Children of a Lesser God - Chapter 201: Time Lapse

Laz was running towards what he thought was the road. But as he kept going, he soon discovered that the road was no longer there. In fact, as far as he could tell, the forest he was in now went on forever.

“This looks bad little buddy,” Laz said to Tyr who was enjoying the ride. Laz honestly didn’t know if Tyr was simply carefree or if he just didn’t know about danger yet. As Laz gave it a quick thought, he soon realized that he really didn’t know much of anything about Tyr, other than he was a little spider with a lot of secrets.

After a while, Laz came to a stop. He was getting nowhere. In fact, as he turned around and took a few steps back, he noticed he was still looking at the same clearing that he had run away from.

“You’ve got to be shitting me…” Laz said, looking at the eyes that were looking back at him.

Seeing as how he had no hope of leaving, Laz ignored the danger and decided to face it head on.

Walking forward, Laz came out of the tree line and made his way to the middle of the clearing. Laz had the feeling that the things looking at him were just curious. Sure, they could kill him in a heart beat, but that didn’t mean they were actually interested in doing that.

After entering the clearing, Laz noticed that in the distance he could see several mountains that looked like they were outlined by the moon. He wondered just how big were they when they seemed so big and yet so far away.

Another scary thing he took note of was that there looked to be several large creatures walking around the mountains as well, looking like giant shadows that jutted out from the mountains. At this point, Laz was sure he was somewhere else. Cause this kind of thing would be impossible to miss if he was just on Earth. No matter how sparse the population of the states, this wasn’t something one could see and not say something about.

Turning back, Laz looked at the creatures who were currently in front of him. Based only on what he could see, there looked to be four different things in front of him. Besides, the large one that was now high above the trees, there were two more that were sitting in the trees and one that was ground level. Laz had no idea which one he should be the most afraid of and it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. All of them gave him a feeling of immense danger.

“Eh…Hello?” Since the eerie quiet was going on, Laz decided to break it. It was better than just standing there and being looked at.

He didn’t get a response, but he heard a strange noise, like a gentle whistle that was going back and forth. Laz wanted to say something else, but was stopped by little furry legs that suddenly covered his mouth. Looking down, Laz noticed Tyr looking back up with him, still carefree. This time though, he had something to say.

*Eyes. Red.* Was what Tyr communicated to Laz. Not knowing why he wanted him to do that, Laz did what Tyr suggested. Circulating his energy to the max, Laz’s eyes turned their dark red color as the powerful light from them spread out. Laz was then going to go one step further and use his black flames but was stopped.

*Fire. Wood. Bad.*

“Oh.. good point.” Laz then decided against this. He was a bit interested in using his flames as a deterrent, but obviously Tyr thought that would be a bad idea.

‘Actually, how did he know I was going to do that?’

Strangely enough, after a few moments of just looking back at the eyes with Tyr on his shoulder, the strange creatures started moving towards him. Laz made to back away from this but Tyr patted his cheek and told him it would be ok. So Laz stood his ground instead.

As the creatures entered into the moon light, Laz had a sudden desire to run the fuck away as fast as possible. As far as he could tell, these creatures of different sizes really were nothing but shadows with eyes. As they came closer, Laz could see their bodies shimmer as though the moonlight was simply going through them. He wasn’t sure these were even real creatures anymore since they looked like black blobs.

As they got closer to Laz, the two that were about the size of a house seemed to lay down to get a closer look while the one that was the size of a small moving truck just stood right in front of him. Laz was far to scared to see what the big one was going, despite seeing it stand right over him.

Just as Laz was feeling insanely uncomfortable, the one that was closest to him moved. Before Laz could react, the shadow creature’s something or other hit Laz on the head and sent him flying. Without even knowing why or how, Laz blacked out.

…

Laz opened his eyes, only to see a fire in front of him. His entire body felt numb and he could barely move or make a sound. It felt like every bit of energy inside of him was drained dry and he had no strength. In fact, he could barely open his mouth to speak.

“Wwwaaaaeeerrrrrr.” It was the only thing he could get out, was a need for some water. He didn’t even know if anyone could hear him as his head felt like it was going to explode. He had closed his eyes to the harsh light of the fire when he felt a stream of water enter his mouth. He focused all his strength on swallowing what was given.

After he finished drinking, Laz relaxed his head as he focused on recovering while he head a voice.

“Rest up young man. You’re safe here.” The voice sounded old and wizened, but somewhat relaxing. Laz could feel himself drifting in and out of consciousness, but he couldn’t do anything about it. When he finally opened his eyes again, he noticed that it was still dark, but he could feel some blankets on top of him, something he didn’t feel the first time. Or maybe it was because he couldn’t feel anything the first time. Laz didn’t know how much time had passed.

“Are you awake?”

“I am…” Laz’s voice was still rough, but it was much better than the last time he tried to speak.

“Good. Try to sit up,” the voice suggested. Laz did exactly that. Even though his body didn’t feel any better than before, at least he was no longer numb. There’s a world of difference from feeling weak to not being able to feel.

