Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 2: Infinity Express)
11-02-2010, 04:17 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by bobthepen.
Lillian’s eyes darted from side to side, not wishing to lock onto the creature before her. However, from the moment they had first met, a question begged to be asked. She had put it off long enough, though, and curiosity finally got the better of her.
“Excuse me, but…are...” Lillian stammered, “Are you a fairy?”
“What?” the disdain present in Dekowin’s snarled reply would have coerced an apology out of a more timid child, but Lillian had already broken through apprehension and began blurting out as rapid an explanation as her nervous lips could muster.
“Well you see,” she spouted, “I’ve heard a lot of stories about girls like myself…well not quite like myself, who go out into the world and face lots of dangers…though not quite like these…and sometimes they are helped by these friendly creatures called fairies who remind me of you…though not quite.”
The insult, though unintentional, was too much for Dekowin to bear. Instantly, her carapaced hand snatched the young girl’s wrist as she brought her glaring face in line with Lillian’s startled gaze.
“Listen very carefully child,” Dekowin hissed, “I am a VOL-KHAN-BET, not some ‘friendly creature’ to help you on your little journey. I am a warrior and royalty and I’d destroy you for such an insult if you weren’t so beneath me.”
She paused. Tears were welling up in Lillian’s eyes. Disgusted, Dekowin threw off her hold on the girl’s arm and turned back to face the computer console.
“If I had known you were as stupid as you were a coward, I’d have let you fall into that pit.”
“But you didn’t!” Dekowin snapped around to see the teary Lillian’s face flushed red. “You didn’t let me fall, you saved me! And the spirit says that you don’t really want to hurt me which is why it didn’t strike at you! So you are friendly in your own way and you do have very lovely wings just like a fairy so it’s not stupid for me to think that maybe you might be one! Especially since so many things here are not at all what I’ve expected them to be and…” Lillian clamped her mouth shut, doing her best to stay the flood of tears.
The Volkahnbet studied Lillian, the stubborn little girl, clenching her small fists, holding back her tears. It occurred to Dekowin that in a strange way this girl was not entirely unlike herself many years ago. She tilted her head towards the young girl, and with a single word she sighed:
“Whatever.”
She turned once more to the computer console and began working on solving whatever puzzle it presented, all the while ignoring the tiny sobs behind her.
Lillian continued crying. She had not stopped since the others had started fighting back in that final room. The terrible sounds of hundreds of gnashing, squirming creatures all intent on devouring those eight intruders had terrified Lillian but not to the point of tears. Even in the midst of that convulsing chaos, the blaring sirens, the wretched smells, the monsters flooding in from all directions, a calm remained over the small girl. She knew the situation was dire, but she had trust in those with her. Sarika’s comforting embrace and Dekowin’s focused fury as she slashed through countless creatures filled Lillian with the confidence that all would be well in the end. Even the others, Lloyd, Marcus, Karen, though Lillian did not know their names had each shown that they were trustworthy in their own way. (Charlie and Roderic, though present at the battle, were too alien for Lillian to recognize them as any different from the automated drones or furious natives of that terrible complex.) With all of these friends and allies, Lillian knew that somehow, they would all stay safe.
Then there was the gunshot. There had been many of them but this one carried with it a different weight. Something about the direction, the quality, or the intent, told Lillian that something very wrong had just occurred. Dekowin had ceased fighting the hoard before her and turned to face Marcus. They charged one another and with a sickening crack, one of Dekowin’s wings shattered like glass. Shocked, Lillian cried out for them to stop, but her small voice was drowned out by the turbulence of the room. She watched as a second shot, fired by Lloyd, decimated another of the Volkhanbet’s wings. Fear flooded Lillian, a fear she could not understand. The blanket of security and comfort which she had cloaked herself in was torn to tatters as further shots rendered Dekowin helpless.
She yelled out again and again, tears streaming down her face, but the only response was more terrible shots, the final, beautiful wings shattering. Tears blurring her vision, Lillian clenched her eyes shut and curled up against her knees. She stayed there as the final shot took Dekowin’s life, and as the world warped and changed about her, placing her on the train, alone.
Eventually, Lillian’s disbelief at what had happened faded away, and the fear which plagued her took shape.
