Whispers in the Night

I’d never imagined, in one thousand lifetimes, to meet with the one thing my inner child needed. A vivid world created by my own brain, perhaps even a memory. A world full of wonder and imagination, that lives and breathes deep underground. Where whispers guide the weak, the trees hum songs of magic. A peaceful world full of nature, where mushrooms can grow as tall as skyscrapers. A world once lived in peace, the silence around the residents, now filled with corruption and power, transformed into a land not seen by the ancient ancestors that would guide this world, all vanished.

The whispers in the darkness woke me. Like calls to the wind. I was alert. My eyes blinked, adjusting to the night. Sitting upright, I examined the room, scanning for disturbances.

Nothing.

There was a chill in the air, however. Sleepily, I pulled myself from the warmth of the covers, striding over to the window. Surprisingly, the thin, scratchy curtains, floated like ghosts, as the window was left wide open to the elements. Thinking I had hallucinated, I gave the window handle a large pull towards me, locking it secure. Before I could even turn, the whisper echoed again, much clearer now. Its voice crisp, like leaves crunching, an ethereal voice into the black void.

“Hello?” I answered back, feeling my throat quiver with every syllable.

Nothing. Just silence.

Shrugging the entire thing off, I crept back into the sheets, flicking my slippers off, they landed in a pile upon the carpet.

“Ow!”

My head just felt the tip of my featherless pillow. I knew my lips were sealed.

“Hello?” I called out to the pitch-black room.

Nothing, again just silence.

I knew I was losing myself. Perhaps I wasn’t getting enough sleep, perhaps my boss gave me too much paperwork to mark. My bulbous, saucer eyes with purple bags, closed, nestling myself into the covers.

“Ow!” This voice certainly wasn’t in my head. This was as clear as day, clear as the stars that shone in the nights sky.

As fast as a cheater, I had bolted out of bed, feet on their tiptoes, fear that there was a large rat and its family, squeaking under my mattress. But big rats don’t talk. Gingerly, I picked up a large encyclopaedia, abandoned at the side of my bed, never read, and held the book up high, tightly with two hands, ready to strike whatever was crawling in the depths of my bed.

Scuttling movements, something moving closer, claws the size of razor blades, crawling on hands and knees. I screamed for my life, whacking this creature upon its fingers, causing it to jump out hobbling around, crying in disbelief.

This creature danced, hopping from one foot to the other, too quickly for me to get a good look at whatever it was I had whacked with the book. I stood in the middle of my bedroom, encyclopaedia still in hand, dumbfounded.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” The creature cried, its claws pumping like a heartbeat.

It spoke… it spoke. I screamed so loud I forgot my neighbours could hear every word of my conversation. I couldn’t help it, I just stood shaking, my finger pointed, only dressed in a fuzzy nightgown my mum had bought for me, the Christmas just gone.

It stopped, immobilised. For the first time I could see every detail of the creature standing in my bedroom. Out of this world. A tingle in the back of my spine, buzzed through my mind. My memory must have been playing tricks on me because I distinctly remembered something looking the same, many years prior.

“Yes, it’s me!”

I must have been gawking for a while. I caught myself watching, like a cod with a wide opened mouth. I was flabbergasted, my brain ached, trying to fight the logic with fiction.

“I know I haven’t changed much but my god, have you!” The creature blurted out, green popping belly moving with laughter. “Last time I laid eyes on you, you were as small as my thumbs, cuter too!”

Its appearance left a lot to be desired. Mouldy, green coloured skin, moist like a pond. Knobbly warts of some kind, sticking out from its face. A pointy nose, that hooked at the end like a coat hanger. Tiny, pinkish claws like that of a hedgehog, now red with pain. Clothes, all tattered, dressed as if it was ready to enter a biker competition, wearing a tiny leather jacket. The biggest thing I noticed about the creature, was it stood just above my knees. I didn’t speak or even move. I was insulted, but stayed stuck to the carpet floor, grubby dressing gown untied.

“I know you’re probably thinking, how do I know this... thing and the answer is very simple.” It explained clearing its throat of mucus. “Many decades ago…”

“Coedwig...” I started to mumble out loud, a word that just came from my mouth, I had no idea that it had been buried inside my memories.

“That’s right?” The creature spoke well for something that looked as if it had just died. “What else do you remember about Coedwig?”

Bursts of information came flooding back to me, like droplets from a tap. My mind was trying to conceal certain aspects of my childhood away from me.

“I don’t…” Like a burst of lightning striking a pole I was bombarded by a few more leaks of information. “Baw…” I slowly announced, like a baby saying its first word.

Its face lit up like flames. Toothy grin appeared from dark grey lips. “You remember me!”

“Baw? Your name is Baw?” I said, rolling the W in my mind before saying it aloud.

“Certainly is, these bursts of memories you keep experiencing, I’m sure everything will come to you in time.” Baw told me, his giant tooth gap filled with gooey slime.

“I’m having a mental breakdown.” I told myself, presumably out loud, as Baw stared at me in fascination, circling around my room, dragging my dressing gown with me.

“I have no idea what that is, but I have no time to explain the ins and outs. We need to get going, I’ll explain on the way.”

“Have I time to change?” I tried to persuade him, as he tugged at my sleeves with a hefty grip.

“No time I’m afraid, we’re already behind schedule!”

