Chapter 4
The large body of ocean water reflects the sunlight celestially as I stand by it, hugging myself. I breathe laboriously from exerting all of my stamina to run here. I didn’t take my vitality seriously when I began this journey, which might justify why I’m beginning to feel my muscles ache worse from not resting. My abrasions sting each time I move so I decide to rest my body next to the water as I plan my next action to cross the ocean, also to infer which course I’ll be going in.
My eyes stare at the exemplary waters, paying no mind to the person that sits next to me with a low groan as he reveals a pack of cigars in his hand. I shift my gaze to him and watch him slip the cigar in between his lips before a fire burns the end of it without him touching it directly.
“Smoking is bad for your health,” I say to him, unsure as to why he sat next to me. The beach has plenty of space to sit. Why did he choose this spot? Am I invading his spot and he’s too kind to ask me to move?
“It is,” he shrugs, staring at the water with a blank expression. “But smoking, in my opinion, is a therapeutic mechanism, whether it’s bad for me or not. I use it to calm my nerves and to me, that’s more than I need. My life isn’t important, not really anyway. I just want to smoke, enjoy the cool air, and try not to think about any bad memories.”
“Well, it’s not my place to criticize your choices, but may I say my opinion?” I ask.
“Go ahead.”
“Tobacco cuts your lifespan in half and that’s devastating since the world has so many sights to see. Why choose it as your therapeutic mechanism?”
“Not everyone wants to see the world, some want to become it. To fuse their soul with everything that makes the world beautiful. They want to become what life means to everyone else. I want to be that. Not just useful. I want to be everything the people appreciate. I want to make everyone smile. Even if it’s a strange dying wish, that’s what I want to become after I die.” He exhales the smoke through his nostrils and glance at me. “I wouldn’t recommend thinking this way to everyone but I lived with this since I was little. You might not understand but I answered your question that you probably wanted to ask anyway.”
“I understand you.”
“Do you really?”
“I do.”
He gives me a small smile before his eyes avert to my scathed hands and take one of them in his, studying the condition of it. The wound hasn’t healed yet, which is my fault since I didn’t let it heal after forcing myself to continue escaping the woods.
He places his cigar in between his lips before he takes out a small bottle of ointment from his front pocket and uncaps it with one hand to carefully spread it on both of my hands. The coolness of the ointment made me shiver a little. I smile as I feel grateful for his generosity and kindness.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to, sir.” I say, watching him care for my wounds warily.
“If you made it out of those woods, you needed that more than me. I can tell. You’re on a journey somewhere dangerous.” He says, placing my hands on my lap
“Speaking of those woods, how come you’re here. Don’t most people that enter are fated to die inside?”
“Most are, but me ― I don’t know why I’m here. I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember.”
“How did you get those cigars then?”
“I don’t know honestly. I always find them whenever I run out. New and untouched.”
“That is odd.”
“It is, but I don’t question it.”
“It’s probably just a guardian angel watching over you.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Yeah, maybe…”
Silence engulfs us for a few seconds before I speak again. “So… what do you know about the woods? Like… can you go back home after you enter it?”
“Yes, you can. It’s easier to leave where you came from than to exit to the other side. Legend says there’s a confused spirit in there that messes with people’s minds, so if you want to leave, you can, but to find an exit… well, they’ll have to be as lucky as you were.”
“I heard of the tale. The married couple that was cursed. They were unfortunate to suffer through that.”
The man takes another pull from his cigar and nods in agreement. “Yeah, very unfortunate.”
“In my opinion,” I look down at the water inching its way closer to my feet, damping the sand as the small tide came in and left. “I think they’ll get their happily ever after, I believe they will.”
“Do you know what I believe?”
I shake my head.
“I believe that the wonders of the world will always have mysteries but not each one will be solved.”
“I believe that too.”
“Tell me, miss. Do you believe that the antagonists of the world are able to be redeemed of their actions?”
“I do.”
“Even the demon that killed our people centuries ago?”
“If it had a reason to kill them then it depends on what really happened back then.”
“Not all monsters have a reason to kill.”
“But if we don’t take time to figure why they do, we’ll never know.”
“That’s indeed correct.” He exhales his smoke from his mouth and uses his cigar to point at the ocean. “This ocean has secrets too. Too many to count actually. Legend says that it leads to another dimension if you swim to the bottom, but no one ever swam in it since no one ever made it past the woods.”
“I don’t think I’m the only one that made it through. Someone else did, right?”
“Who am I to know? I’m just an old man that lives alone on the beach smoking his cigar.”
He’s changing the subject. He’s hiding something.
“So you never saw anyone else?”
“Nope.”
“Is that so? How weird.” I stare ahead of me. “The woods weren’t that hard to escape. It took me almost two days to leave it.”
“Not everyone was as fortunate as you were, miss.” His tone clips.
Hearing his change of tone causes me to look at him warily. Did I say something wrong?
“I apologize if I said something out of place. That wasn’t my intention.” I say, awkwardly gazing up at the sky that is gradually turning multi-colored as the sun begins to set on the horizon.
“It’s alright. I know you didn’t mean to, it’s just… I have bad memories of those woods. There are times I try to leave to find civilization out of loneliness, hoping they had amenity but… I ended up lost and confused before I slipped back through the trees to escape the intolerable trickery that almost made me lose my mind.” He mutters dryly.
I can hear the travail in his voice as he tries to suppress his emotions but I don’t say anything out of pity. I don’t want to push him knowing I’m just an outsider from somewhere other than this place. I have no memory recollection of anything except emerging from the water and coming here.
I also didn’t want to admit the apparent fact that I didn’t long for water or food. I might weird him out and I don’t want to do that. The last thing I want is to make myself be seen as an alien-like human that can’t eat or drink when I’m able to consume those things. I just haven’t yearned for them yet, as if they’re not a necessity.
“I’m glad you’re still alive,” I mumble admittingly, panning my attention to the water that sounds like whispers ― honeyed whispers. They sound undeniably soft and incoherent. Like music that’s intermixed with different types of melodies, ready to pull me into a siren-like spell.
The whispers make my steady heartbeat increase while it continues to coax my mind into succumbing to my exhaustion. It’s trying to lull me to sleep so convincingly that my mouth starts to move under the influence as I involuntarily hum with them, swaying side to side as the world feels like it’s spinning, making me lightheaded. The sweet, persuasive lilts of the obscure song affect my ability to see clearly ― everything is growing hazy like a fog that suffused my line of view.
What’s happening to me?
“Miss?” The man looks at me with concern in his eyes, but it painfully feels like my entire sense of reality is fading away ― I feel like I’m hallucinating.