Play of Spirits
Chapter 17 - Trailmon Graveyard
The next few days were silent. No messages on whatever his phone had turned into. No signs of life anywhere. Not even the trees rustled and it was a silence that made him want to scream or talk to himself or make some kind of noise just so he knew he wasn't stuck in a never-ending nightmare.
But remembering how quickly those two fighting creatures had snuck upon him, he couldn't afford to just scream his frustration and his fear.
So he hummed instead, as loud as he dared and he continued walking in one direction as well as he could manage. He had a landmark, at least. That swirling purple cluster of stars in the distance called the Venus Rose. He had no idea what lay there, but at least it would be different to this forest that seemed to crawl forever on.
It reminded him of one of his stepmother's novels. One of those children ones that she used in her English classes. Something about an enchanted forest… or maybe it was just a tree in the forest. In any case, as far as he recalled it was a place where the children saw lots of magic and had lots of fun.
And he was seeing some weird stuff that probably qualified as magic, but certainly wasn't having any fun. Talking monsters swinging real weapons around, fruit that didn't taste like fruit at all and had his palms stinging as he tried to get a fire started on his own without a flint or match or anything…
If he'd known this was the sort of adventure he was signing up for, he wouldn't have bothered. Sitting through an awkward anniversary dinner would be better than this.
And he didn't even know how many days it had been since he'd last seen the lion and the feather-bird.
And it was at least three days before that since he'd gotten on that fateful train.
I'm an idiot.
He stopped humming for a bit, letting the self-decrepitating smirk dance across his lips. He knew it had sounded suspicious and yet he'd followed anyway. What was he? The naïve little girl Alice in Alice in Wonderland? Well, in that case, a white rabbit should be showing up soon again.
He blinked. There was something through the tree line. Or maybe it was just a mirage. Sure, the most common of those was when someone was wandering a desert and had no water, but that wasn't the only possibility. Any time one wanted something badly enough, they could see it and it'd just be a trick of the light or a mirror or one's own mind…
He wondered if he hungered for a change of scenery that badly, to see it through the trees. But it was dead ahead in any case, so he didn't lose anything by following it.
It was an effort to keep to the same speed, even with that possibility. He had to force himself to not dash for the break and feel his heart plummet to his shoes when it proved to not be the case. Instead, his heart hammered away insistently in his chest, as though fed up with his impatience, and he walked there as sedately and as silently as he could manage. He didn't pick up his humming again.
Though when he got closer, the lack of trees in the distance became more prominent so maybe it wasn't a mirage. Or perhaps mirages were that good at refining themselves to approaches. He wouldn't know. He wasn't exactly accustomed to them. They were just part of the general knowledge one picked up from reading and watching and hearing… For all he knew, those people had it all wrong.
He escaped the trees and there was dirt and pebbles under foot. It didn't look like a desert, black and dreary, but it was plain. He could still see the stars in the distance and something rising up. A castle? A mountain?
He debated walking a little further, now that he was free from the forest, and he did walk a bit before rationality dropped back in.
Open plains like this meant no trees anywhere and who knew if there was smaller shrubbery he couldn't see? Or anywhere to get water, for that matter.
So back to the forest for supplies it was. Which proved tricky in itself because he still hadn't found anything plastic-like or a bottle or container to keep water in. The meat applies he could wrap in his jacket but it wasn't a raincoat. It wouldn't hold water. In the end, he packed his bandanna with as many leaves as he could manage and hoped that would keep it in. It didn't quite, but it would take hours for that to all drip through. Hopefully it wouldn't before he found something.
Because he wasn't going to turn back to the forest a third time. Even the second had him constantly staring back at the tree line to make sure the plains beyond it were still there.
Now he walked across the plains, which were much harder to keep track of after the forest disappeared from view because the ground was so hard. His tracks vanished almost as soon as he made them. Still, he had himself. And until the water ran out, he had those drops not quite spaced out enough.
