The Land of Broken Roads

He sprinted as hard as he could. His body sparked with terror from toes to hair and he ran wildly, desperately, holding nothing back.

The green-skinned monster was slightly slower, but only slightly. Fear of its teeth kept him running after his legs lost their strength and felt heavy, long after every part of him burned from exertion his body had never known. His feet pounded the soft dirt, making a strange rhythm with the creature’s snarls and panting.

How far ahead was he? Did he dare look back? No, he didn’t. His mind was clearing up a little now that the adrenaline was wearing off, but it was still back there, chasing him. The way it thrashed the ferns as it ran told him all he needed to know.

Run. There was no choice. Run or die. Run or die. Run or die. It turned into a jogging chant, repeating in his mind. Right left right, run or die, right left right—

Something hit the back of his shoulder and knocked him forward. Pain spread slowly but deep. For a moment he was sure a bone was broken but he kept his feet under him. It hurt to swing his arm, but the joint still worked. Thank Grace.

He got a bit of distance from the green monster-man and glanced back to see it picking up its bone club.

Hope put a spark into his tired, hollow legs and kept them going. He glanced back every three or four paces, watching for another toss.

It paid off. The green monster threw the club again and he turned sharply to avoid it. The club flew harmlessly into the ferns, hopefully lost forever.

He kept running in the new direction and picked up his pace when he spotted a chance. Racing toward a tree, he leaped up and climbed over an enormous root, about halfway out where it was only a little taller than he was. He scraped his front from collar to shins on the flat gray bark, but he made it over faster than he expected.

There was no time to think about how much it stung. The monster gave a frustrated squeal as it tried to follow him over the root, its shorter legs and greater weight slowing it down.

The second root was more intimidating than the first, but scrapes were better than bites. Scrapes wouldn’t kill him. He only got high enough to barely scramble over, arms and legs slapping desperately on the wood.

He tumbled over the other side head-first and rolled down into the ferns. From there, he made his way out into the open green expanse, keeping as low as he could while still moving quickly. He did his best to dodge between the plants, but it wasn’t perfect.

It was good enough. The green monster’s rage echoed off the world-sized trees as it thrashed through the ferns and screamed. He couldn’t do anything about his footprints, but it would take time to follow them and that creature didn’t sound very patient.

Cold, unrelenting fear kept him going long after his body wanted to stop, long after the creature’s howls faded in the distance and ceased. But his new body could only handle so much, and when he collapsed, his arms were too weak to stop him from face-planting in the dirt.

Only a moment later, he found himself curled into a ball and crying softly. He was a child now and there was more emotion in him than he had any power to control. It was an odd feeling—tightness in his chest and face, a lump in his throat, burning in his eyes.

There was nothing he could do to stop it. He cried quietly, slowly, until his emotions were as empty as his arms and legs. After that, he lay for a while and rested, contemplative and miserable.

“I hate this,” he whispered into the dirt. He had no word for the creature, which made him think he’d never seen one before. The unpleasant shade of its green skin didn’t fit with the gentle ferns and eternal trees. It seemed as foreign to the forest as he was. It was some kind of horrible, misshapen man, and it knew a few words, which meant it was smart enough to be dangerous. Plenty dangerous.

“I really, really hate this,” he whispered again. His mind refused to relax and give him peace. If there was one monster, were there more? And what else was out there? What was it doing here? Did it appear when he did?

In fact, had he even existed before today? Some words strutted through his mind, but he couldn’t make sense of them. Resurrection, spontaneous generation, temporal displacement…

He had no idea what the words meant, probably because he was thinking about it. He had to let a word come by itself or it would escape without being understood.

“My name,” he whispered. “What’s my name?”

With nothing better to do than rest until he got his sparks back, he lay there awhile and tried to remember. If he had a name, that meant he was real and something about him had existed before. If not, then maybe he came from nowhere. Maybe he was just a little thing that would come and go, unnoticed and immediately forgotten. Maybe he would stop existing soon. Vanish away.

But no name came to him, and the longer he waited, the more it seemed like everything he had been or known before was gone forever.

“Oh,” he whispered. “If I lost something, then this isn’t the start. And it won’t be the end.” That one thought comforted him.

