It feels like an eternity since I was last here. Withered trees, rotting fields filled with maggot riddled husks, brown and decayed fields of grass, the bitter taste of death strewn upon the air: it is all I can remember, yet the taint seems scrubbed wholly – almost as if everything I can recall is but a faded nightmare of my own.
Such feelings only grow stronger as I bask in the sheer glow of what I behold. Trees bloom with life, swaying their branches to the beat of the wind, waving their long leafy fingers playfully at me. Thick, strong roots burrow fiercely into the soil, becoming one with the blades of crisp emerald grass. Flowers poke their cheerful faces spontaneously across the forest floor, greeting me with happy flamboyant colors.
Even once decrepit houses stand strong, their once broken husks seemingly reborn as if oaken phoenixes. Scurrying forth from their lively sheltering girths are the ultimate forms of what this land failed to nourish for so long: people.
Children scamper across the fields, swiping their tiny claws at one another in a playful chase. As we pass by, we can even see a young couple, robed in thick gray and black, watching their little monsters working diligently at being the perfect tiny ghouls that they are.
It is rather hypnotizing. Not quite sure what is about them – both parents and tiny ones – but I feel as if compelled to stare at them.
You were always a bit creepy like that. Young one, pay no heed – family cohesion is glorious spectacle of life.
Those words seem right: a small family, each one wearing a smile, weaving among the dancing winds, basking in the beautiful light overhead. They seem so happy.
As I gaze, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I find myself growing quickly uneasy. I don't need to wander what is happening. I know this feeling all too well. How I hate it.
"Come on, Hope," Carlin softly yet cautiously says. "Let us not dally here any longer." His voice slips beneath the cackling of hooves. He moves swifter than before. It takes me a bit effort to keep up with him, but not enough to keep me from hunting for what irritates me so.
Whatever is sending these shivers down my spine has to be nearby – watching, waiting. Except I cannot see anything. Or anyone. Not that I am a great detective or anything even near the sorts. That, sadly, means whoever is out there is hiding.
Nothing out of the ordinary, of course- not based on recent traditions, anyway. For so long I felt like I could go for days, weeks, even years and be a ghost, lost in the crowd with ease. As of late, I feel as if I am a glowing fire among a lush forest, lit for the entire world to see.
You are being overdramatic. Young one, you do everything you can to prevent forest fires.
Yes. I guess both of those are true. Maybe I am just imagining things – fanning flames that aren't even there. Yet, at the same time, the hairs on my neck do not lie. While the world may not have its eyes upon me, something is out there. I know it.
"Hope," Carlin's voice hits me a second before his arm. We skid swiftly off the road and into the thicket. "Keep moving, Hope," he continues, his words slightly strangled by nervous hands. While he manages to keep calm in appearance, I can still sense a bit of anxiety about him.
"Carlin –" I begin before he shushes me with his hand. He takes a quick glance over his shoulder before fixating forward. I try to look back to see what he does, but the woods around us seem to devour the road along with our very path.
I glance forward and then back once more. There, as the boundaries of the wood become all I can see, a pair of figures emerges in our wake. They stop at the edges, gawking inward at the ghosts that plunge into the bowels of the forest. They are as mysterious to me as we are most likely to them, but I can tell one thing: they have no urge to follow where we go.
In seconds they too become but a snack for the sprawling wood. Whoever they were, they are definitely gone now – out of sight, anyway.
"Carlin –" once more I try, but Carlin shushes me. This time, however, he uses a mere forceful gaze instead. The one a mother might use to scold a naughty child, or a disappointed look of a teacher to a pupil. A look I know quite fondly, except I am rather confused. "Was it something I did?"
He sighs heavily - another tell-tale sign that I did something wrong. While I am not sure what it is, I know from that expression that it was bad. Before I can say another word, he replies, "No, Hope. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I...didn't?"
"No, Hope," he sighs again, "no you didn't"
"Are you sure?" I narrow my gaze and throw my sternest glare at him. "Are you messing with me? Did Nathanus put you up to this?"
He opens his mouth, but a cocked eyebrow is all that follows. That and a break in his otherwise firm demeanor – a smile, I do believe. A smile a gentle chuckle. "Well-played, my boy. Well-played, indeed."
I adjust my collar and smugly reply, "I have my moments, Carlin. I have my –" as if on cue, my tongue is silenced – along with my feet. Departing from sight, the emerald and brown oceans of leaves and bark are parted. In its stead is a clearing.
Standing in rows are numerous still units that stretch for a short distance in all directions. Each one is seemingly unique, each one its own shape and design. They hold perfectly upright, in perfect form. They never flinch. They never break their stance.
