- Book Bongo

- Book Bongo: Soul Break Part One by Lynel Coetzer
On the afternoon of his 8th birthday, he went upstairs and was not seen again for 9 years.
Treated and rehabilitated, Kyle Evans is now a young man ready to begin his journey out of the darkness and explore the possibility of living a normal life after his return, labelled as 'Boy X' by the media. With the silent hope that no one would realize who he is, he gradually begins to break free of the past, surrounded by other's who have ghosts of their own haunting them from the shadows.

Heir to the family millions, Joel McDonald's darkness exists in the fact that his place in the world has been predefined. But there is a new face in town, someone whose darkness brings him out of his own. Unaware that their paths have crossed before, Joel realizes that he is only reaching the crux of his journey to break free of the chains that have so long caged him to the family fortune.

Life has never been the same for Michael Harper, not since the murder.
Everything is spiralling out of control for him and long-time friend Jessie as they continue to do the bidding of two dirty cops to stay out of prison. Their lives were ruined by a chain of events they are yet to uncover, when the reopening of an old mine shaft brings to surface a shocking revelation and prompts Michael to look deeper into the past.

As the chaos surrounding the old E Shaft draws further attention across the nation, detectives Jordan and Underwood find themselves desperate for clues to unravel the enigma within the shaft as the body count begins to rise. As the dangerous secrets of the past surface, everyone quickly finds themselves in the middle of a conspiracy designed by the mysterious 'Corporation' and carried out by its agents in black who strive to silence anyone in their way of them reaching the Corporation's ultimate goal.

In Part One, the turbulent past begins to collide with the present in a race to free themselves of their inner darkness as they begin to scratch the surface of the dangerous truth buried within the old mine...

Part Nineteen, Two: The Happening

I felt the weightlessness speeding higher and higher as the ground grew further away and after the thrill was gone, the terror set in and the doubt and began to fall again, faster and faster towards the ground below, the square full of people shocked and awed at my escape from the ground. The pull of gravity tugged at me with more force than that of a dropping roller coaster and the wind screamed past my body towards the ground faster and faster.
"Rek!" I felt Cook nudging me awake, "Rek wake up."
"Wh…what?" I frowned, opening my eyes to the interior of the cave again, "Did I fall?""Rek, Prowler is gone." He said softly, with a caution. "What?" I said lifting my weakened body, the sour of my hunger and thirst echoing in my gut still.
"A few minutes ago, he just shot out of the cave like a terrified kitten!" explained Cook, "Faster than I could think really."We rushed to the entrance as a gentle drizzle remained constant from the dark skies above, the vast barren land now soaked and muddy. Prowler was no where in our eye sight and the air was cold and silent."Maybe he heard something." I said softly, my legs beginning to reel at the pain inside my stomach."Maybe he just went home." Answered Cook as he pat my shoulder. I nod wearily and head back into the cave.
"Are you alright?"
"No."
"What is it?"
"Hunger I think."
"I feel it too."
"We need to eat before we die."
"I don't know what to do Rek." He answered sadly, "I don't know where we are."
"You said the family has food?"
"Yes. They."Just then Prowlers thumping paws entered the cave and he dart around the curve in the rock with a huge bird like creature in his fangs, mauled and black with eyes of evil.
"You're kidding me." Said Cook turning to Prowler who dropped the meal on the ground and nod with his head, proudly almost. Cook turned to me in awe and I frowned, "Think we can eat that?"
"I don't know… Not raw at least, I don't know."

After spending what felt like an eternity at the mouth searching the area within our sight for any dry wood, Cook spotted a crevasse to the side of the mouth, a few feet away and made the dash through the storm to collect it for our fire. Together, we almost savagely ripped the black beasts scale like feathers from its body and began to cook the meat on bark skewers over the flames, my stomach barely able to await its turn from red to bronze. Prowler waited with a patience that only an untamed beast of the wilderness could.
"Man oh man, I'm hungry!" said Cook, everything about his face revealing his dire urge to chew and chomp on this creature’s meat. "That's putting it mildly. Starvation and mal nutrition I think fits the bill." I answered grinning with an equally watery mouth. "Right, so be it. I hereby declare no more hunger pains hence forth." Joked Cook grinning, "For now at least."
"Yeah." I nod, when Prowler gave a moaning growl to our words."Think he understands us?" "I do." I nod proudly, as a silence returned to the caves. Prowlers hunger began to itch as him too as he kept shifting closer and closer to the flames. "He's a pretty cool pet though." Smirked Cook almost shy of his admittance to taking to this seven foot wolf beast, who's once dark fur with the blackness of the jungle had been washed with the downpour and revealed a white almost fluffy fur. "What happened to you." I said softly, choosing to deter my starvation with another topic to break the silence, "What you said last night."
"Yes." He nod, "I can swear it on my soul."
"What happened?"Cook sighed and looked down, readying himself to complete his story to me again as the meat sizzled to the heat of the flames.

Θ Θ Θ

With a sigh I reluctantly divulged into my memories and opened up the horrors that lay in my past too Rek. He deserved too know what happened, after all good friends don't have anything to hide. "I was lying on that butchers board hearing only footsteps around me, barely able to see through the pain and tears. The corpses that hung in front of me filled my soul with fear, it was literally a living nightmare. When the footsteps stopped, he was by the side of me, staring down at my already battered and wounded body grinning, like a ruthless, emotionless son of a bitch.” I said angrily, “I knew that sooner or later, he was going to hurt me big time, do to me what had been done to those corpses hanging.”
“Jesus.” Said Rekara listening intensively.“This is what he did too all his victims, all of whom stand like a memento on the wall. At that point all I could make out was his silhouette through my earful eyes - the big stomach, the tall posture and the floppy apron, all pointed to him.”

I had too pause for a moment, just too gather thoughts again as the memories flooded my head all mixed up and distorted. Rekara shifted closer to the flames, testing the meat that had not yet grown near cooked.

"A prod, nothing more than a simple prod on my right temple. I was shaking so badly with fear hoping it was all a dream, another nightmare that caused my own parents to chase me from their home. But it wasn’t a dream, it was worse than any nightmare.” I said pausing as my lungs tightened, “The prodding erupted into the most painful experience I could ever recall. It went into my brain, through the skull, shuddering. I can still hear it…” I said putting the tips of my fingers to my temple now, feeling numbed again. Rekara frowned, watching me impatiently to continue.“The two metal probes were linked to an electric generator in the corner. I knew this from having accidentally witnessing it before. By now my vision and all other senses were gone, totally mesmerized by this torturous phenomena that I felt in my head."The generator started up, and everything was taken over by electricity. I don’t remember much, I can just remember that sound, that feeling of my brain being fried, a whizzing sound in my skull, echoing inside of me.” I said sighing with a weight that would never leave my thoughts and memories. Rekara removed his meat from the flames as did I and a short silence hung between us again.“He didn't want to kill me, but to bring me damn close to death itself – torturing me like he did the others.” I said continuing, dire to have it from my chest now that the door had been reopened, “I don’t know what I felt, couldn’t explain it even if I tried. But I was fighting to wake up, I now that much.”Rekara tossed a portion of the meat to Prowler and began to bite into it, “Not bad.” He said softly, eagerly devouring his meat that I simply stared at over the flames.
“By the time I felt him pull the shock probes from the sides of my forehead I was out of it, my heart just managing a faint beat. He knew what he was doing, as though the sick bastard had studied it, perfected it on god knows how many innocent people.”Rekara had finished his first meat and had tossed the bone portions over to Prowler who ate silently as I began to pull strips apart and put them into my mouth allowing a moment for Rekara to either shut me up in disbelief or ask me to continue.

