Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land (33 page)

Wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead,
Leyoht fell as the tree began to roll, causing him to lose his
footing once again. All the while did the hollow’s opening appear
to move. His head spinning, the sound of mixed feminine and
masculine screeches split Leyoht’s ears.

What was that?
the confused owl asked
himself while being thrown around in the tree’s interior. Without
his intention, Leyoht found himself being thrown through the
hollow’s opening—much to his relief and irritation.

Now outside, Leyoht felt as his beak dug into
the light-gray snow below. Added to this was the sound of a raging
blizzard. Pulling his beak out of the ground, he took notice of the
snow’s color and murmured with a start, “What? Why is the
snow—”

Without any warning, the sound of moaning
split the air. Taking hearing of this moaning, Leyoht wondered,
“Who’s there?”

“Y-your father,” the voice responded through
a whisper.

“What?” Leyoht shrieked, turning his head
over to the sound’s origin. His beak pointing toward his father,
Leyoht noticed as the lower half of Ulpheir’s body remain crushed
by their own home. The only appendages Leyoht noticed were his
father’s head and wings.

A gasp escaped from Leyoht’s beak when he
rushed over to his injured father. This couldn’t have been
happening. His dreams were more than mere dreams; they were
omens!

It was then when Leyoht realized his mother
was nowhere to be seen. That was when he took sight of an huge spot
of red snow a small distance away from Ulpheir’s wings.
Mother?

The very sight of scarlet-stained snow drew
Leyoht’s knees to the ground as his own tears melted the ice below.
Already two people have died today. And now my father’s going to
die!
With so many thoughts and emotions flying through Leyoht’s
mind, not even the outside blizzard held enough strength to snap
back to reality.

Although it was in Ulpheir’s best interest to
spare his breath, he called out to his son, “Leyoht!”

That one word brought Leyoht back.

“I—want you—to take the egg,” through a
hoarse whisper. “It is going to—hatch. I know—it will hatch—I know
it! You can make it—because you are my only son—and you can
overcome this. Make sure you take the egg to—somebody
trustworthy!”

Taking a look into his father’s eyes, Leyoht
wiped away the tears from his eyes. It was after doing so when he
stammered, “B-but the egg’s dead.”

“Then save—y-yourself,” Ulpheir commanded
with his final breath. “Go—before—”

Even more tears leaked from Leyoht’s eyes
when his father’s lungs lost the strength to breathe. Noticing as
Ulpheir’s life drained away into the cool breeze, Leyoht asked of
the cold body, “Father? Are you awake?” An icicle of depression
pierced through his mind when he picked himself back on his
feet.

As a final goodbye to his parents, Leyoht
kicked a newly-formed assembly of snow over Ulpheir’s deceased
body. Realizing he would never be within his parents’ presence
again, Leyoht strode away from them; all the while did he
desperately tell himself to
move on
.

Although it had taken him a while to notice,
Leyoht’s pace began to decrease; so remained the case until his
feet eventually drew to a complete stop. For what seemed like an
eternity did he pause. What was the point of his existence now?
Without parents or a sibling, was his life worth saving now?

Releasing a small screech of despair through
his beak, Leyoht sprinted back to his parents. He wanted
desperately to remain in their presence—to wallow in their
non-breathing corpses. It didn’t take many steps for him to trip
over his own feet. The result of him tripping caused him to fall
over into the snow.

Once tripped, Leyoht wept while silently
calling out to Ulpheir,
Father—please tell me this isn’t
real!

Literally hundreds of thoughts drifted
through Leyoht’s mind as he lay down on the icy ground. Such
thoughts were ones of anger, confusion, sadness, frustration; the
list went on. The main cause of these thoughts’ presence was
derived from his thoughts as to why anybody would ever want to do
anything so horrible to his home.

Should I sleep here? On the snow next to
my dead parents?
Leyoht wondered.

A pause of mental inactivity suddenly filled
his mind just before he curtly answered,
Yes! I don’t care if I
die! Everyone I know is dead, anyway.