I am mesmerized by their dedication. Beckoned by their silent call, I find myself drawn into their field. Carefully I maneuver around each one, making certain not to disrupt their ritual. They pay no attention to me as I pass – they didn't have time then and they definitely don't have time now. There is a task at hand, and they must do it as flawlessly as ever.
Wait. A few rows down. There is something out of place. Something wrong. Without a moment of hesitation, I dart forward. My feet are precise. My eyes are keen. There is something definitely out of place.
"Stop!" A voice calls to me, but it is meaningless.
"Stop! Now!" Utterly meaningless.
"Stop! Stop! Stop -!" Words fall upon deaf ears. I skid to a stop at the side of one of the firm statues, and peer down at the earthen mesh at its base. With one, swift, yet smooth motion I scoop a small pocket of fine dirt and fill an obvious gap at the top. How in the world did someone manage to miss that? It was so obvious a clueless dimwit couldn't have missed –
"You!" Once more the voice rains down upon me. I turn, watching as a man dressed in clothing obviously three sizes too big for him comes stomping to my side. He takes a moment to catch his breath before grumbling, "I will never understand why I still get winded." He inhales fiercely and exhales, emitting a sound of a holey bag-pipe. "What do you think you are doing? Hmmm?"
I open my mouth, but he doesn't have time for me, "You come dashing through my field, somehow dodging my babies despite having feet of a drunkard? For what?" A mangled claw is thrown towards the ground. "To tidy a roof?"
"A roof -?"
"A roof! A roof of a grave." Harsh hisses sounds escape his lungs and he smiles. "Respecting the dead, eh, lad? Admirable. Admirable and downright honorable!" Boney fingers – literally and figuratively - smack my shoulders. "Not every day that you find a fellow graves' keeper. No sir. We are a unique breed! Let me tell you!" He hiss-laughs again. "Very rare indeed. Ha."
He pauses briefly before becoming uncomfortably stern. His eyes sweep the cemetery before he whispers secretively to me, "Did you know that one man built this thing? Years ago?"
"I know–?"
"Did you know he did it after the plague ravaged these lands, leaving it barren and rotten?"
"Maybe –"
"Hell'of'a'thing, right?"
"I don't know –"
"Of course it is!" He slaps me again. "Ha. They say the boy carried a shovel made of gold and shot silver bullets the size of cannon balls out of it! Yes'sir! He spent years here until one day that foolish Lich King tried to stop him, and do you know what he did?"
"Possibly –?"
"That's right! He marched straight to Northrend, swam to the Citadel itself, and gave that false king what for, he did." Once more the hiss-laughs rain. "Do you know what happened to him? The boy?"
"I am not sure- "
"Dang," he runs a set of boney fingers across his grey chin, "I was hoping you could tell me. Last I heard, the Lich King killed him and turned him into a ghoul or something. Used him to cut down trees or what not. A damn shame."
A deep, somewhat forlorn sigh escapes his lungs and he continues, "Just telling you, friend, that even us few graves' keepers can make a change in this world. All you have to do is get the motivation and the drive, and even you can one day become cannon fodder so that the real heroes can carry on. Understand?"
"Not really –?"
"Perfect!" With one hand he waves at me while he pushes me with the other, "now get! My flock needs tending, and you are distracting me! Go! Get!" Dazed and insanely confused, I turn and carry on. Carlin waits a few rows down, leaning on the back of his fine stead, staring somewhat impatiently at me. At his front is an aged fence, while the hungering forest looms at his back.
"Have a nice chat, Hope?" His words are soft and rather caring; despite his otherwise stiff appearance. I come to his side, stop, and stare a moment at the ground. "Hope?"
"I…I have no idea what just happened."
"Excuse me?"
"Carlin," I take a moment to control my otherwise chaotic thoughts. "Am I weird?"
The old man leans forward, taking a good look at me. After a moment, he replies, "Hope, what did he say to you? What happened, exactly?"
"Nothing. Nothing, really," I shake my head, "just having a revelation, is all."
"Hope –?"
"Hey!" Simultaneously, the two of us turn towards the voice of the man among the field of stone. "Just a warning – since I like you and what not – your kind isn't welcome here! Fair travels!" With a wave, the man pushes us to the back of his focus and carries on with his tasks.
I gawk at him for a moment longer, and gaze up to Carlin. Our eyes meet, and I can tell what is on his mind as if he is speaking directly into mine. As we turn, aiming back into the forest, it is he that says just loud enough for me to hear, "We know."
At that, the two of us venture back into the forest. Further and further we travel, heading always inward on the road we carve until it fades upon the horizon and is devoured by the woods.