A Journey Into A Enigma

The Hunter appeared from the road that led from the village to the strange, great forest. He could see the sun grow on the horizon, grow so putridly large in the sun. The great sky ballooned in the world… And clouds crackling, spitting upon the blue…Very great, very beautiful, like a cracked mirror, filled with blue and orange lines, reflecting upon itself.
He continued with his pack and his pistol. Into the deep rainforest, among the animals and wild men, and a great strange stringy animal, or so he had heard from the old man… The homeless man with a pistol and a bike, with such a strange, wrinkled face.
A familiar face, like his own filled with pockmarks and scars, and a great gash from a chemical spill. But he did not need trivial knowledge, for the forest he knew by heart… The entire vastness of the channel and the rivers. The whole blue of the world. The sun, grey and lifeless against the dust.
He knew the swath of burnt sticks, fire, and the stone webbing rising from the cracks and lines in the dirt. From the ancient earth, a humongous concrete labyrinth forming, like a spider’s web… Somewhere in that deep place, where mysteries unfolded, lay Bharat Singr like some great wounded animal, dying… A boar hunting by itself, then the great guns firing in the distance, and it was running away quickly into the deep brush. Just as a revolver pounded into the sand.
He had heard of the name on the news, heard of the bounties, the years of fame, and his mind, burnt and frayed, had built a memory, remembered the familiar jungle, the familiar webs and paths, and a maze built around a complex system of minds… A brain festering, growing rotten, insane, yet bold, had sought the Enigma, Bharat Singr, building a labyrinth… He had known… From little, unimportant clues… From strange statements, and strange dreams… Built himself a memory of a great rainforest.
“The clue… The place…”
His words echoing across the place, empty of any meaning.
He walked, across the frozen valley, across a place of a blue emptiness, solemn, quiet, barren, all except for a trail, like a great winding snake, burnt across the ground, like a serpent’s trail, winding, crushing the trees, burning away leaves and sticks, until there were thousands of stumps… And the faint lingering of smoke from flames untold and unseen.
Like a finger separated from a hand, and blood rushing down the palms, like a serpent biting through twisted sinews, veins bubbling… And then, the bones separating ever-so-slowly, ruthlessly, until only a bloody mess, a heap of bubbling muck remained… And growing from this, green trees, growing and growing, building animals, and roots running through the deep center of this blood. Through the mess of a world, through the absurdities, tiny little things…
He placed a twine of thread, buried it in the dirt with a stake, tied it to his wrist, and walked forth into the darkness. Holding the thread tight in his hand, it grew looser and looser as he continued across the plains, across the echo and the wind that grew soft… Across the horrible fiery earth, across the heat of the scorching sun, underneath the emptiness, loneliness, the infinity that continued across the horrible place… Forever and ever… Like a house burning and burning, one by one, ornaments melting, all alone, the happy house, fading away to time…And a great wind blowing by and by, through the endless place…
As he continued, he forgot more and more, and memory faded, and there was nothing he could remember, and the pictures in his mind, the locations, the place, blew away slowly like ashes in a photo, until there were only fragments, and a shard staring into the soul… With crimson dripping off the frame, and footprints leading into the kitchen… Like a mystery underneath the rotting wood… And a piano spitting out the last few keys from the dying song…
There was always crimson red.
Running under the Venetian streets.
Water growing thick, in a slurry.
And a face lay there, pale, motionless.
