Merek's Ascendance

by Andrew Lashway

  Merek shook his head. “Think of something else,” he said before he started to walk. Berries were all well and good, but bears normally ate fish, if his mother was to be believed. Disgusting stuff was fish, according to her. Merek didn’t know, he had never tried it.

  He really wanted to now, however.

  Following the sound of growls, Merek let them lead him to a stream. It didn’t look like the same stream as before.

  “We’ve got a few freshwater springs. Good to know.”

  He splashed some water on his face, feeling the cold on his skin. He then dunked his whole head into the stream, smiling as the refreshing water lifted his spirits.

  His head was still submerged when something bowled him over. He accidently swallowed some water and more went up his nose, causing him to cough. He opened his eyes, but his face was still drenched in water so all he managed to do was sting his eyes.

  Then something soft and wet licked his face, and he almost laughed.

  Rubbing the water out of his eyes, he looked up to see a bear child licking him. The other bear was there as well, licking his obviously wounded arm. He didn’t know if that would help him at all, but it actually made the lingering pain a little better.

  “Well, hello again. It seems you do remember me.”

  Their mother was next, and Merek couldn’t help but be a bit on guard. Perhaps she wouldn’t be as welcoming as her children were.

  Merek’s jaw dropped when she stood up on her hind legs and bellowed. He stood there, frozen in fear, as the bear’s arms lunged down.

  Into what Merek was almost sure was a hug.

  He had no experience with such things, but he had seen those in town from the few shop owners who had children. While it was definitely strange, it was also comforting to receive this… bear-hug.

  He awkwardly hugged her back until she went back on all fours and resumed hunting for fish.

  “Today is… weird. Very weird.”

  The bear babies followed their mother, though they were much more interested in playing in the water than actually trying to catch fish.

  “Y’know, Father always said bears would eat me without a second thought. Surprise, surprise, Father is wrong again.”

  Merek washed his hands in the stream. It took him almost two minutes to realize he couldn’t stop smiling.

  “Is that what it feels like?” he called to the bears, “to be free? To do… what you want? I could get used to it. Maybe.”

  His gaze turned to the distance, to the only home he had ever known. Was his mother alright? Did she make it? If she had, they’d probably be glad to never see Merek return. But if she hadn’t…

  If she hadn’t, how was Merek going to live with himself?

  One of the bears sauntered over to him and flopped lazily at his feet.

  “What am I doing out here? I don’t belong here. I’m not like you.” Merek reached down and scratched behind the bear’s ears. It stuck its tongue out. “I’m not free to do as I choose.”

  The mother bear growled loud enough to get their attention. The bear child immediately jumped to its feet and ran towards its mother, and the three of them ran off into the distance.

  Merek looked towards the sky, shifting uncomfortably. He looked back at the running bears, his face screwed up with worry. Anything that scared the bears was more than enough to give him pause.

  “Okay, Merek, I think it’s time we ran away.”

  He got to his feet and looked around, wondering where he should go. The sky looked completely normal, the ground wasn’t shaking with occasional tremors… everything seemed fine.

  So why didn’t that help his sense of foreboding?

  He followed after the bears, though their pace far surpassed his own. He raced down the stream, moving as quickly as he was able until a new noise made him pause. It sounded like a torrent of water, not unlike the wall of water from the night before. But there was nothing around him, no clouds or rain. He started to take a few steps back, his unease starting to shout in his ear.

  “Something is…”

  Before he could finish the thought, his foot landed on nothing and he was thrown to the ground. His back smashed into a pile of rocks and before he could control his momentum, he fell over the side of a cliff.

  Only a desperate grab for the edge saved Merek from falling what looked like hundreds of feet to a pool of water far below. But he had no leverage, nothing for his feet to grasp in order to help him get back up. His fingers started to slip; he couldn’t hold on to the rocks much longer. He was determined not to scream, despite the paralyzing fear that gripped him.

