CHAPTER 6

I woke to a peculiar, although somewhat familiar, sound. It was a sort of gasping noise, as if someone were choking on air. I looked wildly about me, expecting to see someone or something out of the ordinary. I don’t know exactly what I had anticipated seeing, but it certainly wasn’t what I found.

The boy was up, having also been awakened by the strange sound. He had glanced around, just as I had, in search of the source of the noise, and he found the same thing I did.

Lilith was still asleep, but her faces were troubled. She slept with a deep wrinkle on all her foreheads. Her lips were parted, an occasional sharply drawn breath escaping from them. Tossing her head from side to side, as if trying to avoid some unknown thing, she mumbled in her sleep. I could barely make out what she said.

“No,” Lilith whimpered. “No. Don’t leave. Please don’t leave me.”

There was no doubt in my mind that she was replaying the departure of her parents in her dreams. The mind is a cruel thing. It tortures us, bringing back thoughts we would rather not think and emotions we would rather not feel, and yet, if our mind suddenly fails to do either, we panic, believing something must be wrong with us.

“Why?” she asked her parents. “Did I do something wrong?”

I had heard those words from the little girl yesterday, and I felt the same empathy for them now as I had felt then.

Tentatively trying to wake her, I placed a gentle hand on the sleeping girl’s shoulder. “Lilith,” I called softly to her deaf ears.

Her eyes moved rapidly behind her lids, as if she were seeing something.

“Lilith,” the boy joined in with me to call her from her dream world.

The girl’s hand flew out grasping the first thing it touched. It was my hand. Her grip was stronger than I would have imagined for a petite little girl. It was almost as if she were using it to reach the surface from deep beneath the water.

She gasped, as though reaching air for the first time. She drank it in with the lust of a drowning man. Lilith’s eyes fluttered open, taking in the sight around her. The boy and I were hovering on either side of her.

She looked stunned, breathing heavily. We helped her sit up in front of the now long extinguished fire. As we had no idea what to say, neither of us said a single thing about the event.

The boy simply dug in his pocket. Retrieving a bundled up handkerchief, he laid out its creased corners on the ground and spread it open. In it was a small cake baked with what resembled poppy seeds and a butter knife with a wooden handle. “Hungry?” he asked, glancing up at me.

Oddly, I hadn’t given any thought to food in the time that I’d been in this strange land. It had been well over 24 hours since the last time I ate, but there was no gnawing feeling of emptiness in my stomach.

He began meticulously dividing the cake into equal parts, but when he thought Lilith wasn’t looking, he made her piece bigger.

It was a little thing, that cake, but the small gesture of dividing it made me think increasingly highly of the boy. I had thought that quite impossible, since I already held him in high esteem.

Strangely, after miles of walking, I couldn’t find any appetite and only nibbled at my piece. Then I offered what was left to Lilith, who had already finished her own share. Ravenous, she graciously took it.

I watched her, as she was finishing off her final morsel and still looked hungry.

“That was our last piece,” he said. “We have more food I took from the cottage, but we’ll need to collect some supplies today.”

“We better get going then,” I said, after making sure that Lilith was finished eating. “We have a lot of walking before us.”

Struggling to keep up, Lilith took two fast steps for every stride the boy and I took. Her grip on my hand eventually slackened and grew limp. I could barely hear her panting.

I think it was around midday when we decided to take a break. By now, Lilith was being carried by the boy again and I could tell that he was as exhausted as I was. So, when we came upon a clear pool of water, inviting in its stillness, we decided to stop.

‘Remarkably still’ was all I could think of to describe the pool of water. The water flowed in from the river, but it was silent in its motion. I decided to wade in, as the boy and Lilith rested by the bank.

The water gathered around my ankles, seemingly eager to pull me in deeper. It was smooth and formed around my body, encompassing me. The water was neither hot nor cold. Nor was it warm or cool. It gave the impression of having no temperature whatsoever.

I dove into it, sliding under its surface. The water rippled past my face, tracing the outline of my body. I felt no need to breathe, for I felt nothing. However, in that empty nothingness, I felt what calm should feel like. I was a void for the water to fill up. I was numb.

I spiraled down deeper, but I did not even feel that. The water’s surface above me was a barrier that kept the outside world away from me and, for that, I was glad. It was perfectly fine for me just to watch what was happening above, instead of taking part in it. In fact, it seemed I rather preferred that.

