Haiku
Jedi Master
I don’t remember much, that’s because they wiped my mind after what I did, I have no idea what that was anymore. My punishment was to contemplate here on this world, in this reality that seems so odd to me as if it has some connection.
‘Right now, I can’t see much, it is like I am in a bank of fog limiting my perception. But I can still smell, it is foul, like rotten eggs and mildew, it’s tolerable.’ Bur Rag stood still, it was no good to move when you can’t see, so he waited until the condition changes. When it did, he started to see something, first it was like sparkles in the fog, then as the fog lifted you saw more and more. When it was gone Bur Rag could finally see, he was standing there with his head held high looking at the night stars in the sky above him. It was beautiful.
But he came back to the present, that started with a physical assessment …
‘I am bipedal here, but I don’t think that it’s right, it doesn’t feel right. I feel that I should be walking on all fours, I try but this form doesn’t like it so I crouch a lot.’
‘I have a rod with me, it looks like a stick to me with a heavy end that I hold up into the air. I suspect that it is some kind of short staff, but I could be wrong. When I crouch it is as tall as I am but when I stand it is no more than a long club to me. It is worn to my hand as if I have had it for some time now, it also feels comfortable in my hand, or I would discard it.’
‘I am wearing a cloth, it has no sleeves and only hangs down below my waist, it is frayed. The sleeveless holes and bottom edge of it are rough as if I have worn it for some time now. The fabric is course, woven from a heavy thread. It doesn’t keep me warm, but I am not cold, that’s odd. In fact, I do not feel anything, no hot or cold, just a binding to the world around me.’
‘My hands and feet, they are not right. I have four toes on each foot and three fingers on both hands with two of them being thumbs on the outside, I have claws on the ends of my fingers and toes, that’s not right but my hands, they fit the short staff well.’
‘My knees, they bend both ways, I am not too sure which way is the right way. When I crouch, I bend them in front of me, when I bend them the other way I feel a springiness in them, still it’s not right at all or what I think I remember of them.’
I’m kneeling now on top of a grassy hill, they look like wild oats and field grasses. There is a tree beside me, it has a girth to it and a course bark on the exterior. It is cracked and spread as if the act of growing it breaks and twists it, the tree is not very old, it is only ten times my height, but it has leaves that are heavy and easily plucked. The leaf, it has seven rounded points on it, I don’t recall it either. It crumbles and breaks easily, it falls to the ground, there is gravity here.’
‘A stary sky is above me, it looks so alien to me, so does this world. I don’t recollect any of these constellations, just where am I.’
‘I am pleased that they let me remember my name, it is Bur Rag, but who is this they? Damn, I wish I could remember.’
‘I am going to stay here, I want to observe any changes if they’re any here at all.’
I am breathing, that seems right. The air it has a major element in it, it is inert, a mixer element. There is another but only a quarter of what the major element is, it is Oxygen. I'm breathing the Oxygen out of the air. It is not all of it, there are contaminates, a minor percentage of it has dozens of chemicals in it, that must be why is smells so. The air, it’s moving slowly, it is a breeze. That means this world is moving maybe spinning.’
A noise was heard, it was a flapping noise, something is out here. Bur Rag followed it as it swooped down into the field grasses in front of him, it picked up something and the flapping noise returned. It stopped in the tree above him. He looked up, there was an entity up there now, it looked to be tearing apart something and eating bits of it. Then as it noticed him it made another noise, it sounded like, “Who.” Then it happened again, and the entity looked down at him.
He said, “I am Bur Rag, where am I?”
All he got was another, “Who.” And the entity continued with its meal.
He repeated, “I am Bur Rag, what are you?”
He got no response although it was not frightened of him as it finished its meal and flew off. In a few moments he no longer heard the flapping sound. Whatever it was it could fly.
He looked at his arms, they could not fly, they were not built right. His upper arms were a long solid form down to his elbow, but his lower arm split into two lengths and combined again at his wrist.
Since he was looking at his form he continued down to his legs. They were odd as the length of them from his hip to his knee was longer than his knee to his ankle, why was that? Also, he saw a spike coming out of his heal, it was another claw like the flying one had. He moved his foot and looked at the imprint left behind. There were the four claw marks forward and one behind, there was a single pad at the rear and two pads up front without interconnecting pads. One pad up front look to work with the three smaller toes. He lifted his foot and matched it up with the footprint. This definitely was not right. He flexed his foot and he could touch his toes to his heal, this meant that he could grab ahold of larger items with them, like the flying entity grabbing the limb above him, he could do that too.
