Garden of the Hungry

The blossoming in the ruin

When he opened his eyes, Rod felt swallowed by darkness. Startled, he struggled and brushed elbows and fingertips in a kind of ovoid shell that encompassed him entirely.

What is this? Where am I? He questioned in panic when he felt his throat closing.

Then, his vision began to adapt to the environment and the darkness gave way to a discrete revelation of his location: a chitinous and completely sealed enclosure in which a thick fluid hindered the movement of his members.

He felt his face, but his mask was gone. Fear was growing in his chest and, frantically, he punched the wall above his head to break the structure, continuing the blows with the same intensity. What was fear, now turned into rage.

The mud fell on his body as he pierced the shell, but that didn't get in the way of his advances. Am I buried? He thrusted his arms up, boosted the base with the soles of the feet and emerged.

In an open field and with his body exposed, he finally took a breath of the fresh air around him. More relaxed, he pressed his hands against the floor and forced himself up to pull away, but got stuck at the knees. He tried a second time, but the horror itself took over him again upon identifying that part of his legs had taken a similar texture to a woody stem. He shouted and forced again with hands on the ground, but they were buried and hardened just as his lower limbs. His stomach wrapped and burned until a red blur came out on his belly and sprouted a beautiful blue flower speckled with blood.

"Weed, germinate!" Scabrous words sounded inside his head like the crack of thunder.

*

Rod woke up startled in the shade of a willow.

Damn nightmare!

He groped and checked beneath the fabric of the pants. His legs were still flesh and bones.

He looked around and identified the forest stretch on which he had chosen to rest the night before. His purse was still hidden under stones, the canteen hanging waiting for raindrops, and the horse he had brought from Salbi, tied to the tree.

He got up, packed his belongings and put the saddle on the animal.

"Although you have not inherited the art of human ingratitude, I am sure that you would leave me if it weren't for this rope around your neck, right?" He questioned the steed, which obviously did not answer. "You are a very smart boy, Fire Bath!"

He mounted with skill and took his journey under overcast sunset pale clouds.

He cut the forest through a dirt road and jumped a few small natural obstacles along the way. As he distanced himself further from the fishermen village, realized the nature sadden; the rivers had dried up, the trees did not bear any fruit or bright color, and the animals obviously abandoned that withered territory. It was as if it reflected his bitter heart.

Often, Rod was plagued by the melancholic memory of Karle pointing an arrow at him. Stupid girl!

"It'll be just you and me for a long time," he said to the animal.

He crossed a wooden suspension bridge where there should be a river, but instead of water, he saw below only mud and debris.

Later, when hunger and thirst came poignantly, he gave greater attention to the details of the scenery around him. He checked higher branches and dug wells in the earth in search of something chewy, but found nothing.

Despite the pessimistic outlook and the uncertain future in his heart, Rod was sure he was a born survivor. "No defeats!", he whispered several times in the horse's ear.