CHAPTER THREE
Darkness remained all around her. She couldn't feel her physical body; in fact, if anything, all she could feel was... nothingness. It was like the world - the very laws of physics - no longer existed for her mind. She knew she wasn't awake. But somehow she knew she wasn't asleep, either. It was almost akin to dreaming... if only she knew what dream it was meant to be.
Perhaps... but did she remember what had just happened? Could she recall the events leading up to her being... here? Upon attempting to ascertain the truth, only pitch darkness encroached, her memories unreachable.
Where's Andrew?
The thought reverberated throughout her mind as if it was a belfry, as if bells clanged away repeatedly, never ceasing. The name, however... Andrew... she felt it should have been familiar to her in some way. But without her memories, she knew it was pointless to even try remembering - firing neural connections that no longer existed; not here, not in this black, empty, omnipresent place.
A flash of white light pierced the night, so bright it was like a blade stabbing into her non-existent eyes.
She began to feel... motion. Forward motion.
As if she were in a car.
On a road.
A neuron flared in her mind. She hadn't been driving, no... she was a passenger in this particular car, she was sure of it.
Another neuron flared. And another. The light appeared again.
Am I dead? Is this it for me? Are these my final thoughts before I completely wink out of existence?
Part of her felt absurd for thinking such a thing. Though, admittedly, she had no idea one way or the other; she had never been dead before.
The light drew closer.
A wall slammed out in front of her.
The light engulfed her.
It suffused her; enrobed her soul, her entire being.
Oh, my God. Then she remembered how to inhale.
Alicia jerked upright, the shock of physically feeling ground beneath her back bolting her back to reality, but almost immediately ended up falling back onto her rump as her legs weren't used to being used in so violent a fashion so soon after awakening. She landed with a hff. She was barely able to hear herself land; her ears were still getting reacquainted with sound.
She found that her hands were bare; she felt the ground beneath them as dry and dusty. Then Alicia remembered that her eyes were still closed. Opening them, she found she had to squint for a a while as her eyes got used to the daylight. But after a couple of minutes (at least, Alicia assumed it was a couple of minutes) she began to make out the rust-red soil, as well as the purple foliage maybe three hundred metres distant. Light green clumps of grass grew here and there around her.
Wait a minute. Purple trees...?
Alicia rubbed her eyes and looked again. Purple trees were definitely ahead of her. Turning around on the spot, she noted that they were all around; some taller than others, some more vibrant in colour than others. But they were all, most definitely, positively purple. Even the trunks were a dark purple.
There was no sign of any car, however.
Oh, my God... where's Andrew?!
Alicia's heart began to build in speed. "Andrew?" she called, adrenaline pumping its way through her rapidly-pulsing bloodstream. "Andrew?!"
Silence.
Maybe I really am dead...
Andrew ran on, sheer panic driving him forward. He had to be having some kind of nightmare, surely? Any minute now, he'd wake safe and sane in his bed again, take a shower, and race downstairs and out the door in time to pick Alicia up and head to Swindon.
But no, he was here - wherever here was - sprinting along a dirt track through a purple forest. Before opening his eyes, he could've sworn he was swerving and driving his car through a wall... was that the nightmare instead?
His foot jammed on a rock, sending bouts of pain shooting up his left leg, and as he fell Andrew grazed the skin off both of his palms in the red dirt. This is just bloody great, he thought, grabbing hold of his injured ankle with both bloodied hands. He tried to put weight on it, but that simply left him howling in pain. His breath was coming fast and ragged now, his mind afraid of the possibility of being stuck here lost and alone.
A shriek pierced the empty forest. Through the clearing in the treetops, Andrew could make out a lone black shape in the deep blue sky.
It was heading in his direction.
It was heading for him.
Andrew's eyes widened in horror as the realisation struck him, and he tried to run into a thicket of undergrowth, managing five paces before his ankle halted him violently. He looked around - nothing. Slowing his breath, Andrew attempted to calm himself so as to give off less sound and make it harder for whatever it was to locate him.
The last thing Andrew Illman heard was a quivering avian call as he felt a a sharpness punch through the middle of his chest. Before the endless dark took him, he saw the colour of his own blood upon a shining blade of gold, which retreated from his vision when he began to slide forward off the blade and onto the red dirt.
A faraway shriek in the sky stopped Alicia in her tracks. What fresh Hell is coming at me now? she thought ironically. In the Land of the Purple Trees, that sound probably meant flying meat-eating elephants.
