The Awakened

by Julian Cheek

  Sam sat up quickly, which was his first mistake! A pain like nothing he had ever encountered before shot up from his chest, forcing him to cry out in pain and reflexively curl back up into a ball. His chest was heavily bandaged and he could sense a slickness around some of the material. A slickness that felt like blood. Of course, his senses went into overdrive as he tried to assimilate all the various options of where he was, what he was doing there and why he was bleeding, but these were all driven away in an instance when a stranger burst into the tent through the flap, ripping him urgently from his now banished sleep.

  “Sam! Thank the heavens. We thought we had lost you. If it wasn’t for Babu, I don’t want to think what could have happened.” A young man stood before him, vaguely familiar, if that were possible, the grubby looking girl hiding behind his legs, peering past to look at him, her eyes impossibly large and flashing a luminous vivid purple from deep within.

  Sam, without thinking clearly, could only utter, “Who are you and how on earth do you know my name?”

  “Sam, now is not the time for play. Now is the time for you to rise, come on out with me and stop this war. NOW!” The last was uttered with short but raised punchiness before the stranger turned and looked back at the girl, telling her urgently, “Pania. Run quickly and get Ngaire. Run like the wind, child. Tell her. He is awake!” And with that, the girl released her grip on his trousers and with a quick glance back at Sam, turned and ran headlong out through the tent flap shouting at the top of her lungs for Ngaire to come quickly, disappearing off before her voice was swallowed up in the noises from without.

  As if the troubles of the night he had already experienced were not enough, now Sam was being accosted by two strangers who he didn’t know from Adam, telling him to stop some war he knew nothing about, let alone wanted anything to do with. Sam, despite the pain pounding from his chest, decided that enough was enough regarding this most extreme of events. He stood up and faced this young man, eyes blazing with unsuppressed anger. “Look!” he blasted. “Whoever you are, THIS, is not real! YOU, are not real. Nothing is real. I don’t sort things out, I only get abused and told off and sent to bed, so get out of my sight, leave me be and stay AWAY! Nothing good is real, so why should there be any difference here?” And with that, he brushed fiercely past the youth, pushing him back with a shoulder check, before storming out of the tent and into the unknown beyond.

  Outside, pandemonium flourished! People stumbled around wherever he looked. Some kneeling over still forms, keening cries renting the air and gazes turned skywards in supplication, as if asking for help from somewhere long since vacated. Others, stepping over shapes and edges, too vivid to digest, looking with stunned faces at a world which had been destroyed in front of their very eyes, never to be healed again. Sam was too pent up to stop; instead he stormed down from the tent and through the crowd, who, as if by magic on seeing him, parted to allow his passing, almost as if reverentially opening the way for him. He was vaguely aware of their chanting as he passed. They seemed to be proclaiming, “He has come. Here is the one who will save us.” This just increased his desire to escape from the nut house he thought he had got lost in, wanting nothing more than to wake up and face his demons in the real world, rather than this self-fabricated one.

  Without a backward glance, he steered directly away from the tent and towards the mist bank in the distance, a mist bank he now saw as a saviour rather than an ominous oppressor. Had he bothered to look back, he would have seen those self-same people, who moments before were kneeling around him looking for his help, now looking to each other in confusions and despair, sunken heads falling even deeper as they saw that their Helper was instead fleeing. He would also have noticed the grubby girl trying desperately to chase after him, being held back by the young man who first approached him in the tent. His eyes, grey in the early dawn, staring after Sam’s quickly disappearing form, his ripped cloak flowing behind him, whipped away by the winds that gathered to the top of the enclave.

  The mist thinned as he approached, and, like before, it parted allowing him to progress towards a tree-lined darkness ahead of him, the mist staying apart behind him, so, had he looked back, he would have seen an arrow-straight path back to the carnage he had just witnessed.

  Sam didn’t look back; instead he staggered into the trees and tried vainly to run into its welcoming darkness. But instead, the tree branches seemed to strike out at him and the roots to trip him up, such that progress was difficult. Eventually, the slow progress had its desired effect, and the fear of the past few minutes eased sufficiently for him to slow down and try to get his bearings. Looking to the sides and up ahead offered little clue of his whereabouts, but looking back, he saw that his path had brought him up through the trees and into thicker, taller trunks that pressed around him, shutting out much of the light that attempted to break through the grey clouds that seemed to hover above him.

  It also allowed him to hear what was slowly looming up ahead. Once again, commotion appeared to be occurring in front of him and, for a moment, he thought that his struggles through the forest had instead made him angle back to the place he had just fled from. The unmistakable sound of steel on steel, crashing against one another and yet more sounds of screams bounced through the trees and mist and became clearer as he moved on. He attempted to turn away from the sound, but the trees and lack of visual perception made the sound reverberate all around him such that he lost all sense of direction other than where he knew he had been, by the mist path etched into the cloud banks behind him.

