Mount Adventum

I am awake, but I know that I should not be. I am only able to move my eyes but it is abundantly clear that they are useless. Blackness surrounds me and the air is as still and stale as it is silent.

Potential scratches mercilessly at the back of my soul which makes my paralysis all the more unbearable.

Time does not exist in this void and yet, when I begin to feel movement, I am overjoyed to think that the time has finally come. I hear muffled voices that grow louder with each passing second. Suddenly, a bright square of light forms above me. The rush of new air enters the void and causes a vacuum that mercilessly starts to rob me of my consciousness. Quickly fading, I watch as the square expands into a blinding blanket of white light that encompasses me in a brilliantly bright oblivion.

The feeling of dust in my lungs wakes me up. Coughing and spitting, I open my eyes to find myself on the ground. I can feel small pebbles inlaid in the skin of my cheeks as I lift myself to my feet. Patting myself down, I look around to find a strangely familiar setting.

Behind me is a tall and thick hedge full of protruding vines that are covered with extremely large thorns. In front of me is a long dirt road that stretches as far as I can see. It appears to lead towards an enormous, snow-capped mountain many, many miles away. To my left and right, the road is lined with dense forestry that resembles the hedge behind me. Above me is nothing but a cloudless sky.

Before I can truly gather my wits, something tugs at my soul towards the mountain and so I follow.

Destiny awaits.

After a few steps, I come across a large chest sitting squarely in the middle of the road. I stop to deliberate the dangers of such an event before ultimately deciding to cautiously open it. I lift the lid and find twenty-thousand dollars inside. Pocketing the money, I close the chest and it disappears, leaving only an indent in the dirt where it used to be.

A few steps later I come to the base of a steep hill. When I reach the top of it, I’m as exhausted as I am thirsty. Breathing heavily and looking down the path, I see a small wagon parked to the side of the road. As I approach, I see a very tall, old, and skinny man quietly cursing under his breath as he tinkers with the axel of the wagon with a wheel situated behind him. As I reach him, he turns.

“Fellow traveler! Would you be willing to help an old man get on his way?” He says, gesturing towards the wheel.

It obviously requires someone to lift the wagon so that he can put the wheel back on, but with the size of the wagon, it would be a feat, even without the extra weight from the man’s belongings which are tied down in a large heap on top of it.

“I don’t think I’m quite strong enough for that.” I say, “What direction are you traveling? Maybe we can go together and find someone to help—”

“Nonsense! Drink some of this,” He says with a bountiful grin as he throws me a wineskin, “You look thirsty!” I open the wineskin and drain the tasteless liquid inside within seconds. Feeling instantly better, I hand the empty skin back to him.

He takes it and throws it over his shoulder, “No use for that anymore!” I watch it vanish into the brush, “Now give this a try, would you? I really must be on my way.” He nods his head in the direction of the hill that I had just come down.

“I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, friend, but I have come from that direction and there is nothing but a thick hedge to be found like the dead-end of a labyrinth.”

“For you perhaps,” He says with a sly grin and a quick wink, “But that’s not important! I have places to be boy, are you going to help me or not?”

Without even thinking, I begin to try lifting the wagon. To my bewilderment, I do and with great ease.

“It’s hard to gauge your own strength so early on in your journey.” Says the old man as he fits the wheel onto the axel, “I think that’ll do nicely.”

“Strange,” I say still holding the wagon up, “Now that I think about it though, I really don’t know much about myself at all. I try to remember what happened before I woke up on the road earlier, and there is just… Nothing. Other than the feeling that the mountain in the distance is connected to me somehow. Like it’s my desti—”

“Yes, yes, destiny and all that. Mount Adventum, blah, blah. Heard it more than a few times, friend.”

Confused, I look at him with nothing but questions. He responds to my look with another smile, “You can let the wagon down.”

I do and look down at my hands for a moment pondering the questions of my existent. After a moment, I look up to find that a pair of horses have suddenly appeared and are fixed to the front of the wagon.

Before I can react to the sight, an object hits me in the chest and my arms reflexively catch it. It’s a satchel, thrown from the man who had quickly taken his place in the driver’s seat of the wagon.

“Let’s go!” He yells at the two horses, “Thanks for the help, traveler! See you next time!”

I watch as the man rides away until he disappears over the hill. Puzzled by the entire interaction, I open up the satchel to see what’s inside.

