Maleki:
A desolate wasteland burned ahead of me. Dirt and dead trees filled the landscape as Miko’s body lay still in my arms. He was breathing, but he had not moved in three days. The life trial was more difficult with his weight on my shoulders.
Nomen and I stood at the end of the last trial with the webbed tree line at our backs. He looked over at me as I stared down at my brother. “This trial is not like the others, Maleki.” His voice sounded genuine, without the impartial bitterness he usually carried. “The Garden is a straight path from here, but I cannot stay behind with you, for I will be too tempted to assist.”
I didn’t meet his eyes. “What would you do even if you stayed? I don’t expect you to carry him for me.”
There was silence for a brief moment as we looked out at the gray-barked trees devoid of vegetation or leaves.
“What you’re attempting….You both can’t make it.”
“You know I’ll try either way, so there’s no swaying me. You can keep your hints and riddles.”
“Maleki.” He said. I looked directly at him. His voice almost sounded empathetic. “I believe in you, but please know the cost of your decision.”
“Oh, I see….” My eyes blazed into the distance. “That doesn’t change anything, but I appreciate your honesty.” Miko’s bag fell to the floor before Nomen with a light toss. “Accept this as a gift. You can return it if we reach you at The Garden.”
“Of course,” Nomen replied. I nodded to accept the grace he was extending. This was surely outside of his jurisdiction as our guide. His head swiveled away from mine with words that came out in a depressing tone. “I shall see you soon then.”
With that, Nomen was gone, and I was left with Miko. With his bag gone, that removes some of the weight and awkwardness of carrying two bags. Our packs were much lighter than when we first set out, but all he had with him that I could keep was a bag of those berries from the false garden. That place made me feel wrong, so I was reluctant to keep them, but who knows how scarce food would be in the trial of end. With a name like that, it surely can’t be satiating; the berries were, however, so they would be a last resort.
How long had we been on this journey? How long was I alone in the life trial? Miko acted like it was two weeks for him, but it only felt like a few days for me. If his math was correct with what I remember from before, we have already been here for ten weeks. The last trial offered me rejuvenation but at the cost of my memories. It wasn’t until I stepped out of the zone and started walking these dead plains that I realized what was happening to me and what I was missing. The person I am was slipping away with every passing day, with only the most basic of concepts and the strongest pulls of emotion to keep me grounded. Even then, the trial was able to twist and control my mind and memory to prevent me from finding Miko. In exchange, it had healed some of the tissue in my chest, bicep, and back. The side of my lower chest and bicep had healed considerably, but the quick healing had caused scar tissue to form in the place of a scab. The injuries did not restrict movement, but Miko’s weight over my shoulders pinched at the spots, returning the pain that was previously there. However, the scratches on my back had not healed as nicely but had improved. The Aeternae would live on in the memory of those gashing scars.
To get to The Garden, I must think like Miko and keep my strength. Nomen didn’t seem confident, and the trials have only gotten more challenging with each one we completed. What do I have to expect from this place? What would Miko predict with the information we had gathered from all the others? The last trial healed me, but will this one weaken me? Weren’t all the trials doing that already, or was this one a more potent variant that saps away at me quicker? If life means to heal, what does end mean? Isn’t death the only ending? There isn’t anything more final than that. I had never seen anyone die, but I knew what it meant. To die is to dissipate into nothing. Would I dissipate here, slowly and finally? Anticipating eases me, though it won’t change the result — I should just focus on the ground in front of me; as long as I am moving, that means progress.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
After hours of walking, I have come to the grand conclusion that this place is awful —a genuinely miserable stretch of nothing. The dead trees, shaped like crooked fingers with spiked branches, made me uneasy in an unnatural way. Even when I pushed past them, with the stream’s current, they seemed to follow me with sharp eyes on my back. Anxiety caused my stomach to knot as I walked, rested, and walked some more. Despite all my walking, the edge of the previous compounded forest was still in view, even though I had walked for days. There was no shade, branches, or pits — only lifeless plains, barren of all resources, creatures, and plants. Everything dies here; no blooms or tiny blades of grass reach through cracks in the ground. No, there were just cracks and uneven tones of brown dirt. There weren’t even tall stones. This flat, infertile biome leveled even the mightiest rocks into uniformity.
A cold breeze scattered against my sleeves — a sign of the looming night sky that turned the hottest realm into that akin to the mountain. There was no escape from the changing temps, as there was no place to hide. The sides of the shallow stream were my only dip away from the winds, but they hardly provided any protection. They felt more like a ramp to speed up the chilling breeze. There were no sticks or kindling for a fire, so I would have to make do with the blankets I stuffed into my bag. Just because Miko was permanently asleep didn’t mean he couldn’t get sick or didn’t need or deserve the warmth. We both get a blanket. That’s what’s fair, even if I huddle into a ball to keep my body heat from escaping. Sleeping here was difficult; it was like laying down for a nap to heal a headache, only to wake up with a worse one.
Every day, the sun rises, and I walk again as far as my body will let me. Without Miko’s conscious effort to use his arms or legs to hold on, it was impossible to get him onto my back and keep him there. Without the cart, there were two ways to carry him. The first was to hold his back and knees in my arms like a parent would hold a baby, but instead of a baby, you’re holding a fifty-ish pound ten-year-old. Carrying him that way tires my arms out quickly, so the second way was to slump him over my shoulders. Alternating shoulders helped prevent me from tiring out so quickly, so when both needed a break, I would carry him over both shoulders like a large log. My thighs burned after a single half-hour walk. The added weight slowed my pace to a crawl, exhausting me until I found myself on my knees and bent over the ground, no energy remaining in my body. These pits of fatigue destroyed any plans of long durational movement, as I could barely move a couple hundred feet before falling to my knees.
Every night of sleep gave me enough energy to move a hundred feet at the most. The further away from the life trial I got, the more the effects of this one became prevalent. At first, the feeling was like a tingle in all my cuts, scars, and injuries. A week in, the irritating tingle became heat like the sun was beaming down at the spots, but even during the night, the sensation continued. Since I could only move so far during the day before tiring out, resting, and trying again, I would spend my moments of clarity focusing on the pain I was feeling. In the third week, the heat in the cuts and wounds was a burning sear that made even old injuries and slashes feel like they were being torn back open. Today was a month in, and my only motivation was the sensation, as focusing on it reminded me that I was alive. My muscles felt weak, and they tired quickly. I could only move thirty or forty steps before pausing. We might be twenty miles in at this point, but there’s no real way to tell. The large tree in The Garden inches nearer every night I sleep, but it still looks unreachably far. The water in the stream keeps me from dying of thirst, but it never quenches the desire. Even the berries, which act like a complete meal on their own, hardly affect me anymore.
Miko had not awoken or even stirred in his sleep. There wasn’t a peep or grunt from him, despite multiple times that I had dropped him or fallen from the overbearing weight after a walk I had let go on for too long. If I felt tired, I always gave in five more steps; that meant I was moving faster. Those five steps might save me a day or two by the end of this, possibly more. After the first week or two of his slumber, I had begun to lose hope that he would wake up randomly, but in these moments of weakness where my exhausted body lays on the hot dirt of this barren wasteland, the desire for him to majikally wake up is often at the front of my mind. How much longer could I keep this up? A few more weeks? A month? Miko swung over my shoulders like a dead animal, and I kept walking.