773. Journey to the west, 4
(Temee)
The ascent is slow and arduous. The trails quickly are lost around virgin boulders and rocks.
I spent my days climbing more than walking.
I make stops at regular intervals to breathe a little along with Glasgow. Thankfully the weather is merciful.
The landscape that spread around us seems endless. And desert like never.
It’s not even an area rarely crossed but uninhabited.
Here there is nothing.
Nothing. Since forever, and for always too, as far as the gaze can carry.
I’m breathing.
But the further we go, Glasgow does less.
~
She gradually got further away. Progressively as we continued crossing this mountain relief.
To a point where even her cardiac rhythm and her breathing began slowing down.
Even the face open to the air against my back, she was beginning to lack oxygen rapidly whilst we were moving.
Me too, altitude and efforts tire faster my lungs and heart, but I hold on.
For her it’s becoming hard, and forces us to slow down.
I can’t even find water around here, so we can’t stay too long.
So even if it hurts her, I have to press on.
It hurts me as well, having to force this suffering on her. Even if we don’t have a choice.
I even step faster, putting more pressure onto my heart, to go faster so she has to suffer less time...
But the pain increases for her and through empathy for me.
During the day I hurry to cross a mountain path before the night and the icy cold winds it carries. But it’s too much and she falls sick.
I can hear her having spasms, as she wouldn’t cough anymore.
I make camp urgently to warm her up. She spits, or vomits, a stain of dark blood with the smell of rot.
Where we are, she doesn’t risk contaminating anything, but my worry for her grows.
She becomes feverish. Her disease changes with her. This long hike just impacted her health and I almost can’t do anything to help her.
I put back her pendant in false uranite onto her torso for the night. It appeases her a little until daybreak.
The wind then is noisy, but I manage to sleep a little as well.
~
I have bad dreams again, where blood and shadow are intertwined like long snakes along the walls and floor.
The fear to die continues lurking around. I feel haunted by the fear of something even worse coming to prey on me.
I wake up worried. But there are no crawling shades surrounding us at dawn.
The stain that Glasgow spat has decomposed into dusts. Whatever it was, it’s dead now.
It seems to me that Glasgow feels a little better.
Her skin and a few veins right under the surface of the skin along of her hip seems to have taken a queer colour. Probably the remaining mark of a past contusion I think, but she reacts to pain when I touch there.
I prepare her cautiously and we leave hastily.
Only a few more days to spend around here. A last mountain path in the distance, and we will climb down toward fertile and inhabited plateaus. We’ll have to.
A persistent unease remains despite my progress. There are so many things scaring me or worrying me.
The sky remains perfectly clear and the ground pebbles and rocks, entirely barren. We are alone.
But I’m always a little scared of this shapeless and dark things now.
And my instinct ends up being right.
This last night of high altitude camping, I feel the anomaly approaching.
I lit on a lamp and see it escape.
The thing plays on the latency of reaction, like before. But I manage to notice something else than the optical illusion now. It’s lurking around us, and the sleeping Glasgow with some more persistence.
I lit on a piece of cloth in flames. I make the thing without presence step back until surrounding it, forcing it to retreat. The shadow dislocates into vapours, even in the heart of night. The anomaly is gone.
But Glasgow cardiac rhythm has increased. She’s anxious too.
I let her to sleep with her stone every night from now on. It’s the only medicine I have for her.
Hold on...
~
That trial ends. We reach meadows at last. And a city must be not too far.
Light clouds reappear in the sky. I find again some streams where we can wash ourselves a little.
The stain at the bottom of Glasgow’s body isn’t fading. The colours become brighter and I don’t like that.
The road becomes kinder on us two at least.
I find back trails I can follow peacefully now.
Animals pass by. I think I saw them wearing bright colours, as if someone had caught them and painted things over their fur.
I find then the first shrubs and trees also with floral patterns painted on, here and there. Landmarks maybe?
The roads continue to head down on gentle slopes toward the valley and its local county further away.
The coloured fantasies multiply along the boulders and other objects the further I go. I’m nearing civilisation, but I have the feeling I’m entering a domain I don’t understand.
A few kilometres from the small town still, I find ripped clothing abandoned there along the road and branching paths. Then, bloodstains, scattered along pieces of rotting cloth.
In the distance, the modest city isn’t in flames nor ashes.
Something else happened?
I refocus. I must prepare for the worst. And I have to find us some food supplies to continue moving forth.
A snake slithers between my feet and goes away without according any attention to me. Even though I felt myself shiver and my hair stand.
Weirdly, it too was harbouring bright colours in patches.
~
