The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (11 page)

Placing her arm around his neck, John stood Sofia up and began the slow and steady trudge towards the tree line ahead. With the weight of his overwhelmed companion upon him, the soft, stony soil added to the difficulty of each step. The macabre screams of a murderous rampage were continuing to feed their ears with a symphony of destruction. He was afraid, too, but he was equally, if not more so, determined not to let all that Mr. Sanders had worked for come to nothing. The muscles of his thighs scorched with the planting of each foot. His lungs burned with each breath he grasped at, causing a sheering of his already wounded ribs. But this was not their end. Whatever it was that was killing those poor creatures it was not getting them. He would see to
that.

The first trees of the woods were just within reach, and the screams were beginning to fade in the distance. John felt the relief of seeing the cover of green leaves and the thick trunks so near.

“We made it girl,” he said. “Everything’s going to be…”

Before he was able to complete the sentence, a flash of blurred fur and a sharp blow sent him tumbling forward. Finding himself face down in the damp soil, he lifted his head to catch his breath, but found himself face-to-face with Death. Snarling through the bloodstained fur at the edges of its mouth, a creature crouched, hideous and cruel, staring him in the eyes. It strafed to the side slowly and methodically, as if it was uncertain as to what the new threat was that was standing before it.

Lifting himself slowly, so as not to startle his predator, John raised himself up. Grasping onto a fist-size stone, he motioned with his other hand to Sofia, who was frozen in fear behind him, to slowly back away.

The crimson tinted saliva dripped from the mouth of the wild animal while it circled about, growling, gnashing and displaying its jagged teeth. As John lifted his hand in preparation to throw the stone, the creature lunged at him with open jaws. Falling backward John instinctively thrust his weapon into the animals face, sending shattered remnants of teeth and flesh into its throat. The beast’s long snout, crumpled inward by the force of the blow, blew streams of blood and tinted excretions across the stone and along John’s hand and arm.

Blindly stumbling about and clawing at its head, the beast snorted and gasped under the bubbling of blood that was filling its lungs. Spinning around in circles it finally crashed to the soil in violent convulsions less than half a meter from John’s feet. It was dead, but the threat was
not.

There could be no delays now. John pulled Sofia up by the arm.

“We have to keep going,” he commanded her. “There could be more of them.”

She held his hand as he led the way. The sticky coagulated serum, the evidence of John’s heroic action, was oozing through his fingers and onto her palm, emitting a nauseating stench into the air around them.

“We need to get back to the water,” he said. “The way that animal was sniffing the air before they attacked, they must be able to smell this mess.”

There was a lone howling in the distance followed by several beasts chiming in. At first it was disorderly and at various distances, but after a time it became uniform and singular in
location.

Looking over her shoulder, Sofia felt the eyes of many unseen foes lurking in the trees around them, watching them. As she and John neared the water’s edge, they were once again in the shadows of the
woods.

John knelt beside the water and began vigorously rubbing his hands across his arms while dipping them into the cool stream. Cleansing himself of the creature’s bodily fluid reduced the heavy stench that came with it, but only to the degree that, he believed, would not be detectable by their pursuers, if they existed at all. The rotting smell still remained in his nose, but it would not be a giveaway to their whereabouts.

Sofia stayed a few meters away, standing upon the shore, quivering and tearful.

“You need to wash up too, girl. Come on down here and get cleaned up.”

Turning about with every movement of the forest, and scanning each area for any signs of an impending threat, she walked down, standing close beside him. John could see in her eyes the toll that the beast’s presence had taken upon her soul. Her innocence was now awash in the dreadful reality of the new world of which they were now citizens.

“Sofia. You need to wash up right now,” John said, looking up at her.

She hesitated. Looking down at the dried stickiness that coated her fingers she spoke with a stuttering voice, “Oh, okay. I am. I will.”

Her hands were trembling as she settled beside him and began rubbing the blood into the drifting waters. Teary-eyed and sniffling, drops fell from her chin and the tip of her nose, plopping onto her distorted reflection below. She leaned her body against him and continued rubbing until there were no more signs of the creature’s life upon
her.

“As beautiful as the world looked from the top of Labor, I never imagined that we would find it so harsh,” she sobbed.

“Don’t worry, Sofia. You are all that I have in this world. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

Another uniform howling of the bestial pack echoed throughout the forest. Grabbing Sofia by the hand, John led the two of them deeper into the thickness of the woods. Due to the severity of the situation, direction mattered not, and it was not long before they had lost their bearings. The evening was now falling fast upon them, and the pursuing creatures had not been heard for a comfortable period of time. Finding a suitable place to spend the night would not be easy, but it had to be done.

