Johnny had managed to find a tree. Not a smudgy one, either, that changed
every time he looked at it. No, this was a real, solid, tree, though it
somehow seemed brighter, and more alive, then trees he'd seen back home.
No, trees had never managed to get his attention before, but this one was a
stable, familiar spot in an uncertain world, and so Nny stayed with it. It
seemed to him like a long time had passed, but there was no way to be sure.
The cold stars glittered at him, and the grass caressed the silver toes of his boots in the slight breeze. It was silent, and Nny felt blissfully alone. If it hadn't been for the uncertainty of both present and future, he might almost have been content. He looked up into the tree, and reached a hand out to grip one of the branches.
He pulled himself into the network of tree branches with cat-like grace, making no sound except for when he accidentally scraped the edge of one of his boots against the bark. He was thin enough to be quite comfortable on a medium-sized branch halfway up the tree, and there he waited, resting his head against the rough trunk. The tree talked to him, in its strange and subtle way, until he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
He awakened to a veritable horde of little flitty things. He let out a startled yell and tumbled back out of the tree. The thick grass broke his fall, to some extent, but his apprehension about the sudden appearance of dozens of bobbing globes of light overrode the dull pain. He tried to back away and stand up all at once, one hand flying down to his boots for a knife. He didn't find one; which led him to the conclusion that he was not in very much control here.
The little faery beings coursed around him, their soft light illuminating Nny's sickly, yellowish complexion, giving him an almost pallid glow. He'd managed to get to his feet, but still the little creatures wouldn't let him escape. He felt a tremor in one eye, which spread to his hands, and gradually throughout his whole body. They wouldn't stop crowding him. They wouldn't leave him alone. Damn it, WHY didn't he have a knife?
He tried the trick he'd learned in response to the oppressive familiars back at the castle. The castle… he remembered the place itself, it seemed, only vaguely, but he remembered clearly how ugly and terrible it had felt. This was better than that, and in reaching into the power well he'd only recently discovered in his own mind, he sensed that these creatures were not hostile and they meant him no harm. But that didn't change the fact that they were crowding around him and he did not like it. Johnny mentally thrust them away, pushed violently at them with the energy his own mind was wrapped around, and he was relieved to see them scatter backwards and dart about in anxiety and confusion.
But then they swarmed in again. Nny backed away quickly, once again fearful that he wasn't in as much control as he thought he was. And that was the most painful, frightening, unknown place to be in—not in control of yourself. He'd been there, too many times. And he didn't understand, now, why he couldn't chase these beings off like he had the familiars at the castle.
The bobbing globes seemed to converge, glowing into a single ball of light. No matter how quickly Johnny evaded its forward motion in his direction, it kept coming, and might even have been gaining. He wished for a knife even as he realized that it wasn't a knife that he needed to fend these strange beings off.
A knife, Johnny, a voice whispered in his mind. Use your mind as a knife. You can do this. Don't be afraid.
The voice conjured up an image of his old pal Nailbunny in Nny's mind. Though not an entity in himself, really, Nailbunny was the only voice of reason Johnny had ever heard and ever known, before Pine.
And it was that voice of reason that he listened to now. He focused on the glowing ball before him; his mind exploring the little tendrils of energy that crossed everywhere across this world, before grabbing bits of it and swirling into an image in Nny's mind of… a knife. It was not a physically tangible knife, and Johnny suspected you wouldn't even be able to see it back on Earth, but here it flashed and glinted with deadly precision, and he found he could wield it with his mind almost as deftly as he wielded his knives of steel. With a little practice… it would be an extremely useful weapon.
And it served his purpose now. Moving in a motion reminiscent of those he used in cutting strikes, Nny used that knife to cut through the glowing ball, scatter its individuals, fling them away, and keep them at bay as they circled him. A wide grin was spreading across his face, as crazed as the glint that came into his eyes. He moved along with the mental knife; it helped him to focus it better to handle the knife and attacks in a similar manner as he was used to.
