The learning curve

POV Cdt. Luke Jennigan

When Luke woke up, the first thing he noticed was the splitting pain in his chest. He put his hand to his heart, remembering he had been empaled by a metal rod, but there was no hole.

Okay...

He noticed the pain begin to die away, and he lay still on the spot for a while. The sky was a little cloudier than he remembered. The ground was also damp, but he remembered the day being perfectly dry.

He looked to his side and low and behold, a desolate forest stretched out before him.

Frowning, he sat up and looked around. He was in some sort of dead forest. The floor was covered with little chips of dead bark, like wood chippings. And the trees wavered a deathly colour scheme of grey and brown.

There were barely any leaves to be seen or recognised on the branches. Just leaving countless skeletal arms that seemingly grabbed out at nothing . Vines sometimes crawled up the dead tree trunks that rose up everyfive metres in any direction.

...What the hell? Is this Purgatory?"

Luke forced himself to his feet, grunting as he straightened out his spine. He inspected himself closely. Still wearing his jeans and green jacket, no cuts or bruises, some blood on the breast of his jacket though.

So the blood is still there, but how is the wound gone?

He stared forward in confusion for a moment, thinking about the questions that his mind currently imposed. Hoping he could come up with some answers to them, but no.

He swivelled around, the forest was the same in every direction. No landmarks, no settlements, at least not within visual range. And the sound... There was none. This place was dead in every way possible.

He looked around for a hillside or a cliff, but could not see one. So he had nothing to walk towards. No destination, just a starting point.

Taking a deep breath, he began to slowly walk into the unknown. The air was thick with... something. He didn't know what it was thick with, but it certainly wasn't very crisp or clean.

Weaving through the trees, he found a whole lotta nothing. Nothing appeared to live here. Where was 'here', anyway? That was the next question on the list. Probably the most important, too.

Then he noticed that there was something in the air. It looked like dust, was it dust? Whatever it was, it seemed to be floating around in the air in large quantities. He ran his hand down a tree trunk, and looked at his hand. His hand now had a grey coating over it. Pinching some in-between his fingers, he noticed it was much less fine than dust.

He continued on, hoping for the forest to end or find someone to help him. He was worried that it wasn't dust that coated the trees, but ash. If it were to be ash, he didn't want to spend too long hanging around, less he develop lung problems.

The ground developed into a steady declination as he walked on. And eventually it grew into a slope. He navigated his way down, carefully avoiding large open spaces and loose patches of ground, so that he didn't 'stumble and rumble'.

He traveled from tree to tree down the slope, picking the closest trunk to act as a speed break every time he descended a little.

This method was effective, but slow. Slow enough to take him ten minutes to descend all the way to the bottom. At the base of the slope, he found himself to be in a small valley with a stream running down.

Luke kneeled down beside the stream and cupped his hands to drink from the water. It tasted metallic, almost dirty. He tilted his head to look down the valley. It continued on for a good few miles before curving round a hillside, out of view.

His best bet was to follow the water and hope it lead to a settlement of some kind.

Following the stream lead to a clearing that bordered on a cliff edge. Looking over it, he found no way down.

"Huh, typical."

He looked to his side and his eyes widened along with his jaw hanging open.

Just appearing over the crest of a distant hillside, was a volcano that was currently spewing out an ash cloud into the sky.

"We'll that explains the weather."

Everything in the distance was blurred out by a light covering of ash as well as some of it hanging about in the air. There was no way of spotting anything, even from his vantage point.

He could go rock climbing down the cliff, but that would almost certainly kill him. He would have to find a way around, it. But that would mean further walking in the direction of the volcano. The ash would be thicker over there, no way he was going any further in that direction.

So he turned around and began the backtrack. Instead of following the stream down, he would follow it up.

Going upstream was proving just as fruitless as going downstream. It was also boring. Incredibly boring. He was starting to get confused and frustrated, he had no clue as to his whereabouts, and he couldn't find anyone or anything to give him any clue to his location.

