The Wizard

Chapter 1

"There are no easy methods to solve difficult problems."

René Descartes.

He ran desperately, with his breath panting and his lungs burning. Step by step, hammering the ground in the same frantic rhythm of the heart, he advanced crazily into the forest, lost, but without the slightest intention of stopping. He was not able to hear anything except the intense pulsation in his ears that even managed to muffle the sound of the strange forest.

He fled from something; he no longer knew exactly what it was, because, in that unbridled race, he would hardly have the conditions to know if he was followed by something or someone. He fled from one fight to enter another, something desperate and frightening that he was not sure he would survive and only time, in the future, could tell. At that moment, all he heard was the hypnotic pounding of the blood pulsing in his body, ignoring the exotic beauty of that quiet and gentle forest, immersed in a bluish-greenish twilight caused by the treetops somewhat bizarre. He trotted off with his ninety kilos of bones and well-worked muscles, but already a little overloaded, operating in perfect harmony to take him forward, dodging skillfully the biggest obstacles without, however, managing to escape them all. He passed a shallow stream and a cold water that brought him some relief to his feet, leaving only the marks of his shoes on the banks. He did not hear the harmonious singing of the birds that abounded in that virgin forest and paid no attention to the flora, which was very different from his standard, with trees of reddish trunks and blue vegetation, sometimes nuances of rare greenish tones because they were devoid of chlorophyll. Exotic birds, some with four wings and flying in all directions, hurried to climb as fast as they could to escape the strange invader whose noise frightened them.

Igor stopped abruptly, breathing desperately with his lungs on fire and his heart beating out of sync. His clothes were unrecognizable, torn in many places because of the involuntary lashes of the bushes that left him several marks on his skin and some cuts where the blood flowed, staining the clothes already quite battered. His face transfigured something between shock and terror, but he looked around with firmness and haughtiness without letting his gray eyes escape anything, because, despite all the despair, that posture where on his blood. He noticed that everything was quiet and he was not chased, at least it seemed not to be, but his state of shock clouded his logical reasoning.

In a hurry, he made a subtle gesture with one of his hands, as if opening a curtain. The soft bluish twilight of the forest was shaken by an intense and yellow sunlight that came from a point right in front of him. After the inexplicable lighting, the image unfolded as Igor opened that veil more, revealing a different landscape but difficult to visualize because of the strong brightness. It seemed in fact that he had reached the end of a world and opened the door to another. His eyes blinked to adapt to the new conditions and, as if this were normal, he crossed the strange passage, penetrating another place. Without even looking, he turned his hand back and moved it from top to bottom, seeming to close a zipper backwards. The landscape of the blue forest disappeared and he was now in a deserted and very bright place, immediately resuming his uncontrolled journey.

Despite the strong sun at that moment, the temperature was rather low, almost freezing. To his right, the sea broke a few dozen meters away, but he ran in the opposite direction, plunging again into a forest that rose with a slight slope that gradually increased. Igor no longer felt anything, especially his legs.

He did not know how long he ran, it seemed that it was hours; but, little by little, his unbridled race became a trot and, half an hour later, a dragging of feet increasingly slower until he saw a cabin and tried to reach it. There were still a good thirty meters left when the body, exhausted of all its strength, fell to the ground without any more intense noise.