That was a disastrous misfortune.
Elijah woke up in a dry forest. That wasn't surprising; it was autumn, after all. How did he get there was his piercing doubt. He was at home; he remembered that much. He was observing his grandfather's last photograph when he saw a hanging shadow in the back of the picture.
The remembrance of the mysterious shape on the yellow wall brought back his terrible headache. This time, however, it was on the right side of his head.
He pressed his temple, trying to make the pain go away.
The forest, as he knew, was near a lake. He could not see it, but that forest was surely familiar; he used to play in it when he was a little boy.
Elijah's childhood was a blur. It seemed like an intricate patchwork of distinct memories that didn't feel like his own.
An old image of his grandfather's house rose up his mind, and he experienced the unexpected need to go there.
He stumbled through the woods, a solivagant pained figure that would worry most people.
During a long time, those woods were his hiding place. When the world was too cruel and harsh, he would go there and dance around the trees, talk to the lake and watch the birds flying. It was simply elysian, having the whole forest for himself. He would pretend to be an elf king or some nature mage and try to solve the woods' "problems".
Yeah, being a kid was fun.
Now, he is a twenty-year-old. Not as fun, but he does have a lot more of liberty. If only he had the money, too.
He managed to leave the forest and his first encounter with the human civilization wasn't pleasurable.
The car honked at him; stopping abruptly. Yeah, maybe he should have looked before crossing the street, but he could barely see, give him a break.
The woods and his granddad's house weren't far from each other. He managed to see the structure of the white picket fence house in only a few minutes. His headache now was only a mere discomfort, but still tormented him for no reason at all.
Why did he wake up in that forest, after all? Was this all a prank? Was his sister well enough to orchestrate such an evil plan? Or was it his friends, who wanted to have some fun?
Either way, Elijah did not like to wake up in a different place than where he was when he blacked out.
The door was strangely open; maybe some of his aunts and uncles were there.
As he entered, he heard a familiar laugh. Was he hallucinating? What had happened to him? There was no way that laugh belonged to who he thought it did.
He got to the living room, and for a moment he firmly believed his eyes deceived him. He rubbed them as if the image of his dead grandparent would disappear if he did it hard enough.
"Grandpa?" He inquired, his voice barely a whisper. He cleared his throat, this time saying it louder. "Grandpa?"
There was no reaction whatsoever as if he was invisible and mute.
Elijah took a step forward, but no one in the living room reacted to him. What the hell was happening?
He refrained from approaching his grandfather. He did not know what was going on, he couldn't just appear out of nowhere and touch the deceased man.
His grandfather, for a second, turned to him and their eyes locked. Elijah felt a sense of acknowledgement blossom in his chest as if, right at that moment, he was being seen.
It lasted only for a second, and Elijah retreated, like a wounded animal. What was going on? Why couldn't he be seen, why couldn't he be heard? Most importantly, why was his dead grandfather right in front of him?!
He got out of the house. He wanted to be anywhere else. What was going on? Was he dreaming? Was that a hallucination? It felt so real though...
Faltering steps took him back to the woods, and he felt a burning pain in his chest. What was going on? What is happening?
He fell to his knees, his eyes watering up.
His headache was back again. The combo of head and chest pain really managed to knock the air out of his lungs, and he shut his eyes, letting the tears stream down his cheeks.
He wanted to go home.
"What is that?"
A whisper brought him back to the real world. Well, it brought him back to his senses, at least.
He rubbed his eyes, noticing the pain was all gone. Still, his nightmare hadn't ended. He wasn't in the woods.
No, the wallpaper and the old furniture was too familiar to him; he knew where he was, and he didn't have a good feeling about it.
A figure rose up from the shadows. It was short, thin and shaking. The silhouette belonged to an elderly man who would commit the worst - and the last - mistake of his life.
"Don't do that." He said, standing up. "No, grandpa."
He ran to the man, trying to put his hands on his shoulders and stop him, but he went right through him as if Elijah was nothing more than thin air.
What was going on? Why couldn't he do anything? Was that real or not? Was that just a dream? Elijah desperately needed answers, but there was no one to explain to him what the hell was going on.
"No!" Elijah yelled, running after the man. He had to do something. Maybe he could change what had happened. Maybe he could push his grandfather away, maybe he could stop the burglars. There was certainly something he could do.
He rapidly ran downstairs and found the two motherfuckers who had murdered his grandpa. Had? Will? Ugh! That didn't matter.
He tried to tackle one of them but to no avail. He simply went right through him and hit his body against the ground. Elijah stood up, trying to punch him, to kick him, to do anything that would stop him.
"No." He muttered, feeling his eyes well up with tears again. "What the fuck is going on... Why can't I do anything? Why am I here?"
The scene was displayed right in front of his eyes. They hit the back of his grandpa's head, and he fell to the ground. When he tried to get up, one of the men greeted him with the cold harsh metal of a gun right in his forehead.
Elijah darted his eyes away, shutting them tightly. He expected some kind of loud sound, but there was nothing. In fact, it wasn't just sound that was inexistent; everything was.
He was in a completely dark room. He supposed it was a room, but there was absolutely no way to know. No light seeping through windows, no wind playing with his hair. What was going on?
Elijah hated that. He hated not knowing what was going on. How could he lose control of his life like that?
"Because your life is not yours." A strange, distant voice spoke, managing to get Elijah out of his head. "Your life belongs to this earth. And one day, this earth is going to take it back."
"Who are you? Where are you?" Elijah asked, turning around. There was nothing but darkness. Wherever his eyes would roam, there was just nothingness. "More important, where am I? What is going on?"
"You seem really scared." The voice spoke again, but it felt closer this time. Elijah turned around once more, but he was still alone. "Wasn't you the one who called me cold, coward, ruthless, wrong, unfair? Wasn't you who firmly stated I have no sense of morality?"
Elijah furrowed his brows, trying to understand what the hell was going on there.
"You are all bark and no bite, huh?" He felt a breath against his neck and immediately shifted to the sound.
His eyes met a dark figure, somehow darker than the umbra of that place. He had a long, pitch-black cape around his shoulders, high boots, an oddly buttoned shirt and the skull of a deer as a mask.
Elijah could spot easily two grey orbs through the skull. Those piercing storm eyes sent a cold shiver through Elijah's spine, and it was safe to say he never felt this intimidated in his whole life.
"I had great expectations, but it seems you're just one more impertinent human who dreads me." It said, taking a step forward, getting closer to Elijah. "I have given you a gift. Don't you dare waste it."
Elijah felt a hand against his chest and the next thing he knows, he is falling.
Comments (2)
See all