Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land (30 page)

Darkness covered the day. Added to this was
the presence of bustling winds and a shower of freezing rain. With
all of the outside chaos, most of the owls found it rather
difficult to reach for a blanket.

Feeling as if their fears couldn’t have
reached a higher peak, many of the owls began to panic when the
sound of cracking split their ears. Even more panicking took place
when one of them screeched, “Water! I can feel water coming
through!”

The sound of this owl’s voice caused Pesstian
to wake up with a rough start. Grunting and moaning, he asked
Leyai, “What’s going on?”

At that moment did Leyai’s eyes flick open,
her beak spread out in a yawn. “How should
I
know?” she
asked through a gaping beak.

Her eyes fluttering open and close, Leyai
released another large yawn and shook the tiredness from her head.
Hoping to remove some of the sleep from her eyes, Leyai blinked
multiple times—then took a confused look down at her talons.

“Why are my feet wet?” Leyai wondered, taking
a look up at Pesstian.

“Wet? I don’t feel wet at—oh.” Feeling as
water swept between his toes, he shouted out to the group of
panicking owls, “Why’s the floor wet?”—but to no avail. With the
combined noise coming from the other owls’ mouths, everybody else
considered Pesstian’s voice nonexistent.

As a sea of questions washed over the room,
the owls found themselves surprised to hear a cacophonous crack
emanating from one of the walls. A heartbeat of silence
occurred—only to be replaced by the sound of cold, rushing
water.

At that moment did the owls had realize a
large hole had seeped its way within the human’s oceanic vessel,
thus allowing a stream of water to splash into the owls’ room.
Within seconds did it turn from a stream to a blast of
freezing-cold water.

Feeling as the salty water splashed up
against her chest, Leyai let out a horrified screech. Icy and
sharp, the ocean pushed Leyai back—robbing her of her breath. She
could feel as she began to drown.

However, just before such a thing could have
happened to Pesstian, he made a flying leap out of the way—nearly
hitting his head on the ceiling of the room. Once feeling a
slightly safe distance away from the water, he made an attempt to
escape from the collapsing room.

Noticing how what had once been a mere crack
was now a crevice, Pesstian swooped down to the exit. But it was
then—his head barely any distance away from freedom—when Pesstian
felt a sense of shame enter his mind.

Remorse clouding his thoughts, he took a
glance toward Leyai; his only friend for the past few days was
drowning!
Leyai!
he silently cried out, turning over to her
aid.

It was while flying over to her when Pesstian
missed the cries for help from all the other drowning owls. Out of
everything else going on, the only sound he could make out was that
of his friend’s desperate pleads for help.

It was while holding out his talon when
Pesstian commanded through the outside chaos, “Grab on!”

Much to his irritation, Leyai’s ears were
clouded with water—hindering them from hearing Pesstian’s voice. As
a result of making this realization, Pesstian reached down into the
icy water and searched for Leyai’s talon. All the while did he
struggle to keep his upper body dry.

Unbearable numbness grasped Pesstian’s talon
by the time he had taken hold of Leyai’s leg. Just before another
wave of icy water could have swept over their heads, he yanked on
the leg and pulled both his friend and himself out from the
ocean.

At that moment did he beat his wings with all
his strength—eventually pulling Leyai out in the end. A slightly
treacherous—yet short—path lay up ahead of the two owls at this
point. Although partially terrified to move up out of the room,
Pesstian shook the fear from his head.

Courage penetrated the walls of Pesstian’s
mind as he flew his way through the vessel’s flawed walls. Once
through, he and Leyai breached up to the top floor of the humans’
device.

A small sense of safety entering their minds,
both Pesstian and Leyai blinked water from their eyes. At the same
time did Pesstian let out a sneeze.

After rubbing her eyes with her right wing,
Leyai took a look up at Pesstian and whispered to herself, “He
saved my life!”

Not taking any notice toward Leyai’s words,
Pesstian hesitantly used his free talon to point over to a snowy
land up ahead. “Hey—look over there!” he exclaimed

Slightly confused at first, Leyai looked in
direction in which her friend had been pointing. “Land?” she
happily sniffed. “We can finally get off of this thing?”