Bur Rag raised his head again to look at the sky, it has changed, no it is moving. That means that this world it’s spinning on an axis. The stars that were to his left were now right above him. He tried to focus on a single star, the rotational point and he found it, that makes it either the north or south pole of this rotation. He put a hand down to the ground and felt for a magnetic connection. He rotated around a spot feeling the waves of energy, once, then twice and then a third time. He locked into it and then he looked up, it matched the star that wasn’t moving, it was aligned with the north magnetism that he was picking up on. That meant to his right was east and to his left was west, but how did he know about all of this? Why did they let me remember these things? ‘But magnetism, is that the reason for the gravity here?’
He waited as the stars rotated above his head, then he caught something else, a lightening of the eastern sky. There was a sun here and it was coming up for the day. It definitely proves that this world, it was spinning.
He focused on the brighter stars, there was one near the upcoming sun and two more behind him, they were possibly local planets in a solar system, it would make sense.
He waited as the light got brighter then it peeked over the horizon, it was a sun. Not a big one but sizeable enough to project heat, he could feel it although it didn’t make him hot. That could mean that it is too far away or very small in size, he thought the later.
The sun was up now, and it was showing a haze in the air, possibly moisture build up, a fog of moisture but it wasn’t feeling right. It had an odd coloration, moisture would be a white color, this was a bit on the orange side, that must be the contamination that he noticed earlier.
‘It looks thicker over there.’ There was more over the next hill, so he decided to check it out. He got up and started to run toward the next hilltop, he was fast as it only took a few hundred strides to get there.
He stopped and looked behind him, his stride marking was still there, they were three times his height, was that possible? It must be the legs, the longer upper portion of them would give him a longer stride. It might even help him with his jump. So, he looked up and kneeled down with his knees bent forward and jumped, he cleared twice his height and came back down to the ground. He thought about it and crouched again but this time with his legs bent backwards. He jumped again and this time he cleared four times his height. This meant that with his knees bent backwards he could jump higher, he would remember that.
But he was right the contamination was greater here as he could almost taste it. He looked around and there was something different below him. It was a solid path, there were all kinds of sizes of metal beasts rolling on wheels going in both directions on it. He focused on one of them and it was leaving a trail of pollutants behind it. The bigger ones left a bigger trail. Whatever they were, they were being nice to each other as they all passed each other on the same side of the trail leaving only a few hand distances between them, it stirred the air they were so close.
He wondered where so many of these metal beasts were going. He decided to follow them, he went to his right staying up high so he could watch them more.
The sun was higher in the sky now and he came upon some structures along the side of the path, some of these metal beasts turned off the path to visit them. It was then that he noticed them, there were other entities inside of the metal beasts. It was another bipedal entity, not like him but different.
They opened a door in the side of the metal beast and stood up. This one immediately grabbed a device in their hand, it was something a little bigger than their hand. Yes their hand, it had four fingers and a single thumb, and they worked the face of the device with their other hand. It seemed to distract them as this one entity ran their foot into a short step almost making the entity fall forward. ‘Probably shouldn’t be working this device while they walked.’ He watched as this entity went into the structure through another door.
He watched as others came up, some stopped at a free-standing roof and plugged in a device into the metal beasts. These ones did a similar thing to the one that went into the building, it was a similar device.
It was then that he noticed, the entities, they were different from each other. Some were tall and some were not as tall, all of them were shorter than he was when he stood up. But they were all clothed, some had close coverings that split to cover their legs and others had a loose covering that swung as they walked. All of them had different coverings on their upper bodies, that one has the same one that covers them up from top to their legs.
They had head coverings, most had strings of some sort extending out of their heads but there were some that had nothing. There were even some that only had them on the sides of their head and the top was void of them. There is one with a covering on their head, it may be to protect their void head.
The one that plugged in their beast was now done and pulled the plugged-in item out of their beast spilling some kind of liquid on the ground. They jumped back as to not allow it to touch them, it must be some kind of caustic liquid for them to do that. But the jumped into their metal beast and then it rolled back to the path and jumped back into the line up with the rest of them passing by.