“Why, Spirit?” Lillian asked between sobs, “Why did they have to do that? She wasn’t a mean person. You told me she wasn’t a mean person. Neither were the others. She didn’t deserve for that to happen to her, Spirit! Why did that have to happen to her? I don’t understand, please Spirit…”
But the Spirit said nothing.
Death was not a concept with which Lillian was unfamiliar, but it had always a very quiet, private occurrence. Lillian had attended a few funerals in her eight years, always some relative or family friend who she had never quite gotten to know and who, in their private quarters of their own home had passed away under unspoken circumstances.
Lillian had once given a eulogy at a funeral, a fact which she had previously been quite proud of. A neighbor’s cat, one ‘Mr. Wumbles’, who had been an excellent mouser in his day, had been found, deceased, outside of the family’s shed and promptly put into a small box for burial. Lillian’s friend, Allison, had never been one for words, and, appropriately devastated at the loss of her dear ‘Wumble-bumble’, asked Lillian to guide the ceremony.
The event proceeded as planned. Lillian’s demeanor was as grave and solemn as the occasion demanded. The eulogy was read directly from a large volume taken from the family study. None of the children present at the event really understood the work, but the language was verbose enough and Lillian’s tone serious enough that they all believed no adult could have performed much better.
Yet despite all of the seriousness and ceremony around the funeral, Lillian had always pictured the actual death of Mr. Wumbles as a quiet, voluntary event where the plump pet, having grown so full of catching mice decided it was time for it to move on to whatever world awaited it beyond. It had been a peaceful event, a fulfilling event, nothing at all like what she had just witnessed.
Dekowin was not taken quietly. She was not taken willingly. She did not fade peacefully. Her death was a gruesome, frightening, terrible betrayal of how the world should work.
“Is this the world, Spirit?” Lillian sniffled behind gritted teeth, “Full of terrible and hideous things? Where people die in awful ways when they never deserved it? I can’t…I hate this place spirit. I wish I had never left the township. I just want to go back. I…”
The young girl’s sobs returned, drowning out her words as she clutched her knees closer to her small body.
All the while, the spirit said nothing.
When the contestants were deposited onto the Infinity Express, Lillian, by either unseen guidance or unseen fortune, was snugly placed against the wall of one of the train’s many storage cars. Pressed against her left was a large, well secured wooden crate, and on her right sat a cold, metallic plate, supported over a pair of tiny wheels with small latches locking them into place. In the same car, standing slightly to her left, an immobile cargo hand grimaced with strained muscles and outstretched arms. On the floor behind him sat a wooden container whose contents had spilled out when the cargo-hand, lifting the heavy load, suddenly contracted a severe case of intangibility. Due to whatever timeline this epidemic followed, the gravity of the train then brashly pulled the container to the floor, scattering its contents, a variety of silverware, across the room. As the train jerked from side to side, the silverware tinkled and clattered about while Lillian remained snug and oblivious to the rocking of her new interuniversal transport.
She would have, most likely, remained oblivious for some time and would have, most likely, having grown tired of crying and tired of worrying and tired of questioning, sought out that respite of dreamless sleep and would have slept for quite a while had it not been for the curious sound that then emanated from the metal panel sitting next to her.
“Hmmmmm.”
The sound was low and drawn and could have easily been mistaken for one of the many rumbling sounds one hears on a train, but something about its quality, its fullness, caught Lillian’s attention as she peeked her head up from behind her arms and turned it toward the metal board.
“Are you crying, child?”
Lillian jerked. The question was asked in the same deep and sluggish tone as the noise before it, but the very fact that it was a question, and thereby came from a person, and thereby a stranger, was enough to startle Lillian out of her tear-flooded sorrow. She glanced about a bit before answering, briefly noticing the frozen cargo-boy, the smattering of silver, and the small locked wheels which supported the large metal plate from which the stranger had addressed her behind. Had Lillian not been so upset at the time, she would have attempted to be more polite in her response. She had always been taught that it was very rude to blubber in front of stranger and for someone to catch her at her blubberingest was highly embarrassing. Instead, she spoke as frankly as she could.
“Yes I am! I am crying!” She shouted at the metal board, “but it’s for a very good reason and I don’t wish to talk about it!”
