Drops of rain spattered on my face. I felt a deep pit in my stomach. A pit I had been filling up with endless whiskey for the last month and a half. What stood before me was the edge of a cliff I was about to plunge into. I didn’t care to live. The bottom of my third bottle today was giving me the extra courage I needed to not think about what it. Soon it would be all over and I wouldn’t have to live with this misery anymore. I would finally find sweet release.
About to take a step forward, a soft voice came from behind. “Are you going to kill yourself?”
I turned around, confused that someone was out here in the storming rain. I mean, I was, but I had a reason.
Behind me was a little girl. She stood under five feet, her hair silver-colored and long, stretching all the way down her back. Her skin was pale, her body frail and she had this uncanny valley feeling. But what put me off was her eyes. The pupils were a milky glaze but the iris was a bright golden color. It was actually beautiful in a horrific way.
“Get out of here brat,” I waved my hand, wanting this to be a lonely moment for me and not to give a child some trauma.
“But you’re going to jump off that cliff, aren’t you?”
I swallowed; a burning sensation at this point due to all of the alcohol I had been drinking today. “Yeah…”
“Why?”
My head looked down, I felt shame for what I was about to do. Even though my drunken state was supposed to remove all anxiety, the fact a child was here watching me made me feel even more pitiful.
“Just— it’s been a bad time,” my voice broke.
“Is it because your wife killed herself? Or maybe it was because your son was kidnapped and murdered?” she spoke with a sudden coldness.
My eyes lifted, sudden, seething hatred coursed through my veins as I looked at her. How did she know about all that?
I marched towards her, my anger blinding me because I didn’t need to hear any of this right now.
“I wouldn’t let my hatred get the best of me right now if I were you.” she spoke with authority.
“SHUT UP!” I snapped.
She didn’t say anything, her lips tightly sealed. I kept looking at her, my hatred still boiling but when I thought about it a little more, I was able to take a few deep breaths and cool my head.
“No, I shouldn’t have said that to you. But how do you know about my situation?”
She walked towards me, no fear in any of her movements and I thought she was blind but it seemed like she knew exactly where I was. She looked up at me with a dead stare. “I’ve come to help. Do you know anything about the Redeemer’s Forest?”
“N— No…”
I can take you there. And if you can get through the journey, all of the pain you’ve felt will be healed.”
I looked at the child. Her face looked sincere enough and I thought about what she had said. No, this didn’t make any sense. How would a child know about any of this stuff? But did it matter? I humored her.
“What do I have to do, little girl,” I said with a hint of condescension, but she didn’t seem to take offense to my skepticism.
“Go home. Drink a glass of water. Get in bed at exactly midnight.”
The rain was still splashing on my whole body, leaving me drenched and cold. Maybe this was all a strange hallucination I was going through. But, what did I have to lose? I already lost everything as it is. What’s one more night? There’s always tomorrow.
***
That night, I did exactly what she said. And right when it was turning twelve, I quickly got into bed and covered myself with the blanket. I thought this was all stupid and that I should be dead in a ditch right now.
I watched the clock from across the room as it abruptly turned to 12:01.
“Well, this was pointless—” without warning, the room suddenly faded and I was thrown into pitch blackness and I felt my body freezing up. I couldn’t move and I thought I was struck with some sort of paralysis. My body was constricting and I felt as if I was being crushed under some unusual weight hiding in the dark. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t say a thing. I wanted to scream at that moment but all I could muster was a slight huff of air. Fear took hold of me until I fell unconscious.
Then, I was walking. I don’t remember when I even started. But I was approaching an exit. A light at the end. A crimson light. And extreme heat.
Surprisingly, I still felt like I was me. Like I was alive and fully aware. Nothing like a dream. This was a real place I was walking into.
Emerging from the cave, I saw I had entered somewhere unbelievably distressing.
What I had exited was a few outlandishly tall mountains, steep, about a 90° angle. But what lay in front of me was massive stretches of rolling, blackened dirt fields with dead, twisted trees. Plant life so deformed and mangled, covered in dozens of mouths screaming at the top of their lungs.
I wanted to go back into the cave, but when I turned around, it was nothing more than solid rock. The rocks were covered in ants that had these alien-like features. They had antennae shaped like slug eye stocks, but also three real eyes on their heads, and walked around on miniature human fingers. They also made a loud noise that resembled laughing children.
