Apparition Part Twelve

I try in vain to understand this place, to make sense of the why and what. Reminding myself all the while that I have Cook at my side, I am not alone here anymore. I have a pillar, a side kick, a friend, a hand in the darkness.

The black jungle through which we are slowly making our way is very silent, eerie and haunted by the something that lurks here in the darkness of everything that is in this thick coat of black shade around us. This that was is now burnt and bares the smell of acid and rotting meat. Its as though everything in this jungle was burnt to a crisp instantly and stands now looming in blackness whole and intact. Even the ground and the branches. Cook said earlier this place is like the aftermath of Hiroshima and since then both he and I have gone in circles within our minds to answer now a new question, Was this done by mankind?

We hear whispers in the dark.They are cold, threatening and warning us but we can not turn back, we cant not stop moving until we are out of this jungle and near to the city again in the hopes of finding the family Cook keeps mentioning. He says he was split from them by mistake during a sand storm, but the look on his face said an entirely different story. But I choose to trust him, like a brother would a brother. I have no choice because he is all I have here and the strange warmth I feel inside is only since meeting up with him that day at the mist. He knows this place, he knows more than I do and more than I can think to question anymore. But still, I choose to trust him.

As we head along this darkened remains of a once flourishing jungle, we hear every so often the faint screams that remind us that we were not the first here and that we could too fall like those before us did at the hands of the evil that chases us, hunts us and waits for us.
Shadow warriors are here in the jungle to, stalking us and we know not how far behind us they are. But we know they are coming, circling and soon we will meet them again.


ΘΘΘΘΘΘ


A Black Jungle… new part of my journey here in this ravaged and decaying place that borders on reality. Perhaps this world is the answer to the nightmares, perhaps this is what I was meant to see, perhaps, this is what I was meant to be.

I made the choice, can it by why I am here?

I must have been such a fool in the other world thinking everything was all a bad dream. How wrong I was. This is real. The rotting corpses burning with fear are real, the shadow warriors waiting and trawling through the bodies are real, and that Stench… It’s all congealed with the screams of torture, is bearing on unbearable. It's just pure evil which makes me think the true identity of the darkness that is here. And the demons of this place, they’re getting closer - I can smell their foul breath, their decay and their menacing desire to destroy and rape our souls approaching. They're hungry, me and Rekara are their prey. This black jungle place feels like yet another waiting room to me – just like the passage and the mist and every other part of this world. A trap. I must be careful, we both must be careful. It's only a matter of time before we are confronted by the real face behind this dark and deadly blackness that has its armies of demons after us.

This Rekara fellow still remains a mystery to me - he hasn't opened up about why he is here. Maybe he's still confused and weighing up the webs of thoughts. I don’t know. Whoever he is, there's a burning desire in me to protect him and be there for him. A guide almost. It's as if we were meant to have cross paths here, meant to face this together, mean to share the fear that's chasing us. I'm relieved that we've met it feels almost comforting to know that there's someone else fighting these dark fears.

Maybe it is me though, maybe I'm the confused one - after all I didn't choose to come here, not here, I made a choice to change my reality, my world and my existence. To reveal the face inside of me. I wonder what this darkness wants, I wonder why I have not seen the silver knight it hasn't surfaced since I met Rekara. I'm not here through chance, I'm here to face reality and see something, something for myself. I feel like me and Rekara were destined to be and meet here - it would make sense otherwise why else would we have met? Why do I have this overwhelming feeling inside of me since I’ve crossed his path? Does he feel it too? We are here to face these demons together and if that means we have to face up to our fears and fight them, then so be it. I will not loose to this darkness. I feel almost like I was meant to be here in this place, the barren land, the mist, the black jungle, I've been drawn into a trap and now there's no easy way out.

This is a test - a challenge if you like, to see if we are strong enough to face the reality, but what is the reality? What must we face? Why!

“Rek!”
Cooks gasp has me spun to face him. He stands pale and with eyes wide open, his mouth slightly open and his body frozen stiff, staring at me with a horror in his eyes that chills my flesh through to the bone beneath.
“What is it?” I asked, slowly moving towards him, scanning him as best I could in the dark light this black jungle provides. I am looking for a snake, a spider or some kind of menacing entity. But his stare is dead ahead and I turn back to the front, confused.
“Up there.” He said in a voice muttered from fear. And there in the dark shadows of the ashen trees I see. Like a hairless baby troll sitting watching us with pale oval eyes and grinning with blackened yellow teeth that drool down the slimy grey body of this, thing.
“What the hell is that?” I say in a whisper of breath that escapes only by the force of my terror. Cook is still frozen, in awe of this beastly monster that should theoretically only appear in nightmares or scary movies. “I don’t know. But look at its feet.”

In this things claw like feet it holds an arm, ripped at the elbow. It smiles and then leaps down from its perch in the dark tree landing on all fours like a hairless kitten from hell, snarling in a giggle as more black drool oozes from its mouth. Stunned, Cook remains still as I dart away without realizing and as I turn for him this gargoyle pounces up into him and sends him down into the ashen grass and soil with a thud, the hairless beast propped on top of his chest snarling with a grin that boasts fresh new meat.

In that moment I remember a dream, I feel the heaviness of déjà vu settling in and I try to remember why.

The grey skinny gargoyle lowers to Cooks face, sniffing at his mouth and skin, all the while grinning with white flaring eyes – the arm still clutched in its claw like foot.
“Hey!” I shout, swinging the crisp burnt branch into this things chest, sending it squealing down to the ground as though it bore no weight. Before it manages to get up, I ram the branch down over its back, splintering my only means of defense into shards of bark and ash.
The gargoyle of slimy grey padded skin turns to me, I can see in that moment an evil within its pearl white eyes that signifies my end.

I kick, from where I don’t know, but I do – into its ribs before managing a spinning turn back for Cook who is standing, waiting for me with now his own branch of defense in hand. He winds past me with the branch in the air over his head, screaming, “Leave us alone!”
The gargoyle scampers like a frightened hound along the burnt ground and dashes away, through the trees and remains of ashen bushes.

For that brief moment, both Cook and I stare into the darkness of the forest in silence.
“I don’t know.” He said before dropping his branch to the ground beside his feet and turning to face me, “I’m sorry Rekara, but I don’t know why we are made to be here anymore.”“But we are here Cook.” I say walking to him, hoping his faith and strength will not falter yet, “But we are together now.”“You don’t know how lucky I feel having met you Rekara.” He smiles when a twig snaps ever so faintly somewhere behind him and we turn.

Bashful and ballsy, the silly rotten humanoid type thing sits again on a perch in the trees, grinning with wide eyes that hold in them excitement and the joy of vengeance. “Why you little….” Cook motions forward when I grab his arm, tense with fear as more white eyes appear behind our little friend. First a few, then more and more double oval’s in the darkness. Cook steps backwards, almost into me as a swarm of these things, these strange almost human looking gargoyles with slimy grey skin and white eyes emerge in the trees.
We take each others hand and squeeze tightly, derived from fear to stay alive in this world. Looking into each others eyes, in that singular moment, we both acknowledge that we still choose to survive this place and we run.