The other that went inside came out of the structure, it still had the device in its hand and missed the step again, falling the distance to the ground below. ‘That one should not be looking at their device, that was twice that they missed the step.’ But they opened the door of their beast and went inside. He watched as the metal beast did the same as the other as it jumped back in line with the other beasts on the path.
It was possible that these entities were guiding these metal beasts on this path.
Bur Rag sat there and watched these entities, they were spinning a circle around in their beast like this is what guided them, most interesting. Then there was one entity that came out of the structure with a container in it hand while it worked its device with the other one, the step got them too as they fell and the container which held some kind of liquid fell and splashed all over the ground. Again, these handheld devices were the culprit again.
Throughout this whole time the metal beasts passed each other on this path as he watched, it was so odd. Then one of them did a bad thing as it didn’t get into the flow of the others correctly and two of the metal beasts collided with each other. The one going faster spun in circles and came to a rest in the grass beside the path. The other one stopped beside them. Both metal beasts were damaged.
Then the entity in the spinning beast got out and started yelling in some foreign language to the other, it had the tight legs coverings. The other one was inside their beast and opened a portal on the side of it to talk with the other. They were both yelling at each other when another one of these beasts stopped behind them, maybe there to calm the situation. It has flashing lights and was colored differently than the other. The one who spun was a white color, the other was a blue color but this new arrival with the flashing lights was black and white colored.
Another entity got out of the black and white beast, it had a small metal plate on their chest and as soon as the other two saw it, they calmed down. This metal plate must mean something to them.
Bur Rag watched as they sat there for a time with the metal plated entity until another metal beast showed up and pulled in from of the spun metal beast. It grabbed ahold of it and pulled it on its back and the entity in that beast used other items to tie it down.
The entity with the metal plate handed something to the entity in the second metal beast and they jumped back into the flow, this time making it successfully and it left the site of the incident. The other entity eventually hopped into the larger beast on the side opposing the other entity and they joined the flow. The last entity with the metal plate sat on the front of the flashing beast and looked to be moving a stick on another kind of device, not like the first one but something with thin sheets of connected materials on it. It sat there for a few more minutes oblivious to its surroundings and then closed his device and put in a pocket. Then it got into its metal beast and joined the flow, others slowed to let him in as this colored beast seem to indicate something to the other beasts or the ones spinning the circle inside of them.
Bur Rag sat there the whole day until the sun sank behind the hills behind him and something else caught his attention. All of the sudden the structure in front of him started glowing, something was lighting it up. It also happened to the metal beasts, they had white lights up front to see the one ahead of them and red lights on their rear, it must signify something.
But throughout this whole day these beasts kept passing each other, they were going somewhere. He looked to his left and there was nothing but the lines of red lights to be seen. But to his right there was an illumination in the distance, so he decided to check it out.
He got up and ran atop the ridge he was on until he could see what was causing the illumination, there was a grouping of structures there doing it. He stopped and crouched on the hilltop to observe.
There were structures here, hundreds of them. Some of the light, it was coming from them. There were other lights coming from the ends of tall sticks that were along the paths here. The path he followed in, it split up, some crossed over the first one high enough for all the metal beasts to go under. These split up paths split up more so there was one in between two of each line of structures lining both sides of it. Whatever beast is making these paths, it needed to come back as there were holes in this path that needed to be fixed.
The first line of structures, it bordered the grass land, he decided to go down and take a look at them a little closer. Up he popped and he trotted down closer to one. There was a wall separating the grass land and the structures land, this one had a tree on the far side of this wall. Bur Rag looked up, there was a limb above him that looked supportive, he bent his knees backwards and easily hopped up to land on it, his clawed feet wrapped around it and held on.
This tree was different, its skin was white, its leaves were larger and had five points that were jagged.
He crouched down on the limb and looked at the structure in front of him. There were openings all along the back side, they seem to be covered with some kind of transparent material, like the metal beast but these ones were flat with the face of the structure. It allowed him to see inside the structure. The first opening had some kind of overlapping structure covering it that would not allow him to see inside. But two more had some kind of cloth covering them, one was open, and he could see a small entity inside. It looked like a younger version of the entity in the metal beasts.
As if the small entity felt that it was being watched it turned to look out the opening, its face changed and looked like it was in shock. It screamed a very high pitch sound and ran away.