I quickly moved away from them. But I also didn’t want to get closer to the trees. I was at a loss of what to do but was forced to relent and choose the least terrible option. Trees it was.
Walking into the dead forest, I looked up at the sky for the first time. I don’t know why I didn’t do this before, but I did now. I guess my mind was still trying to process everything on the surface. Dark clouds were already in the process of breaking up. But a few of them seemed to resemble skulls. Human skulls that rolled on top of each other as the clouds broke apart. Above them, they revealed gigantic eyeballs with massive tendrils stretched out over the horizon.
“Sick…” I muttered, still not entirely sure if I’m having an insanely vivid dream or a bad acid trip. But I don’t take drugs. And I felt truly here.
The air was crispy. Almost like it was trying to fry my skin off. I was terrified I would cook out here even though it didn’t feel like it should be hot. Yet my body was reacting to it in such a way.
“Hello,” I mumbled, a little scared of what might be attracted to my voice if I called out too hard. But at the same time, I wished there was someone else here.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
Taking a few steps forward, I heard a familiar voice from behind a tree in front of me. The little girl stepped out, only this time she had a slight smile on her face. The face looked too mischievous for my liking.
“You did it.”
“Yeah…” I hesitated, “but where exactly am I?”
“I told you, this is the Redeemer’s Forest. I saw you about to make a stupid decision and saw to it that I take advantage of the situation.”
“What? You’re saying you tricked me!?” I stomped my feet forward, the anger in my tone of voice rising.
“I’m sorry. But most people don’t consent to being mentally sent to a reality as nightmarish and atrocious as this place.”
I was about to grab hold of her, angered by her words, but she stepped behind the tree and walked out from behind another one a dozen feet away from me.
“Stop letting your anger get the best of you. It’s not going to serve you well here.”
I was gritting my teeth. I didn’t enjoy getting tricked. I’ve been through so much of that already and having someone else play with my mind was only causing further aggravation.
“Stupid kid,” I scoffed at her, walking away from this conversation.
“You’ll thank me later.” her voice blew across the landscape, but I was already too heated to want anything more to do with her.
After walking around to cool off, it dawned on me that I had made a huge mistake. I had no idea where I was, and now I had no idea how to get out of it.
“Geez, I honestly can’t deal with this today. I knew I should’ve jumped that cliff.”
When I finally found the level-hededness, I needed to start thinking clearly, the silence was broken by the sound of something trudging through the dirt. It sounded gruff, animalistic, and had a sloppy, fleshy smacking of lips.
Terrified, I hid behind a nearby tree, although they were all moaning and drawing attention to themselves, I didn’t think it would affect my chances of remaining unseen. I tried to steady my breath, but my heart was beating at a rapid pace. I couldn’t slow it because my fear of being hunted was already kicking in. Still, I wanted to get a look at what it was.
I peeked around the edges of the tree, my eyes widening when I saw what was making the noise.
Standing at 15 feet, a gargantuanly fat, cow-headed, humanoid was tearing through the dirt, its massive hoof-like feet leaving behind ditches. It was covered in dirty, mangled hair as dark as obsidian. Its horns looked to be made of the same material. It carried a long spear and didn’t seem to be aware of my presence yet.
Still, I knew better than to step out and reveal myself. It snorted, letting out a cow-like call. I felt my lungs seizing up with fear as I was trying to pin myself as close to the tree trunk as I possibly could.
A loud thumping slowly got closer to me. I couldn’t control my breathing, I wanted to start running but I wasn’t too sure if I could out-race it.
A scream erupted. A woman screaming.
I peered out and saw the cowman had grabbed someone else. I wasn’t alone here. He had taken hold of some blonde woman, her body already looking like it had been mangled by previous injuries, and the cow was pulling on one of her arms, crushing it inside his gigantic grasp. She screamed fits of terror, causing me to break out in a sweat as I listened to her desperate pleas for mercy disappear.
“Oh God! Oh God! There’s no way that was real!” I choked up.
I was holding onto my heart, my mind racing with a thousand thoughts about whatever that was.
“It was real.”
My heart nearly jumped out of my mouth when I heard those words. But I barely regained control of my composure and looked around. I didn’t think there was anyone else here but a redheaded woman stepped out from behind a tree.
