The Adventures of Mr. Dirge & Lady Freckles [ Part IV ]

The Travelers

Parts: [I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX] [X]

I don’t remember how I had gotten here. I was in a blue room. The walls were glowing but not too brightly. A perfect square room; it had no doors and only one window at the top left corner of the wall facing me. The window let in a white light that landed at the center of the room. I was sitting on the floor, pondering in confusion. It was like being stuck outside the flow of time, like I had no past and no future. My shoes scratching on the floor, as I was trying to get up, was the only sound that triggered my ears. Like I had forgotten that I could hear or what sounds were. I could not understand those vibrations at first. I wasn't thinking about how to escape the room, because why would I ? I had no recollection of anything outside that room. It seemed like the only place in existence, as though void surrounded that room from the outside.

A faint voice, a familiar voice, coming from the center of the room out of emptiness, caught my attention. I walked towards the center of the room, towards the light. The closer I got, the clearer the sound became; until -and out of nothing- a holograph of a woman appears in the center of the room, under that light. Her face looked familiar, so did her body. The light drew her curves into existence; I've said this before. Then I saw her eyes; glowing yellow as though they were imbued with magic. I suddenly remembered everything. “Sorceress?” I inquired. She returned with a smile and spoke “A familiar face from a different world will come bearing gifts”

I woke up to the sound of Yuri and Freckles laughing. Dane was still sleeping too. It seemed they were watching two monkeys fight on a tree across the river. Freckles jumped up at the sound of my voice, happy that I had woken up. We had planned to spend a nice couple of days together but instead we got a zombie apocalypse; that thought made me sad. I missed being alone with her. When we are alone, her voice changes. Every word she utters become a soothing caress and with every word, the urge I have to rip her clothes off becomes harder to handle and to contain. Her smile in the morning is probably the only thing that kept me going. I woke Dane up, as we had to catch precious daylight; the woods were very dark as it was.

Yuri and I walked in front, as we traveled along the river. Freckles was behind us and Dane -with my Glock- walked last. We kept walking for hours, taking fifteen minute breaks and then walking again. The good thing was that the river was nearby, and water was abundant. We weren't dehydrating like the day before. Thirst had no play with the events of that day. Around noon time, we had reached the foot of the hill; the hill that stood right beneath the mountain we aimed to reach. We sat down and decided to take a long break before our upwards trek.

Dane and Yuri sat near the river. I sat, my back to a tree, and Freckles sat under the tree adjacent to mine. She wasn't too far away, but not close enough. She had her notebook and she was writing something. She usually keeps it to herself, most of it at least, I get to read some of what she writes sometimes. Her back against the tree, both her legs stretched on the ground, and her face is shining with beauty that deconstructed and reconstructed my consciousness every time I looked at her. Her beauty, to me, abolished my existence. I would stop thinking about anything, I would not have anything to say. I would just stare at the beauty shining from her face; a reflection of the beauty that dwells within, and the pain as well. She was wearing blue jeans, a white shirt and white running shoes. It brought me back to the realization that I was still shirtless. I've been getting cold at night. I've used grass, hay and fallen branches to cover myself while I slept. I had my dark red pants on, thin and loose, with my black and red running shoes and the black & gold sheath holding my katana hanging on my back. Dane and Yuri both had swimsuits on, and converse shoes. Which was making it painful for them to walk, so at times we were switching shoes, alternating turns wearing the comfortable running shoes. Dane had a blue shirt on and looked like a surfer boy, which he wasn't. Yuri wore a Simpsons shirt; a picture of Homer Simpson eating a doughnut. Yuri was a cool guy.

We filled up the empty bottles we had from the river, and started going uphill. For some reason, it felt familiar. Going up that hill felt familiar. Images of memories that lingered in a different time and a different world started flashing into my head. I started feeling and remembering things that haven’t happened yet, or at all. I ignored it and kept going. I had to get to the top of the hill. I’ll think about those flashes when I get to the top, I thought. We were stopping for breaks every thirty minutes; going uphill is a hassle.