It was an odd item as Bur Rag felt the scream down to his bones, it kind of charged him with energy, he didn’t know how or why. But he dropped from the limb behind the wall and trudged on to another house further down. He stopped when he heard a commotion in the same yard behind him. There was a voice of several different entities including the higher pitched one, he couldn’t understand any of it. After a few moments the voices stopped, and he heard them go back inside the structure. The energy in him subsided but it left him with a feeling of sustenance like he just ate something, it felt good because he was hungry. He wanted more.
On the other side of this wall was another tree but it was different than all the others he had seen. This one had a fibrous bark that was colored red, the limbs instead of branching upwards bent downwards toward the ground. There were not leaves but it had a different stringy growth of a deep green. He jumped up to a limb on it, he grabbed ahold of it and crouched, the limb was sticky.
Below him was something different, it was a structure, but it was made of a thin cloth. There was a light inside of it that showed through, and it looked like there were two smaller entities inside of it. They were talking but once again he didn’t understand it, so he waited.
He watched as another object showed up in the night sky, it had a crescent shape, but you could see the outline of a spherical object. It was a moon, this world, it had a moon. He would have to see if it had more than one.
The moon was above him now and one of the small entities came out of the cloth structure and walked over to the fence and started to leak a liquid out of its body. It finished and then as if it felt it was being watched it looked upwards and saw Bur Rag looking down at it. Its eyes opened wide, and it ran for the fabric structure and dove in. There was a commotion in the fabric structure as the one woke the other. Then both heads popped out of the structure and looked upwards, there was a gasp and then a dual scream as both of them saw Bur Rag. He felt the energy again and it filled him up.
They both jumped out of the structure and ran to the solid structure and went inside. A little bit later another entity came out, it was rubbing it eyes and speaking words that were still not understood. The two smaller ones were peeking out from behind it and pointed up into the tree. The larger entity saw Bur Rag sitting there and it went quiet. It backed into the structure and a moment later it came out with a stick in its hand and a light stuck on its head. It pointed the stick into the air and an explosion happened.
To the right of Bur Rag a limb fell to the ground, broken by the noisy stick. Bur Rag saw that the entity was now pointing the noisy stick at him but before it exploded, he dropped to a lower limb as the one he was on exploded into bits. He said, “Watch it, you’re going to hurt something with that stick.” But that was not what the entity heard, it only heard screeches and clicks.
Bur Rag jumped down behind the wall and took off behind him to the hilltop again. But the entity was not satisfied as it was now looking over the wall with its light, but it didn’t see him. The light only extended a small portion up the hill, it was way too little to see him up on top. After a short time, the entity went back inside, it seemed to be satisfied of the outcome of the event.
Bur Rag was confused as to why the entity just did that, he wasn’t bothering anything but this entity, it was intent on hurting him, he didn’t like that. He decided that it was just a misunderstanding but to make sure he kept to his hilltop until morning came around.
The sun came up just as it did the day before and Bur Rag wanted to find this entity with the boom stick to talk with it as there must be some kind of confusion involved there.
He went around the structures and down to the path that crossed in front of the structures. He kneeled down to inspect the path further. He wiped his hand across the black surface of it and brought his hand up to smell it, it smelled of tar and oil. It was like they had glued pebbles together with the tarry substance to make this path and all the other ones too, how odd.
Bur Rag got up and walked down the center of the path and all of the sudden the metal beast to his left woke up all by itself. It surprised him but then others did the same including the one in front of the structure with the entity that had the boom stick. He walked up to it and put his hand down in the air it was breathing out its back end, it was nasty, definitely this was the contamination he was noticing in the air or at least it was part of it.
He stood there watching the beast and it seemed to calm down as it warmed up with heat coming from the front of it now. Then the entity with the boom stick came out, Bur Rag was sure that it was the same entity. It was carrying one of those devices in one hand and a container of liquid in the other, it drank from the container and opened the door of the beast. Bur Rag watched as it sat the container down and worked the device some more, then it touched a few things on the inside of the beast and grabbed ahold of the round object.
He watched as the entity looked right at him and he said, “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?” But the entity did not respond, it was like it didn’t even see nor hear him, why was that. But it closed the door and the beast backed out of its spot and onto the black path and took off passing right by Bur Rag in the process.
‘I see others, they don’t see me, I wish they did as I barely recognize myself.’