I let out a fit-full scream, fear crawling across my brain as I took a glance at the woman in front of me. She wore a tattered, dark green robe, torn to-ribbons jeans, and a white T-shirt with over a dozen small holes, but that wasn’t the reason for my panic attack. It was because, sticking out of her skin, all of her veins and arteries hung from her body. They were extended out so far that a lot of them were dragging on the ground behind her, but thankfully they did not appear to come out from her face and hands.
“Dear God, what happened to you,” I fell to the ground and started crawling backward as she approached. Her eyes gave a dead expression as she stared at me.
“I— unfortunately— had a bad experience here a few years ago and haven’t been able to remove them successfully. But if you’re done crying about my appearance, we better find shelter soon. The storm clouds are about to show up.”
She pointed up at the sky and I saw it again. Thick, brownish cloud formations were gathering. Slowly they were starting to morph into the shape of skulls and hands with pointed fingers. Looking a little further toward the west, I saw one of the storm clouds had already formed. Gigantic hands were reaching down toward the ground, picking up something too small for me to see.
The lady was already running, and I quickly got back to my feet, realizing she was no danger to me. I chased after her, desperately not wanting to get caught out in whatever storms these clouds would bring.
***
We ran for a few minutes until she led me to a foxhole in the ground. I was a little hesitant to follow, but she went in headfirst, crawling all the way in. Storms were gathering and I saw long, twisted stretches of tornadoes approaching, alongside pillars of blazing flames dancing across the surface of this world.
“Get in,” her voice echoed from the tunnel.
Not wanting to get caught out here, I went in and crawled into the darkness, but thankfully there was a small lantern at the other end.
She was crouched with her legs pulled up to her chest. She watched as I tried to get myself situated and said, “So, what brings you around here?”
“Oh you know, I wanted to see the sights,” I sarcastically remarked.
“Very funny. But what is your reason for coming to this reality?”
“I was tricked into making a deal with some little girl.”
The lantern flickered and there was a loud boom that echoed from above. I could hear the wind outside picking up and blowing at tremendous speeds that probably would’ve shredded the skin right off of my body.
“I know what girl you’re talking about. She made the same deal with me years ago.”
“Years?”
“Yes,” her voice carried a jolting heaviness.
“What is this place?”
She thought about it for a moment and explained, “I asked many people who are also trying to survive here. This place, this land… many believe it to be another reality. Something beyond our physical realm that we inhabit. A place only the mind can enter.”
“Heh, seriously?”
She nodded.
“Then, what was that bull-headed man?”
That was a Hunter. Not yours though. This world manifests a monster that aims to find and torture you. And their methods are worse than you can possibly imagine. That bull monster probably belonged to the woman it found and carried off.”
“So I have one?”
“Yes. Everyone gets one. And most of the time they only go after the person they are specifically hunting. But sometimes if you find yourself in their way, you’ll be briefly attacked before they get bored and continue their hunt for the main target.”
“But wouldn’t that mean you have one too?”
“Why do you think all of my veins are dangling out from my body?” she stared daggers at me.
I looked down shamefully. “Sorry…”
She took a few deep breaths and laid back against the dirt wall. We waited for a good while as the storm passed overhead. I kept thinking about why I was sent here. It didn’t make any sense.
“So what reason do you have for being here?” her question rang out.
I scratched my head and thought about it. With nothing else to do and maybe getting a little off of my chest, it might help to tell someone.
“Well, besides the fact I was tricked into coming here, I was married. I had a son. My wife and I didn’t seem to talk too much and I hardly spent enough time with them…”
Emotions were starting to well up again. Talking about this was becoming more difficult with each word that passed through my lips.
“And?” her eyes had an intense focus on me.
“And one day, he was kidnapped.” I swallowed, a lump growing in my throat with tears trying to force their way out, “We tried our best to cooperate with law enforcement to find him but a few days later he was found. In the ditch. And after what the autopsy told us about what he likely went through, it broke both of us. No child should ever have to go through such god-awful, traumatic torment right before being… being…”
The words escaped me. I didn’t feel like I could go any further with what I had to say. My heart was aching too much and I felt intense pain coursing through my chest. My eyes were starting to break and I sniffled a little louder than I expected.
“I’m sorry that happened. But this place is typically reserved for those who did something wrong. Why are you here?”
