Chapter Eleven: The chasm

It’s been two weeks since I left the Druida community and started my journey. I’ve walked so many miles and my legs are starting to ache. I’ve started my day with a couple of bites of the bread Elder Horenti gave to me. He wasn’t joking when he said that I’d be full for most of the day after a few bites. I’ve still got plenty of food and water left to last me, at least for another few weeks.

I really miss Elijah and the time we spent together. It’s really hard letting go of the next best thing to normality. I have Athena who is me, but a different version, plus, she’s feisty. I think she’s a lot more like me than I thought at first.

Yesterday I came out the other side of the valley. It seems the valley may have slightly pushed me West as I can see the large, never-ending forest to my right. I’ve been walking away from it, towards the East, but have since decided to keep it in view so I know I’m going in the right direction.

I am not able to see the cliffs yet, but I suspect I am close.

More so over the last week, I’ve had a small feeling that I am being watched. Athena has noticed it to. It’s weird that she can feel and sense the same I can, but I guess that’s because we are in the same body.

“I’ve got a bad feeling Ali.” She’s been saying to me, using the pet name she’s materialised, which I’ve been forced to grow accustomed to.

“I know, I feel it too. I’ve been watching everything like a hawk though, and I’ve see nothing.” I respond, stumped. There’s definitely been something hovering around me, but I’ve not seen anything out of place. At one point I even went running round the trees to see if I could see anything in my peripheral after hearing some sort of rustling, but nothing. I have a bad feeling, but up to this point, I’ve been shrugging it off as I’m unable to prove anything is there. I would love to say it’s my imagination but Athena scoffs at this, doubtful every time.

We start to get close to a clearing, and I start to get excited. This will be the first time I see anything new, which is improving my motivation. I love adventure, but seeing the same scenery for days on end does eventually get boring.

We finally cross the clearing and the first thing I see to my left, in the distance is the unmissable dark forest. It spans for miles on my left. I feel like my eyesight has improved immensely since Athena awoken, so looking to the tree line of the dark forest I can see the trees are so close together that there’s not much to see, bar the trees. If it comes to it, I hope it’s not like that further in. The bow Elijah gave to me would be good, but not if the trees are too close together, I’d never be able to get a shot in if I were to come across anything unfriendly.

I turn my thoughts away from that just now and look to the North. In front of me is a flat plain which seems to go on forever. I look to the right, towards the East and see just more emptiness. I want to stay with the dark forest in view, so I just head straight to the North. I take one look behind me and see the mountains in the far distance.

As I move forward, I can see dark clouds forming in the distance. It’s been fairly bright and clear since I started my journey and throughout the valley, but to the far North, slightly towards the West, the clouds swirling have a dark tinge to them, signalling that a storm is forming. I sigh, knowing this was going to be a problem, but I push it to the back of my mind. We can think about that if we get to it.

A few hours in, I start to see a dip ahead. The dip spreads across the horizon, ranging as far as the eye can see. I can still see the border of the dark forest to my left, and the trees start to thin out towards the dip also, as if they cannot go any closer. To my right, the dip continues and seems to curve round.

I continue on, getting closer and closer. The storm is not too far from me, and I can see the mist below the clouds which must be the rain. It is more towards the West of me, over the dark forest. I feel relieved that I will not have to head into that just yet.

I manage to get close enough to the dip to notice that further on, I can see some cliffs on the other side, facing me. It’s barely visible due to some sort of mist. I walk cautiously ahead, towards the edge, starting to feel a slight uphill bump. I stop quickly as soon as I go over the bump, as I can then see there is a slight downward drop, which then turns into a massive fall over the edge. I lean my body forward to peek over the verge and lose my footing slightly as I tried to adjust into a good position to see below. As I managed to catch myself and pulled my body backwards, falling onto my ass, my foot flipped upwards and kicked small rock which flipped across the edge.

I sit there for a few moments, listening to try and figure out how long it’s taken it to hit the bottom. I hear nothing, which is surprising as I had no idea it was that much of a drop.

I shuffle backwards and then stand and move away as soon as I feel like I’m far enough from the edge. I then back a few meters away from the edge and slump on the ground with my knees in the ground, keeping me in place. I sigh heavily. I had hoped to see something below, anything, but all I see is mist concealing the below. On the other side of the large chasm, I can see the start of another cliff face, but I’m unable to see much else because of the mist, probably what the storm to the West has created and it’s covering the other side.

As I kneel, I take a look to my left. I can see the edge of the dark forest meeting the upward bump and then the dip. The trees thin off towards this and then there doesn’t seem to be any hitting the actual cliff edge. At the very edge, I can see one tree slanting off the face of the cliff.

I take a look to my right and I see the chasm lining all the way along. I see it then curving slightly more towards the South East. I don’t remember seeing this on the maps. I get up from my kneeling position and push on, towards the East to see what I can find.

I stay with the cliff edge a few meters away. I look back every so often seeing the dark forest getting further and further away. As I continue to walk I feel more drawn to going back that way, but I want to see this route out first before I go in taking risks I may not have to. As I continue along, I can see the route taking a massive turn to the right, heading more South. I stop for a moment to think back to the map I looked at before moving again.

I remember there should have been a pass around here, leading across to the other side to continue North East. It was somewhere up here. I start to look round behind me, thinking I may have missed it, but don’t see anything. I start jogging up the side, following the cliff edge which was to my left. I can see the Sun is starting to set. Wow, I’ve spent all day trying to find the way across, I think to myself.

I keep jogging up the side until I see what looks like a mound. I go over to it, as it is very close to the edge. I don’t trust my footing after what happened earlier to scout it out. As soon as I got close to it my hopes dropped. I can see that the pass across started here, but has since, God knows when, crumbled and has been destroyed. Looks like this happened a while ago as I can see vines crawling up the stone formation that was once there. There is no way I am getting across here.

I stop and scoff to myself. I knew this was going to happen and Athena and I knew we needed to go into the dark forest. The Elders words do replay in my head though. I will find trouble in there.

Well, looks like there’s no other choice, I think to myself as I start my journey back west, towards the dark woods.