  Even his resolve couldn’t keep the gasp of denial from escaping his lips as Merek’s grip failed and gravity pulled him away.

  Roughly three feet.

  His feet his something solid and mostly stable. It took him a few moments to realize that he was, in fact, not falling to his death, but when he did he let out a long sigh.

  “What am I doing out here?” he asked the rocks that he now stood on. Upon closer examination, he found the rocks made a wall of the cliff face. He could probably climb down and continue following the stream.

  Then what?

  Merek shook his head, pushing aside the doubts he had. There was no time to worry about that. He had to get moving, or else he wouldn’t get away from… whatever it was he was trying so hard to get away from.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath, Merek started his descent. It was slow work, made worse by the occasional stone slipping loose. Merek had never once climbed rocks before, so the experience now was new and unsettling. Trees he was used to. Rocks were hard and unforgiving.

  “Father’s a rock. A lumpy, unchanging, slippery!” he shouted as a rock came loose and almost sent Merek crashing to the ground still a long way off. “Useless,” he continued, “rock. Not that I’d ever say it to his ungrateful, lopsided face.”

  Merek was making excellent progress until he was about twenty feet above the pool of water.

  Then the whole cliff shook.

  Merek clung to the rocks with all the energy he had left, but the shaking was just too much for the rocks to bear. Though Merek’s grip on the rocks didn’t break, the rocks grip on each other did.

  With a crash so quiet Merek nearly missed it, the stones came loose and flung him towards the ground. Only pure, random luck caused by the shaking earth sent him careening to the side instead of straight down, so he smashed into the water instead of the rocks.

  It was not necessarily a good thing.

  Amongst the many things that Merek had taught himself over the years, how to swim was not one of them.

  Chapter Three: Adaption

  He kicked his legs, but that was useless. He waved his arms frantically, but that didn’t seem to help him either. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down, left or right. All he knew for sure was that his heart was beating faster and faster, and there was a building pain in his chest that stretched up to his brain.

  He knew better than to scream, though every fiber of his being wanted to. The precious little air in his lungs was burning up fast, and he wouldn’t use any stupidly. His eyes shut tight out of a nameless fear, he didn’t see the hands coming.

  He only felt them as they pushed him deeper into the depths.

  Merek thrashed then, trying to throw off his attacker, but it was no use. He could feel them pushing him farther away from the light, but he couldn’t seem to throw them off. He couldn’t touch them. They weren’t actually there.

  The realization did nothing to help him. His air was running out. He had to get to the surface, he had to breathe, but he just couldn’t.

  Do you really want to?

  Merek had no idea what said it, who owned the voice or the thought it belonged to. All he knew was that he couldn’t feel his limbs, everything was going terribly, mercifully dark…

  His hand caught something.

  Merek latched on to it, whatever it was, with every ounce of strength he had left. It wa
s thick enough to pull him to a stop. He grabbed it with his other arm and pulled, finally breaking the surface of the water.

  Immediately, he spit out the water that he had unwillingly breathed in. He could only breathe in in very short bursts, and for a full ten seconds he couldn’t breathe out at all. When he had at last cleared the water from his lungs and could breathe again, he flopped down on the ground lifelessly.

  He was so out of breath he couldn’t even manage to remark on his rotten luck.

  Thirty seconds passed with nothing to break the silence but Merek’s ragged breathing. He beat his head against the ground, trying to ward off the incredible pain that was the firestorm in his chest.

  Suddenly remembering, he forced himself to his knees and looked into the pool. His eyes scanned its upset surface for some clue as to who hadn’t let him up, who had spoken to him, but there was nothing. He was very alone.

  Closing his eyes wearily, he fell to his back again. Maybe he would sleep a bit longer. Nothing terrible seemed to happen to him when he was asleep, as of late.

  Then the ground started shaking again. Merek opened his eyes, momentarily being blinded by the sun. He slowly rolled on to his stomach to better observe the cliff.