The thought of never again seeing his
parents, Mikto, Rossetti, Behinlo, Plenot, Ramil, Jsaleor, or even
the white of his mother’s egg caused a hammer of angina to swing
against in Leyoht’s heart. Such pain increased when he realized he
might have never taken witness of an owlet’s birth. As he’d
remember Sahemawia telling him, the birth of a new person was a
miraculous experience.

Despite his depression and numbness, Leyoht
released a weary yawn. It was within heartbeats when he fell
soundly asleep.

--

Through that night of chilling, biting wind,
a series of thoughts drifted through Leyoht’s mind. Such thoughts
would evolve into dreams. Said dreams were quickly converted into a
single horrendous nightmare.

It all began when a strange, quiet voice
rattled within his head.

Leyoht,
the voice whispered.

It was almost immediately after hearing this
voice when Leyoht found himself lying down in a pitch-black
landscape.

Join the empire. Join us once more!
There it was again. Who was uttering these words?

Such a voice caused Leyoht to feel as if
there was nothing but negativity in life—as if everything positive
had been snatched away from him long ago.

What are you talking about?
Leyoht
screamed back through telepathy, shifting in his sleep.
I’m just
an owlet!

As his dream continued, Leyoht realized
noticed the pitch-black ground below making an abrupt
disappearance. Because he hadn’t known how to fly, he began to fall
down—coming ever-closer to the pit below. It hadn’t taken long for
him to meet up with the new ground, his chest making a rough
collision with it.

An enormous thud shook up Leyoht’s ears,
causing him to become temporarily deafened. It was as if somebody
had screamed right into his ears—as if somebody was trying to
remove his sense of hearing.

Surprisingly for him, his impact with the
ground proved less painful than he had first anticipated. A moment
of silence showed itself before Leyoht picked himself up on his
feet. The sight before him made him wish he had stayed where he
was.

Literally hundreds of humans of every kind
rested in peace upon the snowy ground. Their blood was one their
own heads—the likes of which remained separated from their
respectable owners.

Although he wanted to hate the humans for
what they had recently done for them, Leyoht couldn’t help but feel
a pang of sympathy for these poor creatures. Human blood stained
almost every single spot on the ground, catching the attention of a
duo of small, gray owls to fly above him and the humans.

It was while shaken in fear when Leyoht heard
the strange voice once again, listening as it echoed throughout his
head.
Pathetic little owlet!
the voice cackled.
The chaos
is inevitable! All the creatures of earth lay dead upon you! And
now—little one—you are next!

Regardless of the threatening tone in
Leyoht’s inner voice, he paid more attention to the sights before
him. Blood leaked out of the humans’ bodies with the speed of
Leyoht’s tears. Some of them, he noticed, didn’t bleed at all;
instead they remained charred and skeletal.

It was while distracted by the bodies when
the strange owls picked Leyoht up by his shoulders and began to
fly.

Feeling as his feet left the ground, a spark
of fear lit up in Leyoht’s stomach when he asked, “What are you
doing?” When no response came through either of the owls’ beaks,
the young owlet pleaded through a scream, “Please don’t kill
me!”

Another moment of silence came into place as
the irresponsive owls continued to carry Leyoht higher up into the
sky. Growing irritable, Leyoht demanded, “Put me down!”

As the sound of these words ticked their
ears, the two gray owls quickly exchanged glances. Once doing so,
they stopped in their path—causing them to merely hover about in
the sky.

“Farewell,” one of them sneered through a
male voice.

In an instant, both owls released their grip
on Leyoht’s shoulders, allowing him to fall to the ground.

While releasing a screech of fear, he took
notice of an orange light shooting from the eerie, gray ground. It
hadn’t taken long for him to realize this orange glow was coming
from a raging fire.

The scent of smoke wafted into his nostrils,
causing him to silently screech,
Oh no! Not this stuff again!
The same stuff that
killed
my parents!

Only heartbeats had passed when an
intensely-warm feeling penetrated his skin. Only a few heartbeats
more had passed when a wave of discomforting heat travelled
throughout his entire body.

