Chapter 2 - The Road Less Traveled

An unusual-sounding alarm clock woke Akira up in a heap. She groggily huffed and clicked a single button to stop the bothersome noise. The young Alaskan sat up in bed and waited for her mind to register what she had to get ready for. Stretching her arms over her head with her hands cupped together, she let out a powerful yawn that alarmed Ivey. The young dog rushed into the room with a rubber ball still clenched between her back teeth. She jumped up onto the bed with excitement and dropped the ball at Akira's waist, took a seat, and waited for the ball to be thrown.

Akira smirked blearily and picked the slimy ball up off of her comforter. She threw it accurately out the doorway and watched Ivey skid across the hardwood floor trying to find her balance as she ran after her prey.

She couldn't have been that ecstatic to kill the White Devil?

Akira kicked her blanket to the floor and walked with a tired hunch toward the bathroom; she noticed the blood still resting in the sink from when she washed her hands of the killer's cold blood. She felt obliged to wash her hair in the sink rather than get her whole body washed in the shower.

While Akira got ready, Ivey lied down on her favorite rug in the center of the lounge and fell asleep curled up as a fluffy croissant. She didn't get much sleep after all of the stress three hours earlier.

Akira took a look at herself in the mirror. Her long, wet blond hair now darkened from the water, usually blond enough to be identified as "white" (about the same amount as the White Devil she killed). She had firm green eyes colored as dark emeralds. A small nose that she was thankful for, thin lips, and a few craters on her forehead scarred from acne that she was wholly insecure about. She had a profound widow's peak that she couldn't get rid of no matter how hard she tried. She gave up a few months earlier.

She was ready to leave by five-thirty, forcing old Ivey to quit napping and start journeying.

Wooden boxes full of herring were stacked on the east side of the Boxborough Cabin. Akira had never noticed them until Ivey's nose virtually detected them on their way to Anchorage. If she walked for at least six hours every day on the trip, she would be able to get to the festival by the next early morning, but since she set off so early, she could reach the neighboring village, Rindge Ibiza, by early ten o'clock. She could rest there after walking for a good five hours and still have the whole day ahead of her.

She started to head east with her dog by her side. The incredulous amount of wind that lingered on from the storm blew in the same direction she was walking; it looked as if the trees were pointing where to go. With Big Michael on her left hip and a flask of alcohol on the other, traveling was made easy. Everything else she needed was strapped to her back as a satchel, bound by chestnut leather and golden stitching on the edges. She received it as a gift the year before her mother acquired blood cancer. Her father hand-stitched it for her after hearing her fantasize about searching for such large aspirations. He told her, "Akira, once you grow old enough, when your courage is larger than your pride, use this - and fill a void meant filling.".

Thick fog swarmed the air around her like a ban of mosquitoes. Akira sped ahead of her dog and started to click with her tongue as if she were leading the blind. Ivey was trained for traveling through such weather and followed the sounds of Akira's mouth. Twenty more minutes of fog, thirty more minutes of minimal walking space, then - a visual silence.

No more large clusters of trees to obstruct their view. Akira could easily guide herself through the rest of the forest by pinpointing with the map in her hand. She was surprised at the fact that she could make her way through the foggy weather and still be on track. She was making excellent progress. The sun was a factor, as well. As long as the sun was still rising on the left side of the sky, she was headed in the right direction. She would now reach Rindge Ibiza in at least another hour, once she got out of the Di-La'Kaira Forest.

Just outside of the forest was an unfriendly town called Port Konawa; though it had a population of only one-hundred or so, they never accepted company from external sources, especially anyone or anything from the "Ungodly Forest". They were notably wary of White Devils, and treated everyone unfamiliar as so.

Akira followed the instructions that her passed father had scribbled down for her and avoided the so-called dangerous town. She took a sharp turn to the left and passed a few herds of Benji Rabbits. Her father wrote that down, as well; Benji Rabbits hurdled in and out of that village, as the members of certain private tribes fed them in the form of some sort of ritual. As soon as she would stop coming across them, it was safe to exit through into the uninhabited.