He kept after the lights, his attacks and evasions growing faster and more furious. He was falling into the old swing of what he'd been doing for as long as he could remember, and as he tried it out, he found the mental knife to be no more difficult to handle. He grew intent on his goal, chasing the lights away from him, parrying all their attempts to swarm together or closer to him. He played a game, almost; not hurting them, just keeping them away from him.
It was in the middle of this that Pine arrived. The unicorn appeared as only another glow, through which he watched his charge leaping, darting, and slashing with a shimmering weapon obviously conceived with pure energy. Pine felt a moment of pride. What Johnny was doing was quite a big accomplishment. Of course it did help that this was only a variant on what the human usually did.
Johnny slowed his attacks when he noticed the unicorn. The maniacal grin faded from his face, and as his strikes against them slowed and the sword dissipated with Nny's distraction, the little globes of light tried to swarm him again, not aware that the game had ended. Pine tossed his head, dismissing them with a swipe of his horn and a tendril of his own power. They faded out and disappeared.
"You left," Johnny said. Only silence echoed him. Pine waited; he knew it was human nature to both give out and accrue blame for events that no one really had any control over. Johnny didn't seem to have anything more to say; his eyes still held that crazy luster, though his scrawny form seemed to melt back into the shadows somewhat. Pine saw a confused, suspicious human, afraid of the unknown and the thought of return to the agony that he'd only just escaped. Pine didn't blame him. He couldn't blame Johnny for anything. When you considered every facet of a human's nature, everything they said or did was right and just. Things seemed wrong only because of a lack of understanding. And that was why Pine still stayed around humans. He wanted them to understand.
Johnny, as a student, was an unusual case. Although he was drawn to the human at first because of the situation he had been in, Pine found himself curious—curious how such a diseased soul would understand the world. Pine had dealt with human minds that were less than there before. But never had he found a soul that was the cause of insanity. A soul, an outside force of negativity, and some purpose behind it all… but what?
Johnny knew how Pine's logic was working. He said nothing, and waited for Johnny to realize his own mistake… whatever it was. But Nny was frustrated… not to mention annoyed, distrustful, and betrayed. Pine had left him alone in the grip of that creature, he had seen the unicorn turn away and leave. Why? Of all creatures Johnny would've expected better of a unicorn, but his mind was so used to getting the worst from all living things, it had easily accepted the idea that the unicorn had abandoned him. Not even counting whatever influence the demon had impressed upon him. Johnny stood there, struggling with it, for a long time. In this realm, he had a feeling that time was measured very differently from what it was in his own realm. And he realized that, despite the ugliness of his life back there, he would prefer it to this world, where huge, powerful creatures could torture you for eternity, and where strange things crept in every shadow. Where little bobbing lights wouldn't leave you alone. Johnny looked into the warm brown eyes of the unicorn, who still simply stood there, his tail swishing gently, his ears perked at the human. This wasn't an evil being. Whatever he had done, he had done it for a reason, and Johnny reluctantly decided that he was just too young and human to understand. Of course, there definitely was too much that Johnny understood… but even he knew that while he understood the negative side of most things extremely well, good was a mystery to him.
"Will you take me home?" Johnny spoke the question quickly.
"To the physical world?" Pine answered.
"Yes… the physical world," Nny cocked an eyebrow at the unicorn. What other home did he have?
"Johnny, you no longer have a physical body."
He hadn't thought about that. He remembered only the agony when his soul had been torn from his body, and he flinched at the memory. He had known he wasn't in his body anymore, but he hadn't thought about that. And so, here he was, in a non-corporeal world, where he was doomed to an existence no more solid than it was.
"You don't have one either," he finally said, his mind trying to find a way around the situation. "But you go there."
"I don't live there."
So why couldn't Johnny just 'visit' then? Because I don't know enough, he thought to himself with a cynical smirk. He heard that voice in his mind again. Of course the unicorn could, he was much older and more powerful than Nny was.
"I'm stuck here then."
"I'm sure it's possible to fabricate a previous existence on the physical plane. Maybe even a new one," Pine said. At least he was being helpful… somehow Johnny knew that such a task as the unicorn spoke of was no little feat and probably not accomplishable even by a being so powerful as Pine.
