Scared. Alone. Hopeless. Stranded.

Carlos was generally an optimistic person. He believed that, even if you can’t change a shitty situation, you can change your attitude towards it. Well, that was how he used to think.

As he was now, sitting with his back to a charcoal-colored tree, Carlos felt like shit. Everything hurt. His entire body was aching and groaning from overuse. Despite his two-meter stature, Carlos was a frail man with little in the way of muscle. His job as a desk jockey also meant he got little exercise throughout the week, so he had underdeveloped physical conditioning.

He was sitting with his head sagging towards the ground. A few other people had huddled near him, and they were all grouped up at the base of the massive tree. Two women and one male, all-around Carlos’s age, were all splashed out on the velvet grass and were not moving.

Carlos didn’t blame them, since he was too exhausted to move too. His large size had been present his entire life, which led to him having heart issues and asthma. The fear of what would happen to him should he collapse kept him on his feet for the grueling march to the portal.

Now that he was in some strange place monitored by an alien demigod, Carlos didn’t have the energy to care about anything. The Altum man had told them to stay put and not move, so that’s exactly what they were doing.

It wasn’t like there were any animals that would attack twenty or more people when they were bunched up like this. Maybe a bear would, but Carlos didn’t really know much about bears.

Carlos’s attention was seized by one of the women sharing his tree trunk. She had curled up into a ball and was shaking in place. The clearing they were in was quiet, so he was able to make out to soft pitter patter of tears hitting the fabric-like soil. Carlos looked at the woman from his peripheral vision.

Other than her disheveled hair of jet-black hair, the woman was rather ordinary. She had on a plain grey top and black jeans, the latter of which seemed to be damaged slightly from an earlier incident.

Carlos hesitated for a moment but steeled himself and slowly reached out to her. She flinched hard when his hand met her shoulder, but she didn’t pull further away. He didn’t do anything except apply some mild pressure with his hand.

The woman, Amaya, was one of the people with him in the holding cell. In fact, everyone gathered at the foot of the tree was in that cell. Back then, Amaya was the only person who hadn’t spoken after she had been thrown in.

Everyone, no matter how skittish, couldn’t go without talking for long, so everyone cracked eventually. Amaya, however, didn’t speak until the second day when she thanked Carlos for protecting her food while she slept.

The sight of the quiet woman sobbing to herself left quite the impact on Carlos. For a second, he let himself sympathize with the woman and the situation they were in. The more he thought about it, the more unreal and impossible it seemed. This was too much, especially for a simple and domesticated man like Carlos.

He looked around at the clearing, scanning its occupants and the general surroundings. All of the other groups were the same as his, sitting or lying down while doing absolutely nothing. What was there to do? Run into the vast unknown and get help? It wasn’t going to help.

That last thought and its fatalistic tone finally put things into perspective for Carlos. Being optimistic was a luxury reserved for times where things could get better. Things here, it seemed, were probably only going to get worse.

The man let himself release his sorrows and his agony with a few stifled sobs held tightly in his throat. No matter how hard he tried, though, he could hear the deep cries spread throughout the silent clearing and enter the ears of others who were in a similar state.

Carlos cried. He tried to do it quietly, and to himself, but he cried, nonetheless. It only took a few minutes before he was done crying and had returned to staring blankly at the felt grass before him. All he could do was wait, and waiting was something he was good at.

///

Altum were tall. Really tall. I was having trouble keeping up with the giant man as his strides greedily consumed the distance between him and his destination. I had to job slightly to keep up, which was already making me tired again.

It seemed that whatever healing Scalisth gave me also had the effects of removing my stored fatigue and giving me energy. Without it, I would’ve been barely able to crawl along the ground, let alone jog behind the alien as he strode forward through the woods.

Scalisth seemed to have a destination in mind that was close by. It was either that, or there was another reason they were going so quickly. The alien had mentioned other people here, but I didn’t know if that meant other prisoners or other natives. I personally prefer the former over the latter.

He walked silently as I noisily followed behind him. Our trajectory seemed to be leading to a gap in the trees a hundred or so meters northeast of our current path. He angled his steps slightly to approach the gap directly while I followed.

The sun, which hadn’t seemed to move since I got here, was casting brilliant rays of light throughout the odd forest canopy. The bulbous growths on the upper tree branches cast an array of elliptical shadows that made the floor look like a pot of roiling hot tomato soup.

We got to the gap, and I immediately noticed the state of the group there. Every single person, about twenty in number, was sitting or lying down in complete and utter exhaustion. Not a single one of the even moved upon our arrival, with a sparse few turning their eyes to glance at us as we approached.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“What is this?” Scalisth yelled out loud. “I leave you here for forty-five minutes and you haven’t moved a single inch? I’d bet none of you even got up to scout the surroundings, or to check for sources of food and water!” He seemed unreasonably furious at the exhausted individuals.

His yelling did manage to get some of the people to come to their senses. They first looked at him, then at me, then around them. They all still had placid expressions, but it looked like they were somewhat paying attention.

I knew their expressions. It was the same one I’ve worn for the past decade. Their hearts and minds were consumed by an emptiness; a void they couldn’t fill no matter what they did. It’s a crushing feeling, and the only way to make it go away is… well, I don’t know.

I stood there and stared at a group of people who had caught my attention. It was a group of two men and women, all of them huddled around a tree like cicadas during the summer. Everyone there was looking at me, not Scalisth, and they all had complicated expressions on their faces.

I looked back at them, and I swore that the man in the center made eye contact with me. His eyes were pleading for…. something. I don’t know what he wanted, but I was sure I didn’t have it. Logically speaking, he probably wanted hope.