Above me, I saw a brilliant light. Rich in its splendor; it was hazy, but it still shined through to me. It seemed to glow and radiate light to wherever I was, but, for whatever reason, I could not feel it at all.

Then darkness came over my light. It blocked it completely, throwing me into the shadows. I was trapped in a world with darkness and no light, but I did not seem to care. My world was here now and I never wanted to leave.

Suddenly something grabbed at me. It pulled me up, disturbing whatever little bit of peace I had found. As my body was jerked toward the surface, I left my tranquil mind behind and collided into reality.

“She’s not breathing!” I heard someone yell. I couldn’t tell to whom the voice belonged, only that I somehow knew them. I wanted to tell them that they were wrong, and that I was actually breathing. How else would I be conscious and thinking? But my lips were weighted down with the air that lay thickly around me. That was the last thing I remembered thinking before my mind went White.

The White in my mind was more like thick fog than solid color; nevertheless, the White was prominent. There wasn’t a distinction between the sky and the ground. It was all one and I was a part of it. I knew I was not supposed to be here, but I couldn’t remember where I was supposed to be either.

A face flashed in my mind. The image was fleeting; yet, it was engraved in my thoughts. I had seen the same face in the blade. Its bloodshot eyes bore into my own. Its cadaverous hand reached out for me. Strangely, I had no will to scream out nor to run. I had accepted the fate that was before me.

“She’s coming to.”

My eyes opened to the same White sky that was in my mind. It was exactly the same, except for the boy and Lilith, who were now crouched over me. They both looked genuinely worried. Lilith appeared to be on the verge of tears. I sat up a bit too quickly though, causing my head to swim.

“Take it easy,” the boy said. “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” I glanced back at the water. “The water ... something’s wrong with it. It made me feel different.”

“Different good or different bad?”

“I ... I don’t know.” I told the truth. I didn’t know how I felt about the empty emotions that the water had given me. In the water, I had felt nothingness, as I had never felt before. I was empty, but, in feeling nothing, I felt surprisingly satisfied. At that point, my head swam again and I consciously shook it in an attempt to free myself.

“Are you all right?” Lilith asked.

I smiled at her through my headache, but it must have looked like a wince, as she still looked worried.

“I’m fine,” I eventually said. “I’ve definitely been better, but I’m fine.” That statement brought a smile to Lilith’s baby face, so I stood up and grabbed her by the hand. “Enough playing doctor with me, we’ve got to get you to your grandparents.”

Lilith giggled bringing a smile to the boy’s face. The smile made him look younger and I wished I could have experienced that feeling with him.

I plastered a fake smile on my face to match Lilith’s grin. I knew that if she saw me happy, she would be, too. I had already decided I wasn’t going to tell Lilith or the boy what I had seen earlier in my head. It had probably been my imagination anyway, and I didn’t want to worry them any further.

With the three of us lined up in a neat row, we soon entered the Ever Forest. The trees were the tallest that I had ever seen. They towered over us, hiding us near their feet. Their number was so vast that, when we walked, they seemed to walk with us. Their leaves were as crimson as their trunks. It was as if someone had painted over them with a brush dipped in vivid Red paint.

“The trees in this forest never die,” the boy explained. “It’s been called the Ever Forest for as long as I can remember.”

Our footsteps crunched in the carpet of Red leaves under our feet. Although I felt no wind, leaves fluttered by our heads. They flew through the air guiding us to wherever our destination lay. Water droplets from an early rain hung on branches and glittered like precious stones. They slithered down tree trunks and, from time to time, fell on our heads making Lilith giggle.

Then, quite suddenly, Lilith began to cry. Tears streaked her face and her lips trembled.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying not to panic.

“I ...” she hiccuped. “I don’t know.”

“But why are you crying?” asked the boy. He, like I, seemed to have thought that she had misunderstood my question.

“I don’t know,” she repeated through her tears.

Walking along, I felt something cool on my cheek. It was so brief that I didn’t give it much thought, but it was there long enough to notice it. Soon after, I couldn’t help but think that something was amiss. I felt, for lack of a better word, odd.

Everything seemed normal, save for the peculiar feeling I had. I felt that was strange enough by itself, but soon, for no apparent reason, I felt terrified. I could feel the tension build up on my brow, as my body froze. My hands went slick with sweat and erratically quavered. My knees knocked into each other in an attempt to quicken my pace. My whole body was telling me to run.