“How is it that your alive then?” he asked finally, sarcastic and doubtful of every word I had spoken. I turned to him and he frowned awaiting an answer and I sighed, putting more meat to my eagerly awaited hungry mouth.

“He took me from the table like a sack of potatoes and took me an old wooden block hanging vertically on the wall. He strapped me onto it, I cant remember what he did to me there, but beneath me was a rotting pile of human organs, there were cockroaches and rats all over it and worms and maggots.”“Ok…” he said, “We are eating.”I shrugged ruthlessly almost, “He lowered me into it gradually and I do recall throwing up though. But then I heard him leaving, the door closed and he was gone. I was alone there, to spend the next 2 days in that fucking pit, strapped too that block with no movement at all, knee deep in rotting human parts."Rekara shook his head, and turned his meat as Prowler motioned beside him, hungry now for more. "I was so disorientated that I don't know. But being here, in this place, it feels like things are starting to emerge again. Images, distorted memories of things I thought I had long forgotten about." “I know the feeling.” Sighed Rekara as he began dividing his meat again between himself and Prowler. A long silence hung in the air as we cooked our meat over the flames, and then ate in silence still.

Θ Θ Θ

"Why are you here Rekara?" he asked as the flames began to flicker their last flames. Sighing, feeling still the great weight of this world bearing on my soul and my questions, I shrugged, "I don't remember. I keep having these dreams.""Dreams? About your real life?" "Flying. And then falling." I nod feeling again the rush of death approaching from my fall from the skies, "I don't know how I got here. I can barely remember my life before this, only fragments of it.""I know." Nod Cook solemnly, "I felt the same when I first got here, like everything I knew and could remember was part of a dream I just couldn't recall enough of.""Yeah. You remember now.""I think its because I'm worn out now, nearing the end of my battle here. My part in this dark and miserable puzzle." He said in a tone so at ease almost with a doomed fate."Don't say that man." I said shifting up to the small flames and red coals, "You cant loose faith.""Faith? In what, you?" he asked huffing a laugh, "If you." he said pausing with an uncomfortable clenching of his jaws that gave me an eerie motion of distrust in my chest."If I what?" I pushed worriedly, "Tell me Cook. Please.""Nothing dude. I just. I'm so tired of running.""Cook don't play games with me, if you know something I need you to be honest with me." I said, glaring into his eyes, "Please, let me trust you."He paused and looked down, and in that moment of the glare of the flames touching his face I knew that he had a weight on his mind about me and I pushed again, "Please, tell me what it is you think.""I think you're here by mistake.""What?" I gasped, "What does that mean?""Of everyone I have come across here, in the family, not one of them cant recall how they came to the door of that passage." He explained softly, excited and riddled by my lack of memory and knowledge, "But you, you only remember half way down the passage. Further than I have ever heard!""What are you saying?" I asked, now worried that all of this punishment is a mistake. Cook shrugged, "Everything has changed since you came here. The blackness is moving more stronger and forceful than before and I cant help but wonder it its because of you or not.""Wait, what are you saying?"“I don’t know how I got out of that pit, I don’t know how long I was in there. But when I woke up I…”
Just then Prowler's head lifted and in an instant he was on his feet, staring into the cave behind us with terrified eyes."What's it Prowler? Something in there?" said Cook standing up bravely. Prowler's lip raised and he growled to the shadows on the wall. "What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked turning to Prowler, "What is it? what is there?"Then as though it never was, the light from the coals was out and I turned to Cook, "We better run."Just then I felt the pull of a hand grabbing me from behind across my chest into the cave wall. Prowler released a bark of sorts and Cook dart for me when suddenly I was being dragged upwards along the caves rugged roof and then dropped back down to the ground again."Rek!" said Cook rushing to help me up, "Are you ok?""What the hell was that?" I shouted when again, I was plucked from my feet backwards into the wall and dragged deeper into the cave screaming in fear of this invisible menace. Cook sprint after me, grabbing my hand but the force of the pull toppled him off his feet, face first into the soft sand at his feet. Prowler too dart after me, clawing and snapping at the cave wall as though to apprehend this entity living in the walls when, like a toy I was flung across into the other side of the wall and grabbed there around my face and waist by cold ice like hands I could not see or physically feel and dragged deeper and deeper as Prowler tried desperately to claw and snap at this thing stealing me. Then flung back across the path and back and forth like a rag doll between two girls, invisible and twisted little girls having fun with the giant wolf pet. As I flung through the air from side to side and then around by my ankle and back and around, I saw Cook running towards me with his sift half torn off, his one hand in front of the other, covering something and I yelled, "Help me!"
As he neared, he revealed in his hand the ripped section of his shirt, inside it a small flame from a coal at the fire and he skid down to his knees and with a hard breath, blew at the flame sending it into a scorch through the rest of his shirt and like a scolding hot potato, I was dropped to the ground as screams filled the air as we watched the two ghastly shadows slither off away from the light, Prowler in chase still.
"You ok?" asked Cook kneeling beside me and helping my disorientated body to its feet as the shirt cloth burnt on the ground. "How did you know to do that?" I asked surprised and dizzy. "I don't know, I just knew."Just then Prowler yelped from deeper in the cave and we dart towards him when the last flame of the burning shirt flayed to darkness.
"Prowler!" I called, my voice now echoing in the hollowness of the rock mountain.

Part Sixteen: A divide in paths

The wolves below us lay dormant, the weight of their heavy breath selling gentle yet chilling growls as they lay asleep. As Cook and I positioned ourselves to try lower down this dark ashen tree, we feel the strain of our joints knack on us from the while we had sat hurled up in tense balls as they continued to leap up at the tree, waiting for them to retire to sleep again. As we stand looking down, the air barrels down against us from somewhere within this place, foreboding a cold fear to be cautious of.

