The Essence Carrier (continued) - By Johnathan Evans - Anime - http://maxpages.com/johnsficpage/The_Essence_Carrier

Waking up from unconsciousness is an odd thing. It starts as a feeling that you are on one side of a tunnel searching for the light, and ends up with a feeling like swimming to the surface of some body of water. Given all of what I had just seen, I was afraid to open my eyes when I finally did wake up. I was totally sure that I would be lying in a broken heap next to the wreckage of my train.
How else could I be lying on grass?
I can’t say how I knew that my train had crashed, but I did know. Just like I seemed to know at that moment that if I still thought I was even close to where I just was then I was just fooling myself. I quickly began an assessment of the situation: no pain, almost total quiet except for the wind blowing softly across the grass and that odd feeling of loneliness again.
So, with a bravery I didn’t quite feel, I opened my eyes and looked upon an amazingly blue sky with large puffs of white clouds floating here and there in the vastness. I was lying in the middle of a large grassy field that looked like it had never had the pleasure of being acquainted with a lawnmower of any kind. The wind was a strong spring gale to it that felt tremendously good against my skin as I continued to lie there. You have no idea how amazing it is to go from a hot and stuffy train to the middle of a cool dewy field while a strong breeze blows over you. It was the kind of place that lovers had picnics at and families had Easter egg hunts at. It would have made an amazing park, and my rational reasoning mind tried to assure me that I had somehow ended up in one.
Never mind the how. For being the rational reasoning part of my mind I thought it funny that it didn’t even want to consider the how.
As I sat up all of that logic went down the toilet and I realized that I was much farther away from home than I had ever dreamed of.
It’s really hard for me to say just exactly how I knew that I was no longer anywhere I knew, but I did know the moment I sat up and got a good look around. The entire landscape seemed to have that same wild and untamed look that the glade had and I felt that this is how my country must have looked before people spoiled the countryside. Everything felt different, the grass had a soft spongy feel that made it almost tempting to walk on with no shoes, the air felt so cool and fresh that I felt I must have died and gone to heaven. But it was the scenery that really caught my attention.
The glade I was sitting in was only the start of a much bigger meadow that stretched north for as far as the eye could see. A few amazingly healthy looking trees sprouted here and there among the wild flowers and grasses. I couldn’t actually see very much of the meadow from where I was sitting, mostly because I was lying down at the bottom of a small hill. As matter of fact I was lying underneath a tree that seemed to be the last vestiges of a grand forest that stretched endlessly to what I figured must be the south.
I was dumbfounded by the way all this seemed to flow so well among the various rolling hills that I simply thumped back down onto the grass with the assumption that none of it was real and that I was having some sort of extremely vivid hallucination. After the suddenness of everything that happened to me I was not in any state to except any sort of explanation that defied any rationalistic ideas. I think many people build these set rules so that when the unthinkable does happen they can fall back on them, but what happens when rationalism fails? What happens when one plus one does not equal two?
They invent all kinds of rational excuses and deny the very thing they see in front of them. Almost like the way a small child will hide under the blankets with a flashlight and deny the darkness. And much the same happened to me.
I knew what it meant, but I couldn’t accept it. My mind kept trying to find a sane logical explanation and kept hitting that same wall again. I was on a train but now I was lying perfectly healthy in a place I had never seen before perfectly healthy and unhurt. I was certainly not having an “episode”; only a fool would continue to refuse what their senses are trying to tell them.
“But what if I’m dead?” a soft, almost unknown voice whispered in my mind. I dismissed this prospect almost immediately due to the fact that I was still bound by several physical needs. (I was starting to get hungry) So what did that leave? What other possibilities were there? I started to laugh as a thought raced through my head and got cut off suddenly.
“ Ha! Here I am in the middle of the beautiful alien landscape and….”
That was it. That one word somehow managed to be the exact fit for what my senses were telling me. It had the psychological effect of a slap to the face and I sat up with a horrible realization that seemed to scream in my mind. All of my nerves seemed to be on fire with that one idea that, from the moment it popped into my head, I knew was the one and only truth I would need to hear.
I was on another world, never mind the how, and I was totally alone. I can’t say how I knew for sure, but I did. If I had to hazard a guess, I might say that it was brought on by the essential strangeness of the place and a strange dizzying sensation that pervaded the air here. It left me feeling breathless and pumped up at the same time while somehow giving the air a clean fragrant quality that left me feeling refreshed just sitting facing the wind. Wherever this place was, I knew it was not home because the air was way too clean. This place, this world, was untouched and pristine, at least what little of it I saw.
Little by little I managed to gain the will to stand up. It wasn’t a hard thing to do, I was slowly getting over the shock and I was tired of sitting still wondering where I was. In all my life I have been a person who could never sit still for long. In fact, one of my earliest memories involves the destruction of a doctor’s office while running away from my parents and knocking random things over in the nurse’s station. I had been told to sit still and be quiet, and I suppose I was for awhile, but I got tired of waiting and had gone exploring while my parents weren’t looking. (I couldn’t have been older than four)
I suppose that’s the way I’ve always been. Whenever someone who has more good sense than fun tries to give me advice or order me around I balk and do things my own way, even if they were right.I honestly don't know if that's a good or a bad thing but it's become such an essential part of me that I do not see a point in ever trying to change.
