Another World of Dreams-The Escape

Chapter 14 - Alone

The following morning, Leon woke his rebels up well before dawn. When the sun climbed over the horizon, the weather turned out to be gray as dust. It was one of those days when it is a question of when and not if it will rain. While the jabbering gnomes scattered around the camp, unable to organize themselves without supervision of a human guard, Kaan tried to find Liv. That she had left for real dismayed him. Mere fatigue had not caused her anger. He had hurt her and upset her. As he was getting ready to chase after Liv, Leon came up to him. His big brother put a fist around his throat and pushed him up against a tree.

"Let the human go. Do not disappoint me, brother," said the big elf. "Stand up for your race."

Soon thereafter they headed deeper into the forest. Kaan led the caravan together with the other elves. Leon ordered Paul to walk last and make sure that no gnomes fell behind them.

Meanwhile, Liv ran down the hills and could already in the afternoon glimpse the gray sea in the distance. Before long, she crossed a railway. Most likely it was part of the track where they had jumped off the draisine for what seemed an eternity ago, back when she hungered for adventure. Deep inside she still did, but she needed a break and a second start. She fell to the ground and scraped off the thin layer of pus that covered the wound on her arm.

"Do again, do right," she muttered and became irritated at herself for saying so. Shannon had repeated the phrase too many times since he first used it in one of his awkward attempts to make her behave as a lady.

When exhaustion made it difficult for her to even lift her feet, two small red cottages appeared downhill. They were most likely deserted or housed a lonely lumberjack, but she did not want to risk being seen and stopped for the day. She set up camp amongst a jungle of high ferns, wrapped her shawl around her body and fell asleep as soon as she touched the forest floor.

*

That night Liv's dreams were calmer than usual at first. She strayed through a hilly pine forest, still aiming for the distant snow-covered peaks. A sudden downfall had come and passed an hour before and soaked her clothes. The damp made her shiver, but she decided not to let it bother her and accepted the chill as a minor nuisance. She knew by experience that heat and cold did not affect her much in the dreams. In the waking world, she associated her body with pain and pleasure. Here it served another purpose. Her body was a tool to help her survive.

It was challenging to keep a straight course, so she headed up the nearest hill to get a better view of the landscape. She had ascended high above the ocean, yet the mountains were just as far away as before. Their size must have made her misjudge the distance to them.

She headed back into the forest and soon stumbled upon a cobblestone road that looked a thousand years old, if it had been built to begin with. Maybe her imagination had constructed it. Weeds and brown mushrooms grew through cracks in the stone. It was easy to walk on the pavement so she decided to save her energy and followed it for an hour. The world of her dreams was quiet, and she swayed into an unwatchful serenity as she walked.

She tripped and scratched her knees on the broken cobblestones. Something crushed underneath her as she hit the ground. The object she had fallen over was a skull. By judging by the size and shape of it, the head had belonged to either a human or an elf. She noted that more skulls lay scattered around her. Dread and panic penetrated her skin like the raindrops had, but were not as easy to ignore. She forced herself to toughen up and be realistic. A few dead bones were nothing to fear. Then she spotted a trail of giant paw prints in the moss next to the road. Better to let fear take over and save her toughness for later. She ran off in the opposite direction from the paw marks. This is the story of my dreams, she thought. Forever a struggle, forever a flight.