The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (17 page)

A terrifying howling from the mist several meters to Sofia’s rear sent shivers up her arms. The yelping creature was causing several more animals of the valley to awaken to her and John’s presence. The beasts were lifting up their voices in random inflections of shrieking and barking in the southerly distance, followed by rippling waves of tumultuous cries rolling closer with the passing of each second.

Sofia attempted to turn around, feeling more secure if she was facing the incoming menace. John tugged at her shoulder strap, reminding her sternly, “You need to be the front, the lead. I’m the better shot. Just let me control our backs.”

As the tide of bestial cries reached the outskirts of their present domain, Sofia began to see herself as an alien wandering into a territory of which the indigenous creatures had no predilection for hospitality. She and John were, without a doubt, becoming the prey of the huntsmen.

A single entity had been tracking their every movement. At first the deep, guttural gnarling of the beast was low and barely audible. Hidden amongst the gloom, it seemed to know that it was alone, weak and outnumbered, content not to show itself in the open. But, as Sofia led her companion deeper into the beast’s territory, the temporary safety of her and John’s own numbers was beginning to diminish: the intensity of their unseen foe’s salivating snarl began to crescendo in proportion to the confidence it was gaining as the members of its pack gathered beside it.

“John,” Sofia cried out, making another attempt to look behind her, “there’s more of them. What are we going to do?”

“Just keep moving,” he said with a panicking tremble.

The uselessness of the miner’s light was becoming more determinate, as it was hindering John’s ability to see beyond its hazy partition. Reaching up and flipping the switch off, his action was immediately followed by Sofia’s mirrored response. Hidden within the dim grayness of the world, he pushed her forward, forcing her to pick up the pace. Aimlessly drawing his rifle towards what sounded like a concentrated host of creatures gnashing to his side, he squeezed off several bursts, sending hot projectiles into the fog. The flash of the muzzle lit up the dim surroundings, allowing him a fraction of time to catch a glimpse of the horrific black-haired faces, teeth long and pointed, staring back at him. He fired off another burst towards their hideous eyes to the reception of the sounds of yelping and thrashing, sending their pursuers into a chaotic commotion.

High-pitched screams and barking madness had rolled through the forest following his wild shots. And it appeared that the wounded among them were beginning to spontaneously attack the others in their party. Leaning into Sofia’s back while continuing to keep watch behind them, John forced her to keep moving at as brisk of a pace as he could maintain without entangling their legs
together.

The pounding of the beasts’ heavy feet were gathering around them once again. The perimeter of safety was lessening. It seemed as if the entire pack was preparing to simultaneously rush
in.

“Where are we going?” Sofia cried out.

“Just stay close-,” John said, as he suddenly caught sight of a shadowy figure at his flank.

A single beast lunged from its cover, salivating streams spewing from its open mouth mere centimeters from John’s face. Reflexively bringing his rifle up to meet it, he fell backward to the ground, bringing Sofia down with him. With his finger clenched around the trigger, a burst of fire wildly flourished from under the belly of the animal. Scorching and tearing its fur, multiple projectiles passed through it, boring a gaping exit wound across its back and sending flesh and bone spraying into the air.

The dead weight of the corpse crashed to the soil beside them, pooling blackened blood around its torso and involuntarily convulsing. John scrambled to his feet wiping the blood splatter from his eyes.

“Let’s go! On your feet,” he yelled as he pulled at Sofia, “We need to move!”

Grabbing her by the arm and hoisting her up, John pushed her to action. Tripping over the hidden obstacles and struggling against their own blindness, he forced her to run into the blackness of the forest.

Panting and gasping under the strain of the backpack’s weight, each step was a fight. Pulling against the heavy suction gripping her boots, Sofia’s feet were sinking deeper into the progressively softening soil.

The trampling of the creatures’ paws was not far behind, and they were gaining fast. With his rifle held behind him, John let loose with his weapon’s blast, firing frantically in the general direction of the tumult. By the sound of clamor, the concentrated steps of the beasts were disorganizing, scattering about the
periphery.

The eminency of the Savior’s rise was finally upon them. The visual draw was beginning to increase just beyond a single meter, giving John and Sofia the time they needed in order to react more quickly to the fallen trees and large rocks that intermittently made their sudden appearances from out of the gloom.

The moisture beneath their feet had taken on a sudden transformation. John and Sofia were no longer simply running through muddy soil. At first they began splashing through several small puddles. But before long, the water level was over the toes of their
boots.

As if stepping through a curtain, the young couple exited the fog and found themselves standing at the edge of a great body of water, the opposite side of which was too distant and mist layered to visualize. John fired off a few more bursts of his rifle into the air, allowing him to gain more time in order to decide what their next move should be.

Sofia was bent over, propped against her knees, overstrained and vomiting.

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I
can’t
do this anymore.”

The howling from the deep of the forest signified to him that their foes were regrouping. If they stayed too close to the land, it was only a matter of time before he and Sofia would be found.

“Get into the water,” he commanded.

“What? No, I can’t swim,” she resisted.

“Neither can I, but we can’t go back that way,” he said, pointing towards the barking commotion.

