Immortal Darkness: Shadow Across the Land (26 page)

Leyoht’s mind gave a sudden leap when he
heard a female voice calling his name. “Leyoht—Leyoht are you
okay?” the eerie voice called out.

--

At the sound of this strange voice, Leyoht
took notice of a strange sensation emanating just below where his
eyes should have been. It then when—in total confusion—he found
himself sitting in his own hollow, his mother standing idly by.

Once Leyoht had taken sight of his mother, he
listened as she asked, “Why are you crying?”

Slightly confused with his mother’s question,
asked himself,
What’s she talking about?

Hoping to find the answer, Leyoht touched the
feathers beneath his eye with a wing. Removing his wing from the
bottom of his eye, Leyoht took a glance at it—to realize it had
been partially soaked in tears.
It was a—dream?
he silently
asked himself.

Shortly after asking himself this question,
Leyoht took a look up into his mother’s eyes while allowing her
lovely stare to erase his troubles away. As their gazes locked on
to each other, Leyoht nervously responded, “I just had a dream that
strange-looking humans came to our tree, cut it down, and—and
killed us!”

Hearing as these last two words pounded
against her eardrums, Sahemawia attempted to hush Leyoht down when
she murmured, “Don’t worry, Leyoht; it was only a dream. But what
you’re seeing now isn’t a dream at all.” Taking a deep breath, she
continued, “And I have to tell you that I have big news!”

Noticing as his mother hopped up on her feet,
a look of surprise crossed Leyoht’s face when he asked, “What is
it?”

Releasing some of her excitement away through
a small sigh, Sahemawia allowed a small moment of silence to slip
into place. Breaking the silence, she murmured to her son,
“Leyoht—do you know how you came to this world?”

These words vibrating in his ears, a
maelstrom of thoughts started off in Leyoht’s young mind.
What
does she mean?

After taking a moment to think about it,
Leyoht realized how the question for why he was put on Earth
was
definitely a most mystifying question. Even then, he had
never before even thought about such a topic.

After taking his time on pondering such a
question, Leyoht finally shook his head in response. Watching as
his mother let a small chuckle pass through her beak, Leyoht
listened tentatively to whatever it was she was about to say.

Once the small moment of laughter had come to
an end, Sahemawia beckoned Leyoht in her direction when she
commanded, “Come here.”

Although the words were spoken loudly and
clearly, it had taken a while for Leyoht to make any response to
them. The only thing he could have done for the next heartbeat and
a half was silently ask himself what Sahemawia was going to do with
him.

Unfortunately for Leyoht, it hadn’t taken
very long for Sahemawia’s patience to give a slight decrease. “Come
on!” she beckoned once again.

Shaken by these words, Leyoht allowed a hop
to slip from underneath his feet while attempting to move toward
his mother. At the same time, the two words, “I’m coming,” sprang
out from his beak.

I wonder what she has back there
, he
thought to himself.
Is it something for me? What did she do?
Leyoht was unsure if either of his questions were to be
answered.

Leyoht found himself slightly confused when
the sight of a second nest—which he noticed resting on the side of
the hollow—clouded his vision. How this little nest could have come
here overnight was beyond him. However, the most astonishing
characteristic about the nest was how the nest was cradling what
appeared to be a white, round rock.

Before he could have asked anything about the
nest, Sahemawia interrupted his thoughts when she explained,
“That’s where you came from.”

“I came from that
rock
?” Leyoht
sneered in disbelief.

“It’s not really a rock. That white thing in
the nest is called an egg—and you came out of one of them a while
ago.”

“Are you saying that somebody’s in that rock.
I mean—egg?”

“Not exactly,” Sahemawia corrected. “Nobody’s
in that egg right now, but there will soon come a day when somebody
will
come out.”

“But how did they get there in the first
place?” Leyoht wondered.

In response to this difficult question,
Sahemawia hesitated on her answer. It was after releasing a shaky
sigh when she responded, “I guess they slowly grow when they’re in
the egg. All I know is that they somehow go from being a collection
of gunk into an owlet—I’m just not sure how.”