It was hunger that finally made him sit up and very, very carefully poke his head up to see if the disgusting monster was anywhere nearby. Only after making absolutely certain that no sound or motion disturbed the stillness of the endless forest did he rise to his feet.

Way too much of him was scraped and raw and sore. He bled slightly from ten different places. He wiped the blood away and felt again the soreness in his shoulder and the deep bruise the monster’s club had given him. All he could do about any of those little injuries was ignore them, though, so he did.

He looked around and started wondering what he was supposed to eat.

Something soft. Something that smelled good and tasted good. Not dirt. Not hard like a tree. Something else. A fern?

He pulled a few of the little green leaves from a frond and chewed them, but they didn’t taste like something he should eat. He pulled the fern this way and that, inspecting inside its fronds and under its leaves, wondering if there was something else. Some other part.

Baby ferns. There were little ones growing up from the ground, soft and fuzzy with a different color, pale green instead of dark. He broke one off, about the length of his hand and a big spiral on the end the size of a curled finger.

He held it up to his nose. It just smelled dark and green, but his stomach twitched. He popped it in his mouth and chewed the whole thing, pleased to find that it was tender and pleasant, if a bit grassy. He grabbed another, and another. He ate his fill, but not so much he felt too full. What was the rush? These baby ferns were everywhere. He’d never run out.

Now he just needed something to wash it down. He stood and looked around again and realized with a sinking feeling that there was nothing, anywhere, that looked like a drink. He was getting thirsty, especially after running so far. His legs and arms still felt weak and his throat and mouth were drying out.

He took a few steps in no particular direction, trying to think of where he could find a drink, or exactly what that might look like. Something flat and shiny and wet. A big place of… a place on the ground made of something to drink. There would be no ferns there. It would be open space, and the water would probably be too nasty and green with algae and rot to drink.

Water! That was it. He needed water. His mind seized on the word, one so evocative he could almost picture what it signified. He hurried over to a tree and walked the long way up a root.

The roots were so huge that when he reached the trunk, he was several times his height above the ground. He could see much farther from up here, but there was nothing more to see. No movement, no breaks in the expanse of ferns. No hills or buildings in the distance where the horizon faded in pale mist and shadows.

What was a building? He shuddered and turned away from the thought, lest he lose the word and never get it back. That was one he wanted to keep. It was an important word, the word for civilization. The works of mankind.

Well, no reason to stand here until he was spotted. He moved back down the root to where it was safe, then jumped down and rolled in the dirt to break his fall. By Grace, he was getting absolutely caked in black mud.

A curious thought struck him. Sometimes, water was in the ground. Was that right? Could he dig and find some?

He knelt and started pulling away big clumps of damp, black dirt with both hands. Stirring it up like this brought the smell out, rich and bold. Would that make it harder to smell him, he wondered?

The rich earth revealed tiny beetles and worms, ants smaller than his fingernail and too fast to catch, all trying to get away from him. But no water. By the time the hole got deep enough he had to bend forward and reach in to pull out more, he was starting to feel foolish. There was nothing down here but more dirt.

He saw something wriggling its way out into to the hole, about a hand’s length below ground level. A grub, white with yellow streaks and black spots. And big, too, as long as his finger and twice as thick. It squirmed and wiggled all its stumpy little legs when he picked it up and brushed the dirt off.

Without thinking, he popped it in his mouth and chewed. It took two or three chomps before it quit wiggling on his tongue. The outside was a little tough, but the inside was all liquid. It tasted a little like nuts and pepper, which made him wonder what those things were, and also faintly sweet.

Digging a bit more found him two more grubs, and he ate them immediately. Their juices soothed his thirst, and it was nice to have something a bit more chewy than the baby ferns.

That was two things he could eat, then. Baby ferns and grubs, with maybe enough liquid not to be so thirsty. Now he just needed a safe place to sleep and hide, somewhere he could rest without wondering when another green monster was about to jump out at him. And water. He probably still needed water.

Standing up, he turned around and found the muzzle of a giant dog two inches from his nose. It towered over him, leaning down for a sniff.