And something strange, tossed away, lying in the water…
But there was only a slight blurriness, a forgetfulness… Nothing in that strange face. No remembrance, only the slight bend in the skin, the gauntness, the worms eating away, decaying away that face, ripping apart the seams and the fabric, the bones slipping away until there was nothing… Barely anything to see, only a colorful picture taken from a broken camera. And words whispered from a tinny speaker… wealth, knife, crimson, Venice, water… The only things sticking in his mind…. And the name Bharat Singr, echoing in his mind…
And words…
Wonderful words…
Words repeated and repeated whispered again and again into his ear…
He said it quietly to himself, smiling…
“Wealth, knife, crimson, Venic, water. Water running smooth, clean, fresh…”

Occasionally new things, new thoughts, new dreams, but there was always a gun. A gun peering out of the trees, and him rotting on the ground… The trees form a dark, great shadow, against a strange figure, arching against the silhouette of the sun… But he did not remember where and when, or even why it had happened, what had happened. Only that it was him dead… Always him dead… Strange visions coursing, like a throbbing heart, a river that continued down and down the mountain… Dreams continually stirring in his mind, going again and again around in his head… A journey up a strange, dark, twisted mountain, up onto the scores of stone and rock, into his strange memory, into a forest that infinitely dwelled upon itself, thought from grey seas, up into itself, probed around in an empty mind, alone....
Yet, only occasionally before, and now, growing worse and worse, as headaches split his mind, and he grew restless and dull. Focused on his strange, stupid world… Desiring freshly spilled blood from the wide wound, the black and grey of rot and filth…





From the glass, the policeman drank it all. Drank the entirety of the contents, drank from the filthy, disgusting bottle, it tasted like slop, filth, all that beer, the drug, a little spilling onto the dirt… Trying to drown those bad dreams, bad memories, away… Away and away… He hated it all… Was disgusted by all of that rot… But it dulled him, made him happy again, allowed him to walk up mountains, carry himself up all day, travel into the deep heart of the forest. Into that darkness, full of burnt weeds, full of warm fires, and strong smoke. Full of a blurry green mess that filled the mountains with a cold loneliness, an emptiness, a silence that echoed throughout the world….
But he was forced, with his revolver, his badge, and nothing else but some ragged clothes from the slums of Peru. Forced away from his position of power, disgraced, then ruined into dishevelment and decay, into a strange place in his life… Kicked out for stealing! Stealing! With thousands and thousands of slums! Thousands of thousands of people were stealing from the police… Thousands… Into strange darkness, into a moral void. Where he remembered nothing, sought nothing, yet continued to live. Sheep grazing, a brick home, and a pencil scraing against wet stone, restless, broken as it fell into the ocean, then a lonely old man carrying a gun walking into the deep, lost in himself, lost to time…
He remembered a dream, a dream from the deep depths of his mind had told him of another Brother, another resolve, another future, a new Him, formed from the depths of strange beauty, and built of the greatest, most plentiful futures, filling himself with strange memories… A strange new world
He remembered strange, blurry images in his mind, Of people, native Brazilians, worshipping an idol, and whispers constantly drilling into his head. Some sad, bleary-eyed man stared at him, watched him sway and drink from the infinitely shifting, changing bottle. The boredom of his reality constantly swaying and swaying…Like the ground, shifting, moving, watching his movements… Waiting for him to walk, to strike upon the ground, to lay dead and still, asleep, across his empty, barren valley… His home, his place of peace and rage…
“Oh… God”
His head hurt, as he groaned and stopped… Stood up again afterward…
He walked along the thin line, into the streaming heat, and the forest that wished for him to stop… The trees that reached toward him, and a strange shadow walking silently against the ground, watched him from afar…. A great whisper echoed his mind.… Droplets fell from the sky… He watched the red creep into his mind, blood spill across his gash in the forest, rain, red as a ripe, blood moon spill, run across the sky, with clouds billowing across the entire shape of the forest, the feel of the mountains…
The GPS beeped, once, twice, twitching as it noticed the red rain, the radar fizzling out static and buzz. But they were only faint sounds to him, looked like strange objects, placed by something unknown, he could only remember slightly about them, forgetting about the more intricate parts of the past…
He remembered of his place, of the past, of where he always stood and watched, continually walking… Walking and walking, in the same familiar forest, from when he was young… And faint memories of stone rising from the ground, but they were only hallucinations to him, nothing special at all…
And thoughts of a strange tank, a cage, filled with water, green lights endlessly swirling, him floating in the water… A cardboard box, a record… A tape…
Some strange voice…
A great raspy voice…
Whispering into his ears…
He wound the tape on his finger, wound the record, held it upon his hands like a cat’s cradle, and shifted the buttons, listening to the raspy voice.
