But I Make No Promises - Blog Posts

Among moss and ferns something slept. It knew not of the rose rays of sunrise seeping through young leaves. It could not hear the howling of the wind above or the birds singing to greet the coming of spring.

It dreamt of a place darker than a starless night, of flight and of falling.

It dreamt of hands caked in mud, of crawling and of tearing through a canopy of roots.

Finally it stirred and began unravelling. From a bundle of white fabric limbs began slowly emerging. The small creature rose and only then it became apparent that it was a child, probably a boy, with dishevelled brown hair and clothing that was best described as rags.

He grabbed a broken branch he fashioned into a walking stick, blinked at the sun lazily and wandered away.

As the day went on the birdsong grew quiet. To the child’s delight, despite the strong winds chasing heavy clouds in the sky, fog gathered among the trees. It snaked around almost as if  alive, curling up wherever the sunlight did not quite reach. The boy watched with amazement as it grew. He thought that it almost looked like it was reaching out towards him.

That could have been a reason for concern, since he was alone, deep in the wilderness, away even from the tracts that were reluctantly used, only by heavily armed caravans and the desperate. But he was thirteen, had a stick in his hand for a weapon and could climb trees really fast. This surely meant he was as well equipped as one can be to face the world.

The fog grew and swelled steadily, until the whole world became a collection of blurry shadows.  In the distance something large moved through it.

The boy ran quietly towards where he saw the movement, wanting to make sure it was not just a trick of his eyes. He found nothing there but towering old trees, their branches weaving slowly. The child’s disappointment was short-lasting as at the edge of where he could see something moved again.

Over the next hour it happened multiple times, in the dead quiet of the endless grey ocean something would appear, but always for just a moment, too far to properly see. Sometimes there would come a sound, a call so distant it could have been both of a man or a beast. The child dutifully followed each one, making his way down the gentle slope of the valley.

Just as the boy began to grow bored the fog was filled with a wail so low it was more felt than heard. A distorted cry that made a cold shiver run down the child’s spine. It hung in the air for longer than he was able to hold his breath. At that point it finally occurred to the boy that he may not be safe. Slowly and cautiously he began moving from tree to tree, searching for one he could climb. All of them were an old growth with the nearest branches at many times the child’s height.

The boy sneaked through the endless fog with a growing sense of unease.

Then, he stopped.

Between the trees a new shadow appeared. For a moment the child thought it could have been his, somehow cast many meters away, as it was shaped like a person and more or less his height, but when he waved at it, it remained motionless.

The shadow slowly extended a part of itself that was supposed to be a hand and made a beaconing gesture.

The movement made it sway slightly as if it was not supporting its own weight.

The forest remained deathly silent.

The boy stared at the shadow with eyes wide open and began silently walking forward.

To an outside observer it would have seemed that the child was being enthralled, unnaturally compelled to move and reach out his hand. But that was not the case, the boy moved like one would towards a bird, never seen before, that inexplicably is not flying away, trying to see if it can be touched.

The boy did not know what the shadow was and with every step his excitement grew, because he assumed that what he saw was another person, made blurry by the fog, but moving closer had not made the stranger any clearer. Even when he stopped an arm’s reach away from the apparition it still looked like a shadow cast on the fog by some invisible object. The boy’s mind was on fire with questions of what he was seeing and what he should do, all while he continued to extend his hand towards it. When he realised there is something moving above him he allowed his self-preservation instinct to shine.

In a swift motion the child swung his stick up and brought it down. There was almost no force behind it, it was not meant to be an attack, but a test of a theory.

The stick dropped down meeting no resistance.

The shadow disappeared while the stick passed through it.

“Hello?!?” the child shouted quietly, his voice muffled, even to his own ears. “How did you do that?” the child added, without as much as a hint of fear in his voice.

He spun around looking for where the apparition could have gone and to his surprise saw it swaying gently a few steps away. An indiscernible whisper filled the air.

The shadow extended its hand again and the child began repeating the gesture.

The low painful wail filled the forest again and the boy flinched back to cover his ears.

When he looked up, the shadow was gone.

The child searched for his new friend fruitlessly. He saw no more distant movements and not long after the fog began to dissipate, letting the child out into a late evening in the wilderness. The sun had already began to set, drowning the forest in elongating shadows.

“Do you know what that was?” The child spoke, half addressing his stick, half no one in particular.

The only answer was the chirping of insects.