“I’ll go first.” Said Cook, carefully moving to manage his way down this half gauged away trunk. “Be careful.” I replied, my back fearing a cold monster from the darkness behind me where my eyes could not see. As Cook lowered down the tree’s ashen bark I turned to apprehend my surroundings again, the foreboding danger in the air felt almost too real to ignore. Just then, I heard the snapping of the trunk below me and I spun around as Cooks body toppled to the ground onto his back, de-winding his breath in the centre of the wolves. With the thud that his body hit the ground, my breath stopped, watching the wolves laying there, thankfully not stirring to the bump on the ground near them. I looked to Cook again, laying there frozen in fright and shock.

“Cook!” I shout down in a whisper as soft as I could bear to be loud. He looked up at me with wide terrified eyes and carefully got to his feet, looking up at me with a big smile, proud of himself as he ushered me to follow him down.
I carefully moved my footing on this bulk of hard dry ashen tree, my heart pounding with fear that those beasts below would wake. After all the time Cook and I spent up in that dead remains of a tree, the thought of not merely escaping the wolves but also the stench of this burnt, acidic place that is the black jungle. The silence of this place hung tight as we both held our breaths, afraid of these menacing beasts to smell us.As my balmy hands tried desperately to maintain a grip to the dry tree, my feet tremblingly tried to find footing on the frail bulk of the tree. It felt like I was climbing down a thin sheet of Styrofoam that would just not bare my weight and the more I tried desperately to avoid any further noises to alert those wolves, the more the trunk flayed at my body weight.

“Careful man.” Said Cook in a whisper as I finally began to descend when a soft, yet sincere growl sounded to the left and we both turned to the wolf standing up facing him with a growl. Immediately I looked at the other two beasts, laying asleep with heavy snorts to their breathing. Cook carefully stepped backwards and I clung now tighter to the tree as the wolf stood stiff, its fierce eyes fixed on Cook standing there alone and frightened. Again, in that moment of immense fear – time seemed to be non existent. The wolf, without once taking his prey from sight, released a loud, menacing howl that spiraled cold through my skin. The other two wolves leapt up from their sleep, alerted and ready for a dance with their prey.

“Run!”
Without hesitation, Cook scrambled back for the tree, trying desperately to clamber up the torn away trunk beneath me when the wolf darts forward at him. “No!” I screamed in fright, sending Cook down aside just as the giant beast plummeted into the trunk, crashing directly through it smashing it into shards and splinters of ash. The tree jolted as the top half of the remaining trunk crushed down to the partial portion of the trunk still rooted to the ground. I gripped on to the branches with all my might as the tree began to tip forwards, slanting as the wide stretched muscle branches crushed and bent into the ground and surrounding trees before the weight splintered them into ash as they compressed into the ground.

As its giant branches began crushing into the surrounding trees and bushes, one of the wolf beasts leapt for safety when the tree tipped more, the last strength of the trunk crumbling and the wolf beast got skewered through the body by one of the branches that then bent and crushed down on it – final cry drowned by the loud crushing of this giant black tree. I clung with all my strength as this high tree began to crumble forwards into the forest, I tried in vain to try see Cook as the tree fell further downwards away from the base where I had last seen him, but to no avail -the branches gave in and the bulk of the tree was lost and my shelter came crashing down to the ground, exploding the splinters of tree into the air.

Θ Θ Θ Θ

The worst case scenario had happened, I looked back in shear desperation for the slightest sign of Rek, but I could see none. Within seconds he had vanished from sight under debris of branches and bark and black suffocating ash. Already disorientated from the fall, I tried in vain to run for where the giant tree came to its rest on the ground as panic set in. My chest pounding with fear and pain, feeling so empty and isolated in this desolate place – now without my only friend. As I embarked on finding Rekara amongst the debris, I began to frantically shove splintered tree aside when I felt a harp sting in my hand and I looked down to find a cut bleeding across the palm of my left hand.

From behind me in the silence of this black jungle now, I heard a snarl and I froze solid, the sound chilling my already damaged core. "It can't be…" I said within my mind, repeating it over and over again. As I turned I faced the beast and its eyes immediately hit mine and I could see was hatred in them, a blackness of un-proportional evil, feeding on fear and now anger from its fallen pack. It was dripping blood from a gauge across from its snout along its front chest. In that second I pitied the beast for its pain, but it didn't seem to have been affected by the cut, it looked more as though it was thriving on the pain through its anger - the aura menacing and hungry for me more now than before, derived from anger and vengeance like every other blackness here in this place.
I didn't have a clue where Rek was and my fear was pulsating inside of me, my head spinning with confusion and turmoil. I had a choice to make, in just a fraction of time. If I stayed he beast would get us both. If I ran, at least one of us would have the slightest chance of survival in this jungle. And if I stayed, I would be mauled to death, ravaged and ripped apart.

I chose to run and I did, as fast as my legs could carry my tired, aching body! Slipping beneath branches, and ducking as the beast followed angrily, my nimble, small body easily moving through smaller gaps in the jungle than this giant beast. Running through the dark jungle, cutting through ashen branches and over fallen debris, trying to avoid these natural traps - I kept getting distracted by the thought of Rekara. But none the less, fear propelled me and I ran, and ran, the beast following and still snarling and thriving on the thought of fresh fear injected flesh.
As I ran breathlessly and hopelessly through this mangled dense brush of black burnt forest, I urged to not be taken this way, to not die in such a torturous way and then, within distance I saw a ledge approaching. Crashing through the jungle, I darted underneath the rock formation and then slid through a small gap in the ledge.

With my chest pounding I realized I was trapped here, and then the ground above me began to shake and tremble from the wolf atop of my narrow sanctuary.

Part Nineteen, Three: Stranger, Informal Meeting

What had just happened here? As we stood staring into the dark abyss of this cave into the mountain, I stood still, with baited breath in confusion. Who or what was it? Why did it want to drag me down there?

I looked at Cook, confused still and amazed at how he managed to know that about the fire, and also what other surprises he had hidden in his mystique. Yet now, I had to focus on this dilemma, on finding Prowler in this dark place. Our eyes met, both baring shock and fear yet also an urge to find answers still in this unimaginably wretched place. A howl from Prowler sounded deep in the cave, slowly fading into the midst of the dark below. "Prowler!" I shouted frantically too receive some sort of reply from him, an anger of his negligence almost. "We need to go now." said Cook, still breathing heavily from the onset, "We need to go now! Whatever that was is down there, probably ready to strike again either way. We can’t hesitate." He said with urgency in his tone. "Ok lets go." I said, with a tad of reluctance as we left down this dark cave passage, the walls slowly going narrower before widening out and splitting. We were wandering down this passage for what seems like an age, with absolutely no clues as too whether or not they came this way when before us lay a split ahead.