"Without the wall demon?" He couldn't help but ask that question… the thought of living in control, his memories undamaged and his mind intact, was a nice one.
"I couldn't promise you that. Whatever that thing is, it's attuned to you. Your soul, your energy pattern. Maybe it will find you again, maybe it will choose not to." Pine's gaze was unwavering, but compassionate despite the cruelly truthful words. "You made it powerful, Johnny. You gave into it. The life and power of the hundreds you murdered is in that thing."
"If it's so powerful now, why would it come back?"
"I don't know. Maybe for the same reason it was holding onto you and torturing you. Why does it want you, Nny? What else does it need from you? I can't answer that for you, but maybe if you come to understand things well enough, you can answer it yourself."
"It can still be defeated though, can't it? I could hold it away…"
"Not by yourself. You will need to find others to help you if you want to keep it at bay. Perhaps, when it first found you, you could've driven it away by yourself, but you didn't know how then. And it took you over, made you feed it, so it could become powerful."
Johnny crossed his arms, thinking, as he gazed pensively at the grass that wavered in the breeze. He was beginning to feel helplessly out of control again. He'd always thought, when his thoughts were his own, that the thing behind his wall had once been weak enough for him to overcome. He had thought he could fight. But he was wrong… maybe if he had known then what he knew now, he could've fought. But it was too late; there was no way he could do it by himself now… the unicorn was right. He'd have to find someone to help him. But who? Not humans, certainly, but that was out of the question anyway because he no longer had an existence on that plane. More astral beings, then.
"Where can I find someone to help?" he asked Pine finally.
"I know a group that is familiar with this type of creature."
"Wait… this 'type'? You mean there's more than one of those things?"
"Their nature is a characteristic of their group, yes. They feed off of energy acquired through helpless souls. They take different forms, mostly the form or appearance they take has some significance with the soul that they've 'chosen' to serve them."
"So… these things are everywhere?"
"There are not many of them on Earth. But there is something special about you, Johnny; all that I have seen on Earth, seems to be connected to you in some way."
"Me?"
"Yes. I don't know more about it than that."
Johnny grimaced, then shrugged. If he could find someone to help him… maybe none of this would matter anymore. Maybe someday, it would all be moot…
"Can we go see that group you were talking about?"
"Of course."
The cold stars glittered at him, and the grass caressed the silver toes of his boots in the slight breeze. It was silent, and Nny felt blissfully alone. If it hadn't been for the uncertainty of both present and future, he might almost have been content. He looked up into the tree, and reached a hand out to grip one of the branches.
He pulled himself into the network of tree branches with cat-like grace, making no sound except for when he accidentally scraped the edge of one of his boots against the bark. He was thin enough to be quite comfortable on a medium-sized branch halfway up the tree, and there he waited, resting his head against the rough trunk. The tree talked to him, in its strange and subtle way, until he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
He awakened to a veritable horde of little flitty things. He let out a startled yell and tumbled back out of the tree. The thick grass broke his fall, to some extent, but his apprehension about the sudden appearance of dozens of bobbing globes of light overrode the dull pain. He tried to back away and stand up all at once, one hand flying down to his boots for a knife. He didn't find one; which led him to the conclusion that he was not in very much control here.
The little faery beings coursed around him, their soft light illuminating Nny's sickly, yellowish complexion, giving him an almost pallid glow. He'd managed to get to his feet, but still the little creatures wouldn't let him escape. He felt a tremor in one eye, which spread to his hands, and gradually throughout his whole body. They wouldn't stop crowding him. They wouldn't leave him alone. Damn it, WHY didn't he have a knife?
He tried the trick he'd learned in response to the oppressive familiars back at the castle. The castle… he remembered the place itself, it seemed, only vaguely, but he remembered clearly how ugly and terrible it had felt. This was better than that, and in reaching into the power well he'd only recently discovered in his own mind, he sensed that these creatures were not hostile and they meant him no harm. But that didn't change the fact that they were crowding around him and he did not like it. Johnny mentally thrust them away, pushed violently at them with the energy his own mind was wrapped around, and he was relieved to see them scatter backwards and dart about in anxiety and confusion.
