Joshs Blog

When his feet abated into the warm sand, he felt at ease, peaceful, a hell consumed, yet distant enough to be neglected. A washing breeze from the currents overpowered him, guided by the seashores of colossal salt water that enriched the air, suffocating, but pleasant, nonetheless. Timelessly smashing against the beach, the water intruded, drowning his feet, turning sand into a mud-like essence, hardening and cooling, making it easier to stroll. The waves were composed and tranquil, yet they crashed with the savagery of violent battles, endless war, wiping out everything that wakes in its destructive path. Easily disintegrating waves retreating from the surface, returning, feeding into the energies of an undiscovered ocean, pulled by the gravity of a celestial orbit, the swells were alive. Even the air that accompanied the waves intoxicated him, controlled him, breathed for him, lifting him toward a light that spoke to him, begged him, yet condemned him with disappointing shame.

A diminishing light highlighted a rainbow of florescence, brightest along the horizon, darkest overhead with yellow, red, green, blue, and purple in between. Yet, the sun still peeked, refusing to part over a world that introduced its newest arrival, an image onto its own, formed eloquently from the principal of amnesty after years of struggle. When the light bid farewell, devoured by a green hue-like cloud, the oceans turned black, the sands a dark brown, and the milky white moon guiding his way home. Alexander Krueger replaced his washed footsteps with fresh ones to a small hut beyond the arms of a natural inhaler.

Yet, that light remained. No, not the moon, not the departed sun, nor the cooking fires or the glow of cherry red from his cigarettes. “Alex,” said a quiet whisper. “Come back to me, brother.” It repeated, some times more frequently than others, tirelessly defeated in the end. It came from the light, a transparent glow, reversing from above, descending, barely diminishing when colliding along the base of the shores. Just enough to cover his body, no more, the light’s circumference was, stationary, focused, and avoided at all costs.

Taking a seat on his father’s beautifully crafted rocking chair, constructed of dark maple, and an oil-based polish resisting the salty air, Alexander leaned back, pushing his body backwards with his thick legs, relaxing when the chair weakly tilted forward. Fully stocked, replenished with a magic that seemed all too fictitious, cigarettes were plenty. Still, he didn’t dwell on the magic that blossomed around him. A drag made him more at peace, relaxing under a constant temperature that was suited for tropical shirts, shorts and twine sandals.

It’s not natural, that light. It wasn’t influenced, nor does it influence. Alexander looked at it, paying close attention to the accompanying voices. They didn’t make sense, they were foreign, unknown, but they trembled, sometimes echoing within a large ball room in which a whisper accidentally becomes a shout. It wasn’t a concern; it amused him, kept him busy, a conversation in the company of strangers that didn’t speak his language.

Since arriving a week earlier, Alexander found his home perfect, save for one omission. This was it, peace, rest, a world to himself, doing as he pleased. He intended that, stretching his legs out, tucking his hands behind his head dramatically pushing his elbows outward. What happened, happened. It’s resolute to an ending that he had no idea existed; not like this, not like the books, the stories, or the lessons. Again, it didn’t matter. Here was here, and here he’d remain.

During the morning sun, when the currents calmed, he would stand in the shallows, motionless, like a statue with a pointed spear aiming downward. When seafood became less desirable, he hunted inside the black forests, lands that pushed deep inside the foreign world, thick with ageless trees, shrubbery and a variety of meats; infinite and endless. Spears and arrows did the trick; it was the warrior in Alexander that appreciated the hunt. He didn’t always win, the more nimble paranoid bucks would escape Alexander’s spear with the slightest anomalous twist of a disrupted forest floor. When he pulled his bow, radar hit its highest, commanding maximum speed to be reached within a fraction of a second. It frustrated, yet charmed him. Even though he couldn’t bring down the bucks, his admiration for their sense of survival grew. They listened to everything, independently rotating their ears. Many winters ago, he had killed the largest buck in the Minnesota cold, with his father quietly directing Alexander’s shot. To this moment, that had been the only buck Alexander killed. It consumed him, challenged him, and completed his right to passage of some form.

Wild hogs were plentiful, though dangerous. Nothing beats the smell and taste of frying bacon over the cooking fires settling on the beach during a rising sun, where the light isn’t as bright, and a large orange ball didn’t burn your vision into mythical white haze. However, like tiring of seafood, he wanted variety. He wanted that god damn buck.