Five more minutes and the Benji Rabbits were nowhere in sight (Ivey had captured a few of them by the necks so fear could have easily driven the rest away). Akira took the chance anyway, conclusively for the better. There was a large, fifty-or-so-foot wooden wall some two-hundred feet to her right as soon as she exited the forest. That was the compelling force. She was accurate with her decisions, and her journey had been successful so far.

Since she wouldn't be encountering anymore villages to her or the map's knowledge, she decided to just keep traveling in a straight line.

A dreadful hour had passed. The wind started to pick up the further she seemed to go, and poles of light illuminating the way flickered to the beat of the currents. Ice underneath her feet appeared thicker, the heat of the sun scorched to a maximum level of 42 degrees. She could hear her dog start to pant with her heavy coat and already warm-enough body temperature. She randomly plopped her body down onto the ice and shimmied with her belly up in the air to get her back wet with the cold wet ice. Akira would have done the same if she were a dog.

In a matter of two more hours, when Akira's body was noticeably throbbing from her toes up to her lower back, she took sight of a familiar horizon: a village. The next village ahead had to be Rindge Ibiza.

In fifteen minutes, she had arrived. Small shacks lined either side of the path, some with hay roofs and others with various pieces of wood nailed choppily to each other as a last resort. A large assortment of individuals seemed to live there; Southern Eskimos, who were all stringing clothes, material, and fish on clotheslines in the front of their yards; African Americans, who rarely inhabited anywhere close to Anchorage unless they were aliens; even natives to Ajahsyacabaha were present - that is, natives to Akira's home village, a five-hour drive west of Anchorage. That was where her mother was staying in a local hospital.

Before she stepped foot into the village, she was being welcomed by a middle-aged woman along with a couple of her young children.

"Ah, Zar! A blessed stranger! How do you?" She had distinctive features that a southerner would acquire. Strong eyebrows resting on top of a pair of large shaded eyes - both colored as hazelnuts, as expected. She had a small nose that ended with a ball at the tip, full lips, and piercings running up and down her outlandish ears. A metal bar ran through the split of her nose horizontally underneath the nostrils. She wore black and white feathers that represented faith and principle in their culture. Her teeth were rigid like a feral wolf's.

Akira nodded at the woman with a smile on her face. "Hello, I am doing fine. How are you?"

"Warm and enchanted." She raised her arm up to her shoulder and grabbed hold of it. She softly wobbled the right side of her body back and forth. Smoke produced by each other's breaths intertwined in front of them. "Would you like a place to stay, Traveler? I reckon I have enough dinner for you to share with my kin."

"If you aver. Danka."

Her face shone with illumined exhilaration. "You are indigenous, Traveler?"

Akira bobbed her head as she was led through a dirty trail into the neater version of a hovel. A clean cement floor aching with several cracks and markings, without a spot of dirt to be seen. Akira took her shoes off as instructed before going barefoot through the small living space. She made her way to the hard timber couch and sat down with an immediate pain in her coccyx. The feathery cushions on top made the simple idea of sitting down a silly illusion. A fire at the far end of the room was surrounded by five or six small children huddled together with warm mugs of some type of liquid in their hands. Piles of clothes and other skins stood against the walls of various sections of the main room, all folded neatly and according to size and color. Bowls of hard candy and wax-fruit potpourri sat still on the side table at the end of the couch. Ivey took a seat in front of Akira and started to sniff at what she thought was real fruit.

The woman came back out of the kitchen with two bowls of soup and set them both on the table beside her. Alphabet soup was something Akira nor Ivey had ever tasted before. It smelled great for not having any food in twelve hours, at the least.

Ivey lifted her head up to the bowl immediately and started slurping it down, simultaneously getting it all over the floor.

"I apologize, truly." Akira rubbed Ivey's back with her heavy mittens. "Ivey's a freak when it comes to food."

