Chapter 3: Eve
3.1
One time when I was younger–8 or 9 years old–we went on a school field trip outside the city. Even in Russon, it was a rare occurrence; of course, in Hoodsdale, that sort of thing would never happen.
When we arrived at our destination, a bright, thinly forested area, the class went for a hike. As we climbed the large, wooded hill, most of the other kids started complaining about how tired they were, wanting to turn back.
Finally, the teachers told us to stop for a snack break–we would be heading back down after that. But when I peered through the trees, up to the top of the hill, I could see a strange light shining through. It looked as if the trees parted, and the hill crested to a golden peak.
When the teachers were unaware, clearly engrossed in a conversation amongst themselves, I snuck away and climbed the hill. As quickly as my short legs could take me, I stumbled my way to the summit, and, sure enough, just as I crept over the top, the forest fell away.
At first, it was blindingly bright–so bright that I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. But then, as my eyes finally started to focus, what opened up before me was another world. One that existed within our own, separated, but not quite out of reach.
The sun shone down brilliantly on an endless field of wildflowers, which went on over the smooth, rolling terrain before fading away into a distant haze. The long grass was a vivid green color, and each blade that stabbed up between flowers was illuminated by the sun and swayed with a proud beauty.
And as for the flowers, the light bounced off them and reflected into my eyes as no light had done before, making the dusty streets of Russon that separated blocks of brown, stucco-coated houses seem gray–ash gray. I realized that gray was the only color I’d ever seen.
Purple, yellow, red, blue, and orange. I saw those true colors for the very first time, and as the breeze carried them in its breath, they moved as if part of a single organism. Yes, the whole field seemed to be breathing, drinking in every drop of light that entered it.
I immediately knew that the boundary to that place was not meant to be crossed, so I didn’t cross it. It was a place of purity that no human was allowed to enter–even looking out on it invaded its privacy.
Every day of my life, all I had ever seen were those same streets and those same buildings, but they would never look the same again. It was against this field of wildflowers that I judged all beauty, and it was this field of wildflowers that made me believe some things are sacred.
Some things have an innate beauty that is meant to be protected at any cost. Perhaps even an ugly human being such as myself could find a purpose and meaning in this world if I dedicated my life to something so truly beautiful.
– – – – –
We spent the next two days heading north, which was not at all in the direction of Portland (west), going at a relatively slow pace. It was now early in the morning of my third day with the squad.
The forests here were especially dense, and, as with everywhere else, they consisted of mostly pine trees. Even though we weren’t going up Mt. Hood, we still had to navigate the foothills (“steep mountains” would probably be a better description for them), so it wasn’t easy hiking.
Occasionally, we would pass through areas where the trees thinned, opening up spectacular views of the expansive landscape of mountains and valleys that surrounded us, including, of course, the towering, snow-capped Mt. Hood.
In my time as a soldier, I’d hardly ever strayed far from Hoodsdale, and I’d never once been on a mission with views as spectacular as these. If only everyone else could see it–something other than janky, artificial structures.
As the morning passed and the sun crept a little higher in the sky, we came upon a small, round lake. The crystal clear water, which was surrounded by a wall of dark, looming pines, reflected the sun like a glass mirror.
“Oooohhh!” Nikki exclaimed. “A lake! You guys know what that means…”
Apparently, no one knew what it meant. She turned to me and hissed, “Jelani, Jelani, you know what this means??”
“Ahh, give me a second…” I tried to think about what sort of thing people did at a lake. No, what sort of thing Nikki would do at a lake.
I had my answer. “A lake is full of water, which means we can go swimming.”
“Yes!! Correct! You’re a genius!”
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Nikki promptly began removing her clothes.
“Hey. Stop that.” Blake had realized what we were doing. “You shouldn’t go swimming.”
“Aww, come on, lighten up,” Nikki whined. “We need to wash our clothes off anyway, so we might as well hop in.”
“There could be dangerous fish in there,” Blake warned. “You don’t want to get bitten.”
Nikki scoffed at him and said, “Maybe I do.”
Before Blake could say anything else, Nikki was completely naked with her clothes in a heap beside her. She stretched her arms up to the sky as if trying to give the sun a hug.
“Hey, Jelani,” she said, looking at me over her shoulder. “What’re you waiting for?”
I sighed and began to unbutton my uniform. A swim did sound nice. However, I had no intentions of joining Nikki in skinny dipping.
Stripped down to my underwear, I carried my clothes and boots to the lake’s edge. The shore’s decline was gradual, so I waded out a little into the cold water before plunging my dirty clothing under the surface.
Nikki was splashing around somewhere to my right, and, just as I’d feared, a large amount of water came descending right on top of my head. I inhaled sharply as the cold droplets rained onto my bare skin and heard Nikki’s laughter before another wave came crashing down.
