I scuttle backwards as fast as I can, fearing the pillars might collapse onto me. I stare upward, awaiting the blemished cylinder’s height to come crashing onto my body. Its height is like one of a hawk staring down at its prey. But it shows no sign of imminent collapse. It is as still as it was mere moments ago. 

 

No, I am already dead.

 

I get up and walk towards the broken cylinder and turn to my surroundings, looking for the source of the noise, but all I can see are pillars above clouds, reaching to the edge of the world. I cup my hands to my mouth, breathe in this new air, and shout:

 

“Who calls out to me!”

 

“To me! To me! To me!” My voice reverberates off the pillars like the high ceiling caverns we call—:

 

“Me! To me! Come over!” I turn in the direction of the bubbly voice, facing the cracked pillar. But something had changed while I wasn’t looking. It now pulses a fiery golden hue within the length of the crack. Flakes of silver gently dissolve off its surface. As I get closer to the pillar, a gentle warmth starts to caress my body. Hotter and hotter it becomes, but I cannot change direction. 

 

Someone wants me to do this, I think, walking with a hypnotic gait. Or maybe, something.

 

Searing heat pierces my skin while I try to will my muscles to move around this trap, but I can only walk closer and closer. The silver flakes brush against my skin, a pang of cold in this pillar of fire, giving me a moment of freedom to react against the spell. I snap my arms up and push against the pillar, fighting my own legs to avoid whatever trap has ensnared—:

 

“Oh! Finally––”

 

My arms suddenly give out, as the voice, now crystal clear and bright as a bonfire, releases me from my trance, and I collide headfirst into the crack, bracing for complete and total incineration—

 

— … Light chirps … buzzing …

 

… It is cool.

 

A wind, a completely alien wind, kisses my skin and ruffles my hair. The ground is soft and moist. Not moist like the town ceilings and floors, nor moist like the moss that grows near lakes, but moist like the patches of vegetation under the paletrees—:

 

“Hey, wake up! Hey! Open your eyes, come on!” 

 

I open my e—

 

—I close my eyes.

 

“I … cannot.” The words come out softly. Something is preventing me from lifting my eyes. I cannot even move my limbs. But I am not in pain. In fact, I feel no scar on my back, nor the sharp pains that coat my well-worn feet.

 

The world is full of … light. So much light that the image I saw in my squint has been impressed upon my vision, even when my eyes are closed. It was the face of a little girl, with dark hair and purple eyes, behind a sky, blue like diamonds. A sigh escapes the breath of her innocent voice. She might be more mature than her eyes make it seem.

 

“Come on, Sulumim! You said you would protect me!” She grabs onto my hand and pulls it out from under my head, pulling with all that her tiny body can muster.

 

Sulumim?  …Where are we?” Who am I? My head pulses with voices I cannot hear. Some of them are my own, but most are unrecognizable. Am I Sulumim? I … do not know.

 

Another sigh. “We are getting wood and coal for the shed. If only you had done your carving faster, then it wouldn’t be so late!” She says in a mock tone of authority. She drops my hand from her grasp and sits at a distance. Dirt, coarse but warm, smudges on my hand and under my uncut nails. “Winter is coming! Help me out like you said you would!”

 

I let out a sigh much louder than her previous exhales. “I have done all the work I was told to do by my elders.” I don a lazy smile and turn away from the girl’s voice. The ground I rest on is my bed. My escape. What do these words mean? I dwell on these sounds, confused as I begin to speak again:

 

“What I really wanted was to go into the warm, beautiful outdoors,” I say, unwilling to stifle my jaw as a yawn comes over me. The girl whispers angrily to herself, but I cannot hear her. A few twigs snap. I cannot hear her voice.

 

I sigh and shove my hands into my pants pockets, full of small wooden shapes. Star. Horse. Moon. Sun. The only ones I can make, a voice says within me. I feel an emptiness in my heart. The emptiness I feel when I am told lies.

 

But the ground and the air and the sounds and the image of the sky and innocence imprinted on my eyes: it makes it all ebb away.

 

I cannot hear my voice, yet I feel that this must be Heaven. I wish for this serenity. There is no need to continue journeying, my fight with destiny is over—:

 

—I’m cold.”

 

My eyes shoot open as I jump to my feet, as if I was holding in a deep and unbearable tension. All I can do is breathe heavily as I stare into the sky, looking for that great source of warmth …

 

But I see nothing but a starless night. Total shadow. My knees begin to weaken and shudder under my weight. Sweat pours down my brow and over my spine. My eyes twitch with each second—

 

A deep chorus of howling erupts from the forest, inflaming all my nerves. I run. I stumble over my feet as I get up, but I keep my ground, panting like a dog, and move—

 

—The howls get louder. Faster and faster my body pushes my legs, but I trip on a protruding stone on the path leading to the shed, and land strangely, tumbling for a moment. I hear a crack, and a spout of pain lights my legs on fire.

 

All I can do is scream in pain and stare into the hopeless, empty sky—

 

—a silver string, as thin as my remaining courage, appears as if it was always there. I trace its path as my vision weakens, and I see it is tied to the end of a spear, stabbed headfirst into the wall of the shed.

 

My vision tunnels. Shadow covers the world, turning the spear into a beacon. A point that I need to reach. I crawl, wincing and cursing along the way. 

 

The howls are getting closer. Feet scamper across the field, getting closer and closer and closer and—

 

—I grab the spear—

 

—I am standing above the body of a boy no older than seventeen. His eyes are wide open, but they are foggy. I hear him take a shallow breath—:

 

“Please, save her, Sunblighted.”

 

End of Chapter 2