4

DRAGON FRUIT

Tom stared at the wooden signpost, trying to make sense of the strange names. White Chair? Dragon Vale? What kind of crazy joke is this? White Oak? He was considering flipping a coin when something hard thumped the top of his head. Startled, he jumped back, tripped, and landed on his back end. Frantically, he looked around. Nothing up, left, right, but behind him….a bright green fruit was lying on the ground near a bush. Tom laughed. The fruit must have fallen from above. Two more of the delicious-looking fruits were hanging from a vine on the bush.

Tom reached out to take fruit when two black vines shot out and wrapped around his arms. Help! Slamming his boots into the ground, he leaned back, pulled, and was effectively at a standstill until more vines wrapped around his waist and legs. His boots carved small ruts in the dirt as the vines dragged him into the bush. “Hel”—Tom started to call out as another vine wrapped around his head and mouth.

He squirmed and strained, but the vines tightened the more he struggled. Have to calm down. Need air. Deep breath, breathe out slowly. He exhaled. The vines tightened. This is bad, really bad. Is this how I die? No! In a desperate attempt, he chomped down and gagged as bitter fluid filled his mouth. His stomach turned sour as he swallowed a mouth full of the juice.

Biting the vines had nearly drowned him, but if he could reach his knife. No use; he couldn’t reach into his pants pocket with his arms pinned to his side. Still, he might be able to reach his lighter in his jacket if he could get some slack in the vine around his chest. He flexed. The vine constricted. Any tighter, and he wouldn’t be taking another breath. The last thing he wanted to do was bite into the vine again; however, there didn’t seem to be another option.

Preparing himself for the bitterness, he bit into the vine. Desperately, he tried to ignore the squirming around his arms, chest, and legs. Were they in pain? Shaking the thoughts away, he chomped again and again. Once he chewed through, the other vines spasmed and loosened a little. He spit out the disgusting juice, bit his jacket collar, and little by little worked the sleeve off his shoulder. It slid down his arm, allowing him to reach his lighter. Flick. The tiny flame danced to life, and he placed it under the vine. Something sizzled. The juice? Suddenly, the bush lit up as the vines burned away like a magnesium fuse around his body. Once free, he scrambled away on his hands and knees until he reached the sign, rolled over, and collapsed in the dirt. Reaching up, he touched his neck and hissed through his teeth. The vines had scorched his neck.

He lay still for a while and tried to process the event. No use. Nothing made sense. He looked up. God, I—wait, what does that say? On one of the signs were two words: Bergsteiger, and roughly carved below that, giants. Flipping over, he hopped up and examined the sign pointing north. The word giants—carved seemingly as an afterthought—was intriguing. After spotting the first huge man frozen near the tree, he’d seen several more—similar to the first—on the walk to the signpost. Their village might be abandoned if the giants and Bergsteiger were the same. He weighed his options, of which there weren’t many. After all, he was already lost; that much was certain. At this point, his basic needs were fire, water, shelter, and food, all of which he might find in the Bergsteiger village.