“Hmmmm,” the stranger responded, “That’s nice…”
Lillian waited for the stranger to continue, because, as you may have noticed, whenever someone says they ‘don’t wish to talk’ about something, they oftentimes mean quite the opposite. To Lillian’s surprise, however, the stranger never ventured to inquire any further. All Lillian heard was the clatter of silverware on the floor, occasionally accompanied by a low, satisfied “hmmmm” of the stranger, a sound, Lillian thought, very similar to the type of sound one makes after just waking up from a pleasant dream.
At this point, all Lillian really wanted to do was return to her blubbering, but now that she knew that someone was listening, regardless of how ambivalent they seemed, there was no way that she could ever bring herself to a good and proper cry. So, reluctantly and half-heartedly, Lillian rose from her tiny nook and walked around to the other side of the metal plank, in order to greet the stranger.
The creature Lillian saw before her was nothing at all like what she had expected. If she had to describe its appearance, she would have likened it to a bullfrog who, upon learning to move and speak like a human, decided to eat like a human, and ended up swallowing an orange much too large for it’s belly. Indeed the creature had a very frog-like face, with small, shut eyes resting on the top of its head and a wide slit of a mouth that stretched from one corner of the creature’s face to the other. The mouth, closed, and slightly upturned towards the ends, gave the creature a look of perpetual contentedness. The creature was sitting in what seemed like a very uncomfortable metal chair with tiny wheels on the base, and did in fact have a large orange gut, nearly spherical in shape which jutted out from the rather scrawny back. Even while sitting, the creature was about half a foot taller than Lillian, and while its legs were obscured by a drab blanket, Lillian supposed it would have a rather imposing stature should it decide to stand up.
Despite the creature’s foreign appearance and intimidating size, Lillian hardly felt afraid while facing it, partly because the young girl had been draining her emotions but primarily because there was not a hint of a threatening nature in the creature’s somber grin, nor did the Spirit give Lillian any warnings. For a while, Lillian waited awkwardly for the creature to notice her, but the creature seemed to remain as oblivious of her has she had of it when she first arrived. Eventually she decided that if she was ever going to get back to curling up and sobbing herself to sleep, she would have to get acquainted with this stranger so that at the very least it might take courtesy enough to leave, or at least somewhat understand why such an emotional display was necessary. In any case, her greeting, despite the extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary company, was relatively ordinary.
“Hello,” she spoke, “I’m Lillian. What is your name?”
The creature inhaled slowly and deeply in response to her question. Its eyes opened gradually, revealing dark, black circles which reflected Lillian’s tired visage.
“Hmmmmmm…” the creature spoke with the same slow, paced, tone, “My name is Burden. At least that is what they call me. So it must be my name.”
The creature’s grin grew even wider, as if it had just made a very clever joke, and was quite proud of itself.
“‘Burden’?” Lillian asked, “That doesn’t sound like very a encouraging name. Why would anyone call you that?”
The creature responded. Every syllable was long and low with the end of each statement trailing off as if at the end of a yawn.
“I have a disease.”
Instinctively, Lillian covered her mouth and nose with her hands and said with a worried, muffled tone, “I do hope you cover your mouth when you cough.”
“Not that kind of disease,” Burden smiled as Lillian slowly lowered her hands, “The kind you’re born with. You see…I dream.”
Lillian tilted her head, “Are you not supposed to dream?”
“I am supposed to dream. That is why I dream. The others dream too, but their dreams are different from mine.”
“How so?” Lillian asked, her curiosity temporarily pushing aside her weariness, “What do you dream about?”
“Wonderful things. Wonderful Places. The others dream about them as well, but mine are far more real.”
“I can hardly see how having nice dreams is a disease.”
At this the creature let out a long sigh, so long that it made Lillian wonder if her comment had offended it, and it simply chose not to respond.
“Hmmmmmmm,” it finally continued, “I dream well, but I do not live well. I am never fully here, always somewhere else. When the dreams become more real, I become less real. The world passes right through me. I cannot speak. I cannot move. I can only dream.”
“You seem to be speaking and moving quite well from what I can see,” Lillian stated, “though you do seem awfully drowsy. Maybe you could use a good nap.”
“Nap?” replied Burden, “but I’ve never had so much energy.”