He held his position there as others came out of their structures and hopped into their beast and rolled off onto the black path, some even had smaller entities with them, they sat in the rear of the beasts. But the odd thing was none of them saw him at all, it was like he was invisible to them. It didn’t make sense as the one entity did see and hear him the night before, but now with the sunup, they didn’t. This was all so confusing.
Then a long yellow metal beast turned onto the black path and stopped, several smaller entities boarded it and it took off only to stop further down the path to pick up other entities.
Bur Rag looked up at the sun, it was a yellow color and slightly blinding. He thought about it for a moment and figured out that it was somehow hiding him, making him more than invisible while it showed, he was a ghost, most intriguing.
While he stood there trying to figure this all out a door opened in a structure and a smaller four-legged entity came out, it was furry but only his foot in length. It stopped and started to lick itself, that was until it saw him. It stopped immediately and looked at him.
Bur Rag walked up to it, and it started to hiss at him. This entity, somehow it was seeing him so he said, “You see me, can you talk?” But all he got was hisses and growls and it ran away to a nearby tree and climbed up into it. Obviously, it couldn’t talk, but it did see him where the upright entities didn’t in the daylight. This was compounding the confusion.
He crouched down and sat there watching the entities and a short time later another beast showed up. It was four time the size of the other one but just as furry. It didn’t notice him and walked up to the green grass there and sniffed at it for a second then it squatted on the spot and leaked some liquid on it. As it finished up it saw Bur Rag and it stopped in its tracks and started growling at him, it saw him too just like the other furry one.
Bur Rag stood up and the entity backed up as if it wasn’t expecting this. It looked one way then the other and started whining now, then an instant later it ran away up to a structure and went in through a smaller swinging door in a bigger door.
This was all so bewildering to him but there was one thing that all of it had in common, every entity on seeing him generated a level of fear, and it was the fear energy that it was feeding upon.
‘What has someone done to me, they put me here on this world, I seem to generate fear to all of the entities on this world and I am feeding on the same to sustain me.’
He continued on down the path hoping that his confusion would fade if he could understand these entities more. He came upon one of the metal beasts and came in closer to take a look at it. It had four black flattened torus’ that it rolled on the black paths with, he touched one and it poked a hole in it and it started hissing, a stale and different nasty smell came out of it. It was pliable material and flexible as it lowered itself down to the path, there was some kind of air in it and without it, it went flat, he didn’t mean to do that.
He continued his inspection, this time a little more carefully. The openings were that clear material allowing him to see inside, then something caught his eye, there was a reflection of an object on the side of the beast. He looked at it and there was another entity in it, he moved, and it moved too. It didn’t take him long to understand that the other entity, it was a reflection of him. He took a moment to look at himself. His head was slightly triangular, but the odd item was his eyes, they were glowing red like they were burning with a fire. They obviously were the thing that was scaring the other entities, they scared him.
He pulled back as an entity came out of the structure and walked right past him and up to the beast. They looked down and stated something that was not understood as it saw the totally flattened torus on the beast. Out came one of those devices and it touched it several times then it put it to its head and talked some more. It was obviously distressed at the issue, but it turned around and went back into the structure again with the device to its head.
This was all so perplexing, none of it made any sense.
Bur Rag continued down the black path, he watched as may others came out of their structures and hopped into their beast and left the area. He watched as one of them left their door open to their structure, he took a chance and went inside.
He stopped just inside and looked around, there were all kinds of objects inside. It looked like the structures were cut up into several caves with doors on them but this first one was totally open. There were seats in there where these entities must sit upon and there were short, small tables with them. Mounted on a wall was some kind of opening, pictures were being shown on it, colors were vivid on it. He came closer, it was thin and there was nothing behind it but the wall, it made no sense how this was being done.
Then he noticed that there was another entity in the structure, it was kind of dressed like the others. It saw the door open and went over and closed it while hanging onto to a round object on it, most curious it was. It didn’t see him, so he stood there watching it. It grabbed a black stick and pointed it toward the pictures, and it changed to another picture, it was a window to other places.
