Waking Shadows
Lightguard
By
A.U.E.
You can not run away from the past, but within you lies the power to change it.
Into the Darkness
A red tail hawk flew high over the aging forest. With a slow sweep of her wings, she clambered the skies, scouting the area below with her beacon sight. A faint movement of rustling leaves a mile away, was mirrored in her clear, brown eyes. Starting, she flew in a circular motion, drew her claws close to her body, and dove off from her perch in the skies with relentless speed, until it vanished into the thicket of trees below.
A smacking sound behind startled him. He halted and turned around in an effort to catch a glimpse of what had made the revolting sound. As soon as he laid eyes upon it, a powerful feeling surged through him like a roaring wave. A young hawk stood swaying on top of a white hare, whose dark eyes flickered for one last time, before shedding all of their light.
Life's bitter game, he thought; hunters and their prey, kings and pawns. Which one of them have I become?
He had to keep running, even though his whole body begged him not to. Every inch of his body ached; his muscles, sore from the strain of every step he had given for the last hour, creaked, cracked, and burned with every bending of the joints as he dashed forward.
Though he had seen it with his own eyes, he could hardly fathom how much things had changed in a matter of days. His whole world transformed in the blink of an eye, and he had not been ready for it.
A strong autumn wind howled menacingly; it shook the wild trees in front of him, chilling his bones and bringing him back to the present, back to this forsaken place.
It was a cold, primal woodland; gigantic redwoods and towering pines acted as imposing sentinels coated in green and blue spiked armors. Their intricately tangled arms created an impenetrable woven roof above, filling the air with their spicy scent and swallowing everything under a rotten darkness. Acres of old forest spread before him in an unending maze of darkness and uncertainty.
The howling of a lone creature urged him to run faster. Fear sparked within him; it ran through his spine like a powder trail set on fire, invading his limbs and blazing all of his insides. When the cry dwindled, sheer silence ruled over the woods. He felt followed, ensnared in an intricate trap. Drops of sweat started trickling from his icy temples as the fear of being lost in that forbidden forest, crawled into his mind.
Just then, the ground started rising steeply, and he went with as much speed as the rugged terrain allowed. The woods were changing; the foliage of the trees became fuller, denser, he had barely any space to shift between the wooden soldiers of the forest; their sharp, green needles brushed him ruthlessly as he went along, causing a thick, scarlet, liquid substance to start oozing from the wounds they created on his face and neck, and every bare part of his body as he ran forward.
As he soldiered on, a shaft of sunlight pierced the binding boughs above, blinding him momentarily. The ray lit up his face and colored the forest around him in shimmering jade. He screwed up his eyes and peered around. That brief spell of light reminded him of her, of the two blinking, finely cut emeralds that had always lit a path for him in the midst of the most impenetrable darkness. Then the light slowly faded, just like her eyes had done.
The Deathwoods; now he knew why they had gotten that name. Dreadful stories about the forest had always found a way to crawl over the city's walls. Legends told by lone wandering men and merchants from afar who had managed to travel through it and survived, told of beasts that children's nightmares could only conjure, and of traps the heart of the forest kept, for those who did not belong there.
He was sprinting as fast as his legs allowed him through the clumps of trees, which clutched and scarred him as he scampered on. So close where the trees intertwined, that the foul air he had hated moments before, could not reach his yearning lungs. Claustrophobia started creeping up throughout his body, weighing him down.
He gave a couple of steps between the slashing pine leaves; his arms itching, burning from the pain the prickly leaves caused; his lungs wincing, screaming for some of the air that they so desperately needed, when with one deft movement of his left hand, he gripped freedom.
He pushed aside the taut branches with all his might, releasing his body from that natural prison that had encaged him and filled his lungs with air that tasted better than cold water after a long run. He halted beside a massive redwood, sat down, and took a long, refreshing breath.
Like dark clouds before a storm, an impenetrable darkness settled all around him; his shifting boots were all that he could see; yet for some strange reason, he found himself grinning with pleasure. He had run for hours, deeper and deeper into the forest, until there was no visible path to follow due of the thickness of the trees.
It felt like he had left the city eons ago, yet only a few days had gone by since he had left its walls behind. Time flows like a roaring river when you don't want it to, he thought. As he sat resting, an agonizing scream echoed in the distance. He leapt from his resting place near the tree and looked around for the source of the screaming.