The third night brought with it a new item into its reality: fear. Not having been able to locate their position on the map, the young couple bunkered down between a series of boulders that they found protruding from the side of one of the hills that they happened upon.

Every snap and every flutter brought with it a startled awakening into the blackness of night: clouds above disallowing even the faintest of starlight to seep in. Distant howls heard during the previous times of darkness now possessed faces. Hideous and cruel, they would forever be etched upon the minds of John and Sofia.

The Savior’s light would return in the morning, but with all the disturbing events of the day, sleep would be near impossible to come by.

Sofia’s blue eyes were like drops of liquid sky upon the green grass that grew out of the moist dirt beneath her head, burning with the sensitivity brought about by a night of restlessness. Rolling over to greet John, she found an empty, flattened patch of emerald blades in the place where she had last felt him lying during the night.

“John,” she sat up, calling out. “John, where are you?”

“It’s alright,” John called out, his voice rather faint, but within close proximity. “I’m right up here.”

His head peeked over the rocky formation above her, the compass dangling from a string about his neck.

“I’m just trying to figure out where exactly we are on the map. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t go too far off course, though. I’m thinking,” he said, pointing out across the valley, “we just angled off a little from the direction to the crash site. If I’m right, we should be there by tomorrow.”

The late-morning trek had gone by without incident. Moving at a relatively brisk pace, they traversed a greater distance than John had anticipated, partially motivated by the fear of the creatures of the valley, partially by the desire to reach a place that they could call
home
.

From the top of a steep hill they witnessed the patchy, cumulus clouds sailing across the blue expanse, casting their roving shadows upon the flowing land. From their newly acquired vantage point, they took a small rest, snacking on the berries and other edibles that they had collected along the way.

The warm breeze filtering through the leaves and grass flowed in beautiful patterns of rippling green waves along the hill’s westerly side. Far from the previous day’s harrowing experience, John and Sofia were both feeling the internal relief of having not heard or seen another creature like the ones they experienced in the valley behind
them.

Knowing that the time was quick to get away if he let them get too caught up in the beauty of the moment, John put an end to their rest. As there were many more kilometers to cover before they were to reach the crash site, he did not delay in resetting their course. Taking Sofia by the hand, he led her down the hill.

Talking with one another about what possibilities the site held regarding, as it was labeled in the little, leather book,
Food and Shelter
, was a good way for them to pass the time. It was difficult to refrain from letting their imaginations get the best of them. After all, creating the mental images of comforting home sites in the mind was such an easy thing to do when the desire for it was so close to the heart.

The hours had passed by without notice. Taking another momentary stop at a nearby tree allowed John to pick up a new waypoint in the distance that would help them to keep moving in a uniform direction. Small, fury creatures scurried about, playing in the branches. As the couple took to their feet, moving onward once again, larger, long-eared animals appeared to follow them down the
hill.

Reading aloud from the little, black book, John detailed for Sofia the method Mr. Sanders described as to how they could make a fire with a stick and a piece of dry wood. It sounded simple enough to him. After all, placing the tip of a long, thin branch into a woodchip-filled, notched out portion of a thick piece of timber, and spinning it between the palms of his hands until the friction of the two surfaces had generated enough heat to see smoke, could not be that hard. After a small discussion on the topic, they both decided to attempt the activity once they reached their campsite later that
evening.

As the morning had been, so became the rest of the afternoon. The time together was not without appreciation, and a great deal of it was spent in the discussions of the wonders around them. There was not a moment that passed by that seemed wasteful or monotonous.

Finding a watering hole that was pre-marked on the map was an immense self-accomplishment to John. With a great deal of the day well past, he charged Sofia with the task of finding some berries and edible leaves for their meal, while he scrounged around for the building materials and the perfect pieces of wood necessary to start the night’s fire.

After an hour’s time, all the resources were gathered. Before beginning the arduous task of constructing their shelter, John chose the task of fire starting as their first duty at the site.

Sitting upon a rotting, fallen log, he placed a large portion of wood between his legs as diagramed in the book. John’s knife easily broke through the outer, bark surface as he cut a relatively deep depression into it. Dropping in some bits of crumbled chips into the notch, he then inserted a long, pointy branch. The stick was a perfect fit, sliding into the groove without rubbing too tightly against the inner diameter of the hole.