But then they swarmed in again. Nny backed away quickly, once again fearful that he wasn't in as much control as he thought he was. And that was the most painful, frightening, unknown place to be in—not in control of yourself. He'd been there, too many times. And he didn't understand, now, why he couldn't chase these beings off like he had the familiars at the castle.
The bobbing globes seemed to converge, glowing into a single ball of light. No matter how quickly Johnny evaded its forward motion in his direction, it kept coming, and might even have been gaining. He wished for a knife even as he realized that it wasn't a knife that he needed to fend these strange beings off.
A knife, Johnny, a voice whispered in his mind. Use your mind as a knife. You can do this. Don't be afraid.
The voice conjured up an image of his old pal Nailbunny in Nny's mind. Though not an entity in himself, really, Nailbunny was the only voice of reason Johnny had ever heard and ever known, before Pine.
And it was that voice of reason that he listened to now. He focused on the glowing ball before him; his mind exploring the little tendrils of energy that crossed everywhere across this world, before grabbing bits of it and swirling into an image in Nny's mind of… a knife. It was not a physically tangible knife, and Johnny suspected you wouldn't even be able to see it back on Earth, but here it flashed and glinted with deadly precision, and he found he could wield it with his mind almost as deftly as he wielded his knives of steel. With a little practice… it would be an extremely useful weapon.
And it served his purpose now. Moving in a motion reminiscent of those he used in cutting strikes, Nny used that knife to cut through the glowing ball, scatter its individuals, fling them away, and keep them at bay as they circled him. A wide grin was spreading across his face, as crazed as the glint that came into his eyes. He moved along with the mental knife; it helped him to focus it better to handle the knife and attacks in a similar manner as he was used to.
He kept after the lights, his attacks and evasions growing faster and more furious. He was falling into the old swing of what he'd been doing for as long as he could remember, and as he tried it out, he found the mental knife to be no more difficult to handle. He grew intent on his goal, chasing the lights away from him, parrying all their attempts to swarm together or closer to him. He played a game, almost; not hurting them, just keeping them away from him.
It was in the middle of this that Pine arrived. The unicorn appeared as only another glow, through which he watched his charge leaping, darting, and slashing with a shimmering weapon obviously conceived with pure energy. Pine felt a moment of pride. What Johnny was doing was quite a big accomplishment. Of course it did help that this was only a variant on what the human usually did.
Johnny slowed his attacks when he noticed the unicorn. The maniacal grin faded from his face, and as his strikes against them slowed and the sword dissipated with Nny's distraction, the little globes of light tried to swarm him again, not aware that the game had ended. Pine tossed his head, dismissing them with a swipe of his horn and a tendril of his own power. They faded out and disappeared.
"You left," Johnny said. Only silence echoed him. Pine waited; he knew it was human nature to both give out and accrue blame for events that no one really had any control over. Johnny didn't seem to have anything more to say; his eyes still held that crazy luster, though his scrawny form seemed to melt back into the shadows somewhat. Pine saw a confused, suspicious human, afraid of the unknown and the thought of return to the agony that he'd only just escaped. Pine didn't blame him. He couldn't blame Johnny for anything. When you considered every facet of a human's nature, everything they said or did was right and just. Things seemed wrong only because of a lack of understanding. And that was why Pine still stayed around humans. He wanted them to understand.
Johnny, as a student, was an unusual case. Although he was drawn to the human at first because of the situation he had been in, Pine found himself curious—curious how such a diseased soul would understand the world. Pine had dealt with human minds that were less than there before. But never had he found a soul that was the cause of insanity. A soul, an outside force of negativity, and some purpose behind it all… but what?
