The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (16 page)

“Maybe we should bypass that area,” Sofia said, cupping her
ears.

Scooting himself beside her, John placed his arm around her shoulders as she tucked her head against his chest.

“I’m really scared, dear. I know this is what you want to do, but I’m worried something bad is going to come out of this,” she said.

John did not want to make any promises. The guilt upon his shoulders regarding the map was punishing enough. Instead of giving her empty words with a lack of wisdom, he settled his head upon hers. Closing his eyes, the two of them sat in silence until the roaring overhead had passed them by.

The darkness of the fourth night entered into the world as the Savior laid Himself to rest over the westerly horizon. The tent-like, wooden, sleep structure was erected long before the first stars began to make their appearances. The sleeping sacks were in order. The evening meal was well past.

From the manuals that John had read, he had gained an understanding of the fact that during the blackness of the night the shimmering of even the dimmest of lights could be seen from many kilometers away. As they drew nearer to the mountains, he made certain that their campfires were well doused long before the darkness fell.

The temperature of the air was growing steadily toward the cooler side. Carefully gathering up the hot stones from the fire pit, John and Sofia placed them under the dirt inside their shelter, creating a comfortable, warm floor upon which to
sleep.

As the night was now heavily upon them, the two of them found it difficult to fade away into the world of dreams: the rumbling from the forbidden zone was continuously in their
ears.

Leaving the warmth of his sleeping sack, John blindly rummaged through his backpack. Finding the spectacles that he was looking for, he crawled to the entrance of their abode.

Rising up in the distance, he could see with his naked eyes the cause of the rumblings that they were experiencing during their afternoon rests. They were pinpoint in size, like tiny stars. Strange, fiery objects arose in a direct line straight from the planet’s surface before veering off to the southwest. Although he said nothing of the sort, John had his suspicion that they were vessels not unlike the one of which they called
home
.

Raising the binocular up, the flames reflecting off the cornea of his eyes were exceptionally bright. Shaped like upside down water droplets, whitish-orange in color, they ascended in great numbers, but at varying rates.

“What do you see?” Sofia inquired from her sleeping bag.

“It’s amazing, girl,” he said, “You need to see this.”

Although she truly wanted to fight against the desire to see what John was looking at, after a moment of stubbornness, her curiosity got the best of her. Crawling beside him, Sofia grabbed the glasses from John’s hands, placing them against her face. Taking in her first look at the true nature of the mysterious
wishing stars
, she was astonished at the fact that their flames were the only things visible, while its source was completely unseen.

“It’s just like the fire that comes out of the missiles that the soldiers use on the battlefield,” she whispered.

“Only much bigger,” John added, “I’m pretty sure that our home at the crash site was one of those at one time.”

Sofia dropped the binoculars to her lap.

“Now that I think about it, I think you’re right. Who would have thought… all this time we’ve been living in a
wishing
star
.”

John let out a slight giggle. He had not really thought about the flying craft from that perspective.

“It is funny when you think about it like that,” he said.

They continued their
star
gazing for only a brief moment longer. John did not want to delay their early morning journey by sleeping in too late. Pulling the binocular back from Sofia’s hands, he returned them to his backpack, saying, “We need to get to sleep. We still have a long way to travel.”

Slipping back into her sleeping sack, Sofia leaned over and kissed John on the cheek before rolling back and closing her eyes. She wanted to fade away into her regular nocturnal slumber, but the excitement of finding out the truth of their homely vehicle, once a machine capable of flying through the air, was almost too much for her wandering mind.

As John and Sofia stepped out from a grove of trees off the northern slope of a wide hill, the Savior was beaming down from his throne on high. The afternoon of the fifth day was now upon them.

Trudging through the grassy, soft soil, they kept a pace that was in rhythm to the beat of the tune that they were humming together. It was an instrumental piece of which they were both fond of that they often played on the music machine back home, a tempo that allowed both time and distance to pass by with an unnoticed rapidity. Music had become an integral part of their lives ever since the great encounter with the crash site. It was a tool that adjusted the soul, eased the mind and helped to create an ambience that rejected loneliness. It was, in essence, an entity with its own unique voice. Like another companion on their long trek to the mountainous regions, the music would help them keep their minds off the more monotonous aspects of the journey.

