The pacing soon triggered another wave of pain, making me sweat under all my layers. The path wobbled in front of me. But I didn’t allow myself to miss it. My eyes had been struggling to penetrating. It was too dark to see very far, but I could sense something moving just beyond the range of my vision.
I tried my best to scramble, even my knees swayed hard under each of movement, as though the very next second I would trap my own steps.
The cold breeze whipped through the trees, swaying the grass like something was shadowing. The sweat had been frozen and it felt like making a thick layer of ice shell around me, sucking the last drop of warmth inside. The path under my feet shook more violently.
A short way further on, there was a deeply unpleasant silence. It was rent by a voice unlike any I had heard in the dream; and it uttered, not a panicked beg, but what sounded like a warning.
“Hurry-up-silence is wakening…”
“Hurry!”
“Follow the moon, you’re-close-”
It sounded not like from outside, but echoing in my own head. For a moment, I thought I had an acoasma. But I was too lightheaded to control random voices walloping around inside. Dizzy, I fell sprawled, face down on the grass.
My fingers ran quickly over my head, as though I could force that voice out of my mind. However, the numbness seemed have maneuver the feeling under my texture and I could even not feel my fingers.
Horror soared.
I forced my fingers again, still no reaction. It felt like I was tucked into the icebox, and each part of the texture was felt like being froze damaged. It didn’t make sense. The gash had stopped burning. Instead, it was getting cold, and freaking colder.
For a split second, I felt the hair on my head rippled as though a powerful wind had swept the forest, raising my head a fraction of an inch, I saw one of moon flickering once…then twice, third…it looked like a light bulb, waving at me. I rubbed my eyes and saw the colored moon that had lit the path to the depth was getting extinguished. The speed of getting dim was so fast that I hadn’t no time to think in a logic way.
I rolled up, paying no attention to the urgent voice in my head, the getting-stronger numbness around my body, only focused on the blinking moon. It took me many times as long to escape the trees as the moon was lost out of my sight. By the time I collected myself enough to remember the wolf, I was deep in the unfamiliar forest. And it was the moment I noticed the half of my left shoulder had been dyed with blood. Coldness oozing from the gash was so strong, strong enough to suppress the action of my mind.
It seemed like years tickled. There was a break in the deep forest. Exhausted as I was, I pulled myself out of the dim fork, but was only dazed by the glaring light. For a split while, I couldn’t tell where the light came from and then, as though someone turned on a broken-tuned radio, the thrill of noise permeated from every direction. It was a good thing because the voice in my head was gone some when. It was a bad thing that pain had almost swallowed the rest of my clear concentration without the distraction.
Swaying head hard, I collapsed, back against the tree for support. The chaos of the noise was getting louder, swarming toward me with an uncomfortable pressure. Heart beat to the throat. I wipe the layer of sweat which covered over my eyes, and blinked—I was standing in the mouth of a huge bridge. The deep black of the night was just beginning to fall—the fireworks brightening the clouds, though it hadn’t cleared the horizon yet, far away on the other side of the forest. As I approached, it was suddenly possible to make out shapes…colors—faces, sea of smiling faces, stuffed the path and forks, swarming toward the bridge. Lanterns hovered in the air, twinkling over the noise of children.
My knees buckled under me. A pent-up sob broke my chest.
Pelycosaur Street, it was Pelycosaur Street.
My hands flew up to stiffen my shaky lips. I was back, I was back!
My arms and legs were shaking, shaking so hard that I didn’t know how to scramble my feet. Though there were a lot of places illogical, my mind just couldn’t move through the thrill of relief, the joy of reunion or the confusion that I was witnessing.
The multihued robes, the intricate gaudy buns, the oddly shimmering reflected from their skin…all challenged my rationality.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge eerie images. There was no reason to make mistake with the street I’d lived for more than ten years. If it was Pelycosaur Street, how to explain this change? Cos-play party? Or was this another nightmare?
The next instance, my last assumption was proved. One glance around my shoulder found that forest behind me vanished. Instead was the windy path stretching away where I came out.
I froze dead.
The throng jostled around me, spinning me with the nose-wrinkled faces, which were full of aversion. Overhead was the booming gorgeous fireworks and lanterns, flickering into life, staring at my helplessness. The lines of shops and stores were wobbling back faster and faster. Until a gush of gasp choked out my throat, I found I was running for life.
No, no, no, no, no…I had all these dramas enough. Now I just wanted to go back, even being grounded. I pushed my way, fighting the hands that shoved back without any care where the path led to.
People moved more readily for me—no, averting me as though hiding some plague. A deep, booming chime echoed through the street. It rumbled the stones under my feet. The confetti cheered in the air; children hailed; jubilating exclamations swept across the alleyway. There was a break in the crowd—a familiar silhouette attacked my sight.
“SHAWL—” I muttered, heart darting with disbelief for what I saw.
How come he was here? And it made no sense to see him wearing in dark robe, the one very similar with Mo’s. Somehow he…looked a little different, but I didn’t know why.
“S-H-A-W-L” my scream broke out before I realized.
But my voice was instantly lost in the clamors. Struggling against with the grip of the girls, I pushed urgently toward him without caring the other’s call behind, and even not realizing I had bruised my elbows against the wooden stalls along the road. As I passed a boy on a stout man’s shoulder—his hair was mildly pink in the dazzling fireworks.
The bell tolled again.
A circle of young men, all wearing the same white robes, wheeled to besiege my way.
“SHAWL—HERE, I AM HERE! LOOK AT ME!”I shrilled, trying to battle through them. My voice had been breathless with fatigue. “GET AWAY—SHAWL—”
Those young mob hissed, tightened the circle, glaring at me, like I were some dangerous beast. Some of them, half crouched, held in defensive postures and closed the distance carefully. I tried to break out their circle as the bell tolled again. The circle suddenly loosed a little and then gave a way for someone that I’d been longing to see.
SHAWL!
Huge relief washed through my mind at the same time that a gush of pain clutched my heart.
Relief—he was safe.
Upset—the look he glared at me was strange…and lethal.
I would have flung myself into him, shifting the burden on his shoulder, seeking the warmth in his chest. But I was too tired to move.
The burning gash seemed to tear my shoulder into pieces. It slowed everything—a lightening glint flashed by, splitting the air, right into me. I wanted to scream, except that it was just locked in the chest. Tears wandered in the eyes, blurring the scene in front of me. However, the water was not much enough to get in the way of the truth which wiped my head white for a split second.
The color of the eyes behind the glint cut my breath at the same time that a flow of pain sucked the last strand of my consciousness away.
They were—emerald GREEN!
