Beneath my feet, the rupture of a fallen twig nestled between two towering trees declares my onward progression through a foreign land. My body outfitted in the Neptune's Blue of my homeland, Irresla, slowly surrenders to the exhaustion accumulated as I venture further into the dense thicket, rustling to a cryptic song. "Where am I?"
Perhaps from beyond or rearwards, the sudden outbreak of unnerving howls drifts into the cool morning air as if attempting to answer my self-inquiry. My heart, like a spurred stallion, begins its wild thrashing as if attempting to escape the confines of my body; sweat slithers down my skin uncomfortably as I pause in my forward push. "Something's coming," and the dawning realization that the sound resembles a pack of wolves, prompts my now-quickened passage through the huddles of greenery, shifting like its sinister shadowy counterparts.
My body treads the space with hurried, cautious steps, rounding trees and evading roots stretched across my path. When I round to take a backward glance, the sound of paws ploughing against the verdant grass, mingled with the rushing of the dense current, plunges into my senses, stuffing my body with an instance of trepidation and fright as I sight the cause of the sound. One had already circled and barricaded the space before me, while the three others stood behind, drool dribbling down their jagged teeth, visible through their open maws. "This is not good." Creatures of the forest have come to claim my life, wolves of steelish-hued eyes, snowy white shells, and slender mud-spattered legs, growling as they slowly grow in number.
There's no way out—a heartbreaking realization but an undeniably truthful one. Panting from exhaustion, I survey the space, attempting to find a gap in their increasing number, but all hope seems lost as my heart pulses in my chest like a hammer on an anvil. The largest of their numbers enters the ring they've made around me. It eyes me with what I assume to be Hungar, then, unexpectedly, it lowers on its hind legs, staring with its tongue dangling from its jaw. "Not gonna eat you, my friend," it speaks to my astonishment.
"Eh, did you?" I back away, almost placing myself in the harm of the surrounding others. "You spoke, but—"
"Why are you here, boy?" he asks, voice deep and resounding like the stray echo in an empty cave. "You stand at the very core of Bale, the domain of Igrath, why? Have you come to seek his aid? This far you've come, that must be the cause of your visit, am I right?"
My face contorts into visible confusion. A wolf from behind growls as I draw too close to the rim of the circle. "Igrath, Bale, where am I?" I've never heard the name before, nor have I the place. He snares upon hearing my response, lifting from the ground and scrutinizing me intently. "Who are you?" I glimpse around and find no empty spaces to slip through, nowhere to run, so I attempt to lengthen the conversation.
"Another one, seems I'll have quite a collection by the end of today," he sighs, turns, and, to my astonishment, creeps slowly out of the circle and adds. "Eat him, I have no purpose for those unwilling to offer me the truth."
"Wait, it was a mistake," I shout, however, still, he does not veer to the sigh of the wolves closing in from each direction. "I only want to leave, this is all a mistake, I wasn't supposed to be here," he continues through two trees until his body succumbs to the obscureness of gray mist that had formed around the space in which I stand.
I scream out in agony as the first wolf gnaws on my left leg, the second shredding away my skin like a sheet of paper, blood gushing like a fountain, painting the green grass around me in a crimson shade of red. In seconds, I'm brought to my knees, sight blurred by the blood loss and excessive pain surging up from the sole of my feet to the curls of my raven black hair. They don't stop, my scream, however, grows softer and weaker as I slowly succumb to the darkness behind my eyelids.
…
You don't tell a child you tried to have him killed, that you are responsible for the right arm he lost to the darkness in the company of the Red Trix. Those hours were filled with the gradual chipping of my body, the screams shattering my voice like a wounded bird being abandoned by flight. How much were they paid? Why did my family scheme to have me killed? Is that how it went, or did I lose some of my most indecent recollections due to the horrors and pain of ever revisiting them?
Today, strangely, though I am plagued by the nightmare I had relived the night before, I elevated my body from the comfortable pillow, feeling an unexpected sensation of satisfaction and happiness. I slip my leg from the bed to the floor, rising in the cold, dark room in the tree of Ilma. Perhaps she is already awake, the crazy old lady. She is my only family, the one who saw a frightened young boy striding through the forest and decided to confront him, get an understanding of his situation as to why he would be so far into the forest. "It wasn't your fault, what were you supposed to do?" she had said, hardly the words for consolation, for the harsh reality was that I had killed and would someday be killed by my victim's wrathful family that I had once regarded as my own.
For beyond the borders of rigid wood, the sun's slow ascent to the horizon reduces the obscuring fog flowing through the trees. The sound of Vhaku, birds of lavender purple and midnight black, chimes a lovely melody as they wove through the rusting trees, amplified as I open the circular window with wood intersecting across it. Another lovely day. Another day of life.
I sigh, "We haven't had rain in a while."
I shift my gaze from the outside and cross the circular room, made mine seven years ago. My hand encircles the wooden knob, twisting to the click that propelled it open to the sight of wooden stairs descending and ascending down the hall in circles.
"Lucrid," a voice resounds down the stairs when I leave the room, the gentle click of the door falling back into space, auditable behind me. "Greats gods, we're out of water, and this place gets hotter and hotter by the day. Go to the lake to fetch some."
"Good morning," I say, "and you?"
"I'll be leaving for Darlasp," she sighed, footsteps descending the wooden, creaking steps as she slowly appeared in my sight. I've known Ilma for seven years, and unlike me, she is an Arphic, a conjurer of the seven songs—Melody. Her hair has embraced the gray hue that had not been plentiful when I had first encountered her, still, however, it is long enough to reach the midsection of her back, while her eyes gleam of cold Sapphire like the day seven years ago. "We've run out of food, and I'm sure a cold and harsh winter worse than last year's is coming." As usual, she wore the face of someone confused and misplaced, draped in a long ankle-length white dress that swept along the stairs as she moved past me.
"I thought we had also run out of money," I say. She stops and pivots to meet my gaze. "I'm just starting to wonder where we get this money from, why you decided to settle in this place, and—"
"I got this money," she corrects firmly, "and as I've told you before, do as I say and pose no questions." She whirls angrily away and continues down, disappearing from my sight.
In the silence, I lowered my exhausted body on the wooden stairs and began to realize, I had never seen her angry before. "What did I say? It was a simple question."