I said, “I don’t know. Maybe because after it happened, I threw myself into my work even more so. She always complained about me working too much before it happened. Everyone kept saying it was my fault when she broke and took her life. She didn’t want to deal with the memories of what we had gone through. And it left me by myself. Everyone blamed me, everyone always blamed me. Her dad said it was my fault she did it. That I should’ve been there for her but no one ever thought about what I needed!” my anger exploded momentarily which surprised the woman.
Finally, I let the tears escape and wept bitterly. It was all too much to keep it all in and I didn’t want to deal with this pain anymore.
“And once she was gone, I lost all meaning to go on by myself; prepared to jump off a cliff and get it over with. I had nothing. And that’s when that little girl talked to me.”
The red-headed woman’s eyes never broke. It dawned on me I never asked for her name.
“I’m sorry. I should have remembered this back when we first met. What’s your name?”
She scratched the side of her arm, keeping herself closed off even more so. I thought I had done something wrong but she said, “Angie. Don’t worry, I only hesitated because it’s been so long…”
“So long?” I questioned.
“So long since I last said it. I’ve been here for so many years that I don’t even know the exact time. A few decades maybe?”
“Why are you here?” I asked.
She looked up at me, her eyes red with tears. Her face dropped to her knees and she sobbed hard. I sat there quietly until she finished. I felt so helpless because she was hurting, I was hurting. Neither of us knew the right words to say to each other. Maybe there wasn’t a word that could be said to make the pain vanish.
She broke the silence. “I’m sad to say I don’t remember all that well. A lot of the other people I’ve met here say the same thing. You must be incredibly new to still remember your reason.”
I sat there in my silence, watching as she had an explosive outburst of emotion.
“It’s not fair!” she shouted before lowering, “I remember there being a little boy. Did I have a son? A nephew maybe? It feels like I’m responsible for his death. I don’t remember it though. It feels like the memories have died within me.”
The wind outside slowly faded from existence. We were now left with a much more peaceful quiet time to recover ourselves and put on our brave faces. She calmed down last, I being the fastest one to steady my feelings, and she felt like it was the best time to exit the hole. She climbed out first and I followed after and we were both outside, surrounded by dying flames and scorched trees. The mouths were screaming in agony, and this brought even more discomfort to me.
“Is there any way we can get out of here?”
“All I’ve ever heard of is that we’re supposed to find a bush. If we find the bush, we can go back home. Something about our sins being forgiven or something.” she shook her head dismissively at the notion.
“Well, where do you suppose it is?”
“You think any of us would be here if we knew where it was?”
Now I understood. It was a hidden treasure we had to seek out. And seek it out I did. She had grown complacent and had given up any hope, but I was not going to since I was new and still had that fire burning within me to get out. But we’d always retreat back to the foxhole whenever another one of those horrendous storms reared its ugly head, or when a monster would come along, looking for its prey.
***
I could only guess a few weeks have passed. Despite feeling hunger and thirst constantly, we did not succumb to these demands of our bodies. I guessed that we didn’t need to eat or drink, although it would’ve eased the suffering. But I was only able to avoid the other problem for so long. Avoid the monsters that roamed about. That changed when I had my first encounter with mine.
I was sitting in front of a tree, listening to its whispers. It wasn’t screaming like the others, and I was a little curious to hear what it had to say.
“No sight. No sight. Walk. Walk. Walk.” and repeat. What could it mean though?
But a clicking, hissing sound echoed behind me. I was immediately thrown up from my feet, grabbed forcibly by something with sharpened claws, and tossed towards another patch of trees violently.
I hit my head on the trunk, and the tree began to scream excitedly, believing I was assaulting it.
Looking on the other side, I saw a hunched-over, feminine monstrosity. Her eyes were like a hornet’s, her mouth atrociously stretched open to reveal teeth like an angler fish, her arms were absurdly long, practically dragging across the ground and the claws on those fingers were well over 10 inches. Her skin was a sickly green tint, covered in spider veins, and on her back were shards of her ribs poking out. In essence, pure nightmare fuel.
I quickly got to my feet and ran as fast as I could. There was no way I was going to let something as heinous as that get its blood-soaked claws on me. But I didn’t have a choice in the matter when I felt it jump onto my back, pinned me to the ground, and started slicing into me.
I screamed out in tormented agony, words escaping me as the air was sucked out of my lungs. The creature kept making that clicking, hissing sound the whole time, and at some point, everything started to turn red. I realized blood was covering my eyes and I thought I was going to die.