The next morning, he left for a hunt; bow snug across his back, an ill-shaped blade at his hip, a long spear horizontally positioned within a tight grip of his right hand. Slowly, he walked, stepping around sawed branches, wild undergrowth, using his spear as an impromptu walking stick. His steps were methodically placed, premeditated, a path already seen in which the air would remain an unmolested silence; he was a hunter. Leaning against a tree, his body out of view, Alexander peered around. There it was, a sixteen-point buck, with the same body art, the same paranoid eyes and ears, grazing around a small patch of grass.

Slowly, carefully, allowing his muscles to tense to keep accidental disturbances to a minimum, Alexander removed his bow, drawing back an arrow he retrieved behind his left shoulder, anxious for his most monumental achievement. This was it, the buck that’s eluted him for a week, feeding, listening, always aware, always readying for escape. He could taste the meat, the sizzling warm substance that would settle in his stomach while smoking his accomplishments from a stack of replenished cigarettes before he uncomfortably slept.

The twine on the bow refused to draw further, rounding the bow to its most stressful position. His hand steady, the arrow in place, the task, the kill, the food, the challenge, all made possible lifting his left thumb from the arrow. When the buck lifted its head, it turned to Alexander, looked at him, stunned him, causing pause. Why wasn’t it running? Why did it look at him? Was it a realization of an end, or a question? Was it speaking to him? Foolish, it’s only a buck, allowed to graze for the amusement of hunters, filling stomachs, a coat to warm villages.

However, this wasn’t the world that Alexander recognized. This was different; all of the rules have changed.

Calmly standing, staring at Alexander with unblinking black eyes and ears circling like a radio antenna, the buck altered providence. The hunter lessened the stress on his bow, carefully stepping towards the buck. Snapping twigs, disturbed swishes of protesting underbrush, the buck wasn’t frightened, standing rigid, staring, lifeless, yet very much alive.

Alexander reached the openness, trees circularly separated, like an area, or a miniature coliseum. Slowly, he neared the buck, cautious not to alarm it, listening to himself whisper reassurances that it was safe, that it would be protected from the predator that no man had ever seen before. His hands lifted, pointing fingers to the sky revealing his palm to the animal, the befriended. The hunter smiled, becoming a friend, rather than a villain, a murderer, an enemy of orphaned children.

Closed to within a step of touching the animal, Alexander stopped. “It’s all right,” promised the friend. “I won’t hurt you.” Its eyes were a glossy black, its antlers numbered sixteen, similar to the buck he killed in the Minnesota cold with his father. “There, there,” Alexander said gently pressing his palm against the buck’s smooth coat, gliding over his hand in a linear motion away from its head. Closing its eyes, the buck lowered its head and made a funny noise, sounds of comfort the friend assumed; like the state of peace that Alexander has felt for seven days, and seven nights.

Through the deep forests, the black forests that suffocated daylight like an enemy at war, a rain formed. It wasn’t precipitation Alexander had known before, this was different; white specs with attached whiskers, flaps gliding from the trees, filling the forest floor like a winter snow during summer; except the snows were floating seeds negotiating newer generations of thriving forestry. Closing his eyes to feel the warmth of a passing breeze that brought an unknown rejuvenation, Alexander felt consumed, intoxicated, apart of the forest, the world, the air, the dirt, the water and even the snows that dusted the forest.

You have to get back!

A disapproving growl exploded somewhere in the forests, horrifying the buck into a sprint while instinctively spinning Alexander into a defensive spin. When he looked back, the buck was gone, disguised and aided by thick bases of million-year old trees. No more growl, no more buck, there was only Alexander; a form of him at least. Slowly, the former hunter tracked himself back to the shore, ignited a fire, relishing a slab of overstocked pork.

After his meal, as the sun dispersed into green smoke, he sat in his chair, rocking, smoking a cigarette, staring at the artificial light that never changed, never flickered, always there, always kindled, as powerful as the days and nights before. “Brother, come back to me,” said the whisper from the light; crying and frustrated. Alexander flicked his half-consumed cigarette and stalked the light, irritably shouting, “Who are you? Where are you? Why do you speak to me? Leave me alone, let me rest in peace!”