Burden’s gaze shifted from Lillian and towards the other places in the room. In its eyes, Lillian noticed, sat a lucid reflection of whatever the creature chose to focus on, first, Lillian, then the box and silverware, eventually resting on the immobile cargoboy.
“Hmmmmm, he is dreaming too.”
Lillian, uncertain as to Burden’s meaning, decided that now was as good a time as any to ask the seemingly friendly creature to allow her some privacy for a few moments.
“Excuse me but…”
“Hmmmmm,” Burden interrupted, “Are you on a journey, child?”
“Ah, I,” the unexpected question took Lillian aback, “I suppose that I am yes.”
She had not given much thought to the idea of the adventure and journey since facing the death of Dekowin. In reality, she simply wished to push the entire ordeal behind her, and all the memories and people tied with it. There was one she did wish to see again, the kind Sarika, whose eyes never quite looked at you, but always at something beyond, but Lillian did not even know where Sarika was, or where she was herself for that matter. She knew, she had gotten here, however, by falling asleep and supposed she could return the same way.
But then there was Dekowin. Dekowin would never return to her home, never get to see the other volkhanbets or fairies or whatever was familiar to her. Lillian would never get to speak with her again, never have the chance to get to know her more, to learn about her home and life and lessons. If only she could have said goodbye, or had spoken one more time. If only.
“You have lost something, child,” Burden said, a tinge of sadness in its tone as the dark reflective eyes took in the weary girl.
Lillian nodded.
“Then I will help you find it.”
Before Lillian could protest or explain to the large, drowsy creature how such a thing was impossible, Burden smoothly rose up from his seat. The blanket covering his lap dropped to the ground, as his legs, long and spindly raised his head up to just a foot below the ceiling of the cabin. A long, three-fingered hand extended outwards towards Lillian. She glanced back at her small nook and the overly dull room and then up at the tall frog-like creature named Burden who talked of dreams and seemed very kind, too kind, perhaps to possibly understand what this small child had gone through. Something about the creature’s smile, however, was far more comforting than the idea of falling asleep with nothing but tears for company. The Spirit made no objections and as it seemed the natural thing to do, Lillian took the hand, and walked with Burden, out through the cargo room door.
Lillian’s eyes darted from side to side, not wishing to lock onto the creature before her. However, from the moment they had first met, a question begged to be asked. She had put it off long enough, though, and curiosity finally got the better of her.
“Excuse me, but…are...” Lillian stammered, “Are you a fairy?”
“What?” the disdain present in Dekowin’s snarled reply would have coerced an apology out of a more timid child, but Lillian had already broken through apprehension and began blurting out as rapid an explanation as her nervous lips could muster.
“Well you see,” she spouted, “I’ve heard a lot of stories about girls like myself…well not quite like myself, who go out into the world and face lots of dangers…though not quite like these…and sometimes they are helped by these friendly creatures called fairies who remind me of you…though not quite.”
The insult, though unintentional, was too much for Dekowin to bear. Instantly, her carapaced hand snatched the young girl’s wrist as she brought her glaring face in line with Lillian’s startled gaze.
“Listen very carefully child,” Dekowin hissed, “I am a VOL-KHAN-BET, not some ‘friendly creature’ to help you on your little journey. I am a warrior and royalty and I’d destroy you for such an insult if you weren’t so beneath me.”
She paused. Tears were welling up in Lillian’s eyes. Disgusted, Dekowin threw off her hold on the girl’s arm and turned back to face the computer console.
“If I had known you were as stupid as you were a coward, I’d have let you fall into that pit.”
“But you didn’t!” Dekowin snapped around to see the teary Lillian’s face flushed red. “You didn’t let me fall, you saved me! And the spirit says that you don’t really want to hurt me which is why it didn’t strike at you! So you are friendly in your own way and you do have very lovely wings just like a fairy so it’s not stupid for me to think that maybe you might be one! Especially since so many things here are not at all what I’ve expected them to be and…” Lillian clamped her mouth shut, doing her best to stay the flood of tears.
The Volkahnbet studied Lillian, the stubborn little girl, clenching her small fists, holding back her tears. It occurred to Dekowin that in a strange way this girl was not entirely unlike herself many years ago. She tilted her head towards the young girl, and with a single word she sighed:
“Whatever.”