It’s nothing but black in the bag, so I stick my hand in and pull out a small black notebook. On the front cover is a single embroidered vertical line. I open the book and on the first page is a list of items.

Wineskin (full)

Rations (3)

Spear

Buckler

20,000 Dollars

I set the notebook on the ground and pull the spear and the buckler from the satchel. Once I’ve situated the buckler on my arm and strap the spear on my back, I notice that they disappear from the list in the notebook.

Magic. I smile

I also decide to pull out and eat one of the rations before I move on. Feeling recharged and more prepared, I continue walking.

Another few steps down the road and the weather begins to change. Dark clouds fill the sky and the trees become barren. Their branches twist into wretched formations on both sides of me almost instantly. I can feel the presence of something sinister, so I pull my spear from my back to have it ready.

Out of nowhere, lightning strikes the ground a few steps away from me, causing my ears to ring, and the electricity from it visually surges towards me. Stunned, I try to step out of the way, but it hits me and sends me flying backward. I hit the ground and recover quickly enough to see the figure of a man moving swiftly towards me in between flashes of lightning.

I pull up my buckler just in time to block another electric attack that he shoots from his fingertips and I use the momentum from it to turn and swing my spear at him, slicing through his blue robes, connecting with a sharp cut below his ribs. He falters back as if mortally wounded and roars, “Give me the talisman!” It’s almost as deafening as the initial lightning strike had been.

Through the sound however, I take my chance to strike at him again. With my buckler positioned in front of me, I pull my spear back and launch it at him. At high speed, it plunges into his chest, and he howls, “It will be the end of us all!” In another strike of lightning, he disintegrates, leaving only a pile of ash and my spear.

As I pick up my spear, I feel a surge of power run through me that causes my body to shake uncontrollably. My muscles tighten and relax with a little more weight and my sight becomes much clearer. I feel more agile as the ache in my bones from the attack is extinguished.

My body stops shaking after a few seconds and I feel a much more burning desire to reach the mountain. I pull out my satchel, put my spear away, and then inspect the ash pile the lightning man left behind. Inside of it is a longsword with a sapphire in the pommel and a circular indent just above the rain guard on the blade.

“Give me the talisman.” That is what he had screamed at me.

I pull the talisman from underneath my shirt and snap it off its chain. I move it closer to the sword and it begins to glow before snapping into place on the blade. A shockwave erupts from the sword around me, almost causing me to lose grip on it. A moment passes and the ground begins to tremble.

Cracks begin to rip across the land around me widening with every passing second. Lava starts to spew from the fissures. Sword in hand, I jolt into a staggered sprint as the ground splits apart underneath me. Dodging over and around eruptions, I quickly hop from platform to platform of safe land. Further down the disintegrating path in front of me, I see a growing canyon with solid ground just beyond it.

Relying on my newly enhanced strength and agility, I gain more speed than I thought possible in preparation for the jump. When I get to the edge, my foot catches on something and I fall face-first into the lava and me and the sword disintegrate into oblivion—

I hear the shout of a young boy, “NO!”

Another one laughs, “A life costs 10,000 dollars, and then you can roll again.”

“That’s what those are for! Okay!” Shouts the first voice.

Relying on my newly enhanced strength and agility, I gain more speed than I thought possible in preparation for the jump. I set the place I need to jump in my head and when I get to the edge, I launch myself forward and land with both feet on solid ground, looking up to see that I’m now at the base of the mountain.

Exhausted, I set down the sword and pull out the black notebook, the wineskin, and a ration from the satchel. I notice that the single embroidered mark on the cover has multiplied into two. On my list I notice that my wineskin has gone down to “1/2”, my rations down to “1”, and I assume I must have dropped some money while I was running because my dollars are down to “10,000”.

I close my eyes for a moment to meditate and I start to hear voices come down from the sky.

A woman, “Timothy, it’s time for Brian to go home. His mother called.”

Who is Timothy? Who is Brian?

A boy, “Can we please just finish this game mom?”

What? Game?

The woman, “No, it’s time for dinner and Brian’s mother wants him home. Put the game back in its box and then come eat.”

Timothy and Brian’s voices in unison, “Aw, man!”

I open my eyes and look towards the mountain as it ascends into the sky before I follow.

The light pours in from the top of the four walls that surround me. As the top wall comes down, the fresh air rushes outward and becomes still, stale, and silent. I am devoured in the darkness, unfulfilled and impatient.

Potential scratches relentlessly at the back of my soul.