Seasons of Heaven (22 page)

The fire warmed him and he lay down, protected by a big tree behind him. His eyes became too heavy to hold open and he fell into sleep.

James woke up after a short night….Slowly getting his bearings back. His fire was small, but still cracking. If anyone could have seen him with his tousled hair and two days growth of beard they may have mistaken him for a caveman rather than one of the best surgeons in his field. Only two days had passed since he came to this place but the stress of it already showed on the lines in his face.

He stood up to stretch and noticed something strange…A fire! James could see the thick, black smoke pouring out from the trees and he followed it. The path was long, but he was determined. He went to the other side of the cliff and further into the jungle where the trees were sparser and the precipices more frequent. He had to climb over both rocks and trees. Using vines as cords he was able to climb the more difficult rocks and after hours of roaming he was at his most exhausted. Thankfully he was able to stumble on a small body of water. He leaned forward and plunged his face into the water to cool him down. When he finished cooling off and drinking he took a good look around. It was a big lake, an amazing turquoise color, like the sea in the Fiji Islands.

“James, you have to reactivate them…” It was a woman’s voice, whispering on the wind.

“Who is it? What do you want? Show yourself!” James yelled back.

“What was am I supposed to activate?” He felt like he was at the beginning of a journey that might never end. He was in a place where suddenly chaos was the new order. He stood up and walked along the ragged bank of the lake in staggering exhaustion. The line between the jungle and the water was a tangled mass of gnarled and twisted roots that started at the surface and writhed their way down. Even with the adrenaline surge he’d gotten when he noticed the fire, his feet were slowing and he could feel the vomit rising in the back of his throat. He walked until he could walk no longer and then all at once, he plunged into the water, hoping for relief from the aches and the pressure of his tired muscles...He began to swim, but his limbs were so exhausted that it wasn’t so much as swimming as it was drowning. Every few strokes he had to stop and tread water and sometimes his tired, heavy body would begin to sink. His head would fall underneath the cold, clear water and he’d begin to panic and claw his way back to the sun-sprinkled surface. His head was pounding and every cell in his body screamed for some kind of relief as he continued to swim forward in a slow crawl. Getting sucked under again and again was leaving his body deprived of precious oxygen and his thoughts were beginning to become more confused and disoriented. He began to wonder if he would make it…or if this beautiful river was going to turn into a watery grave just as the far side came into view. He told himself that he was almost there. He had to keep going…just a little while longer.

When he at last was in reach of the long, gnarled roots of the trees that grew down into the water from the river bank, he reached out and grabbed hold of one and pulled himself up the slippery slope. Once he was out of the water, he collapsed down along the bank and sucked in the mud and muck, still trying to fill his lungs with air. His head was so heavy that holding it up was a chore in itself and it was several long minutes before he had the energy to at last use his arms and push himself up to a sitting position. He slowly took off his shirt. The muscles in his arms neck and back were burning. When he had it off he hung it on a bush along with his shoulder bag and liana to dry them.

“Doctor! Doctor! You have to escape, hide yourself…” It was the voice again.

“Who are you?! Show your face! Why should I hide?” James looked around and seeing no one he sighed heavily in frustration.

He sat down in a comfortable spot alongside the lake. He had to rest. He let his mind relax for a couple of hours and then tried to reassess the situation…

“I woke up here with Sarah three days ago...It seemed like an island at first…But something is wrong here!”

James thought back further and the memories began to rush in… “I was on a plane. We crashed. Where are the others? Why I am alone? And what was Sarah doing here? I don’t understand!”

James was used to asking questions and getting the answers. He was a science man after all… But here in this place, his beliefs were fading away one after another. He no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t.

He could feel panic seeping in and knew that he couldn’t allow it to take over. Instead, he got up and continued along his path. After he’d gone a short way, right in front of him a strange object appeared. It was like a tomb, with a white stone covering the entrance.

The atmosphere suddenly became as cold as ice. James found a tree branch, used his shirt to wrap it with a piece of cloth and soaked it in sap. He entered the place and inside there was already a lighted torch. James used it to light his own.

“This fucking torch … I am stumbling…”

After he’d gone a few feet deeper into the darkness, the ground gave way under his feet and he began to slide downward very quickly. He was still holding the torch, fearing the intense darkness. His back was hitting the rocks, his body becoming bruised and bloody along the way. After about seventy feet, he finally stopped with a jolt on the muddy ground. It looked like a place that recently held water…but now there was only mud. James stood up; he was sore and once again becoming disheartened.

He moved forward once more and came upon a strange, empty room. It was all white and the light was so bright and intense that he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He had to open and shut them and when he opened them he could see that his bag was damaged from the fall and the light of the torch extinguished.

Lost and confused, James went closer to the center of the room. There was a cord hanging from the ceiling. It looked like a power switch used on lamps back in the 1960’s. James hesitated briefly and then he pulled on the cord. The light went off again and the ground gave way underneath his feet.

This time, the ground was very smooth, like a toboggan. He slid down at a great speed, feeling like every second he was barely escaping death. His limbs felt like they were on fire and they were moving along on their own.  His brain was disconnected from everything other than the sound of his hammering heart and the swish-swish of blood in his ears. Adrenaline raged in his blood stream and his stomach lurched but since he hadn’t eaten for so long, there was nothing there to purge.

