Magical After: Dark World Book 1 Part 1

by David Gunter

  So in that case, also see how miserably he was failing to climb and feel a little bit better for him since Hellen was nowhere in sight and had completely missed the display as she had already committed herself to the drama, which you will imagine was the source of the commotion in the woods.

  Too then, be comforted that she also did not see how he, after hugging the tree with arms and legs wrapped around it’s trunk, had accomplished little except offending the tree’s honor and had then fallen off the side of the tree, landing flat on his back. He then had simply lain there in sheer exhaustion, and this only we know.

  He lay there breathing in deeply and staring into space, fully expecting his life to come to a painful end. He had run to his fullest and given his attempt to flee all that he had to give.

  ‘I’m vanquished… death come for me, and horrid creatures take me’, he lay there thinking.

  David lay on the floor, looking up at the starry night sky and the trees swaying above. And then, laying there for a few minutes, he suddenly realized that he could still hear the commotion in the woods far away in the distance and that nothing was coming for him.

  He looked around and saw nothing and no one around him, and then he looked in the direction of the noises in the distance and noticed a glow or sort of light coming from that area of the forest, which for the most part was completely dark.

  “That’s odd. What the heck is going on over there anyway?” He asked himself more to calm himself and introduce a sense of control rather than out of true curiosity.

  “Help meeee. Stop them. Protect my baby.” An eerie and non-human voice was saying from the direction of the shouting.

  “Oweee… Save meeee” it said. But David didn’t hear these words like the shouts and other noises, but rather it felt that these words were coming to him through other ears. He could make the words out clearly, he was sure, but they did not feel like words that his ears could hear. They were words of a creature of natural beauty, and he knew too that this creature could do no harm. It was so odd how these words though clearly desperate, words of someone undergoing some horrible event, were also very peaceful and lovely in some way.

  In that moment of serenity, listening to these desperate pleas for help, David walked upon a scene which his mind could not comprehend. He found himself standing just outside of sight, but he couldn’t figure out how he had gotten there. His legs must have moved involuntarily, or perhaps the voice had been too compelling, and curiosity had won over his fear of the forest. Well, whatever had brought him there, he now knew that he was a part of this story, and there was no running away.

  He knew these things to his core because what he saw unraveled into a tragic scene that he could not stand by and simply watch. A great white tree emanated beautiful white light swaying in the dark while all around its base were short little leaf-covered creatures with tiny sharp implements stabbing and poking at the tree.

  David understood that those little vegetable-looking creatures were attacking the tree, but it made no sense to him. Why would vegetable attack trees? The idea seemed funny to him, but the voice of the tree was sobering enough to act.

  He looked at the little green veggie people and realized that they didn’t seem so menacing but rather more like gardeners taking care of a weed that had grown in their woods. He thought that maybe the woods might be as scary to these creatures if he found a way of introducing an element of fear into the scene. He walked quietly behind one of the trees just outside of the glow of the white tree and from the dark found a menacing and deep growl from within him. As he started his low growl, it formed in waves and got deeper and darker with every vibration, and before he realized it, the angriest and meanest roar came from within him.

  “rrrrrooaaaaaRRRRRRRRrrr”

  A sound not belonging to this world came out of his mouth. It was mixed with anger, pain and ended in evil laughter. And when it was out of his mouth, he instinctually stared around wide-eyed in horror, afraid that the sound he had just made might have actually been from some monster in the woods.

  David could hear his own heart pounding in his chest, and no other sound could be heard anywhere. The forest had frozen in time. The only thing he could hear was the wind high above the trees. The vegetable people stood completely still, wide-eyed, and staring in all directions.

  An idea then came to David, ‘If I jump out from behind this tree, I’ll still be in the dark, and they won’t be able to see me exactly but simply see my silhouette. Then I’ll roar one more time and reach out with my arms as if to grab them.’ He convinced himself that he was going to behave monstrously. He and only he was the scariest thing in the forest tonight.

  “ROAAAARRRRRrrrrrrrWaWaHHAhahaha,” he jumped out from behind the tree and roared and laughed all at once while reaching out with make-belief clawed hands outstretched, ready to pounce on any veggie person that moved.

  ‘I eat all my veggies, and the lot of you look awfully tasty,’ he thought for support.

  The scene had changed a lot in those moments. In front of David stood about a dozen short leafy vegetable people with their eyes wide in shock and many with their mouths wide open or slowly opening. They were staring at him in such a state that he thought any one of them might fall over in a moment. He looked from one to another, noticing that they were too afraid even to breathe. Then one of them accidentally dropped the sharp implement they were holding, and it clattered to the ground. Two or three of them turned to look at the silly vegetable person that had dropped the device but then immediately turned to stare at David. David knew that if he didn’t act right away, his fearsomeness and the trance-like effect he had brought on these creatures would vanish, so he licked his lips visibly and took one step forward, telling himself that he simply had to look like a very hungry person that had just been provided with a delicious looking salad. A salad that might run away, he hoped.