Johnny knew how Pine's logic was working. He said nothing, and waited for Johnny to realize his own mistake… whatever it was. But Nny was frustrated… not to mention annoyed, distrustful, and betrayed. Pine had left him alone in the grip of that creature, he had seen the unicorn turn away and leave. Why? Of all creatures Johnny would've expected better of a unicorn, but his mind was so used to getting the worst from all living things, it had easily accepted the idea that the unicorn had abandoned him. Not even counting whatever influence the demon had impressed upon him. Johnny stood there, struggling with it, for a long time. In this realm, he had a feeling that time was measured very differently from what it was in his own realm. And he realized that, despite the ugliness of his life back there, he would prefer it to this world, where huge, powerful creatures could torture you for eternity, and where strange things crept in every shadow. Where little bobbing lights wouldn't leave you alone. Johnny looked into the warm brown eyes of the unicorn, who still simply stood there, his tail swishing gently, his ears perked at the human. This wasn't an evil being. Whatever he had done, he had done it for a reason, and Johnny reluctantly decided that he was just too young and human to understand. Of course, there definitely was too much that Johnny understood… but even he knew that while he understood the negative side of most things extremely well, good was a mystery to him.
"Will you take me home?" Johnny spoke the question quickly.
"To the physical world?" Pine answered.
"Yes… the physical world," Nny cocked an eyebrow at the unicorn. What other home did he have?
"Johnny, you no longer have a physical body."
He hadn't thought about that. He remembered only the agony when his soul had been torn from his body, and he flinched at the memory. He had known he wasn't in his body anymore, but he hadn't thought about that. And so, here he was, in a non-corporeal world, where he was doomed to an existence no more solid than it was.
"You don't have one either," he finally said, his mind trying to find a way around the situation. "But you go there."
"I don't live there."
So why couldn't Johnny just 'visit' then? Because I don't know enough, he thought to himself with a cynical smirk. He heard that voice in his mind again. Of course the unicorn could, he was much older and more powerful than Nny was.
"I'm stuck here then."
"I'm sure it's possible to fabricate a previous existence on the physical plane. Maybe even a new one," Pine said. At least he was being helpful… somehow Johnny knew that such a task as the unicorn spoke of was no little feat and probably not accomplishable even by a being so powerful as Pine.
"Without the wall demon?" He couldn't help but ask that question… the thought of living in control, his memories undamaged and his mind intact, was a nice one.
"I couldn't promise you that. Whatever that thing is, it's attuned to you. Your soul, your energy pattern. Maybe it will find you again, maybe it will choose not to." Pine's gaze was unwavering, but compassionate despite the cruelly truthful words. "You made it powerful, Johnny. You gave into it. The life and power of the hundreds you murdered is in that thing."
"If it's so powerful now, why would it come back?"
"I don't know. Maybe for the same reason it was holding onto you and torturing you. Why does it want you, Nny? What else does it need from you? I can't answer that for you, but maybe if you come to understand things well enough, you can answer it yourself."
"It can still be defeated though, can't it? I could hold it away…"
"Not by yourself. You will need to find others to help you if you want to keep it at bay. Perhaps, when it first found you, you could've driven it away by yourself, but you didn't know how then. And it took you over, made you feed it, so it could become powerful."
Johnny crossed his arms, thinking, as he gazed pensively at the grass that wavered in the breeze. He was beginning to feel helplessly out of control again. He'd always thought, when his thoughts were his own, that the thing behind his wall had once been weak enough for him to overcome. He had thought he could fight. But he was wrong… maybe if he had known then what he knew now, he could've fought. But it was too late; there was no way he could do it by himself now… the unicorn was right. He'd have to find someone to help him. But who? Not humans, certainly, but that was out of the question anyway because he no longer had an existence on that plane. More astral beings, then.
"Where can I find someone to help?" he asked Pine finally.
"I know a group that is familiar with this type of creature."
"Wait… this 'type'? You mean there's more than one of those things?"
"Their nature is a characteristic of their group, yes. They feed off of energy acquired through helpless souls. They take different forms, mostly the form or appearance they take has some significance with the soul that they've 'chosen' to serve them."
"So… these things are everywhere?"
"There are not many of them on Earth. But there is something special about you, Johnny; all that I have seen on Earth, seems to be connected to you in some way."
"Me?"
"Yes. I don't know more about it than that."
Johnny grimaced, then shrugged. If he could find someone to help him… maybe none of this would matter anymore. Maybe someday, it would all be moot…
"Can we go see that group you were talking about?"
"Of course."