In the blink of an eye, Baw clicked his painful claws, and a vortex to some sort of void, appeared in the middle of the room. Swirling purple, pink and silvery whites. Baw, gripped my hand tightly and pushed me inside without any warning, shortly followed by himself.

Spinning like a twister, my body turning in all directions to fit inside this tunnel. I was twirling downwards at an alarming rate. My tatty, bedhead floating. Looking above me, I tried to catch him, falling behind. Just a little above me, Baw spun in an anti-clockwise direction, as we both descended. There seemed to be no end in sight, until.

BUMP.

Moments later, there was a large thud as Baw hit the ground beside me. Slightly concussed and confused, I tried to orientate myself, while sprawling on the floor. Daylight shone down at me, blue skies as though heaven’s rays lay upon me. The ground, damp and mossy, my back cramped from what felt like twigs pushing into my back. I saw the large, beefy trees cascading around me, filled with ivy and other beautifully green hangings, covering the leaves and bark. We had landed in some kind of forest.

Nothing, not even a pin drop was heard, that was until Baw stumbled to his stumpy feet, resembling mushrooms, and hobbled toward me. I rose to my own feet, flicking off bark from my clothes, all nestled in my hair, shaking it off. I took in my surroundings. Just like a ceiling, most of the leaves covered the forest over, so only a little part of the sky could be seen, from what I could see, everything looked rather normal… until it didn't.

Whizzing past the clouds, several moving, nature dwelling, living things, flew across the sky. They looked like tiny witches upon even smaller broomsticks.

"Oh them." Baw said, dusting his jacket off, looking at what I was focusing on.

"What are they? A memory of mine isn’t flooding back to me.” I tried cupping my hands in front of my face, to encase it, it magically allowed me to see further.

Baw was scrounging around for something, inside a woven satchel across his neck. Throwing objects in and out of his hands, he searched manically.

“Ah!” He triumphantly cried out, holding a long magnifying telescopic stick in mid-air. “Here we are.”

As Baw pushed one of his eyes into one side of the glass, I saw the opposite end, his eyeball large and rounded. He handed me the device, gesturing me to use it to look above me.

As the equipment was probably meant to do and just like binoculars, everything became clearer when I peered inside. These tiny witches riding upon their small broomsticks, turned out to be miniature toadstool people. Their heads white and red spotted, their body completely fungi with vines that stretched out. They were flying upon tiny seahorse creatures, made from moss and twigs, all bobbing up and down from the clouds and open skies.

“What are they?” I asked engrossed, still thinking as I focused on them.

“They’re the Marchogion. A new species that arrived in Coedwig a decade ago, many years after your visit here.”

I spun to face him directly, moving the telescope from my eye. “I’ve been here before?”

Baw nodded simply. “This is why you remember, whatever dream you may have of this land, it is real, these are memories from your childhood.”

Just as he explained, there was a shudder around the forest canopy. It was so silent that the shaking of the leaves felt like an earthquake. Out from the tops of the highest tree, appeared a much larger creature, that almost took my breath away. Walking slowly but surely, a gigantic lump of jumbled rock and stone, all stuck together, came into view. I didn’t need any telescope equipment to see this creature, as it marched across the forest floor with purpose, flattening smaller trees in its path.

Somehow, I knew they weren’t dangerous. The niggling feeling in the back of my mind, told me they were gentle giants, as one marched on without noticing, we stood just below it. The ground shook but I managed to hold my nerve. Baw, on the other hand, being much smaller, crashed again down to the forest floor.

“Let me help you up.” I said, reaching my hand out for him to hold on to.

“Nuisances! The lot of them!” He grumbled, grabbing hold of my sweaty palm. “Although, I suppose they’re not a threat, others are worse.”

“I remember them.” I mumbled, telling myself.

“Cawrs, they’ve been around for thousands of years, probably the first residents that made home here, not a threat.”

I nodded watching the last remnants of its body fade away into the darker parts of the forest.

“Looks like it’s that time of year.” Bew explained. “Racing season.”

Even with stumpy legs, he walked faster, as I stumbled to my feet. My slippers buried in the dirt and fallen leaves on the ground. I rushed to keep track of him, mesmerised by the scenery. Strangely, what humans would call autumnal leaves, of orange, brown and yellow, didn’t cover the floor, instead, in its place baby pink and blue caterpillars of some sort, lay covering the ground. The more closely I looked, the leaves on the trees weren’t leaves at all, they were minuscule creatures, a cross between butterflies, caterpillars and slugs all clinging to branches.

“You don’t have leaves in Coedwig?” I asked, gawking above, As we trod through layers of these creatures.

“Leaves are earthly things.” Bew said simply. “lliwgar’s are Coedwigan.”

I could just make out the very end of the forest. More natural light shone through the woods. A few more steps and we were out into a different part of Coedwig. Somewhere new to explore and remember.

“Tell me more about why I am here.” I marched along just behind him.

He looked up at me, an adult all grown, as we entered an area covered in vines, that hung like curtains. The bright light from the sun’s rays, hitting me in the face, were astonishing, my first real look at this land, and I was met with light.

“Where are we?” I coughed, as smoke entered my mouth like a magician’s act. I could feel my heart racing inside my chest.

“Perhaps it’s a good idea to not trust any creature that comes your way.” A voice so sneaky called out into the void.

Everything now darkened like coal, my eyes couldn’t adjust to the gloom, no matter how much I blinked.

“Baw!” I cried out into nothingness.

There was no reply. Forever alone in