A Demon's Tale

Chapter Six

- True Power Within -

I opened my eyes. I looked around. I was still trapped inside this dark world surrounded by these trees and alien terrain. I waited to let my mind sync up with my present state; recap everything that had just happened and led me here, while sorting out my own memories from someone else's. It was impossible to try and make sense of everything and if I was to try, I'd just be stuck there forever as all energy would have been consumed by my mind, preventing me from moving. I realized it was pointless to try, and I couldn't just lay there. I just had to accept that I couldn't understand but I still had to keep going.

I pushed myself off the ground and sat up. I looked at the environment to see what my options were. There was this scarred terrain leading up to the trees surrounding me. It seemed the ground was torn up everywhere, only leaving segments of gray hair-like grass and vegetation, while the dirt underneath and between was of gray ash-like sand, as if the ground had once been held together by an even sheet of grass, but something had separated it, like stretching out a fabric until it had cracked, causing fractures to appear everywhere, revealing the layer underneath the thin crust. The trees looked as if they had also once been closer together, but everything had moved further away in relation to one another.

The trees looked as if they all lost their grip, as the roots were desperately trying to re-attach themselves to the torn-up ground or anything within their environment, some roots had even managed to tangle up with other trees, pulling them down to the ground. There were these vines everywhere that looked like dendrites of nerve cells reaching out like a web throughout the whole forest, some seemed to have grown from cancerous tumors from the trees, some dug down like roots into the ground, others seemed to reach up to the sky and slowly became transparent as they connected to the sky above to disappear, but then seemed to reappear as patterns in the clouds.

There was this strange dark fog that seemed to follow me around everywhere I went, almost like black smoke of 'void', and then there was another kind of fog, like a white haze that seemed more omnipresent. I tried to look for the light, but every now and then the fog, or black clouds seemed to block it out, and now there was just this strange blue glow from above the trees. There was no way of knowing where to go, or what to do, but I had to find a way out of this forest.

I was still lost, but there was something inside of me that had changed. I felt different. I felt... 'more'. I felt stronger and more willing. The feeling of emptiness was no longer absolute. I didn't know where to go, but knew what I wanted to do. I knew what I was here for. And I knew I had to see this through, to find my way back to the world where I belonged.

I felt confident. I felt powerful somehow. Even though this world was still daunting, I now felt like I had the strength to face it. I didn't know exactly what it was that gave me this awesome sensation, but I knew it had to have something to do with this blue fire burning within my demon arm. I looked down at my demon arm and the blue fire burning inside of it. I clasped my hand, looked up into the gaps between the trees as if to shift my attention from thinking into sensing. Even though I could not rationalize or justify the sensation, I had to trust it. I had to believe in my own capability and strength, turn my fears and doubts holding me back, into motivating me to move, to fight. I clenched my fists tight as I began walking with determined steps out of the enclosure and into the dark forest.

My eyes moved back and forth from nook and aperture as I made my way forward. Even though this whole forest had this desolated ambiance, and I had this chronic sensation that it was just me here, all alone, I knew that I wasn't. It was a very contradictory feeling, as at the same time as it felt like I was constantly being watched, it also felt like this forest was completely empty. The black fog moved in peculiar fashions. It always seemed close by, but yet never close enough to touch me. It seemed to move closer to the more dangerous areas, like the big spikes sticking out, or the dangerous gaps where I could fall down, or the vicious flesh-eating plants. Overall, it just moved like a regular black mist, or like smoke drifting away from a burned-out candle, like a stream meandering like an eel around the trees.