"Ok then, left or right" I asked in a low whisper that too echoed in the depth denseness of the caves.
“I uh…Um, I really don't know, left I guess?" Cook suggested reluctantly, “Whichever passage we decide too take, they'll be other choices to make.”
I nod, Cook had the hammer in hand with that. “I don’t know Rek…do we have any clues as too where Prowler is?” He continued with a frown, “No, so I guess our guess is as good as each others. Either which way dude, I’ll have your back and you will have mine."
We paused momentarily, each of us staring at this divide in route trying to make sense of which way Prowler had gone. "Something is drawing me to the left one, not sure why, just seems more disturbed, the ground doesn't feel untouched" I said as I knelt down to the dust like sand on the ground. Cook tilt his head with a confusion across his face, “Drawing you?”
“Yes, I can’t explain it. It’s almost like déjà vu.” I nod looking up at him with this strange motion within me. He sighed, “Creepy…” as he head forward, towards the left of the divide. I got up and followed him as the silence grew thicker, the light so densely dim around us.
"Hey!” Said Cook stopping me with a jolt. The sudden outburst shocked me from my depths of thought and suspense that gripped me in this place of invisible threat and I snapped, "What? You nearly gave me a…"
"Sssshh!” he said with determination now, and I shut up. “Do you hear it? Scuttling ahead of us, something is down there.”In the dimness of the light, I strained my ears but could hear nothing. “What do you think it is?” asked Cook turning to face me with wide eyes, “I'm scared Rek, I don't like the sound of it."
"Hear what Cook? I don’t hear anything."
"Listen" he said with urgency again, “Just listen…”
I strained my ears again, closing my eyes to focus on anything but my fear that strived over what felt like all my other senses. Through the dimness, in the distance of this cave within this mountain, I heard it. A ominous and eerie scuffling, and breathing almost. Then whispers from voices, sounding possessed.
"Yes I hear it now." I answered whispering it as shivers went down my spine, "What is that?"
The faint noises sounded busy. Whatever was making that noise was active. It was ahead of us and didn't seem to be getting any further away. We were bound too come across it somewhere soon. It's just a matter of time - so difficult to work out how far noises were away, they just echoed in the darkness.

We continued on cautiously and closer together. The noise was getting closer now, and our heart rates increased immensely, our eyes ever vigilant for this invisible threat. Everything else that we encountered had been terrifying, but they we could see. "Wait. Stop" said I holding Cook from moving any further forward.“What is it?" he asked nervously, yet with a braveness too. "I felt a breeze on my feet like something brushing past or investigating me, like a cat."Just then Cook leaped out in front of me yelling in shock and fear, battling this invisible menace. "Get it off me! Get it off me!" he screamed as he was smacking against the walls desperately trying to get whatever it was off him." Try and keep still, what is it?" I scrambled too him, attempting to make out what it was that had literally grabbed him. "It hurts, get it off!" he urged, but I could see nothing. I felt helpless in that moment, unsure of what to do so kept throwing blind swing like punches hoping one would connect with whatever it was. Then, to my surprise, one swing did. I felt against my hand something, a physical existence unseen to my eyes and Cook stumbled to his knees. I stood in awe, confused, trying to spot this thing in the air in front of me."What is it, are you ok?" I asked stumbling into the cave wall."I have no idea.” He said fearful now that sight of it was lost when I looked down hoping to see the sand moving perhaps and I jumped back in fright.“Jesus!” I screamed, stumbling sideways along the wall until I tripped onto the ground. Cook spun around and on the sand, scurrying along towards the wall was a large, round black spider with long black legs encrusted with long black hairs. Its head was swarming with enormous black eyes.“It’s a spider!” said Cook turning to face me confused.“Kill it!” I said in alarm, almost unable to breathe now as my arachnophobia stuck in. “No, its not a spider…” said Cook turning to watch as the eight legged demon head up the wall, “No spider could carry you in the air like that.”“Just kill it!” I said, feeling my body tighten and tense now. Cook frowned, “Are you ok?”“Kill it!” I urged with a desperation in my voice that I had not had the entire time here in this decaying world where souls are brought for torture.Cook turned to the hand sized spider that had begun to blend color with the cave walls as it walked, like a chameleon. “Please…” I said as tears ran from my eyes now, my body unable to move. Cook raised his foot and crushed it down.

∞∞

A silence now hung between us as we carefully head along the cave, the crushed spider haunting the way back behind us, my fears now of the chameleon spiders that could be lurking all around us in this cave. Cook was in the lead as the cave grew tighter and narrower. Then the nook of passage split again. The left side stemmed higher, more walking space and the right a narrower, lower raised gap. A yelp echoed from the side."I think we should try right this time.” Suggested Cook with a cocky arrogance that almost had the ability to overpower my fear in that moment. As we knelt lower and head inwards, another yelp sounded and we began to move faster now, to save our friend Prowler from these invisible beings. By now the passages were becoming so narrow we had to crawl through certain areas. There were strange markings on the wall, like scratches made by fleeing prey and I instantly thought of that spider, remembering those fangs and those legs. They could have made these scratches, but made by something much - much bigger, a mother spider. I tried in vain to clear my mind of these haunting thoughts from Hollywood.We were crawling at this point, for the ceiling was too low and covered in spikes from years and years of dripping. From behind me, Cook persisted to push me forward when I felt like stopping and crawling to the fetal position and crying at the dreaded fears of any spider and the sound broke when Cook whispered and grabbed by ankle."Rek, we need to hurry up, there's something following us.”"Not again" I sighed with broken mercy, "What is it this time? Please don't say another spider!""No, it’s more uniformed.” He said, “We have to move!”I began to crawl again, faster and faster as my hands slid beneath the dust like sand that felt so cold, damp almost.“What do you mean uniformed?” I asked with a persistence now.“Like there’s an army of something coming for us!" huffed as Cook sped behind me, “I think it is the spiders!”“What!” I gasped, gushing forward now; eager and frantic as I felt my worst fears startling to life in this god forsaken place of hell and torture.Cook followed briskly on my trail. Another split in the passage, and without thinking I went right again, any way to evade any army of anything here in this dark cave. We hurried along and finally the space widened until we could stand upright. I helped Cook to his feet and then continued to lead us in a run forward, away from what Cook said lay behind us, as we heard Prowler howling somewhere in this mountain. I felt my strength evading me, my faith and hope wondering now as the fear that would cause my body to go into shock began to toil in my head over and over again. “Keep running.” Said Cook behind me as I began to slow. I closed my eyes and began to drive myself forward as more sounds emerged from ahead of us now, as though from an opening somewhere. Prowler was in pain. "Rek!" shouted Cook behind me, and I spun around in awe as Cook slid to the side, in a crack on the walls I had not seen sprinting past. I dart after him and grabbed his hand. Behind him, in the tight space in the rock was a large dark centipede dragging at Cook towards it as it raised its body."Rek help! It's too powerful!" he cried as I began to tug him out of the gap with all my might, his sweaty hands in mine providing little grip. “Jesus what is this fucking thing!” I screamed, when the top portion of its body flung down and gripped my leg in its hairy legs and whipped me backwards, flipping me aside and sliding Cook backwards screaming and frantic. I struggled to my feet, winded almost and leapt up again, grabbing Cook’s arm and pulling downwards but entirely not strong enough against this thing with all the legs and soft mucus like body of rubber and skin.

