Unfathomable

Chapter 1- Where...?(Nova)

A cold metal syringe. Harsh voices trying their best to sound soothing. The face of Sri, the nicest scientist, hovering above me with a sad smile.

Nothingness.

I woke up somewhere bright. Blindingly, horrifyingly bright. Where was I? Where was all this light coming from? How did I get here? Why does my head hurt so much?

The ground was soft, softer than anything I had walked on before. It felt a little like feathers that bent and didn't break. I hadn't even stood up yet, but I knew that I had to. I had to figure out where I was, what happened, and how to get back to the comforting darkness. I slowly stretched my limbs, making sure that they were all fully functional so that I didn't fall on my face when I tried to get up. I pushed myself up onto my elbows to look around, but there was a horrible throbbing at the top of my head, and when I reached up I felt bandages.

Why would there be bandages on my head? I hadn't gotten hurt, and I didn't think I would have known where to get bandages on this seemingly desolate planet if I had. So I must have gotten them before I left. But left where? That was the real question. All I knew was that that place couldn't have possibly been this bright, because even with my eyes closed there was a burning pain. And... didn't I used to have... horns? Was that it? Did they take them away for some reason? But who was they? And why?

All of these questions were starting to make my head hurt internally as well as externally. Darkness. I was almost positive that that would make me feel better. I forced myself to get up and look at my surroundings. Trees. Trees everywhere. Huge trees that soared far above my head. Yellow leaves that only started to grow farther up than I could reach. And.... mountains. I felt myself calming down as I realized that I could deal with this.

Ignoring the pain in my head, I pushed myself to my feet and made my way towards the looming figures not so far in the distance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Many hours later

Ignore that. I was completely, totally wrong. They were very, very far in the distance. The people who did surgery on my head must have either damaged an optic nerve or the logical sense part of my brain to make me think that they were even remotely close. As the bright light that came from the sky slowly dimmed, I realized that the mountains seemed to not have moved although I must have been walking for hours.

This puzzled me, because I remembered being able to walk to every place that I wanted to go for my whole life. Nothing had escaped me in this way. It was getting darker, and the darkness helped to clear my brain and let me think rationally. I knew that if I hadn't gotten any closer to the mountains in my hours of walking, I should probably stop and take a break. Even if I don't need to sleep, I don't have endless reserves of energy and can just walk. Also, frankly, I was insanely bored. I had been picking up those cool yellow leaves as I walked, but that had got old after about the first thirty minutes.

There were no animals, no people, not even any marks of civilization. Until the glowing bugs came out. I decided right away that I liked these creatures. At first I thought that they were floating lights, but as I went to catch one, I realized that it was an insect. They were everywhere. This was good news for me, because now I had companionship, even if we couldn't communicate. So I resumed my trek towards the mountains.

I didn't admit it to myself at first, trying to make the feeling go away, but then I realized that I would probably kill myself with that logic. I was hungry. I briefly thought about eating my new friends, but I wanted to not kill them, so that was a no. I found some berries on a bush that I could just barely make out, even with my night vision. Everything was duller shades of itself, those wonderful trees were a pale, faded yellow, the grass was sad-looking yellow-brown, and the berries I held in my palms were a washed-out pink. They were small, about the size of my pinkie nail, and were almost completely round. I held five of them in my palm and briefly wondered if I should be concerned that they might be poisonous. The hunger won, and I swallowed all five without even chewing. After that, I basically stripped the bush of its fruit and continued on my way. I took some of the berries for the walk, and actually chewed them this time. They were bitter, bitterer than I would expect a berry to be, but I ate them anyway.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One hour later

Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. Do not eat strange berries you find in the woods, kids. You will regret it. I did not feel good. What I actually felt like was someone was twisting my insides around and then may or may not have ripped out my stomach, which seemed too gruesome to think about, but remember, I lived somewhere where people poked me for fun. Wait. How did I remember that? What was fun about poking me? I have no clue. Anyway, at that point I threw up. My head really hurt when I stood up again. I made a mental list of things to not do. Do not make people mad for some reason or they will throw you off your planet. Do not eat the mystery berries in the forest, they will give you bad, bad feelings.

One good thing about throwing up is that it makes you realize that you've actually gotten closer to that mountain! Yay! You then think that sprinting toward it is a good idea, and proceed to do that. Not a good idea. Add that to the list of things not to do. You will just get very worn out very quickly. But by the time I was done sprinting I was close enough to the mountain to see that there was a cave! A clearly accessible cave that I could stay in. A mile or so to the left there was a small town, but I figured it was safer to head to the cave. And so that was where I went.