"That's fine, Dear." The woman laughed heartily and sat down beside her. She watched as Akira took her first bite of the soup. "Well? Does it suit you?"

"It tastes great. Is it homemade?"

"Sure, the soup is, but the noodles come from somewhere far south. I'm not a pasta person myself. Wait here." She left into the kitchen and came back with a bag that seemed to be full of aluminum cans. "Here, Darling, take these. We will not eat all of this soup ourselves. We've been waiting for someone like you to come by."

"Oh? Thank you so much, Ms.."

"Please, call me Rataja."

Akira gorged the soup down before Ivey could finish. She set the bowl on the floor so her dog could get to it sooner or later.

Vicious light from the sun shone through the window as if snow had just cleared up and the clouds had dissipated into thin air. All of the children could be heard shrieking for their mother to close the shutters handmade out of dirty recyclable plastic. It did the trick, though - one shove and all of the light had dimmed throughout the room.

Akira took a nap for a few hours on the sturdy couch. After she woke up, she walked directly to the front door. She placed the entire burlap sack of soup into her backpack, said her goodbyes, and left the small village of Rindge Ibiza. She felt fully-rested, as did Ivey, her tail wagging and her body full of energy.

It was 11:30 by the time she abandoned the friendliest village in Alaska. She was on her own again, walking over thin patches of snow covering much substantial patches of ice. Sprouts thought to be Dagger Weeds frozen only an inch above the ground couldn't react anymore. She felt attached to them, stepping down on every single one to dispose of their misery.

Nothing felt customary anymore. There was not a solitary sign of life in sight down the trail. She followed through the middle of nowhere, in the middle of complete silence, with a backpack and an Eskimo Dog to keep her from potentially dying. She knew that when it got dark, she would have to make a fire and sleep outside for the night, using her dog as a youthful protector. The first cave she would come across would be the first place she would seek.

Every now and then, she and Ivey would come across a moose bobbing its head toward the ground as if it were trying to find something. The attack command never left her lips; none of the moose ever appeared hostile, or aware, at her expense. They would just lick the ice and paw at it in swift anticipation. Even the wildlife was friendlier down south.

By the time five o'clock came, the sun was completely set. Akira and Ivey were nowhere near a safe haven. Everything around them was too dark - not even a seventy-dollar flashlight owned by Akira gave enough light to see fifty feet ahead. No sign of an ice cave or even a stone one was nearby. It was like a horror movie without the unnatural amount of serial killers and vicious monsters. Just the usual, reasonable amount.

Every half hour that passed became more nerve-racking for Akira. She could feel her dog inching closer and closer on the way, trying as hard as she could not to get lost from her only kinship, and vice versa. Akira had never seen Ivey this frightened before.

At eight o'clock, Akira noticed a faraway light shining with dynamism a good ten minute walk away. In a hurried attempt to get there before the light escaped, she started to dash toward it while clicking her tongue as she did when the air was full of morning fog. Ivey could make out the outline of her mistress from the light she was running toward and stuck behind to keep up stride-for-stride. Neither of them knew who would be stationed at that light, but it must've been someone just like them, beached in the middle of nowhere and using the only hope that they had - a flashlight and/or a torch.

The closer they got, the earlier Akira realized that it wasn't just any torch light up ahead. It was a rather large campfire set up on top of piles and piles of burning silver birch logs. Akira and Ivey arrived safely, though nobody was around to claim the suspicious burning fire. Akira didn't care; she needed somewhere to rest, and she found somewhere.

"We made it, Ivey." Akira dropped the backpack off of her shoulders and climbed to the ground while rubbing her shoulders in a great amount of pain. Ivey took a seat next to her and started to paw at the bag resting behind them. Akira unzipped the top pouch and unveiled a large rawhide bone. "You've been a good girl, Ivey. Here you go."

Ivey seized the bone and ran off a few feet away with it. Akira could still see her thanks to the conflagration of the fire. She took her gloves off and stuffed them in the pocket of her heavy coat. She rubbed her hands together in front of the fire and let out an reassured sigh. She leaned in so that her face could receive the fire's warmth as well. The crackling of the wood was one of her favorite sounds to hear.