After running out of the lake with my clothes bundled in my arms, I carefully hung everything on a sun-exposed tree branch to dry, relishing in the warm, comforting sensation of sun baking my skin in the process.
Once that was done, I stepped back into the lake and swam out towards the middle of the clean, cold pool of water. As I casually paddled, admiring my surroundings, I heard a ripple behind me and turned to find Nikki following closely in my wake.
“I bet I’d beat you in a race across,” she said with a grin.
“Zero percent chance,” I replied, turning my head to look forward again.
“Huh?? You don’t even know the true extent of my abilities, so how can you be so confident?” Nikki replied indignantly.
“Well, why don’t we race to find out?” I suggested.
“Oooohh, you actually agreed! Then let’s start right here.”
Nikki swam up a little so that she was next to me on the imaginary start line.
“Three… two… one…. AHHH”
Thinking she was just trying to throw me off by screaming instead of saying “go,” I started swimming hard for the opposite shore. However, another yelp followed shortly after and I turned to find her waving frantically at me.
“HELP!! Jelani, it’s the dangerous fishes!! They’re chomping on my toes!!”
I reluctantly swam towards her and said, “If I come over there, they’ll bite me too, won’t they?
“NO!! JUST HELP ME!!”
It looked like she was actually in some pain, so I decided that I should probably help her out.
I dove under the water and opened my eyes. Sure enough, there were a few medium-sized fish darting around her feet. I’d say they were about a foot long, and, based on the way they were viciously attacking her kicking legs, the fish were probably rogues.
One of them had its mouth clamped onto her big toe, and I shot my hand out to grab it. Its scales were slippery, and it was flying back and forth like crazy as Nikky kicked like a baby, but I managed to wrap my fingers around it and force its jaws to release.
Suddenly, another fish came zooming towards my face. I jerked my free arm out in reaction and, probably thanks to the element of explosiveness, was able to snatch it a split second before its teeth reached my eye.
Angry fish in both hands, I resurfaced. Pedaling my legs a little harder to elevate my upper body high in the water, I raised my right arm and hurled the fish I was holding back to shore.
Coupled with my newfound explosiveness, the skill for throwing that I’d developed over the years made it no problem for me to reach the shoreline. I transferred the second fish in my right hand and sent it flying to the same place as its partner.
“Did you get ‘em??” Nikki asked breathlessly.
“Yeah, I think they’re all gone. For now, at least.”
Raising her arms in victory, Nikki yelled, “Yes! We won! You’re my savior, Jelani! Just like one of those princes!”
We swam around a little more, but it wasn’t long before Nikki found something else to freak out about.
With a gasp, she murmured, “What is that?”
I followed her finger, which was pointing out towards the center of the lake, and, sure enough, something was protruding out of the water.
In a hushed voice, Nikki said, “The Loch Ness Monster. It’s the only explanation.”
What we saw was a small black bump sticking up out of the water’s sparkling surface. However, it was tiny. So small that it easily could have been some kind of floating object and not any kind of monster at all.
“There! You see that?” Nikki hissed at me. “It just changed directions.”
I squinted, staring intently at the thing. Indeed, it had been moving to the right, but then abruptly started moving to the left. That kind of movement didn’t make sense for an inanimate floating object.
“This might actually be a problem,” I murmured.
“I know, right?” Nikki said to me with wide eyes. “Maybe we should go a little closer to shore, but we can’t let the monster out of our sights.”
“Why not?” I asked. “If it really is a monster, shouldn’t we try to get away from it?”
“No, no, no,” Nikki replied eagerly. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We might be the ones to finally catch the Loch Ness Monster.”
“No, no, no,” I replied frankly. “The Loch Ness Monster is from, like, the other side of the world, before the apocalypse. It’s definitely not here.”
“But maybe it escaped and came here…” she suggested thoughtfully.
“How would it know to come to the one place in the entire world that survived? Besides, how would it even travel that far?
“You never know, Jelani,” Nikki said smartly. “Monsters can do some crazy things.”
It was at that exact moment that the monster turned to face us.
“Ah!” Nikki yelped. “Human being!”
My eyes widened as this mysterious human stared us down. The reason we hadn’t realized before was that they’d been facing away from us, leaving only the back of their head visible.
Both sides gazed across the water at each other.
“Hang on, Nikki.” I’d noticed something familiar about the face. “Doesn’t that look like Corvus?”
“Yeah, it’s Corvus,” she admitted. “I just thought we could play pretend for a little while.”
I thought, feeling a hint of embarrassment.
“I wouldn’t expect him to swim,” I said.
“Oh, you never know with that guy,” she replied before continuing, “Anyway, I’m going to get out now. I think I might still be bleeding from where the fish bit me.”
I turned to her in surprise. “Huh? Why didn’t you get out right away?”
She grinned and said, “‘Cause I was having fun in the water!”
