The Land of Broken Roads

He wandered aimlessly after that.

Evening came and he had no power to resist how tired he was. His body needed sleep. Before the light had fully faded into darkness, he dug out a spot under a massive root and lined it with ferns to make himself a little nest. He uprooted a few more to cover himself with and lay down with an eagerness for rest that pulled him with a near-physical force into his bed.

He saw nothing of the night. He slept straight through, and judging from how he woke up in the exact same position, he’d hardly even moved during the night.

When the dim light of morning woke him, heavy fog covered everything behind a veil of gray. He couldn’t see more than ten paces.

It was cold, that was the first thing. His hair was damp with dew, as well as a few other spots that hadn’t been covered by the ferns. Even the slightest movement shook heavy drops of dew off the ferns and onto his skin. Each drip left a wet, icy line as it slipped down into the dirt.

Thirst. That was the second thing. His mouth was so dry he could hardly open it.

Dirt rose to his feet and tried to brush off some of the cold dew with his hands, but it didn’t do much good. It mostly just created mud that stung in all his scrapes. Oh well. He spent the rest of the morning eagerly licking palm fronds or shaking drops of water into his mouth. Just a little at a time, hardly enough to wet his tongue, but it added up. Very slowly, but it added up. The water tasted like the bitterness of an inedible leaf, but it was water.

As morning progressed, the fog slowly lifted foot by foot and faded away, leaving the air clear and musty and heavy, like he was used to. The forest revealed its eternal majesty, perfectly unchanged from the day before.

He caught sight of his first bird, gliding down slowly from greater heights. It was so tiny against the dappled canopy above that he wondered if there weren’t more that he simply had failed to spot. Just a speck of light and shadow, but he watched with great interest as it gently floated down to cross the impossible distance to the ground.

It must be a strong little thing, to be able to fly back up again. Assuming it ever would? Maybe it knew places to rest halfway up, ones that he couldn’t see from down here. From down here, the tree trunks looked too straight and perfect from roots to branches.

He wondered if he could find the bird and catch it? What would he do if he did? No, unless one landed right near him, there was no chance. The ferns could hide ten thousand birds and he’d never see one.

Dirt decided he may as well make something of the rest of the morning, but he didn’t exactly have a long list of urgent tasks. He dug up some grubs and ate a couple handfuls of baby ferns, then set out to find somewhere better to sleep. He didn’t want to wake up wet and cold every single morning for the rest of his life, after all. He needed a place that would be safe and dry. What exactly that might be, he had no idea. And no matter which direction he looked, the forest was flawless and infinite as a god’s dream.

He picked a direction and walked for a while, choosing a random tree in the distance and making his way toward it. He had to stop and rest and eat some grubs and ferns halfway there. It was farther than he thought because it was so large.

All along the way, nothing stood out. He listened for monsters and tried to keep a good lookout for any motion, but there was nothing, and his mind kept sinking back into reverie. Once he reached the tree, it was no different from all the others.

He ran up one of the roots, his bare feet slapping the flat bark the whole way up. The root was wide enough here that it hid how far up he was, but it was high enough he’d probably die if he slid off.

Leaning against the tree trunk to rest, he wondered: was he safer up here than down there? From here, he’d see anything big enough to be a problem coming for quite a distance. But that also meant anything sneaking around down there could see him from just as far away. Unless he lay down?

The tree trunk was more comfortable than he expected. It wasn’t very interesting, though. He was getting bored. Antsy and restless, dissatisfied. It was better than being chased, though. Better to be bored than have a green monster coming after you.

Still, boredom was affecting him more than he expected. It felt almost like physical pain. He should find something useful to do. He’d come a long way and hadn’t found a place to sleep that would be any different, so something else.

He looked down at himself. The scrapes and scratches he’d gotten yesterday were covered with dirt and grime from everything else he’d done since then, hiding them completely. They didn’t bother him unless he rubbed himself wrong, and the bruise on his shoulder from the bone club didn’t hurt unless he pushed on it.

