Chapter I: A New Beginning

Let me know what works and what doesn't. Imagery is huge here. Story is supposed to be confusing. Ask questions if needed though. I check this regularly. Leave any comments or critique below! Check ba

 “Will you ever leave me?”

“…”

The wind rustled through the trees. Silence lulled the two boys to peace in the meadow below the mountains.

“I mean it… Will you?”

“No. Of course I won’t.”

The sun was falling below the summit of one of the peaks towering above them. It grew cooler.

“But I mean forever.”

“Forever?”

A single leaf fell next to one of the boys’ head.

“You’re my best friend. I need you.”

The breeze shifted as it rolled off the mountain, blowing the leaf away.

“Forever…?”

“Forever. I promise.”

It was cast into the twilight. Shortly after, a rain fell. And it kept raining. Some say it’s raining still…

But what ever happened to that leaf, I wonder?

#

Silence. Then, suddenly: breath. A slow inhale followed by a long, quiet exhale. Silence. Deafening silence. Silence louder than any sound. Cold, like a thin sheet of ice over a calm lake in the middle of winter. It echoed of home. Home? What was home? Why is it so familiar? Suddenly: warmth. No, heat. Heat, growing warmer and warmer. Hotter and hotter. Then, a flash of light: brisk, yellow sunlight that left a reddish orange smear, outlining the capillaries upon closed eyelids. This felt like something he’d known from before, only stronger and brighter.

Open your eyes.

It was a sound that seemed to come from within: from inside the mind, almost like a subconscious, omnipotent being that commands and dictates every move. Like thought. Thought?

All at once, the light consumed everything. The yellow glare blinding and powerful. Sunlight. Why was it so brutal? Then, as if out of nothing, a memory came streaming back.

Day and night. Light and dark. Black and white.

This was the world he had always known: the world as he had been taught his entire life.

At last, after baking in the sun for the better part of an eternity, he mustered the strength to stand up. With every ounce remaining in his mangled, sprawled body lying motionless in tattered clothing on the scorching, desert floor, he rose. He stared away from the sun, not able to bear it any longer. He looked to the left, then glanced right.

No one. Nothing. There he stood, in an empty world, devoid of any life, sound, or color. Where was this? What was before this? What comes next? The questions berated him, but the answers just as vacant as the wasteland laid out before him and all around him.

The heat was like a weight, pressing down on his body: like carrying a two-ton boulder on your back across a desert in the sweltering heat. Heat like this was… unfamiliar, to say the least. It wasn’t the warmth that, in the back of his mind, he felt he used to know. No. This was the heat that killed men. Hell? If it wasn’t, then it was certainly close. But why? Why was this his apparent destiny? What did he do to deserve such horrific treatment? Sprawling wasteland and endless heat. The goddamn heat. Who could survive in�"

What was that? That sound. It was the first sound he had heard since he started walking and it certainly wasn’t his own doing. But what was it? Was there something out here with him? No. There couldn’t be. This was where men went to die. No man could�"

Again. No, it must be his imagination. There’s no way it was�"

No, there was something out here with him. But where? There’s nothing here. No one for kilometers. This was no man’s land, not even his own. For, he thought to himself, if any man could own hell, he wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy it.

At once, a feeling engulfed him at his core. It was as though he could feel every last little blood cell surging and pumping through his arteries and back through his veins. He felt himself perspire. A sudden compulsion to start running overtook him, even though he had no idea what was chasing him, or perhaps because he had no idea what was chasing him. In the back of his mind, he could recall what this was�"

Fear.

The silence stopped.

“Greetings, outlander.”

He shook with anxiety. The last thing he wanted to do was turn around. He thought of all other possible options. Endless, empty space. He could barely walk, let alone run. No chance of escape. Apprehensively, he turned to face the sun once more.

There stood the silhouette of a man, towering over like an obelisk in the sun. He stood a chiseled statue in comparison to the lanky, malnourished ghost standing before him. He had on a khaki, rough-skin vest atop a stained, white tunic with a v-shaped indention at the neck with thread to keep it tied together, although he seemed to neglect that function. On the tunic, there were marks of mud, dirt, and what could only be made out as blood dotted about. Below that, he wore brown trousers covered in dust and torn along the bottoms near the ankle.

