Red leaves

Chapter one - 48 hours remaining - Graveyard shift

It was already three am, the shadows in the room seemed unquiet, an eerie glow coming from the window seemed to keep them in the corners where they lurked, quietly waiting for Adam to fall asleep. Adam Plumm was on the verge of his eighteenth birthday, in that particular date, his life would change somehow, and although the voice didn't say it, he knew that it was probably not going to be for the best. Not that it mattered anyway. Adam was tired of his life, it was so empty and meaningless that he carried himself along with no real purpose. The world saw a healthy person, with no signs of depression, but whenever his eyes were reflected in a mirror back into their own retina, he saw nothing but an average brown eyed, black haired, skinny boy. He didn't see hope or dreams or even hate, no love either. He didn't feel alive. The lack of emotions so apparent in every dimension of his shallow life that even the thought of fixing his empty shell by cutting his wrists was deprived of any validation. Perhaps fear was the only thing he really felt, and in a twisted way, it inhibited him from committing suicide, he didn't really knew, or cared to know.
He tried to keep his eyes open but the physical need to rest was overcoming his will to stay awake, he knew that the hidden entity in the nightmare would remind him, that in two days his life would change in many ways, the soul that made him Adam would cease to be the same.
Adam's eyelids gave up to gravity finally closing, the shadows starting dancing and hovering above him, swirling, mixing and finally covering him .
The recurring nightmare started the usual way. He was standing in a small fenced cemetery surrounded by a seemingly infinite field, with a big house near the horizon, it seemed to be a house, but it might have been a church or even a barn, he couldn't see it, the shapeless structure was far and the sunset wasn't of any help. The bright but fading orange light met his vision, the glare painfully overwhelming, forced him to close his eyes. For a moment Adam felt pain, but for someone so empty, even that sensation filled his interior vacuum momentarily, he enjoyed the piercing sensation the light caused. As his eyes gave way, the cemetery was in almost total darkness, The sun was about to hide behind the building, and the atmosphere felt more melancholic than his previous nightmares. He paid closer attention to the gravestones and he realized that there were very few of them, even for a cemetery of that size. The inscriptions were almost or entirely gone. He tried to make out a name or even a date but they were so weathered that the task was impossible. He turned around and saw a huge maple tree, it's trunk was massive, black like the the blackest opal. It's branches expanding in every direction, the red leaves dancing with the breeze. It's image was somehow nasty and unwelcoming, it reminded Adam of an explosion frozen in mid air, the leaves looked similar to chunks of meat burning in agony. The image made him feel dizzy and sick.
Suddenly he heard the disembodied voice , it was all over the place, everywhere and nowhere. “change, change Adam, bring change in the right moment, you'll know when” it said almost singing, to what Adam replied shouting at the emptiness around “change-change-change cut the crap once and for all. Show yourself!”, even he didn't believe those courageous words, he was scared to death of whatever that ghost was, and he knew the tremble in his voice would betray his exterior confidence. In a sick way the singing turned to a laugh, it sounded neither male nor female, adult or child, but everything at once. The sound became increasingly loud, Adam brought his hands to his ears in a feeble attempt to muffle that piercing sound ...Riiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg!
“Saved by the bell once more. Another day another story” with a grin on his face, he thought loudly as he got up and opened the window. His mind wandered for a while trying to understand how was it that no matter at what time the alarm clock was set, it would always sound at the point the souless voice started to laugh.
“Breakfast is ready, hurry before it gets cold, I baked some muffins!” his mom called from the kitchen downstairs.
As he was coming down the stairs, trying to sound completely normal he yelled a faint “Morning mom!”
