Vigil Aeterna
“Run!”
The whispered word screamed in his memory.
And he did. He sprinted.
Vaulting fallen logs and kicking through shrubs, he pushed on, his lungs aching. He slashed at greenery with the stubby sword that had been in his hand when he woke.
“Arrgh!” he grunted as a branch whipped his cheek. But he kept going. They were gaining on him.
He searched desperately, longing for the doors to appear behind the next tree.
“Come on!” he pleaded. “I was safe by now…”
The dappled light was turning mauve, streaked with gold. The leaves glinted an ethereal silver. Night was coming and he didn’t want to discover what hunted in the dark.
Just as the sound of crashing grew louder behind him, he stumbled out into a clearing and cried out in relief.
The wooden hunting shack beckoned him, and he fell through the door, slamming it shut behind him and hammering the bolt.
He gulped in air.
Safe.
A glass of water sat on the table, like last time. The cool water soothed his throat, and he hobbled to bed. He was asleep before he could remember who he was.
**
He woke to sunlight, filtered through swaying greenery. The breeze was cool, and he realised he was naked but for sandals on his feet.
Groaning, he sat up, fingers curling around leather. His sword.
He heard whispers in the trees.
“Who’s there?” he shouted. “Where am I?”
“Run…” the whispers sounded excited. “Fight…”
He stood and looked around, but all he could see was forest. Movement flitted at the edges of his vision, and he spun.
“Where are you?” he screamed.
“RUN!” came the reply. “FIGHT!”
A horn distantly blasted and his skin crawled. They were coming. Whoever they were.
He gulped and ran into the forest, slashing at the bush to clear a path.
He strained to remember what had happened and where he was. His memory was foggy – he couldn’t even remember his own name. But as he clambered past trees and trampled delicate orange flowers, an image came to him.
A cloaked figure.
Standing at the edge of the forest in a hooded blue cloak, trimmed with orange. The figure beckoned him to enter the shaded woods.
Why did he follow?
He had lost something but couldn’t remember what.
The horn sounded again – this time much closer.
He ran harder through the bush, and he crashed his shoulder against a trunk, dropping the sword. He cried out but kept going, leaving the sword behind.
In a moment of surreal gratification, the shack appeared, as if growing from the forest itself.
He stepped to the door, hesitated, and looked down. A row of sandals lined the wall, some old and decaying, some damp with sweat. He kicked off his sandals and added them to the line. His looked newer than the others. The thought disturbed him.
He walked inside, drank the water, and collapsed onto the bed.
**
“Run…”
The whispers roused him from sleep.
He was lying on the forest floor, naked but wearing sandals, sword in hand.
The forest looked darker somehow, but he didn’t think it was late in the day. Movement flitted in the branches above, just out of sight, like a dream.
“FIGHT!”
He stood with a grunt, and he ran. As he dove past trunks and shrubs, he heard the horn. It was reassuringly distant. He pushed forward, yearning for the shack.
He jogged through the thick bush, the trees growing ever denser, reaching out to him. Vines seemed to grasp at his ankles and thorns targeted his flesh. Movement continued to flitter at the edges.
His foot collided with something hard, and he thumped to the ground, landing harshly in a thicket of dead branches. He moaned as he rubbed his toes and looked at what he tripped over.
It was square and solid, and splattered red.
He cleared away vines that had grown over the red rock and discovered an object that sent chills. He hugged himself as he peered in closer but recoiled. Symbols were carved into the red rock, runes he didn’t recognise. And the rock wasn’t red. It was splattered with dried blood. Baptised with it.
This was an altar.
The ground ringing the altar was a circle of black shrubbery, long dead.
He moaned and backed away, clutching his sides.
The horn blasted. Much closer.
“RUN! FIGHT!”
And so he did, slashing at the bush before him with a deranged intensity.
He ran past ancient columns, overgrown with vines, through crumbling arches half-collapsed. Little orange flowers decorated the cracks.
“What is this place?” he thought aloud. “A tomb maybe…”
Something shouted behind him, but he didn’t dare look back. He pushed and pushed and pushed until he crashed into the wall of the hunting shack.
He shut the door behind him, threw the bolt, and breathed deep gulps into his burning lungs.
The glass of water sat enticingly on the table, but he looked around. Details he hadn’t noticed before: the boarded-up windows, the ash pile spilling from the fireplace onto the floor, the aged rafters hastily repaired, the scratch marks on the inside of the door.
“Where am I?” he murmured. “How did I get–”
He froze when he saw what was hanging on a peg in the corner.
A hooded blue cloak, trimmed with orange.
After a moment, he remembered to breathe. He seized the glass, almost knocking it over, and drank. The water fluttered down his throat.
He stumbled to his bed, his last thoughts of the markings on the altar, strangely familiar, accusative. They danced before his eyes mockingly, before drowning in dark, red blood.
**
That night he dreamed. Visions of sorrow and violence, shame and regret.
A woman’s smiling face, leaning in for a kiss. She had beautiful, bright orange hair.
A young girl in his arms, the sound of delighted, innocent laughter. She had her mother’s eyes.
Hands covered in blood, pooling by his feet. The air smelt acrid and metallic.
A deep, mournful cry. His own. It didn’t sound like him.
