Babe sat up in the truck bed which bounced along some type of unpaved road. He wasn't sure what kind of road it was since he couldn't see anything from under the tarp? Sailcloth? Blanket? Whatever it was it covered nearly all of him and smelled faintly of cat. He sneezed and tried to fling the cloth off of him but it was stiff and resisted his somewhat disorganized efforts. Babe decided perhaps it would be better to just crawl one direction till he found an edge. It worked.  Sort of. He found an edge but it was tacked down. Following it a bit more he caught a wiff of chill but fresh air and decided this was a good sign. 

After another moment of searching, he found a break in the edge and popped his head out just as the truck went over a quite large rut in the road which startled a grunt from him.

His first breath of fresh air was ambrosia. The light was a watered down grey with hints of pink along a distant ridge. Was the sun rising or setting.  He had no idea. He racked his brain for some sense of why he was in the back of a truck headed down a rutted dirt road. He turned to try to see who was driving through the rear window and only saw the back of a head with brown near shoulder length hair and the collar of a faded red flannel. 

Details. He needed details. He searched the immediate vicinity bare trees and bracken one either side, grey sky, dull brown maybe green tarp, and fading light. The sun was definitely going down. Maybe he needed to look inward. Maybe the details he needed were just a memory away. But really. His mind was remarkably uncluttered.  He knew that was odd. For him. He typically had a deluge of thoughts and connections going at any waking moment. It was his ADHD. There was no off switch except sleep and no medium setting. So he felt odd, bereft even. His head was clear and quiet. How did people live like this? He wondered. But then the truck started to make a left. It threw Babe off balance. The truck slowed. Stopped.

They were at the end of the road, literally and figuratively.  There was the turn, a small desolate cul de sac, and then forest. The loss of the tires rumblings down the dirt and rocks left a stunned silence. Then the engine cut. Babe looked to the cab and saw the driver tilt their head back. They looked at the ceiling of the cab. The back window was smudged but thought it looked like a woman driver. Clair his mind prompted. It's Clair! 

He tapped on the window. Clair jumped and screamed. But just a little.  As though she was trying to not be too loud. She did a slow turn and an even slower raise of her eyes to his. She covered her mouth with her hands. To hold something in he wondered? Her eyes were saucer shaped and she said, "Babe?"

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"Yeah." He waved a little wave.

Clair scrambled out of the cab and walked to the back of the truck bed. He scooted down and hopped out. His legs did not seem fully convinced that they were supposed to hold him upright.  What was wrong with him? He wondered.

Clair avoided looking directly in his eyes for more than a brief moment. Her hands did a strange dance as though she wanted to pat him down checking for injuries.  She seemed to come to a decision and put them on the sides of his shoulders and squeezed. Next he knew she had pulled him in for a hug. She was stronger than she looked he realized.

"I saw the atropal catch you" she sobbed in a breath, "you died."

Babe rubbed her back and shushed. "It's alright.  Really,  I'm fine." Was he though? What is an atropal? It was starting to dawn on him. He was really out of it. It was like an ache or a parched feeling. But the feeling was throughout his entire being. He needed water.

Clair sniffled and said, "Hold on. I have a water bottle in the car." He must have said that last part out loud he realized.

He waited while she went back to the cab. As he huffed out a deep breath he heard the snap of a branch. And turned. There was something, something large. A moose? No. It was too delicate and yet, it was larger than an elk. The horns were wrong for a moose. They twisted wild from the regal crown to make an elegant and fierce set of points. The creature's eyes were enormous. A silver green with distant depths hidden within. The tawny hide looked fawn soft. It was some kind of stag. And yet the face was not the expressionless countenance of all the deer like creatures he had encountered.  There was a mobile shift of expression and thought which held his attention as an anchor holds a ship.

"Kneel" Clair hissed. "Kneel, now!"

His legs seemed to love this idea and dropped him to the dirt before conscious thought could arise. He scanted his eyes to the side and saw Claire's head bowed. He heard a hoof scuff and the bass stutter of a huffed breath from the magnificent creature.

"We come in hope of your blessings forest God. One of the dark creatures touched my friend Babe. And has lain dead to the world for more than one dark and light cycle." Clair spoke with a reverence and formal lilt he did not ever recall hearing previous. 

Had she said, dead? As in not breathing,  dead? That was impossible.  He was breathing.  Obviously. What had she said got him? An atrope? Something like that. He wracked his brain,  hearing  the sound of the giant elk creature approach even closer.

His heart hammered a rhythm that made his throat swell. He smelled something sweet. Pancakes, of all things. His dad's Sunday morning pancakes. And grass clippings. The cedar desk in his grandpa's study on a hot sunny day. Then nothing. A black so deep he could not name it for it swallowed even thought; it enveloped him and that was all. He was gone.