the forest. He moved as fast as he could to the nearest tree, standing firm against the base. The movements within the brush were very familiar…

  The pack of wolves. Edwin felt foolish to think they hadn’t heard him trudging and dragging his foot along the ground. He held his sword straight up in front of him, the blade so closely held to his face and body that he could feel its dullness. Was he really going to defend himself with it? Would he even be able to?

  Of course, this is life or death!

  He could see their bodies through the thickness of the brush, never had he seen wolves so tall before. Hurriedly he moved to the other side of the tree, hoping he might be able to avoid them again. Yet, as he stood now on the opposite side of the tree, he noticed more black four-legged figures deep in the brush. He was being surrounded by them with every passing second, and knew it wouldn’t be much longer before they circled closer.

  Breathing so heavily where he couldn’t decide if he was going to faint or not gave him away quickly to the wolves. As they came closer, it was obvious there would be no easy way out of this one, and he would have to defend himself. Surrounding him now, he eased his back off of the tree, still standing firm inches away though, knowing it would cover him from behind. They approached him slowly with their heads lower than the rest of their bodies, concerned and weary against the boy’s weapon. Their eyes were black, with small red pupils in the center. Possibly the most intimidating of all their features was their size. They were large, almost twice as big as a normal wolf ten years ago.

  They snarled, curled their lips and snapped at him. When they did, he could see the yellow tinted fangs jutting from their dark red gums. The sounds of their growling filled his ears, vibrating his skull. He was able to see most of the pack now. He counted five, and then six, another emerging from the forest making seven...

  They kept coming. How many could there possibly be?

  Edwin brought his sword down to face the closest wolf at eye level. He waved it back and forth to frighten it, but only managed to taunt the wolf. Shuffling forwards, Edwin lunged towards the pack leader. The sword made a small slit in the wolf’s snout, filling him with burning rage. Growling, he crept to Edwin, still lowering his head, preparing to strike. Edwin jumped, and backed swiftly until he ran into the tree behind him. In one deadly motion the wolf swung its massive claw towards Edwin’s sword, knocking it out of his hand and almost shattering it completely, except for the nub of a handle. It fell on to the ground several feet away, in several different pieces. Edwin’s eyes glared, and glanced at the sword – his last hope was lying in the dirt out of his reach, destroyed beyond repair.

  Edwin looked around, desperate for an escape route. His only choice was to climb the tree behind him. He leaped up onto a lower branch, and the pack leader sprang forward, jumping to catch his prey. He swiped the branch and broke the end off, but Edwin had grabbed onto the next one above his head by then. Again the wolf swiped, crushing the branch right between Edwin’s feet. Luckily Edwin hung onto the branch above, and swung his legs against the tree to wrap them around and help to hoist himself up. When his ankle hit the tree, pain coursed through his entire body, but was quickly pushed aside from his thoughts.

  Now the other wolves joined in, desperately clawing and pawing at the tree to bring their prey down. Edwin clung for dear life, climbing higher than he needed to. The farther he climbed, the safer he felt, until he reached the top of the tree. Looking out he could see the small village from where he had come – it looked so close even though he had walked for miles all morning. He turned around carefully on the thick branch, in the direction he thought he was supposed to head. He was so disoriented from the wolves that he wasn’t able to think clearly. Yet, a short distance away he could see the river basin – his first checkpoint.

  Looking down he could still see the wolves, angrily snarling up the tree, waiting for him to come back down. I’ll just wait them out, he thought.

  As he tried to shift to make himself more comfortable, his foot slipped, sending him flailing down the tree. Before he realized what was happening, Edwin was falling and hitting branch after branch on his way down. Pain trickled up his spine like individual needles poking into him. He wanted to burst into tears and scream at the top of his lungs but shock wouldn’t allow him to.

  He hit every limb and body part at least once until finally he hit the bottom. The wolves jumped back at first, thinking that this was the boy’s form of attack. Yet, as he lay motionless, they didn’t think of him as much of a threat.

  Sniffing the boy, they nuzzled their snouts into his clothing and backpack, assuming him dead. As if life was suddenly breathed into him, Edwin sat up and screamed a scream equivalent to all the ones he hadn’t let out as he had plummeted down to Earth. The wolves were so shocked that they jumped back, surprised he was still alive, yet thrilled to know their fight wasn’t over.

  Edwin knew he was now at rock bottom, there was nothing left. No weapon, no place to hide, nowhere to run; he was thoughtless and idealess. Not to mention his body ached in its entirety, and would soon bruise. As the wolves stepped forward to claim their prey, fury shot through him like it had been pumped directly into his veins. He was not going to – could not – be defeated like this. How could he let his parents and Agmund down? He was going to die and Agmund would have no clue where he had even run off to. This was not the fate he wanted and he would not let it become his.

  With fear separating itself from Edwin’s mind, he let anger replace it. Not thinking of anything else besides the fury flowing through him, he flung his hand out with his fingertips pointed up towards the sky and yelled at the top of his lungs “STOOOOP!”