The centi-beast coiled almost, its body camping down onto me and its feeler like legs caging down around me. Cook dropped to the ground beside me just as the centi – beast began to thump the bulk of the body down on to me, like kneeing a roll of dough as its legs kept me caged within them. “Rekara!” shouted Cook, darting to his feet and delivered a kick to the body. Coiling, the centipede snatched Cook up in its legs again. Just then a loud, mighty bang, pop like sound fired in the hollowness of the cave. Cooks body flopped down to the ground again and the centi-beast coiled and slithered almost, its legs plopping and stomping down around me as my body drug around, still caught beneath its tube like body. Another bang erupted, a blast like that of a gun somewhere in the darkness and the centi-beast coiled the length of its body, shoving me out. Cook rolled to help me when the legs of the centipede stumped down, the one slicing down on my outer thigh and the rest trampling over my legs as the centi-beast coiled upwards, its tail end slamming Cook into the rock wall.

Sprays of juice from this centipede thing hurled out as another bang then another sounded. I tried to lift to my feet but the devilish pain that struck from my ankle forbid me and I toppled down again, calling in both pain and desperation, “Cook!”Cook staggered to his feet, on his hand as he brought it from the back of his head red mortal blood.“Are you ok?” “I think I broke my leg!”Just then, all around us, fragments of glass tinkled down and then, the centipede burst into flames. We leapt backwards, rushing away towards the opening to the passage again as the centipede began to coil and roll as the flames tore at its mucus like body.
“What the hell is that?” asked Cook pointing up as a dark figure stepped onto the ledge of the rock face to the light from the hole further above it leading out to the barren world again. The being lowered down and then hoisted itself off, falling almost weightlessly through the air and landing on the ground in front of the flaming centipede, looking at us.With the flames on the coiling and melting centi-beast behind it, the being stepped forward, watching us like a dark silhouette against the flames, merely just watching us as we stood there flabbergasted and watching back. The figure seemed to be wearing a long trench coat and a hat, the silhouette to the fiery centi-beast behind it similar to that of a cowboy and in a low, frightening tone said, “Boo!”

Part Nineteen, One: Reality During The Rain

As the torrents of rain continued to soak the dry, decaying earth outside, both Cook and I huddled up against the cold hard walls of a cave in the mountain side. A silence hung in the cave as us human men tried to regain our breath, sanity and focus back from the non stop fighting and un-relentless running.Prowler had ran into the caves a short distance before coming back to where we stood close to the entrance as the down pour drenched this horrid and barren place.
With our bodies as tired and sore as they have ever been, Cook and I head a few feet deeper into the cave, away from the mouth where the rain and winds brought only more misery through coldness and wetness.

“I wish we had a fire here.” I sighed sitting down with a nausea from hunger and thirst. Cook sighed with a nod and sat down in a ball against the rock, silently watching Prowler who came faithfully to curl up against me facing him. Feeling to drained already, I had not enough strength to argue his caution for the beast or query his great distrust either and for long, the cave bore only the sound of the rainfall from the entrance. The ground inside this place was dirt, unlike the decaying dry land outside, the dirt was reminiscent of the sand on beaches but much less coarse and smooth almost, like silver grey dust.
"Guess its time for me too explain myself too you…” Cook said breaking the silence between us. I looked up at him confused, “What do you mean?”“Who I am and why I am the way I am, why I am so distant from you." He said softly, avoiding eye contact with me as though ashamed almost.“Ok.” I nod softly, still reeling in dizziness and nausea.“Before I came to this place and I guess, before I found you out there at the mist, I thought I was left to fight life alone and face whatever comes into my path alone. I didn't trust anyone, not even my family, no none.” He said softly, his voice carrying a sadden weight as he spoke, “Not after what had happened, not after what people did too me.”
“People?” I asked with as little energy as I could to evade this savage starvation and thirst eating at me from inside. “People. The world in general, everyone.”
As Cook continued to speak I felt my body fill with a sour, and sharp pains began to strike at my gut and my head felt more and more like a spinning tea cup at a fair.
"My life back in the other world was something of a lie I guess. To most people I was just a normal guy who had a normal job and got on with his mundane normal life as best he could. But they didn't know me at all, nobody did.” He began in a soft, droning tone as his mind flickered back to his personal reality.


Θ Θ Θ


“A few years back, I found myself involved in a situation that begun this downward spiral that I thought would only be possible in the movies.” I said, knowing that Rekara needed to hear this truth if we were to survive this place together, “I knew about a certain person in this gang, I knew what he had done in the past and what crimes he had committed. Trust me, it was the worst of crimes you can think of, things that could literally make you puke.” I said, finally looking up at Rek’s darkened eyes in the dim light of the cave.“He found out somehow that I knew this, and set out to make sure I would never tell anyone the information I had on him, which was basically pointless because I didn’t mean to know it in the first place, but he wanted me dead none the less.”

There was a short silence as I gathered my thoughts, trying to open up the inner hatred that had been locked up for so long. I had to tell Rek this, then he would begin to understand the type of person I am. I need him now, more than anyone else in the whole world. I want him to trust me and know me inside out. I need it. "One time I was just walking to the store, contemplating life and the pathetic reality of my existence when out of nowhere I was grabbed and bundled into the back of a van The next thing I knew I was being forced into a hessian bag being whacked at and kicked at continuously until I finally lost consciousness. By the time I woke up, I was tied to a chair in the middle of an old factory warehouse.” I said pausing as the images came rushing back to me again, “There were dead bodies on the walls each with a number cut into their bare chest. Even little kids…Jesus! I can still remember that awful stench.”
“To the side of me stood an old butchers table stained with blood and surrounded by a tray of blunt blades. I knew what was going to happen, this is his work and I was about to die a horrible forsaken death because I knew…I knew who he was!” I said realizing my voice grew louder as my memories surfaced.“Who was he?” asked Rekara, weakly.
“When the gun fired I thought that was it, I could almost see my life flashing in my head. But it wasn’t death, it would’ve been to easy to just shoot me in the back of my head.” I continued, almost unable to stop the words from pouring out of me, “ the shot hit into my shoulder and I fainted. Like a pussy, I fainted.”“Christ…” said Rekara softly now.
“By the time I woke up again, I was laying on the butchers table, spread out. I could feel the blood sticking to me as it congealed with my skin. At this point I knew what was going to happen and was trying to escape but with no luck. I was too weak and hurt, god it hurt all over.” I said recalling my fear, “I was so quiet then, so silent as if it was part of the ritual or something. I was scared, literally shaking in fear. The kind of shaking that I haven’t been able to shrug here in this place."

