Traveler - Chapter 2

Awakening From a Dream
Chapter Two

He slept well. Waking fully rested, Kallin couldn't shake the horrible nightmare he had that night. Not yet opening his eyes, he pushed himself into an upright position and his body jerked to a stop. The pain he felt in his back caused him to close his eyes tighter and fall back to the ground. The impact on the hard ground hurt his already aching head. Just waking up, he was unable to think too clearly, but was confused as to why he would have been sleeping on hard ground. Perhaps he fell out of his bed during the night?
Opening his eyes, he looked up to a dark canopy of thick trees. Only faint light was able to break through the thick layers of branches to slightly illuminate what Kallin saw. Turning his head only enough to see where he was, he realized he must not have awoken, but was in yet another dream. The scene of a forest around him was barely discernable in the poor light.
Closing his eyes, he tried to sit up again. Kallin grit his teeth against the pain he felt in his body. He had little strength in his body and could feel that his muscles were heavily knotted and sore. Despite feeling very weak, he did feel refreshed from sleep. Sitting up, he again opened his eyes in hopes that the scene around him would somehow be different.
He was in a forest. He felt the solid ground beneath him and knew it was undeniable. His eyes adjusted a little to his dark surroundings, and he saw the outlines of the densely clustered trees and much of the surrounding brush. Birds chirped on occasion, but not frequently and the sound of trickling water could be heard nearby.
This situation caused Kallin more confusion than what he had ever dealt with his entire life. After several minutes of thought, he began to finally think about the past few hours not being a dream, but instead reality. If it was real, then why? There was nothing that he knew of to warrant a strange looking wolf-like creature to attack him in his home and then to suddenly wake up in a dark forest after being sucked into a blue swirl of colors.
It took Kallin a long time to muster the energy to stand up, and the pain he felt by doing so screamed that he was wide-awake. There wasn't much more to think about under the circumstances that he hadn't thought of already and if he was dreaming, Kallin figured he'd make the best of it and play along for a bit. He preferred not to think of this as being real.
Light seemed to come stronger from one direction amidst the trees and as Kallin slowly approached it, the brush and trees appeared to have been cut away slightly to create a makeshift and sloppy path. The less dense branches would explain the extra light and Kallin decided it was the most inviting path to take.
Although Kallin followed what seemed a pre-traveled path, it wasn't a well cut one. It was too dark for him to see how much overgrowth there was under his feet and thus be able to see how recently travelers may have taken this way. From the way his feet frequently became stuck in thick foliage, he guessed it had been a very long time. He frequently stumbled and his weak muscles wouldn't allow him to catch himself and he hit the ground hard many times. Each time he would get back up and keep walking the easiest route possible.
Kallin had no way to accurately measure time in this dense forest, since the small amount of light that trickled in from the thick canopy began fading. It felt like he had been walking for hours, and the many branches hanging from trees gave him hours worth of scrapes and cuts. The sound of slow moving water was heard and the trees thinned out. Amongst the dark shadows, Kallin could see that the trees were not so thick right here and he was in somewhat of a small clearing. He could hear a stream very close and the thought of water made his mouth feel very dry. He realized that it may have been hours that he had been trekking without having a single drink. He thought he saw the faint glimmer of water and he fell to his knees near it. He reached his hands towards and thirstily cupped as much water as he could and pulled it to his lips. It tasted clean and he was too parched to give it a second thought. He leaned close to the stream and pulled as much water as he could with his cupped hands.
His stomach now hurt from being filled too quickly with water and Kallin rolled over onto his back and stared upwards. The thinner trees made it easier to see through the canopy. It was still very thick, but as he squinted, the night sky seemed to shine through the heavy branches above his head. Walking through the difficult forest had taken a lot out of him, especially after being so weak and sore from the episode in his house. Kallin couldn't help but wonder if that really happened, but he couldn't think of any other way how he could be in so much pain. With this thought, Kallin drifted quickly into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

He woke, and stared up at the canopy above him. Each time he opened his eyes, Kallin hoped to see the ceiling of his bedroom. Only this continuing surreal surrounding of greenery greeted him. At least this time, light shone through the treetops, and it was very bright in the thinner canopy above him. Kallin figured that he must have been walking all through the night for the contrast of light before he fell asleep and now was quite great.
He was in pain, and getting up off the ground took more effort than when he first woke up in this forest. Upon standing upright, he looked around the forest. It was still very dark in the trees, but enough light shone through the canopy that he could at least see some color now as opposed to the vague, almost invisible silhouettes of trees.
Kallin looked at his feet as he started to resume his trek and saw a strange box. It was barely visible in the dim light, but he felt it as he took a step forward with his feet. With much exertion, he was able to bend over to pick it up and look at it. Even in the poor light, Kallin recognized his Father's box with the keyless lock. The lock was open and Kallin stared at it for several minutes before he was able to fully comprehend what he was holding. Shocked, and bewildered, Kallin took the lock off the box and opened it.
Adjusting the angle he was holding the box so the light shone on it differently, Kallin was able to see inside it. It was well padded and was built to hold its contents; a white, cylindrical handled, plain, one edged knife about a foot long, including the hilt, and also a ring set in its own small compartment. The ring intrigued Kallin. It appeared to be solid white, and looked like it was made out of a very fine, smooth ivory. The design on the ring was that of a white lizard and a snake intertwining around each other the length of the ring ending up with their mouth clamped on the other's tail.
Without thinking clearly, Kallin slipped the ring onto his finger and closed the box, putting it in his pocket with part of it sticking out.
"Strange," he said to himself quietly and with a small chuckle, "That considering the circumstances here, I am grateful for pants with deep pockets."
The forest grew thinner as Kallin trekked on, but remained ever perilous. Continually, he tripped over low branches and foliage. He was constantly falling into potholes. Branches from trees tore at his clothes and skin despite his efforts to evade them. Nature itself seemed to be against Kallin.
The dense forest finally broke and Kallin stumbled into a field of long grass. Dropping to the ground, Kallin closed his eyes and threw his arms over his face to shield himself from the bright light of the sun. It stung painfully to his eyes which had become used to the dark of the forest.
"There! There it is!" A voice shouted.
Kallin, surprised to hear another human voice, pushed himself up and squinted in the light as his eyes adjusted. Before he could realize anything that was happening, he was looking down the shaft of a long metal spear pointed at his face.
"Up!" the holder of the spear commanded.
Kallin looked at a man clad in bulky metal armor. He appeared to Kallin as if he was right out of a medieval storybook. Behind the man, the sight completely caught Kallin off guard. It looked like a town from medieval Europe was spreading out before him with an elaborate castle piercing the sky. Kallin felt too lightheaded and incoherent to pay attention to details of this primitive looking settlement, and his attention was quickly brought back to the man in front of him and a second spear held by a similarly dressed man joined the first.
"I told you I saw something!" Cried an excited man in tattered plain clothing. "I noticed it traveling through the forest when my dogs..."
"Silence!" Cried one of the armor-clad men who was most likely a soldier of some sort. "We'll take it."
The poorly dressed man backed off and remained quiet.
"Up!" The first soldier repeated.
Kallin tried to comply, but his tired muscles gave out entirely and he collapsed painfully to the ground. He gasped in pain as he felt his arms pulled behind him and wrapped around the rod of one of the spears. He was forced to his feet and he felt the blood rush from his head. The rush was so sudden that it hurt his head worse than what he already felt and his stomach churned violently. After he vomited the contents of his stomach, Kallin's world went black and he passed out.

Note: See my portfolio for more chapters.