The Chronicles of Tenroha

Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-five

Jäkob entered a long tunnel surrounded by nothingness. He couldn't see nor hear anything around him. His head was spinning and the voices of his loved ones began to echo in his head. Scenes from his past began to culminate in his thoughts. At first, all of his happiest memories raced through his mind.

He thought of his mother and father who he didn't get to know well before they were taken from him. He thought of his brother and sister, his friends and neighbors, and he thought about everyone he has ever known and loved. He remembered the good times that he had had. He smiled because the thoughts in his head made him happy.

Then his thoughts changed to darkness as he began to remember the sadness that he had endured. His sadness changed into anger when he began to remember the worst of his memories. He tried to push the angry feelings away, and focus on the good; but they remained. He wanted to return to those memories that made him feel warm and happy, but all of his unhappiness welled up and flowed through his mind.

The happy voices of his mother and father changed to the voices of the children of his village that teased him for being small and weak. They changed to the voices of the men that he had heard while they were hiding from Claremont and his men, before they met Wilhelm and they feared for their lives.

The voices in his head changed into one voice. It was his own voice. It began to ridicule himself for not being better than he was and being too weak to accomplish anything useful. He became angry with himself as his voice berated him over and over. "Why couldn't you ..., why didn't you ..., and why wouldn't you ...?" " YOU ARE WEAK!" The voice yelled at him. It made him feel worse about himself and he became so angry with himself that he cried.

The torrent of voices stopped suddenly as he began to hear a familiar voice speaking softly to him. It was a voice that he hadn't heard in a long time. It was his mother. The mother that he had known. He started to remember one of his earliest memories from when he was very young. He had wanted to surprise his mother by cutting some wood for her and bringing it in the house. He tried as hard as he could, but he couldn't pull the ax that had been stuck into a piece of wood.

He had been crying because he was too small to lift the ax. She wrapped him in her arms to comfort him and said to him, "No need to fret, little one. You will be big and strong before you know it." She rubbed his back as she kissed the top of his head and held him close. "Your size is not a sign of weakness, but merely a reminder that you still need to grow. One day, I believe, you will become the strongest of us all," she told him. Everything went dark again.

He heard another voice. It was a voice that he had never heard before. A light appeared in the darkness around him and shown on a woman that he had never met before. "She was right, my dear Jäkob," said the woman. She smiled at him with a warm and loving smile. She reminded him of Chloé. The same eyes, the same smile, and if not for a few gray ones, the same hair.

Something inside him told him that she was the woman that had given birth to him, Elaina. He tried to run to her and wrap his arms around her. It was something that he had wanted to do since he had learned the truth of where he came from, but he was unable to move any closer to her. A force like nothing he had ever felt before kept him from getting to her. He pushed against the force as tears welled in his eyes as he tried to reach for her.

She looked at him and said to him, "My dearest, your time is not finished. You still have a lot of growing up to do, but I have faith that one day you will be strong enough to move mountains." She blew him a kiss and smiled at him again. The light around her began to fade away and then she was gone. He was alone with his thoughts again.