Like living shadows, the ghosts in his head started materializing before him, pleading for his help, reaching out for him.
"You're not real," he said desperately, "y-you can't be." He raised his left arm and reached for the nearest shadow, but as soon as his hand closed around it, it vanished in smoke. He shook his head in despair and started running again. He cursed out loud, nothing could have prepared him for the atrocities he witnessed the day the sun rose scarlet, tainted with innocent blood.
Before long, the greensward gave way to damp and oily earth, where he soon struggled to move. With squelching sounds, he marched over the boggy ground for a while, but soon felt tired and halted again. Breathing deep, he looked southward, but could not see where the mire began. The new land stretched further that he had thought. His only option was to move onward.
He gave a couple of heavy steps, when the earth started hissing and steaming. Soon, a dense, steely fog surrounded him. A foul scent of rotten eggs and pulsing metal, started streaming with the mist until it choked him. He knew he had to get out of its reach, but with every step he gave, the earth distilled more of the poisonous fumes. Soon, he started shivering without control; the temperature was falling, freezing him to the core. His short breaths mingled with the cold air and rose into the darkness.
"I can feel them," he muttered under his icy breath. He had a strange feeling someone was out there, watching him. He kept looking behind, searching in every direction; like a deer that has sensed peril, his senses spiked, but the density of the fog was so thick and overwhelming, that he could hardly see his grasping hands before him; the world was closing in on him, everything seemed to focus on the only living, breathing creature of the forest; he was alone under a searchlight.
He marched on, treading lightly, wary of the noises that escaped from him with every step and every single rush of air as he breathed. In the stillness of the night, his pumping heart filled the air with a mechanical beat, a slow, steady rhythm. Every single beat of his life-giving drum prevented his ears from hearing the brooding noises that loomed all around him. He squinted his eyes, trying to see as far away as possible; still, there was nothing to see as the dense fog impaired his vision completely and crippled his sense of direction.
A loud, unnerving croak that came from a lone raven above startled him, and he cursed in fear; lightheaded and with very little strength left in his body, he decided to rest beside a massive beech tree. I can't move any further without water, he thought. The poisonous mist was drowning him, the air had lost its moisture, leaving him weary, weak, an easy prey.
As he leaned on the tree for support, a chilling gale came rushing from an aisle of trees in front of him, lifting the dead leaves from the ground, blowing the icy mist into oblivion, and splashing all over his body like a bucketful of water.
"Find him," he heard a hoarse whisper calling all around. He closed his eyes and shuddered. He felt the foul breath brushing his body, rushing through his skin. Its stench paralyzed him, stripped him of his courage. For a few seconds the deepest silence took hold of the forest, and then…he ran. Everything seemed deserted; the trees felt lifeless, grey; their leaves and boughs created a haunting landscape in the middle of the night. Even the wind had faltered. It was as though the whole forest had turned against him. The stillness of the air unnerved him, an unreasoning fear of discovery laid hold of him, he thought of the lull before a storm.
"Someone's coming," he said in a low whisper. Squinting through the darkness, he looked for a sign, the faintest movement, a bickering shadow. As he dodged a massive redwood pine in front of him, a loud, echoing crack broke the silence like a gunshot, and without warning, his head exploded with pain; he swayed, trying to focus on the source of the noise, but as he staggered, a second crack rent the stale atmosphere, and then another, and another. Crack! Crack! Crack! The shallow noises felt like firecrackers, slowly exploding inside his head.
From far away, he heard the same high, cold voice command, "Kill him…end his miserable existence." With a swift movement, he crumpled some nearby leaves and clogged his ears with them. As soon as the explosions faded, a blue jet of light blinded him; his head throbbed with unbearable pain; eyes streaming and dazed, he groped for solid footing on the uneven ground, until he steadied himself with the aid of a nearby pine.
Around the corner, a large figure emerged, wrapped in a black cloak and a hood, its face an invisible shadow. "He's here!" the creature bellowed in the darkness.
He reacted immediately, sped off in the opposite direction. The creature's eyes gleamed as they saw him, and as he tore his eyes away from the monster, dozens of footsteps resonated throughout the forest, trashing the fallen leaves that covered the ground with metallic, rhythmic clashes.
He picked his pace along a rocky creek; the heavy steps closing in with every marching stomp; it did not matter how fast he ran, his hunters seemed to be gaining ground by the second. Every single ounce of strength he could muster seemed to flee from his strained body barely moving him forward.