Walking up the hill was quite pleasant and reminded me of times past when I used to go camping with my friends. The cool, crisp, clean air of the wild outdoors held an irresistible attraction that never quite left me as I grew older. Any great testament to the great outdoors or to the awesome and majestic power somehow spoke to me in a way that nothing else in life ever did. It was sort of like looking through heavens backdoor; having only the vaguest idea of what is inside but feeling that whatever is in there must be something akin to eternal, especially when compared against yourself. How small, how pathetic we must seem when compared against the eternal. We live and die in the blink of an eye and pursue fruitless pursuits while all the while claiming ourselves lords of all creation.
I don't quite remember what I was thinking at the time but I will always remember the very first thing I thought as the entire meadow came into view at the top of the hill. Words, that coincidentally happened to be spoken aloud in a tone of utter shock and confusion.
" Oh my god… They're all dead…."
Not far away from where I was standing (it couldn't have been more than a mile or so) there were at least a dozen blue robed bodies lying on the ground. Even from this point I could see the blood seeping into the grass and the deep stains on their robes. None of them appeared to be moving.
Being in a culture like mine allows one to become intimately aquainted through blood and gore through movies and television but nothing I ever saw compared to the horrific sight that was this. These men were not just dead, but many of them looked as though they had been slashed to hell and back: as though some horrible entity took a delight in killing them.
Then one of them moved. I don't know how I noticed from this distance but I did. He was very slowly crawling away from the desolation of the larger group. He was going so slow and moving in such a way that I figured he must be hurt badly. I didn't know who he was or even if I could help, but at that moment I was swept up in a wave of intense pity and began to hurry towards him in a run.
I still don't fully understand why I did this. I wasn't being very cautious and I certainly was not worried that whoever (or whatever) killed these people was still out there. I just wanted to help and let the consequences be dammed. Not only were they unimportant but they were also meaningless. Anyone who sits back and allows someone to be hurt or die when they could have done something about it is just as guilty as the one who committed the crime in the first place.
As I approached I saw it. It was about 50 feet long, covered with scales and sitting coiled in the middle of the battlefield. Somehow, I had come across a gigantic snake that looked as though it could swallow a man whole. It turned towards me as I approached, turned its head towards me with a slight hiss and stared me right into the eyes with its own bright orange eyes. All of I sudden I felt a wave of terror flash through me and I felt every muscle of my body freeze up. The depth of terror that possessed me was even afraid to have me move. It was like discovering that all of the muscles in my legs had gone to jelly and all I suddenly wanted to do was lay down and curl up. I was even afraid to breathe.
" Whatever you do. Do not move. The Crishnark can only sense you if you move." Came a hoarse yet strong voice from somewhere off to my left. I turned my head slowly in that direction and saw the man I had been running to lying on his back and gazing in my direction.
He did look rather pale but apparently I had over estimated his injuries because he didn't seem to have any obvious wounds nor was he nursing any muscles.
" If you want to live you must listen very carefully to what I saw and follow all of directions to the letter. Do you understand? Don't speak just nod your head ever so slightly if you understand" He had purposely pitched his voice low this time so that the snake wouldn't turn towards him but there was also a tone of anger in his voice.
"The first thing I want you to do is look away from it. The Crishnark has the power to terrify the senses if you get a look at its eyes. Do not look at them!"
Very slowly, and very purposely I managed to move my head away from that great towering and venomous face and looked towards the ground. It helped quite a bit actually now that I wasn't staring at that face anymore. I felt this sort of hysterical giggle bubbling up inside me waiting to get out and it took every ounce of will I had to keep that inside.
A few minutes passed in silence while I awaited more instructions but nothing happened. I had gotten slightly worried that my guide had abandoned me when his voice came across the plain again, but this time there was surprise in his voice as well.
" Alright. Now you should slowly move yourself to the ground so that you are lying on your stomach. When you get there, pause for a few moments and very slowly start crawling in my direction. Don't move too fast and don't look back."
But I was still very much afraid, and as I was slowly lowering myself to the ground I couldn’t help but look up at the face of my incipient attacker. From the very moment I lifted my head I thought I had made a mistake, but when my legs turned to jelly, my heart froze and my lungs stopped working, I KNEW it.
The Gigantic snake, which was feet away the last time I had looked, was now just above me, hovering motionless. I had not heard or saw this thing approach and now that I was looking at it, I was deeply shocked that it had gotten so close.
The terror boiling inside me was screaming for me to run, which I knew was a foolish mistake, but only the fact that my legs were unresponsive made me stand quite still.
However, It wasn’t the fact that the snake had gotten so close that scared me out of my wits, it was its eyes. Eyes that were blackish green pits of nothing that seemed to swallow every once of self-possession and control that I had in my body. Eyes that seemed to remind me of every dammed thing I’ve ever done that made me miserable and were trying to convince me that life was a pathetic illusion.