  “Why does this dream always have mist?” he asked to no one in particular. “Mind you, at least I know it’s a dream, because of it!” he said, helpfully explaining away the location, and thus also the atrocities he had just witnessed. It also allowed him to focus himself back into the “now” and the noises ahead of him, such that he moved on towards them, almost in a trance, as if he had come to accept that he was not actually there, and that, therefore, nothing could affect him.

  He sensed, more than saw that the trees were thinning and shortly, he felt the darkness lift and a dappled light start to expand across his field of visions. He stepped out from the tree-line and came across a similar scene to that he had encountered earlier.

  Fires were burning in a few locations around him. Huts, once large and proud, were now burning down into ash stumps, their few spars, a lasting testimony of the area, still pointing defiantly up into the sky. He saw many forms, silent on the ground, bent, broken, still. Some with eyes, now sightless, gazing at their last nightmare vision until that was snatched away from them in merciless haste, others, bent down to the muddy ground as if to hide from a fate they wished not to acknowledge let alone view. He saw people moving slowly, aimlessly around him, looking one way or the other, some crying out for people who he felt, rather than knew, would not be responding to the call. He saw a few fights still continuing, but these were sporadic and coming to a logical conclusion. The victor knowing that it was only a matter of time now until their objective had been achieved.

  He saw all this, and he felt… nothing!

  This is just another dream, he thought. A dream, which will disappear when I wake up. So I will not let it affect me. It means nothing. Just like life really. His demeanour, he thought, was impressively kept together. This was not a “normal dream” if any dream could be classed as “normal,” but it was just like any other in the sense that he would wake up and go on his way, without a backward glance. Or so he thought.

  He was aware of another sound. One just below the threshold of “normalness”. A sound of someone or something attempting to move quietly, surreptitiously. A sound of someone or something moving towards him, with intent. He slowly turned towards the source of the sound. It came from the same forest he had just left. It got closer, more urgent, louder. Sam felt the cool trickle of sweat down his face and tickle the small hairs on his neck, which, he noticed, had risen almost imperceptibly, as this new sound invaded his brain. He re
alised, that despite his outward bravado, this “noise” was getting to him and he started to step back slowly from whatever was coming towards him from beyond the tree line.

  Impossibly, the self-same creature, or one just like him, that he had tried in vain to escape from when he had been shot; the same creature, he now realised, had been staring at him at the pond, seemingly so long ago, and yet, actually only one night past; this same creature now burst out from the tree-line beyond and staggered towards him with, in Sam’s mind, obvious and not nice intent. Sam felt an almost impossible to control, revulsion towards this creature. Somewhere in his mind, the word “Babu” filtered into his thoughts, but he discarded this against the need to get away from this thing, and get away right NOW! The creature was trailing blood and Sam noticed he had a number of deep cuts on his fur-lined body. But it was those eyes and those razor-sharp teeth that occupied Sam’s attention.

  He turned and ran headlong, away from this “creature from hell”! But, like often happens in dreams, the creature, rather than disappear into thin air, instead increased its pace and started to run after him, trying to catch up with him, which Sam was not having, in any terms! Sam burst once more into the tree-line, hoping to fool the creature into getting lost in the mist, which surrounded them still. This only heightened the noise level of the creature, who seemed now to be thrashing only a few metres behind him, the mist and trees once more affecting the sound such that Sam quickly despaired of ever getting away from it.

  With renewed determination, Sam picked up his pace, diving through thickets and dodging now left, now right, through hedges, small trees, branches now swatting him soundly in the face and chest. All the while running from this “thing” that continued to invade his dreams like a banshee. As he ran down the hill he sensed that the creature was falling behind, and the last sound he heard from it, was almost as if a forlorn cry had left its heaving chest, crying out to him. “Saaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmm. Run no more…” it seemed to say. But of course, that’s not possible, thought Sam. Animals don’t talk, so yet again, Sam, my man, it is just another demonstration that this is indeed a dream. A very weird and very real dream, but just a dream! This uttered between ragged breathing as he tried to calm his chest, which now found the opportunity to remind him that it was still bandaged and it really hurt! He looked down at his chest, realising for the first time that he had no shirt on and instead, the bandages around his torso, now mottled and dirty, were flapping in places as the knots came undone. Darker patches were dotted around where the bleeding had started afresh and he resolved to go back to the tent, if for no other reason than to find his shirt.

  Sam eventually emerged again from the forest, sensing that he was now a little lower down the tree-line than when he first fled into it. The mist slipped effortlessly around him, but for once, he sensed a slight thinning to his left and he turned in that direction. Moving on, for the first time he saw that the mist in front of him had disappeared partly, with a clear slash running across his vision from right to left. Hey! That’s my original path from the tent, he thought. He looked to the left and saw this clear route defined, disappearing into the forest, marking where he had entered it earlier. Then looking right, he got his first real glance of the utter carnage he had fled from.