Maybe he should try and get clean? No, it was no use. He’d just get dirty again. His name was Dirt, after all. He realized he’d started calling himself that in his own thoughts, so it was permanent now. Dirt, inside and out. It was a good name. The source of everything, the richness that held everything else up and gave it life. He almost felt guilty about “Socks.”

Maybe he should practice climbing over the roots without ripping all his skin off. That sounded fun, and besides, if he got chased again, he might be glad he got the practice. He jumped to his feet and ran down the root, as fast as he dared.

Dirt started off where it was small enough to jump over easily and worked his way up. He experimented with various ideas, like using his hands to spring up or trying to roll over. He wished he’d seen another human do it, even just once, but he hadn’t, so he had to make it up.

But it was something to do. He had a nagging feeling that all this movement and energy was unusual, that it was something new and exciting for him. He remembered yesterday, when he first woke up and everything seemed wrong; it didn’t seem that way now. He knew in his mind that he might have been an adult before, but he no longer felt that way. Perhaps he was just settling in.

After a while, he stopped and ate some more ferns. He dug around for grubs, but only found one and it wasn’t quite enough to quench his growing thirst. The sweat made little paths of cleaner skin where it dripped off him, and he wondered if it was from the oppressively humid air or if he’d just been working harder than he realized.

A cold, wet nose sniffed his back. Dirt screamed and jumped forward, rolling and stumbling and unable to get up or even turn around and look what it was. He got a glimpse of huge white paws and knew it was Socks.

Relief lasted only the half instant it took for him to notice Socks’s black muzzle, which was now drenched red in blood. The beast’s maw was only feet away, his teeth the size of Dirt’s forearm. A single bite was all it would take. Dirt froze in perfect terror, unable to think.

-Hello, Dirt. Little human.-

Dirt couldn’t gather enough of a coherent thought to reply over the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. Socks was too huge, too red in tooth and claw for him to face.

-Mother said that if I wanted, I should come see you again before you die. She said you will die soon,- said Socks.

Dirt’s eyes filled with tears and his terror turned to despair. He tried as hard as he could to think, to focus and think loudly. It did not come easy with Socks leaning down to sniff him again, which filled Dirt’s own nose with the stark, unpleasant scent of blood.

“Please don’t kill me. Please!”

The wolf pup regarded him coolly, but Dirt got a sense of amusement from the animal, even if he couldn’t quite place how.

-I scared you, didn’t I? I meant that Mother said you are like a baby bird with no nest. You will starve or something will eat you. But not me. You are all bone and no meat, and Mother said not to eat bones until I am older.-

The wolf pup’s mouth lolled open, placidly unthreatening. The animal’s tongue was wider than Dirt’s head.

“Oh,” thought Dirt. He should have known. If Socks wanted to kill and eat him, he’d just do it. There would be no warning. “Why are you covered in blood? Er, just your mouth.”

-I found a goblin before I came here. Mother says we need to get rid of them any time we see one, because there will be many more and they are pests,- said Socks.

The beast lifted up his head to look around, towering above him and causing him to step back instinctively. Dirt really could just walk right under the massive animal, he decided. The fluffy fur might brush against his head, but he wouldn’t have to duck.

The giant wolf pup meant him no harm, thank Grace. Dirt was fine. He was safer now than before, in fact. He stood up and the fear dripped away like dew, but not completely. Socks was simply too huge for him to be completely at ease.

-Goblins don’t taste good, but they are fun to chase. They always try to run.-

“What’s a goblin?” thought Dirt.

An image came to his mind of a tiny green humanoid with long ears and a long nose; a smelly, twisty, feisty thing. It took Dirt a moment to realize he was looking at the same sort of creature that had chased him yesterday. A goblin. An ugly word for an ugly creature.

“I saw one of those. It tried to eat me,” thought Dirt. Something about the admission made him feel ashamed, after seeing it how Socks saw it. Tiny, disgusting, and harmless.

-What did it do? Did it fight you?-

“No, I ran away. It was lots stronger than I am. I didn’t stand a chance.”