She turned once more to the computer console and began working on solving whatever puzzle it presented, all the while ignoring the tiny sobs behind her.
Lillian continued crying. She had not stopped since the others had started fighting back in that final room. The terrible sounds of hundreds of gnashing, squirming creatures all intent on devouring those eight intruders had terrified Lillian but not to the point of tears. Even in the midst of that convulsing chaos, the blaring sirens, the wretched smells, the monsters flooding in from all directions, a calm remained over the small girl. She knew the situation was dire, but she had trust in those with her. Sarika’s comforting embrace and Dekowin’s focused fury as she slashed through countless creatures filled Lillian with the confidence that all would be well in the end. Even the others, Lloyd, Marcus, Karen, though Lillian did not know their names had each shown that they were trustworthy in their own way. (Charlie and Roderic, though present at the battle, were too alien for Lillian to recognize them as any different from the automated drones or furious natives of that terrible complex.) With all of these friends and allies, Lillian knew that somehow, they would all stay safe.
Then there was the gunshot. There had been many of them but this one carried with it a different weight. Something about the direction, the quality, or the intent, told Lillian that something very wrong had just occurred. Dekowin had ceased fighting the hoard before her and turned to face Marcus. They charged one another and with a sickening crack, one of Dekowin’s wings shattered like glass. Shocked, Lillian cried out for them to stop, but her small voice was drowned out by the turbulence of the room. She watched as a second shot, fired by Lloyd, decimated another of the Volkhanbet’s wings. Fear flooded Lillian, a fear she could not understand. The blanket of security and comfort which she had cloaked herself in was torn to tatters as further shots rendered Dekowin helpless.
She yelled out again and again, tears streaming down her face, but the only response was more terrible shots, the final, beautiful wings shattering. Tears blurring her vision, Lillian clenched her eyes shut and curled up against her knees. She stayed there as the final shot took Dekowin’s life, and as the world warped and changed about her, placing her on the train, alone.
Eventually, Lillian’s disbelief at what had happened faded away, and the fear which plagued her took shape.
“Why, Spirit?” Lillian asked between sobs, “Why did they have to do that? She wasn’t a mean person. You told me she wasn’t a mean person. Neither were the others. She didn’t deserve for that to happen to her, Spirit! Why did that have to happen to her? I don’t understand, please Spirit…”
But the Spirit said nothing.
Death was not a concept with which Lillian was unfamiliar, but it had always a very quiet, private occurrence. Lillian had attended a few funerals in her eight years, always some relative or family friend who she had never quite gotten to know and who, in their private quarters of their own home had passed away under unspoken circumstances.
Lillian had once given a eulogy at a funeral, a fact which she had previously been quite proud of. A neighbor’s cat, one ‘Mr. Wumbles’, who had been an excellent mouser in his day, had been found, deceased, outside of the family’s shed and promptly put into a small box for burial. Lillian’s friend, Allison, had never been one for words, and, appropriately devastated at the loss of her dear ‘Wumble-bumble’, asked Lillian to guide the ceremony.
The event proceeded as planned. Lillian’s demeanor was as grave and solemn as the occasion demanded. The eulogy was read directly from a large volume taken from the family study. None of the children present at the event really understood the work, but the language was verbose enough and Lillian’s tone serious enough that they all believed no adult could have performed much better.
Yet despite all of the seriousness and ceremony around the funeral, Lillian had always pictured the actual death of Mr. Wumbles as a quiet, voluntary event where the plump pet, having grown so full of catching mice decided it was time for it to move on to whatever world awaited it beyond. It had been a peaceful event, a fulfilling event, nothing at all like what she had just witnessed.
Dekowin was not taken quietly. She was not taken willingly. She did not fade peacefully. Her death was a gruesome, frightening, terrible betrayal of how the world should work.
“Is this the world, Spirit?” Lillian sniffled behind gritted teeth, “Full of terrible and hideous things? Where people die in awful ways when they never deserved it? I can’t…I hate this place spirit. I wish I had never left the township. I just want to go back. I…”
The young girl’s sobs returned, drowning out her words as she clutched her knees closer to her small body.
All the while, the spirit said nothing.