A sudden movement in his back shocked him. He stumbled, but managed to keep his footing. Under the stress and nerves, he had forgotten why he had started running in the first place. The haversack he had carried for hours had lost its weight to a heavier burden, the unbearable fear and loneliness. The load moved faintly, stirring within him a newbornhope.
He dashed forward, hurried his pace through the jagged terrain. But as his hopes started lifting, so did a rushing gust of wind. With a swishing, high sound, it devoured the clashing footsteps. Only their echo reverberated throughout the forest. Yet he kept moving, keen on putting plenty of distance between himself and his lost hunters. A few moments of peace reigned, but the next moment, another raging gale rushed through the woods. It made the trees crackle under their own weight and rocks and mud, and debris cannoned in every direction. Moaning giants started falling all over the place. Right—left—then right again, he swerved between the falling trees; quick as a lightning he danced, avoiding a certain crushing death more than once.
Crouching, he managed to dodge a broad, tumbling giant, and as he dusted off that near miss, a jet of blue light gleamed before him like a magnesium flash; it blinded him on the spot and muted everything for a second.
The cloaked creatures appeared again, this time closer than before, right next to him. Swift footwork and edgy, trained instincts, thrust him away from his pursuers; but that again did not last long, for yet another time the dazzling light shone, to his left. More of the hunters started condensing everywhere around him, under a mystic, blue haze; full-bodied, ready to kill.
Explosions rumbled in the air as the creatures appeared. Determined to flee, he cinched the haversack he had been carrying closer to his body, ground his teeth, and darted forward letting go of all his fears. As the footsteps closed in on him, his instincts started guiding his body. He arched his back and raised his hands in front of him in a defensive position. A hot rush of blood ran through his veins and he felt like roaring at the top of his voice.
He imagined his hunters catching up to him, hard at his heels, felt their breath brushing his back. He pictured their lifeless eyes staring at him, saw their grim cloaks, billowing in the darkness. With each fleeting second, a new scar blemished the canvas of his face as he kept running through the whipping branches. Heavy gusts of wind kept ravaging the woods, blending perfectly with the manic howls that followed him as he swerved in every direction.
"You cannot escape me!" the voice said inside his head. Startled, he lost his footing and collided with a heavy set of low branches, which broke under his weight, and he fell, hitting his head hard on the process, losing all consciousness.
Seconds later, or so it seemed to him, he was awakened by a warm breeze sweeping his body. It took him by surprise, gave him his strength back. He lay facedown for a while, immersed in the peace that ruled over the place.
Soon, muffled noises drifted through the air, and he found himself blinking under a dazzling light. Before his eyes had adjusted, a moon-lit glade appeared ravishing before him; the guardian of the night hovering above it all, illuminating everything with its silver light. "Leiffell," he murmured as he gaped at his surroundings.
It was a clear, starry night, and as he marched in freedom, a soft breeze ruffled his hair. His mind was clear, free of the stupor that had ensnared him back in the woods. With the grass rippling under the weight of his sturdy boots, he felt as though everything was as it once had been. A fresh smell of pines surrounded him as he stood there, gazing at the stars that seemed painted as they reflected their light on the inky lake beside him. For a while, he had forgotten how beautiful it all had been.
He ambled towards the lake in search for water. How long have I been running? He asked himself. The shocking image that met him as he neared the edge of the water, answered his question. A wild and tired sight stared right back at him. A pair of fierce, amber eyes looked at a scrawny, young man with a growing scruff and ruby red, sticky hair.
The image rippled as his scooping hands broke the lake's surface, cradling some water into his mouth. He started laughing as he lay aside his haversack and threw himself unto the grass. He felt like lying there forever, for the first time in that hour-less day, he could rest.
Glancing at the night skies, he soon dove into the deepest of dreams, where troubling thoughts of the past days arrested his mind. They shot him into a frenzy of troubling nightmares, where blazing fires burnt down everything that he had once held dear as a shapeless cloud of opal ravens devoured the remainders of the fire.
A large explosion nearby woke him, seized him from the stormy reign of his nightmares and set him in a real scorching inferno that devoured the grasslands beside him at an incredible pace. He sat bolt upright, trying to figure out what had been the cause of the fire, as yet another terrifying explosion burst a few paces from where he was lying.