Moving into the shallow of the lake, John grabbed Sofia by the front strap of her backpack.

“If we have to, we’ll dump our packs and figure out what to do later. They’re getting closer, Sofia, come on.”

The initial coolness was soothing to their legs, giving the both of them a renewed vitality as the water was, at first, only deep enough to spill over the tops of their boots. The terrible cries from behind were becoming more distant. It appeared that the enraged beasts had finally lost their scent. With the barking and yelping of the creatures dying out, through the splashes the two of them were making as they lightly waded through the water, the low rumbling of the unseen wishing stars could be heard once again, rising in the skies
above.

As John and Sofia moved further out into the lake, the thinly risen layer of fog above them had almost completely dissipated, revealing the starless, deep blue hue of the sky, pastel pink and whitewashed to the east, signifying the nearness of the precious daylight.

The watery depth was gradually deepening. It was now up to Sofia’s breast line, and the muscles of her arms were burning under the strain of keeping her rifle from dipping into it. Exhausted and overwhelmed, she lost all care for keeping the weapon in prime condition. Letting her arms drop down, she chose rather to walk with her firearm under the water’s surface.

John continued to keep a tight grip on the strap of her backpack, paying close attention to every step he was taking for fear of stepping off of an underwater cliff or slipping on an unstable stone.

The liquid was blue and dark. The further out towards the center of the lake they traveled, the colder it became. After a few hours, they had progressed quite a distance from the southwesterly shoreline. With the Savior burning down upon them, the chilliness was of little
concern.

Bumping his knee into the side of a solid structure, John realized that they were standing beside a rather large underwater boulder. With his hands feeling their way to its top, he was surprised to find that it was situated just a few centimeters below the lake’s surface. Assisting Sofia with her waterlogged backpack, they climbed to the top of the rock and sat down, giving their feet the much needed rest.

“Will you hand me the compass?” John asked, pulling out the little black book from his shirt pocket and surveying the surroundings against the available data of the map.

Lifting her rifle out of the water, Sofia could see that her weapon’s foregrip was empty. The compass was nowhere to be seen.

It was not something that John had planned for when he was attempting to consider all of the potential situations that they could encounter with such a venture. The firearms, the food, the quick-start fire sticks, clothing items of various sorts. He thought that he had planned so well. The compass was the only item of which he never would have guessed they would find themselves without.

They had been trudging through the immense body of water for quite some time while the Savior stared down at them from his perch in the heavens, having burned away the entire blanket of mist long ago. The water was still at the level just below John’s breast line, and it had been that way since long after they had distanced themselves from even the faintest of howls. It appeared that this was as deep as the lake was going to get, and they would most likely be safely crossing the entire reservoir without much difficulty.

Being somewhat shorter than he, Sofia was trying as best that she could under the circumstances to enjoy the coolness of the water as it reached up just under the neck collar of her shirt. Although they were moving much slower due to the density of the liquid, some of the items in her pack apparently had some buoyancy to them, causing her burden to feel much lighter on her
shoulders.

The rippling fluid splashing against Sofia’s face relieved the burning redness of her skin. Considering that she and John had little to say to each other since her loss of the compass, she did her best to ignore his active silent treatment, knowing that she had already apologized more than once. Although his frustration with her was apparent, she knew that he would soon forgive her.

With the visibility finally having become fit for point-setting, John had chosen an oddly shaped cluster of trees situated at the far, north end of the lake, approximately a thousand meters towards the direction of the towering, white peaks. They would need to suffice as their guides, at least for now. By the time they would be reaching the other side, he knew that most of the day would have been already well spent. Darkness would be nearing. And he and Sofia would be rushing to procure everything necessary to the building of their nightly structure before the blackness set in.

The expanse above had become, once again, that soothing baby-blue layer that contrasted deeply against the surrounding greenery of the shoreline and the hills beyond. The deep blue tones of the water seemed so fresh and inviting.

“It’s too bad that we won’t be able to go all the way there like this,” Sofia commented on their water traversal, breaking the long silence between them. “This is actually quite fun.”

“It’s alright,” John replied rather sternly. “But we need to stick to the trees. By nightfall, when the cold settles in, you won’t want to be here.”

Finding another boulder upon which they could rest, they took one last break from their travels through the lake, eating some dried fruit and enjoying the warm breeze. It was another special experience that the two of them were able to enjoy together.

The lake’s surface was lightly rippled and blessed with serenity not unlike the quietude of resting in the shadows of the trees at the tops of the hills. The only unnatural detail capable of ruining the quietude of the moment came in the form of the pollutive noise filling the skies like an endless rolling thunder of a distant storm.

The low roaring of the flying ships of the sky would continue to be heard throughout the remainder of the afternoon. For Sofia, having wandered upon another paradisiacal world hidden among the trees, would yet be the accompaniment of that solemn reminder that always lingered about: John’s mission to bring in some type of closure for himself. All of the so-called idyllic locations that they were finding were merely pseudo-paradises. As long as there existed within him that tenacious longing for the missing puzzle piece that he seemed to believe would allow him a completion of his being, the mysterious unknown that he so desired would continue to be a partition between them.