“I know the feeling.” He said, his voice broken and faint.“Dude are you ok?”“I'm fine.” He nod bravely, but I could see in his eyes and color of his skin that he was not well.“Please, continue.” He said softly, politely and I shook my head."Maybe another time…I don't think I can go on anyway. The memories, they're just so vivid still, I'm sorry Rek, sorry for even mentioning it."“Are you for real?” he asked frowning at me. At that point I just wanted to be on my own to gather thoughts again, and I stood up, “Get some rest, we’ll try find some food or water in the morning.” I said moving towards the cave’s mouth where the rain torrent down still. I turned back, and Rekara had fallen to sleep and strength depletion against Prowler and I sighed, turning to face the rain again.

Part Eighteen: Doom Mountain

The barren land was a relief to my eyes, smell and skin. The wolf however seemed plagued by this place, uncertain of it and highly distrusting. He constantly sniffed the air and the ground, clearly the history of this place still hung to it in a way we could only see and feel, where he could smell it.The city that once loomed on the horizon was no where to be seen, to the far left lay a dark and cold mountain, its jagged rock face almost blue and silver with malice. To the right lay an endless bareness with few decaying remains of something that was, but will never again be again, a waste land now. And behind us lay the blackness stretching as far as the eye could see to either direction along the horizon, a blackness. The sky still remained violent and angry, darkened by hatred and vengeance.

We were both silent at first, trying to find baring now in the light of this place compared to the dense dimness of the black jungle.“Home sweet home.” Smiled Cook with a boyish grin that gave me the giggles too.“We should get away from here, those things are still behind us.” I said moving on, “Come on Prowler.”
“Prowler?” smirked Cook with an irritated frown, “You gave it a name?”
“Yeah, Prowler. Ten guesses why…” I answered jokingly, much to Cook’s dismay. “Rek, we cant let this thing tag along with us!”
“What?” I frowned as we walked, Prowler faithfully beside me standing higher than me, “Why not?”
“Why?” laughed Cook sarcastically, blatantly against this beast joining us, “Because we don’t know when it will strike at us, or if we can trust this thing! Look at it! It’s a fucking giant against you Rek! It’s not a pet!” he said, his voice raised.
Stopping, I turned to face him, “First of all, I didn’t say he was my pet. Secondly Mr. Cook, who the hell do you think you are telling me what I can do? Incase you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly London or where ever the hell it is that your from! This is hell!”
“You can’t be serious Rek!” urged Cook angrily, “We can’t trust it!”“Well I do.” I said sternly, “So you if you want to fight about it, go kick the shit out of a tree but don’t bring it here.” I said walking off again, leaving Cook and his distrust and faithlessness behind me.

Silence clung between us as we head forward, horizontal to the menacing mountains. The only break to the eeriness was the rage in the sky, the lighting and thunder. As we walked in silence, I watched the blackness on our bodies from that ashen place and kept watching the desolate, decaying area around us for any further threat. But we were alone in this deserted place, three black smudged and bloody, bruised beings heading on to nothingness and peril.

The further we grew from the black and burnt jungle, the narrower it became and by the time I turned to face Cook who had slogged behind me, I realized that it was nothing more now than just a black line, as though contracting away now that we had past through it.“How’s your ribs holding out?” asked Cook wearily. “Hurts like fuck, but then again everything…”
Before I could utter my sentence finished, a roar echoed across the sky, unlike another before it - loud and ferocious, roaring almost. The three of us spun around in alarm as the blackest of tornado’s screamed down towards the ground roughly 30 yards off, its spiraling black funnel lifting the dust from this crusted, blood soaked earth to the air.

ΘΘ

Amazed and taken by its beauty, both Cook and I stared at it in wonder and marvel as it tore at the ground, ripping decayed trees and boulders into the air. “Wow.” Said Cook in awe, when Prowler began to howl beside us, scampering backwards.“Yeah its awesome huh?” I smiled at him as he scampered more and more backwards. I turned back to face the tornado, seeing now that another funnel was descending towards the ground beside it, roughly 30 yards off as well.“Holy shit!” said Cook, moving back. “We better move!” I said pulling at his arm.“Move?” he frowned tugging loose, “And miss seeing this!”“They could swing coarse, change direction!” I urged, pulling at him again.“What, because your stupid pet is crying?” he said rudely when a third funnel sped down, the air now filled with the roaring of three black tornado’s. the power of the wind around them already touching the dirt at our feet, blowing through our hair.I grabbed his arm again, “Cook, we have to find cover before those things turn this way!” The words barely escaped the tips of my lips when a ‘zing’ sound aired and we turned to the three menacing funnels, almost several feet wide each and through the air came hurtling toward us a massive decayed tree that smashed to the ground and skid in various chunks on the ground. We watched then as one of the tornado’s flung up bodies laying on the earth in the far distance like puppets.
“Oh my god!” He nod following me, almost unable to take his eyes from the magnificent sight, “Ok, we got to go!”

As we scurried away in a jog type run, the roaring grew stronger and the winds picked up as dirt flung around us as the three twisters tore at the land, ravaging rotten trees and boulders from their places on the ground and having them flung away. As we neared the base end of the mountain, the earth at our feet slanted downwards to a wide stretch of brush that bore white chunks of boulders and thick brown trunks of trees that once, before whatever darkness set in, grew tall and proud. The plateau at that moment seemed like a chess board with broken pieces. As we stood on the verge of the mound, another massive trunk flew over our heads and crushed into the ground and boulders. We began to dart down the sloped ground, through the decayed plateau, past the boulders and trees. Prowler had not difficulty leaping atop the boulders while, we had to circle them. Trying to shorten my route to safety somewhere in the mountains across this field of broken chess pieces, I miss stepped and toppled down to the ground. Cook spun for me, ever watchful and hurried to help me to my feet when the giant masses of spinning winds reached the top of the slope, just feet away from us, roaring and gushing wind down with immense force before all three of them finally sucked into each other and became one large, monstrosity of wind and blackness.

Cook and I continued to sprint towards the mountain, dashing to evade the boulders and trunks of this ground as the thick, fat vicious funnel of wind tore down into the slope. Prowler had already reached the foot of the gloomy mountain, but stood worriedly waiting for us, fearful of the twister and growling at it. With just more than a yard of plateau to cross, Cook and I hurtled from the wind as boulders and trunks went spiraling into the air and then tossed out angrily around us.