With a frown on her face she replied, “Are you ready to try my apple muffins?”. As Adam looked at the muffins, his stomach answer that question, contracting and twitching. “I think I'll try them later , I'm not really hungry”
“In two days you'll be eighteen, you need to eat something, I haven't seen you eat much this last couple weeks. Are you are losing weight? Or is it me Adam”
“My weight is fine mom. I'll try one if that makes you happy” he sourly replied as he took the smallest muffin. It was burned, and grainy to the touch, the apples looked like old overgrown, overripe grapes . He took a bite, hoping that the flavor made up for the lack of texture. It tasted horrible as most of his mom's cooking, somehow he managed to swallow a bite, “mmm... it's... really good, but I gotta go...I'm going to Jenny's house, we are going to the the library” he said, as he shuffled across the kitchen towards the back door. “Hey don't forget to be home early, your grandparents are coming for dinner!”
“I won't forget mom, I'll be back before five, bye”.
As soon as the door slammed behind him he threw the cursed muffin at a nearby bush, “maybe the ants will find it more appealing, although I doubt it” he thought with a smile.
He walked toward the back of the house where a small and old, green wooden shed solidly stood. After prying the rusted lock open and watching that the tools hanging on both sides of the structure were secured, he reached to the back where his old bike was buried under a pile of old newspapers. The bike was old, the paint was faded, what once in its glorious days was yellow, now it was barely of a pus toned off-white shade. He took a quick glance at the sky, odd shaped clouds covered it almost completely, some light filtered through, barely reaching the treetops. There was a cold breeze flowing slowly to the north. Adam brushed the hair off his face and tied it back in a pony tail. He looked around once more, and begun to feel perplexed, attacked by a weird and old feeling, a familiar sensation that he knew very well. It started to overtake him, his conscious mind diverted to the tingle it produced. That deja vu filled him, but as soon as it came, it was already gone, still, he felt something was not right, in that particular day , something was off.
He started pedaling toward the house of his friend, who in special occasions, was more than just a friend.
She lived twenty minutes from his place, if in a hurry he could get there in fifteen minutes. But there was no hurry, so he cruised slowly. The facade of her abode did say a lot about her family and how much they cared about her. The front gate was barely hanging from half a hinge, what once were healthy bushes were now no more than a bunch of twisted branches and dry leaves. The house number was supposed to read two eighty six, the six gone a long time ago left only a dusty outline as a reminder of its previous meaning. Adam left his bike next to the weathered bush in the ramshackle house, and walked to the main door. The bell was broken so he knocked really hard, usually at this time of the day everyone was gone except for Jenny.
“Hey you” she said as she opened the door, and went back to her bedroom, to finish dressing. Adam had the gift of always arriving somewhere at the wrong time.
The inside of the house was no better than the outside. Old fashion magazines were sprayed all over. There were also plenty of beer cans under and over the coffee table, half eaten snacks covered most of the carpet. A lazy cat peaked from a corner.
“So are you sure you want to do this” she said with a frown on her face, as she was coming out of her bedroom.
Jenny was radiant. Even just after waking up from a party she was beautiful. Her red hair reaching down to her shoulders, beautiful blue eyes, and an old glitter t-shirt with little glitter remaining, showed the nice curves of her body, somehow making her look younger than she really was.
“Adam!” she snapped
“Yes! I mean, I have too, you have to take me there, you know my car is broken and...”
“Oh come on, cut the crap, you know I'll take you there”
“Is it really far from here?” Adam asked her trying to sound dubious.
“It's a two hour ride. You are paying for the gas this time buddy”
They went out to the driveway and got on the little ninety five Saturn.
“you know I don't believe any of this stuff Adam. I'm just going along because we are friends, but you know what I think”
“come on Jen, spare me the lecture”
“No really, you should seek professional help”
“I know how you feel, but it's not like that” Adam said, as he aimlessly looked out the window.
“No, you don't know how I feel I-”
“Yes I do. I don't fully believe it myself, but I've got to try to understand all of this before I really go crazy” Adam knew what Jenny felt, but he really had to discard the other options before going to a shrink.
The ignition cranked, and they drove away.
A light drizzle started to fall from the sky as they were halfway to their destination, cooling even more the already cool Jersey Autumn.