Sandwiching the branch between his palms, he began rolling it back and forth, as directed by Mr. Sanders’ instructions. The motion naturally pulled his hands downward proximally to the tip, forcing him to stop the action in order to bring his hands back up to the top of the stick. Every few seconds he needed to repeat the operation and, after a minute or two, his hands began to feel hot and painful.

“This isn’t quite as easy as it ought to be,” he said, as he strained under the work of the primitive tools. “Will you give me a hand?”

The task did not look too difficult from where Sofia was sitting. Standing up from the rock that she had been using as her seat, she walked over and climbed upon the log, kneeling down beside him. Attempting to copy John’s example, she made an effort to roll the branch in unison with him. Unable to get the rhythm down properly, after several attempts, she ceased in the struggle.

“I don’t think this is working correctly. Are you sure you’re doing it right?” she inquired, striving for a tone that would not
offend.

“No. I’m doing it right,” he barked.

Several blisters, and a few painful minutes later, John picked up his wood burning project and, turning towards the dense forest behind him, he threw it as far as he could.

“It’s too warm for a fire right now, anyway,” he said, flushed and discouraged. “Maybe we’ll try again some other time.”

With his fire-making enterprise now behind him, he and Sofia set about with the building of their shelter.

It wasn’t long before they were settling down for the evening under a semi-structurally safe lean-to. Lying on their backs, partially under the cover, they stared into the light-fading sky above. Clouds marched by in formation, dressed in dark-pinkish hues of glowing light set against a deepening blue stretch of space. This was the first time since escaping from Labor that they had been able to gaze into the night air. As the purple and blue swirls of the last light, the final remnants of the Savior-less world, faded into obscurity, the lights of the first stars of the heavens began to appear… and with them the multitude of wishing
stars.

At first they were a comfort for John to see. But, as the darkness seeped in, and the wishing stars became more pronounced, there was something out of sorts with their movements that he did not recall seeing all those nights on the rooftops of Labor.

“Do the wishing stars look the same to you?” he inquired.

Sofia concentrated on a few streams of light gliding through the
sky.

“Pretty much. I don’t really see anything out of the ordinary. Why do you ask? Do they look different to you?”

Tracing his finger along a single light moving along its trajectory in space, he followed it until it disappeared over the horizon. Moving his hand back to the star’s place of origin, he found another one that had suddenly appeared in the exact place as the former. Performing the same tracing movement upon it, his hand slid across the sky in an identical arc.

“Doesn’t that seem rather odd to you?” he asked with his hand suspended above them.

“I didn’t see anything,” she responded rather abruptly.

“Here, let me do it again,” he said with a hint of frustration. “Now, watch closely.”

It wasn’t long before another identical light appeared overhead. Tracing it once again with his hand, it seemed to follow the identical path as the previous ones, with a single exception: at the end of the arc, just above the distant hills, it made an unnatural change in its path before disappearing from sight over the planet’s
horizon.

“What was so different about that?” she remarked.

“That wasn’t the oddest thing you’ve ever seen? It was following the exact same path as all the stars before it, but just as it reached the hills over there, it suddenly changed course.”

“I’ll try to pay closer attention to the next one,” she said, holding her arm out and pointing to a wishing star that had just appeared to the North.

For the next hour or so, they continued to trace out the paths of several wishing stars with their fingers. It appeared that all of them followed the same four sets of initial arcs in the sky before veering off into one of six different directions over the curved edge of the planet.

“I wonder if the smoke and fumes that came out of the factories of Labor kept the sky too polluted and obscured for us to see this,” John mused.

“That could be why we didn’t notice it before,” Sofia replied. “Isn’t it amazing what the stars can do?”

Looking away from the heavens above, there was a clearly discerned disappointment in John’s demeanor, and he replied with a somber tone, “Yeah… amazing.”

Sofia’s smooth, youthful skin reflected against the dim lights falling from the illuminating bodies of the night. Watching her out of the corner of his eye he was saddened by the fact that she either did not recognize that there was something askew in that parade of beams that etched themselves across the blackness of the night, or else she was willfully ignoring it in order to keep alive the hope that all those wishes she had made in Labor would one day come true.

As the night was further upon them, John decided that it was best to get into the shelter and get some rest for the coming morning. Cuddling close together, the warmth of their bodies made the cool ground beneath them a tolerable temperature. Falling into a deep sleep, their fourth night was soon to be over.