A beastly roar erupted, growling with mile-long fangs, trampling massive trees with the strength of inconceivable power. It didn’t bother Alexander; it was natural, a growth within his stomach and instinct. Stalking the light, Alexander’s own mouth curved into hatred, shouting curses, demanding answers to questions that didn’t make sense. Closer, trees buckled, shattered and trembled. Alexander finally disregarded the light, making way for his spear that leaned against the hut next to his chair.

It was too late.

The beast had already emerged from the black forest, approaching him on two hind legs, inverted for quick acceleration and powerful attacking leaps. The lining of its ribcage pressed against its stomach, pushing outward with each drawn breath from oversized lungs. Its arms, bulky and muscular, pushed outward with broad and powerful shoulders. Fangs rolled out from its mouth, exposed, independently scenting Alexander’s warm blood. Its eyes were red, black, and pure white, hidden behind thin strains of oily brown hair, wet, just removed from a red bath.

This was a predator, a beast, perfectly constructed by a god that demanded one pure mechanism of death in Alexander’s world. Slowly, the beast closed the gap weakly cupping the sand with oversized talons, compensated with legs of pure muscle. Only a child’s God would make such abominations.

Like two warriors before a duel of honor, to the death, their chests pumped with vicious poison and foul breath, their eyes locked through each other. The beast’s fangs were exposed, slowly drawing the salty air, prolonging a hypnotic trance.

Then, it growled. When its upper paw swung at Alexander, the warrior rolled away, feeling the fatal gust over his head. The warrior returned to his feet, crouched in defense, as the beast deflected its natural speed, for raw strength and power, looking to disable the warrior with one blow.

Alexander stood, kicked soft dry sand into the beast’s eyes. Covering its face, it howled, long and deep. Birds in the forest rose from the tall trees in panic, while other creatures and critters in the forests trampled. When its red ruby eyes returned a laser-like stare, Alexander bent his knees, extended out his arms, lifting his hands up.

The warrior jumped, extending his left leg outward, kicking the beast in the chest, knocking it into a three-step retreat. Alexander landed on his side, flipped over, and rolled backwards out of reach. Again, the beast approached. This time, Alexander sprinted at the beast, somersaulting over the abomination, landing behind it. With his right foot planted, Alexander his left foot kicked through the beast’s back.

Once the beast viciously turned around, it spread its arms and growled loudly. Slowly, the beast closed the gap, growling forcefully, shaking its head like an animal shredding away meat from the hide of its prey. Its right leg lifted, tossing a handful of fine sand into Alexander’s face causing momentary blindness. The beast lunged at Alexander, bringing both fists into the warrior’s chest. In slow motion, Alexander watched the ground pass under him before landing on the dry surface of soft sands. Wiping the sand away from his face, the warrior raised. Large impacted paws dig into the ground, while the beast’s talons were ineffectively neutralized; maybe it didn’t use its claws for speed; rather a tool for feeding.

Unexpectedly, the beast leaned forward into a four-legged sprint. The warrior motioned to roll away, but the beast leveled its shoulder into Alexander’s chest, propelling him backwards to the edges of where water meets sand. Back on two legs, the beast stalked the warrior who was shaking away excess water from his face and dark hair.

Each time, the beast threw the warrior, Alexander was closer to the light emanating from above. The moon was gone, darkness grew darker. Clouds blanketed light, his sight all but ineffective. Red ruby eyes exposing its position and heavy breathing dreadfully declared its intentions. Thump, thump, the beast approached in a sprint. Instead of rolling away, the warrior tried to stand against the charge. Rather, his chest squeezed, and he was airborne again, gliding past the dying cooking fire, and rolling forward to a stop, further from the light this time.

Disappearing through darkness, gone like dissolving clouds after a rainstorm, the beast was gone. Why didn’t it just kill him? What was the point of tossing Alexander around? Sprawled in the sand, out of danger, Alexander breathed, watching a white orb return from the thick depressing dark clouds. Returning to his chair and tending to his wounds, mostly bruises and a scrap along his forearm, the warrior resolved to his thoughts. It didn’t kill Alexander, didn’t mortally wounded him. Why? It was the first time that Alexander wasn’t at peace since arriving; as a result, from the forests came a grizzly beast with unlimited strength, commanding its will onto the only human existing near the shores.

