Rubber Bracelets

Chapter Two: Them and Things

Grhey, although in an unconscious slumber, heard the sound before anything else. A bang so loud and so powerful he felt it in his organs, vibrating through his heart and guts. He bolted upright and bumped his head on the log he slept under so hard he saw stars as he tried to crawl his way to his feet.

A shock wave blasted through the dead forest, carrying dust and dirt and dried leaves, and knocked Grhey backwards just as he had gained his feet, causing him to stumble and fall to his back. Dead trees were being pushed away, roots being pulled from the soil and dirt.

Grhey propped himself up on his elbows in time to see a congregation of smoke and fire above the treeline. He scrambled to his hands and knees and peered over the log he had slept next to. The dust and dirt began to settle, and the silence started to creep back into place, only momentarily startled.

The smoke dispersed, the fire devoured itself, the dust settled. Silence had returned and intertwined with the shallow breathes of Grhey, still peering over the log, eyes darting left to right, right to left. Then, for a second time, Grhey's organs were pierced by sound. A scream. A scream that held the power of a thousand screams. A scream that only an embodiment of death and decay could make.

Grhey reached out and grasped at his backpack, pulling it to himself by a strap, and began to back away from the logs, still on his hands and knees. His eyes remained searching ahead of him, towards the source of the explosion. The scream rose up again, a mind piercing scream, but this one was closer than before. Grhey's breath caught in his throat, sweat rolled down his brow, his knuckles turned white where he gripped his backpack strap, and his other fingers dug into the dirt floor.

As far off as he could see, still peering over the log while backing away slowly, a blur of gray and black shot between trees. Then again, gray and black blurs shooting in and out of his field of vision. Without hesitation, Grhey found his feet, whipped his backpack over a shoulder, and ran. Ran as fast as he could, sprinting through the dead forest.

A third scream, even closer. Grhey glanced over his shoulder then stumbled, collided with a narrow tree, spun and tumbled to the ground. He immediately pushed off of the ground with his arms and started running again, the throb in his shoulder nullified by the adrenaline caused by his impending demise.

The ground dropped off and Grhey jumped down and put his back to the underside of the ledge. He grabbed dirt in both hands and rubbed it all over his face and the backs of his hands. He pulled up his hood and put his backpack behind his back. Then he was silent, scarcely breathing. He held the hood of his jacket tight around his face so only his eyes were visible.

Then he heard footsteps, sounding more like the hooves of a horse. Two horses. A blur of gray jumped down the ledge and continued to run through the trees with incredible speed. Then a black blur jumped down the ledge and stopped short. Grhey was mere feet away from the things powerful back legs, arched with an opposite joint of a human's knee, nothing but skin stretched over thick muscle, and the swinging tale of the beast, not a touch of hair or fur.

The thing pushed itself up onto its hind legs, the thing's back showing more skin tightly stretched over muscle, over twice as wide as Grhey, nearly twice as tall even with the hunch in his upper back. It lifted its head and Grhey heard it suck in air, smelling. It turned its head to the right and Grhey saw an under bite of sharp teeth, each as long as Grhey's hand, from palm to finger tip. Then the slight protrusion of a nose, barely more than holes in its face. Lids pulled shut over it's eyes, and ears pointed straight up, looking as if they could hear a leaf drop from a mile away.

Grhey held his breath completely as he listened to the thing inhale and exhale. Then, with barely more than a twitch, the thing had gone into a full sprint on all fours, taking the same path as his gray companion. He tried to hold his breath longer but he couldn't, and he inhaled deeply. He grabbed his backpack and crawled out from under the ledge. He listened and watched for a brief moment, then climbed back up the ledge and ran the opposite direction of the things, as fast as he could, his muscles fighting him, trying to catch up on oxygen after holding his breath so long.

He arrived back at his downed trees, jumped over the bottom log and kept running. He ran even after his body told him he couldn't run any further. He ran even after he felt a prick in the back of his heel and the drip of blood as it began filling his shoe. He ran even after his heart threatened him vocally that it would burst in his chest.

He emerged from the forest of dead as if he had been held back by large rubber bands that had just snapped, then stopped abruptly as his feet touched pavement. His legs shook slightly, and his chest heaved as he tried to breathe. He looked down the road to the left, he looked down the road to the right.

Then he took off running again, through the other forest of dead, cut off from it's brother by the old cracked pavement. He bumped off of tree trunks but kept running. He ran as if he were still being chased, death fast approaching. Then he realized he didn't care, momentarily forgetting there was no point to any of it. He stopped dead in his tracks and waited. But nothing was chasing him, not a beast, not death itself, nothing. He dropped his backpack then collapsed to the ground, first to his knees, then to his back.

He stared up at the sky, a gray-blue with a single cloud, hovering right above him. A drop of rain fell from the cloud and landed on Grhey's forehead. Then a second drop landed on his left cheek. Soon it was pouring water all over him, washing away the dirt and sweat. He just laid there, eyes closed, arms sprawled to the side.

Just as he became soaked to the skin, the water stopped falling from the sky. Only then did he sit up, grab his backpack, and get to his feet. He had forgotten which way he entered this second forest of dead and once again found himself lost. But he did remember one thing: he didn't care.

He began walking again, walking until his feet were further numb and his legs were all wobbled-out. He didn't pay attention to his surroundings, didn't pay attention to the silence creeping up on him again, not easily lost no matter how fast and far he ran.

Grhey heard a click, then nearly instantaneously found himself hanging upside down by an ankle. His backpack dangled in his grasp as he looked around, not panicking but feeling as if he could if he wanted to. Not seeing anyone or anything, he pulled his backpack up to him, held it with one arm while the other opened it. Things slid out and fell to the ground, but he managed to grab the notebook, his black pen resting in it's spiral, before dropping his backpack. He removed the pen carefully and opened to a clean sheet of paper, holding the notebook securely, and scribbled in an entry.

Journal Entry #48

Not a good day. Apathetic.

Grhey

Then let the notebook and pen fall to the ground with the rest of his belongings. He popped each of his fingers while hanging there, upside down. He then found his sheathed knife dangling at his hip and grabbed it, then removed the knife. He put the flat side of his already dull knife between his teeth and forced himself to sit up and clawed at his own leg, climbing it, until he grabbed a hold of the rope with one hand. He grabbed the knife with the other and sawed at the rope for a long minute before it finally gave way.

Grhey felt himself suspended in air, as if he were floating. Then suddenly he came crashing down. The back of his head bounced off of the ground and the edges of his vision blackened until there was no light. He heard nothing and felt nothing but the trickle of wet against the back of his head. Then nothing but unconsciousness.