The hope to move on. The hope to continue forward even as your world falls apart. Now that I had the idea in my head, I could see it in his eyes, the longing for the will to keep pushing through the aches and pains. He wanted to survive, that much was sure, but he didn’t know if it was worth it.

I’m not the leader type, and I certainly can’t be called a motivational speaker. I’m the same as all of these people here. The only difference is that I stood while they sat, that I fought for my survival while they did nothing to preserve their lives.

I didn’t notice before, but I was standing straight as an arrow, rather than the rolled-forward posture I usually adopted. Here I was, stranded as far away from everything I knew as I could be, and I was standing tall, taller than every other person here. Looking down to meet the eyes of another person, a woman with dark hair, I began to see myself reflected in her eyes.

Not just her eyes, but her entire body. It was like looking into a pitiful and disappointing mirror. Did I really look like her just a few hours ago? Was I the same as her, too busy wallowing in self-pity and despair to take in the world around me for what it truly was? I remember the feeling from just a day ago.

I once thought that I knew too much for my own good, and that the world had nothing left to offer me. Now I realize that it was not the world who was lacking, but me. As I grew up, a small child with no parents, the world pushed on me. When I was young, I had the energy to push back, and so I existed in equilibrium with the world around me.

Those were the only days I can look back on and say that I was truly happy. I’ve been satisfied or content at various points throughout my life, but I was never truly happy like that again. Why did things turn out that way? It was simple: I stopped pushing.

I stood there, taking in the scene for one last time before I looked up to the sky. The clearing wasn’t quiet, as Scalisth was still scolding the remaining prisoners on their actions, but I tuned out all the noise as I looked up at the glossy sky.

It was blue, like Earth, but there were no clouds in the sky. It was like a big blue mirror, and I thought I could almost see myself reflected in its vastness. In the silence of my mind, I heard something: Thump. The quiet thud broke the silence of my mind, and I stopped thinking to listen to its echoes.

Thump. I heard it again, but this time it was louder, more pronounced than before. THUMP. The noise was bold, as it claimed the silence of my mind and established its dominance through its heavy beat. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. It only got louder, and I realized the sound was familiar. I had heard it before, but I couldn’t remember where.

The beat continued to reverberate through my head as it sped up with improving ferocity. It was my heartbeat, I realized, as I listened more closely to the sound. I noticed that every time I heard it beat, I could feel my body shake ever so slightly before it returned to rest.

I looked back down and brought my eyes level with the people in the clearing. I stood while they sat. They waited while I acted. That was the difference between us. That was the difference between who I was, and who I am now.

I’m done being complacent. I’m done waiting for life to move its way around me, like how a river flows around a stone. I thought that life was cruel, but now I realize it was trying to teach me a lesson I had forgotten years ago: life pushes those who don’t push themselves.

Well, I’m done being pushed around. I took a step forward towards the center of the clearing. With every step I took, the hard ground pushed back on the bottom of my feet. The only way I could ever move forward was if I pushed back harder on the ground and used it to move forward. After my fall, I didn’t have the energy to fight back, so I laid there and accepted my death.

That would never happen again.

As I stepped towards the grass open to the sky above, I noticed a slight shift in my vision. It was small, nearly imperceptible, but I noticed it immediately. The velvet grass under my feet, the dark trees looming over me, and the sky above became part of a tapestry of vibrant blue. They all glowed with energy and power, commanding a place for them to exist.

In my peripheral vision, I noticed the prisoners sitting on the ground. All of them shared this glow, but all of them were like a dying match compared to the roaring inferno of the world around me. It was all so overwhelming, and I tried to look away from blinding lights around me.

I swung my gaze quickly over the group when a harsh glow laminated my vision. I had turned and was now facing Scalisth, the Altum man who had healed me earlier. If the world had moved like a burning inferno, then this man was like the sun.

Blue energy circled around him like a planet circles a star, bending and curving in an orbit around him. His body glowed with ethereal light as his presence commanded the world to move around him, not the other way around. He was immersed within the space around him as I saw the space meters away from him curve and bend slightly to move out of his way.

It was as captivating sight, and I couldn’t look away. If I didn’t have this distorted vision, I would’ve noticed Scalisth looking back at me, his stare piercing back at me.

“You can see it, can’t you?” He spoke quietly, contrasting harshly with his fearsome tone from earlier.

I didn’t say anything, simply nodding my head in response. My eyes were burning like a had stared at the sun for too long. I felt tears well up in my eyes as they began to trickle down my face.

Scalisth nodded solemnly. “And it hurts to see it, right? You feel like you can’t look away or you’ll miss the feeling forever.” Another nod and he sighed.

“I should be happy, seeing as you can see the world for what it truly is, but I don’t feel even an inkling of joy at this discovery. As you are now, you will only become a hinderance to us.” I couldn’t see his face, as I was mesmerized by the writhing energy in the air around him, but I could still vaguely understand what he was saying.

“I will deal with this now before it becomes an issue,” Scalisth thought to himself. He raised his hands in my direction, and I saw the powerful currents shift in the direction of his outward-facing palms.

I had seen the Altum’s mystical power on two occasions: The first was when the gate between worlds was opened and we were sucked through the fissure in space. The second was when Scalisth healed me after my fall nearly killed me. Both times, the movement of the energies he wielded was invisible to me. He also seemed like he was saying something, but I couldn’t ever hear any words come from his mouth.

This time, however, I saw everything as it truly was. The current of power flowed from his hands and rushed towards me. I didn’t move, transfixed by the energy’s primal power. Just before it hit my head, I heard the Altum man utter a single world:

[ Sleep ]

Then everything went black.