When the contestants were deposited onto the Infinity Express, Lillian, by either unseen guidance or unseen fortune, was snugly placed against the wall of one of the train’s many storage cars. Pressed against her left was a large, well secured wooden crate, and on her right sat a cold, metallic plate, supported over a pair of tiny wheels with small latches locking them into place. In the same car, standing slightly to her left, an immobile cargo hand grimaced with strained muscles and outstretched arms. On the floor behind him sat a wooden container whose contents had spilled out when the cargo-hand, lifting the heavy load, suddenly contracted a severe case of intangibility. Due to whatever timeline this epidemic followed, the gravity of the train then brashly pulled the container to the floor, scattering its contents, a variety of silverware, across the room. As the train jerked from side to side, the silverware tinkled and clattered about while Lillian remained snug and oblivious to the rocking of her new interuniversal transport.
She would have, most likely, remained oblivious for some time and would have, most likely, having grown tired of crying and tired of worrying and tired of questioning, sought out that respite of dreamless sleep and would have slept for quite a while had it not been for the curious sound that then emanated from the metal panel sitting next to her.
“Hmmmmm.”
The sound was low and drawn and could have easily been mistaken for one of the many rumbling sounds one hears on a train, but something about its quality, its fullness, caught Lillian’s attention as she peeked her head up from behind her arms and turned it toward the metal board.
“Are you crying, child?”
Lillian jerked. The question was asked in the same deep and sluggish tone as the noise before it, but the very fact that it was a question, and thereby came from a person, and thereby a stranger, was enough to startle Lillian out of her tear-flooded sorrow. She glanced about a bit before answering, briefly noticing the frozen cargo-boy, the smattering of silver, and the small locked wheels which supported the large metal plate from which the stranger had addressed her behind. Had Lillian not been so upset at the time, she would have attempted to be more polite in her response. She had always been taught that it was very rude to blubber in front of stranger and for someone to catch her at her blubberingest was highly embarrassing. Instead, she spoke as frankly as she could.
“Yes I am! I am crying!” She shouted at the metal board, “but it’s for a very good reason and I don’t wish to talk about it!”
“Hmmmm,” the stranger responded, “That’s nice…”
Lillian waited for the stranger to continue, because, as you may have noticed, whenever someone says they ‘don’t wish to talk’ about something, they oftentimes mean quite the opposite. To Lillian’s surprise, however, the stranger never ventured to inquire any further. All Lillian heard was the clatter of silverware on the floor, occasionally accompanied by a low, satisfied “hmmmm” of the stranger, a sound, Lillian thought, very similar to the type of sound one makes after just waking up from a pleasant dream.
At this point, all Lillian really wanted to do was return to her blubbering, but now that she knew that someone was listening, regardless of how ambivalent they seemed, there was no way that she could ever bring herself to a good and proper cry. So, reluctantly and half-heartedly, Lillian rose from her tiny nook and walked around to the other side of the metal plank, in order to greet the stranger.
The creature Lillian saw before her was nothing at all like what she had expected. If she had to describe its appearance, she would have likened it to a bullfrog who, upon learning to move and speak like a human, decided to eat like a human, and ended up swallowing an orange much too large for it’s belly. Indeed the creature had a very frog-like face, with small, shut eyes resting on the top of its head and a wide slit of a mouth that stretched from one corner of the creature’s face to the other. The mouth, closed, and slightly upturned towards the ends, gave the creature a look of perpetual contentedness. The creature was sitting in what seemed like a very uncomfortable metal chair with tiny wheels on the base, and did in fact have a large orange gut, nearly spherical in shape which jutted out from the rather scrawny back. Even while sitting, the creature was about half a foot taller than Lillian, and while its legs were obscured by a drab blanket, Lillian supposed it would have a rather imposing stature should it decide to stand up.
Despite the creature’s foreign appearance and intimidating size, Lillian hardly felt afraid while facing it, partly because the young girl had been draining her emotions but primarily because there was not a hint of a threatening nature in the creature’s somber grin, nor did the Spirit give Lillian any warnings. For a while, Lillian waited awkwardly for the creature to notice her, but the creature seemed to remain as oblivious of her has she had of it when she first arrived. Eventually she decided that if she was ever going to get back to curling up and sobbing herself to sleep, she would have to get acquainted with this stranger so that at the very least it might take courtesy enough to leave, or at least somewhat understand why such an emotional display was necessary. In any case, her greeting, despite the extraordinary circumstances and extraordinary company, was relatively ordinary.