Suddenly she stopped, got off my back, and dragged me by my feet, scratching the front of my body up against rocks, dirt, and charred wood.
I tried to get the strength to resist, but I couldn’t fight back anymore. My strength was gone because hunger and thirst had left me somewhat paralyzed. I kept crying out for Angie, but I never saw her. Where could she be? I thought I was being loud enough. But she never came.
***
The following events were some of the most unpleasant. I would spend an uncertain amount of weeks being tortured. She had left me in a cave, somehow having chains ready for me and keeping me in place. She would occasionally go out, giving me a moment of peace before she would come back with a clay bowl filled with acid.
But before she did what she did, she took this strange, fleshy substance and put it over my eyes. I was effectively blindfolded.
She’d dump the bowl on my head, and I felt all my hair and skin melting off. This was unbearable agony that nobody should ever experience. It felt like I was being specifically targeted for no good reason. Just like how everyone always targeted me back on Earth. They blamed me for things that were out of my control.
Once she was done melting the skin off, she took her long claws and effectively gutted me. How I was still alive, I had no idea.
She mangled my body until it was nothing more than a broken tangle of flesh and bones. Still, she never took off the fleshy flaps from my eyes. I kept wondering why my eyes were being protected? I tried asking her, but she stuck one of her long claws right down my mouth, popping out the back of my head.
After enduring this for so long, I had grown used to the torture. My body was sapped of blood and water, and my nerves had already been fried to the point where I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I could still hear, smell, taste and I guess see if it wasn’t for the flaps, but all sensations of the skin, as well as internal organs, were basically dead.
On one particular day, my hunter left, likely to get more acid, and I heard someone’s voice call out to me.
“Psst, hey, are you there?”
“Yeah,” my hoarse voice called back.
I heard the sound of footsteps approaching, and a loud gasp. “Oh God, what has that thing done to you!?”
Whatever was done to me, it had to be bad.
“Don’t worry. I think you can still move.” she reassured me.
I felt her hands around my cheekbones, and she peeled off the flap from my eyes. The damage my body had sustained was more than extensive. My skin was nearly gone, muscles exposed and rotted, and a few internal organs were visible.
“You’re not going to like this, but you can’t die here.”
I smiled, even though I knew most of my teeth were gone. “Yeah, I kind of figured that one out on my own.”
She found the key nearby and got me out of the chains. She explained to me that she had been looking for me the entire time. She wasn’t sure where I had been dragged off, but when she was able to find another wanderer passing by, he mentioned about me in the cave.
The whole time I wanted to fall asleep, but I had to hold out until we got back to the foxhole. She said everything would be better once we got there. I remember little of the journey, only remembering she stuffed me down the hole first, but I was a mangled mess of flesh and bone. She crawled in and rested on the other side. Her face was screaming exhaustion and both of us finally rested.
***
I woke up, not from any rested feeling, but only because I felt an immense amount of pain return. It was the type of burning sensation you get when you touch glowing hot iron. My exposed muscles had gotten dirt in them and the stinging was so bad, I barely could get up. Nerves returning?
“JESUS! GOD WHY DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!?” I shouted.
This stirred Angie, and she saw I was having the worst of wake-ups.
She calmly replied to my rhetorical question, “Maybe we deserved this?”
“Why!?” I shouted, taking another look at my body and noticing that it was healing. Even though my hands had most of the flesh melted off, all the way to the bone, it was scabbing back up and some of the meat had been growing back over the fingers.
“We did bad things,” she sighed, “now we live in this place.”
“I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG!”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
“YES, I JUST—”
I stopped. Tears welling up. I realized what I had done wrong.
“I wasn’t a good husband or father…” I mumbled, disturbed by my own words.
Angie watched as I realized what I had done wrong. I wasn’t there for those who needed me. I was neglectful. I didn’t pay enough attention to my son, thus losing him. I didn’t comfort my wife or even try to be there for her in any capacity. I simply went to work and tried not to think about it. I abandoned those who needed me. Was this why the girl chose me?
I felt a looming presence nearby and both my and Angie’s eyes drifted toward the exit. It was the little girl. Her appearance was different. She didn’t look so sickly and uncanny as before. Now she appeared with long, blonde hair, a healthier body weight, and skin as perfectly clear with no blemishes or imperfections of the sort. Her eyes still had that glow, but it had dimmed a little.