“How do you know what’s in there?” Leyoht
asked as he turned his gaze toward the peaceful egg. Sending a
shock of fear to rush through his mother’s spine, Leyoht hurriedly
swept his way over to the egg to a point where his beak was barely
any distance from the egg at all.

“Don’t touch it!” Sahemawia demanded through
a snap.

These three words sparking a sudden sense of
fear in Leyoht’s stomach, he quickly turned his flexible neck far
enough for his beak to point toward his mother. Blinking back a
small array of apprehensive tears, Leyoht forced an inappropriate
response to slide up his throat when he asked, “What’s going to
happen if I
do
touch it?”

Her throat tightening, Sahemawia sighed yet
again before responding, “Okay—you can touch it. But just make sure
that you don’t hurt the egg. The reason I know how there’s a lot of
gunk in the eggs is because—well—I’ve accidentally dropped some of
them before. If they’re dropped, then the egg will break and the
person who was inside the egg will die. So just promise me that you
won’t peck at the egg—or anything like that!”

Giving a quick nod, Leyoht responded, “Okay!”
Turned his gaze toward the white egg Leyoht felt as another
question buzzed through the back of his mind. Unable to handle
himself he blurted out, “How did the egg get there?”

A shock of surprise and slight fury rushing
through Sahemawia’s blood when she quickly realized no such
question could have been directly answered to somebody of Leyoht’s
youth.

After allowing a pause of hesitation to take
place, Sahemawia explained, “Your father and I both made the egg
and placed it there. To be honest, the egg recently came out of my
body, and I left it there.” Before a single word could escape from
Leyoht’s beak, she curtly continued, “And that’s all I’ll tell you
for now.”

A small sense of disappointment bouncing
within his head, Leyoht found himself struggling at holding his
tongue once again. Fortunately for him, it hadn’t taken long for
the question to slip away from his curious mind.

As Sahemawia brought herself to sit upon the
egg, a spark of surprise flared up within her heart when she heard
Leyoht ask, “Did
you
come from one of those eggs?”

How many questions is he going to ask in
one day?
After letting another small pause pass, Sahemawia
finally answered, “Yes.” A sense of delight filling her head, she
continued “And soon you will have a young sibling. Pretty soon your
new brother or sister will hatch out of the egg! I’m just know
you’ll have so much fun together!”

A look of surprise and slight horror showed
on Leyoht face when a hurricane of thoughts flew through his mind.
It was at the same time when he silently asked himself how he
should have felt.
Good or bad?

--

A chilling wind brushed its way through the
human’s vessel—causing a fraction of the little owls to shift in
their sleep. Among them was Pesstian.

Unused to the recent temperature changes,
Pesstian struggled to keep himself from moving over to a different
spot. Doing so would have spent a large amount of his energy—which
he needed to store for the next night.
I just have to ignore
it
, he anxiously demanded of himself.

Echoing inside his head, these words spun
down an endless loop. Although he hoped doing so would push away
the urge to move from where he was, such attempt had only made
matters worse. Six words and nothing more bounced through his
head—but his struggle would only increase.

Before releasing his anger in a howl, the
chilled little owl irritably flicked his two yellow, burning eyes
open. Once he had done so, he swiftly removed his body away from
the wall in which he had just rested upon. Ensuring he wouldn’t
wake anybody else up, Pesstian furtively crept beneath the
trapdoor.

A pause of hesitation came into place when he
asked himself,
Should I do it? Or should I just go back to
sleep?
Pesstian’s current plan was to bolt his way through the
trapdoor by creating a powerful gust of wind with his wings.
But
will it even work?

To a passerby in the distance, it would seem
as if Pesstian were simply taking a look at the wall. Pesstian
could only imagine how stupid this looked.