Her instinct told her to hide herself away, and Alicia followed her gut immediately. One of the nearby trees had a large nook in the middle of its base, and it was here that Alicia chose to hide herself from whatever dangers may appear. Suddenly, her phone began to ring. "Shit!" she exclaimed to no one but herself. Looking at the screen, she saw that the number was unknown; still, she answered it, hoping that there was someone - anyone - out there that could possibly help her. "Hello?"
Silence.
"Hello?" she repeated.
Silence turned to static.
Oh, God. "Hello? Who is this?" Her frustration overtook her, and Alicia ended the call.
What the Hell was going on here? She knew she'd definitely been unconscious, but Alicia was certain that it had been evening - and that she'd been in a car with green trees outside - before she'd arrived... here. Could that white light have had anything to do with it? No... the most likely explanation was that she was still, in fact, unconscious (for whatever reason; she still could not recall all the facts), and that this was simply her mind going bonkers. In any case, her best hope of survival meant fleeing to safety. But not quite yet.
Alicia stayed hidden in the tree for a good couple of hours, until at last she plucked up the courage to tentatively take a step out. By now, she'd gotten used to the idea of seeing amethyst-coloured trees all around her, as well as dry, gritty rust-red ground beneath her feet. A slight breeze had begun to waft through the forest, stirring the leaves on an otherwise delightfully-warm summer day. No other sound could be heard. Choosing a direction seemingly from random, Alicia began to pace forward.
It wasn't until she came upon a clear flowing stream about an hour later that she realised that she was thirsty. She knelt at the bank of the stream and, using her hands as a basin, she scooped up some of the refreshingly-cool water and brought it closer to her parched mouth.
A snapping branch brought Alicia to a halt.
"Pixie Bomb!"
Her head flew around to see a tiny black ball fly into the foliage of the surrounding trees. Seconds later, an explosion ripped through the tree, raining leaves down upon the stream. Alicia screamed.
She screamed again as something else fell from the tree. She didn't have time to see what it was as a pink-and-cream furball flew into her sight, barely the size of her own head - and with wide white wings attached to the top of it's body. It was carrying a spear in one of it's hands. Then it shocked her even more.
It spoke.
"Human, how did you get here? There's no Digital Portal for kilometres around here... now, don't dawdle, I don't have time for a cozy little chat right this minute; but follow me, and I'll lead you to a safer place."
It's speech took all of ten seconds, and Alicia barely comprehended the meaning of the words as the thing flew away from her. "Hurry!" it shouted. Not wanting to stay and find out just what had fallen from the charred and ruined trees, she had no choice but to follow.
Alicia ran for what seemed like hours, when in fact it was closer to two or three minutes; all the while, the strange little flying furball peered around and yelled, "Hurry! Before she can get back in the air!" Suddenly, it stopped in front of an ordinary-looking purple leaf tree that had fallen onto its side. "Hide yourself in there, quickly!"
Before she could ask how on earth she was going to use a quite-solid tree trunk as a hiding place, the pink-and-cream ball literally hurled her into it. She yelped as she seemed to pass through the tree into the interior space. Alicia opened her eyes, and instead of wood grain pressed impossibly up against her face, she saw a cavernous tunnel. The sides - presumably the tree bark - were a luminous white, separated into squares of roughly a handspan apiece.
Behind her, the furball appeared, illiciting a small spate of shock from Alicia. "Keep your voice down," it said, it's own voiced barely a whisper. "With luck, she'll keep hunting for us in some other part of the forest." It held it's right hand out for her to shake. "The name's Piximon, so's you know." Alicia hesitantly took it's hand. There was an odd feel to it, like human skin stretched over human flesh, yet quite clearly this Piximon was anything but human. "You're Alicia Gear," Piximon said suddenly.
This unnerved Alicia more than anything else that had happened here thus far. Her face scrunched into a frown, she asked, "How did you know that?"
A twinkle shined in Piximon's eyes just for a moment. "I'll explain later, human." It raised the spear and pointed down in the direction of the tree-tunnel. "For now, our course lies that way." And so the furball glided down the tunnel, Alicia following close behind.
"Excuse me, Piximon?" she asked. "I don't suppose you've any other people around here, by any chance?"
Piximon's eyes, ovals of solid black, looked sorrowful for a moment - and that filled Alicia's stomach with ice-cold dread. "I'm afraid I wasn't quick enough to save your friend, Alicia. He was killed by Karatenmon before I could save him." That halted Alicia in her tracks. "I managed to ambush Karatenmon before she could kill you too, however, and here we are. She does tend to get very protective of her territory, so's you know."
