1 A Slap of Reality

Part One:

The Empath

Upon thee

-he will heal

Upon thee

-he will suffer

Upon thee

-layers will form

And land will be born.

1

A full spectrum of emotion can come from a single teardrop. A simple mixture of water, salt, electrolytes and other waste byproducts contain so much of the human experience: a vessel of a memory often best forgotten. An argument with a significant other leads to a tear of ignorant frustration. The loss of a loved one leads to a tear of sorrow and guilt of the last time that person was seen alive. A bittersweet tear can be the result of retirement or gradation. All the while gravity rips it from one's cheek, cascading it down into the ground where it eventually remains forgotten forever. However, the tear that falls amongst the young man's face now is neither a product of anger, sadness, or reminisce. The tear that slides sideways across his cheek and onto the slimy forest floor is that of fear and exhaustion and will never be forgotten.

Thick, iridescent fog captures the ankles of the young man sprinting for the light of day. Sweat grips his skin like a blood- soaked shirt weighing gravely on an unfortunate outcome. Upon him is a forest floor coated with a slippery substance radiating a turquoise glow and gnarled, uprooted anchors of dead trees eager to end his escape. Even the full moon hides behind the clouds of a starless sky to prevent any guiding light on the two-foot-wide path. Perhaps it is smarter than he who prefers to run instead from the monstrosity looming about somewhere behind him in the darkness.

Knowledge of how far he's run is beyond recognition. Memory of how he even got to such a situation escapes him as well. The only thing that comes to mind is the chase and with it the only thing that matters: survival. The rapid thumping in his chest reminds him that if he doesn't rest soon exhaustion will consume him before the beast does. Quick gasps of air, consistent perspiration, sore legs make the possibility all too real that he may become one with the wind. Or one among mutilated cadavers for that matter. It's the thought of the unimaginable being done to him that allows the chase to carry on. Lacerations, eviscerations, castrations maybe? Adrenaline can only last so long.

He comes to a halt by a giant dead oak tree to catch his breath. As he stands in the eerie glow of the mist, he glances at the behemoth in front of him. Bark peeled on all sides revealing a grey, lifeless core. Among the limp branches hangs a gashed carcass with few slender, black feathers and a short beak indicating that it once might have been a raven or crow. Its wings stretched and bounded to the branches almost to the point that tendons would rip and separate from the avian body. A further sign of what may come of him.

A chill breeze emerges from the still air and a stream of it slithers up his spine. A reminder to get moving. After what feels like a couple seconds of slight incline, floating red dots illuminate the path ahead. The pulsating glow reveals the path had opened into an oval plateau no bigger than a school bus. The same turquoise glowing fog fills the space between him and the next set of trees. On the outskirts, lifeless skeletal trees line up inches apart revealing no other paths. A regiment of guards acting as a wall. A dead end.

Coming to a halt he puts his hands on his knees catching as much air as he can all the while panicking what to do next. No path to choose and no tools to use in a landscape with minuscule light makes a man a trembling mess. He picks up his head from shaking knees to only find something that causes a warm stream to flow down his jeans. In front of him, hanging from five mangled tree branches were five - cloaked bodies.

Upon further examination, the man discovers the bodies belong to a young girl, a middle-aged man, two teenage girls, and a teenage boy. They remain almost calcified. Skin stretched tightly to each body. No rancid, decaying smell could be detected. It is as if each body were drained of all liquid. Pupil-less, glassy eyes stare back at him with jaws open. Faces frozen in a moment of terror. A scream tries to escape his throat but remains stuck there. Even sound cowers in fear to the macabre scene presumably left by the same unknown entity looming around somewhere behind him.

The young man stumbles over to a bodiless tree in a drunk, hopeless stupor. If only he were drunk. That way anything that happens to him now could be at least partly numbed. He thinks that there is no turning back, for he would approach the beast quicker. He wants to savor these last few moments of his life. These fear-driven and vulnerable moment. So, resting and preparing for the assault is all he could hope to do. He crouches down by one of the trees to at least make himself comfortable before he goes. Upon laying his hands on the ground he grabs a hold of the muck he'd been running through. A lumpy, reddish-brown mud seeps through his fingers. Rolling the muck between his fingers he feels something hard like wood stab his thumb. He tries snapping it like a twig out of blind curiosity to no avail. He wipes off the stick to inspect it closely only to find that it is a bone. He tosses it aside in realization that he had come to some sort of feeding or harvesting area. Bodies hanging from trees and now a pit of flesh, blood puree encapsulates his fate. No hope, no escape unexpectedly makes him a little more at ease. Besides, if it weren't for the covert predator and the immediate surroundings, the moment might even be surreal with the radiating fireflies and emerging moon. There is a strange comfort in the silence. Without noise everything seems calm and at rest. No noise to disrupt thinking. Peace had taken over the sweat covered, piss ridden prey. Maybe there is a misunderstood beauty in death.

A light breeze makes the branches on the dead trees flex back and forth with a creaking moan. Hollowed and mangled they lean in wondering how fast it would be, wondering if he would scream, wondering if he would fight back. They reach out with their skeletal fingers trying to pull him away into the blackened abyss beyond the clearing promising for a merciful death. The fireflies, if they were in fact fireflies, danced between their clutches promoting a sort of show before dinner was to be served.

Then it pierces. His inevitable fear comes back and takes on new life. A gust of pure agony and sorrow shakes the trees and rattles his head. The high-pitched sound embodies the essence of someone in torturous pain and the wailing of a warrior off to battle. Chills run up the young man's spine and the beads of sweat freeze on his forehead. Whatever breath he has is now diminished to a stint of air. Enough to live but not enough to function. What follows is a bright white light and the emergence of a scrawny tall figure. The way the forest opens in the presence of this thing makes him wonder if it was bowing before an ancient deity. By no means majestic, it sways back and forth in serpentine patterns on four mangled limbs each lined with five extremities housing serrated claws. With each sway forward a hollow tick echoed in his head.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock. This is the only sound this creature makes now. No wail, no scream, not even a licking of its chops. The creature creeps into view for seconds at a time as its body bobs in and out of the white light. Not much can be depicted about the face only that it was coming for him. What matter did it make anyways? Ugly or beautiful, menacing or innocent, it was coming to end him. Tick, tock, tick tock. With every movement forward, the white light brightens forcing a hand to cover his eyes. The anticipation wrings him with head shaking and body twitching. Two more feet and it would have him. Tick, tock. The white light grows even brighter with the intensity of a neon sun. Tick. Claws sink into the muck bubbling up rancid red liquid. It is upon him now and with it the vibration of an earthquake. He feels it lock into his shoulders with a cold, wailing ferocity and then the bright light. Tock.