Though the plains weren't as plain as he'd first thought. Everything was non-descript but there were things there. The occasional boulder or bit of fence, and he couldn't work out if the place was a civilisation once in ruins or wildlife attempting to play the part of civilisation. Either way, it was as deserted as the forest and the bits of fence or boulder he found were hardly enough to pave a road. They didn't do anything to orient him, either. They were like the trees in the forest: mochrome and monotone. The only difference is that none of the ones he passed bore fruit he could eat.
At least he managed to stumble onto a well. Another point to this having been a lost civilisation, he supposed. He filled up his makeshift water bag and hoped that would last until the next stop.
Honestly. What a life he was suddenly living.
It would be far too easy to just sit down on one of those boulders and not get up again. So hard to drag himself up and keep on waking. Especially when he had a destination in mind. Keep on heading towards the Venus Rose. And eventually he'd get there. Unless it was like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
No, he couldn't think like that. He had to keep moving because there might be water nearby but no food. He'd starve out here. If he was going to lie down and not move somewhere, it should've been the forest he'd already left behind.
So he kept on walking.
.
Cherubimon watched.
The boy was stubborn. He'd give him that. And he was glad because things would go far worse if he wasn't stubborn, if they weren't all stubborn.
But that wasn't anything new. Ofanimon had already assured them the children were stubborn.
Sometimes, that stubbornness proved to be their downfall.
This time, it would be the vehicle to their ascension. Hopefully.
But for now… That boy had to keep moving. And he would sit down and Cherubimon would watch with baited breath until he began moving again. Thank goodness. And then sit down again, then move again. It was a very long and tedious cycle and it was a wonder, really, that the boy was still going. But the boy had to keep on going. Because there was nothing out there and he knew it.
It wasn't true, but he didn't know that.
Despite what he was heading for, there was also Oryxmon, keeping an eye on him. Oryxmon whose bell would start to ring if there was danger. It hadn't yet. Not that the boy had heard, anyway, but it had drawn two quarrelling digimon away from him, where they could destroy each other in piece.
And it was a shame they had to destroy each other at all, but both of them were warriors and that was their way, to fight to the death. Their pride would allow nothing else.
The boy would understand, probably. He'd seemed interested.
Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe that was a digimon thing humans couldn't grasp.
Just as they digimon seemed to have a warped understanding of human strength… or frailty.
He wanted to go and fetch that boy. What would it serve to have him walk weeks here, unaided? But Ofanimon saw worlds where friendships and companionships and help that seemed well-meaning at first served to make them too soft, to unaware of their own capabilities and their own failings. And she only knew they were capable because of hundreds of other futures she saw. And she put them all together and determined this. This plan the rest of them dedicated themselves to follow because it was the only hope for their world.
But there was still a line that had been drawn, and so he watched. So they all watched. And this was his charge.
Humans had to eat and drink and if this one ran out of one or the other, then Oryxmon was ready for more. If danger got too close without a spirit for him to fight with, then Oryxmon was there as well. Not the spirits though. The spirits waited. The only ones that wouldn't leave the nest. That couldn't leave the next.
Hundreds of futures, and Ofanimon had found only one way to purify them. But first, someone would have to take them.
And then that someone would be the bait, in a sense. But it would help him grow stronger, as well. To battle the loneliness that sought to unravel him instead of just bearing it. Because while he could walk, he bore it.
Soon, he wouldn't be able to walk. Or bear it.
I'm sorry. But you'll grow stronger for this.
He knew this, because he'd grown stronger like that as well.
.
Kouji sat down again. His feet would never stop aching, it seemed. And he'd never find someone else in this godforsaken place. The fence creaked.
It would be just his luck, really, if it collapsed under him.
No wait. That wasn't wood creaking. It was metal.
He shot to his feet and looked around. There was nothing nearby. A lump of something – a boulder probably – down in the distance where the plains dipped.
No, it seemed the creaking was coming from that direction.
He walked there. It wasn't a boulder. It was a hunk of metal. A carriage? And further up, the head of a train.
It almost looked blue, but it was hard to tell in the dark.
'Thank goodness.'
