Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

I implore you to fabricate your mind in the flames from which it was born. A puppet walks amongst the men of everyday life, his hollow heart and mind set to replicate those whom he is so modeled after. Man has advantage over the puppet; the puppet’s strings need only to be severed for his body to fall limp upon the ground; for the man only falls to the dust when no other offers aid in his desperate hour.

   Felix awoke from the inner recesses of his mind with a thunderous pulse to his heart. Air flooded the vacant space in his lungs, eager to perform its job within his body. The taste of the charred remains of his life and those that had been around him lined his tongue and cheeks, prompting him to release spastic coughs from the back of his throat. The heat that had encompassed his body had faded, the light breeze of his surroundings wrapping him in a cool blanket of wind.

   Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. His face was protected from a violent array of sunlit bursts by the canopy of trees that swayed over his head. Patches of sunlight crept through the openings, reflecting off of his light skin. A comfortable layer of grass was flattened upon where his form rested. He sat up, feeling the tug of his bag that still remained on his bag. With stiff joints, he raised his body from its grassy bed, further taking in the drastic change in surroundings. The burning suburbs of Chicago no longer crumbled around him. Toxic clouds of smoke were replaced by fresh plumes of clear air with the scent of fruit lingering in them.

We didn’t make it. Felix and Maxine Dufraisne are dead.

   He felt himself choke down a sob. He had failed the only remaining family he had left. He had failed his place as a father, a protector of his kin.

   His eyes scanned lazily across the lively forest. At the very least, he would find his daughter in the afterlife and apologize for not being the adequate father she deserved. But as his eyes scanned the area around him, he saw no sign of Maxine. Was she still alive? Had she been left to succumb to the wraith of the mighty flames without his guidance? He slowly paced around, shifting piles of leaves to and fro with his hands hoping to catch a glimpse of her. His movements progressively got more aggressive, fear building up at the thought of being separated from her. By a stroke of luck, his hand brushed against an abnormal texture. Upon removing the leaves that covered it, he discovered it to be a shoe. He gradually reclaimed more and more of the figure from beneath the leaves until Max’s entire body was visible. Felix collapsed next to her and wrapped his arms around her, clutching the child against his chest. He rocked back and forth, ever grateful to be reunited with his flesh and blood.

   The girl shifted closer to her father and embraced the warmth he brought her. Max opened her eyes and looked sleepily at Felix. She smiled at him and stretched before taking notice of the change in scenery, causing her smile to turn into a frown of confusion.

   “Daddy, are we dead?”

   “I-I don’t know.” he replied. In truth he didn’t, and he didn’t plan to lie to her on that matter. The serenity of the forest would make one believe that they were, but the pain he still felt in parts of his body was convincing him otherwise. He decided that the best way to confirm his slender hope of them being among the living was to attempt to find others.

   “Are you hurt anywhere?”

   She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

   “Turn off your aid for now and save the battery, okay?”

   She nodded and removed the device from her ear before turning it off and depositing it in her bag. Felix scanned the forest and looked for any indications of civilization. He wasn’t an outdoors survival expert, trained to survive in the wilderness. He lived in the suburbs of Chicago, the need for outdoorsman-ship only extending to the adventurous vacations that where few and far in between. Money wasn’t the issue; he worked for one of the most influential pharmaceutical companies in the world, but being a single father with a deaf daughter had certainly outlined his priorities to a greater degree.

   Wrinkling his brow, he stared intently at a section of the forest that had appeared to resemble a faint trail. Dirt had been seemingly brought to the surface, contrasting the vibrantly green grass that made up most of the forest floor. With few other alternatives, he motioned for Max to take his hand and follow him down the trail.