An altar and a ring of burnt orange flowers.
A dreary forest.
A dead arena.
Darkness.
**
The whispers.
The dappled light.
The swaying branches in the soft, infernal breeze.
He didn’t realise he was running until his calves cramped. He paused, but the voices immediately screamed.
“RUN! FIGHT!”
The voices were deranged, euphoric, and so very close. Movement flitted at the edges of his vision. He thought he saw them in the trees, but they vanished when he focused.
The blare of a blasting horn made him jump. It was much closer today. It was shortly followed by an angry screech.
Moaning, he started running, hacking at the bush, driving himself ever deeper into the shadow.
Lashed by sharpened twigs that lunged at him, he pressed on, as the shouts got louder.
He mumbled a cry that came, unbidden, between ragged breaths.
He heard the footsteps.
He could hear their breathing.
Could almost feel the heat.
And then the trees disappeared into a wide-open field of knee-high grass. Orange in the afternoon light.
But he paid no attention to the colours as he tramped through the field, every muscle screaming in complaint.
The shouts behind him were impossibly close now.
But he fell into the shack, slamming his back against the closed door.
Safe.
And then the doorknob rattled. It shook so hard he thought the doorknob would fall off.
He gripped the sword hard and raised it, point to the door, poised like a scorpion.
He grabbed the shifting doorknob and pulled open the door.
But nothing was there.
Only the field of orange grass, swaying in the wind like wavy, bright orange hair. It was almost tender, almost familiar.
Something silver glinted in the line of trees in the distance.
Eyes. Dozens of them.
Watching. Waiting.
He shook his head, closed the door, and locked the bolt. He flung the sword across the room, clattering at the foot of the hooded robe in the corner.
A wave of exhaustion overcame him, and his throat was painfully dry.
He drank the water, some spilling down his chin.
The glass slipped and shattered on the floor.
He fell onto the bed for a dreamless sleep.
**
His eyes opened to darkness.
“RUN! FIGHT!”
Milky moonlight pierced the canopy like tear streaks. The leaves shimmered, translucent.
“FIGHT! FIGHT!”
The voices were everywhere, drowning out his thoughts.
Lightning briefly revealed dark silhouettes in the trees, silver eyes glaring. Then darkness swallowed them.
Thunder rumbled, sounding eerily like a horn. And then something growled in the gloom, a menacing warning.
He didn’t wait. He jumped and ran.
It was difficult to see where he was stepping, and the undergrowth whipped his flesh. But the hunters were right behind him, he could feel them, their hot breath on his neck.
“RUN!”
He ran on into the dark, slashing with his sword, aware of those watching him, savouring his panic.
A shout to his right and he twisted left, around a thick trunk.
A screech to his left, and he jumped over a bush on his right.
On he went, like an animal in a maze.
Lightning revealed trees and columns, and dark silhouettes with their silver, frantic eyes.
A horn – or was that thunder?
Heavy footsteps on his heels.
“RUN! FIGHT!”
His lungs hurt, his throat dry.
A clearing of dirt, the shack just ahead.
But they were right behind him.
So close to safety.
He saw the row of sandals.
He paused.
He stopped.
His grip loosened on the sword.
The image of the cloaked figure floated into vision, chased by the blood drenched altar. He knew what those angry runes meant – he knew! But he could not remember.
“This isn’t…” he murmured.
Heart beating in his parched throat, he turned around.
“FIGHT! FIGHT!”
Something stood behind him, tall and threatening in bronze, burnished armour. The helmet had trailing orange flowers that fell like braids down its chest. It held a glinting sword and watched him, waiting, poised.
Slowly, it moved its arm to lift the visor on its helmet.
“FIGHT! FIGHT!”
The voices were deranged.
What he saw behind the visor took his breath away and he dropped the sword to his feet. The murmuring voices grew angry.
At first it was a girl’s smiling face with eyes filled with laughter. And then it changed, a beautiful woman, the same eyes gazing at him with love.
And then it changed again, an amorphous shape that seemed to melt.
At once, beautiful and horrible, a shifting memory of hope and regret.
And then the face was his own. Sad and angry.
The visor slapped back down, and it plunged its sword into his stomach.
He cradled the wound as he fell to his knees.
Blood pooled in his palms.
He didn’t feel his face hit the dirt.
**
The light breeze brushed his cheek, waking him into the soft green glow of the forest canopy.
He looked down and saw a body on the dirt below, naked but for sandals.
His heart plunged.
The body was himself.
A figure robed in a blue cloak trimmed with orange leant over the body, placing a sword in a hand. The figure looked up and winked, before disappearing into the trees.
He opened his mouth to call down, to warn, to escape. But what came out rolled from his mouth like cragged, crumbling rocks.
“Run…”
He shook his head, but the taste of the word was pleasing. He tried once more to shout a warning.
“Fight!”
Why did he say that? Why couldn’t he stop?
Electricity chased his skin. A sharp coldness washed over him when he realised what he felt. Excitement. Hunger. Need.
“RUN!” he screamed with glee. “FIGHT!”
The body below – himself – woke and sat up, looking around.
A chorus of cries arose.
“RUN! FIGHT!”
The body below ran into the forest.
A cursed gladiator. Forever.
The demented chorus turned to laughter.