His face, though hard to make out, was boney and covered in thick, black hair. His hair reached down to his upper shoulder blades. His beard, however, seemed fragmented and patched around the upper left cheek and in places along the jaw line. His tan skin only further blurred his figure in the sunlight. He carried a sheathed dagger on his left hip and what appeared to be another one hidden under the right half of his vest. On top of all this, he had a tattered knapsack slung across his shoulder. All of these details registered in his mind in the blink of an eye. Fascinating.

“What’s your name?” said the man.

With all his might he tried to remember. No, not his name; that was far too beyond him, but, rather, how to speak. Much like the desert, it seemed his memories had been laid to waste. He opened his mouth and pushed the words out by exhaling and forcing out sound. His articulation was a whole other task he wasn’t ready to take on just yet.

“Ida… Idun… Doughn… Don’t”

He struggled with the words.

“Do yuh not know, son?”

He shook his head.

The man laughed with a hearty smile.

“Most people in your situation at least know how to speak. We’ll work on that, boy. Come with me.”

He motioned to follow. But what would following him offer? Why should anyone follow a stranger in a wasteland with nothing but strands on their back? But what was his other option? Die alone in the torturous heat of the barren wasteland. Ok, he thought to himself. He’d go. His odds were slightly better this way, so he followed.

The hairy man kept up his pace, leaving the boy behind in his tracks. As they started moving, the large man fiddled in his knapsack for something. He pulled out a substance and ushered for the boy to take. With hesitation, the boy snatched the substance out of the big man’s hand. He analyzed it carefully, but nothing in the deepest logs of his mind could identify what this was.

“Eat,” the burly man coaxed.

The boy saw no value in that word and continued to study the substance.

“By the Light, boy,” the bearded man stopped in his tracks to berate the lost young man following him. “Put it in your mouth and swallow. Trust me.”

The towering man, with a halfhearted grin, stood arms folded as the boy took a small bite. Soon, instinct took over and the boy started scarfing the substance down his throat. The grizzly man let out a guttural laugh and continued on his way. The boy, too distracted by the substance to take notice, ran after the now distant man. And so, the great trek through the wasteland began.

The relentless beams of light from the sky receded into a somewhat dim resemblance of what once was unbearable. For a moment, if only for one shred of a moment, the wasteland actually felt… tolerable. The scraggly man had led him thus far, but for how much longer until they arrive at this unnamed safe haven?

“Not much longer, outlander,” he said, as if feeling the silent questions of the young ghost following at his side like a confused dog following his master to safety.

They trekked their way over small cliff sides, around colossal rock spires, and through small depressions, which made the world around them seem to tower above like a mighty, looming threat. But the brave man felt no fear, or so it seemed to his newfound companion. After what felt like half a lifetime, the sun set and they arrived at a small makeshift campsite at the edge of a small cliff near what appeared to be a cave. The colossal man collapsed down into a chair set against the wall of rock left of the entrance to the cavern.

“Sorry for bein’ so silent, outlander.” said the man calmly, leaning over the fire warming his hands. “It’s just… This happens so often as a’late, y’learn to just go through the motions and forget the details that actually make your job worthwhile.”

The man stood and walked over to a box on the ground near the cave. He shuffled through it, trying to find something.

“Y’see, I’m used to telling stories an’ entertainin’ my guests,” the man continued as he searched the box. “But I’ve learned after tellin’ ‘em so much that I often confuse details or tell different parts of the stories than I did the last time: some a’which may or may not ‘uv actually happened, I’m startin’ to figure out. My memory is failing me, it’d seem.”

He let out a soft chuckle as he pulled a slab of meat from the box. He walked back over to the fire and stuck a small rod that was hiding behind the chair through the slab. He sighed as he started warming the meat.

“It seems people these days have lost a sense a’value for the truth…” he muttered under his breath. “Or maybe they’ve forgotten it entirely…”

He trailed off into silence, deep in thought, as he fell back into his chair, thrusting the rod into the ground, leaving the meat suspended over the flames. But the ghost was far too attentive of the looming darkness to pay attention to the man or his actions.

“You’re probably wondering why it’s getting dark, arnt’cha?”