It had been an uneventful day. Skirting by unawares, another night was already falling upon them. The place of origin for their
wishing stars
was becoming ever so close.

Although John was partial to the idea of star gazing, he did not want to waste their precious sleep time on his and Sofia’s night watching, even refusing her request to stay up late into the night staring through the binocular. He wanted to get up before the Savior’s rise, taking advantage of the cool of the morning, using that extra travel time to make up for those prolonged rests that they had taken during the earlier days of their journey.

With their heads upon their pillows, the rumbling of the north was a moderate irritation, lightly vibrating the soil beneath them, rattling in their ears and teeth. Although it seemed as if they were never going to fall asleep, the strenuous marching of the day eventually caught up to the both of them. Within a few minutes, they had each entered into their individual worlds of restful tranquility.

In the darkness of the early morning trek, the beasts of the forest seemed less at ease than they had been on the previous day. The fluttering amongst the trees, the high pitched cackles intermittently raining down from the sky, and in the distance the howls of the black-haired creatures of the valley urging one another with their terrifying screams could be heard. The atmosphere reeked with
tension.

Nineteen months away from Labor had made John and Sofia’s crash site home feel so secure and pleasant, making it a place of relative peace and harmony. Although it was far from perfect, neither of them could have ever dreamed up anything more realistically possible with regards to their well-being. The experiences that they had lived through had given them a concrete understanding regarding death and decay within a world with such a contrary aesthetic flair. With the drapes of mist hanging so heavily upon them, Sofia was feeling the claustrophobic menace of wandering so far from what had become such a familiar comfort.

Scanning about with a disorganized rhythm to her eyes that seemed to dance to the beat of the fear that was drumming up inside of her, an extra amount of effort was required on Sofia’s part to maintain a sense of composure. The miner’s light strapped to her head had little effect under the circumstances of the current environment. The light was reflecting too proximally off of the fog, allowing the illumination to reach only the closest of objects. Under the suffocating encapsulation of the dense, cold canopy of moisture that was hanging over the forest and clinging to its soft, wet floor, she made a conscious resolve to slow her rate of breathing.

With a visibility that consisted of mere silhouettes and varying shades of blacks and grays, she had little to work with as regards to the imagery surrounding her. Perhaps a meter or less beyond the rear sight of her rifle was all that could be discerned with even a crude sense of accuracy.

The movement of the mist seemed to flow like streams of oil falling into a gently agitated pool of water with random, wavy patterns deceptively crawling about, as if they were actually living, breathing beings. They were creating within themselves shadows and shapes of hideous forms. They were borne along by the terrible, distant howls, and Sofia’s own rampantly running memories of that frightful day in the valley not so long ago.

With his compass held in front of him, John kept his headlamp fixated upon the needle, permitting him to keep a relatively straight path northward. Due to the weather conditions, there was no allowance for him to plot out the necessary, distant waypoints that would keep them on an accurate track. As no other choice was available, a generally attained, northern path would need to suffice for the time being.

The heaviness upon the rustling leaves, periodically piercing their restless surroundings, caused Sofia to keep a vigilant posture with her weapon at the ready. Her trembling hands felt out of sync with her wildly receptive senses. She felt numb and disconnected from her physical body, as if it were a foreign object. Only her mind and its perceptible abilities seemed to be a single entity existing as one with the environment. Another crack of a branch sent her spinning toward its direction behind them, the beam of light from her forehead showing the way to her point of
concentration.

“Did you hear something?” she whispered.

“Nothing unusual.”

“I think something’s out there,” she said with more volume.

“It’s probably just the animals in the trees waking up,” John said, trying to comfort her obvious expression of anxiety.

“No, I think it’s something else,” she fired back, cautiously walking backwards, keeping a close eye to their rear while clumsily trying to keep up with him.

After proceeding a few more meters, an almost unworldly silence settled upon the local vicinity. Only the sounds of their gentle footsteps treading through the spongy, dew-covered soil emitted any hint of proximal life.

“What just happened?” Sofia inquired nervously.

“I’m not sure, really,” he said, trying to maintain a tone of control, although he was beginning to feel the tendrils of fear crawling over him.

