A world of true fantasy lay before me when I stepped out of the blood-drenched land. The rays of the sun shyly hide behind the leaves. A pathless ground full of grass, each step marked a print, pioneering this forest of mystery. Every tree stemmed awkwardly apart from each other. Grasses stood high to my knee.
After diving a few minutes into the forest, I found a long, never-ending path on which the sun just became dimmer along with the passing of time. Small trunks of trees lay on the ground, surrounded by multiple twigs fallen from trees.
From many different films and stories, using Harry’s sword, we marked the trees to not get lost. But like many different films and stories, the trope of marking was always useless, either due to it being cut, illusions, hallucinations, or just random teleportation. However, there could also be an instance where we have to run, preventing us from putting any mark.
“Your Highness,” Harry called.
“Yes?”
“There’s something over there Your Highness.”
I peeked over Harry’s shoulder, somewhere around a few meters away was a piece of the forest where the sun hits the hardest. There were no trees and a few patches without grass. I ran as fast as I could, hoping.
“Oh… finally… a giant fucking clue. Literally.”
A long path of the forest was cleared like a giant lawn mower was running through the forest. The path was 5 meters wide. “This beast isn’t small…” I smiled. Beneath my feet were multiple bald patches of earth in the shape of feet.
By observing the distance between each mark, it was easy to conclude that the monster was four legged. If it was just two feet, I could have tried to guess what monster it is easily. But four feet? There are way too many animals, fantasy animals, mythological animals, or whatever source it is that has four legs. Well, if it’s none that I know, the better.
“Let’s go, Harry.”
“Wait, Your Highness!”
“Why are you so slow? You’re much stronger than me!”
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“Fucking hell! How long is this path! Fuck!” My lungs were exhausted to their limit. The sun was going down at an alarming rate. For many hours, the end of the long path, even just a glimpse of the light of heaven, never appeared. I fell to the ground without even realizing it.
It was ironic I thought of heaven when, for the past whole 2 days I’ve been obsessed with death like I had 8th-grade syndrome. Maybe I do have it, maybe I was on drugs, maybe I’m acting too immature for my age, but what do I care?
For years, no, decades, every person I’ve met even after I became 30 only ever said one thing to me. “You’re too immature.” So what if I wanted to be insane, escape responsibility, be a kid forever, and run away from all my problems? It’s my life, so fuck you. You don’t like it? Who told you to watch me… I don’t have a mirror, and I don’t like having my devices closed inside a bright room…
Ughhh… I stretched my arms and legs, claiming the whole land as my bed. Sleeping on grass… wow… I lived under a rock… I lived such a shit life… they say, life is all about growing. So, I didn’t live a life, did I?
“Your Highness, we can’t rest here.”
“I’m tired.”
“It’s dangerous to be in the forest at night, Your Highness.”
“Hey, is this world a fantasy?”
“I don’t get what you mean, Your Highness.”
“I meant, can you use magic?”
“Well I can’t, Your Highness, I can only use aura.”
“Hahaha! So it is…” I slowly took a glance at Harry and turned my gaze back to the amethyst-like sky. “How old are you… again, Harry?”
“Umm… I think 27, Your Highness.”
“You look good for your age. Let’s sleep, we have a lot more running to do in the morning.”
“Your Highness! I told you it’s dangerous.”
I shoved my hands at Harry, and closed my eyes, embracing the cold and dry land. I’ve always been picky with beds, but I feel like growing that side of mine today.
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Sheltered in my deep sleep, I was oblivious to the outside world. The tickling grass on my skin, and the cold breeze of the night, felt like I was on sleeping pills.
“Your Highness! Wake up! Wake up!”
Harry yelled loudly, with the first coming from afar, and the other one closer. My entire body bounced up and down as someone grabbed under my back and lifted me; yelling one last time.
Like a bolt of lightning, my eyes jolted open. The fuck, this feels like deja vu. But, unlike before, above my eyes was not the leaves of trees blocking the blue sky, rather it was the dark night with an infinite array of stars blinking all at the same time.
“It’s still night, why the fuck are you…” I said, itching to look behind Harry, blocking a magnificent figure.
“There is no time to explain, Your Highness, it’s here!”
“I can see that…” A smile slowly formed reaching the edges of my eyes, opening my mouth and cackling like a crackhead. “Put me down!”
“No, Your Highness!”
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“We went here to fight it! So let’s fight it!”
“Are you insane?”
“Huh! Did you just call me insane? Without even uttering any respect!”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness! But this is urgent! There is no way we can beat that monster!” Harry jumped into the forest, the ground behind his track raised like a wave in the ocean, launching him on top of the trees.
Harry dropped me off to the ground, a millisecond after he was launched, landing me on a spiked rock. “Ughhhh!” I moaned in pain.
“Waaragrahhhh!!!”