As Jenny was lighting a cigarette they heard an explosion somewhere on the car, the vehicle steered to the side of the road almost running over a squirrel, and barely missing a tree. The car came to a full stop near a puddle of water. Adam Opened the door, and the smell of burning rubber dissipated every doubt he had about what happened.
There was a huge hole in the front passenger tire, some smoke still emanating from it.
“Well, come on , you are the man, you are not expecting me to change the tire are you?”
“Actually I was, my back sort of hurts and-”
“Very funny champ. I'll pop the trunk for you”
“Jen, look!” he said pointing to the hole in the tire.
“It's just a hole Adam” she said rhetorically.
“Check this out, I looks as if something burned that hole through, like a bullet, but bigger. You see the rubber? It's still smoldering”
They exchanged a quick glance and looked to the sides.
To the left there was an open field, nothing interesting there. To the right an impenetrable forest. Their vision stopping at the third or fourth row of trees. There were no birds singing, that was understandable as it was raining, but the lack of wind gave the scene a dreadful aura.
Adam felt as if he was being watched by someone or something. The feeling rose the hairs at the back of his neck.
He quickly replaced the busted tire with the spare donut, and a short after they resumed their trip.
He wasn't completely sure why he had to go to that cemetery. He had seen a picture of it in a newspaper three days ago. Apparently someone was trying to raise funds for the maintenance of old gravestones or something of that sort.
The picture showed a place that looked similar to the one in his dreams, there were some differences, but otherwise it was identical.
They arrived at their destination a bit behind schedule, the rain and the flat delaying them more than expected. They still they had a couple more hours of light. Adam and Jenny (specially) were trying not to spend to much time there anyway.
The front gate was halfway opened, an improvised and rusted metal sheet on top of it read “Evergreen Cemetery”. Two pillars, one on each side, served as support sign and for a miriad of creeping plants and mold. Whoever was in charge of maintaining this place was not doing such a good job, Adam thought.
He tried to push the gate open, but it barely budged. The hinges were stuck and corroded as they were slowly loosing their ground to rust.
Aside from the suggestive entrance, the cemetery itself seemed quiet and peaceful, even the grass grew purely green and even.
The place appeared to be very fertile. Jenny thought about the good soil and the origin of the nutrients. She imagined decomposing bodies and rotting coffins. That unwelcome thought was quickly shunned away.
After a closer inspection, the cemetery differed quite a bit from the one in his dreams. The place was much larger, and the structure he had seen in the distance now was closer. It happened to be an old barn, some shingles hanging loosely from the roof. The site looked abandoned.
Yet, somehow he knew this was the cemetery, this was it, he kept repeating in his mind.
“This place doesn't look a bit to that picture. I'm sure this is the place, I didn't get us lost or anything” “what are we supposed to do now?” Jenny added.
“I don't know, lets take a look around, something might trigger, I don't know, something”
They started to walk on one of the many paved paths the cemetery had.
Not even the gravestones looked similar, most of them were from the nineteenth or twentieth century. A small crow perched from the top a pine. It squawked at Adam, and then flew away, nervously flapping its wings. Nothing interesting happened, more common graves and no weird black maple tree. The only thing around were pines and birches.
Jenny appeared to be tired and slightly bored.
“I guess it's just a cemetery after all, lets go home. It's getting late” she told Adam in an unpleasant tone of voice.
“I guess you are right, I don't know what I was thinking, coming here, getting us wet, all for nothing” He vacillated for a while and the added “I guess you are right, I guess I am starting to lose my mind”
“When I told you to get help I didn't mean it like you are crazy”
“yes, but I-” he interrupted himself, he saw what looked like a maple tree in the distance. It was standing tall, proudly anchored to the ground, not to far away from where they were.
“That's it” He shouted with wide grin, and proceeded to walk in that direction.
The curiosity got the best of him. He started to run, leaving Jenny behind.
He slipped in the wet grass, and almost fell on top of a stone. As soon as he recovered, he resumed his running toward the tree, going as fast as his feet would allow. Adam didn't know how much running and jogging he will have to do in the near future.