Next to me, the boy suddenly let out a raucous laugh. Chortle after guffaw came pouring out of his mouth, reminding me of Ralph when we first met him. Almost doubling over, the boy clutched at his stomach, while he struggled to tell me something.

“It’s ... It’s the water droplets.” He grabbed at his sides unable to contain a laugh. “Keep walking.”

Following his advice, I willed my tense body to move forward. When I did, I felt the same tiny brush of coolness; however, this time, it was on my forehead. At the same time, I felt something bubbling up within me, erasing the stiffness I had felt earlier. With it, though, I felt something else: a distinct sense of discomfort.

I felt the color rising in my face. My cheeks turned strangely warm and my stomach churned. There was a curious feeling at the base of my stomach, which felt like a knotting of sorts. I glanced down to see if Lilith was feeling the same way, but her face displayed a different reaction.

Lilith’s eyes were downcast and her lips were tight. She seemed to be holding her breath. When she finally let herself breathe, she sucked in a breath, as if she were trying to keep something inside her; within her own self. But I heard the anguish and hurt in that one breath.

Grabbing Lilith and the boy, I ran. I had no way of knowing in which direction I was running, but I knew that I didn’t want Lilith to suffer any further. Suspended drop after drop of water crashed onto our faces pushing us to feel emotions that we did or didn’t want to feel.

I had wanted to feel for so long that I didn’t care what kind of emotion it was. For me, agony held the same sweetness that zest and contentment once held. I was enraptured by the feeling of torment. Each emotion washed over me, reminding me how it felt to be human again. I prized every emotion, but I knew that the boy and Lilith ached for their freedom to dictate how they felt. I ran for their sake, not mine.

We stopped running when we came to a clearing in the Ever Forest. It was a lonely looking patch of Red grass. The Red trees surrounded us. Looking on, they watched us pant, short of breath. Nonetheless, I knew this place was empty of those suspended drops of distilled emotion. It was a place where I knew they were safe.

The boy heaved, his arms resting on his knees. He struggled to catch his breath, and, when he did, he surprised me. “We’re not safe,” he said, his voice hushed.

“What?”

“We’re not safe,” he repeated.

Naturally, his words made me anxious, but I couldn’t see where danger could possibly lay. Aware that I was probably being overcautious, I looked around us carefully. I heard nothing save silence and I saw nothing save the trees.

“Why?” This time Lilith asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue.

Before the boy could answer, a swish of movement came from the trees. Lilith, the boy, and I automatically swiveled toward the sound, but we saw nothing. The places between the trees where the sound seemed to have originated were all blank and unmoving. I was about to turn back when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

“There!” The boy pointed to a group of trees.

The trees he indicated looked almost identical to all the others surrounding the clearing. The only thing that set them apart was a lone branch from one tree, which was swaying in a nonexistent wind. All the other branches were still, except for that one.

Protectively placing us behind him, the boy cautiously made his way toward the group of trees. But when we again heard the sound of motion, it was coming from a different group of trees; this time, behind us.

“They’ve surrounded us,” he said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Them,” he said, pointing again to a random group of trees, and this time, we did see something.

Shadows descended from the trees. I had no idea where they could have hidden, but the trees seemed to spill out more and more of the shadows every second. From where we stood, I could only be sure of a few things: they were all Trigon men, there were many of them, and they were all armed.

They approached us as cautiously as the boy had approached them, but they raised self-bows, crossbows, and bows I couldn’t even name. They raised them all at us.

“Are you armed?” they called to us.

“No,” the boy said.

Then the Trigons conferred amongst themselves. Finally, seeming to settle on something, they called out to us again. “Release the girl and step back.”

I looked down at Lilith, who clutched at me, shaking.

“They think we’ve captured her,” the boy whispered. “We have to let her go.” He bent down to talk to Lilith. “You’ve got to go to them yourself.”

“I...I’m scared,” she admitted. Her voice was so small; it made me very aware of how alone she was in the world.

“Be brave,” the boy said, but he nodded at me, no doubt thinking the same thing I was.

I took the girl’s hand in my own, as we had done so many times before, and walked with her. Her steps were hesitant, but she kept walking forward. I admired her courage.

I could tell that the Trigons were uneasy at my walking with the girl. They stood their ground, still holding their weapons, but refrained from aiming them at us. I realized that they were afraid they might shoot the girl.

