Kapitel 4: Chapter 4: Arrival Part 1

Gusts of purple air sweep past, billowing soft swirls and thickening as bursts of light shine through. Each light grows brighter, crackling the purple dust, parting like mini fireworks exploding around us. Clarence watches it too. He sits across from me, or maybe stands, his blue eyes smiling into mine, curious. They're the only constant. That and his face. Even his neck and hair fade into the smoke screen of lavender gliding behind him.

Am I dreaming?

It's my voice, loud and just as I would say it. But the words never left my mouth. It's my thought. Am I dreaming? It would explain all this. Where we are and what's happening. Him. Everything before. Why I can hear myself but not remember speaking...

No.

It's Clarence's voice but not from his mouth either. His lips remain upturned in that curious, playful smile like he's waiting for some reaction, some punch line to a joke. But I hear him just the same, just as he heard me, a monologue of our thoughts overhead.

It feels like a dream.

You've never traveled through space before, his eyes flicker between mine, it's impossible to move at our rate and see an accurate portrayal of things. This is what your mind allows you to see.

Then this is real?

Yes.

And we're moving?

Yes. It feels like we're right across from one another and in a way, we are. But physicality and spirituality are two different things. They must travel in their own way as we are, right now.

So where am I?

Between.

A soft gust of purple breathes roughly behind Clarence, tickling his neck hair and ears with the swirling wind. The same chill runs down my phantom back, a body I no longer possess. It's attached but somehow not. I can feel its reaction though, tingling in my core, a shiver from an unexpected breeze. Maybe the sense comes from within, from what I expect it should feel like or would feel like if I was not here... wherever here may be.

How is this possible?

It is possible because it has always been this way. Your culture portrays travel by ship or craft. This is all they've known, but, it is not truth.

My heart, wherever it is, pounds away in the tin drum of my chest. How can I feel my body when it's not attached? None of this is real. It can't be.

I don't believe any of this.

Clarence's mouth turns up, into that amused smirk whenever I disagree. His blue eyes focus on mine, shifting between them.

It doesn't matter if you believe it if it's fact.

Am I going to die?

No.

Then how does this end?

The way it always does. With a landing.

Then I'll awake, to what it was like before?

No, his smile finally turns down, it will never be like before...

Familiar dread fills me, especially as he fades to black, stealing all light with him. The fireworks stop exploding, sucked into the darkness and even the purple smoke dancing around my head drifts away. I'm still here though, alone, in the black. The quiet.

Then, suddenly, it all flies at me.

The fires first, lighting up the trees, then the nearby houses and barns, deathly smoke rising into the night like demonic ghosts set loose on the world. And their faces, especially the children. Walking for days with pain from unimaginable, torturous thirst. Hiding in the caves, scrapping with others over a bag of found dog food. And the winters when there weren't enough clothes. Bodies pressed together in long rows, hoping their heat might suffice this night, unlike so many others before...

The images fly past forever, then just for a second in time. And they're gone. And I'm tumbling in the darkness, tumbling and falling. Falling, falling. But I have no voice to scream, no body to break. Perhaps this is it. Perhaps this is end of me, whoever that is.

Perhaps this is death.

Suddenly, I plummet through an unearthly substance, the separation between my rapid descent and the new tranquility I sense around me. I'm no longer moving but still, standing, my body belonging to me again. It's tensed, as if feeling balance for the first time or remembering what it's like to use muscles after a long absence. Inhaling, I calm the thumping in my chest, reminding - or I suppose, convincing - myself I've survived, when I smell it.

Rain.

"Alright," Clarence's voice muses, "we're here. You can open your eyes."

And then there are colors.

Brightly glowing purples, blues and greens dot the mammoth-sized plant-life hanging over us, reaching with long, spiky-edged, yellow-tipped leaves that unfold like flower petals to the dew-stricken ground below. Golden-coated lavender bulbs bloom from unruly tree roots with mammoth trunks extending like skyscrapers into the grayish-white clouds. Crimson blossoms grow wild among their hugging branches, interweaving a rope of ivy that drapes from tree to tree, like a limitless swing set in the sky. And it all sits in a soft, settling mist, gathering at our knees.

"Where are we?"

"This..." Clarence beams, breathing in the scent of wet plant-life, "is Harrizel, your new home."

"A jungle?"

"Well..." he faces the other direction, his voice lowering, "that's where you'll be staying."

There's no happiness in his words. What could change his demeanor so quickly? We're already standing outside in the damp air - surely shelter can only be a positive?

When I turn, Clarence points through a screen of netted ivy, built up by plump shrubbery and falling yellow-tipped leaves that fan over one another to obstruct the view. "Can you see it?"

I pin back a leaf and then another, the jungle proving overly lush and damp. Water trickles down my hand and into the sleeve of my elbow as I swipe away more fauna and finally, through the broken fragments of jungle still ahead, it comes into view.

The shadow lurching in the distance.

It's a giant's domain of obsidian stone and rounded into towers on each corner of its boxed shape. Four peaks reach to the sky from each tower, like deadly daggers threatening to slice open and spill forth the watery contents from above. An enormous wrought iron gate encloses the darkened fortress, wrapping around it and separating us from the gray, flat land of dirt.

"I've heard some refer to it as the ‘Castle,'" Clarence explains, "but it has no name really."

"So what do you call it?"

He sighs, trying to find the correct answer, "Right now... Harrizel."

"You sound disappointed."

He wipes the frown from his mouth. "There they are," he points again, "do you see them? The last survivors of your human race."

I follow his finger and find blue dots strewn behind the gate. They're carrying - or maybe dragging - something, some keeping to a large pole that extends in the center of the open lot, the only beacon in the distance.

"What are they doing?"

"I'm sure Jeb will explain all that."

"And out here?" I turn to the trees.

"Well it's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Is this part of our home too?"

"Not exactly..." Clarence lowers his head, stepping past a patch of golden lavender bulbs, "this is the outskirts. The wild. You're not allowed to leave the gate."

"Then why take me here?"

"To show you the beauty that is Harrizel. Sometimes things can seem so..." he stops, searching for the right word, "cold. It's not all like that. And I want you to remember this."

What does he mean by cold? And remember this?

"There's an opening in the gate," he gestures ahead, "Yerza and Norpe should be at their post to let you in. I'm sorry to abandon you like this but I must go."

"You're leaving me here?"

"My job is done. I'm your escort, Fallon. I have to go back and find other survivors."

"But..." my mind races with everything that's happened, everything he's told me and everything he still hasn't. "What now? I live in there," I point to the black daggers, "for the rest of my life? Doing what? You can't just - "

"Jeb will explain everything," he cuts me off. "He is, after all, the Guide," Clarence leans down, his hands on his knees. He lowers his voice, speaking in a gentle tone, the way a father would soothe his daughter. "You'll be fine. This is a new life, Fallon. A new beginning. Open yourself to the possibilities." He eyes the Castle as if it were something peaceful in the distance. I follow his gaze, peering through the ivy to the fortress ahead. It sits like a brick in my stomach, trepidation suddenly rising.

"When will I see..." I turn to Clarence but he's gone.

I'm alone.

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