He turned around, and saw it. Metallic black masks emerged over the dancing blue flames. His hunters were back, concealed under black cloaks that hid their dark, silvery armors from the flashes of the moon's rays and camouflaging them perfectly with the thickness of the night. Their garments gave them a petrifying look; a flock of ravens, fighting for the remnants of a fallen prey.
A masked being raised his right hand with a flourish; the star-strewn sky became pitch black, heavy. The stars, the moon, and the light from the fires disappeared all at once, dying. All the colors and life was drained from their surroundings.
Then, a high, roaring yell, echoed all over the clearing´s walls and a raging ball of blue fire gushed out of the being's hand, missing him by inches. He jumped up, snagged the haversack in a rush, and started running again before a fiery explosion ruptured the black vault of the heavens. The roaring flames reflected on his eyes the fear they caused as they consumed everything they touched, leaving behind a meager trail of grayish cinder.
He looked up to the night skies; the full moon glimmered shyly on his eyes before disappearing, along with the stars that crowded around it. Total darkness engulfed it all, the air became heavy to breathe; life seemed to have been sucked out of the world.
With a thundering blast, the deadened atmosphere broke, heightening the burning sensation of the raging fires that strived to devour him. A sizzling firebolt whizzed through the air at an incredible speed, and with a crackle, it hit its target.
He felt the blow caress his neck; it burned a deep gash in his skin, making him sick as the smell of charred meat filled the air. It felt like poison, running through his veins. The blast had barely scratched him; the remainders had raged by, causing the air to ripple with billowing rage, until they burned a massive oak in front of him to ashes.
Another rushing firebolt pelted before him, burning a path for him to follow through the tight cluster of trees ahead. Panting, he bolted into the sheltering pines, but as he hurried across the depths of the black forest, the masked figures started cursing into the night, low, piercing howls that thundered above the violent crackles of the fires; terrible noises that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
A loud crack! Exploded behind him, and at least twelve figures appeared under wisps of blue smoke. Immediately, crackling sounds split the musty atmosphere of the forest and every time that he heard a noise, involuntarily, he looked back, just to see more of the masked beings joining his hunting party. Every few seconds, blue firebolts raged past him, singing his clothes and his precious haversack and darting off between the trees, which blazed in flickering showers of flame.
He kept on going, barely dodging the massive oaks, cedars, and pines that appeared before him; each one bigger than the last in the blinding darkness that those figure's curses created and then dispelled with their explosions.
A fiery blast forced him to dodge left, where a giant uprooted tree blocked his way. Forty feet in its new height, the fallen pine covered everything his eyes could see. It is here! He thought aghast.
Starting, he reached for the nearest branch and began climbing the fallen giant. More and more of the explosions were setting everything ablaze. The branches formed a perfect pathway for him to climb; one hand gripping the protruding bark after the other, his weight shifting from foot to foot as he climbed higher, and higher.
Drops of sweat kept rolling down his forehead and into his eyes, reducing his vision to a foggy blur. He could hear the cursing shouts of the dark figures below him, searching for him, playing with him like a lion with an ascertained prey. With his last ounces of strength, he managed to reach the top of the fallen tree; his frantic heart kept looking for a way to escape its white barred prison with every beating pump.
I have got to find it, he whispered under the crackles of the burning fires. A lost firebolt whizzed just where his head had been a few seconds ago. The blast collided with a nearby tree lighting his bulky silhouette, fretting about in the frame of the night.
"He is over there!" he heard a shrill voice scream. Unyielding, he rummaged throughout the whole length of the tree bole. "Alas! It is here!" he shrieked, as his hand sank into a hollow. He had a second to inspect the golden artifact, and before anything else happened, an army of those masked figures was now visible below him. Like a lightning, he mashed a gilded button and the contraption started whirring madly.
At once, his hunters took aim with a coordinated movement. Countless blasts echoed over the wooden walls of the forest like fireworks, set off in celebration, and as the fiery blasts caught up with him, he gave a measured step back.
Time seemed to have frozen and he was able to get a good look at all of his surroundings, before a hot, gurgling sensation filled his whole body. He took in the stale atmosphere of the forest, the shaking leaves of the pine trees in the night; the dark figures gathered below him.
He lost his balance and fell, backwards, inert, as showers of fiery stars kept roaring by before his closing eyes; all of his strength was ebbing away like smoke from a fire; a sudden feeling invaded him …he felt…cold.