The next morning, Alexander packed a loaf of bread, two makeshift bottles of river water made of coconut, and a ball of twine. With his bow across his back, his blade in his pocket, the hunter walked into the woods, slowly canvassing the area before stretching deeper into the black forest; a term he used because the sun wasn’t prevalent here, with trees that age in the millions; dramatically defending darkness, save for few penetrations that allowed its influence to spread.

Hunter and scout, Alexander allowed the wilderness to overwhelm him again; its beauty, its life, its serenity. Critters and creatures, fearless, however cautious, walked in paths across the hunter’s journey. Smell of the morning dew, releasing from the sparkles of green, intoxicated him again. Deeper into the woods, larger animals roamed, mostly herbivores, communicating with low rumbles that could be heard for miles; a low reverberation that collided, expanded, journeyed, until the voice was recognized, deciphered and responded to. Some were gray in nature; others were coated with a dark brown fur. White horses made of shadow ran near the planes off to the West, and Eagles twice their natural size squawked above the heaven-piercing trees.

West, he continued. Dim, bright, dark, luminous, it was all too random. Sometimes the black forest was true to its name when it wasn’t betrayed. Later, the explorer planned to chart the area, clarifying different regions for more appropriate names. He was learning to track, remembering claw marks that shredded weak bark, boulders that accompanied twisted trees, unique branches; everything was nominated. After all, if he was going to live here, shouldn’t he know this forest like the streets of Minnesota?

Further west, he walked, journeyed, observed, and learned, experiencing new creatures not born of Earth, but all too familiar. Many walked uncaringly past Alexander, as if the explorer didn’t exist. Some furry animal rubbed against his leg, drawing a blade for the trouble, and then relaxing with a gentle stroke feeling the contours of their smooth fur while vocally expressing acceptance. He was born of these woods, apart of the symbiotic life, accepted among some friends and ignore by most. Absent of threats, save for a beast that overwhelmed him during the last high moon, the forests felt of home.

The buck! Out of the transparency, the Buck stood, staring at Alexander. Its body faced, like two old friends walking alone on the street, bumping into each other for the first time since childhood. Alexander slowly approached, a bit more freely than their first encounter. Again, he put both hands out, showing it had nothing to fear, no reason to run. The buck lowered its head while the explorer ran his hands down its back, talking to it with additional reassurances. Its antlers were wild, sharp, and fatal with a punch.

“Hello, friend,” said the former hunter, now explorer and friend. Slowly, yet firmly, Alexander ran his hand over its back, along the fur towards its hide. He didn’t want to spike it, didn’t want to make the buck uncomfortable, so he never ran his hand towards it neck, always away, comforting his new friend.

Suddenly, it left, leaping, dodging, and sprinting to the south. “Wait,” shouted Alexander rather childishly. This time he pursued, sprinting, waiting for the buck to tire. The pursuer’s unlimited endurance kept the buck in sight. When the forest pointed a directional change, Alexander shifted west. The pursuer jumped deceased logs, ducked midlevel branches, and dodged stationary, unmovable trees. He could hear the trample, the four wild legs chaotically galloping on the ground, disturbing it into a haze of dirt and dust.

Just ahead, the sun slammed into an open field, unlike any thing in the forest. It was twenty helicopter landing pads wide and very exposed. Alexander slowed his sprint, holding onto the final tree along the edge, staring at the one thing that shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t normal, wasn’t apart of the forest. Yet, it was there, unquestionably there.

Casting shadows, bound to the annular grassland, an aging Ruin erected of ancient stone. Along the angled roof that pointed towards a heavenly tip were equally dissolved steps aligning towards the capitol of a missing beacon. Nothing existed around it, save for dead blades of grass. Trees kept their distances, forest dwellers opened a path around it; this building, this ancestry, visually warned Alexander that he shouldn’t invade it.