  One of the creatures budged to make a move away, and David turned his attention to this creature and made a lunging motion as if to grab the little lettuce man, and then all the little creatures screamed and made to run away. David turned his attention from the first one that had budged and lunged at one of the closer ones, grabbing it by its leg, then swinging it around his head, noticing in the process how light the creature actually was, then tossed it far beyond the others. His compatriots saw their salad friend flying over their heads in the direction they were running and doubled their efforts to get away.

  David stood completely still then paused to listen to the sounds of the fleeing caesar salad. The humor of the whole affair suddenly hit him, and he started to laugh like he’d not done in so long. He was laughing at the wind, the trees, the vegetable people, and mostly at himself. He laughed until it hurt and then laughed a little more. And he remembered what it was to laugh and be a younger self with fewer cares.

  “I can’t believe what I’ve just done”, he said out loud. “I eat all my veggies? That’s what I think of when I’m trying to look scary? I’m lucky I didn’t start laughing right then and there”, he said to himself.

  He visibly noticed then that the white tree had a slight change in posture as well, and it looked like it was relaxing. Could he have just scared the victim he was trying to save in his display of ferocity?

  “Hey there? Big white beauty.” He said, not knowing what else to call it.

  The tree spoke in his head as it had before, and once more, it felt to David like the most peaceful state of mind he could ever attain.

  It said, “Hi, scary vegetable eater. You wouldn’t happen to eat trees from time to time, would you?”

  David laughed a bit at this question and said, “I’m not a tree eater, and honestly, I don’t eat vegetables if they walk and move like living creatures.”

  David took a closer look while continuing the dialogue and noticed that many silvery oozing cuts covered the base of the tree, and all around the tree, he could
spot roots lying cut into pieces. “You seem very badly hurt. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “You’re a kind vegetable eater then. I am afraid that little can be done to save me now, however. I will die. I was the last of my kind to inhabit these forests. I was once visited by fairies and pixies from all over this world and even from other places beyond. But the fairies and pixies have been at war for a long time with each other, and they stopped visiting me many centuries ago.” Said the white tree.

  David wondered about the fairies and pixies for a bit, but he supposed that here in this place, anything could and should be expected. “Is there nothing then that can be done to undo the damage the veggie people did?” He said with just a little hint of hopefulness.

  The white tree paused as if to think about what could be done and then said in the most melodious voice David had ever heard, “My name is Ellesmera, The Tree of Hope. It would seem that you have hope living within you, stranger. I would know how this is so and what hope means to you. Hope has long been forgotten here in this world, so I would know this before I am no more.”

  David did feel hope but had to think for a moment why he felt this way. “Hellen, he said at last. She is my hope. I will find my wife in this world, and she and I will be reunited with our children. It’s the last chance I have to see her, and even though I will have to return to my own world one day, I hope to find her and be with her, if even for a short while. I suppose that is why I have hope.” He said this and then wondered if perhaps the tree of hope, as it had described itself, might, in fact, hold the key to finding Hellen, but before he could ask this, the tree responded.

  “So hope, love, longing, and sorrow all follow you, stranger. These are not foreign ideas to my kind. You might be the one that I was waiting for, and yet how strange that you would appear before I catch my last starlit sky. How strange indeed, but here we are now. I see too that you have a blessing from the man in the night sky and, in fact, a two-fold blessing of both creativity and moonlight. That you would appear on the night of my undoing is nothing of pure chance. I will, therefore, give you a quest and one that may be the final stand of hope on this planet. I bequeath upon you my final seed.”

  David watched in wonder as a branch high above the ground came down to him and, his eyes wide in expectation, watched as a silver leaf opened to reveal a very ornate seed in its center.

  As he reached out to take the seed, a calm fell on him, and before touching the seed, he did something unexpected. David calmly slid his hand over the bark of the branch and, before he knew what he was doing, started singing a lullaby. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word…” and the words kept coming out of him. While he sang the song, with such care and tenderness, he took the seed in his hand carefully and brought it close to his mouth, kissing the little seedling with such kindness that it seemed to him he was holding one of his own children when they had been so small and had still fit in his hands.

  His words and his song deeply impacted the tree as it did something which it had not done in over a thousand years. It’s eyes opened, and from the left eye, a small tear was seen to trickle down to a point on the lower eyelid where it almost fell from the tree to the ground.

  David, seeing the crystalline tear walked nearer to the tree and let the tear fall on his hand. As the tear landed on his hand, it sizzled and burned a tiny bit, but he refused to let it fall to the earth. Then the tear formed into a hard stone but retained its smooth tear shape.

  As he looked up from the tear, he saw the tree once more but not as he had seen it before. It was as if he could see inside of the tree and what he saw was incredible. It had what appeared to be a thick concentration of networked nerves all throughout. And he could also see all the parts of the tree that had been so horribly wounded and broken. He also instinctually knew that there was nothing that could be done for the tree. As he watched the network of nerves, he saw too that they were pulsing slower and slower with every passing moment, indicating it soon would die.

  David reached out and touched the tree where a mouth might be and softly said, “I’m sorry I didn’t come to save you sooner.”