“Adam wait” Jenny's voice cried in the distance. He could barely hear now, her even thou she was not too far.
As he got closer to the tree, the sounds started to fade together with the color. The sky started to look darker, the grass slowly turned from green to almost white. Even the raindrops lost their clean and transparent look. Everything had a luminescent aura, the whole place was looking more and more like an infrared picture.
He got to the maple tree. Its brown trunk turned black, the color leached by some unseen force. He took a look around the tree and he saw the faded gravestones. The now recognizable barn was in the correct position it had been in his dreams. Suddelnly he felt the urge to get away from there. There was an atmosphere of loathing and suffering all around, something was very wrong and he could feel it. This place was way more powerful than the one in his dreams. It was real.
He turned around trying to find Jenny, but now there was nothing else after the grid of gravestones he was in.
The rain slowed, and then finally froze in mid-air. The little color that remained was extinguished together with most of the light.
A buzzing sound, like crumbling cellophane or radio static made him feel sick, he felt his mind diminish inside his brain and his body expand in every direction. He lose his balance and fell backwards, his head barely missing a gravestone. His body became paralyzed rendering him stiff.
A red leaf from the maple tree fell on his left eye. The leaf somehow retained its color, turning his vision totally red for a second.
He heard a bunch of noises around him. All at once the color and the light came back.
Something black leaped over him, it looked human. He tried to move his right arm, then his left, to no avail. All he accomplished was to increase a painful numbness in his body.
He realized the leaf covering his eye was gone. The grass behind his back felt sharper, and he realized, the soil was not completely solid.
This was the cemetery no more.
His attention was at once focused on the creature that stood next to him.
He desperately tried to get away, to do something, but his body was dead. The creature knelled and brushed the loose hair off his face.
“quiet, don't move, I'm not going to hurt you” she said in a weird accent.
The touch of her hand was cold. Adam stared at her alien face and saw that she was not human. The creature that seemed female had eight eyes, all of them green, lined in a row of three, one of two larger ones, and another of three. He couldn't see a nose, or any hair on top of her head, but array of scales that covered her scalp. Her ears were pointed and had white fluffy hair on the ends. Somehow she lacked the muscularity of a human female but her blue skin made up for it by being very thick. There were some tribal tattoos in her belly and her arms, he could clearly see them because the only piece of clothing she was wearing was a small short made of some animal's skin. It barely covered her crotch.
Despite the apparent weakness of her figure, Adam knew she was much stronger than him, and even if his body would allow him to escape her, she would get him without much trouble. She was looking at him with a smile on her face. That smile reassured Adam a bit of the intentions she proclaimed.
“If you want to get out alive of this, we'll have to work together” her smile was gone now.
“Where the f*** am I, what are you, please let me go” Adam snapped. At least his voice was still functional.
“Listen, I am not planning to die here tonight, if you don't shut up and cooperate I'll leave you here for the Amnzur to finish you”
“The what, I... I can't move” Adam's body twitched a bit but his effort was doused at once by a cold hand on his stomach.
“I don't have time to explain how you've got to Dhruzz, now you'll have to follow directions. Can you do that?”
Adam agreed, barely nodding.
“Now, calm down, feel your heart, feel the warmth of your blood, try to relax”
He tried to calm down, but in circumstances like this it was not easy.
“come on, try harder. Do you feel it?” the creature answered to the cry in his mind.
Adam began to feel a tingling sensation, she was doing something. He felt like hundreds of ants were bitting under his skin, where her hand rested. His body pulsated with his heartbeat in a uniform flush of heat.
“There, I think you got it, try to stand up”
The paralysis was almost gone! Adam rolled to the side and got to his knees, the lady-thing helped him up.
“We have to get out of here now, I can smell them, they are not to far, follow me”
Adam turned around and was blown away by the scenery.
