Longing

Chapter Five

The next morning it was still night time. Melanie squinted at the green glowing vine-lights all around. Kendo had moved closer in his sleep and was clinging to her like she was his personal teddy bear. She wondered if that had been a conscious choice or just a natural response to the chilled, misty air.

Forcing herself to conclude that Kendo had just been cold, Melanie peeled his arms off her and laid his leather jacket over him. She felt gross. That encounter with Fowlina had gotten her blood pumping. She had slept caked in sweat and now she was itching like crazy. She tiptoed to the opening of their little hole where the wood splintered inward like a bundle of reeds.

Wherever they were—Olden, that's what Fowlina had called it—it wasn't like anything Melanie had ever seen before, except maybe in her dreams. Or rather, her nightmares; the whole place seemed to be watching her. The dim lights that prickled out from each colossal tree seemed like endless eyes, all staring blank and dull like vultures. For all Melanie knew, they could've been just that: eyes of a million beasts waiting to strike. Or coil or bite or drag her and Kendo off into an abyss like Grivgas had her mother.

Melanie stopped thinking. It was something she learned how to do on her self-appointed holidays from school. Knowing how to just stop her thoughts and observe what was around her had passed many a boring day back home where things made sense. She hoped to clear her thoughts of her mother.

Well, it worked back home but here it backfired. Voiding her mind of her own thoughts only served to make the unfamiliar surroundings creepier and send her into a primal fight-or-flight freak-out mode. Calming her breathing with ten long breaths, she swallowed and only then realized how thirsty she was. She spun on her heel to look at Kendo. He was still fast asleep, unconsciously tugging his jacket tighter. Melanie didn't feel like waking him up. He was supposed to be resting his shoulder anyway.

She paced around inside the hole like a madwoman. Eventually she got sick of hearing her own footsteps and sat down, plopping right beside Kendo.

"Hey Kendo," Melanie said, not really sure if he was awake or not.

"Mm," Kendo said, sounding very asleep.

"How are we gonna get out of here?"

Kendo inhaled a sharp, waking breath and rolled over to stretch, facing Melanie. "We'll figure something out," he said in a satisfied groan. "What's wrong?"

Melanie thought she must've looked positively dreadful for Kendo to show such concern. He scooted closer, leaning on his elbow. She looked at him, fully confiding, "I mean. How will we get out of here? It's freezing, there's no food or water, and it's a long way down." She was terrified, more terrified of starving to death in this stupid hole than of Grivgas and Frock and Fowlina all rolled into one. The monsters seemed so easy to dismiss, so simple to explain as just fantasy, but starvation was real. She remembered posters from history class and images from the news of so many children with their ribcages showing from under their skin like claws.

Kendo regarded her seriously.

Melanie pleaded for an answer, a way out of this tree-hole. Her eyes wetted and she blinked the tears away.

"We'll get through this," Kendo said, "We just gotta think."

That did not comfort Melanie in the least.

Kendo rolled to his feet and stretched his left arm up in the air. His right arm still hurt too much to move it very well. He glanced out the entrance to the hole. "It's still dark out," he said, not expecting a response.

"What if it's night forever here?" Melanie asked, feeling a strange panic set in. She never thought she was afraid of the dark, but the thought of it never ending made her so nervous. It made her heart feel like it was getting ready to trample out of her chest.