Chapter Four-Episode 12-...finding the sky...

ejaredallen (60)in #story • 5 years ago

Finding the sky...

Khali turned briskly, her many cloaks followed, and her raving red hair swept into her face. She pulled a bit of it out her mouth as she marched toward the little man, who’d nearly gotten himself seriously injured messing with the much larger and well-armed ruffians.

“Duto! What were you thinking?” She huffed as she approached the little man who sat on a stump with his hands folded in front of him, looking down in what she assumed was embarrassment and shame. She hadn’t meant to yell at him, but the half-wit of a man could use a good scolding every now and then.

Khali looked down at Duto tenderly, she was to compassionate to every hurt the fellow’s feelings. After all they’d been through, she could have been a bit kinder in her rebuke; and no one was hurt, thankfully… well-, she and Duto weren’t hurt, the bandits were not so lucky.

Kneeling before him, she placed one hand on the little man’s shoulder and the other under his chin to lift his gaze to hers. Khali had expected the little man to be upset, but there was a beaming smile radiating from his face. She just shook her head at him as if he was a naughty child, sparkles in her eyes.

“What are you smiling about, mister.” She said, clenching her teeth against a smile herself.

Duto looked back down at his cupped hands and peeled them back to reveal a marvelous butterfly. He’d caught his Flutterbug. He made to stand up and Khali rose and backed away a step or two. Lolopping to the middle of the would-be battle field, careful not to smash the insect in his possession, Duto lifted his open hands to the sky and watched the creature take wing. As it fluttered through the air, he beamed and looked back at Khali, pointing to the butterfly as it took off as if to say, “Look at it! Isn’t it great!”

Duto was a man of few words and simple wit. He found pleasure in the little things of life and loved like a child, holding nothing back. Khali had always admired that about him.

“Now we go?” Duto asked Khali with anticipation. Khali’s stress and anger at the little man vanished as she motherly gazed upon his wide eyes and goofy smile.

“Yes Duto, we go.” She said and offered him her hand. Duto lolopped over and took it; together the pair walked down the forest trail on the hunt of the next adventure. Still, Khali could shake the feeling someone or something was following, watching.

Hercule awoke after hours, possibly even days of unconsciousness, on the cold stone floor of the cave: alone. Hercule found himself utterly alone in halls of cold and unforgiving stones. One thought played with endless echoes in his mind: he did this to himself. He caused this haunting nightmare. He’d taken his own life in a moment of total weakness and destroyed it in the process. But one more haunting dawned as he sat in solemn solace, with nothing but the sound of silence to interrupt his reverie.

“This is blimey awful.” Hercule slurred as he rose onto his hands and knees from the floor, his stomach groaning in hunger. “Now you can hush your noisy self and let me think.” Hercule scolded his stomach as he sat back on the floor of the cave and envisioned the map of the training camp in his mind but there was suddenly nothing there to recall. His mind was blank.

The last thing he could recall was waking up in a cave and feeling a sense of urgency, though he hadn’t the slightest notion of why. Wait-, wasn’t that what had just happened? Was it?

“Oh, God no!” Hercule muttered in another voice.

“The looney’s really lost it this time.” A different voice chimed in, speaking through Hercule’s lips, though his mind was not behind its words.

“I always said this would happen. Leave the idiot alone in a cave for a few days and its bye bye birdies.” Yet a third voice chimed in. Hercule could feel himself speaking the words but it was as if he did not control his own mouth, but other people living inside of him spoke for and through him.

He was a slave in his own head and couldn’t escape. The only thing he could remember was being alone in a cave, maybe he’d always been there, maybe he was dreaming the same dream over and over, but all he knew was that he knew nothing.

“Well, this is just peachy.” A voice of frustration made itself heard in the halls of stone, its tone colder than the coolness of the cavern.

The voice of reason seemed to push its way through a crowd of other speakers to take the stage. “Let’s not panic here. The most important thing is to find out where we are.”

“And find something to eat! This fabulous body is wasting away here.” A voice, which could have been Hercule’s own voice addressed the most pressing of his concerns: food.