So, while it was watching the pictures, Bur Rag decided to take a look around the structure. There was another room with more metal beasts in it, one felt cold, and another was warm as if it was just heated up. Off to the opening side of the structure there was another metal object, it had two squarish bowl shapes in it with rounded corners on all sides and bottom. There were holes in the center of the bottom that had some kind of fixture in it and several objects sitting it in. some were the shape of the container that he saw earlier, others were flat and round and made of some kind of clay. Mixed into these were metal objects, some with points and others with a sharp edge on them. There was some kind of liquid on and in the objects, he touched it and brought it up to his mouth, he recognized it, it was water.
Around the cave there were doors and walls all made of something that looked like the trees, one of the doors was open. Inside it was more of the clay and container objects, these ones were shaped possibly to hold liquid themselves. There was an attached cave there, it had more of the tree items, but these were free standing, it looked like seats and a larger raised flat structure of the same material.
Past it was a path that went deeper into the structure, it led to three other caves that had these flattened structures in them, each of a different size. Then he came to the last cave, it was not the same as the others. There was a seat and a built-in bowl made of clay, both were odd to say the least. Then there was a bigger bowl, large enough for one of these entities to lay in. It had a moving wall on it that you can almost see through.
Bur Rag had seen enough and returned to the way he came in, the entity was there still, he watched as it picked up the black box and changed the picture once again.
He had enough and went to the door, he remembered the entity and what it did earlier, it grabbed it by the round object, so he did the same and pulled, it didn’t open. Then he noticed that it turned in his hand, so he did, and the door opened. He passed through it and left it open like the previous entity.
He stepped out of the structure and turned around to look at it again. The entity inside must have seen the door open again and showed up in the opening. It peered out and looked one way then the other, not even seeing him standing there not two paces in front of it and it closed the door once again.
‘Why is it that they can’t see me? They must not know that there are these others like me that are here always walking around them in silence, seeing all that they are doing, good and bad? If I am one, then that would mean that there are others here in a similar state, I need to look for them.’
He had a thought now, a direction, a purpose to find others like him. It was better than walking around taking fear energy from the others here, although he still did this to feed himself.
He stepped out to the path and kept on walking, he found that he needed to be along the side of it as these entities in their metal beasts, they didn’t seem to care where they took them because there were many altercations that he saw daily. That long beast that carried the damaged beasts had many customers, and there were many of them too just for this need.
It was days later when he was in another low-lying group of structures. He was watching the entities from a grassy spot in front of a structure, it was more of the metal beasts going back and forth to these structures. But down the path came an animal, it was like some of the ones he had come across, but this one was as big as he was. It was a four-legged beast, long hair that was in total disarray and what looked like blue fire coming off its back and green glowing eyes.
Bur Rag was in his crouched state so he was not as visible as he would be standing up, but he was noticed by it. Around them the metal beasts were doing their normal routine and this beast, it slowly walked down the opposing side of the path and stopped across from him. They spend a moment looking at each other, sizing up the opposition as it was.
Bur Rag took the opportunity and spoke, he said, “I am Bur Rag, do you have a name?”
It replied, “Cu Sidhe, do you know where we are?”
Bur Rag, “No I don’t, it is an odd reality, I’ve been watching it for days now. How long have you been here?”
Cu Sidhe, “Unknown, forever, I hate this place.”
Bur Rag, “Will you come closer, we can talk.”
Cu Sidhe, “No, don’t trust. Badness in hidden.”
Bur Rag, “You’ve seen others, others like us?”
Cu Sidhe, “Many, most worse than me.”
Bur Rag, “That’s acceptable, it’s good to finally meet one here.”
Cu Sidhe, “I hunt bad dying souls, what do?”
Bur Rag, “I’m not too sure what I do but I seem to scare these entities and in turn I feed on their fear. Are you hunting now?”
Cu Sidhe, “No, I wait now. Bad soul inside. Soon.” As it turned to point its snout toward the house behind him.
Bur Rag, “A bad one, what did it do?”
Cu Sidhe, “Kill many, gas them far away, move here to hide, I found.”
Bur Rag, “You have a purpose, that’s good, I have yet to find mine. Have you seen any others like me? I am looking for them.”
Cu Sidhe, “No, beware of others.”
Bur Rag, “I’ll leave you to your waiting, if you see others like me, tell them I am looking for them.”
Bur Rag got up and walked away as Cu Sidhe laid down on the grass in front of the structure as he waited. It was good, he found another, not like him but others in this hidden world, that means that are more to find. He did take note of the worse statement from Cu Sidhe, that meant that any other might not be as nice as he was.
