Beyond The Woods

Part II

The Abandoned Station (II)

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Rob turned his back and dragged the trolley on the cemented pavement. He saw grandma waving a bid goodbye to him as he rode past the apple tree. Rob was now travelling by himself, and all he could hear from the silent streets was the wheel roaming freely from the hole-freckled sidewalk.

​Rob looked again at the map and twisted at the back to see the instructions written in black ink. While his house and the somewhat-called- destination was drawn in red, which was located in the forest beyond Norion Dale's wall.

​This is impossible, he told himself. No one had never climbed nor escaped Norion Dale's wall except from going in and out of the town's main gate. Rob stopped for a while, and examined further the map, doubting if whether this camp was real or not.

​As if by magic, a scarlet line had drawn its way out of the page, from where Rob was standing to a pile of close-knitted houses below the destination. Rob had grown from this town, yet never of his existence knew that there was a secret passage here.

​Why hadn't Grandma told him this?

​Rob followed the path, and looked back to see the apple tree dwindle in view. As he got closer to his destination, the houses started to compress, and as he got further the houses tighten as if they were all connected to each other.

​Rob looked at his map again. The broken line traced forward, but all he could see was a wall of bricks. It stretched to the side and top. Rob tilted his head to search for a way. This couldn't be a dead end, but the arrow just passed through it in the drawing.

​This was stupid, Rob thought. There was no other way except if he attempted to climb the wall into the roof of the house. However, he looked down back to the map as it wrote an instruction: create a tune. And so that was what Rob did.

​Although he was not musically inclined, Rob tried to hum the weirdest tune he had ever heard. But soon, his throat hurt; still the brick refuse to make a path for him. Rob looked back down again as the red ink continued to add the instruction: create a tune using knocks. He put a hand on his face.

​Though the instructions felt weird to him, Rob tried to knock on the wall, and to his surprise the bricks started to disassemble and cleared a path for him. Rob saw what he never seen before...

​Rob stepped forward into an ancient and narrow alley. Vines slithered all over like veins, so thick that it covered some portion of the wall. The strange breeze of the forest was calling him, inviting Rob to its mysterious and dark secret, lurking behind the thin, gigantic trees.

​Silence fell upon him, and all Rob could hear was the sound of his breath, wafting against the paper. He felt that he had left the ambience of the town, and entered a complete new world—unbeknownst to the people living inside. Still, Rob continued to walk until he reached the opening, where the mossy-cobblestoned pavement, and weeded dirt met.

​Rob was at the brink of Norion Dale's wall. Rob took one long leap—which was the most pathetic thing he'd done—and finally, he was out of town.

​The forest was quiet and only the luggage rode on the ground, bumping on anything its wheels came across. It was also quite dim as Rob tilted his head up to gaze upon the sunlight trapped above the canopies. Some rays were lucky enough to beam onto the forest floor.

​As Rob went deeper into the woods, odd and unfamiliar noises started to echo throughout different parts of the place. Although things like this made him afraid, he paid no attention to it as his feet ached after all the walking, and decided to rest for a while on a dead tree stump. Rob checked at the map once more.