Memories (Of Dreams and Demons)

A Quest Resumed

This is the first rough draft for Chapter 26 - A Quest Resumed - plot and action outline, needs polish and to paint the background scene.  

We run through the overgrown forests surrounding my farm, the man of shadow and his darkness lost in the woods behind us. I can still hear his shadows crash about, knocking over tree after tree. You can run for hours here in any direction, and end up in a different place each time. The landscape steers and turns over valleys and hills that can misdirect you towards the wrong direction in minutes. A wild, untamed land, rarely visited, humans almost non-existent.

On the way towards my home in the middle of nowhere we run past the old clearing where I bury those animals who have passed away in the years since arriving here.

Naoko stops and, ignoring the growing chaos at our heels, kneels and runs her fingers gently over the graves of dozens of dead animals, as if waving goodbye to close friends. They are carefully placed side by side one another, friends and families together in death. Tears swell in her eyes, and she is silent a very long time.

"It's all a cycle," she whispers.

She looks up at me sadly, "you buried all these?"

"Yes," I reply simply, my eyes scanning the forests for the coming darkness, "they all died here."

She pats the stones and sticks that bear handwritten made-up names as if they were animals still alive, still breathing, still loving, "this is not the end."

My face hardens, the darkness grows closer. We can't wait around here much longer.

I turn my gaze to her, "no, everything ends in death."

A tear runs down her cheek.

It's time to head towards my place, my farm in the middle of the forest, a place I've spent the last few years helping build from scratch. Clearings, roads, a home constructed by two frames transported from afar and sat together.

"Come! We are almost home. I can show you my room! Then we can go on adventures in the forest!"

"You know," she says blushing, crossing her feet, "we could have a different type of adventure."

Confused, "what do you mean?"

She narrows her eyes at me, realising I'm not joking around, and blushes, "nothing!"

I am still so naive.

Naoko and I pack our schoolbags with 'adventurer's supplies' - firestarters, blankets, fruit, biscuits and bars.

I have an old machete we use to trim trees for kindling, one I swung around as practice when I pretend the countless trees are enemies trying to keep me from my dreams. I sling it in and wrap it around chord attached to my belt. The wooden lid of a fruit container makes a shield, hammering nails and leather straps to make a brace that fits snugly on my arm. I might not be a knight, but at least I am something.

Naoko keeps things a little simpler, she takes blades from the kitchen, tucking them beneath her shirt - adventurer's clothes.

"I wish I had real throwing knives," she pouts, "and daggers!"

At first we run through the forest, adventuring just as I imagined with her. Further than I've ever ventured before. The woods become surreal, mystical, I can hear the sounds of birds and animals I've never experienced before. We run away from home while my parents are out.

At mine, out in the middle of nowhere, just us two in the forest, adventuring. No other humans to disturb our travels, just rabbits, birds, deer.

But we can never stay out here forever, our disappearance would attract the attention of parents, police, teachers, who smother our wild escape with their shouts and calls and hands until we are found and punished. We are too young. But this weekend we are free, my parents away, will not know that Naoko and I have gone on a grand adventure back to the Realm!