  The rocks were falling towards him.

  Energy born from fear flowed into Merek’s legs, and he was on his feet before he was even aware of getting up. Without pause, he bolted downstream, trying to maintain his balance between the shaking ground and his inability to stay focused. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say his brain was busy elsewhere and was longer in his head.

  So, naturally, Merek didn’t see the tree stump until he tripped over it.

  His momentum carried him clear over the stump, where he landed in a pile of dirt and leaves. His leg stung from where it hit the stump, but Merek didn’t much care. He was too tired to move.

  “Today…” he wheezed, “is wonderful. Just wonderful.”

  The ground shook again, but Merek ignored it. At least, until a stone smacked into the crook of his right leg with a painful thud.

  “At least the rocks don’t shout at me,” Merek sighed, pushing himself to a sitting position. The sting in his leg was only getting worse, so he peeled away his pant leg.

  He had to peel it, because there was a large spot of blood growing. The force of impact must have sliced a few layers of skin off, and the wound was bleeding. Merek winced as he examined it, but it wasn’t so bad. He had suffered worse wounds when he was trying to master how a sickle worked.

  “I guess I just need to clean this and find something to wrap it up with. Oh that’s right, the only other cloth I had was stolen by an injured mother bear. Well, I stay stolen. I did give it to her…”

  So Merek mumbled as he hobbled down the stream. There was no telling where he was going, but the water wasn’t deep enough here for him to submerge his leg to properly clean it.

  He didn’t have to walk long. He traveled maybe five minutes before he caught the scent of water and something else he couldn’t describe. Salt, maybe? The air certainly smelled salty, like Mother’s cooking when she simply did not care anymore.

  He passed through a clump of trees and found out, more or less, what he was smelling.

  It was a huge body of water, more water than Merek had ever seen before. It stretched out to the horizon, so vast Merek couldn’t see the other side. He smiled as he examined the turning waves, crashing on the rocks beneath him.

  “I’d say that’s deep enough,” he nodded, “if I can get down there.” His face screwed up in concentration, trying to find a safe way down. The rocks looked sharp and it was a sheer drop right onto them, so climbing down wasn’t an option. Merek looked down the coast, looking to see if there was a break in the rocks nearby. But all he could see for miles was trees and rocks.

  The stinging in his leg was only getting worse the longer he didn’t tend to it. Getting down didn’t seem to be an option at present, so instead Merek turned back to the forest. Crossing his arms thoughtfully, he looked at the trees.

  “I wonder…” he mumbled as he climbed the nearest tree, “if I can use leaves to cover up the wound…”

  It took some doing and Merek felt like he had pulled half of the leaves off of the tree, but eventually he fashioned a sort of bandage for his wound. The coolness of the leaves, if nothing else, relieved some of the pain, though their roughness made him question his decision.

  Eventually he just shrugged. A little extra pain was okay next to a little less lost blood.

  “Well, Merek, you’ve managed to survive two hours in the forest with no more injury than a messed up leg and almost drowning,” he chuckled, staying in the tree. It was nice in the tree, and he had a perfect view of the churning waves. He smiled involuntarily as he stared, relaxing for the first time in…

  Well, he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had last relaxed. He wasn’t sure he ever really had.

  This was an opportunity he wasn’t going to waste.

  Merek didn’t know how long he sat there, watching the water. The breeze was refreshing on his naked torso, and the scent of the water was still interesting and mysterious. In all honesty, despite the pain in his leg and the lingering pain in his arm, he was almost happy.

  Almost.

  His eyes darkened and the water disappeared from his gaze. The wound in his right shoulder seemed to get worse, so much worse, making Merek grab onto it and mentally begging it to stop hurting. He thrust his head back, hitting it against the tree with intentional force.

  It didn’t help nearly as much as he was hoping.