The ruin bulged from the ground, lifted, and breathed. A ghostly wind exhaled from its mouth, bending limbs, swaying shrubbery, freezing Alexander’s warm skin. A frost formed around his mouth, and the sun dimmed. The hidden buck returned, at the edge of its belly, taking one quick glance at Alexander before turning into shadow inside the ruin, unopposed and unafraid. Alexander looked down and picked up the baseball bat size log at his feet. It took the nervous explorer every bit of five minutes to reach the base, hesitant, feeling a sudden fright that overwhelmed natural curiosity. Running his hand over the stone walls, tracing his fingers over the unusual hieroglyphics, feeling the presence of something unusual, threatening, and perhaps, aggressive.

As he convinced himself inside the ruin, Alexander removed the bag from his shoulder, opened the top and revealed excess twine wrapping it around the fattest end of the log, bringing it to flame with his flip-top lighter.  Reflections peered ahead, a set of eyes, the buck’s eyes, encouraging Alexander forward. So he did.

The walls were bare, save for the groves where thick mud sealed large stones into place. Rough and sharp, his fingers felt the sandpaper grooves along the walls, stones shifted in time through corrosion, gravity, and moisture. Dirt composed the ground, the ruin built without a floor atop of grass suffocating without the succoring sun to sustain it. No other corridor existed, for now it was a single path, a single way, towards an unknown, perhaps unimaginable destination that only the curious mind of an explorer with replenishing motivations would allow. 

The buck was gone, he couldn’t see it; he couldn’t see much of anything, save for the circular plate of a flaming globe around Alexander. Slowly burning, his make-shift torch would live for a time, with another handful of twine in the backpack that rested over his right shoulder. Because the twine turned to ash, and the torch was slowly taking to flame, speed became an issue.

Seeing nothing ahead, Alexander leaned his torch against the wall, reading the graphics, the designs, and the hieroglyphics that accompanied him. A man throwing a spear at a beast, or a baby crying without a mother to guide his principles, a man, praised and honored, lifting his palms to the sky afore an uncountable crowd. Another woman, simply covered with a thin gown, stood over children. Stopping, Alexander looked at another, impressively interesting to his own instincts and curiosity. A single man, with a prepared spear, looking forward, throwing an elevation towards a distant enemy that stood with a humanoid figure, unafraid, defending something, or someone. They didn’t attack each other; one became the other, all the attributes of their strengths emphasized.

As he reached an intersection where the path split into three directions, Alexander stood at the center. Quiet and dark, each path represented a staunch defense against betrayal towards the path that it led to. Instead, Alexander backed away, returning to the outside stale air with a dark red sun; three times closer than before. The explorer choose to return to the shores, have a feed, get sleep and bring more twine with him. Each path could be endless, so he needed more fuel for a torch he had to design; flame would burn more efficiently if cupped inside a moist bowl. He’ll return tomorrow, more prepared, twice as eager.

Back on his rocking chair, having his post-meal smoke, Alexander stared at the light. This time, he didn’t care for it; instead reflecting on the ruin, the stationary ghost that survived unlimited time built by those he shouldn’t exist. The picture of a man and beast; the man overseeing people, the mother caring for children; what did they all mean? What was the civilization that existed before and the names of the storytellers that told the stories? In truth, he didn’t know what they meant. Alexander couldn’t read, understand or interpret them. He perceived them at face value, simply pictures that told a story without the hint of its sourced endurance. Still, they were too fascinating to ignore, to be left unread, telling stories of whoever lived before him.

Then he was washed with feeling the ocean breeze that surrounded him, touched and penetrated him. After another drag, he reflected that this was perfection, a world onto himself, made for him. No, not a world made for him; it existed long before him. Others came walked these sands, through the same woods and befriending the same buck. It had to be true, or no ruin with stories would exist.

Time was expanded beyond timelessness; a challenged theory proven with a rotational sun departed after a green cloud swirl. The moon was closer, twice the circumference as before, and the waves beat against the sands twice as powerfully. Sometimes he lowered his eyes, but critters and creatures in the woods made him uneasy. He was a warrior, always in tune, always planning an offense, or an escape; maybe not honorable, but it increased survivability odds and survival was always paramount. Survival, a funny word to use. No, he was an explorer, a hunter and a friend.

When he returned to the ruin the following morning, he carefully crafted his observations. Slinging his backpack over his right shoulder, Alexander pulled a ball of excess twine and a small torch with a curved cup soaked in salt water to slow the flame’s expansion. Once the twine took to flame, Alexander walked through the ghastly passages, ignoring the stories along the path. Having experienced this path already, he was similarly nervous and anxious. He couldn’t help but kick a feeling that this time tomorrow, something would be revealed.