My eyes glued onto the monster.
Harry dropped in front of me and immediately picked me up to his shoulder, carrying me like a bag of money running away from a bank. I raised my head up, staring at the monster as it grazed upon the forest.
That thing was something no human could ever truly describe the horror it sends down one’s spine. Its eyes that hang like ballsacks sending uncomfortable chills throughout my entire body. The uneven lengths of it’s purple fur along with multiple bald patches. It’s tongue hanging and drooling off a dislocated jaw made its howl into incomprehensible terror. All of it burned my eyes.
At the shape of a poor giant dog, towering above the trees, the torture it had gone through to reach such a point of disgusting physique, made me pity and happy.
The ground shook once more, but this time there was no wave on the ground coming from the monster's feet. “Shit!” Harry yelled and stopped. I looked back to the front and a half-circle tall wall of dirt blocked our path.
“I told you, get me off. This is an order!” Harry gently placed me down on my feet. “Harry, you know right? We have no choice but to fight it.”
“We can just go around, Your Highness.”
“Harry…” I had a speech etched into my mind, ready to declare the stupidest reason to fight, but then the ground began to shake. Harry tackled me along to the side while the floor broke into a hole.
“Stop!” I yelled. Harry dragged me to the side of the walls, allowing us to hide from the monster and run away. But then, Harry dropped my hand and turned around. He rushed to the monster with his sword raised up high.
“Huh. That was rather easy. I mean no sane human would actually fight that monster. It’s like 20 feet tall. The bald patches of hair also revealed a lot of scars, I mean… unless you're inhumane, you can’t even reach that monster’s head-”
A blue cloud formed under Harry’s feet. He jumped to the sky, passing the head of the monster leaving a faint blue wisp beneath his feet. When the blue dispersed, he struck down his sword as it erupted in blue flame.
The monster couldn’t react to the sudden attack and took the blade head-on. After the impact, Harry dropped down and didn’t even look up on his damage. The blue flame on his sword disappeared with his strike.
Beneath his feet, the same blue energy formed again along with his sword being enveloped in the same blue flame. This time he jumped forward.
Whether it was confidence or the common sense of not wasting time and letting the enemy react, as Harry launched himself, I stared at the head of the monster. There was not a single hint of damage.
Wielding his flame-coated sword, he sliced above him, landing to the other side of the monster. It did no damage. Then without wasting time, Harry was once again ready for another attack.
He swiftly turned around, releasing a crescent shape of blue energy targetted on one of the monster’s feet.
That all happened in the span of 10 seconds. It stood like an ant was scratching its back. Despite all the flashy movement, and power I could only imagine, the monster was also included in that imagination.
While Harry was in the middle of the air, the monster had enough of playing statue. In its mind, it had already understood the people it was hunting were nothing but insects.
“Raggraggggggaaaaaa!”
The monster screamed. Even the sound that comes from its mouth is as unique as its appearance. Like an invisible energy dispersed from the monster, Harry flew to the trees, taking two whole trees down before stopping from the impact.
In just another second, that energy that threw Harry away reached me. I held onto the wall of dirt the monster created. However, that wall was just made out of dirt after all, the power from its scream broke a piece of what I was holding onto, launching me back to a tree.
Blood immediately spurted out of my mouth. Fuck! What the fuck! It was so painful all I could ever think about was cursing it away. My throat felt like it was burning from the blood I threw up. My back was constantly aching from the pain, but thankfully the amount of clothes I was wearing cushioned some of the impact.
Stand Up! You bitch! Stand up!
Humans grow, that’s the basic concept of life. Everything ages, and through that time, everyone changes. That change can be big or small.
Some people go through horrible moments in life, swearing an oath to change themselves for the better. Then, once those changes bring them something good in life, it’s an amazing relief brought upon by one's effort to change.
To those people, life is an amazing journey of improvement and joy.
Everyone “should” change. However, that line isn’t that easy to be true. There are people who no matter what happens have already given up, change to them was something they'll just decide in the afterlife.
To those people, life was just the long wait for death.
Well, there are always reasons for a person’s actions. A human is made up of what the world presented them, no, a human is made up of what they perceived of the world. It makes humans such complicated creatures, full of beautiful mysteries.
You act so high saying you can even endure an arm being cut! Stand up! The pain in my back had already disappeared. Just some phantom pain and the effects of coughing up blood were left.
I slowly lifted myself, opening my eyes to a sight covered by bright purple. Despite the sight before me, I kept my eyes open. My body wouldn’t move, my feet were numb, my mind was blank, and fuck, something felt off. There was no feeling of death.
“Your Highness!”
Harry pushed me away from the kick of the monster, taking the hit himself. I rolled to the ground, forcing myself to stand up.
“Run!”
Past or present… you’re a fucking idiot *****.