-Oh. Well, you are very small. And weak. What are you doing over here? Why did you come to this place instead of where you were before?-

“I wanted somewhere better to sleep. It was cold this morning because I woke up soaking wet from the dew. But there’s nothing anywhere, no matter where I look.”

-Like what? What kind of place do you like to sleep in?-

Dirt had to think about that for a moment. “I’m not sure. You said I was a baby and you were right. I was born yesterday. I’ve only slept once. But I want to sleep somewhere inside, with something over me and all around, and somewhere I’ll be safe from things that want to eat me at night. I thought I’d know it when I saw it.”

-You mean like a hole?-

“Well… Yeah, I guess. Like a hole. I wanted somewhere less dirty, too, but a hole would be fine. I should have thought of that. I can probably dig it myself.”

Socks leaned down and sniffed him again, and Dirt did his best not to let his sudden panic show on his face.

-Why do you not want somewhere dirty? You are already dirty.-

Dirt rubbed his forearm, making the drying black soil bunch up into little dry clumps and fall off. He thought about it for a moment. “I guess it’s fine.”

-I will help you dig one, then. I like to dig and your little paws look useless. Mother said to find out if there are other humans besides you, but there aren’t, are there? Or you would not be like this.-

“I don’t know if there are any other humans at all. I haven’t seen any yet.”

Socks didn’t reply to that and Dirt decided against asking if the pup had seen any, since it sounded like he hadn’t. Socks simply sniffed around, walking this way and that in the ferns.

“Oh, Socks, can we put it under a root, so I can find it again? It’ll be easier to hide the entrance that way, too.”

-Okay, but then it can’t be very big, or the tree will get mad.-

“That’s okay. It’ll just be me in there.”

Socks stepped toward a root and sniffed around, then chose a spot for no discernible reason and started digging under it. Black soil flew, a long continuous stream of it at least twenty paces long. Only moments later, the entire pup had disappeared underground, and still the earth came firing out so hard he didn’t dare get close enough to look at the progress.

It was over shockingly quickly. Socks backed out of the hole, then stretched to his full height and shook the soil off, flinging it hard enough to sting Dirt’s bare skin.

“That was fast!” said Dirt.

-I am mother’s twelfth strongest. And I made it little for you, because you’re little.-

Socks started looking around, gazing at the distance with a bit of a spark in him. He looked like he was getting ready to leave.

The thought scared Dirt. He would be alone all the rest of the day, and those hours stretched into eternities by himself. Dirt held his arms out and said, “If you put your head down where I can reach, I’ll scratch your ears to say thank you.”

Socks turned his head to look, now curious.

“Come on, just sit down and rest your head right here in front of me. You’ll like it. I’ll scratch and pet you as long as you want.”

The giant pup gingerly stepped closer, then sat down and let his head down to mash the ferns. Socks’ head was bigger than Dirt, too big for Dirt to even reach all the way across, especially around the ears, but he got to work anyway.

The pup’s fur was as soft and fluffy as it looked and felt pleasant on his bare skin, but the beast’s sheer size and the faint smell of predator kept him careful. He scratched and petted all over Socks’ neck, face, and head, especially around the base of his ears.

Socks squirmed the whole time like he wanted to turn it into a game, but he recognized Dirt was too small to play with like that. Even so, he leaned and rolled several times, giving just enough warning for Dirt to jump backward and avoid getting crushed, but that was the price of hitting all the right spots. Dirt rubbed and scratched until his fingers got sore, then kept going until his arms got tired and his shoulders burned.

When his arms finally gave out, Socks stood up, his tongue lolling out. He leaped playfully back and forth a few times, head focused on Dirt. Dirt tried his best not to cower in terror, and instead reached out one more time to pat the pup’s nose. Socks leaped out of the way before he could, and Dirt smiled. He should have seen that coming.

Socks nuzzled him, knocking him right over. -You are too little for play, but getting scratched was pleasant. I should go now.-

The pup turned and took a few steps, then lowered his front to stretch his long back. He said, -Sleep well in your little den tonight. Goodbye Dirt, little human.-

“Wait, will you come back again?” asked Dirt, trying not to sound as desperate as he was starting to feel.

-Maybe.- Then he left.