After a couple of hours we reached an edge in the hill, almost at the top. To our surprise, as soon as we got over that edge, we saw asphalt. A winding road that seemed to lead up to the mountains. It felt good, for a miniute. I grabbed Freckles and pushed her off the road and behind a bush; A fleet of zombies were walking up the road towards us. Dane, Yuri and I also jumped to hiding. The zombies didn't see us at first, but it was only a matter of time since there was no way for us to subtly leave the side of the road. So we got ready to fight. With all my guts and all my gathered courage, I unsheathed my weapon and jumped to the middle of the road; “surprising” the massive group of zombies coming my way. But before they could even see me, two great fireballs came crashing down from the skies obliterating the
entire fleet, except for a few. My eyes had closed at the flash of the light, as soon as I opened them I saw two massive, bearded men. Each of them held a giant axe, they were wearing jeans, heavy boots and a leather vest. They looked like bikers from an olden mythology; Norse gods, Greek heroes or Roman gladiators. They smashed the remaining zombies with their axes; their axes had a shade of dark matte metal, but would shine nonetheless. As soon as I got a clear view of those huge lumps of awesome, a smirk found its place on my face.

“Shnazul ? Soups ? what the hell!?” I couldn't believe my eyes. “Not Shnazul, It’s Khalid.” I heard Shnazul say. I did not understand at first, so I looked at Soups, he just smiled and said “I’m Soups in every dimension but you already know that”; he winked. Shnazul … Khalid, walked towards me and took me to the other side of the road. Soups followed him.

-“Seriph, we don’t have much time. I came here to help you but I have to leave, it’s too dangerous for us to stay here.”
-“Who the hell is Seriph, what is happening ?”
-“Right, ‘Dirge’? haha”
-“Yea…”
-“Seriph is going to be pissed, haha. What a crappy name.”
-“…”
-“Listen, We’ve come from another dimension. We know of this world only through Seriph’s dreams”
-“My dreams?”
-“No, Seriph. He is not you and you are not him. He is the you in another reality, another version of a story.”
-“So why are you here ?”
-“Seriph had been having dreams about you and about this world. He tried helping you by sending a sorceress, but then he and her disagreed on a couple of things. That is why she didn't come back.”
-“She did, in my dreams.”
-“She did, didn't she? She cares about Seriph, more than he knows … Anyway, Seriph had been waking up every morning and writing … something. Not a story as we thought at first, but some sort of magic.”
-“Magic?”
-“Once he was done, he sat Soups and I down, and explained what he had done. He created a portal, between our dimension and this one. He would not tell us why, why he would want to change the events in this dimension or even how the portal worked. Why he cared in the first place. But nonetheless, he continued explaining how it would be impossible for him to come because he could not see you. As we cannot see the us from this reality. We would just ‘merge’ into them at first sight. This was the cost of that portal. He did send something before us, a couple of seconds before us. He sent a black earring.”
-“So that’s why I got those flashes of events that haven’t happened.”
-“Probably, he believes some of the knowledge he has can help you.”
-“How do I use it?”
-“He said you’ll figure it out. He also sent you this.”

Down came smashing from the skies, an all black Sportster. A mean bike that breathes fire. “Open the saddle” said Soups. I walked towards the gorgeous machine and opened the side saddle. I picked up a back shirt, and a black bandanna for my head. Seriph, why was I even surprised. “We need to head back now brother, take care and make sure to give Soups and Shnazul our regards…” said Soups as he turned to Khalid and nodded. They smashed their massive axes together and a warped membrane of fire and lightning dropped from the sky and sucked them out instantly. Still in awe, Dane and Yuri walked towards me. “Dirge! Yuri and I need to go back down” calmly, Dane said to me. “We think our friends might still be alive and we need to find them.” continued Yuri. Freckles called out my name and I turned around before I could tell them anything. “Come, look!” she called as she stood by the bike and stared inside saddle. It was a picture of her and I laying atop a black box and the bottom of the saddle. I must have missed it when I picked up the shirt and bandanna. I opened the black box and inside were two beautiful guns. One was black with gold and red ridges, the other
one was golden with black and red ridges. I gave my Glock to Dane and the shotgun to Yuri as I picked up the strange looking black gun and packed it on my side. Freckles packed the golden gun and we got on the bike only to realize that it already had a special compartment designed to hold the katana… Seriph.

We bid our companions goodbye, as I switched on the power and kick-started the bike. And we rode. The long winding road kept us both silent, and pondering. A lot of what had happened didn't make too much sense. Somewhere in our calm, both Freckles and I grew weary, as an uneasy feeling crept over us. A feeling that we were being followed. I rode faster, pushed the bike to its limits. Just as I thought we were safe, some … thing comes sweeping in from the side of the road and snatched Freckles right off the bike…