Chapter Five

The Ordeal

...a lone man wakes in a deserted world. Bleeding, his memories gone he must navigate a strange world to find his way home.

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The Ordeal - Chapter Five

Written by Edward Shaddow

What more indeed. By about the ninetieth complete playing both my sprit and the tape were wearing a bit thin. The last notes from the guitars faded away and the tape deck clunked to an eventual stop. Static filled the speakers, slightly louder than the gentle whir of the tape rewinding, readying itself for another onslaught of musical anguish. I hit the eject button just as the first heavy drum beat started to thump through the speakers. A heavy sigh of relief filled the car. I looked at Hugin, perched on the passengers headrest, his feathers ruffling slightly in the breeze from the open window.

“If you hated it that much you could have said earlier, you know.” I said to the raven, turning my attention back to the empty desert road.

“Hurh?” he replied, shaking off whatever twisted daydream he was having.

“The music. If you hated it that much you could have said. I only had it on because you weren’t talking, for once. It made me nervous.” I watched as the cogs turned over in his tiny bird brain.

“I thought you just liked being overly dramatic; delusions of grandeur and all that.” He hopped down from the headrest and landed on the dash. “You might want to slow down anyway, we’re almost here.”

“Here?” I said, scanning the empty desert, “I don’t know what special bird powers you have, Raven-Who-Sees-Things, but are we both looking at the same desert?” I scanned the desert as the raven turned around and ignored me. I knew it, he’s lead me out here so his buddies can have a bloody good feed. Just let them just try, I’ll give them all indigestion.

I slowed down to a more civilised speed to placate the bird. The vast empty wasteland surrounded us for miles. If there was anything that resembled life out there, it was probably long dead.

“You can stop here.” Hugin said suddenly. Not one to argue with a bird (ha) I brought the Mustang to a halt and killed the ignition. The desolate sound of the empty desert filled my ears, punctuated occasionally by the quiet pops from the cooling engine. Just as it had been for the past several hours this area of desert was just as bleak and arid as any other; no abandoned buildings, no cars, not even a buzzard (or a raven for that matter) to be seen. "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into,” I whispered out the window. The sudden sound of scraping metal made me turn quickly towards the passenger door. Hugin was half out the window and looking to take flight.

“Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going buddy? You can’t just leave me here, well, you could, but I’d eventually hunt you down and, uh, annoy the hell out of you, or something.” Yeah, that showed him.

“As much as that scares me, and really it does; I have to go ahead and let them know you are coming. They don’t take to lightly to unannounced visitors, not these days anyway.” he replied twisting his head around like a feathered Linda Blair. “Just keep driving along the road and you’ll be fine.”

“You always know just how to put me at ease, you know that? Who are these people and what do they have to do with me? Am I going to get any answers soon are you just going to keep stringing me along for the ride?”

“Look,” He said ruffling his feathers, “Just keep driving along this road, and you will be fine, I’ll go ahead and prepare them for your coming and no one will die. Easy, OK?”.

I looked out my window and tried for my best annoyed but indifferent look, “Follow the yellow brick road and all that, huh?”

“Basically. Try not to get lost Dorothy.” He said, pushing off the window ledge and gliding out into the warm desert air.

“Remember just how annoying I could be!” I shouted out the window at the disappearing black dot. That sounded a lot more threatening in my head. Sighing heavily, I started the car and I was alone once more. “What could possibly go wrong, I’ve got Toto as an emissary.” I said to myself as the car started to pick up speed along the desert road.

No more than an hour had passed before I started to notice subtle changes around me. First the temperature had begun to drop, the usually hot and dry desert air slowly became a lot more humid, more tropical than desert. Slight patches of weeds could be seen along the side of the road, blurring past my window as the Mustang reached over eighty miles per hour. The beige ocean of sand surrounding the road began to drop several shades, becoming darker, more dirt brown than beach white. I was waiting for the greener shrubs, the heartier desert plants, to begin showing up, followed by small shrubs, and eventually trees and bush land. I was just glad to know I wouldn’t die out in some gods forsaken dust bowl. A brilliant flash of light took me by surprise and suddenly, I was blind.

