Rebirth
Chapter 14: Inching Ahead (Lang)
The night had been peaceful for Lang. No dark dreams to haunt him, no strange urge to stay awake for the majority of the night—everything was perfect. Even the pillow and sheets that he slept on held the same quality. In no time at all, it was the next morning and Lang woke up bright and early. There was no need for Nancy's shouting today.
He gathered up his supplies from the room and headed downstairs. When there, he ordered himself a nice, large breakfast which included sausages, bacon, pancakes, scrambled eggs, biscuits, and grits. There were enough carbohydrates to sustain him for the next leg of the journey.
After receiving a few good-bye gifts from Sabrina (chocolates, a change of socks, and a shiny new pair of gauntlets), he promised her that he would visit a little more often. Lang then took his exit from the town's gate. A vast and rolling field lay before him invitingly. He was going to have to scale the length of it to arrive at the forest that served as a kind of entrance to Yuno.
Lang started forth confidently and soon the field surrounded him from all sides. The blankness of his environment also gave him a blankness of mind. Sunflowers, daffodils and the like seemed to avoid sprouting on the field. Here, the grass reigned supreme as green became the sole color of the ground. Not even the brown earth underneath showed itself.
One foot in front of the other—that was all his mind seemed to be able to think about. His footsteps were silent as the thick carpet of grass absorbed his impact. In fact, even the birds were quiet. The sound of the various items in his knapsack clinking and bumping became so routine and constant that it soon blended into the environment. To Lang, at the moment, there was no sound at all.
He began to whistle in an arbitrary fashion, but he quickly grew tired with his attempt to stave off the silence. Every once in a while, Lang's eyes would look into the distance only to be disillusioned. He still had a long ways to go and no landmarks to indicate how far he had travelled.
The only logical conclusion he could make at the moment was that he was indeed inching closer and closer to the Forest Maze despite the fact that he felt as if he was stuck in the same spot. So be it. This was not the first time he had travelled this way and certainly not the last.
Three days passing felt more like one continuous day punctuated by a few hours of darkness. Of course, Lang could not travel in the pitch blackness of night—even Galea's bioluminescence wasn't bright enough for such situations—but even with these moments of rest included, the monotony of this part of the journey failed to be overcome. Lang was only glad when he came upon the Forest Maze.
The blossoming trees were startling to his eyes that had grown accustomed to green. Without further delay he began on the makeshift path that ran roughly through the center.