The creature had disappeared into the
forest, never to be seen again. Its awful grimace was imprinted in their
brains, a horrible smile that awoke their biggest fears and darkest nightmares.
The only thing that it had told them was that the planet they were in was
called something he couldn’t repeat in their language but that they could
easily relate that word with something like “Somber”. So that was the dreary
name of the tree filled planet they had appeared in, only a few days ago.
The taller guy touched his chest,
uncomfortable. He had failed to notice a small pain, for the last hours. They
had been running and walking for so long, he had prioritize survival and had
not really paid attention to himself or the news he had received fairly
recently. It was kind of strange to see a man that had received news so
devastating, just walking through a forest, thinking of what animal to catch
next. The fact that he had a heart problem was the least of his issues.
The smaller guy, on the other side, had been thinking
about it all the way since they had appeared in the planet. He didn’t wanted to
talk about it if his partner didn’t want to, and he had made it clear he didn’t
want to talk about such an important matter, but it bothered him. The fact that
something might happen and he would lose the only other person nearby was very
difficult to accept. Besides, he felt something different from the times they
were in the resistance and thinking about it didn’t help.
Finally, they stopped walking when the sun set
behind a snow-capped mountain. They had been following a path through a valley
and now they were on the slopes of a big mountain. The good thing was the trees
were shorter, so they could see more of the place they were in. The tall guy
was the hunter that night, catching some kind of big bird, very similar to a
turkey but with the capacity of flying. They ate it in silence and when the
time came to sleep, they did it separately.
They couldn’t really sleep though. Both of
them felt they needed to talk to the other. But when one of them decided to
open his mouth, an explosion could be heard across the valley. They stood up
right away, grabbed their stuff and run up to the top of the mountain. It was
very cold there but it was pretty nearby and it was the only way to get away
from the explosion and, at the same time, knowing what exactly had happened.
When they reached the top, the flames across the valley were easily visible.
The wind seemed to be making it worse: the flames were as tall as trees.
The two men looked at each other, but they
didn’t know what to do. They could run away from the fire but something told
them they should be right there to watch. After all, an explosion had ignited
the fire and there was very little chance that it had occurred naturally. They
stayed put and waited. The fire jumped from one tree to the other. Watching it
was mesmerizing, as if the fire was alive somehow. It really looked alive,
engulfing a tree and then consuming it in seconds.
Then, the wind blew harder and it brought cold
with it. The short guy caressed his arms, trying to stay warm. When they had
disappeared from Earth, they had no clothes proper for such an environment.
Only the taller guy had his backpack with him and, luckily, it had many of the
weapons they had recently used to put up traps for the enemy. It had come in
handy for hunting and igniting fires to roast the food. Then they both realized
something about the flames consuming the forest.
The short guy looked in the backpack and took
out a pair of binoculars to check out the place the flames were consuming.
Instantly, he grabbed the hand of his partner and look at him directly into his
eyes. Slowly, he told him they had been eating breakfast there that same
morning, on the other side of the valley. He said he recognized a tree so tall
that it was a bit bent at the tip. The taller guy verified that himself and
realized that couldn’t be a coincidence. Something else was wrong.
They agreed to walk along the top of the
mountain. That side of the valley had no snow but a very fast and chilly wind,
as well as rocks that kept rolling down to the lower part of the valley. It was
very tricky to walk, so they had to grab each other by the hand and try not to
kill themselves while doing it. Sometimes they looked at each other, but they
preferred not to do so because it made them think too much of home and those
feelings and memories hurt more than any rock or cold wind.
Suddenly, another explosion made them lost
their balance. One of them had to grab the other harder by the hand. It was
difficult to pull someone else up after walking so much but it was harder to
think that they would be alone. As the flames seemed to be getting closer, they
both regained flat land and ran as much as they could. None of them had no idea
of why they were doing that but it seemed like the best thing to do was to get
away fast. Eventually, they reached a cliff and they had to stop running. They
started sweating even more when they stopped.
The flames were close to them but now it seemed
to be a single huge flame. The heat emanating from it was almost burning their
skin but, for some reason, it stopped moving towards them, as if it had noticed
that its heat was hurting them. The moment seemed to last forever. In their
eyes, they could only see the red and orange flames, as if they were absolutely
enthralled by fire. But, if they were to be honest, they had no intention of
running anymore. They felt they had to be there.
Suddenly, the flames seemed to be reducing
their size. But as that happened, a creature emerged from the inside of the
fire. It seemed to be very tall, taller than any human being anyone had ever
seen. It was very difficult to know if it had any gender or what kind of
creature it could be: aggressive or pacifist? Its skin seemed to be made of a
material similar to rocks, the kind you find near a volcano. It was dark and
seemed to be covered with as. Its eyes were red as fire.
The creature got closer and just looker at
them. It had a human form but maybe it was doing that to imitate them or to be
less intimidating. If that was the case, it was failing miserably because the
two humans it had in front of it were very scared. So scared actually, that
they hadn’t stopped grabbing each other’s hand since the moment they had
started running. They only realized this when the creature created a hand out
of its own body and, with one dark finger, it pointed at their hands holding.
They could have screamed or said something to
the creature but they didn’t. The creature kept pointing at them, opening its
eyes wider. Then, it pulled back, turned back into a gigantic flame and
launched itself into the sky. From their point of view, it looked like a comet
crossing the night sky. Eventually, it disappeared but it left a line in the sky
and a certain sweet smell all around the forest. The place that had burned grew
over night, as if nothing had ever happened.
They woke up the next day, thinking about the
creature they had just seen. At first, it seemed as if nothing had changed after
they had encountered it. However, they started holding hands more and more, and
they didn’t think about it for a second.
Furthermore, they started talking more to each
other as they walked across Somber, laughing some times and sharing their
personal stories as they ate or cleaned themselves in rivers or lakes.
Eventually, they fell in love. But that’s another story that I won’t tell right
now.