I'm not sure I spelled 'Striesand' right.  But if you fully get that one, you probably have bigger issues than spelling.

10


Soon after Gennai left, there was a sunrise that burned away the fog; and it was good.  The distant golden sun revealed a bay, shining blue, that swept into a distant ocean and was bordered by green valleys and hills.  There was no sign of human life, no sound but gentle wind and bird-song.  The  last white contrails of fog retreated to the distant corners, a small uneasy underscore; the warning of Gennai's final words that hovered beneath the wonder they all shared at the sight of a world literally new-made.

"It reminds me of the unpopulated areas of Hokkaido, or of the Alaskan frontier," Izzy observed; he had never been to Hokkaido or Alaska.

It was warm, but with a comfortable breeze.  For the day, they forgot they were the digidestined, and explored aimlessly.  Tai and Matt climbed a rock ledge in the afternoon; admired the view for a moment; then came down.  Mimi sat in the shade and looked pretty, watching Sora beat T.K. and Kari in a tree-climbing contest.  Even Izzy put his laptop away.

By the end of the day they had walked several miles and were approaching a large pass into a new valley, inland from the sea.  They made what camp they could in a grove of trees bordered on two sides by a steep cliff and on another by an ancient rock slide.  Tai thought it would be a well-protected location.

Sora was able to start a fire, to small cheers.  A little fog coated the ground as they worried about ways to keep each other awake.  They had found an apple tree earlier, and Sora – who would have made a model boy scout – showed them how to roast the apples over the fire.

Matt wandered a little way from the camp and saw the sunset through the treebranches.  With no pollution to enhance the color, it was rather uninspiring; he wished he had his guituar with him.

He wished they had anything useful, really.  As the last glow from the sun faded, a chill went through him.  He had only the shirt and jeans he had been wearing under his wetsuit.  Sora had managed to create pair of makeshift backpacks from the oxygen tanks and wetsuit material.  So they had the backpacks and Izzy's laptop; no other modern technology, no change of clothes—

The sun was gone, and the trees cast leering shadows from two pale moons; ethereal goddesses casting their first look at the world.  The world was still, and the moons cast especially ominous shadows over the caves in the cliff face.

Caves that weren't there before the sun set.

Matt stood up, taking a step forward, toward the cave; certainly nothing from his own mind could harm him.  Nothing from his own mind could wish him ill.  But with every step he took towards those caves, he became increasingly certain that there was something in them that wanted to hurt him, and badly.  He had moved only a few steps before the malevolent force took a physical shape, and the wings of a thousand bats began to beat at the night air.

He wanted to turn and make a break for the trees, but it was of course far too late.  There was a single black form flowing out of the caves, the night creatures moving as one, moving right toward Matt.  The moonlight did not shine on them, and it was a pillar of blackness, not a flock of living creatures, that was charging him. Matt threw himself backwards, landing flat on his back as he felt the skittering of dozens of wings beating just centimeters from his face, brushing against his skin.

For a moment they were again bats, natural creatures with no supernatural malevlolence; they scattered to the wind, looking for food.  Matt pulled himself up, breaking for the campsite; the darkness that had driven the bats – whatever it was – was regrouping.


"Matt?" Tai stepped out from the trees, and Matt felt the darkness retreat.  For the moment.

The digidestined were huddled around the campfire, and Izzy was pontificating:

"If this world is somehow shaped by our personalities, it could be Matt encountered a physical representation of someone's fear, or a personal demon, as the Americans would call it.  At the risk of pop-psychology, night is the time when people believe their fears will come to life, when bad things happen.  Or, more accurately, when our unresolved psychological issues will be given a physical form."

Everyone took a couple of steps away from Matt.

"Izzy," Tai asked, "Is there any way we can defend against this sort of thing?"

"I think," Izzy replied, emphasizing 'think,' "That they only attack when we're alone, and thus, most vulnerable. That would explain why the bats scattered when Tai arrived."

"Okay," Tai nodded, "From now on, we're on the buddy system. No one does anything alone. Hopefully, that will keep us safe."

A sudden gust of wind blew the fire out, as if to mock his words.


Sora's scouting know-how had deserted her; they were still trying to get the fire going again several hours later. It was very late, and the moon was almost setting. The halo over the western mountains suggested that dawn was coming.

"We need to find a way out of this world," Mimi was complaining, "I've never gone this long without sleep before. I don't know if I can stay up much longer."

"What you need," Izzy commented, "Is a good surge of adrenaline.  I'm sure a giant monster would properly stimulate your adrenal gland."

"That's not funny," Sora channeled Striesand.

"What?  The odds of something like that are one in—"

An ear-shattering roar of pain, anger, and malice swept over the campsite, echoing across the cliffs that protected them and also boxed them in.

"...one," Izzy finished, slowly and deliberately closing his laptop and putting it in it's carrycase.  The trees parted unwillingly, most bending but several breaking and falling forward toward the camp. The digidestined quickly darted out of the way, scattering in front of the monstrosity moving toward them. It was ten meters high if it was a foot, and seemed to be nothing but claws and mandibles.

"Let's go!" Sora shouted, and most of the digidestined began a mad dash into the woods to the south.

"Wait!" Tai shouted after them, "We should stay and face this! You don't run from your fears!"

"You do when they look like Godzilla on PCP!" Matt reminded him.  Sora had found a cave entrance in the cliff-face, and she and Matt shuffled the others inside.  Tai held his ground, and the beast reared up in front of him.

"Tai!" Sora pleaded, "Come on!"

Matt ran back for him, muttering to himself:  "You and your fucking after-school-special face-your-fears Captain-Planet-school-of-leadership bull—"  He grabbed Tai and yanked him hard, just as a great clawed appendage fell, striking a crater where Tai had been standing.  The creature roared again, mighty and terrible, and Tai looked briefly at Matt.

"It's really real."  Matt nodded, and pulled again at Tai to get him running.  They struck out for the cave, but by then it was of course far too late.  The monstrosity leapt forward at them, a clawed missile, and Tai and Matt pulled each other to the ground to huddled against one another and wait for it to land…

Time stretched out, as it always does in the seconds before you die.  But eventually it became clear that the seconds that seemed to be passing were actually seconds passing and that the monster had not hit them.  Tai looked up. Pulling himself to his knees and looking around, there was no sign of the monster, only digidestined walking toward them from the cave.

"Did we...beat it?" he asked hopefully.

"No," Izzy replied as Tai helped Matt to his feet.  "The sun just came up."