  Silence filled the forest for a split second, and then a red flare flashed through the air blinding every eye in sight. Edwin blinked desperately to regain vision, or to understand what happened, yet...there was nothing but darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  Edwin blinked frantically. What was that light? While blinded only two things were on his mind: Where the light came from, and why his palm profusely burned. As his vision restored, he felt around the ground, trying to locate the tree to use as a support to stand. When finally on his feet, the blinding red light faded, and he found that he was standing alone in the forest.

  There were no wolves, except one lying on the ground ten feet in front of him. Confused, he looked down at his raggedy torn clothes shaking his head. Then he remembered - his huge fall - and thankfully he had survived it. Bruises had already started to form and were covering his entire body it seemed. Where one ended, another one was beginning - coating him black and blue.

  His hand tingled, and when he looked down at it, he saw a red ring almost engraved into his palm. Frightened, he started to gasp for air. His skin felt as if he was on fire, and from the looks of it, it seemed he had been.

  Slowly he walked to the wolf, not sure if it was just unconscious or actually dead. However, it hadn’t moved an inch since he had first caught glance of it, so he assumed that it was. The closer he moved, the more flesh he saw exposed on the normally furry creature. The leaves on some of the branches near the wolf were either burned or still on fire. Hovering over the wolf, he saw red, raw, flesh wounds covering its face and neck. It was extremely burned, and disfigured, as if the skin had melted. The other wolves were nowhere to be found, and Edwin assumed they had been scared away by the fire and blinding light. He had no recollection himself of what made the burst of light or the fire, and wondered why it had done so much damage to the wolf, but barely burned his hand.

  As he looked around, searching for an answer, he saw a black figure moving quickly in the distant brush. Maybe it was the wolves running, or perhaps his savior that had br
ought the fire? Quickly, he gathered his belongings that had fallen out of his pack as he had tumbled out of the tree. The book was tattered a little more than normal but still served him well as a GPS. Soon, he was off running as fast and painless as possible, farther into the woods in search of the river.

  Running past the trees, his thoughts drifted to no longer having a weapon. However, this was only one of the many worries floating around in the back of his mind.

  Time passed so quickly when he was distracted and unable to think about how far he had to travel. The sound of flowing water awakened his brain, making him conscious of his surroundings. He had traveled the short distance without any wild animals attacking him, or his foot slipping off a steep cliff almost sending him to his death. Nothing went wrong, which, sort of bothered him even more than if it did.

  The river was refreshing. He took his bag off and leaned over to the water cupping his hands to create a makeshift cup. Extremely thirsty, he quickly gulped the water. He had forgotten to drink water along the way, considering his many near-death-experiences. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t eaten much either.

  In his backpack he pulled out the rest of his loaf of bread, savagely eating away at it, finishing it in less than a few minutes. He filled his canteen with water from the river, noticing that it was clearer than he had imagined it would be. For the river to be deserted by humans or animals that weren’t deranged, he had assumed the water would have been murky brown or contaminated. It was so crystal clear that he saw the fish swimming below him. Large and small, all were with jagged teeth at least two inches long. Every fish resembled an angry and hungry piranha. They were also shades of blues that his eyes had never witnessed before; perhaps it was only visible to a Seer?

  Lost in the trance of dangerously exotic fish, something came racing towards his face from underneath so fast that it was nothing but a blur. Quickly it rose closer and closer, until it jumped completely out of the water, its mouth open wide, aiming directly towards Edwin’s face. He jerked his head from above the water and fell clumsily onto his back. The fish clamped its jaw shut in midair and Edwin watched as it dove towards him onto the shore. Crawling backwards, he narrowly missed the fish’s attack. Luckily, the fish had landed on the shore and Edwin knew that it would only flop around, its gills desperate for water. Or so he thought.

  The fish flopped for a few seconds, not because it was trying to jump back in the water, but to stand and walk.

  Edwin’s eyes widened with fear, a fish with legs? It was impossible! Or maybe it was possible to a Seer?

  Suddenly the fish found its balance and darted in Edwin’s direction like a charging bull. He grabbed sticks and leaves from whatever he could reach with his hands, and flung them toward the creature hoping to divert it. Yet, his efforts were of no use. The fish had the agility of a cheetah, avoiding majority of what was thrown towards it. The little that did get into its eyes didn’t slow it down in the least bit.

  Edwin lay in the dirt on his back as the fish caught up to him and leapt directly for his head, jaws open. Edwin closed his eyes and right before they completely shut, he saw a large black wolf with red beady eyes fly in from his left and snap his jaws shut on the strange footed fish before him.

  The wolf landed several feet away from Edwin, dropping the half eaten fish from its mouth. As the wolf lifted its head, it stared him directly in the eyes with the look of an ally. Edwin, gasping for air with wide eyes, didn’t know if he should move or try to gesture to the wolf that he understood, hoping that he actually did. The wolf walked towards Edwin with his head still lowered as if watching its prey and waiting for the moment to strike. Edwin was motionless, scared beyond measure after just witnessing the devouring of the toothy fish.

  Slowly, the wolf turned its head to look into the woods, motioning to go back into the forest and that his deed was done.

