Aarvo stared dumbfounded as the booms from the blows of the giant ran through his body. How was it possible…? Where were the Thundering Towers…? Did he get it wrong? He had followed that sound thinking it would lead him to the far side, but where did he end up instead? Where had his mother taken him? What was that being in front of him?
At that moment, he noticed something strange: in the plains below, which at first glance had seemed deserted, something was moving. A chorus of voices and wails rose from there, intertwining with the crashing of the blows. In the growing light, Aarvo saw a multitude of forms emerging from the sand and staggering forward, joining in rows and heading toward the giant as if attracted by an inexorable force. But why?
“Come to me!” his mother called.
Aarvo drew back. The ground under his feet suddenly swelled with a violent throb. He jumped back, but the wave of earth and rocks caught him and dragged him over the edge. He tried in vain to grab something to hold on to, but the avalanche dragged him down the inner slope of the crater, slamming his head, arms ad legs against each other, until he crashed on the bottom of the plains with a noise of splitting rock.
With a grunt of pain, he tried to pull himself up, but his right leg gave in with stabbing pain. He looked down and saw his cracked knee. He shifted the weight to the other leg and stood up, then realized that he had fallen right into the middle of the mass of dark figures he had seen from above. He made to run away, but he stopped, stunned: those were trkrits… those around him, emerging from the ground like ghosts and screaming with distorted mouths and crazed eyes, they were trkrits like him… trkrits…
Mesmerized, he followed those hallucinated faces, those bodies bent by an incomprehensible pain as they passed by him and one by one blindly lined up under the inexorable fist of the giant.
Without being able to look away, he watched the fist descend on a helpless trkrit. On impact, his body shattered into splinters of stone that shot in all directions for a hundreds steps around. Then came the terrible blow that made the whole crater shake. When the giant lifted his hand, there was nothing left of the trkrit except a mist of silver particles that still kept his shape for a few instants, then scattered on the ground in a shiny blanket. Was that shimmering powder stardust or was it the soul of the trkrit torn from his body? Or were they the same thing?
Aarvo stood by and watched as another trkrit, followed by another, and then another one, were pulverized under the terrible blows of the giant, then horror took over. He leapt forward and grabbed the nearest trkrit, shouting, “Stop! Stop!”
The trkrit turned two crazed wild eyes toward him and seemed to notice him for the first time.
Aarvo shuddered and let go, horrified by that empty look.
“Come to me!” his mother called.
The trkrit seemed to hear his mother's voice and, as if obeying an order, grabbed Aarvo by the wrist. His companions suddenly awoke from their torpor too and threw themselves at Aarvo without warning, dragging him away towards the giant.
Aarvo tried to break free, and suddenly understood what awaited him: he would be destroyed, reduced to dust like these lost souls. His mother was going to kill him, so that he'd always stay with her.
He started screaming, “Mom, no, stop it, stop!”
“Come to me, Aarvo. Didn't you say you wanted to come with me?”
“No, I don't want to die! I don't want to die!”
“Liar! I didn't teach you to lie. Come to me!”
“Mom, stop it, stop!” Aarvo screamed and struggled with all his might. The fingers of two of the trkrits that held by the wrists snapped. With his hands suddenly free, Aarvo started throwing blows blindly. He heard the rock of his fists smashing that of the trkrits that held him and saw them fall one by one. In an instant, he found himself free.
He ran away, far from that monstrous giant that shattered life, far from the deathly embrace that his mother wanted to wrap around his neck, and as he fled, he became aware of another presence in front of him, on the opposite side of the giant, something like a whisper, like a voice, but as solid as the caress of an invisible hand.
“Aarvo, come back!” his mother screamed over the noise of the giant's blows and the screams of the trkrits closing in around him.
Aarvo squeezed out all of his remaining energies and ran toward the other presence. The trkrits cut in front of him. He knocked them down one by one with furious blows, but they were too many and they came at him all at once. He threw blows right and left, blindly, as a white fog descended in his eyes, as his arms and legs became slower and heavier. The voice though became closer, clearer—he could almost make out the words tangled up in the ether.
He fought with desperate fury, and suddenly broke through into a shadow thicker than night, colder than frosted soil. The white fog receded from his eyes, and Aarvo slowly realized there wasn’t anybody left blocking his way.
Did he make it? Was he safe? He didn't even hear the terrible blows of the giant anymore. An immense tiredness, a weariness without return poured into him like an avalanche of sand that wanted to bury him in sleep. He was so tired… He deserved some rest… He was safe, why couldn't he sleep…?
“Aarvo!”
The voice jerked him awake like a slap. He looked around. Who had called him?
The voice came again, but without words, only as a presence radiating from a point in front of him, colder than the cold that surrounded him.
Aarvo came forward. One step at a time, a spectral white column emerged from the dark. At first only a shade lighter than darkness, it slowly grew into a vein of such intense whiteness that it seemed to shine of its own light. Aarvo wasn't sure whether his eyes were playing a strange trick on him, but the white column in front of him—what was it… quartz…? No, something else… but what?—seemed alive with a restless light and an incessant breath. And its smell—what was it…?—its smell was as solid as the darkness that pressed on around him.
Aarvo smiled—but why was he smiling?—and approached the imposing spectral tower, which—he felt—ventured into darkness above him, extending in width and height far beyond the reach of his poor sight. When he looked down, he found himself looking at something imprisoned in ice. He gave a start and jumped back. It was him… The thing inside the ice was him… Ice… He had once looked for ice, yes, but what for…? He was tired—he wanted to sleep—he had no use for ice.
“Drink!” his double imprisoned the ice suddenly said.
Aarvo shook his head. “I'm not thirsty. I'm tired. I just want to sleep…”
His double frowned, then his arm exploded out of the frozen column, grabbed Aarvo's hand and pulled it into the ice.
Aarvo felt a shiver running through him and tearing through the delirium of his mind. The ice reservoir… at the North Pole… he was there!
“Drink!” ordered his double, and pushed the slice of ice he had cut into his mouth.
Aarvo tightened his jaws and the piece of ice instantly turned into water. He swallowed and felt the cold fluid bringinhg relief to his parched throat, but a second later, a nasty stab cut through his chest, making him double up in pain. He felt as if his core were drowning, as if it were dying out submerged in water, then he was shaken by violent retching. He turned around and vomited some black sludge on the ground. Enough water, however, had stayed down to bring him some relief and awaken the hunger he had long forgotten. A terrible cramp seized his guts. Aarvo turned around, dragged himself on all fours to the nearest piece of rock, grabbed it, and devoured it in a bite.
His core let out a blazing burst that went up into his mouth, making him spit acid, then started burning out of control, swelling his veins with red-hot pain.
This time, Aarvo knew what to do: he threw himself toward the frozen column and started shoving pieces of ice into his mouth in handfuls. His body suddenly filled with gas and steam.
With a surge of relief, he opened up the valves on the back of his hands and let out two long bursts of white smoke into the darkness that enshrouded him.
****
Have you ever been delirious and imprisoned in horrible nightmares?
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