  For once, silence lay still over the whole area, like a blanket. There were no bird sounds, no rustle of trees in the wind. It was as if time had taken a deep breath and was holding it before letting it go in one huge exhalation. Beyond, he saw the area, shattered beyond description. Fires licked hungrily at the sides of tents, burning trails from one location to the next. As before, he was aware of the people on the floor. Still. Bent over in exaggerated poses, like statues similar to those found in Pompeii. In his mind, he saw many of them appear to be looking right at him, accusingly. Asking him why he had chosen to abandon them and turn away when he could have done something to stop it, but of course, he had no answer to this. A few people walked around in zombie-like states, searching for their loved ones as he approached. A few looked up as he got closer and on seeing him, slowly hung their heads or turned away from him with shoulders hunched, shaking their heads in dejection. Too tired to speak to him or challenge him on his inaction. It had an effect on him. If nothing else, and as clear as crystal, he walked into this chaos and the message he got from their faces was, “You see, Sam. In dreams, as in life, you can never please anyone!”

  For once, he allowed himself to observe what was going on. He noticed the ruts in the muddy tracks. The stones overturned and discarded to either side as vehicles had passed, the puddles forming in the depressions here and there. He saw the blades and arrows too, some lying abandoned to either side of the path, others, broken and notched, either fixed in the sides of timber, hay bales, or floor, other times protruding from people. Men, women, children. There appeared to be no selection process in this strange place. No mercy for the young or infirm. Just some mad group who took it on themselves to maim and destroy, and for what?

  Sam was lost in his thoughts and so did not notice at first that his footsteps were being matched in sound by another set, off to his right. Slightly softer, lighter, as if made by a smaller person.

  He stopped and looked up and saw her there, peering down at him with dishevelled hair and dirty face and those large, purple-lined eyes. And his walls cracked.

  “Pania?” he questioned, not sure if he had recalled her name correctly. “Is that you?” For a moment, he felt an uplifting of his morbid mood as he saw someone he at least recognised, who was not running from him, accusing him, or trying to kill him. “Are you OK?” She glanced fretfully over her shoulder, looking back over a bump in the hill to where he could not see, as if checking for reassurance to continue.

  Looking back, she put her full gaze on his. “Why?” was all she could say. With choking voice and fingers clutching the sides of her torn smock, she stood looking down at him, her feet flinching as if ready to bolt should the situation change.

  “WHY?” she challenged again. Louder this time. “Why did you go? Why did you leave me?” And it was if these few statements were enough to unlock the floodgates within her, and she started to cry the cry only young children can do. Cries from the deepest natural places of the inner self. Cries of not understanding, of abandonment, of hopeless despair where once there was just total trust in the carer.

  And Sam read every sob with complete understanding. Saw all his fears come, unbidden and uninvited, from within the form of an innocent young girl. He recognised them for what they were and he stopped.

  “Pania. I cannot explain what I do not know,” he began. “I do not know what this is all about and I do not know what message I am meant to receive or give. But I am so very sorry that you are hurting and lost and alone. You are lost and alone, Pania… But I am here, and that’s a start at least, isn’t it?”

  Pania looked through her tangled hair at him, sniffing strongly and shoulders heaving in sadness, eyes blinking back tears that refused to ease. Her fingers now tightly holding her smock across her chest, seeking some comfort in the fabric. Looking at him.

  “Pania!” Another voice. “Pania. Come away. Now!” She turned her head in shock, looking back to someone. A male. Beyond the rise of grass she stood on. Slowly a head appeared. A head of a young man. A head of someone he recognised.

  “You?” Sam exclaimed in shock. “What are you doing here? You were the one in the tent and the one on the path earlier. You were…” His flow stopped completely as more of the man appeared over the rise. For now, not only could Sam see the man’s face, he could also see that the man was carrying something… or someone. A woman lay supine over his arms. Her head hung back wobbling slowly as he stepped into view, long silver hair trailing down towards the ground, arms limp at her side and legs dangling.

  Eyes welling up with tears he did not want to show; fierce and proud the man stood. His muscles flexed as he shifted his weight from side to side to balance the dead weight in his arms. “You should l
eave!” he started. “You should leave now before these people turn on you! You should go, and leave us alone. This appears to be the way you now wish to live. You are not welcome here.” The last said with deathly menace as his eyes bored into Sam’s, seeking, to the end, to see some form of humanity, some form of feeling. But Sam was unable to feel anything at the moment. As if entering a room of pandemonium and being expected to know exactly what to do, Sam stared helplessly back at this man above him, who seemed to know him, yet, to Sam, was a complete stranger. Sam could only look up at the man in confusion and utter, “I do not know you, or her.” Pointing at Pania. “I do not have anything to do with this, and besides, this is not real. So whatever sick dream I am walking in, you are just a part of it and you will soon disappear, just like all other dreams do.”

  The man looked down at him, then his eyes moved down to the still form of the woman he held protectively in his arms. His demeanour showed clearly that this woman was greatly loved by him. He looked on her still form, studying its every contour and line, as if seeking a clue to some hope that life still existed in her.

  “This is all because of you!” he started softly. “Turi would still be alive if you had acted and stopped this evil before it grew. But now, like all those around you,” pointing to the still forms that lay crumbled around Sam’s feet, “she must go to that place we cannot enter, though I wish I could alter things so I could go with her. You have taken away my breath. You have taken away my strength. You have killed her.”