Once he reached the intersection, Alexander dropped a drink of water on the dirt, tracing his fingers into the shape of an arrow. It’s possible that passages turned, bent, twisted, or broke into an array of directions; he needed to mark where he had been, arrows guiding him for a speedy escape.

After a quick sigh, he moved ahead, allowing the flanking corridors to momentarily remain undisturbed. Much of the way, walls were designed with stories before they were legends and legends before they were myths. His bow firmly lying against his back, his metal blade in his pocket, Alexander felt no threat. No reason to fear an unknown, with simply darkness that scares children during stories told at campfires afore him. Don’t fear darkness, nothing roams here, nothing that could bring death; survival was no longer paramount for a story that forecasted failure.

Then, a blue evanescence weakly emitted a destination ahead. Even it provided guidance, ironically the light made him more cautious. Alexander, the warrior, the explorer, the friend of a mighty buck, left his excess twine in the backpack allowing his torch to blink out.

He entered the circular room; tall and winding, explosive in size, with a single blue gem glowing from the room’s center, sealed with a stone grip that rose from many layers of soil below. Alexander looked around, seeking an unseen ceiling. It wasn’t long before he was gasping at the amount of stories, fables, myths and legends that decorated the stone walls. This was a library, but not of the modern scene. Rather than shelves of books, or rows of aging periodicals, the text were written on the walls, telling stories, documenting lives, generations and civilizations before this world invited an ignorant, however curious guest.

A stone staircase rose along the circular walls, reaching beyond the shadows that masked the ruin’s ceiling. Blue in light, powerless to shine the entire room, the little gem at the room’s center illuminated enough to ascend the winding staircase. Instead, Alexander wrapped new twine around his torch, putting it to flame causing a hypnotic dance of blue and yellow.

The stories were rich in nature, epic on the scales of who wrote them, yet undefined for the ignorant. Many told the transition to manhood, others showed battle, an epic battle, one that would raise a civilization, or destroy it. The fighting enemy was always a beast, always with fangs and dripping blood. The protagonist, the people, stood half-bare, cocking their spear.

It was the central man, a mighty figure sitting on an elaborately designed throne, looking over the children while protecting the women, holding a shaft with its upper tip outlined by an over-sized circle. A civilization lived here, people, with a leader, warriors, children and women, all breeds for a powerful kingdom. Where did they go? Alexander moved along the wall, taking to the stairs that spiraled along the walls. Reading the difficult stories and taking into account the pictures with the comparative narratives that designed Alexander’s character.

He read the next stone, seeing a civilization standing behind a wall with many archers aiming and releasing their bow from an elevated position. Scores of enemy fell, smaller beasts with thin chest plates and exposed helmet to reflect their deeply frightening teeth. Beasts threw spears, some proficient with a bow. A mighty beast in the rear pointed forward, declaring charge to its beast mates. They did, in waves, unlimited in number, unrivaled in ferocity with pointed metal swords towards the charge. When they mounted the wall, the people threw oil and tar, putting the hellish beasts to flame.

Next stone didn’t say whether that tactic worked or not, only that the beasts were risen again, encased in the same fire, growling more brutal in their hunger. Archers started falling, as the beasts climbed. Sword battles took place, many of the warriors slain. Yet, the man on the throne reappears, sitting over his children, women and his subordinates, the warriors. Men hacked along the paths of a city with its wall breached, while children and women huddled before the foot of the man that sat upon a throne.

Two circles formed around the tip of his staff, remaining vertical, without any guidance, or structure to hold it. Additionally a circle was drawn over his upward palms, each picture showing larger circles around smaller ones, eventually overwhelming the women and children within the largest sphere. The ocean swelled, far past the shores, through the black forests. A flood swarmed the lands, killing all of those outside the man’s protected sphere. Then, after the flood ended, the waters stood forever lost under leagues of pressing ocean. Passing ships, even modern in technology, would fail to find it, always hidden, always gone. The people moved; they had to. They came here, built this ruin, and told this story, among thousands more.