He tried to scream and only managed to whimper as he fell backward and collapsed on the ground. The dog was enormous. Just its legs were taller than he was, with a muzzle big enough to take his head off easy as a grub. Its fluffy gray fur and calm demeanor did nothing to lessen the sense of incredible strength it radiated, or the deep, instinctual terror it filled him with.

He froze, both unable and unwilling to move. Somehow he knew that if he ran, the beast would chase and rip him apart. What could he do? Just try not to look like food, or a toy. Helplessness and despair nearly won inside him and he only held himself together by a fingernail.

The giant dog leaned down again to sniff him where he’d collapsed on the ground. Its hot breath rushed over him, the sound of its lungs cavernous and deep.

Its wet nose touched his forehead. He squeaked in terror and lost a squirt of urine. The dog smelled that, too.

He couldn’t meet its gaze. He dare not. This was too much. This was all too much.

-What are you?- asked a voice in his mind.

He was so startled he forgot to stay afraid. He looked up at the giant dog.

-You are not a goblin,- said the voice. The dog sniffed him again, then walked around him in a circle. -What are you?-

He felt very, very small, sitting on the ground as the giant beast stepped behind his back.

When it circled back around and stood in front of him again, all he could think of was the power of its claws, digging into the dirt too close to his toes.

“I’m a boy!” he blurted out.

The dog gave him a quizzical look, head tilted. -Can you only bark?- asked the voice in his mind.

No, no, no, this was dangerous. He had to make it happy. He had to keep trying. He had to do something.

He stood, trembling from head to toe, and gingerly reached up to pat the dog on the fur above its nose. He rubbed back and forth, trying to pet it. Slowly, softly at first, and the dog didn’t bite his arm off.

-What are you doing? Why can’t you talk?-

“I can,” he said. It wasn’t working. He was going to die.

-You are a little baby, aren’t you? I am a month old, so I am older than you. Think with the loud part where I can see it.-

Focusing all his mental energy, he thought as loud as he could. “Hello?”

The dog jerked back a bit. -You are a noisy little thing, aren’t you?-

He tried again, trying to be clear and just use the surface thoughts, the part of his mind that worked in words. “Hello?”

-You said that already. So what are you?-

“I’m a human.”

-Oh. I’ve never seen one before. Mother said humans are wrapped in metal, but you aren’t.-

“No, I’m just a child. I think something happened to me, but I—“

-Mother said I should not bother humans. She said you are pests.-

“I’m not a pest. What are you? I didn’t know dogs got so big.”

-I am not a dog. I am a wolf pup.- The mental words came with an image of blood and claws, snarling teeth and burning yellow eyes. Terrifying, unrelenting ferocity. Ferocity before which there could be no compromise. -I will be big and strong someday, like Mother. But right now, I am little and young, like you. But I think Mother will scold me if she finds out I talked to a human. Good bye, little human.-

“Good bye, little wolf,” he thought. “Wait, what’s your name?”

-I don’t have one. I don’t need it.-

“How about if I call you…” He panicked, suddenly unable to come up with anything. He knew words; he should know some good names. But he didn’t. He couldn’t think of any, even to get an idea what one sounded like. He blurted out, “Socks. Because your front paws are white, so it looks like you have socks on…”

No sooner had he sent the thought than he realized how that sounded. It felt all wrong. This was not an animal you called Socks. It was a terrifying and majestic thing not a… not a ‘Socks’. He couldn’t remember what socks were, anyway. Foot clothing?

-Okay. You will call me Socks. And I will call you Dirt, because you are all dirty. But you won’t call me anything because I need to go back to Mother now and I won’t come back. Goodbye, Dirt.-

“Goodbye, Socks,” thought Dirt.

The wolf pup turned and slipped away in the ferns, making no sound and hardly even disturbing the fronds as he raced off into the distance. Socks was so tall Dirt might be able to walk under him without ducking, but he moved silently. A true hunter.

Dirt watched Socks until he vanished into the distance.

All was quiet again. Perfectly still. Eternal. Limitless open spaces broken only by tree trunks of gray, thick and tall as the pillars that held up the heavens. Green above and below, and him in the middle—tiny, naked, and dirty, feeling helplessly alone.