Both of us jumped back, but it was more painful for me to do so. She had a slight smile growing on her face, and said, “Good, you’re making progress. You’re getting close to escaping now. But you’re going to have to have a little faith and believe things will work out. This is my final message to you. I didn’t do this to torment you. Your torture is of your own creation. It’s up to you to make the final choice. Now find the bush.”
With those words, she turned back and climbed up the hole, sparking curiosity in me to follow suit. Angie followed too and we watched as she hopped on the back of a creature that possessed the body of a deer, but its head was an owl possessing four faces on each side. Each of the owl’s eyes was a different color and the neck would spin to change faces. Its tail was also long and covered in hair like a horse, and it had absurdly long goat horns piercing out from atop its head. The fur was a mesmerizing malachite color.
The creature shook its head briefly and frolicked away, disappearing into the smoke and fire with that strange girl.
Angie and I returned back to the foxhole and contemplated what our next move was going to be?
I thought long and hard about what she was talking about. What could someone like me do? I had come to the conclusion that I should have done more for my wife and son. God only knows I would try to make everything right if I could, but maybe that’s not the point. I’ve accepted that I’ve made some bad decisions. I have to live with them now.
Angie was sitting across from me, staring at the fire inside the lantern. Then she propped her head up. “I know what I did.”
Tears fell as dew drops on glass until she stared back at me.
“What?”
“I killed my nephew.” those words hung for a moment, “I remember now. Or rather, I had been suppressing these memories for so long that I genuinely believed I did nothing to deserve any of this. But I do. I deserve it all…”
I got up so I could sit closer to her and she held on to my arm. The feeling of the veins still dangling on her skin was an uncomfortable feeling when they rubbed up against my partially healed skin.
“I was young. I wanted to be a great aunt. I brought him with me to a party. I thought everything was okay and that I was invincible. I drank a lot, even did a few drugs. When the party was over, I was a little too confident I could still drive. I…” she paused, her face melting into a much more broken person than before. Again, she almost looked like she was losing her will to breathe.
I reached my hand and covered over hers, “It’s okay. I’m not one to judge.”
“We crashed,” she said.
“I thought so.”
She covered her face a little, her weeping filling the cramped space.
“My sister was so heartbroken about what I did. I tried apologizing, but she said that she’d never forgive me. I got defensive. I don’t know what came over me at the time, but I thought that it was her fault. I even came up with the stupid rationalization that she should have been smarter to not trust him with me. I got into a bad habit of never taking the blame.”
“Me too,” I said.
We sat there in silence. The flames of the lantern were the only warmth to fill the icy coldness we felt. I was hollow now. I felt as if there was nothing more than complete self-loathing living within me. We both kept crying until sleep finally was kind enough to take us out of it.
***
I came outside some hours later, still looking at all the screaming trees, the skull clouds, and the sharpened rocky mountain ranges surrounding this strange reality we had found ourselves trapped in. But there was one tree I always happened to notice whenever we were in a different section of the land. Every now and then, there’d be a tree that only whispered. One near us. I kept looking at it.
It would repeat, “No sight. No sight. Walk. Walk. Walk.”
Angie came climbing up out of the hole and saw what I was doing. “Something caught your eye?”
“Yeah. Why is it that most trees scream but there’s always a strange individual among them that whispers those words?”
She saw what I meant and replied, “I couldn’t tell you.”
“No sight. No sight. Walk. Walk. Walk.” I repeated the phrase.
“It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“Why did my hunter make sure my eyes stayed intact? Unless…”
I took a few steps forward, swallowed despite the dry mouth, and told Angie, “Walk with me.”
She did. We walked, passing by all the trees. Hearing the chaotic roaring of hunters nearby. The cries of people who were being caught by them. And yet I was certain this was the only way to get out.
“Angie, I need you to trust me. Keep walking, but keep your eyes closed.”
“What? That’s dangerous. It’ll be more difficult to find the foxhole.”
I didn’t stop moving, but I said, “Faith Angie. We have to have it to escape from here. That’s what the girl made it sound like.”
She looked reluctant but when I met her eyes, she nodded.
Still walking, I closed my eyes. I had to keep breathing, maintaining a calm heart. And that was difficult when you were worried about crashing into a tree. But surprisingly, I never crashed into a tree once. The moment my eyes were shut, it felt as if I was walking not on rugged, battered land, but on the smoothest possible land. Like marble, solid and stable.