Central to all of them, was the man on the throne holding his staff, sometimes with an orbital tip and sometimes not. Men walked on water, others described fathers and mothers for no purpose. Always, the man on the throne watched, protected and fought when called upon. The man on the throne, opposite the beast that commanded a charge, faded from other scripts. The last story in this sequence along the staircase that Alexander ascended from showed the man finally departing from his throne, to confront the beastmaster. A bolt of lightening encircled both, a light blossoming from the thin air joining enemies as one. It was all very confusing, none of them were descriptive enough to make one less contradictory than the next.

Alexander turned back, meticulously examining each slab of stone that the ancient staircase, before trusting the steep descent. Using the blue gem as guidance, leaning his right hand against the while, gripping his torch with his left, Alexander halted midway when a shadow emerged.

“Who are you,” panicked Alexander. For days unremembered, the explorer had seen nothing that resembled another person. When the shadow fled the hallway, Alexander shouted, “stop”. The stairs were endless, without a fracture, a treadwheel of descent. Carelessly racing, Alexander slipped, tumbling the final three stones crashing onto the cobblestone floor. When he stood, he clutched his right shoulder sensing it damaged again, but from where? After he relit the torch, Alexander slung his backpack over his uninjured shoulder and left the library in pursuit.

The shadow cloaked in the guise of total darkness as Alexander pressed forward. Stopping at the crossroads, the intersection, with the arrow marking his way out, Alexander wildly looked at the ground, hoping for some direction that this shadow escaped. Instead, he turned to the right. No passages lived on these walls, just symbols of a language unspoken for such a time that no history book printed. Instead of dust and dirt, the floor turned to cobblestones, dark perceptions with a maroon flicker under fire.

When he reached the corridor’s end, Alexander emerged into another wide room, far less encompassing than the library, with a stone block and sharp cutting edges. Unlike the silent library, there was a distinctive hum, like a surplus of charged electricity waiting for instruction, or to unleash hell. Alexander circled the stone block looking for the shadow, ditching his explorative efforts as a secondary instinct. Sensing that he was alone, Alexander passed through the intersect again, down the scoreless corridor, braking at another big block standing at the room’s center with the same distinctive hum. No shadow, nothing. It was boring, a bland room with smooth walls, no breaks, made from a large stone that required a craftsman’s perfection of a flawless rectangle.

Thump, thump. When he jerked towards the intersect, a set of red ruby eyes menaced, encompassed by darkness and icing Alexander’s skin. Momentarily paralyzed, he stared. A dry throat, combined with shock and fright, muted his voice. Thick legs crushed the packed dirt floor, while red ruby eyes glinted, closing on its quarry like a terrifying nightmare that children fabricate after watching scary movies late at night. The currents humming from the rectangle intensified, an audible pulse generating power, growing in strength, unleashed once the switch was pulled. Creases along the stones illuminated a cat’s eye color, pulsating like a fatally slow heartbeat, or a war between light and darkness, the glow submitted to darkness.

Setting in place his torch on the rectangle block that centered the room, Alexander shed the blade from his pocket, standing posed and eager. Thump, thump, it grew closer, the room turned golden again, and the beast’s talons dragged along the cobblestone floor. Its eyes penetrated a deathly stare, and its massive frame emerged from the corridor’s darkness, silhouetted by the torch that was artificially distinguishing. The tight room turned out to be Alexander’s handicap, quickness and speed counterbalanced by claustrophobic walls. Breath to breath, eye to eye, the beast and warrior once again sized their bodies in alignment while golden echoes dimmed to darkness.

With its massive roar, the beast swung its incurable paws over Alexander’s evading head. Pivoting on his right foot, Alexander slashed the beast’s chest, forcing it to yelp in transitory retreat. Not to mention God’s most grizzly schemes, something was very wrong here. Alexander felt a siphoning sensation that trickled a warming liquid coat across his own chest, which revealed blood from his investigative hand.

Approaching with reverberating ponderous legs and thick talons shattering the cobblestone floors, the beast exploded a deafening roar. Instantly, the beast turned into a blur, a four-legged sprint covering the gap with a transparent approach. Impacting Alexander’s chest, the warrior took flight over the rectangle until his spine impacted the collision against the stone wall. On all four limbs, catching his breath with indisposed lungs, Alexander peered over the rectangle and noted that the beast was on its knees with its malignant paws holding it up for support. 

