Miko:

My right fist buried awkwardly into Maleki’s head. His face carried to the side, but he spun on his heels, intercepting the second strike with a short kick at my right foot, sending me onto my back. His eyes tracked me up and down for several seconds, almost as if he was battling internally. “Where the hell were you!” I yelled, red with anger and panting like an animal. “I waited — for seven days — you never showed!”

Maleki’s right hand braced his temple in confusion, his voice shaking. “I don’t understand…The Trials…”

“You had all the supplies; I was hungry for days. I needed you!” I was trying to hold my emotions in, but they overflowed at the surface.

“The Garden — We were going there to get you better.” Maleki seemed confused like his brain was struggling to process the information.

“We were trying to get there, and then we got split up somehow, but that was almost two weeks ago!” I wanted to stay mad or punch him some more, but he didn’t seem to understand me.

Maleki’s eyes widened, looking at me more worriedly, “Miko! Where have you been? I was searching for you. These woods are so dense. I got so lost and didn’t know what direction I was going, but I just kept walking.” Exhaustion overtook him. Some of his cuts and earlier wounds had healed, though the major ones from the beast had remained with some improvement. My brother looked more akin to a corpse than alive. No wonder I caught up to him sooner than I had expected, and to his credit, I did have the compass. But why didn’t he search the beach for me?

“Brother…where were you headed?” I asked with a questioning tone.

“I…I was going to The Garden to heal you — then I think I was trying to find the trial or you, but I don’t…I don’t remember.” He was in worse shape than I realized. No wonder he never sought me out. He was barely able to get a complex thought out in this state.

I breathed out, accepting the circumstance as a victory, “It’s okay now. Let’s keep heading South with this stream, which should take us deeper into the island and closer to that tree.”

We pushed on through the creek, neither of us speaking to the other. The only acknowledgment we had of each other’s existence was the distance our blades kept when cutting away at the mass of plants and trees that stood in our way. Together, we were able to speed up the process and conserve energy simultaneously. I worried for Maleki; he seemed different somehow. His movements were slower, and the thoughts he did share were jumbled or lacked any context. His scythe was more convenient at cutting than my disc since the blade was longer, but the real benefit was his reach. Without speaking to me, his body seemed to track onto a small animal that resembled a rabbit with a little horn on its nose and hair that was coarse and silvery. Maleki’s hand gripped the middle of the scythe and arced in a shorter area, cutting through the twigs and limbs ahead of him, meeting the rabbit and killing it swiftly. How had he found two rabbits in his time when I couldn’t even spot one? In my desperation, I had resorted to eating river snails that had slimy flesh and a terrible aftertaste. Today, though — today, I get to eat real food!

I proposed camping for the night to cook the food. Maleki sloppily cut the thing open; his handiwork was evidence of a lack of experience, yet he had killed it quickly and without hesitation. Although, there wasn’t much hesitation as he opened the rabbit open to get the meat within — slicing imperfectly at the creature as its innards clung to its hide due to cuts that incorrectly scraped where they should have sliced. Neither of us audibly complained, being careful not to waste any cooked morsel.

“Here. You should eat.” Maleki said.

“I already have. That’s yours.”

Maleki inspected the thing, almost like he had forgotten that he was the one to cook it. “I have? Yes, of course. Sorry…”

When the sun rose, I was first to put out the campfire and gather our things. Maleki seemed to grumble in his sleep, avoiding my waking prods at all costs. He turned over onto his side to resist me, but after shaking at him a few more times, he sat up looking as tired as he was the day prior. Was this what it was like to wake me? My left forearm was now clenched with more power but still stayed limp at the shoulder and bicep. This disease was confusing, even more so now, but more and more of my mobility and senses are slowly returning.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