The slide stopped as he was thrust into a deep pit of swirling, cold water. His muscles clenched tight against the cold water as it began to penetrate his skin and chill his blood. It felt like frost was sinking into the marrow of his bones like wet concrete and he knew that he had to get out quickly or he would drown. The thing he was in was like a giant siphon and the sides were smooth with nothing to grab onto. His already exhausted body was begging him to just give in and go under but what was left of his survival instinct, urged him to go on. He had to push against the sides with the soles of his battered feet and it took multiple attempts for him to get in a position where he could reach the top and pull himself to safety.

While his muscles were still shaking, trying to work some heat back through his body he saw three things approaching him. They were a mass of tangled limbs that projected darkness and evil. They began running towards him and he tried to duck and avoid them. They were too quick, and one entity struck out and with one touch it paralyzed him. The torch he was still holding in his hand fell down and the sparks cascaded across the grass in front of him. The entities stood back, not yet ready to flee, but watching to see what would happen. The grass began to smolder and then the flames began to lick up into tall, glowing embers. Within minutes there was a fiery dance going on around him and the things that were chasing him had begun to flee. 

He tried to duck and avoid them, but they were too quick, and one entity paralyzed him. Once the fire was established, the entities vanished, leaving horrible screams suspended in the air.

“What the hell?” James was trying to put out the fire. While he was stomping and slapping at the flames he wondered what had frightened away the entities. Was it the fire itself, or the sage that it had been burning? James didn’t have the time or the energy left to ponder it at the moment. He would use both if the things came at him again. He still had his lighter and he bent down and grasped as many blades of the plant as he could hold. He tucked it into his bag so that he had it with him next time…just in case.

James went outside, thinking that this strange place could possibly serve as a shelter. He was walking again, hoping finding somebody.

“James, reactivate them! We are here for you…” It was the female voice again.

“But who the hell are you? Show yourself! I am not afraid of you!”

James’s body was wrecked. He collapsed…everything was wrong. His strength was diminishing…He hadn’t eaten, he was dehydrated and he was hallucinating. This place was eating him alive. He was a physician and he knew what a critical situation he was in. The water he’d been drinking did not even cool him.

He had a sudden, eerie thought…
Am I already dead?
That would at least make the events since the plane crash make some kind of sense. If that was the case however, what was he supposed to do in this place?

He got up and pushed on, continuing to wander through the dense forest, He kept wandering listening to the voices telling him to recover two stones, one in a cave, the other one in an old village.

James followed the suggestions for the next hour and ended up coming to the front of an entrance to a cave. He took one of the two torches placed on both sides of the entrance and lit it up using the sap he carried with him.

He entered the cave and suddenly he was not alone anymore. Numerous smoky shadows are following him again and once again, he began to panic.

“Go away…”

“Come, come, and do not fight. It is useless, James…” the Banished one’s chirped at him.

He ran and tried to hide, but there was nothing he could do to escape them. He had the impression that these hideously evil things were eating him slowly from the inside out. He slowed down, and began hallucinating again. The walls were pushing him from all sides and then they would go away. He tried to protect himself by burning the sage.

The plant worked, chasing the shadows away. James caught his breath and once he was calmed down, he began again looking for the stone. As he moved forward, he tripped over a piece of armor lying on the ground. It was red and black…it looked like the kind that might belong to a samurai. Lying next to it James saw a naginata and a broken sword. This sword was different than any James had ever seen. It was curved at the point where it had broken. The blade was two-handed and it had a single edge. The cross-sectional area of it was round, unlike the swords James had seen in museums that had once been used by European medieval knights.

He picked them all up and took them with him, thinking that they might come in handy. He had an idea and stopped to rub the blades with the sage. He hoped that perhaps it might help him to repel or even kill the evil, dark creatures. It was a slim hope, but at least it was something. James made his way along carefully, the light of his torch lighting up only a short way in front of him. It was like walking blindly and not knowing what you would step on or into. He reached out and touched the walls as he walked. In some places they were smooth from the constant drip of water running across them and wearing them down, and in other places the water had worn jagged paths. It was cold and dank and the only sound besides James’s breathing was the sound of the endlessly dripping water. His sore and tired feet slipped in places and several times he almost fell before at last stumbling into a clump of stalactites and stalagmites that hung from a low point in the ceiling. He was thrust backwards and unable to stop his fall. He struck his back and shoulders on the unforgiving rocky floor. Thank goodness he was able to spare his head the blow.

He pulled himself back upright and the only thing that propelled him forward into the unknown void was the hopes of at last finding his salvation.

He finally arrived at the end of the cave. On his left side he could see another watercourse. In front of him, inside the wall something shone out. It looked like a big screw. Curious, he used his broken sabre like a chisel and a flat rock for a wedge; he used his own weight to cleave it from the rock. He was panting and sweating by the time he finally managed to get it loose, the cave wall seemed almost reluctant to let it go. Once he had it all the way out he could see that it was a stone and it was about a foot long.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“JAMES”

James put the stone in his bag. It fits easily inside. He noticed there was some kind of metal in the wall where the stone had been fixed. James wondered if it was a magnet and the stone had been fixed against it. 

Just as he began moving again, a deafening noise roared throughout the cave. James continued his path towards the exit, walking along some sort of ridge line. Below him he could see numerous rocks immersed halfway in murky, dark water. One slip and fall would very likely lead to his death.