  The wolf turned his body and walked away into the thick brush and trees. Even after a few moments Edwin was sitting in the same exact spot, still unable to move. Shock and fear had utterly flooded him and made no intentions of leaving.

  Minutes had passed before Edwin was pushed back into reality. He scooted over, skidded his bottom against the ground, towards his backpack. He pulled out his book and stared down at it. A part of him didn’t even want to open it, scared of the distance that it may tell him. Slowly he lifted the flap of the cover, opening to the page of the map.

  ‘TRAVEL DOWNSTREAM FOR TWENTY MILES’

  Twenty miles? There is no way I’ll last that much longer, Edwin thought. He had barely made it through ten - alive anyway. Looking into his backpack to measure the amounts of food that he had left, he saw only a loaf of bread and two apples remained. He had already eaten half of his portions in only the first ten miles.

  The sky began to turn dark blue, warning him that the sun would be setting soon. He stood still a moment to take in Earth’s beauty and its natural clock in action. It was mesmerizing how the sky could layer on and mix such marvelous colors.

  Edwin knew that he needed to find a place to sleep, a place that would be safe and out of harm’s way. Were there any places here to offer him that?

  Near the river’s edge there was a little area of dirt and grass, under a shorter, very leafy, tree. It was a perfect spot with plenty of clear space to lie down and sleep. Immediately he started to gather branches off the ground in order to prepare a small fire. If only I had something to cook, he thought. Then he remembered the book and how he had seen where it had instructions on finding food.

  Pulling the book out, he flipped through the pages quickly. He didn’t want to search or hunt for food in the dark. Unfortunately the instructions were on poisonous vs. nonpoisonous berries and plants. He glanced around for the closest bush, and skeptically looked at the dark blue berries hanging from the branches. He searched through the book for a similar picture and found that they were listed as nonpoisonous, so he decided to try a few. Hopefully, if the book were wrong, it would take more than a small amount to cause any damage…

  Gathering the berries and twigs for the fire, he went into his backpack to retrieve the matches. As he worked and lit the fire, the darkness had developed and strengthened. Soon the light of the small fire was the only light in sight.

  Eating the berries, along with pieces of his last loaf of bread, he tried to prolong and savor the little food remaining. He decided in the morning he would get up early, and start making his way down the river. Sitting and thinking of the amount of time it would take to accomplish this checkpoint, an idea struck him; why walk when he could possibly float?

  Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to comfortably sleep yet, as his eyes were not drowsy in the least, he began to think of ways to create a small raft. Walking around his tiny camping area, he found a few larger logs. They would definitely be strong enough to hold him afloat but the only problem was that he had no way to keep them together. Searching, he found vines that were hanging from the trees and entangling into bushes on ground level. Maybe they could work?

  He pulled a few down from the high branches and laid two of his logs out on the ground. Tying them together was harder than he expected, but worked perfectly. In a few hours he had a small raft that would hold together nicely, and carry him a lot faster floating than his legs would walking.

  The amount of energy he had exhausted throughout the day, and now building his raft, had utterly tired him out. The makeshift raft was not correctly proportioned and it was not pretty, but nonetheless it would float. He lay down with his head rested on his backpack, staring up at the stars. No matter what scenario or situation he was in, he still found the Earth incredibly beautiful. The wild creatures surrounding him, howled in the night but besides that, all was quiet. Slowly his thoughts drifted from danger, to calmness and the thought of finding the cave. And, soon he was dreaming…

  CHAPTER 6

  Edwin was startled awake to animals screaming and yipping; wolves whimpering and howling. He jumped up, and quick
ly grabbed his belongings, slinging his backpack onto his back. He gathered a handful more of the berries he had eaten the night before. Fortunately, they had caused no harm to his body throughout the night and he felt fine, minus the aches from sleeping on the ground.

  Standing at the shore he saw yet again a black figure moving in the brush, this time though it was tall, and almost resembled a human. He knew this to be nearly impossible, the only human in these parts of the forest, would have to be a Seer searching for the cave as well, or someone completely mad. Thinking of being followed made his skin crawl with alarming fear. He hurriedly pushed the logs close to the water’s edge, which was much harder than he expected because of the combined weight. Once half of the raft was in the river, the current helped to push the rest in. He sat in the middle of the logs and pushed with his feet off from the shore. Soon, he was cruising down the river at a slow but steady pace. Much easier than walking, he thought to himself.

  Going along the river he was able to see the gorgeous forest, at a much safer view. Animals on the shore and in the near distance, stared at him and his contraption, baffled. There were the large wolves that he had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting, along with fish underneath him using their legs to help them swim. Deformed deer with antlers half the size of their bodies stood near the water’s edge drinking, the weight of their antlers threatening to tip them over. Ginormous elephants with two trunks and bulging muscles that could be seen from his raft were treading around and walking towards the river. There were monkeys with eight limbs, as if they had somehow mated with spiders. There were extremely oversized frogs, snails, and mosquitos. Every creature imaginable was near the river, and for the most part seemed to get along. It didn’t stay that way for long though.