A slight pause spread into the air as
Pesstian took a look at his surroundings. Shortly after taking this
inspection, he curtly mumbled, “I think we would’ve had to do that
even if we
weren’t
this close to land.”

In response to Pesstian’s response, Leyai
flicked her gaze toward the human’s ruined vessel. As she had come
to realize, many rips and tears had been made into its once-sturdy
wood. Even as she and Pesstian spoke, it was slowly falling into
the ocean.

“You’re probably right,” she replied with a
chuckle.

Chapter X

A Home is Lost

As the days seemed to slip beyond his reach,
Pesstian grew more and more eager to see what existed within this
foreign place. He wondered what existed within the many piles of
snow covering the ground. Could anything have existed in a place
untouched by the humans’ many monuments?

Besides new creatures, Pesstian was more
eager to find some kind of warmth nearby. As he had come to
realize, the new climate surrounding him proved far too harsh and
freezing for him to handle.
I wonder how the humans are handling
this.

In order to survive in the bone-chilling
temperatures this land threw at them, the humans took and made use
of the deceased bodies of the animals they had brought with them.
It was then when Pesstian and Leyai realized they were the only two
creatures in captivity who had escaped death the day before.

The animal corpses were used to make food,
clothing, and—in some cases—shelter for the humans. Although the
owls viewed these acts as barbaric, they both held their
tongues.

Moving to this foreign land in such a short
period of time twisted Pesstian’s emotions. Almost every day before
falling asleep, Pesstian would find himself having an argumentative
conversation with himself.

Every one of the conversations he’d held with
himself caused serious angina attacks and headaches to attack his
body. It was during these silent conversations when he fought tears
from escaping his grasp. No matter how much these conversations
mentally hurt him, Pesstian felt a nearly unbearable urge to
silently continue them with every passing day.

Realizing how he had gone through so much
change at such a rapid pace, the young owl was unsure whether or
not to feel sad, happy, angry, or all of the above.

--

Literally many days had come to pass since
the humans’ vessel crashed and sank into the icy ocean. It was
during a bright, chilling morning when Pesstian and Leyai felt both
physically and mentally weak. Almost every one of their feathers
felt as if they were on the brink of crumbling from lack of
heat.

As both owls remain numb beneath the
coldness, they sat upon a hard mount of snow near what Pesstian
believed would become the humans’ home. Hunger called at every
corner of their stomachs, causing fatigue to come much quicker.
With these physical weaknesses bringing them down, both owls felt
as their hope began to perish.

The only thing the owls could have done to
combat the cold was to huddle together for warmth. However, not
even
that
could bring an increase in their hope for
survival.

Her beak a feather’s-length away from
Pesstian’s chest, Leyai asked her friend through a shiver, “Wh-what
are we going to do?”

“How should
I
know?” growled Pesstian,
trying to conserve his breath. So much as a single word could sap
strength away from the owls. Feeling as these strength-sucking
words slipped from his beak, Pesstian allowed pause of silence to
come between him and Leyai.

The silence was broken when Pesstian informed
his friend through a whisper, “I’m going.”

“Going where?” Leyai wondered, her eyes
closed tight. “Don’t go—please! If I can’t share my warmth with
you, I’m going to die; don’t go!”

Wearily picking himself up on his feet,
Pesstian released a grunt. Only two hindrances tried to stop him
from moving from his spot: his weary legs and Leyai’s talons—the
likes of which clutched onto his legs.

Trying to control his anger, Pesstian shook
his leg while commanding, “Let go!” It hadn’t taken much shaking
for Leyai to release her grip on her friend’s leg.

Unfortunately for Pesstian, he’d shaken his
leg too much. Once finally free of Leyai’s grip, he found himself
imbalance—so much so that he lost his balance and toppled over into
a sheet of snow.

His emotions cooling down slightly, he took a
look back at his suffering friend and mumbled, “I’ll be back before
you know it.”