He was right about his previous assumptions. The ground, was almost like blue semi-hard gelatin, and although there was some blue grass, his feet were not solidly anchored, he slid a bit in the surface. They were in an open field, there were some trees or something similar to them. This things were yellow, their roots could be seen through the soil, their leafless branches not to different from the roots. In Awe he admired the sky. It was of a pinkish shade, a ring of moons varying in size and color went from one side of the horizon to the other, one of them looked like the moon from the earth. It looked as if these satellites provided all the light.
“Adam” the creature said dryly as if knowing the sensation he had.
“How do you know my-”
“I know what I need to know. No time to talk now, come on”.
“What do you want with me, what happened to Jenny I want to go back!” Adam inconsequently shouted at her.
“I'm trying to help you, but fine, stay, you'll die here by yourself. It's your choice” the creature said as she started walking.
Adam really didn't have a choice, this unknown place seemed to be dangerous for him to be wandering alone. He followed her.
They started going toward some barely visible mountains in the distance. After a moment the creature added “by the way, my name is Spinan”. Adam, nodded with a faint grin.
He saw four arms protruding from Spinan's back, unlike her two human arms, these were thinner and were encased in a blue exoskeleton, and they didn't have five, but two clawed thick fingers. The arms were tightly bent and interlocked, barely visible from the the front, two of them holding a pair of daggers, their hilt covered in a brown leather-like fabric, with the blade made of a shiny black metal. Spinan was slim, and Adam could see by the way she walked, that she was very agile. There was something different in the way her hips moved, but he couldn't understand what it was. He noticed a small orifice in her lower back.
They walked for about one hour. Adam was reluctant to ask any questions, he really didn't care, he just wanted to get out of that place. He thought about Jenny crying in the cemetery not knowing what happened to him, his mom, his dad, they might have called the police. He remembered that time when those cops tried to lock him up, after they caught him smoking pot in the park. It was bad enough to have a criminal record at that age. He couldn't let that happen again.
“quiet.... I can smell them, they are near” Spinan whispered in Adam's ear interrupting his thoughts while crouching and pushing him down forcing him to do the same.
“I don't see anything”
“I hope we don't see a thing kid, now quiet”
“but-”
“over there, to those bushes!” She grabbed Adam's wrist and proceeded to a nearby rough circle of red bushes. Unlike the trees these ones had some leafs. When they got there Adam saw that the material composing these plants wasn't really of the vegetable kind. I was as if they were made of flesh, with fresh blood dripping out of them like sap.
Adam pushed back “I'm not going there, that's gross!”
“We have to, we'll stay close to them. These are called Scapulla, they are not made of real flesh, and that is not blood, It's the sap they use to lure real animals to poison and slowly let them die, nourishing the soil with their bodies. We'll use them to protect you from the Amnzurs. Crouch close to them, but don't touch them. More on botanicals later Adam, stay here” Spinan remained close to Adam. Her arms unfolded from her back, firmly holding the two daggers. She was slowly circling around, watching. Her pointed ears aimed to her surroundings.
All of a sudden three creatures leaped from behind the bushes, Adam was caught of guard and the fear made him fall on his back, he glanced at Spinan. She dropped herself forward, her hips turned one hundred and eighty degrees, the arms holding the daggers passed them on to her front human arms and those four spider-like extensions, supported her weight together with the now inverted legs, her eyes, now completely opened, seemed greener. The orifice in her lower back grew bigger.
“Adam, don't move!” she shouted.
The creatures, stood quietly where they had landed as if doubting whether to charge or not. The largest one bravely started in Adam's direction. He was disgusted at once. The wretched, green plant-like beast, had only three legs, no head, and no eyes. It had only an opening the size of a tennis ball that looked like a maw between the front legs, and a coiled vine-like string on its back. Although its shape was unearthly, the rear leg made up for the lack of symmetry.
It jumped high in the air, and as it was about to fall on top of Adam, Spinan intercepted it with her shoulder. The three legged creature rolled to the ground and screamed in a way that resembled a tiger and a pig altogether. Spinan bounced backwards, setting herself with grace on her two legs and four arms. The creature recovered and the three beasts charged Spinan at the same time. Two of them started zigzagging in her direction, while the other sprinted on it's hinder leg. The two on the ground reached her, and by shooting the vine of their back like a whip, they grabbed Spinan by her human wrists nullifying the use of her daggers. The creature in the air above her, aimed it's rear leg toward her head, three fangs the size of Spinan's blades came out from the sides of the overgrown round hoof.