I can’t say what I would have done next, I was deep in this trance of misery, but I know what I DID do.
What got me out of my trance was the dawning realization that I hadn’t heard from my new “Friend” for a long while and that said friend had probably given me up for dead and was crawling away as fast as he could.
That angered me and brought me to my senses in such a way that all my previous attempts had not. All my fear, all my confused jumble of emotions, Everything I was feeling at that moment: It all just seemed to melt away at the face of this strange, icy-cold anger. It was like someone had cut open my chest, ripped out my heart and replaced it with a computer, something that saw and reacted, but ultimately felt nothing.
Bravely (Or stupidly, one could argue) I managed to look that thing right into the center of its huge bulbous eyes and felt nothing but that cold anger running through my veins.
“Bring it on you ugly son of a bitch.” I said in a low, determined voice.
I hadn’t been aware that I was going to say anything and this feeling was starting to creep me out on some level. It was too much like the time I beat the hell out of my best friend Carter Johnston back during my freshman year of high school. Back when one stupid little thing he said infuriated me to the point where I actually hit him.
Back to a time that seems so long ago now but probably isn’t. Back to the days that were probably the happiest times of my life, where I was so sure of who I was. Back to…
Back to…
Back to…
3
Back to the old high school parking lot, where drifting piles of beach sand, broken glass and stagnant puddles seems so much a part of the scenery that after awhile none of us really noticed it anymore.
I was sitting calmly on the hood of Carters car, listening to him bitch endlessly about his girlfriend Kiersten. She apparently got pissed at him for one reason for another and refused to talk to him until he figured out why and apologized. He, being the kind, sensitive 90’s male, decided to accuse her of cheating on him and HE refused to talk to HER.
That was all well and good, I really didn’t care much one way or another, but he wouldn’t stop talking about her in our free time. We would go out to smoke and he would start up the same conversation the exact same way every time.
“Did you hear what the bitch said about me today?”
I consider myself a basically patient person but after a certain period of time I just wanted to grab Carter by his crew cut and beat the ever-living fuck out of him until he decided that apology was the best answer, But since he was my best friend, that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t until much later that I learned he was afraid he’d gotten her pregnant (Thank god she wasn’t. Men like Carter should never breed, but usually end up having 6 kids by the time they are 40) and wanted to put the blame on someone else.
So that’s why, on a sunny Friday afternoon in May, I was sitting on Carters car and zoning out every word he said, nodding in all the right places. I was thinking about this girl from band I had asked out and had almost totally fallen out of the conversation, when Carter said the one phrase that brought that anger one me.
One phrase that ruined a childhood friendship and changed my perspective on my so-called friends. One Phrase That created a moment that will stay in my memory for the rest of my life.
Yet, It’s not just the phrase, or the actions that were inspired by it I remember vividly. I remember that shocked look on Carters face as my right fist connected with his face and knocked him off the hood of his own car onto the cement. I Remember how surprised I was, and how, later on, he wouldn’t accept my apology. He accused me of having an affair with Kiersten and of using him.
One phrase. A phrase that is often repeated in my dreams and a phrase that seems to haunt my current life.
“I don’t decide my life. Maybe god or whatever divine entity that’s up there decided that I just shouldn’t be with her. My Feelings just don’t enter into it.”
I had plenty of time to reflect on the half-seriousness and weak excuses of this lame statement during my 10-day suspension from school for the fight and I couldn’t figure out why I had hit him over such a moronic statement that no one needed to be told. It was like he was just trying to convince himself of a statement that everyone, including himself, knew was full of shit.
Just like that I had ended a 10-year friendship without a look back or a moment of hesitation. He was normal and tolerable to me for all ten years of our friendship but after that moment I could no longer stand him. Every time I had a feeling that was close to missing him I felt a trace of that anger and the feeling would vanish.
The truth was, I simply didn’t care anymore about him.
4

So, with a resolve that made ma almost want to faint, I stood up straight and stared this snake right in its giant bulbous eyes. There was No fear this time, No worry, no thought. No anything any at all except for a resurgence of that anger that had run through me before and a growing certainty that whatever this thing was, It could not be a part of any natural order.
That was when I realized that thing was well aware that I was here and was waiting for me to make a mistake so it could strike out at me and kill me. The though of how, earlier, I had very nearly crewed up and played into its plans made me feel almost sick. Even though I realized that I had probably cheated death, the full force of the epiphany did not hit me until later, when I was getting ready to sleep, Trembling so bad that I thought I was going to have a seizure or something.
At that moment however, I dismissed the thought. It was hard enough to try to think of a way to get away from this thing without worrying about how I might have already made mistakes. I might have ALMOST died before, but if I didn’t think of something real quick I was most certainly GOING to die.
So I stood there, stock still, as I tried to form a plan, staring this thing right in its brownish green eyes. I wasn’t sure of what I could do, so I started making a mental reminder of my surrounding environment.
I was standing in the middle of a large field, in the midst of a group of dead guys in a situation that would probably make the greatest of daredevils shit themselves. The field was of no help to me, if I decided to run it would just mean that the snake had no obstruction to catching me.

it continues on page three

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