I stopped halfway. Lilith turned toward me, but she knew that she had to continue walking forward. I watched her walk the rest of the way to the Trigons. Focusing on her every step away from or toward us, we were all entranced by her movement.

When she reached them, they visibly relaxed. I felt a hand on my shoulder. The boy had joined me in the middle.

Together we watched Lilith talk to one of the Trigons. We couldn’t tell what she said; all we could see was the Trigon nodding at the end of their short conversation. The Trigon and three others proceeded to make their way toward us with Lilith.

All that was heard in the clearing was the thud of their wooden weapons on their backs as they advanced. The Trigons wore no armor and their uniforms made no sound, not even the slightest rustle.

As they came closer, I got my first real look at them. The swarm of Red they looked like before, dissolved until I could make out each soldier.

Their uniforms, if you could call them that, were coarse articles of clothing seemingly collected randomly. Each was a different shade of Red, a different texture. There was no sense of consistency except from afar.

Lilith bounded back to us, while the rest took their time. Attaching herself to my hand again, Lilith was all smiles. Unable to tell what had occurred, I found myself looking to the apparent Trigon leader for an explanation.

I felt the eyes of the three other Trigons on the boy and me. They were checking us over for weapons and other threats that we might pose, and the boy seemed to be doing the same to them. I looked at the leader and was surprised to see that she was a Trigon woman and not a male, as I had expected.

Her faces were all hard and decorated with scars, but my attention was consumed by one on her middle face. It was deeper than the rest. Cutting through the corner of her top lip and the center of her bottom lip, it configured her face into a permanent snarl. Where the scars had not marked her face, her skin was tanned Red from the sun. Surveying every inch of me, her eyes bore outward in a stone-like stillness.

Abruptly, her hand whipped out at me, taking me by surprise. She clenched the blade at my side and, with one swift tug, yanked it off. I had forgotten that I was carrying it, but her guards seemed to think that I knew perfectly well all along.

The Trigon woman unsheathed the dagger, turning it this way and that, so that it glinted in the midday sun. She nodded to her guards who patted us over searching for other concealed weapons. When they found none, they stepped back in formation behind their leader.

“Are you with us or against us?” the woman asked, enunciating each word in a thick accent that I could not place.

“We are with the Red,” the boy quickly responded.

“Then you are with us,” she said. “Welcome.”

I looked around at her men, who had hidden their weapons as easily as they had aimed them at us earlier.

“We are the warriors of the Red cause. You may travel safely as our guests and guests of the Red cause. We will offer you shelter in exchange for returning the girl.”

Her words were stiff, but nonetheless welcoming. The promise of safety was alluring, and the boy and I decided to take them up on their offer.

“Come,” one of the leader’s guards ordered.

Never more than a few feet away from their leader, we followed behind the marching guards. Lilith was clamped onto my hand and continued that way the entire journey. Knowing that she was dependent on me brought a strange sense of comfort.

Surrounded by Trigons, we dragged on for some time. Finally, we came to an unexpected stop in a part of the forest that looked almost the same as any other part.

“Here is our camp,” one of the soldiers near the front called out.

“Disband!” another soldier barked.

At that order, all the soldiers and guards broke out of their formation and began climbing the trees.

Stopping just short of asking what we were waiting for, the Trigon leader flashed us an inquiring look. The boy put Lilith on his back and began climbing one of the Red trees. Each tree was as wide as a house, and I was astounded at the boy’s ability to climb it.

A waiting soldier shoved me forward to a nearby tree. He motioned for me to climb. I was perplexed until, upon closer observation, I realized that metal rods stuck out of the trees as a simple staircase that winded up into the treetops. At the prompting prod of the soldier behind me, I began to climb.

The way the metal rods were placed made one climb at an odd angle of around 40 degrees. An opposite hand and an opposite foot would move together in sync in a climb that resembled a bear’s walk. I was neither vertical nor horizontal, and that made it feel as if I were crawling rather than climbing.

Each circle around the tree brought me closer toward what I didn’t know. The ground grew farther and farther away from me, until the bases of the trees were almost nonexistent.

I was pulled up at the top of the staircase by another soldier. My feet landed on a wooden walkway that wound around the tree and connected it with the others. The Trigons had built a self-contained community above the ground, where they were safe from the White. There were a countless number of people swarming to and from different places. They were all busy and all appeared to have something to do. There were sturdy huts and other larger buildings I didn’t recognize; all were hidden from the ground by the trees.