A distressed look on her face, Leyai lay on
her stomach—watching as Pesstian lifted his wings into the air.
Nearly frozen tears escaped from her eyes as she futilely reached
out for the comfort of her only friend.
Don’t leave me! You
can’t let me die here!

Although his stomach ached more and more with
every single push of his wings, Pesstian continued to flap, the
target of food filling his mind. He could feel as his blood pumped
with the urge to sink his beak into the meat of a rodent—or
anything of the likeness.

Unfortunately for Pesstian, fatigue bit at
his wings—removing his will to move on any further. As a result,
his face met with the ground—and such ground would lay upon, lying
in wait for a savior.

Just as quickly as he had given up on flight,
a human noticed as Pesstian on a snowy floor, clumps of melting
snow clotting up the owl’s coat of feathers.

Upon taking sight of the owl’s weak body, the
human picked Pesstian off of the ground, brushed off the snow from
his body, and pressed two fingers against Pesstian’s chest. He was
feeling for heartbeats, unsure if the only male owl they had
brought with them was still alive.

After waiting for a few heartbeats to pass,
the human confirmed Pesstian was still alive. His breath was still
there, his essence present. Pesstian could feel as the human’s grip
relaxed slightly.

Relief washing over him, the human carefully
placed Pesstian feet-first into a rough bag—large enough to fit a
human child in it. Hoping to insure the owls’ safety, the human
walked over to where he believed he last saw Leyai.

As predicted, she remain in the exact spot
that he had first thought. As unpredicted, she lay face-first on
the floor.

Fearing for Leyai’s life, the human
decisively placed her in his bag right beside Pesstian—who was
still shaken up by the freezing temperatures he had recently
undergone. It was then when the human quickly snapped the bag
closed and let the owls be, hoping to keep the cold air away. He
didn’t even bother to carry the owls; he just left them there.

Shivering and half-frozen, Pesstian silently
uttered to himself,
I should have never
gone!

Almost as if she had taken hearing of
Pesstian’s silent words, Leyai mumbled, “Why did you go? Y-you
didn’t accomplish anything at all! I may have died if that human
hadn’t found me.”

“I’m sorry—okay?” Pesstian snapped through a
soft voice. “I just thought—I just thought that I could get us a
mouse or something like that. I was doing it to
help
you. So
don’t blame me for
anything
that just happened.”

Feeling as the heat from Pesstian’s anger,
Leyai released a small sigh—from it sprouted fear and hopelessness.
“Just promise me you won’t do anything like that again. I don’t
think I could survive
anywhere
without a good friend by my
side.”

Feeling as if he held a special place in
Leyai’s mind, Pesstian couldn’t help but allow a small chuckle to
slip through the corners of his beak. It was then when Pesstian was
interrupted by disruptive shake—the likes of which spread down the
walls of the human’s bag.

Uncomfortably leaning against the bag’s
fabric, Pesstian wondered out loud, “What the heck was that?” Not
even waiting for an answer to come, he took a look up, taking
notice of the outside light seeping through.
The bag’s
opening!
he realized.

Seeing his goal, Pesstian sprouted through
the opening. He felt as his head shot up through the top of the
bag, and—as predicted—met the cool air outside. Such a feeling
calmed him; the sensation of the breeze running past his ears made
him feel at peace with himself.

Upon poking his head out of the bag, the
first thing Pesstian caught sight of was a strange area of land
clearly renovated by the humans. It was as if this place had been
completely cleared of snow and grass—if grass had even
existed
in this land.

Gathered up around this patch of soil were
all the humans Pesstian had come to know over the past few days.
Strangely enough, they all seemed to be looking down at their pile
of cleared earth.

It was while watching their strange behavior
when Pesstian silently asked himself,
Why does a bunch of dirt
thrill the humans?

Pesstian couldn’t understand a word the
humans saying. Fortunately for him, he
could
make their
emotions by listening to the tones of their voices. It was a gift
he had been given at birth—and it could work on any creature!