Waking up in the Dark

When Lee awoke, he found himself exactly where he was before, lying face down, where he fell as he passed out, still in his dark green robes, his trousers still hanging from the tree branch above him. The sun was setting once more, sinking red below the horizon, dying the sky above Lee black and dismal.

A sudden cold breeze blew through the forest, and Lee shivered slightly, feeling himself go slightly delirious as the world faded out of existence, turning momentarily black, before abruptly reasserting itself once more, the colours momentarily too bright with all their lines blurred.

Lee laid down there, refusing to think about anything as he blinked himself awake, gathering his bearings, staring upwards at the stars. His eyes immediately searched for the North star, basking in a familiar sense of familiarity as he gazed up at it. The small light twinkled brightly above Lee, and he could feel a small smile form on his face.

He looked over to his right, where the river rushed past him, the water babbling as it brushed the sides of its banks, and frothing up and down, splashing onto land every now and then. Lee shifted slightly, and the exploding pain of his headache once more thrust itself to the front of his mind.

He stretched his arm around, and found one of his water skins. He took the largest sips he could, emptying the bag, before repeated the process four more times. With the pain slightly muted, he leaned up onto his elbows and took a larger survey of his situation. His belongings were mostly where he had left them, the flying man thankfully ignoring the majority of his meagre belongings.

Thankfully seeing Lee too below him to be petty.

Lee felt a slight pang in chest, when he noticed the absence of the scroll, frustrated with himself that it had been taken, after all the time he had spent hiding it and then losing his opportunity to finally read it.

Lee crawled up the tree with his arms, until he was finally sitting up, albeit swaying from side to side, and on the verge of falling down once more into a weak heap of limbs. He separated out the necessary ration of peanuts, dropping them down unceremoniously with the rest of the peanuts that hadn't been eaten, dropped and strewn on the grass, in one somewhat cohesive pattern.

He gave himself a little internal cheer that by not eating any of his food, he would be able to make his supplies last longer.

Lee threw the empty water skins onto the grass much closer to the river than Lee was, and breathing out a small sigh of relief when he saw that none had fallen into the water, despite his currently mangled sight and depth perception. It occurred to him then that he really shouldn't have thrown them, and that he was lucky that his sight wasn't currently broken in the opposite direction.

He pulled himself up to a stand, legs shaking and knees almost buckling under the weight of the rest of his body. His ankles briefly collapsed, and he fell back onto the tree behind him. He hissed, and breathed out heavily and erratically, until he was stable enough to be able to reasonably stand. He reached up towards his trousers, giving as strong as a pull he could, his arms feeling as if they had been sapped of all their strength.

Mercifully, the garment came loose from the tree, and to Lee, fluttered down beautifully as if it were the world's prettiest butterfly. He pulled them slowly, brushing off any small leaves and twigs as he did so, and then shoved on his boots, much less kindly to his feet as he did so, his individual toes feeling absolutely fine, wiggling happily as if the rest of his body didn't feel like shit.

Now fully dressed, Lee hobbled his way over to the empty water skins, and filled them all to the brim with the river water, before separating one out to attach to his belt.

He rolled up all his remaining belongings, into his sleeping rug, and tied them up, and slung the pack over his shoulder, patting it several times for good measure to test the strength and manoeuvre it to a more comfortable position. He gathered up the peanuts off the floor, and stood properly.

Lee began making his journey, further down the river, determined now to finally make some ground to help recover his lack of progress. He rationalised to himself, as he kept stumbling over tree roots in the dark, that he had already had enough sleep. In between the night before, and again passing out for most of the prior day, Lee felt as if he had dawdled enough, and that he needed to put more distance between himself, and the village behind him.

He knew now that he could not sleep at night, not with the monster that he had already, narrowly escaped once, prowling around, a hunter and predator of these woods. The walking would keep him awake, and would move him further from the wooden hut he had found, presumably the resting place of that hellish beast, that deserved and needed to be cast into the underworld.

Lee shivered and swallowed drily as he remembered the chase, how the beast had horrifically reached out into his mind, and had wrapped his ears up in soothing, poisonous words, trying to control his body and trying to make him stop running. He had been left deaf to the world around him, that monster consuming his hearing and reaching out with its hundreds of hands to reach around and cover his eyes.

His fists clenched at how the beast had invoked his sister's name, threatening her, and he marched even further on, his boots hitting the forest floor harder, at the thought of how he could never go back to warn her, trying his hardest to dismiss the idea that it would now, go out of its way to specifically target her as revenge.

Some part of him hoped that it would not. That the words were a simple, empty threat, designed and used solely to manipulate him. He knew that his sister had enough sense to not venture into the forest at night, too aware that the village rules would always be a deterrent, just in case.

That part of him did not stop the crushing guilt and disappointment in himself that dominated the rest. He was failing, as an older brother, to protect his sister from all the things that were in the world and could cause her harm.

He had been so angry when he found out that she had been wanting to marry Shen, and that the desire was mutual. He didn't want to fully understand her reasoning, or evenview her decision as a sane one.

Shen was the stupid, naïve rich kid that Lee had only befriended due to their shared status of fellow outcasts. He was too eager to throw himself into anything that seemed interesting, and pursued it all the way, ignoring everyone who said no.

He had seen Shen act in the same way as he pursued Little Mei, an idea or activity for him to be entertained by for a short while, until he lost interest and found something else.

Lee was hurt by Shen's attraction to his sister, to a woman, but had been able to carry on, hopeful that he would not actually pursue her, hopeful that he would quickly lose interest, and that he would be free once more, and that nobody would end up hurt.

He was so, so wrong.

Shen fell deeply in love with little Mei, and his feelings were reciprocated, leaving Lee to feel as if his emotions and needs were inferior and useless. It felt as if he were being speared by nine arrows, all aimed at his chest, as he realised, sitting alone in the fields during lunch while all the other men were away, that it was because he was a man.

Shen had pursued his sister, almost identical to him, the main difference being that she was female, instead of him. Shen preferred someone who was functionally a stranger, instead of the one who had grown up with him, knew all his secrets and trusted him with his own, knew all his hobbies, the tells of his body, his mannerisms, emotions, and how to talk to him no matter the situation.

Shen had pursued his sister, because love meant nothing to him, unless it was from a woman.

Not from a man. Not from Lee.

It hurt.

It hurt so bad, that Lee thought he would never recover, that he was cursed to feel as if his heart was breaking into two, every single day, until the end of time.

He left the happy couple alone, just not to feel as if he were dying inside, the pain flaring up whenever he heard their voices faintly on the wind, whenever he caught glimpses of their clothing, whenever he saw the beaten paths which he and Shen used to take alone, occupied in a kind of romantic bliss Lee never thought that he would experience.

So caught up in his painful memories, Lee almost missed the single glowing red eye, gazing at him from across the river.