“A man on a bridge, with a gun and a hostage. There’s a sack on the hostage’s head. A gun…pointed at the man’s face. The man says something unintelligible to the police, the police can’t hear. Why?”
The footage buzzed, the voice shifted, more serious…
He walked, continually walked, to find a man with no face… To find a man he had no memory of… To find a strange hunter in the forest… Hated the man, hated everything… Hated how he had to walk thousands of miles deep into the forest, wearing ragged clothes… Tired…. So endlessly tired…
But their was something… Something faint… Something about honor… Something about the man with no face… He was too drunk to remember… Too dizzy, forgetful…
Going deeper into the forest.
Into a bittersweet end…
…..
…..
A dream, a deep, deep dream, as he slept, could not remember how he slept… Only that he slept… Slept and dreamt great beautiful dreams… Vivid dreams, about flesh unwrapping from a body, peeling away like skin, but muscle writhing and writhing underneath. He stared at it from a strange eye, drank the meat, the blood, the… The great, beautiful head….
…
He screamed aloud, screamed a great scream…
….
He woke up from his strange little nap, in the middle of the sun-baked forest, drank more from his nearly-emptying bottle, drank and drank… And collapsed backward, trying to forget his horrible, horrible dream… His horrible nightmare…
All fading away… Fading like a sweet, serene little dream… Fading back into his mind…



The hunter could not remember his name… He barely remembered what he looked like anymore, just fuzzy hallucinations, the workings of his mind falling away quietly… Only remembering a stone labyrinth… A beautiful stone labyrinth… That rose from the ashes, formed a great symbol in the sky, webbed with red veins, and a massive beating heart that formed across the crescent moon… Vivid hallucinations, sharply caressing his shattered memories.
He remembered visiting the labyrinth, walking across the barren earth, again and again and again and again… With stone arching across the night, the lines, the earth, forming stone, and then rising up and up, along the ground, up into the air, and he ran by himself… All alone… Into the rapidly growing night…
…
It was the same day over and over again, walking around and around… His memory was regenerating, going around the circle of days, again and again. He touched his face, and wiped away the dirt. His legs and his hands, covered in blisters. A day repeating itself, endlessly, until he died of thirst, rotted to death. With the water in his pack already empty, his throat parched, and only crumbs sufficing as nourishment…
….
His brain rotting, bleeding, forgetting again and again… He felt the pain inside him, constantly reverberating, echoing and echoing… Lacking nourishment… Lacking any soundness… He did not know what had happened after he had begun traveling, what sort of beasts lay hidden underneath the green foliage, and inside every single one of the thousands of winds battering against the trees. The rain thickly ran down every branch, every tree. Beautiful, beautiful red rain… Flowing like small rivers, trickling down trunks, down and down into the long Amazon River...
…
His twine had snapped, as it ran loosely, smoothly against the ground, running ever-so slowly, getting caught in the mud, until he noticed that it had broken. He placed a new one into the ground, fearing the Stone Labyrinth, rising up from the ground, lost in the maze… Trapped by himself, in the endless corridors and tunnels…
…
Further and further into the forest, he could see the sun wavering softly as heat rushed through the serpent’s trail, endless, without reason, continuing and continuing. He remembered strange things, like a man with no eyes, laying against the ground, and blood rushing through the earth, blood running, seeping into the ground.
A bridge running downwards, a head in the sand…
Italy, with a stink running from the sewers, the canals draining forth bodies.