“Alright, we’ll find out where we are and then something to eat.” The voice of reason spoke up again. Hercule wasn’t sure what was happening, but quite fancied he’d lost his mind. Getting up off the floor, he followed the luminous rocks, those intentionally positioned to be path lights leading somewhere, and made his way deep into the heart of the pit. The glowing lights seemed to play tricks on his mind.

“How many of you are up there.” Hercule asked his own head. Several voices replied at once and Hercule couldn’t make out an actual number. “Funny, I rather expected there to be five.” He wasn’t sure where the number had come from, but it felt like something he was supposed to remember. So he logged it away in the empty halls of his brain. Now he could remember two things, waking up on a cavern floor with a sense of urgency, and the number 5. What would be next, he wondered? It was like a strange treasure hunt.

Hercule followed the path upwards, slowly upwards; climbing and as the scenery began to change. The rocky walls became smooth and the lights grew brighter, suddenly becoming ever burning torches. The floor morphed from rock to marble. He wasn’t in the pit anymore.

“I love what they’ve done with the place.” A sarcastic voice spoke up. All of the others hushed him at once, realizing they were coming up on a potentially dangerous situation. Who knew what was ahead? And given the state of his mind, Hercule couldn’t tell if he belonged here or if he was an intruder.

“Based solely upon the fact that the dim-wit’s only memory is being buried underground in caves, I’d say he prolly isn’t an honored guest here.” Sarcasm spoke up again. Hercule was becoming frustrated with sarcasm, that one really got on his nerves.

“Look here.” Hercule said in his own voice, addressing the others. “I’ve had about enough of this degrading name calling. You could show a little more respect you know!” He shamed them all as he turned a corner in the tunnel to come face to face with a, “door… huh. What’s a door doing in a cave?”

“Why don’t you open it and find out, stupid.” Sarcasm chimed. Hercule shot the voice a mental glance of disapproval at which sarcasm just shrugged. Hercule shook his head and reached for the handle of the door, opening it ever so slowly.

“Come on now, we haven’t got all day.” A voice hiss whispered from Hercule’s lips. The other voices shushed them in unison.

The door gave a harsh creaking as it slid on ill-used hinges. Light seeped in through the opening of the doorway to the cave hallway: natural light; sunlight. Hercule had found the sky again. It wouldn’t be long before he was on top of the world instead of under it.

A voice inside told him to pace himself, not get over anxious. Another seamed to simply scream the word “GO!” so loudly Hercule couldn’t think. Anxiety got the best of him and Hercule flung the door the rest of the way open, bolting into the blinding light, flailing and racing through marble halls of grand chamber of some sort. There were people here that he did not recognize as he raced by them with overly deliberated strides and wild flailings of his arms, as if he’d never learned to run.

He was as a man possessed, clearly he had lost what little of his mind was left to lose. The awkwardness of the situation didn’t help and the onlookers, a crowd of golden robe garbed pompous royals, soon found the composure to react to the outburst. Many flashed weapons from their long robes and ran at Hercule as he raced off down the next hall he saw.

Chaos began to unfold as the raving lunatic disturbed the worship of whatever these pagans.

“Bunch of skin headed hippies.” Hercule remarked as he noticed all of them shared a similar and peculiar baldness. A hippie was the common term for someone studies or religious. Those who always carried their books about with them so that it seemed they and study were joined at the hip. Thus, the crass remark, “hippie”, generally didn’t sit well with the religious crowds.

Hercule paused his running for a second to catch his breath, but noticed the pursuit of hippies with swords closing in on him. “Well, gotta go.” He declared, bolting off toward a grassy space ahead of him. But seeing a side path, he had an idea and quickly ducked himself away in the narrow halls of the complex, wherever he was. He had no clue where he was going, but having no intention of getting impaled, Hercule decided the best thing to do in such a scenario may, in reality, be the worst possible thing to do.

Thanks for reading episode 12!

It's late, I know. And technically it isn't even day 12 anymore. This is the 13th of November now....I know, I failed. But thanks for reading anyway! Upvote, share, comment, all that jazz:) You're epic!