As we rounded a trunk and made our last sprint across the final feet of the plateau towards the base where Prowler waited and danced for us impatiently, a great silver boulder of earth flung through the air, whizzing as it tumbled and then it smashed through the top section of the trunk behind us, splintering it into shreds as it hurtled towards us.Both myself and Cook flung our bodies down to the ground and the boulder crashed down inches from us, rolling away as shards of it flung around its orb. More of this plateau sucked up to the tornado and Cook, the guide as always, had my hand in his, pulling me towards the base of the mountain where we hoped, to find some form of shelter. Prowler pranced to the side, darting along and up and around the sharp rock face of this stone beast, climbing higher and faster and further away from the flying debris, so much faster than we could manage to maintain a distance from this spinning force of wind.

Θ Θ Θ

As we struggled to find a decent point for us to climb up at, more and more debris flung around us, the wind so strong it deafened everything and almost blinded us to keep our eyes open at its gale.The mountain stretched up high, with sharp and menacing rocks and the more we ran along to find a place to actually physically gain momentum onto the mountain range, the more logs and rocks crashed around us. Prowler had already maneuvered ahead, through the ledges and rocks by the time, Cook guided me through a narrow passage like gap in the rock face itself.The gap was narrow and deep and as we ran I saw Prowler running up top along with us and in this narrow passageway between the cold rocks the force and sound of the wind was over powering. I turned to see the position of the tornado and it managed to climb the base, running on the side and then, as though it slipped, the funnel fell down the pass in the rock face sucking and screaming.

Without looking, I rammed into Cook and stumbled down confused and frightened when he turned to face me in horror, the gap in the face had reached its end. We were trapped and the suction was violent over the gap in the rock base and nearing us louder and louder. I turned up and faithfully, Prowler stood above us. “Prowler!” I gasped, shoving Cook aside in a frantic fear, “Cook, lift me up!”“What?” he asked, his voice muffled by the wind. “Pick me the fuck up!” I screamed as the blackness neared and neared on us. Cook immediately reacted, grabbing my foot and hoisting me upwards, my hand stretched out for Prowler. “Come on Prowler!” I shouted in panic. Cook watched from below, confused and terrified of the approaching wind. Prowler lowered his head and opened his mouth to my confused dismay and Cook cried out, “For the love of God! Help us!”

Then, as though trained, Prowler gently put his mouth over my hand I took hold of his fangs and he raised me out, my heart fell numb and he put me down beside him.“Rekara!” called Cook in alarm and I scurried to the edge, holding down my hand for him when as though an apparition, the tornado emptied out and the air fell silent as the funnels dust and dirt filled air evaporated. The silence was welcoming but broken by Cook grunting, “Hello? Can I get a damned hand out of here?”Laughing, I knelt down again, and took his hand to hoist him upwards.

“Thanks bro.” he smiled as he got to his feet beside me and Prowler on the first edges of this malicious looking mountain of cold grey stone and rock. Cook turned to Prowler and pat him on the side, “That was a pretty impressive job you did there boy.”“Trust him now?” I asked grinning like a self righteous bastard. Cook sighed shaking his head, grinning smug, “It takes a lot for me to trust anyone, or anything. But yes, Prowler may stay.”I was about to laugh finally, after all the dilemma and chaos when a boulder crashed down just feet from us from the sky, shocking us back to the reality of this dangerous place, and our new adventure to survive in this forsaken place, Doom Mountain.

As we stood looking at this menacing sight, I felt momentarily asleep and that this sight and everything I felt, all the pain and blood and black ash, even the sky and the world and the passage was all a dream. Then a ice cold tingle touched my face and I looked up as a downpour sloshed down from the black sky in torrents of hard rain.

Part Seventeen: Fearful Flesh

Crushing through the ashen bark, branches and trunk bits of this giant collapsed tree, I stumbled forwards and collapsed onto the debris on my hands and knees, my ribs paining. The jungle was silent and no matter what way I looked, I could not see my friend Cook. I dropped my head defeated, my ribs bruised from the fall. I managed to my feet again, wearily making my way over the disaster area where the tree had fallen, stumbling over broken branches, trying to see the base area of where the tree stood, hoping to find Cook but there was no sight of him and still the air hung dense and still.
“Cook!” I called, my voice fading before an echo could emerge in the openness of this dead jungle as though kidnapped by the cold menace lurking in the trees. “Cook where are you?” I shouted again, my ribs stinging and sore. The area was silent still.

I toppled to the ground again. Hopeless and broken, tired and simply without strength to continue again without my friend Cook who must have suffered a great torturous death at the vicious jaws of the wolves when just in front of me, a branch snapped and I looked up to the fierce face of a wolf beast.
Its dark eyes watched me for what felt like an eternity again of suspended fear and then, the beast simply dropped down onto its side with a yelp winding its breath. I frowned and managed up onto my feet again, holding my ribs as the beast lay there panting heavily on its side.

I carefully stepped around, passing it as distant as the fallen debris would allow me, watching its face cautiously – not trusting this sudden collapse. As I motioned past it, I noticed its dark brown eyes moving with me, and at first I felt cold, tricked and trapped then I realized that this beasts eyes carried a weight, a sadness and I cautiously paused.
“I cant help you.” I said softly, as though this monstrous killer would understand me, before I motioned again. The beast softly moaned, a high pitched saddened whimper and I stopped again, its eyes watching me, almost calling me towards it. “What do you want from me?” I asked with anger, a sadness and plight this beast would not comprehend. And as though by sheer miracle, the beast lifted its head, rolling its body onto its back to reveal its left side where a stick was stabbed into its side. The beast rolled its head to face me, its eyes pleading with mine in sad brown angst.
“Forget it.” I said with a coldness, “You will die before you eat me.”
I scurried off, my ribs paining and bruised, my fears of being alone again in this place surfacing with coldness and my mind trying not to see Cook’s violent and gruesome death playing in my imagination and then i tripped to the ground over dry, rotting roots and I rolled to my back, crying out in both pain and sadness as tears filled my eyes.
“Cook!” I shouted from beneath my sadness and painful loss. If felt like my head would not stop from spinning and spinning, my anger turning to vile gal within my stomach as my anger and rage began to boil inside of me. I hated this place, this ground, the death, the corpses, the confusion, the pity, the solitude, the misery, the silence, the fear, the anger, the coldness.
I got to my feet again, clenching silent the pain at my side and I head towards the fallen beast, kneeling down and grabbing the stick with both my hands. In those seconds before I plucked the branch from its body, I turned to stare into its eyes again.
“I am not part of this place!” I said, ripping out the stick.

∞∞

Inside this narrow ledge that cracked down diagonally into the ash filled earth, I forced my body deeper, further from the wolf who clawed away at the ground sheltering me. The further I squeezed down away, the deeper the ash grew and I realized this ledge held carcasses and decaying remains of some vile beasts hunt and I filled with more fear now as the wolf above me began to break away at the ground.
With my arms and clothes covered in rotting flesh and dead corpses, the growling still chilling my very core even though we're not in eye contact. This wolf like beast knows I am here - he can smell my fresh fearful flesh and as I grew stuck in this ledge with no way out but up, I realized it was now just waiting game to see who could outwit and outlast the other.
Can I stay in here long enough all cramped and crunched up, until the wolf finally gives up the battle, or will I give in?
Is Rekara alive? Did he survive the crunching tree falling?
Does he know that I haven't left him, that I will be back to find him?

