Chapter 24: Gale’s secret

"Mia, Mia!"

She turned and saw Gale. She recognised his green eyes and warm brown hair. He was always the charming sort of man, not particularly handsome but dashing in his own way. He stretched out his hands for her and she did the same. Then, when she looked down and touched his hands, she realised his hands were like branches, entwined branches in the shape of fingers and palms. Even parts of face, was turning to almost tree-like, with areas that resembled like tree bark and green leaves sticking out from his body.

She withdrew her hands in shock.

"Mia, don't worry. It is still me." Gale Forrest looked calm and collected.

"What has happened to you?" Why are you like that?" Mia asked.

"Do you remember the pandemic?"

She nodded. It was the same one that wiped out almost half of the population of her kingdom; including her brother.

"That was the time we met, remember?" Gale said. His eyes full of hope, with a faint smile on his face.

"You saved my life," Mia gasped, her mind flooding with waves of suppressed memories. She had been crying because her brother had been sick, and while she was at the river banks to wash clean her face of tears, she tripped over a slippery rock and fell into the river, swept away by the undercurrents.

There was boy who pulled her up from the water, his grip was strong and determined. He had green eyes, and a dazzling smile.

"It was you, if not I would have died." Mia remembered herself struggling to breathe, and her tears had been mixed with the river water, her vision blurry.

"The pandemic took the boys and men. I was not spared. I remembered the day that I felt feverish and I knew I was sick. I walked and walked and walked. I thought if I ran way from everybody else I wouldn't trouble my family anymore. The sun was scorching and I was very thirsty. I saw a huge tree with canopy and beautiful glistening yellow fruits hanging heavy from the branches. I was already very exhausted and was crawling towards the tree. When I finally reached, I lost consciousness. When I awoke, I was already like this." Gale referred to the state of his hands.

"Part of me had already died, and the spirit of the tree revived me and in the process, lived within my body. I was much stronger than before. I guess I was part-man, part-tree. And then I saw you in the waters and I could pull you up. I could help you."

Mia gazed at him in wonder. The rest of his skin was turning thick and brown, like tree bark but his eyes were very human.

"Mia. Listen to me. You are in a Somnium that Zachariah had created to trap you. If you linger in limbo too longer, your soul would be here forever. Zachariah wants to trap you here for eternity. You need to leave. Because I am only half human, I could enter the Somnium, but I will end up revealing my half-tree self. That is why you are seeing me in this state." He looked down at his limbs that were progressively looking more like wood.

Mia saw that his feet are turning into roots and seemed to be growing into the ground.

"How? How are we going to ever escape here?" Her voice was one of desperation.

"I have been walking in circles for what seemed like forever, flipping in and out of hallucinations."

She remembered the wedding vaguely and the unfamiliar bridegroom and her wedding dress that were made up of thousands of small flower screaming.

She felt her cheeks burn when she thought about the man who claimed that they were very much in love, as she was very nearly taken in for his dashing good looks.

Now, she realised that it had been Zachariah, her stomach churned in disgust.