Such an uncomfortable feeling from this
orange glow grew more and more apparent as Leyoht continued to
fall. This heat quickly grew to intense levels, causing him to
release a howl of pain.

It was only heartbeats after releasing this
howl when Leyoht fell into a sea of flame. The chaotic intensity
from this sea caused his skin and feathers to instantly burn away
from the rest of his body. The result of such a phenomenon gave
Leyoht a jet-black appearance.

Almost as if the enormous fire was alive, it
pushed up against Leyoht—releasing him back up into the sky.
Confusion and relief spread into his head as he drew further away
from the flame. His relief, however, would come to an end when
gravity’s curse played its game on him.

It had taken a few more heartbeats of falling
for Leyoht to realize he was on a collision course with a series of
sharp, thorny stalagmites.

Spikes?
he wondered while falling at
the speed of sound. The sensation of wind brushing through his
feathers came to an end when a poking sensation pressed up against
the center of his chest.

Only a split-second had come to pass before
Leyoht felt as one of the stalagmites pierced its way through his
heart. Such an immense injury caused him to literally hack a stream
of blood through his beak. A small amount of these hacks caused
Leyoht to become anemic and pass away in a heartbeat.

The amount of terror drawn from this dream
caused Leyoht to finally wake up, a scream sprouting from his beak.
“Ah!” he screeched.

As the cry released from his lungs and out
through his beak, Leyoht suddenly noticed he was no longer lying
upon the blizzard’s snowy ground. Rather than lie on the snow, he
was now leaning up against the fabric of a human’s home.

Confusion clouded his thoughts, causing him
to flinch in surprise and silently ask himself in utter disbelief,
How did I get here?
His mind tickled at such a thought,
making him curious of the fabric he was leaning upon. As a result,
he started examining it.

After staring at the fabric of the human
home, Leyoht took a close look at what before. Such a sight, he
quickly realized, was that of a large, sleeping human.
Did that
human bring me here?
he wondered, a spark of gratefulness
lighting up in his heart.

With this thought in mind, a stream of joyful
tears started leaking from the little bird’s eyes.
The humans
saved me
! he silently exclaimed while sobbing. Thinking that he
may have disturbed the humans, Leyoht abruptly covered his beak
with the back of his wing, muffling the noises from his beak.

Chapter XI

Was It All A Dream?

Once Leyoht exited from the human home, he
set a new goal for himself: to find a new shelter. Despite
everything he’d gone through in the past day, he still felt as if
there were at least
one
helpful stranger for him out in the
large, open world.
There just has to be!

However, the path for finding a new home
would prove much more treacherous than Leyoht first anticipated. As
he had quickly come to realize, the outside world’s weather
withheld the capability to topple him over in a heartbeat. With all
of his fatigue Leyoht’s biggest issue was simply finding food and
water.

How his parents could have found food with so
little ease was well beyond Leyoht’s thinking. In the time he had
spent in the barren landscape, not a single rodent came into his
sight. It was while feeling as if he would never become a
successful hunter when Leyoht realized not a single trace of meat
remained scurrying along the ground.

Leyoht realized he had only one option left.
In order to solve both his hunger and thirst at the same time, he
would engulf whatever snow he could find whenever hunger struck his
stomach.

Snow was all around—so out of nowhere, Leyoht
ate away at the white ground. He felt as both the inside
and
the outside of his body grew freezing cold. But he didn’t care; in
this weather colder and drier than any other, all the little owlet
could think about was hydration.

Feeling as his stomach grew full with the
frozen slush, Leyoht ceased eating. All at once had he completely
solved his hunger and thirst. Such a feeling made him feel
complete.

Unfortunately for Leyoht, the plan to devour
snow had proven unsuccessful in the end. Rather than solve his
malnutrition, the snow only caused him to eventually purge a
majority of the liquids he had received from eating snow.
At
least I was able to get some water
, he reassured himself after
vomiting.

--

It was while Leyoht suffered on his own when
Pesstian and Leyai thrived with their human companions. Because
they were now covered and fed by the large creatures’ organs, they
were able to live a much more comfortable life within their new
home.