The wolf paused and silence hung long enough for me to carefully maneuver in this cramped space towards the top when again the wolf began scratching to find me.
I ushered backwards again, realizing that I had kind of gotten used to it now, the fear of this place, of loosing this battle for my soul to darkness. Yes, the fear remains inside of me always, controlling me but somewhat calmer as I listened to the beast clawing away at the ground that broke and dusted down onto me as my shelter began to evade its strength. I realized my chest was not pounding as much and my breathing was now still. The stench in this ledge was heart breaking. Then silence befell the site again.

Spending this time alone, trapped and not knowing where to go next or what was going too happen in this god forsaken world brought back memories from my life, my "other" world that once felt like the worst life I could lead, until I came to this place.

I remember those times, being stranded alone and knowing that those people were coming to get me. Not knowing when or how. I was always on the run from this gang who targeted me for no reason other than me being the weak, weirdo. The easy target. They were determined to ruin me and had tried on numerous occasions - setting traps for me. Those petrol bombs and torching my car. I bare still the scars of the knife fight. But each time I had escaped them, fighting to live, to tell the story. All those times I felt my spirit breaking to the solitude of my reality, I reminded myself that it was only making me stronger in a way, but I lost my faith to that.
I lost my faith in general. In people, and in life and in my purpose.
And then when I finally made the choice to alert myself, I found myself opening that fucking door! The door to the passageway! I feel tortured for my choice.
But then, at the point of my exhaustion where I was ready to just fall to those shadow warriors chasing me through that mist, I found Rekara. He's different from the rest. He sees only the new me, not that what drove the family to cast me away like a demon myself. I have total faith in him, in Rekara even if he is not the one. It was with him I found that I was not ready to fall.

Just then a stomp brought me from my day dream of thoughts and the roof cracked in, falling away more and more as the beasts clawed paw dug for me, standing right above me now, growling with fierce rage and determination.
I tried to control my breathing to a silence but I could not control it. The fear was no longer numbed and my chest was now pounding again.
“Rekara!” I called out in fright and last desperation when I heard a roar tear through the air. I looked up through the cracked ground above my head as a dark figure tore into the wolf above me. I shuddered backwards in alarm, fearful now of this new threat. Eager to escape this trapped little space of rotten carcasses, I hurried for the opening when the ground above me broke in and I was grabbed by my collar, ripped violently out through the ground.

∞∞∞

With all the strength I had, I forced Cook out his hole and tossed him to the ground beside me, worried now that my wolf friend would be murdered in his attack to defend my friend Cook. The two wolves tore and clawed, rolled and buckled at each other, screaming and roaring loudly in this silent forgotten place.
“Rek!” said Cook grabbing me, “You’re alive! How did you find me?”
“I didn’t.” I said looking again to the war of wolves, “He did.”

Cook and myself watched the two wolves battle each other viciously with no remorse when suddenly from behind the giant cat fight of claws and screams, several shadow warriors appeared in the brush, almost cloaked in their blackness if not for their flaming red eyes.

“Oh shit!”
“Oh my god!”

We leapt down the mound of broken black ashen earth and dart off, towards more burnt brush, leaving the wolves to battle a bloody match as the shadow warriors charged after us, their high pitched screams undoubtedly calling their reinforcements.
The further we ran, the closer the menacingly cold shadow demons grew towards us and the fierce annoyance of having to run like this began to chew at me as I ran and finally I just stopped and turned to face them head on.
Cook skid back beside me, “Dude, what the fuck you are doing!”
“I can’t run anymore.” I said softly, weakened and angry.
“You cant fight them dude!” he shouted as the screaming red eyes neared and neared upon us, “We have to run! For the love of God we must run!”
“No.” I said, standing my ground in this black place as the forces of darkness neared with flaming eyes. “Jesus Christ Rek, don’t do this!” he screamed, his voice on the verge of tears, I could tell he felt torn between running and fighting beside me.
The seven dark warriors with blood red eyes burning like the purest fires of hell, were within seven feet from us, their black swords raised with their screaming whispers of death.
“Rekara!” screamed Cook, urging me with a plea I could almost not resist as several feet became five and I closed my eyes.

∞∞∞∞

Rampant and sent as though by miracle, the giant beast dropped down between us and the shadow demon warriors, causing them to slither to a violent stop in confusion and surprise, a surprise as great as both mine and Cook too.
The beast released a loud, menacing roar that almost trembled inside of my body as I stood watching with Cook beside me, awed by this wolf’s sudden progression to protect and not hunt us.

Standing in awe of this, we watched as the warriors watched the wolf with red eyes as it lowered for attack, then without pause, slashed out at them, its claws ripping two of them aside, tossed away into the brush screaming. The remaining five shadow warriors drew sword at the beast, their high pitched screams almost deafening and maddening.
“Its saving us.” I said in alarmed, numbed confusion in a disbelief I could not understand. Cook turned to me shaking his head, “What did you do?”
I turned to face him, as the screams echoed as the wolf ravaged at the sinister black warriors, “I pulled a stick from it.”
“That’s gross.”
Just then, in the air like an explosion that tore the sound and shook the black earth at our feet, a red ball of liquid flame erupted out above us. The liquid began to fall down around the area, like magma, burning into the ground, scorching the trees in blistering heat. As Cook and I dove apart to avoid the drops of flames, the wolf scurried for cover. Cook barely missed one of the blobs of magma like juice, scathingly and as I tried to scan for the origin of the explosion, I saw a battalion of shadow warriors approaching when another blast erupted in the air above us, the magma flurrying down all around us like tennis ball rain drops.
Cook scurried past me and I followed, after the wolf as the balls of flaming death ate away at the ground around us, falling inches from us as we tried mercilessly to evade being hit by them.

In the clear now of the fall out, we heard two more blasts sent from the battalion and heard the already destroyed trees singeing behind us, after us almost as we sped through more and more endless brush of black ashen jungle, following the wolf like beast that crushed through most of the debris in our path towards more endless blackness in this forest of ash when suddenly the wolf disappeared in front of us.
Grabbing Cook’s arm, I eased us to a stop, the sound of the battalion rushing behind us in the distance now louder.
“Where is it?” I asked breathlessly. Cook shook his head baffled, “I have no idea.”

Then again, a blast exploded in the air behind us, and a score of magma like liquid came raining down near us, instantly torching through anything in its path. Cook rocketed forward, tugging me after him as the lava balls singed after us as the warriors rampaged after us, screaming and then as though stumbling through yet another rabbit hole, we were out of the black jungle.