   Dusk had begun to rapidly overtake the sky, turning the formerly bright blue atmosphere into a lavish mix of purple and orange. The party of two had been walking for close to three hours without a single sign of another person. Fearing he would loose the trail in the onset of darkness, he decided to make camp by a small rock formation that ran along the path. An onslaught of hunger and thirst swept over the two, quickly sapping the little energy they had left. Max tugged on her father’s jacket until he looked down at her. She made a “W” with her index, middle, and ring finger on her right hand and quickly tapped her mouth twice, indicating that she needed water. He nodded and mouthed the words “me too” back to her. He stood up and surveyed the area for a source of fresh water. By a stroke of luck, a small running stream was tucked neatly behind their rock campsite. He smile and waved Max over, but didn’t hesitate in taking a long refreshing drink while she approached. The water cleansed his throat of the soot that had been residing there for the better part of the day while Max knelt beside him and set her head in as well, removing the small black smudges that remained on her face.

   When they were satisfied, they returned to the niche in the rock and bundled close together. The night had set in and the temperature and dropped considerably. Max retrieved her favorite scarf from her bag and gave it a twirl around her neck. Felix couldn’t help but chuckle. She never went anywhere without that scarf. It had been a gift to her from her parents two Christmas’s ago, and since her mother’s passing, it became a symbol that she was still with her.

   Felix began to make himself more comfortable when he picked up a faint noise in the distance. Rather than the ambient noises of the forest that he had been listening to previously, these sounded like the noises of cheering and conversing. Sure enough with the lack of sunlight, Felix could see a glow originating from where it seemed that the trail began. He turned to Maxine and held out both of his index fingers and moved them in a circle as if pedaling a bicycle, the sign for “people”. She quickly sat up and together, they both began moving at a brisk pace through the wilderness, determined to find out were they truly were.

   Within a few minutes they reached the end of the forest which overlooked a nearby village of sorts. Max began to walk out of the tree line but was pulled back by her father.

   “Not yet.” he mouthed.

   She nodded and crouched down by Felix. Slowly, they made their way through the tree line to get a better look at the town. Banners with the words "Running of the Leaves” had been strung up between buildings. In the very center of town, Felix could detect movement from multiple people interacting with each other, but upon closer examination, he found these not to be people but animals, small horses to be exact. They wondered around the town freely, with no sign of human beings present. He continued to watch intently, waiting for an owner to make an appearance, but none made themselves known. It wasn’t until Felix stepped out of the tree line himself that he picked up the sound of voices. More disturbingly, they appeared to be coming from the animals.

   With the cover of night obscuring any fine details, they socialized, laughed and entered and exited the buildings with astonishing ease. Felix was fascinated by the display yet slightly terrified at the same time. He felt himself drawing closer, almost eager to see what else the town had in store for him, that was, until one of the equine beings stared in his direction, causing him to freeze on the spot. For what seemed like an eternity, neither of them moved. Instead they waited patiently for the other to make the first move. Suddenly, the equine shot into the air, hovering several feet above the roofs of the houses. Felix felt his heart rate and breathing spike. His pupils dilated, widening his field of view. With his fight or flight system activated, he turned tail and sprinted into the woods as fast as his legs could carry him. Without thinking, he scooped Maxine into his arms and dove into the safety of the dark woods. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that the equine had gained considerable ground; it was a mere ten or so feet from the tree line. He wove between trees and ducked under branches, anything to confuse what ever it was that was following him. He considered retrieving the pistol from his bag, but by the time he would be able to get it, the flying creature would be right on top of them. Instead he quickly slid himself and Maxine into a small ditch and pressed as hard as he could against its wall.

   Within seconds the speeding equine passed over them, allowing Felix to get a momentary glance at their pursuer. He could see a blur of cyan mixed with a fusion of several other colors, but the rest of the figure was blended and distorted looking.

   Several minutes had passed before Felix felt it was okay to breathe in with full breaths again. He slowly raised his head his head out of the ditch and was relieved to find no sign of the pursuer, but he wasn’t convinced they were entirely safe either. He decided that they would spend the night in the ditch and investigate the town from a safer distance when the sun rose. After all, they had the cover of the forest to their advantage.

   “What was that, daddy?” Max inquired with a mixture of fear and concern imprinted on her face. Felix could only shake his head. He allowed her to rest her head against him while he positioned himself in the tiny ditch to be more comfortable. The raw fear and adrenaline he had felt when being chased proved to him above all else that they were still alive, but the strange land they had arrived in still remained a terrifying mystery. He could only hope that he could seek out the answers when the sun rose again.