Another cracking of a branch, accompanied by the scurrying of a heavily bodied entity, resounded from the same direction as the original commotion that had been causing Sofia such concern. John immediately came to an abrupt halt.

Scanning his ears about, he attempted to grasp at the true direction of the clamorous activity that had suddenly brought them such angst and dismay. Intent on staying motionless until he was able to hear the sound once again without the distracting noise of their footsteps, he motioned to Sofia to stand still, to wait patiently. He knew that whatever it was that was hiding behind the veil of fog would instinctively make its move sooner rather than later.

“See, I told you,” Sofia began to say before being cut off by John’s hand, as it was placed over her mouth.

As the rustling proceeded once again, it appeared that there was something encircling them, moving about just outside the visible spectrum of their perimeter. Due to the methods by which the creature was operating, coupled with the disorienting thickness of the mist surrounding them, John found that it was difficult to gauge whether he was hearing the stirring of the leaves under the wings of the flying creatures as they moved through the trees, or if it was truly originating under the feet of a ground dwelling beast sadistically motivated with the intent of doing them
harm.

Bringing his rifle to bear, he peered over his sights. The reflection of his light upon the mist was like a great, white wall blocking his view. He held his breath, waiting for another breach in the silence. There was a long moment of emptiness, an almost hollow, sublime feeling of disconnection from reality as they stood their ground, anticipating the worst.

With the sound of a rustling bush entering from the darkness at his side, John turned his hips and, in a single, continuous motion, blindingly fired off a single round toward its direction. The brass casing ejected from the port of his rifle, arching through the air, and impacting the soil a few feet away. The report of the weapon echoed throughout the forest beyond their gray covering. Bouncing off a pile of dead leaves, the metallic cylinder found its resting place in a puddle of water hidden amongst the tall grass. Several screeching, winged beasts aroused from their slumber. Taking flight, the rustling of their wings created an eerie backlash as falling leaves and dust reflected off of the vague bloom of dispersed morning haze that was dimly filtering through the trees and fog. The animals were seeking their safety in the hidden expanse above.

For a moment it appeared that the invisible threat was nothing more than the sounds of those harmless creatures of the sky. John, feeling secure with the idea, lifted his compass to his eye and reacquired their previous course.

“See, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said, rubbing her shoulders, “Let’s go.”

Sofia continued looking back down the path behind them, discontent with thought that the tree dwelling creatures were the cause of her concerns. The gloominess of the unknown was unnerving. As John was now at least a meter ahead of her, she left off her surveilling, running to catch up to him. She was unable to hear over the noise of the crushing leaves under her feet the guttural hissing of the hidden threat.

As the two adventurers had once again settled back into the routine of their hike, it was not long before they determined that a sudden increase in the frequency of snapping branches and crushing leaves was becoming quite consistent. Something was dreadfully amiss with John’s simple explanation of what exactly it was that they could not see lurking within the shadows. It now appeared that they were being stalked.

Raising the flat of his hand up, signaling for Sofia to hold her position, the two of them ceased all movement.

“Don’t move,” John whispered.

Remaining motionless once again, they both began to slowly dig their feet in, with John guarding the rear and Sofia taking point. With their weapons held tightly to their shoulders, they anxiously pulled aim in every direction from which a crack or rustle, movement or sound, presented itself.

Pulling the compass’ lanyard from around his neck while continuing to keep a steady picture through his sights, John handed it behind him to Sofia.

“Here, take this and keep it pointed to the north. We need to keep moving.”

Grasping the shiny object from over her shoulder, Sofia held it as still as her trembling hands would allow, waiting for the glow of the needle to settle into her view. Adjusting her body so that she would be facing the determined northerly direction, she whispered, “Okay, I’m moving.”

With his cheek resting upon his weapon’s stock, and his right hand held tightly to its pistol grip, he grasped onto Sofia’s backpack. Walking backward, he continued to cover their rearward sector.

“Be ready for anything, girl,” he said. “We’re going to get out of this, I promise.”

Pulling her weapon’s stock under her armpit, Sofia held it in place while wrapping the compass around the fore grip, securing it with the lanyard. This allowed her to keep her rifle at the ready while still being able to keep their course.