It was two days later when he came across another. He was in a tall structure area and there was a narrow path between two of them. There was a pile of refuse there and it stirred, a head popped out. It had a body covering that covered it completely from toe to hand, all that was seen was part of the face from the nose up. He approached it slowly remembering the words of Cu Sidhe.
He got about five paces away and crouched down to look at it, the eyes were dark rimmed, its hair was white and unkept, it was looking right at him. Bur Rag said, “I see you, you are not of this reality, what are you?”
It didn’t say anything, all it did was shriek a scream that would curdle your blood. Something happened, he short staff he still held in front of him caught the scream and vibrated from it. The top of it started to glow and the light seemed to cause the entity to fall back into the pile.
Bur Rag, “My name is Bur Rag, who are you?”
It didn’t say anything for a moment, the staff seemed to causing this so he lowered it. It finally said, “She … I am female … I am banshee.”
It was the first time that Bur Rag recognized this, he saw this in the other entities, they were different but he didn’t put it together, the entities here were both male and female. This banshee, she was female and she started to crawl toward him. he raised his staff and she backed up again, it was holding her back. He asked, “What do you do in this reality?”
The banshee said, “I kill weak ones, eat souls. Kill you, eat soul.”
Bur Rag, “Well I can’t have that, my staff seems to be holding you back so forget about that soul eating thing for right now. Where do you come from?”
She lifted part of the debris pile and showed a circling vortex, her one foot was inside of it, it must be holding her here. he said, “Is that were you come from?” She nodded slowly. “Is that were you take your victims?” She nodded again, it seemed she was of few words and he was getting nowhere with her. “Can you leave this place?”
She answered this time as she was nodding, “Hole moves, takes me to victims.” She pulled down her mask and showed her viscous teeth, “Need to eat, you look tasty.”
He staff pulsed and she pulled back into the pile and hid but he could still see her eyes in the pile, her gaze didn’t move from him at all. He wasn’t going to get anything out of her but death, it was all that she was about. But his staff, it was good that he kept it, it held her back, maybe it will do the same for others. He left the path and went back to the main path and left the tall structures. It was good, this place was her feeding grounds.
A day later and he was following another path that was crossing a forest of tall trees, he was looking for more of the hidden beasts but he was not finding them, but his staff was as it started glowing. He stopped to look around, then he saw it way up in one of the trees. This one looked viscous, it had a skull of a deer with squiggly horns as long as his arms were. It had arms that were longer than his with claws on hands with five fingers, it had a course outline in the mist.
The staff was vibrating when it slid down the tree trunk to land on the ground ten paces away from him. It shielded its eyes or lack of eyes in its skull with its arm and Bur Rag lowered his staff. He got a better look at the beast, it had rib bones showing, inside there was a darkness hiding what was left with him. But its skin was not right, it looked like the trunks of trees that it surrounded itself with, made good camouflage.
Bur Rag spoke, “I am Bur Rag, do you have a name?”
It looked back at him and noises came to its mouth, it was rough as it tried to form words. It was pretty obvious that it hadn’t spoke for some time now but then words came through. It said, “I am Wendigo.” And stood upright to him.
Bur Rag said, “Do you have a purpose?”
Wendigo replied, “I eat flesh of those that get lost, are you lost?”
Bur Rag, “No, I am looking for others like me, you speak well tell me of yourself.”
Wendigo, “I was a man at one time but that was a long time ago, it is why I can speak now. I was the shaman of a local tribe but I was killed by another man that had a stick that went boom, he was not like me, he was white skinned.”
Bur Rag, “You’ve been here the whole time then, in this forest?”
Wendigo, “Yes, your new here aren’t you. I never see your type before.” He stepped forward and the staff pulsed, it stopped him. “You carry a power, it bothers me, get rid of it.”
Bur Rag, “Not going to happen, it keeps the bad ones back here and there seems to be a lot of them, you being one of them. Can you tell me where I am?”
Wendigo, “Yes, you’re on a land called the United States, a state called Virginia. You are fifty miles from the ocean over there to the east, there is a lot of meat there. If you are going that way, try to send some of them my way, I am hungry.”
It was another meat eater, so far I have ran into two meat eaters and one soul eater, this is becoming a pattern. Maybe it is just this area he will have to see. Bur Rag bowed to him and said, “I leave you, eat well, just not me. If I see one I will send it to you.”