Strapped in a metal box, hurtling at over eighty miles an hour down a long straight road with your eyes shut, not the best way to leave the world. I tried to keep the steering wheel as level as I could, and slowly released my foot from the accelerator. Patches of light and colour were starting to peek in my blurred vision as the car slowly came to a halt. Through touch I shut the engine off and put the hand break on before instinctively rubbing my eyes. It took a few moments before I could open them without wincing in pain, but eventually the haze lifted and I could see once more. I looked out through the windshield and rubbed my eyes again, just incase they were still playing up. The arid wasteland was gone, now replaced by an old, dense rainforest as far as I could see. Unbuckling my seatbelt I opened the door and the smell of fresh rain and damp bark filled my nose as I left the vehicle. I turned around several times in the road, there was absolutely no sign of the desert I had driven through for the past several hours. The road stretched back the way I came, and so did the forest, disappearing into a dark green spot in the distance. It was as if the forest had always been there and always will.

It took me a while before I realised I was not alone. The forest was alive with the sound of a thousand birds, insects and other animals. Once I began to notice the noise coming from the trees it began to intensify until all I could hear was a wall of noise. Chirps, clicks, whistles, calls; they all compounded upon one another, making the forest come alive. It felt odd, like I had suddenly been thrown into the middle of a festival after being locked in solitary confinement for the past ten years. My ears took a while to adjust to the level of noise. Eventually I found comfort in the forest chatter. “At least none of these birds can talk,” I thought to myself.

Without warning a loud snap came from my right and I quickly wheeled around. A small animal was rushing through the forest, leaping from branch to branch. It was too far away for me to tell what it was, but it couldn’t have been bigger than a large rat. I watched it skillfully traverse the tangle of branches as it headed back the way I had come. A small chuckle escaped my throat, as I thought about the sheer craziness of it all; abandoned cities, desert highways that suddenly turn into hundred year old forests, and a rat thing just happily going about its business. “Crazy.” I said out loud.

My voice had obviously carried down the road, as the rat thing suddenly came to a halt, looked at me and sniffed the air. Effortlessly it whirled around and began swinging and leaping its way towards me. It closed the gap between us in under a few seconds. Before I knew it the squirrel (as I could see it clearly now) had made an impressive leap from a tree, and in two bounds across the road came to rest on the roof of the Mustang. Mere inches from my face, it sat up and titled its head. We both regarded each other for a moment. The red furred squirrel looked at me with its mousey features and sniffed the air inquisitively. With its bushy tail curled around its feet and his tiny three toed paws hanging in mid air it looked like a dog waiting for a treat after being told to ‘beg’. The smile that had appeared on my face suddenly dropped with a thought, “You’re not going to start talking to me too are you?” I addressed the squirrel, “Because I’ve got this raven who kind of thinks he’s all that and I only need one sarcastic pet sidekick at the moment.” He regarded me for a moment before shrieking loudly in my face in an almost scolding fashion and running off to continue his journey. “Yeah, well, so was your mother!” I yelled after it. “Animals today, they’ve just got no respect for anyone.” I said, shaking my head slowly as I got back into the car and continued on my way.

It was good to swap the blur of hot sand for the blur of cool forest. The greenery helped chase away those feelings of hopelessness, despair and general misery that came with the vision of becoming human jerky on some long abandoned highway. Worse comes to worse now I could simply become a hermit in the forest, eating bugs and ill-mannered squirrels; not an entirely bad life. For the first time since waking up, I felt at ease. The deep dark sense of dread that had been twisting my gut, slowly unknotted and I let my mind wander for a while. The world unfocused and my mind became a carefree blank.

