TRENCH

Levitate

September 5th, 3000.
Come down, come down.
Cowards only come through when the hour's late.
And everyone's asleep, mind you.
Now show up, show up.
I know I shouldn't say this.
But a curse from you is all that I would need right now, man.

"A prophecy?" I asked, still looking around at the faces of the Banditos.
"I'll tell you more about it later," Replied this big, burly, older guy, who seemed to be the leader of the group, "for now... All you have to know is that we've been expecting you."
"So you ARE the Banditos?" I asked.
"yes... We are" he replied, but somthing in his tone was uncertain, as if he didn't want me to know.
But I was determined to find out what my place in all this was.
"What is my purpose here? Why me?"
"I'm sure you have many questions, but this is not the place...now, we're going home...if you would like to join us."
"Where's home?"
"A camp, hidden deep in the heart of Trench."
Those words slipped from his lips and caught my heart, squeezing it from the inside, and speeding up it's beat to the point that I could here it thumping throughout my entire body.
I was in Trench.
"Yes, yes I would. " I eventually replied, my breath shakey.
He nodded before they started walking, and I followed close behind.
We got the edge of the mountains, and they all morphed.
I followed suit, and we made our way up the cliffs.
The black sand and stones of the valleys soon become Heather and moss beneath my paws.
The soft touch of grass was unfamiliar to me, and I tried to hide my joy at the touch of even the most simple mountain thistle.
I still couldn't belive how enchanced my senses were.
I could see so many more colours, I could small every creature that had passed this way.
We got to the top of the first ledge and I looked out at the landscape around me.
We were surrounded by vast mountain ranges, painted in greens and yellows, with grey boulders of chipped granite jutting out along the cliffs.
This place was barren, but it was magnificent.
A shadow was cast over us and I looked up.
Ten massive vultures were following us from the skies.
They had gaunt features, a vast wingspan with feathers of brown and black and hooked beaks that looked like they could pull apart a carcess in a matter of seconds.
They were truly skyward kings of death.
I could have sworn they wouldn't take their black, beady eyes off of me.
Somthing about them instilled a deep fear in me that I just couldn't shake.
I think one of the Banditos must of noticed because he lagged behind the others so that he could walk by my side.
It was Joshua Dun.
He looked up at the vultures.
He spoke to me without even a twitch of his mouth, as if he was using telepathy to project the words into my head.
"Don't worry" he said, "they are our lookouts, our eye in the sky. We feed them, And they protect us in return."
He looked at me, I saw somthing warm in his eyes, a kind soul inside the body of that massive, earth-coloured wolf.
How could he tell I was scared?
I must have shown it.
"You go by Joshua Dun?" I asked him, trying to project the thought of the words at him in the hopes that he would hear them.
It worked, he heared them loud and clear.
"You can call me Josh." he replied softly.
"I'm not scared of the birds by the way... I just haven't seen any like that before."
"Ok...I believe you" he said tentatively, "Where'd the name Clancy come from?"
"I... I don't know actually... I've just always known it was my name."
He didn't reply, he just let the silence between us drag on.
I broke it.
"I find it concerning that your people won't tell me anything about what's going on."
"You'll learn... We just have to get back to camp first."
"why can't you tell me on the way."
"You never know who might be listening."
He said this with a certain air of mystery that gave me the impression that he was uncomfortable sharing anymore information then that.
So I didn't pry.

We walked for hours.
I watched the sky turn grey and darken as the day drew to a close, and a light, misty rain rain began to fall from the sky.
I cherished the feeling of rain on my face, savoring every second of the droplets in in my eyelashes.
I love rain.
We made our way down the mountain and into a barren valley of stones and weeds.
There was an old traintrack running trough the velley, and a small stone shelter by the side of it.
"We'll camp here for the night." said the guy who I assumed was their leader.
I looked out at the railway, it looked like it went out of use long ago.
"Who built it?" I asked Josh.
"The bishops built it when they first arrived here, they don't use it anymore though, they rarely leave Dema."
I gulped, a certain kind of fear made my hair stand on end when I thought about the bishops.
"Cmon, let's get some rest." said Josh, following the other Banditos into the Crumbling stone structure that I assumed had somthing to do with the railway.
I followed him in as the vultures perched on the roof.
I was hungry but didn't want to say anything about food, as they clearly weren't having any.
They all huddled together to keep out the cold, a big mass of sleeping wolves.
I didn't join, I just curled up in the far corner of the room, and slowly drifted off to sleep on the hard concrete floor, listning to the steady rain outside.