He jumped, then cursed his raw nerves. 'What the hell?'
'Oh, finally someone has come.'
And the train head burst into tears.
Kouji stared blankly at it… But he could understand the sentiment. Now that his heart had settled down, his legs were feeling rather wobbly.
He plopped down where he was standing. Forget dignity.
'Tell me, did you bring friends?'
'Friends?' Kouji snorted. 'I don't have friends. And I hate to disappoint you, but I'm wandering lost myself.'
'Oh…' The train really did sound disappointed, but it perked up after a moment. 'Well, I'm happy for the company anyway. My name's Angler.' Then he blinked slowly. 'My eyes are pretty bad nowadays, but aren't you the kid I picked up?'
'If you're supposed to be blue and orange, then maybe,' Kouji muttered. A moment later, he wondered how they'd both wound up I this state.
The train burst into tears again. 'Oh, I'm so glad you're alright. I thought the worst when I wound up here like this but you've got all your arms and legs and other bits on straight. It would've been a shame on a Trailmon, otherwise.'
'Yeah, sure.' Trailmon. What's a Trailmon
The Trailmon didn't seem to notice his confusion and he didn't voice it aloud. Instead, Kouji figured he may as well rest there since that was as good a place as any, and the Trailmon was the only company to be had.
'I'm guessing you can't run anymore,' Kouji asked, after a little bit.
'I'm afraid not,' said the Trailmon sadly. 'I'll just slowly rust away. But don't worry. We digimon don't die. Our data is simply debugged and restored and we'll be back to normal in a jiffy. Honestly, it can't happen fast enough. The worst is to be stuck waiting for it to happen. And rusting is such a slow process.'
'Hmm.' Well, humans didn't have that luxury for the most part. Unless they were locked away without any food or water. Unless they wandered for miles and miles without a destination in sight, until they started wondering why the hell they were still walking…
Humans did have that luxury, for the most part.
'You should get going,' said the Trailmon, after a little while longer. 'This is a graveyard. Only the dying stay here too long. Though you're welcome to sleep here if you like. I think the carriages are still pretty clean.'
'No thanks.' Kouji's face twisted. Apparently Angler had no understanding of Japanese culture.
'Then food,' the Trailmon persisted. 'We don't eat that stuff. It's for the passengers, and it'll all rot with me anyway. You should take it. And some water containers.'
'How much do you expect me to carry?' Kouji asked, once he checked the stash out. It really was too much. Trays of burgers stacked up. At least six cartons of water and he'd be hard pressed to carry one of those, they were that big. But there was a smaller container too and he filled that to the brim, then considered again. What the Trailmon said was smart. Eat and drink his fill now, then spend the night and have breakfast in the morning, and then take as much as he could carry with him.
But sleeping in a graveyard…
'By graveyard,' he said, 'what do you mean?'
'A yard that becomes a grave,' Angler replied. 'Where we lie down and can't get up again, really. Only happens in empty places like this. Otherwise someone comes along and speeds up the process. But it can be called a birth yard as well, because we'll be reborn here, see?'
'Not really.' But not a graveyard in a human sense. Okay, he could deal with that. 'I think I'll spend the night after all.'
Though humans weren't as fortunate to get a second chance once they gave up and waited for their deaths. They didn't get reconfigured and reborn. This really was a strange world, where there wasn't a one true finale. Did that make things more bearable, he wondered, or less, if everything could be restarted when they died?
Maybe that depended. Happy lives cut short and restarted. Closed rooms revealing a door.
Maybe humans had less opportunities but appreciated their lives more. Or maybe that was just a romanticisation.
'Oh, good.' The Trailmon sounded pleased with his decision.. 'Let me tell some stories to pass the time.'
'Can you start with what this place is?' Kouji asked dryly. 'I'm not in the mood for a fairy tale.'
He probably should have reconsidered that, because Angler's story did sound like a fairy tale. Digimon? Angels? A demon sealed away under the crust?
But if that was the sort of nightmare world he'd wandered into, then he really should find out as much as he could from Angler.