Minutes, hours and days passed in my spaced out state. The dark green blur filling my vision and the gentile song of bird calls surrounding my head. It is the most peaceful I have felt in a very long time. In fact the last time I felt like this, I remember looking at my brother his face was one of pure joy, the bow still pointed in his hands, finally he had been able to play the game everyone else enjoyed. Such a sweet, kind face, he was so happy that day. I remember looking at him and smiling, “Well done,” I whispered as the world dimmed and the earth rose up to embraced me. A smile crept across my face as I wiped away the tears running down my cheeks.

The spell of memory was broken, yet I was still captured by the nostalgic feel. I tried in vain to refocus on the blur of the outside world, hoping for another glimpse of my life. Green and brown flashed passed me but no memories came, the brief shine of the past was gone and I was left alone with the here and now. Out of the corner of my eye, I half registered a black bird glide away from the car and disappear into the thick of the forest. Sighing heavily, I turned my attentions back to driving, the funk of remembrance still thick about me.

Eventually the perfect bitumen road becomes worn and ragged, degrading into a red dust and gravel road. I slowed down as the small stones begin to slip out from under the wheels and the rough road turns the entire car into a very expensive and dusty massage chair. No sooner have I gotten used to driving with numb hands when the gravel disappears and I am left with a narrow and well worn dirt path. No longer restricted to the side lines, the forest encroaches upon the road; tree branches and twigs scrape along the side of the Mustang, each screech is like nails on a chalk board. “If this was my dad’s car, he’d kill me,” I thought, just as a branch ran down the entire length of the car, you could feel the paint peeling. I wasn’t sure which I preferred, the thick red dust and slippery gravel, or the jouncing forest path that would have body shop owners wincing in pain.

It wasn’t long before the inevitable occurred. Somewhere, there is a law of forest that states “For any dirt road you may travel along, at some stage, there will be a fallen tree.” How big that tree is depends of course on how urgent your need to get past is, versus your personal strength. In my case, such a tree would be about, oh, two meters in diameter and let’s say, weigh in excess of three tonne. I pulled up in front of the monster tree. Long since felled, various types of moss and other plant life had taken over the ancient timber, although charred marks could still be seen along the trunk. A victim of some great fire, this mighty oak was defiantly not going anywhere, and judging by the distinct lack of an alternative path, neither was I. Well, not in style anyway.

Finding nothing useful in the Mustang, I headed off in search of a way around the giant piece of kindling. Tramping through the dense scrub was a new and welcomed experience, after all that driving I had forgotten what my arse actually felt like. It was good to be up and walking around, even though my arms and face were now becoming as scratched as the poor car I left behind. Something struck me as slightly odd when I reached the base of the fallen tree, the entire root system was still attached, sticking up into the air; this in its self was not entirely unusual. What struck me as odd was the lack of any scorching here, there was also no dirt pit where the mighty tree had once taken root. I’m no aborist by any means but it looked as if this tree had been plucked from the ground some distance away and moved here. How and why are questions best answered by someone else, I just call them how I see them. Looking up at the massive roots I made my way around the ancient obstacle and continued to trudge back towards the original path.

The sun had begun to set as I reached what I could only guess as my destination. The brilliant oranges and reds of dusk filled the sky, and changed the forest world around me. Dusk changed the forest, it robbed the warmth and breath from the trees and the tone of the animal songs changed as most retired to nests and others awakened for the night. I felt the temperature drop the breeze flowed around me, cooling the sweat collected on my dirt and blood stained shirt. Just ahead of me I could see the light and smoke from various small fires peppered around the crumbling remains of some ancient city. Adjusting the knife at my back, I took a long, deep breath and made the last push down into the valley.

Next Chapter...

Artist

Ophelia of the Spirits

Song

Shame

Reason

iTunes had this song as a free download while I was writing this chapter. What could I say, instant love. The vocals and piano work extremely well and when the hard rock kicks in, pure love.

My ears took a while to adjust to the level of noise. Eventually I found comfort in the forest chatter.

‘At least none of these birds can talk.’

I thought to myself.