She set up a large blanket at a safe distance from the fire and got ready to get some rest. She wanted to get up in only eight hours to continue traveling again.

She awoke on her second day of traveling with a numbing headache and a bruising pain on the shoulder she slept wrong on. Birds called to each other like crazy. Dozens of them looked to be circling over the fire like a whirlwind. The sun was too bright to only be five o'clock in the morning. She turned her body so that her back was facing the sky and tried to get used to the bright sensation of midday sunshine. She could hear Ivey snoring loudly beside her. She had gotten lonely in the middle of the night.

Akira noticed the sound of an unfrozen river luxuriously and tactfully flowing in the distance. She couldn't have heard it over the sound of the well-placed fire that was now obscurely extinguished.

Suddenly, a male's voice trespassed over her racing morning mind. "Are you awake?"

"Whoa!" Akira flailed her arms like a startled blind man and sat up too fast. She grayed out for an adequate ten seconds. "Hold on, I can't see - don't hit me yet."

"Calm down, lady! I'm not dangerous."

Akira was already irritated by his way with words. She caught her sense of sight back and turned without delay toward where the voice was coming from. He was a striking man in his early twenties with too deep of a voice to match his appearance. He had long black hair falling back past his collar, a heavy winter coat like Akira's, and a pair of Edinger's Snow Pants Akira wished she could have. His eyes were hazel, shaped like lozenges pulled back toward his ears. He had clean facial features for someone his age, broad shoulders, and a defined jaw line that didn't look too bad on him. He was well-kempt with a nice, vertical carriage. He had teeth brighter than the ice below them.

"I see you took a liking to my fire."

Akira crawled toward the fire and spit into it, raising her body into a sitting position with her hands. She put her uncomfortably-wet gloves on. "I apologize. I had nowhere else to go."

"It's fine. I'm glad to have helped. As long as you're not like a White Devil or a shape-shifter or something." He cracked his neck with both of his hands and let out a hoarse yawn. "You're not, are you?"

Akira took her gloves back off, set them in front of the blaze, and located all of her things back into her backpack. "I'm just a traveler. I have to go now."

"Go?" He stood up with his bag as well and threw it around his shoulder like a satchel. "Where are you headed off to? Anchorage?"

Akira blinked a few times. She took a step toward her dog and waved a treat in front of her face. Ivey opened her eyes and grabbed the treat with her tongue like a chameleon. "Yes, actually. How did you suspect that?"

"I'm headed there as well. No one walks through here for kicks. Anchorage is the only city worth traveling to in the south...come on, we can go together if you wish."

Akira raised her eyebrow to create an uncertain facial expression. Traveling with a complete stranger wasn't what she had been anticipating to do. She had been training herself to do the exact opposite. She'd known this guy for merely minutes and she didn't even know what his name was. The chances of him being a White Devil was simply out of the question, but who knew what else lay ahead of their journey? He could be one of the few convicted serial killers Akira daydreamed about on her way through the blind darkness. Being in the middle of nowhere surrounded by utter darkness with a mindful stranger could lead to anything, from a lingering friendship to a lingering pain when he set her and Ivey on fire in the dead of night.

He strutted away from the fire without waiting for a direct answer. It was only Akira's choice, whether she wanted to take the risk of dying by going it alone again or take the risk of settling with a stranger.

He wasn't native, either. Nothing involving the features of his face wrote "Alaska", and neither did the clothes he was wearing. Unless he was new to the area and brought old clothes, his St. Paul winter coat, Nike pants, and Timberlands were nowhere to be purchased in Alaska, especially the St. Paul winter coat, not even through e-commerce.

She couldn't just stand there any longer, waiting for him to walk at a snail's pace out of sight. Akira patted Ivey's side twice, and with the sun glaring from above, settling onto them with furious flames, she followed him.