Through blurry eyes, he saw a strange man whisper to him about a voice in the sun…
Then there was nothing, but his brain throbbing, his head continually aching, pains striking through his skull, and he screamed aloud… Screamed into the air, blood continually rushing through his ears… He saw more figures, more faces, unknown, and a continual hunger in his throat, dogs barking, a siren ringing in the air, blood dripping down a face, a knife dropped from the greatest height, and fire across the ground.
A gunman, a hostage, a bridge…
Now, blood ran from both his ears, bleeding. He was bleeding… He ran backwards, back and back, into the light, blood running from both his ears, and black creeping along his vision… Pain rushing through his great, grand skull, pounding and pounding…
He looked around twitching, frantically trying to wipe away the blood from his ears… Afraid of the dark, afraid of decay, the death inside the forest… The skulls, crushed, laying in the ground… The blood that rose and bubbled… The deep, horrible smell of rotting flesh… The aging of Forever… Time running forward… Alone… All alone, dying in the forest, all alone… Dead… Dead to the silence, the forest that did not care, watched by some omnipresent, omnipotent thing that lived above the sky…
His ears bled, rang, hurt as crimson continued to run down and down… The blood made his ears itch…
…
Where was Bharat? Not even a sign of footprints, just him continuing down an endless road… Going on and on endlessly… Not even a sign, a single whisper, yet only a horrible ignorance… Was Bharat an idea? A single figurative idea that forever continued to echo in his mind…. He remembered the television, the homeless man, his grand home… Yet, he knew, faintly, that it was all lies… There was only a great green tank… Filled with water, with him laying inside it…
All alone…. Quiet, alone, afraid
….
God… It was lovely being alone with his thoughts, by himself, in the isolation… In a great deep forest… So lovely, so beautiful, so deep, forever alone in his deep, grand thoughts…Where he might imagine great beautiful things, bathe himself in the warmth of the lovely, deep forest… Where all was silent, and a great spring wind washed over a beautiful blue river… Beautiful rugged plains running through the mountains, and the Amazon reminded him of beautiful summer days in Venice… The beautiful canals glittering in the morning sun…
…..
He hungered for flesh, for blood, for the skin, and a beautiful brain from the center of the head… He dreamed of blood and meat, and the tearing of the skin with a fresh knife… All beautiful… Beautiful…. Just beautiful… And the string holding together everything, the stone labyrinth weaved into the flesh… Just beautiful… Beautiful… Thread by thread, a figure forming… A delicious figure of delicious meat and bone…
…
Atop a great tall house, in the sky, in the trees, he could see everything… He saw the entirety of the world as it was, the entirety of a strange society… But not from his own eyes, from a different form, inside the deep forest, someone with a familiar name… Someone whom he was looking for, searching for, over years and years…


…
“And the man say’s we’re all going to die! Why? Because life is-”, said the raspy voice to him… Stopping as static itched
“Life is like an eggshell, it likes to crumble, it likes to collapse…. Faster and faster…”
He woke, then walked…
And as he walked, the policeman noticed two great shadowy figures, laying together, separately, sleeping, silent… He watched them from afar, not moving, staying still, silent when he stared and stared. When he walked toward them, there was a rotting stench everywhere, across the boiling heat, simmering... Two intense gash marks in their stomachs, blood everywhere, empty of skin, only clothes, and flesh…
There was a type of allure to them, to the stench inside them, to the great swathes of ribbed flesh laying down on them, their faces… gone… Ripped apart by some animal force, or some strange thing… But it was beautiful to him, the wrapped layers of muscle, the bones running and twitching together, and red blood everywhere, the beautiful, beautiful blood. They were fresh… Fresh…
…
God… God…. His head hurt, his mind was full of strange thoughts, and he barely understood the two bodies he stood near… There were no more drinks, no more from the bottle, only a harsh cold truth creeping in, and he hated it… Hated how he could see everything… Hated how there was no daze, no forgetfulness, nothing gone, ripped away from his mind, only a clear memory, and vague dreams floating around in his tired mind…