After a bit of effort, Laz was able to get into a sitting position. As his eyes adjusted to the light of the fire, things started becoming a bit clearer. He could tell that he was still out in the middle of nowhere, but the world looked different. He didn’t really notice that before, when he was seeing those creatures, the world itself seemed… greyish. It was like there was a constant fog in the air that you couldn’t see but it made everything else look weird. But now he discovered that the grey world was gone.

Laz looked around, trying to figure things out when he discovered the old man sitting across from him. The man was dressed in a flannel jacket along with jeans and boots. His long and smooth black hair was infused with many strands of white and came to a braid in the back, on which several pieces of jewelry could be seen. When Laz looked over at him, the man looked back at Laz.

“You have questions?”

“I..”

“I don’t have all the answers. I can only tell you what I know. And even that is far less than you want to hear…”

It seemed like he was speaking in riddles, but in truth, the things he said hit several points in Laz’s thoughts. It was almost like the man was telling him that he needed to prepare himself to relax since he wouldn’t like the answers he was given.

While Laz looked on, the man stroked the fire with a stick, causing the flames to burn a bit higher. He then reached over a tossed a hand full of something on the fire, causing the flames to burn a shade of blue.

“Where you were, where you are, how did I get here, how did I find you, what happened to you, what did I see? These are the things you ask and of these, I can only answer a few. But answers come with a price which is answers to my questions as well.”

“You have questions?” Laz asked, unsure of what the old man was trying to get at.

“I do. What you have seen, I can guess. Where you are, I can tell you. How I found you was simply on accident although I was sent to look and where you are now is probably around where you were before.”

“Uh..”

“I wonder if you know who you are? And how long where you in there?”

“In there?”

“Answers first.”

“My name is-”

“Truth. I have no time for lies.”

“My name is Lazarus Crowe.”

“That is your name, not who you are.”

“Who I am…?” Laz was confused by the old man’s riddles.

“MMmm, I see. Even you don’t know. They are playing with you. This makes sense.”

“Uh..?”

“How long were you in there?”

“I don’t know…? I passed out and then woke up here.”

“How long do you think you were in there?”

“It was… a couple hours that I remember?”

“A couple hours… interesting….” The old man was looking into the flames as though searching for something. Whatever that was, Laz had no idea.

“Most people who return only remember a few breaths, maybe a couple minutes at most. But you remember hours. And you didn’t die. The place you were at, is not a place a person’s body should be. That’s why you are like you are. But, that might be good, or bad. Maybe only you can tell me this later on.”

‘Huh? My body?’

Laz looked down and noticed that his skin was no longer a pale while, but now looked like it was a dark grey. In fact, it almost looked like someone had dunked him into grey paint. On top of that, the strange tribal like tattoos that had just been on his chest before now covered his entire upper body. It might have just been the light, but it seemed like they were moving around on their own.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Laz had accepted that things would just get weirder and weirder, he probably would have been very scared of his own skin right now.

“Damn…”

“I know what you are and that might be the only reason you are still alive. As far as how long you were in there, well, I remember my grandfather telling me stories of a chase on the highway with the feds and the man that managed to escape despite all of that, you look a lot like who he described.”

“Oh…WHAT? YOUR GRANDFATHER?”

“HA HAH AHA HA HA HA.”

“WHAT?”

“I’m kidding young man. Relax. Although if you are that person, then that event happened almost a year ago now…”

“A year? It’s… been a whole year?”

“As measure by the sun and seasons, it has been. Better than a hundred years?”

“Yes… But… a whole year.” Laz couldn’t believe what he was being told. A year had passed by but for him, it had only been a few hours.

“You should consider yourself lucky. Most people never return from that place. Even on my own spiritual journeys, it is only my soul which visits, never my body.”

“Your… soul?”

“You don’t believe in the soul young man?”

“It’s… not something I have experience with.” This was the best way Laz could describe it. He had never really thought about his soul, much less if he had one.

“The soul is important with regards to that place and to life in general. Maybe that’s for another time though. Rest for tonight and I will take you back to my village in the morning. I was sent out here to bring back a traveler and it seems as though I have found him. There is no reason to stay longer. We can talk more tomorrow.

Just as the old man finished speaking, the blue flames died down to the normal orange and red color. For whatever reason, Laz felt his body become light and his eye lids heavy. Although he wanted to talk to the man more, he knew that things were done for the night. Without hesitation, Laz slumped down onto the blanket on the ground and quickly fell asleep. It was his first normal sleep in over a year.

Watching this happen, the man had a thoughtful look on his face. While Laz had spoke, he had used a big of old magic to look into some of the weaving’s of destiny and fate. Although he had seen a few things about this boy he saved, there was far more that was blocked from his vision. That had never happened before.

“The world has changed much in just one year boy. I’m sure you won’t like it, none of the rest of us do. So whether you like it or not, I can only ask the spirits to guide you. Since you came out alive, I already know they are watching you. And I truly wonder just what happened to you in there.”

Laz turned over while asleep, not noticing a little spider had crawled up on top of him and got comfortable before falling to sleep itself.

“Sigh. Even a small spirit creature follows this boy around. What sort of twisted destiny has he made for himself?”