SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 15: Trapped

Chapter 15: Trapped

Sabis caressed the warm, smooth and soft grass with the soles of his feet and the backs of his hands.

"Aaah," he purred. "This is more like it. Come on Daris, enjoy the green furry mat."

His heart opened to receive the music that surrounded them. Every landscape possessed a unique and natural emanation. These sounds could come from wrens, woodpeckers, bees, wind, trees breaking or falling, or from creatures stirring awake. One could hear how Mother Earth hummed if one knew how to sense her vibrations.

Sabis focused on his breath awareness at the front of his nostrils. With each relaxing breath, the warmer air traveled down through his nose, via his unwound chest muscles and signaled to his body that it was time to come out of hibernation mode. His limp hair felt thicker, his skin felt less itchy and scratchy, his heart relaxed, and his muscles loosened their knots. But most importantly, he began to see hope in his mind, like a wren resuming its song after a long sojourn back to its home nest.

He removed his knapsack then slowly crouched low and pivoted easily on the green, soft and warm welcome-home mat. Warm, humid air rushed across his body and face as his pivots morphed into a full-body spin. As the whistling breeze filled his ear canals, Sabis became lost in that moment.

His skin and muscles further loosened their grip on his bones. His inner eye smiled at the whirring of the landscape. With every breath, his heart softened for his new four-legged friend and even for SkyGod's domain. He could feel his joy completely.

Soon he skipped to a nearby softwood. Then he approached it with reverence and awe, similar to how he would gaze at the bone marrow candle that his Mother lit on each 'Honour Mother Earth' ritual. Every seven steam cycles, his Mother would ask him to assist her with the prayers:

"We honour you, we pray for you, every seven cycles we pause work, rejoice, be gay for you our Mother, our rock, our soul. We thank you for making us whole. Let it be."

So now in this surprisingly green meadow, he wanted to honour Mother Earth in his own way: He circled his lean and long arms around the softwood's trunk and hugged it.

"Thank you, dear softwood, for your presence. I give you my arms and my loving interest."

He retreated two paces then knelt down and scratched at the ground. He continued to scratch at the ground for a while until he delineated the root system that fed the tree. He studied the network of thick offshoots that crisscrossed both over and under each other. It was as if these underground channels both supported and relied on each other at the same time. Finally, his reverie waned and he walked away while Daris continued chasing some rodent-like creatures. As he moved further and further away from the tree, he felt the air grow increasingly still and cold.

Sabis crouched down and wished to crawl into the ground to feel its warmth and dig up some vermilion creatures for a snack. The tranquility that permeated his pores was in sharp contrast to his journey thus far where his pores had been tightly constricted with fear and longing for home. Just then, he felt the ground tremble. His pores tightened and his mind raced with concern: Could this be a trap?

As if on cue from his concerned thoughts, there opened up a large fissure from within the root system he was studying. The fissure spread quickly and ran both in front and behind of Sabis' current location. Hot steam then rose out from these deepening and widening vents. He stood up as if to launch himself over these large cracks in the land but he realized that this would be futile.

With every passing moment, Sabis sensed that he was trapped in this steam bath and the land that supported him would soon become an abyss.

"Daris, come help me now," he shouted. "Daris, I need you to bring the bone sled and my knapsack."