I kept pace and started to hear something. The crackle of a fire. And I felt the warmth of it.
When it was starting to become unbearable, I stopped and immediately felt Angie bump against me from behind.
The heat was so intense, it actually hurt my eyes. I took a few steps back and saw we had approached something amazing.
It was a large patch of bushes. But they were all on fire. Engulfed completely, yet physically unharmed. Burning bushes. A spectacular view.
“Is this the bush she was talking about?”
“I can’t imagine there being another one. She certainly left out the part where it was on fire.”
“What now?” I asked.
“I don’t know?”
I breathed, the burning heat passing into my lungs. It was far too hot for one to comfortably stand near.
I walked around the bushes, wondering if there was something behind it. But there was nothing. And when I got back over to Angie, we heard the shrieking of something chilling. My hunter had found me.
We looked towards the direction where it came from. Behind us was my hunter and hers. It looked like a knight, its armor was spiked and covered in crimson and black material. And its face was morphed to resemble a tiger helmet, and from within the mouth, hooks were reaching out.
We were trapped. I looked at them and back at the burning bushes, Panic setting in until I saw it. A path going right through the large patch. Just enough for a single person to fit in.
“We have to go through,” I grabbed her arm, moving closer.
But she pulled back, saying, “We’ll die.”
“We can’t die here.”
“It’ll hurt.”
I turned to the flames, then back to her. “It will. But sometimes you have to suffer in order for things to get better.”
Our hunters were getting closer and I took one deep breath. I had to believe there was a way out. Although I was not religious, I found myself praying.
Bracing myself, I took the first step and felt the stinging burns of embers beneath my feet. It was instinctual to jump back, but I had to take the next step. I moved forward, my raggedy clothes catching and the flames rapidly crawled up, dancing all over my body.
“GOD! OH GOD!” I cried.
Flames cooked my flesh, blackening it and leaving it crusty. It took every ounce of adrenaline coursing through me to keep going through but running proved too much. I was forced to walk at the fastest speed possible as the flames made my body rapidly deteriorate. My eyes started to melt, and my bladder released, only for it to boil on my exposed muscles. I couldn’t take it anymore and I wondered if Angie was even following behind me.
“Little more,” I thought.
My eyesight was gone but I knew to keep going straight. The fire was burning me up faster and I struggled to keep my feet forward, thoughts of turning back screaming at me. I stopped breathing, it was too much. I stubbornly kept my mindset despite that inferno destroying my existence until finally, I felt a release overtake me after I threw myself forward with one large step.
There was nothing for a moment. Emptiness. Bodylessness. The obliteration of one’s physical existence. And yet, still alive.
Suddenly, I found myself covered in ice, throwing myself forward and realizing I was covered in a cold sweat. My lungs were heaving hard and I looked around to see I was in my room. My mind was going at a million miles per hour and I realized what had happened.
I was home again. I made it. I made it through the burning bushes.
The emotions I was feeling were beyond overwhelming. I was about to go into hysterical crying until I felt the tugging of the sheets. I looked to my left and I saw… I saw her. It was my wife again, she was alive.
“Kaylee,” the words rolled out from my mouth as I caressed her cheek with my fingers. To have that touch again was the greatest feeling ever.
She stirred awake, only to see her husband in the middle of an emotional breakdown.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” she said, concerned.
No longer able to hold back, I quickly wrapped my arms around her, hugging her more tightly than ever. Thankfully, she returned my hug. That touch was something I could not treasure enough. I never want to release her and I cried. Cried so hard as she pulled me closer. Together again.
I finally answered her question, “Just a really bad nightmare.”
I had her back. And I had my son too. I had returned three days before his kidnapping, and I made sure it could never happen this time around. We avoided it and I made sure to have every opportunity I could to spend time with them. I never wanted to leave them alone and I worked hard at trying to find a job that would allow me to work at home. It was less money, but I think my wife understood I wanted to be with them more. And she did too.
I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve them. But I’ll never stop cherishing the time I get to spend with them. And I hope Angie was as fortunate as I was. All I can say is you should always try to appreciate the good things you got. Because not everyone gets a second chance. It’s better to be happy with your blessings. It’s better than having to walk through the flames.