The Black Path

It’s warm and well in the afternoon and the sky begins to signal that it’s angry. Reighos walks out the grocery store on the same page. No, it’s less than that.

“Come on, Nitargè, we got a twenty minute walk ahead of us! I don’t want to deal with the rain.” Reighos said.

Nitargè’s little feet rushed out the store tugging on his heavy bandwagon. “We can’t take the normal route, remember? The construction worker said so.”

“Right…” Reighos forgot. “We’ll catch the bridge then.”

“What bridge?” Nitargè screwed his face in confusion.

“It’s a bridge I take on my way home sometimes when I don’t feel like dealing with traffic. It’s a longer walk, but at least there’s no cars coming by. Now let’s go. I really don’t want to deal with the rain.” Reighos begins striding through the parking lot. Nitargè follows after him, using all of his strength to pull the bandwagon. Reighos notices. “Do you want me to pull the bandwagon? We probably put too much cases of water in there.”

“No, I got it!” Nitargè refused. “I’m a big boy now.”

“Right, you’re a big boy now.” Reighos smirks as he jogs into the woods.

Once Nitargè saw the bridge, he tensed up. “You actually go through here?” He ask anxiously.

The bridge appear rusty with dead vines and leaves on it, and it seemed too fragile to walk on. Especially for the bandwagon.

“I walk through here all the time. Let’s go.” Reighos proceeds, then stops as he doesn’t hear the bandwagon moving. Only Nitargè standing there completely petrified. “Nitargè, let’s go.”

“No!” Nitargè refused. “This place is creepy. What if the bridge breaks, Reighos? Mom’s gonna be worried about us.”

“Nitargè, stop being a wuss and get your butt over here, now!” Reighos yelled.

Hesitantly, after a moment, Nitargè did what his brother demanded. But after the first loud creak from the bandwagon rolling upon it, he immediately went back. “I can’t do it!”

“Nitargè, you’re a big boy, right?! You’re getting ready to be a man soon and you need to measure up to the manhood. You can’t chicken out on stuff like this.” Reighos said.

Nitargè looked at his brother then at the bridge and slowly walked back on it, ignoring the loud creaking sounds. But the bridge snaps, leaving the back end of the bandwagon in a hole. Nitargè screams like a hopeless maniac as he desperately starts pulling the bandwagon out, which he couldn’t do.

“Nitargè, calm down!” Reighos frustrates as he ran around to lift the bandwagon out.

Once that’s successfully done, they hear wolves howling from a distance.

“Let’s just take the way we usually go! The construction workers will understand!” Nitargè begged.

“Nitargè, it’s normal to hear wolves in the woods, okay?! They’re not close by, I promise.” Reighos responded, pulling the bandwagon off the bridge.

“Well, then where are they?” Nitargè asked, still standing on the bridge.

“On the other side of the river.” He answered, tugging Nitargè.

“How do you know?” Nitargè curiously wanted to know.

“Nitargè, stop asking questions and let’s go!” Reighos yelled. “Mom is probably going crazy right now.”

Just as Nitargè’s feelings are hurt, the sky roared with anger. Nitargè felt a drop of water slide down his cheeks from the sky. To him, it was like Mother Nature cried for him. Nitargè tried to ignore it and move on, but intuition calls to him as he turns around for a split second and caught an alligator coming his way.

“Reighos!” He instantly cried out.

“Just come on!” Reighos ignored his whining.

“Alligators!” Nitargè begins sprinting pass his brother.

“What?!” Reighos looked back before sprinting himself, trying to bring the bandwagon with him. Quickly, he realized the bandwagon was too heavy and released it to catch up to his little brother. Just about three feet away from catching up to his brother, Nitargè attempted to do a sharp turn, only to slip into the river nearby. “Nitargè!” He screamed, following the stream it took him to.

Nitargè screamed and shouted for his brother, repeatedly sinking under water, then swimming up top. He grabbed a log to keep himself afloat. By chance, once the log started leaning towards Reighos’s side after bumping into everything, he reached his hand telling Nitargè to grab on to it. He missed the first couple of tries, but eventually got it. Reighos reels his brother in as hard as possible.

“Are you okay?!” Reighos checked on him.

“Ow!” Nitargè yells, pulling away.

“What’s the problem?” Reighos looked concern

“My arm hurts! I think you broke it.” Nitargè said.

“No,” Reighos denied. “Are you sure?” He lifted his brother’s left arm to see. 

“Ow!” Nitargè shouted, beginning to shed tears.

“I think I pulled your arm too hard. I’m sorry.” Reighos apologized. He helped him up as he looked around. “Come on. Mom’s probably worried sick about us.”

They walked back on the original pathway. It rained extremely hard at that point, but because of the large trees, they felt a little lighter. Reighos glance down at his brother who was weeping. “Does your arm still hurt?” He asked.

“Yes.” Nitargè shrieked, holding his arm as he shivered.

“We only have a twenty-five minute walk. Can you hold the pain by then?” He asked.

“I can try.” Nitargè nodded his head. “And don’t ever take me to this path ever again.”

Reighos chuckled. “Deal.” He said before screaming in agony.

Nitargè screamed too, watching a gray wolf ferociously eat off the back of his brother’s leg. Reighos had to grab a nearby stick as he squirmed on the ground. He swung it across the wolf’s head, making it sprawl across the wet leaves. The wolf rolled back on its feet and came back for another round. But it only retrieved the same results.

Suddenly another wolf, a black one, appeared behind the trees. It sneaked up behind Nitargè and leaped at him. He screamed for mercy, holding the wolf from biting him.

“Nitargè!” Reighos yelled, smacking the gray off of him. He struggled to get up, limping over to his brother to wack the black wolf a few times until it  stopped moving. “You okay?” He helped him up, noticing his shoulder was bleeding.

“Behind you!” Nitargè shouted.

Reighos instantly turned around. The gray wolf came back for a third round. This jumping on both of them.

This story belongs to, and is written by Devond Devoe

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