The ghost nodded.

“There’s much you’ve forgotten about the world around you.”

He stared at the pathetic, pale thing before him, now sitting and eager to listen.

“I suppose it’s time.”

A moment of silence inserted its way into the conversation for just a second more before he let out a deep breath and continued.

“You’re going to hear a lot a’stories and tales about where you are, what it means, and why it’s ‘ere,” the man stared intently into the fire, leaning in again as he watched the meat, turning it as it browned. “That is, if y’choose to assimilate into their society, something I’ve long refused to do.”

The boy watched the meat as it burned. The man took noticed and smiled, then leaned back in his chair and looked up into the stars.

“People these days just get under my skin, honestly. There’s much more out here under the sun and stars. It’s amazing how this space a’sprawlin’ void out ‘ere can hold more than a thrivin’ metropolis. Sometimes a wealth a’knowledge can be more bootless than a vat a’ignorance. Take that as y’please.”

He sat there staring at the sky, folding his arms across his chest, grinning as he spoke.

“Truth is, I think the more y’think y’know, the less y’understand. Take the Wastes. Barren. Lifeless. Empty. Maybe true, but…”

As the man trailed off, he leaned back toward the fire and grabbed the rod from the ground, holding it over the flames and staring at the ghost’s face, as if teaching the boy how to cook simply through his motions.

“From the sky, we get water; from the rocks, we get shelter; from the ground, we get food. For an ‘educated’ fella from over in the city, these plains are wastes. For some brainless idiot like myself, these are fields of riches and bounty. They don’t notice the details that, for me, make life worth living. I suppose it’s just how you look at it.”

The man pulled the meat off the stake with his bare hands and observed it in his palm. Then, he stood up and walked over the box once more to grab another slab of meat.

“My point is,” he continued as he walked back to the fire to cook the second slab. “The stories I could tell you will be flawed, but they are what you make of them: truth or no truth. Some people here have quite a way of telling stories, but they’re all just stories, you know? The truth is something else entirely, and once you’ve found the ‘truth,’ you too can start telling your own stories.”

He fell back into his chair and leaned back, as if trying to get a good view of the sprawling starlit night sky: a rich, black hue. He moved his hands and folded them behind his head, letting in a silent inhale in followed by a suspended, tame exhale. His demeanor snapped like twig all at once and his smirk straightened as he spoke.

“We’re outcasts; criminals; the forgotten souls. Since the day I came here, I’ve made an effort to drag every poor soul out of the heat and into the cool dwellings of my cave, but it seems more and more bodies end up on the grounds of the Wastes by the day, and it’s not like these bodies all end up in the same place, like some depot I can go to retrieve them. I have to search these grounds before those bandits find you first.”

A flash of fear lit up the once lifeless ghost. For a second, he was full of fear again. The man glared at the boy.

“Truth be told, it seems like it took me a while to find you. You were… well, um… ‘well-baked’ if you will, despite your pale figure. But that’s merely a side-effect of the malnourishment you’ve received over some time. Which reminds me…”

The man sat up, grabbed the cooked meat, and held it next to the bloody and dripping meat angled high above the flames, slow cooking.

“Which do you want?”

The boy pondered it for a moment. The bloody meat or the cooked meat? It’s not like he knew what either tasted like, or at least he could not recall, but something about the redder meat repelled him. He could conceive of why. He pointed to the cooked slab.

“Here.”

He tossed it at the boy. It landed at the ground before him.

“Eat.”

The ghost grabbed the food from the ground. He still did not understand hunger, but he knew it was a problem. Instinct, once again, took over.

“I prefer my meat raw, anyhow.”

The man flipped his meat, leaned back, and resumed his relaxed posture.

“At any rate, I think it’s clear as to why I found you like I did. Still, I wonder why your memory is so scarce. You’re somewhat an enigma, it would seem.”

The man took a deep breath and sat back up choosing to monitor his meal. Then, he pointed directly at the boy.

“But you.” He shifted his tone down. “You took my hand, that much is certain, which you did not have to do. You made your first decision out here. And who knows what that could entail? But you need to make one more decision. You can choose to stay here with me or you can venture further through the heat and find civilization. But if you choose to do that, I cannot take you. And the only issue with staying here is… well… you can’t. I mean… I’ll teach you all I can in what time I have, but then you must venture into this world on your own. What do you choose?”