It was the Hunter himself, the one who ran through the deep jungle, into the strange deep forest, wandering around, killing everything… The horrible, vague Hunter, who he knew only by face, only from strange words whispered into his drunken ears… From a strange shadowy figure faraway in the deep depths of his mind…
“The horrible, horrible hunter…”, he laughed quietly, “What a horrible, horrible hunter…”
Strange, how empty the forest was… How they were both hunting for something strange… Allusive… Another person in the forest…
Another hidden figure, lost in the deep swathes of time…
…
A spike shot up into his mind, and he screamed as the pain shot through him, blood flowing down from his head… But there was no blood anywhere, only a giant spike, and great pains erupting from everywhere at once… Lightning striking down onto the ground, blood flowing from the earth… And a spike rushing through the deep sinews, the blood, the skull, cracking through the bone…
But it was only his brain, suffering, rotting away, quietly, painfully…
…
He ran into the deeper parts of the forest, screaming from the pain, falling into the water, and trying to stifle the pain, drive away the pain, but their was only more, as the spikes continued drilling deeper and deeper into his brain, sticking deep like strong needles, stitches sewing solely into his mind, into his consciousness…
The sound of footsteps echoing into the woods… Leaves fallen underfoot…
Somebody above… Somebody watching…
He tried to stifle another scream, as he could feel his brain melting away, breaking apart…
He screamed, quiet, then louder and louder as the pain grew worse and worse…
A strange, uncomfortable feeling, and a man smiling at him…
The homeless man stared at his face from above, holding a gun.
The familiar beard, the familiar rags… The face, smiling, as he screamed once…
The bullets rolling inside an open palm…
Their was a pause, a second.
He tried to pull his gun out of the holster, shoot. But as metal crunched bone, hitting him at all sides, he sighed and fell into the deep light… Blood spilling across his shirt…. Falling with him… Fell into the deep great light….
As pain was godly, became an ichor for his suffering, his lost life…

Bharat drank the water, the plentiful blood, ate away the meat, the bone, the impurities of a human body… Drank from the beautiful plentiful body, the face… His teeth were covered in red, the grand, great crimson, fresh from the wound and the flesh… Fresh from the bodily heaven, the plentiful source, he fed on the memories, fed on the great deepness of the flesh, the rich seams… So beautiful… So beautiful…
The memories pouring in from the blood, so godly… Lovely… Just lovely…


The hunter saw the stone labyrinth rise from the dust, rise forward from the ground and into the air… Rising in his strange dreams, and blood dripping off from the dust…
He woke when he heard a great scream… A great blood-curdling scream rising into the air, echoing and echoing, endlessly across the forest.
Machine gun fire running, echoing. He prepared his M9, pulled it out of his pocket, held it in front of him, and stared at the surroundings… Stared the trees growing from everywhere, wrapping around his vision, continuing to snake around his legs, his arms, vines twisting like serpents, and the sun rolling outward…
He fired into the distance, the machine gun fire stopped, he could hear a knife cutting into flesh, cutting into skin, like a pig… Like a great dead pig…
He stepped forward, stepped carefully, quietly, listening for the gunshots, listening for the machine-gun fire again, or any footsteps… A ravine made him stumble, as he saw the heights from a small cliff, and fell down, rolled down into the grass… Fell down… Down… Down… His leg bracing the impact. Until he lay, hurt, injured, bruised, everything aching…. He crawled toward safety… But something stepped on his broken leg…
God… Bharat himself… Tall… With a beard… The homeless man… Standing up, smiling, laughing… He could hear him, talk and talk… Whispering… Mumbling to himself…
“The original cannot be killed, Brothers!”
A gunshot struck his throat, blood filled his entire body, he choked and coughed… He remembered a green tank…
That was all..



Bharat smiled, feasted…
When he went to his tall home, he placed the weapons in a infinitely multiplying collection.
All alone, so beautifully alone.