Using the rectangle block to propel himself through the air, Alexander fastened the handle with both hands, using the ill-shaped metal slab to target the beast’s shoulder; not the head, it could kill them both. As his biceps tensed, the beast’s head whipped up with its arms squeezing talons into Alexander’s injured shoulder and tossing him into the coordinator.

Leaving a wake of shattered cobblestones, the beast hunted Alexander, violently shaking its head, blotting the torch behind it. Once darkness painted the corridor and its terrifying red ruby eyes grew, Alexander crawled away feeling a paralyzing pain in his right shoulder before pushing himself into an erect sprint. Thump, thump, it walked, stalked and prowled Alexander. Feeling faint after losing so much blood, Alexander stumbled. Quickly afterwards, almost expectedly, the beast collapsed behind him, panting and breathing erratically. Alexander stood again, leaning against the wall, driving on intuition. Looking back, the red ruby eyes were encompassed behind darkness, and then shined, like a blink, or a heavily drawn sigh.

Using the walls to navigate through darkness, Alexander found a break, reaching the intersect. Turning right, Alexander pressed towards the library, leaning against the wall to delay his eventual collapse. The injured beast followed, infiltrating the ruin’s silence with a weakened roar. Alexander looked back, and its red rub eyes were blinking, unthreatening, injured, perhaps on death’s doorsteps. Since his lightheadedness prevented logical judgment and tactical analysis, Alexander pushed forward. His depressed and tired body entered the library, limping to the blue gem, with a cadenced swirl, like water reflecting a shine throughout the unlit hall. As Alexander moved his hand closer to the gem, the reflective light radiated more erratically, brighter, blinding. Singing, echoing, and shaking, the gem built an ancient energy, visually and audibly, shattering and shrinking the world like liquefying into a singularity.

When his fingers felt the smooth glass sides, the gem’s light turned to a blinding white light, forcing Alexander to shield his eyes. His connection with the gem was fierce, unrelenting and purposeful, strengthening violence of the ruin’s destabilization. Alexander pulled the gem from its base, feeling an overwhelming sense of dreadful power as he lost his balance, watching dislodged stones smashing on the ground. Stories were lost, a civilization at an end, no longer legend, no longer myth.

“Son,” something rang from the earthquake.

Paws attached to lethal talons painfully dug into his right shoulder, forcefully spinning him around, pressing both man and beast into an uncompromising final showdown. Powerfully dangerous, the luminosity of the gem’s irrevocable intensity blinded. Finally, the beast revealed its fangs, shrieking, loud, with an equivalent strength. Alexander couldn’t resist the beast, couldn’t avoid the fatal drillings into his neck. Severing muscle, tissue, and veins erupting into streams of dark blood, the beast savored the taste, drowning the library’s collapse with uncontrolled eruptions of lifelessness. Alexander’s arms and legs were numbing, his head spinning, his life-force shrinking. Exploding like shockwave of light, the gem overpowered the library, expanding past the ruins, into the fictional world that existed in dreams over long periods of sleep. The ruin’s structure shook, clouds of white smoke dissolving stones, dirt and air.

Only angels could sing the songs that Alexander perceived; a spectacular bliss passing an event horizon, waving good bye to a world he didn’t belong. Stones gave way from the ceiling, paving daylight’s breach into the library. White doves circled, diving into the library, studying Alexander’s body slowly dissolve into white smoke, like the beast inhaling life from his punctured neck. Once rivals, their dissolving bodies danced white smoke, lacing together like two becoming one; just like the stone that unified warrior and enemy, commandeering influential understanding that separates identities, allowing one to dance while the other could not.

Finally, the gem exploded, cleansing all realities, absolving all physical properties. The ruin was gone, while blue skies transformed to heavy gray clouds, opening ocean-sized rain onto Alexander’s curled up body. There was no rubble, no evidence that any structure ever lived. No gems, no stories, no extinct civilization; only Alexander’s decaying body existed that were two equal wholes.

Before opening his eyes, he asked, “where.” To his remarkable surprise, someone responded. “My name is Dr. Janice Dean, and you’re at Tryson City Memorial Hospital. Are you, you, alright Mr. Jackson?”