  “Don’t worry about this bark; I will live again in the seed that you carry. I am hopeful, and now, wherever you take this seed, hope will go with you. My tear has changed you too, has it not?” said the tree.

  David nodded his head in recognition of the change.

  “Yes, it has indeed,” the tree continued. “You are blessed far beyond your kind to have received the seed of a hope tree and also its tear. All manner of plant and tree will speak to you and obey your words. For your kindness and aid during the time of my passing, these blessings will aid you in all that you do. Now go from here and forget not the quest that I’ve given you.”

  David realized that he hadn’t received instructions for the quest and thought that perhaps the tree had forgotten to mention its details. Then, as he looked upon the tree, the quest simply appeared in his mind. He was to take the seed to the forest of the fairies as a peace offering between the pixies and the fairies. He saw that in its last dying breaths, the tree had given him the life of a white tree pixie which was cocooned within the white tree seed. In fact, the white tree, he now saw, was a pixie tree. ‘What an odd form for a pixie,’ he thought, and with that thought, he saw too that a pixie which took a form other than that of a pixie was a rare pixie indeed. It was an act of complete selflessness for a pixie to assume any form other than that of a pixie. He knew then that the mystery of fairies and pixies was something worth his effort, so he decided to follow through with this quest and learn all that he could in the process.

  And then the tree pulsed slower and slower until it pulsed for the last time, and then, nothing happened.

  “How odd, seems kind of anticlimactic now,” David said aloud and then turned to walk away when a sudden cold wind blew past him towards the east. Then the trees all around seemed to vibrate as if the death of the white tree was a shock to all the trees all around. David could have sworn that he heard moans and bark screeching and wailing. The forest was alive and in upheaval.

  David no longer felt safe where he was, and he remembered he was in the forest. He thought that he should feel very afraid now in the woods alone at night, but he looked down at the baby pixie enclosed within the hope seed and realized that he felt different about everything.

  “I’m holding a seed of hope in my hands. An end to the war between pixies and fairies and the life of a magic tree. The woods won’t hurt me now, right?”

  Then he heard the trees making an audible groaning sound and saw many of them swaying with a bit more animation than he would’ve liked.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t overstay my welcome; I’ll get moving… and I’m sorry for your loss?” he said as if to tell the trees he would be giving them back their privacy and space to greave.

  Muttering to himself, he continued forward through the forest, “I’m walking through an angry forest in the dead of night. What was I thinking when I agreed to come to this VR place. They said it would be like a vacation for the kids and me. Oh! The kids, what must they be up to right now. That Carl, the 3rd guy, said the kids would be joining me here. Why haven’t they shown up?” Briefly, the words that had come from the book dared to derail his mind. But he didn’t let them.

  This is shaping up to be the worst vacation anyone, anywhere has ever had. I’m starting to hope that the kids won’t show up here. This place is too unpredictable and a bit too dangerous, I think. Everything feels too real here. I am walking barefooted through the forest, and everything hurts… and it’s cold too.” He walked along, talking to himself about many other things so as not to think about the forest or the swaying trees and other noises.

  Then he came to a ravine. He stopped muttering to himself and looked down at the thin stream that was winding its way through the ravine. It looked like a peaceful scene, though, to him, but it would’v
e looked a lot more peaceful in the daylight, he thought. He looked up the stream and from where it flowed and saw that a mist was moving slowly down the ravine and seemed to be following the flow of the water. The mist came through the ravine in waves, finally obscuring the stream and rocks on either side of the ravine, and with it came a cold chill as well. He folded his arms and made a motion to warm himself, and then he heard a sound.

  David heard the sound once more, and he realized that something or someone was coming down the ravine and was walking on its rocks below, moving closer.

  “Oh, what now,” he said in a whisper and then jumped inside a nearby bush and stared wide-eyed through the branches to see what was coming down the ravine. He heard a few more stones and pebbles shifting underfoot and saw a shape emerging from the mist that he could only have described as the essence of nightmares.

  “Oh my…” he covered his mouth, which he had let fall opened and stared with eyes wide at the thing that now came into view through patches of cleared mist and moonlight. The creature that moved within the cold mist was best described as a wolf that walked on two feet. It had a large head with an upper-body that was clearly made of pure muscles, and its entire body was covered in a dark blue matted fur that was thicker in areas of its chest, stomach, and lower body but thin to non-existent on its neck, arms, and hands.

  The creature was simply strolling down the ravine and didn’t show any signs that it knew of David’s presence. Then David saw one of its ears twitch and then turn in his direction, and he gasped again and covering his mouth even tighter and only then realized that his heart was beating so hard that it was a wonder the monster hadn’t noticed him sooner.

  Then the wolf creature turned and looked directly at him. It didn’t do anything but stare.

  David knew that his life was over. No, to be exact, he felt himself die over and over in the span of those few moments. Then he did something that made no sense. He stood up out of the bush and a little too loudly said, “Well, if you’re going to eat me, just get it over with. I’m tired and cold, and this suspense is killing me.”