  Upset, Merek climbed down and started to walk again. He should probably endeavor to make it back to the cave before night fell. Who knew, maybe the bear was there and Merek could get his mangy coat back on his back.

  He nearly chuckled. Like that was going to happen.

  Regardless, he started walking in the general direction of the cave, following the stream in reverse. On his way, he found a branch that was nearly as tall as he was and remarkably straight. It would make an impressive shaft for a sickle or hoe or another such farming tool.

  “You know, I bet if I cut off these extra branches you’d be useful.”

  Merek looked around, thinking hard. The stream had a few rocks, but none of them looked sharp enough to be of use.

  Deciding to at least start it by hand, Merek started cracking off pieces of wood as he walked. The stick – now looking more like a staff as time went on – might be just what he needed. If he found a sharp enough tip, maybe he could use it as a spear. It wasn’t one of his favorite weapons the knights wielded, but it should help him survive.

  Then his stomach growled, as if to accentuate the point.

  “Oh right. I’ve had nothing but berries today. Well, I guess it’s time to see if I can catch any fish with you,” he said to the staff. What he wouldn’t give to have kept one of those arrowheads…

  It took him roughly an hour to find a path that lead him passed the waterfall. Twenty minutes after that, he found himself standing in the stream trying to catch fish. He used the staff to swat at them, but that was proving fruitless. They jumped out of the water, wriggling and twisting, but he just couldn’t manage to hit them.

  He was at it for ten minutes before annoyance took its toll. He had no way of catching anything, especially not when they were so much faster than he was.

  “Alright, stupid, stop just flailing about and think,” he scolded, leaving the stream for the moment and sitting down against a tree trunk. “I need to catch fish. The fish are quick. Meaning I need to either be quicker, or… or I need to cut off their escape.”

  Merek frowned as he thought. He couldn’t cut off the stream, even if he wanted to. So that meant he had to narrow down the existing water for the fish to swim through.

  “So what? I don’t have anything to build with, no tools. I guess I’ve still got my brain, for whatever that’s worth. Not that this hump of rock has ever…”

 
The idea hit him like a burst of sunlight during a rainstorm.

  First, he went back into the forest to pick some more berries. Though they weren’t very filling, they would keep him alive. Then he got to work.

  Merek spent the better part of two hours lifting rocks and replacing them in the stream, every so often trying to catch a fish and failing utterly. If he couldn’t catch the fish with his staff, he was going to catch them with his brain. Sort of.

  When he finished his work, he had crafted a small trap in the water. The rocks were in a small circle, large enough to fit a fish going in but tall enough to keep it from simply swimming out. True, it might jump out, but at that point Merek would be there to catch the fish and eat it.

  “Now to work on the ‘catching’ part,” Merek said, shifting through the rocks to find the perfect one. Several fish swam into his trap, and they stared at the rocks barring their paths in obvious confusion. Merek smiled, but then felt bad because of how scared they must be.

  “I’m feeling bad for the fish,” Merek said to himself as he raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to die out here if I can’t bring myself to kill a fish.”

  He continued his search, trying to ignore how bad he felt. It wasn’t that he any special affinity for fish. Up until today, the only ones he had seen were the few his father brought back to the cottage, purchased from a friend.

  “I wonder how he got them?” Merek thought, but that thought was blown away as he finally found what he was looking for.

  It was a rock that resembled an arrow head, edged nice enough to be sharp. The tip came down to a point that looked like it would pierce flesh.

  Merek hoped it did. His stomach was growling terribly.

  The fish weren’t completely stupid, and once they realized they were swimming into a wall of rocks they turned around and swam away. But, as Merek observed them, he saw they hesitated for a fraction of a moment, confused. In that moment, Merek would have to strike.

  It still wasn’t easy.

  Merek had no method of attaching the rock to the staff, so instead he ended up stabbing recklessly at the fish. That turned out to be even less effective than his previous attempts, and only served to scare off more fish.