My continued existence appeared to be returning Maleki to his previous self. Every day we walked through the woods, I saw more and more of his personality and traits return. His thoughts still weren’t cohesive, and he often repeated himself, but his overall demeanor improved. We moved through the stream for several days, and the branches and grass somehow grew thicker, colliding with each other more often and making the path harder to push through. More and more of the stone vines began to appear as we journeyed deeper into the forest. Neither of our blades put a significant dent in them. They would either regenerate quickly or recoil and twist after the barrage of attacks. Eventually, the stream brought us to a wall of trees tightly connected by the vines, resembling a manmade wall with uneven grooves and grass spouts. The flowing stream continued through an arched opening in the wall which was large enough for us to fit through but small for it to be an unnervingly tight fit. As we squeezed through, a perfectly square field of grass appeared, closed in by the walls around it. This grass was mostly clear with green at the base but did not form into narrow shoots. Instead, the grass was clumped into a mass, feeling almost flat and soft on its bushy top. Only one tree stood in the middle of the closed meadow, sitting alone as it basked in the rays of light that peered through the clouds above. Stone tablets as tall as Maleki rose imperfectly out of the ground across the grassy plane. Small bushes appeared throughout the meadow that bloomed with bright berries. I picked one and rolled the white spherical shape in my hand on my now fully restored left arm. The berry collapsed with the force of my finger and thumb, and a fleshy material that resembled a grape squeezed out. I sniffed the berry, inspecting it carefully to ensure it didn’t smell poisonous. I was quite sure it didn’t work like that; something could surely smell good and still have adverse effects, but this somehow comforted my mind before I tossed it into my mouth and chewed it thoroughly.

Nomen’s feet dangled from within the tree as he sat across a long branch. He appeared to be asleep with hands clasped together over his chest and neck tucked in. One of his eyes opened slightly to check if we were looking at him. “You have questions?”

“What is this place?” I asked curiously.

He pondered over his wording, “A false garden. An improper imitation of the real one, though it has its quirks.” His eyes wandered to the berry bushes along the meadow.

“The berries are special, aren’t they?” I said, looking down at the cuts on my arms as the surrounding healthy skin overtook the slits in my skin. A sweet burning sensation had erupted when I first ate the berries, which stilly lightly lingered as the healing process continued.

“Yes, they speed up the body’s healing process. Of course, it is only a marginal increase, not a cure-all by any means. They might get you back into action quicker-“ he paused, eyeing me specifically, “-but they don’t regrow limbs or heal something the body isn’t already capable of if that is what you are thinking.”

“So…is this the trial?” I asked without confidence.

“This place?” He asked, expecting a confirmation, which I answered with a nod. “Oh, no…this place is a checkpoint of sorts.”

I analyzed the walls and contents of everything inside, “This trial isn’t like the ones before, right? It’s all of it. This whole place and everything we experience?”

“Hmm…in some ways, yes. There is no final zone, but don’t obfuscate the details as meaningless.”

“Each of the elements had a trial. We were told there were two others — the unnatural elements — life and end. I had suspicions, but these berries told more of the story.”

“Correct. This is the trial of ankh, or life as it is more dully called.”

“Well, what makes it unnatural?” I asked inquisitively.

“I’m not sure. People build social constructs around many things, and this, I fear, is one of them. What makes summoning a flame at your fingertips more natural than a light that heals? I do not know the answer….”

“Majik is confusing. We weren’t taught about it growing up and only learned about it recently.”

“Yes, I am inclined to agree. Learning anything new can be complicated. There is a distinct advantage in being exposed to majik as a child. It is very comparable to learning a language.”

“And you can speak this language?”

“Of majik? He asked. “Yes, I can, but my siblings are much stronger.”

“To be stronger — What does that really mean?”

“I…hmm…your brother is better than you with a weapon, yes?”

“That’s unfair, but yeah, I guess.”

“Majik can be sharp, blunt, or dull, like a sword. Or, majik can be durable and wide, or weak and thin, like chainmail versus a bronze chest plate.”

“That…actually makes sense. Thank you.” He acknowledged me, extending backward onto the trunk of the tree, letting the shade of the large leaves carry him back to sleep.