He followed the valley uphill for at least half an hour with no luck, and fear was beginning to sink in. He was on his own, lost in a dead forest near an active volcano with ash flowing in and out of his lungs.

The going began to get rocky, and there was no way he was going any further upwards, as the hill had started to turn steep. Climbing any further would just tire him and make the situation worse.

So, I can't go down, I can't go up. That direction has a volcano, so I can only go back toward where I awoke. Shits getting real...

30 minutes later...

Luke was running out of sanity. He felt like and Amnesia custom story. He couldn't even tell where he had left of. Everything looked the same! And no matter what he tried, he could find nothing.

So he sat down on a resting log. He fiddled with the bits of bark that dotted the floor, and thought. He didn't really think about anything in particular, he just thought.

If he was in fact, in Purgatory. His parents would currently be mourning over his dead body. He wondered if he had been cremated or buried. He hoped he had been cremated, he didn't like the idea of slowly decomposing underground.

These thoughts depressed him. Because no matter how he tried to twist things to mean he wasn't dead, the evidence always said otherwise. Maybe he was in a lucid dream? No, he tasted the water before. You can't taste in a dream!

That kicked him back into reasonable thoughts.

No! These aren't healthy thoughts, Luke. Get a grip on yourself!

He stood back up and sighed. This was going to be a long day.

He took a step forward and a cracking was heard.

His heel paused mid walk, before continuing down and resting on the ground.

He slowly spun around. Examining every tree and fallen log at every angle.

*Crrrrrk-k-k-k*

He flung himself one hundred and eighty degrees to face the cracklings direction.

A black figure disappeared behind a mound. He could've sworn it had eyes.

He reached into his left pocket and pulled out his pen knife. Flicking the blade out, he did his best to create an intimidating stance.

Shit, shoulda took up martial arts with Ben...

That made him think. He had seen him use Karate once or twice. And he could remember a stance he normally used.

He put his left foot back and twisted his hips forty five degrees to the left. He then rose his arms to a central ready position.

He slowly stepped forward. Edging ever closer to the hiding spot.

He swerved round the other side and raised the pen knife. Bracing himself to see something weird.

Nothing...

He lowered the knife and frowned. He saw something hide behind the mound.

"What in the name of chr-"

He turned around and froze solid. A deep black equine looking creature stood there. They just stared at each other, not one of them making a move.

He estimated twenty metres between them both. That was all he needed.

He slowly began to back up, but slipped backwards onto his ass, as he bumped into the mound of damp dirt.

Whatever that thing was, it started to walk towards him. He picked himself up and panicked. Running away, only to be stopped by more of the things that came out of the trees in front of him.

He turned back around, but saw he was boxed in. Raising his knife, he tried to look threatening to scare the things off, but to no avail.

"Back off!" He shouted.

"I'm warning you, I'm not afraid to hurt you!"

The creatures stopped and turned to each other. They 'communicated' by clicking and crackling. Sounding a little similar to what he heard earlier.

Eventually one steeped forward ahead of the others and stopped in front of Luke. It's large blue eyes looked up at him cautiously.

And then it spoke...

"You are lost. We have been ordered to help you."

Luke narrowed his eyes at it.

"Where am I?" He said sternly.

"You are in a the 'Bleakwood plains'. Our homeland."

"Who-no. What are you?"

"We are Changelings."

"Never heard of them."

The creature looked to be trying to be helpful, so Luke lowered his pen knife again.

"That is not uncommon. Changelings live better in secrecy. Our queen has ordered us to bring you back to the hive"

Luke summed up these things so far:

Insect-like, friendly but a little suspicious, terrifying... Yep. Perfectly trustworthy. But what else can I go on? Crap, looks like ill just have to go along with them.

Luke took a deep breath before replying.

"Okay. I'm trusting you, but if you try anything..."

The thing nodded.

"I understand. We will lead you to our queen. She has requested to speak to you personally."

"*Sigh* Lead on, Changeling."