Spinan, didn't move, she was waiting and watching. She quickly glanced at the creatures securing her. The beast above was about three feet from her head. She back flipped, while swiftly turning her wrists an cutting off the vines with her daggers, the creature from above crushed against the empty ground, deeply shoving its fangs and missing its prey. The Amnzurs came madly wild from the sides. Spinan jumped to the left on top of one of the beasts and with the daggers she drilled two holes in its back, she quickly jumped backwards, grabbed both daggers by the blade and threw them at the other creature ramming her, at an amazing speed the blades were buried into the Amnzur's front, where a head might have been located. She decimated both creatures in the blink of an eye. Her agility was evident, now Adam understood why her hips moved the way they did.
The remaining creature retracted it's fangs from the ground, looking confused. Without vacillation, Spinan run to it, grabbed the beast with her six arms and two legs and began weaving a web around the Amnzur with her feet, while rolling the creature with the remaining arms. Adam could see the white, sticky string coming from the hole above her lower back. In a moment the creature was immobilized by a web that seemed to get harder and harder with every second that passed, to the point it wasn't able to move anymore.
“Let's go before the others come, they always travel in more numerous packs” She yelled at Adam, while recovering her daggers from the dead Amnzur. In a second she was standing in two legs again, with arms folded behind.
They resumed the walk toward the mountains, Adam was beginning to feel tired and thirsty.
“Where are we going?” He asked
“To my village, It's not to far, we should get there before the light phase is gone”
“Light phase?” Adam inquired, trying to understand the concept
“The name of my world is Dhruzz, translated to your language it would be something like -The World of the Hundred moons- This world is surrounded by exactly that many moons, each one of them is named after different worlds in the multiverse. Our calendar is based on these moons. As you can see the light originates in them, the color of the light will vary depending on the ones currently above us, now for example, the resulting shade of light is the result of the moons you can see in the sky. Once every twelve hours, the moons slowly lose their light to regain it twelve hours later. It's similar to the day and night cycle of your world. It takes about three hundred and sixty five light phases for the hundred moons to revolve around Dhruzz.
“Why is this world's cycle so similar to Earth's”
“Because your world is linked to ours, this one was the first that ever existed, then one by one the other hundred came”
“So, you mean there is a moon for each world linked to this”
“Not only that, but each moon is a portal specifically linking the world it represent to this. That's how you came here”
“Why am I here? And what do you mean by hundred worlds”
“Our shaman will answer that. My mission was to retrieve you from this location”
“So you weren't going to leave me back there after all! Where you?” Adam grinned Dryly.
“Of course not! If you didn't came on your own I would have had to tie you up and carry you all the way to Arula.” Spinan laughed. He liked the tone of her voice, it was full of innocence, although she seemed to be a hard and mature woman.
“Where did you learned English?” Adam asked
“I sneaked to your world to learn it, I accessed an old library every night for five years. I guess I've got the hang of it”
“So you went to my world? Did you like it”
“You never shut up do you? No. I didn't like it, most people look like puppets, it is scary”
“You were scared?”
“I was alone for the first time in my life in a noisy and stinky world surrounded by some sort of running machines. Yes I was scared. Ok?”
“Earth is not stinky! not like this gelatin place filled with meaty bushes”
“This particular place is called Clemara, It's my world's definition of desert, and you are right, it is stinky and ugly. When we get to the mountains, you'll see my world and hopefully it will change your mind”
Adam felt dizzy, he felt the expanding and contracting thing again
“Spinan, help me!” he shouted
She grabbed him before he collapsed, desperately saying something, he could barely hear her “I didn't do a thing, it was in you, let go of your fear and... your body...”
All around him, the world lost color and everything faded.