“Hello,” she spoke, “I’m Lillian. What is your name?”
The creature inhaled slowly and deeply in response to her question. Its eyes opened gradually, revealing dark, black circles which reflected Lillian’s tired visage.
“Hmmmmmm…” the creature spoke with the same slow, paced, tone, “My name is Burden. At least that is what they call me. So it must be my name.”
The creature’s grin grew even wider, as if it had just made a very clever joke, and was quite proud of itself.
“‘Burden’?” Lillian asked, “That doesn’t sound like very a encouraging name. Why would anyone call you that?”
The creature responded. Every syllable was long and low with the end of each statement trailing off as if at the end of a yawn.
“I have a disease.”
Instinctively, Lillian covered her mouth and nose with her hands and said with a worried, muffled tone, “I do hope you cover your mouth when you cough.”
“Not that kind of disease,” Burden smiled as Lillian slowly lowered her hands, “The kind you’re born with. You see…I dream.”
Lillian tilted her head, “Are you not supposed to dream?”
“I am supposed to dream. That is why I dream. The others dream too, but their dreams are different from mine.”
“How so?” Lillian asked, her curiosity temporarily pushing aside her weariness, “What do you dream about?”
“Wonderful things. Wonderful Places. The others dream about them as well, but mine are far more real.”
“I can hardly see how having nice dreams is a disease.”
At this the creature let out a long sigh, so long that it made Lillian wonder if her comment had offended it, and it simply chose not to respond.
“Hmmmmmmm,” it finally continued, “I dream well, but I do not live well. I am never fully here, always somewhere else. When the dreams become more real, I become less real. The world passes right through me. I cannot speak. I cannot move. I can only dream.”
“You seem to be speaking and moving quite well from what I can see,” Lillian stated, “though you do seem awfully drowsy. Maybe you could use a good nap.”
“Nap?” replied Burden, “but I’ve never had so much energy.”
Burden’s gaze shifted from Lillian and towards the other places in the room. In its eyes, Lillian noticed, sat a lucid reflection of whatever the creature chose to focus on, first, Lillian, then the box and silverware, eventually resting on the immobile cargoboy.
“Hmmmmm, he is dreaming too.”
Lillian, uncertain as to Burden’s meaning, decided that now was as good a time as any to ask the seemingly friendly creature to allow her some privacy for a few moments.
“Excuse me but…”
“Hmmmmm,” Burden interrupted, “Are you on a journey, child?”
“Ah, I,” the unexpected question took Lillian aback, “I suppose that I am yes.”
She had not given much thought to the idea of the adventure and journey since facing the death of Dekowin. In reality, she simply wished to push the entire ordeal behind her, and all the memories and people tied with it. There was one she did wish to see again, the kind Sarika, whose eyes never quite looked at you, but always at something beyond, but Lillian did not even know where Sarika was, or where she was herself for that matter. She knew, she had gotten here, however, by falling asleep and supposed she could return the same way.
But then there was Dekowin. Dekowin would never return to her home, never get to see the other volkhanbets or fairies or whatever was familiar to her. Lillian would never get to speak with her again, never have the chance to get to know her more, to learn about her home and life and lessons. If only she could have said goodbye, or had spoken one more time. If only.
“You have lost something, child,” Burden said, a tinge of sadness in its tone as the dark reflective eyes took in the weary girl.
Lillian nodded.
“Then I will help you find it.”
Before Lillian could protest or explain to the large, drowsy creature how such a thing was impossible, Burden smoothly rose up from his seat. The blanket covering his lap dropped to the ground, as his legs, long and spindly raised his head up to just a foot below the ceiling of the cabin. A long, three-fingered hand extended outwards towards Lillian. She glanced back at her small nook and the overly dull room and then up at the tall frog-like creature named Burden who talked of dreams and seemed very kind, too kind, perhaps to possibly understand what this small child had gone through. Something about the creature’s smile, however, was far more comforting than the idea of falling asleep with nothing but tears for company. The Spirit made no objections and as it seemed the natural thing to do, Lillian took the hand, and walked with Burden, out through the cargo room door.