The pale aura returned to the ghost’s body. He felt at a loss for words, perhaps because he was just learning how to speak again.

“Tie. Time. I wanna… I need time. Time to thing…nk think.”

“Alright. I’ll give y’till mornin’, my small, ghostly friend.” the man said, getting to his feet and returning to his casual demeanor. “But tomorrow my courier, Nikk Gunner, will arrive to either take yuh to the city or leave y’out here. Then, by nightfall after three sunrises, if y’choose to stay out here, you’ll enter the Wastes at your own peril. The choice is yours, and it’s a big one. Sleep on it and we’ll decide in the morning, eh?”

The man grabbed his meat from the rod and threw a rusted tin bucket of water over the thin flames. He started eating as he walked toward his cave.

“When you’re ready, you have a pallet over there by the oil underneath the rough skin tarp,” he said, pointing. “It’ll be your shelter from the weather. In the meantime, I’ll be in the cave if you need me. I can help you with whatever you need, if y’require me. It’s important to have friends out ‘ere, outlander, and now you have one. Keep it up.”

The man entered his cave, leaving the ghost alone, blending in with the darkness. He felt as if an ember had gone out in his breast. That darkness… He remembered… The feeling itself had come full circle. He tried to shake the hopelessness and fear, but he couldn’t.

Wastes…

What was this place?

Where was he going?

What did any of this mean?

All he could think about were the questions this man had tried so haphazardly to answer, but proved to no avail. His mind raced and his nerves intensified. He shook as he trembled over to his pallet on the cold, hard ground. At this moment, he almost envied the feeling he had in the day. He almost yearned for the blistering heat to alleviate this tight, sharp cold.

It got worse by the minute- no, by the second. His fears seemed to perspire from and perpetuate in the cold and the fear seemed to intensify the cold itself. It was a cruel cycle and only seemed to accelerate.

He collapsed onto his pallet, almost in tears. He didn’t understand why his throat began to choke him and his face felt heavy, almost like a mask plastered to his skull. He could not bear it any longer. He inhaled, ready to unleash an outpour that felt contained upon the surface�"

“Outlander!”

A shock raced through his nervous system, from head to toe. Though it was nearly instantaneous, it felt like the shockwave lasted a millennium as he felt every inch of his body swallow up in fear. Was this kind man about to reveal his true intentions? Was he a psychotic killer of innocent spirits that washed up on the shores of this living hell? Was he the reaper of souls coming to rip from his flesh the essence of his very being?

“Despite my ramblin’s, I forgot to tell you my name. I’m Lazarus Erei, but’chu can call my Laz.”

Lazarus? A name? This man had a name? For whatever reason, it never crossed his mind.

“Anyway, sorry to startle yuh. G’night.”

Lazarus. Lazarus Erei. “Laz.”

It was a name. It was his name. His friend. The young man let out a relieved exhale. This sudden revelation made him feel like all his worries were nothing more than obscene paranoia. All at once, the tight feeling of fear took a breath. He was being protected. He had safety. He was finally able to relax. The cold felt like nothing more than a breeze in the thin air. He was finally able to sleep.

The lights were gone. The heat had died. And the chill was barely a whisper. He closed his eyes and escaped from this world. He had completed his first day and he was alive. That’s all that mattered. He let out an exhale and smiled. The fears died. The whisper of nature’s chill began to erode into nothing at all. The sounds faded. The world he had just endured began to feel just like the dream he felt before entering it. His mind slowly surrendered. The world around him grew quieter and quieter. Then, suddenly, silence.

Author's Note

Let me know what works and what doesn't. Imagery is huge here. Story is supposed to be confusing. Ask questions if needed though. I check this regularly. Leave any comments or critique below! Check back for more updates. Thank guys!

Reviews

[prymore]

I like it, your imagery is well written and I enjoy your writing style. I hope to see more of it, the ending is well written and makes makes me want to keep reading.

[J.B. Shepard Rhodes]

Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate the interest. I hope to put out more chapters in the very near future :) Best! -JR