“Lilith!” a voice cried out. “Grandmama! Grandpapa!”

I turned to see Lilith rush into the arms of two older Trigons. When Lilith knocked into them in her excitement, I saw that they were frailer than they first appeared, nonetheless they were elated to see their exuberant granddaughter.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lilith’s grandmother kept murmuring, stroking her granddaughter’s hair. She was weeping Red tears.

The picture before me was the essence of love. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it felt like to be Lilith in this moment. I wished so badly to feel what she surely must have felt. In that second, I wanted to be her. My entire being throbbed with a need to feel. Was it love that she felt? Was it happiness? Maybe relief? Or maybe it was all three. I would never know, but I wanted all of it.

Someone next to me cleared their throat and I turned my back to the scene before me.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, but may I lead you to your lodgings for the night?”

It was a young Trigon boy no different in age from the boy or me. His hair was a lighter shade of Red than Lilith or the boy’s coloring, as if it had been bleached by the Red sun. He had freckles across his noses and small dimples when he smiled.

“I’m Nalin,” he said.

“I’m-”

“You’re our most prized guest,” he interrupted. “I know who you are.” He laughed an easy laugh that made me envious.

I wished I could smile that easily. I put on a fake smile and laughed a fake laugh, which struck all the wrong chords, but he seemed not to notice, or if he did, he too put on a fake smile.

“Isn’t it exciting?” he babbled away, as we walked. “We’re finally taking a stand against the White ... Well, not that we haven’t before, but this time we have a fighting chance!” Nalin chattered on, leaving me hanging on his first sentences.

“Anyways, here are your quarters,” he said, as he stepped into a hut.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were all made of Red wood, probably from a tree in the Ever Forest. The furnishings were sparse, yet they conveyed the same sense of warmth that the Red wood had channeled. There was a simple wooden bed in the center of the quaint room with a richly decorated Red quilt. Next to it was a modest bedside writing table with a wooden chair and a window view. Hung on the back of the chair was a change of clothes. They were mismatched shades and textures of Red as Nalin and the others of the cause wore, and I made a mental note to put them on as soon as I could, in order to blend in with our hosts.

When I thanked Nalin, saying that the accommodations were much more than were necessary, his face lit up.

“You should see the other rooms, especially the commander’s. Her rooms are so big!” Nalin said enthusiastically, his Red hair getting into his eyes. “Oh, I almost forgot! I was supposed to tell you that your traveling companion’s room is right next to yours.”

Knowing he meant the boy, I nodded.

Then his voice took on a more formal note. “Breakfast is at first light and you are expected to dine in the commander’s quarters. It’s the big round building. You can’t miss it.” With that last remark, Nalin exited and left me to survey the room.

The room was filled with light and pulsed with a sense of Red. As I made my way over to the writing desk, I looked up to see a cutout in the ceiling. It was just big enough for the shape of the blood Red sun to fit in it. Its crimson rays filled every corner of the room and thrummed with life.

I sat down in front of the old-fashioned desk and ran my fingers through its small openings and over its hollow drawers. My blind fingers paused on every dent and scratch that the table hid. I found comfort in its irregularities.

I glanced outside and watched the people go past. The window was just a cutout in the wall with no glass in it, but the people paid no heed to me. The window reminded me of a picture frame; its subjects the Trigons and the humans mingling together.

The people were all dressed in the same Red as the Trigon soldiers. They were unified by that color, yet they were all different, as were their shades of Red. They mingled in pockets, while walking with quick strides. Group after group passed me until I realized that the Trigons and humans never socialized unless it was absolutely necessary. They only conversed with their own kind and pretended to be blind to the other.

A small group of Trigon teenagers, laughed and shoved each other playfully. They, unlike their elders, seemed largely oblivious to the horror around them. A male and female human wandered arm-in-arm, the woman’s face creased in concern. I wondered what had caused that line of worry to mar her otherwise attractive features.

I spent much of the afternoon watching their lives go by my window. It was dark before I knew it and the warm glow in my room was quickly replaced by lurking shades.

I crept into bed, pulling the Red quilt with me. The bright color of the quilt was washed out by the darkness. Now, the face of the White moon appeared through the cutout in the ceiling directly above me. It seemed to peer into the room, as if it were looking for something. But when it didn’t find what it wanted, it promptly left, leaving a hole of darkness where it once stood.