Although it had taken a long time of fighting
between both sides of his own consciousness, Pesstian came to his
conclusion when yet another cool breeze swept through his feathers.
I’m going to see what’s going on.
This bold statement
penetrating the walls of his head, he placed himself in a crouch,
readying himself to give his wings a great flap.

Only a heartbeat had come to pass when
Pesstian shot upwards toward the trapdoor. At the same time, his
heart gave an enormous leap—his talons twitched with excitement and
slight fear. This twitching only lasted a heartbeat, coming to its
end when his head came in contact with the trapdoor.

Feeling as the door left a bump on the top of
his head, Pesstian allowed a thumping noise to fill the room. As so
had been done, over half of the sleeping owls almost immediately
woke up. But at least now the ceiling’s door was open.

For only a moment had Pesstian found himself
launching upwards into the free air. Such a moment came to an end
when his feet hit the very in which the humans usually walked upon.
He then took a quick look at the sky—only to stare into what
appeared a very dark gray.

What’s going on? Isn’t it day right now? It
at least should be. Otherwise I wouldn’t be so tired—right?

While minding his thoughts, the weary owl
found himself being threatened by one of the humans onboard. Much
like the case of the owl who had earlier been killed by the humans,
a tall human pointed his strange, wooden weapons directly at
Pesstian’s head.

As the sight of this human steamed into the
little owl’s eyes, Pesstian felt as every single drop of his blood
spiked through his veins. Fortunately for the frightened owl, he
was able to place himself out of the reach of this weapon when he
hurriedly swept his way back into the room—back into the room with
the other little owls.

It was almost immediately after making his
way into the room when Pesstian took a look back at the human.
Fearing for the worst, he watched as the human tossed his weapon
aside and walked over to the trapdoor.

Please don’t hurt me!
Although
Pesstian expected the human to climb into the room, the only action
the human had taken was the action of closing and locking the
trapdoor in a secure position. And once again the room quieted.

A large huff of relief escaped from
Pesstian’s beak when he silently exclaimed,
That was
too
close!
Ignoring whatever the surrounding owls may have been
doing, he slowly crept his way over to a spot in the room where he
could rest his weary head for the rest of the day.
Is it
day?
Pesstian wondered once again.

The curious owl’s eyes refused to close—not
until he found the answer to his questions. His most common way to
solve problems while tired was simply to ponder about them with
closed eyes. Such a method always seemed a helpful method when it
came to thinking when he should have been asleep.

Why is it so cold around here?
Pesstian silently asked himself.
Has winter started already?
Although his images of outside were vague, he could remember the
sky holding many clusters of thick, gray clouds. He could remember
as these clouds remained ever-present in the air; he could remember
feeling even chillier on the outside of the room than he had when
he was on the inside.

Once again, Pesstian curiously asked himself,
Is
it day? Or night?
With the gray color emanating upon the
sky’s skin wearing heavily on his thoughts, it was difficult for
him to tell which time of day it should have been. In frustration,
Pesstian violently shook his head.

Feeling slightly dizzy from the shaking,
Pesstian attempted to assure himself,
No—it can’t be night
already! If it were, then I wouldn’t be so tired right now.
A
pause made its way into the silent conversation. All was silent
except for the echo of these few words as they bounced upon the
walls of Pesstian’s head. Such a mental sensation had caused him to
feel the small pain of irritation as it teased him from the back of
his head.

Wanting to relieve himself of this mental
pain, the exhausted owl silently suggested to himself,
I’ll
think about it when I wake up. Maybe it’ll be easier for me to
figure out what’s going on out there.

It was then when Pesstian gave a slight
struggle to remain true to his own words. A small argument occurred
before he would finally come at peace with himself.

--

Although his sleep hadn’t lasted very long,
Pesstian sensed a small rush of joy light up within his stomach
when the sound of creaking woke him up. Hearing as such a horrific
noise split their ears, he and many other owls started yawning.

It was then when the little owls moved
themselves away from their sleeping areas. Only moments had come to
pass when they took notice of the outdoor temperature.