It was getting dark, the sun was about to drop behind the horizon just as Bur Rag passed one of the local entities, it was walking the opposite way and walked right past him. Then the sun dropped behind the hill which meant that he could be seen now. The entity looked behind itself and saw him and his burning eyes, he was scared and ran in fear, he was heading right for Wendigo, that was bad news for him. But it fed him with the fear, that was all that he needed.
His next encounter was with a bipedal beast that had a bald head with a beak that was half as long as it arm, the beak was dripping in blood. It called itself Coracos, the crow demon and the raven devil. It ate small young entities that it stole from the structures of the other entities here. The interesting part is that his staff was quiet during his meeting, he was not a problem like the others were. But he knew little of where he was, he was just another beast that was confused like him.
The next one was in a lake, it poked its head above the water to look at him but it didn’t talk. It had a lizard head and bipedal body, its hands and feet were webbed so it could swim easily, he was in little danger from him as he swam away. It probably needed for someone to be in the water for him to be a problem.
The next one was not so as his staff pulsed with energy, this was a really bad one. He came across a huge structure with multiple floors, each floor was completely void of walls so it was wide open and it looked like no living entity was residing there. Bur Rag searched floor by floor until he came to the top floor, it was where he found the entity. It looked like a man, a ghostly man with glowing eyes, it may have been one at one time. It didn’t stand but crawled on his hands and knees and he groaned and moaned between screams. It was enough to make Bur Rag leave the premises, his staff agreed with him.
Bur Rag had some primary questions that he needed answered, he was bound to find someone that could answer them. He wanted to know how he got here and who was responsible for it. And he wanted to know why he can’t remember anything before this place. On top of all that he wanted to know how to get out of this crazy place and return to his origin home and if it is even possible. The answers were out there and if he spent enough time here he would find the answers he was looking for.
Until then he continued his wandering, finding those that can’t be seen just about everywhere, if these entities only knew what he has seen, they would be running from the chaos in droves.
There were odd entities that he found along the way, they were the quiet ones. They walked the paths, the forests, the mountains and swam the lakes. They enters their structures and hovered around the living who didn’t see them. Above all they couldn’t be stopped as they could go anywhere, even through walls.
In one mountain community he found dozens of them, crab-like, walking heads, there was even one that used its tongue as its method for movement. This one was mostly tentacles, the next one was all mouth, one eye and legs to haul it around. There were ones that walked on two legs, others that walked on four and several that walked on thousands of them. Bur Rag felt energy, it must be the mountain that is producing it and that is what is calling them here. In the process, he discovered that it was an old volcano that was snow capped for most of the year. The commonality here was that all of them could not talk, most didn’t even notice him, they were lower lifeforms.
But this was not the only place he found them, they were in their cities, in jails, at places that sold food stuffs, warehouses and parks. They hung out under bridges, in candy stores or just sitting on your doorsteps, if they only knew this. This one group was at a factory, getting in machines and affecting conveyors, damaging their metal beasts and tearing down signs. They were in alleys, doorways, windows, parking lots and there was one in a wood pile sucking on wood chunks making them unusable in the end. They were all unseen and mute, those that saw him were uncommunicative.
It was not until years later he found some answers, it came from a creature hanging out on a limb of a tree in a park setting. It had the body of a harry monkey with the head of a rabbit. It stood as tall as he was and crouched in a similar fashion.
He saw it in the tree above him, it didn’t make a noise, he figured that it was just another quiet one, so he stopped to look around the area.
Then it spoke in an Irish accent and said, “You look lost, it that or you are looking for something that your not finding, which is it?”
Bur Rag looked up, it was on a limb that was above his head height and he answered, “Yes, I am looking for answers that is all. My name is Bur Rag, what can I call you?”
It replied, “I am Phooka and I may have the answers you are looking for. What shall I be tellin you about?”
Bur Rag, “Hopefully you can answer this, What are we?”
Phooka, “That’s easy, we are all window fallers. We came from unknown worlds and dropped into this one mostly to cause fear in the souls here.”
Bur Rag, “That is what I do, every one of them that sees me creates a level of fear which I feed upon. I don’t mean to do it, but it just happens like a reflex. How do you know this?”
Phooka curled his tail around the limb so he could better look down to see Bur Rag and said, “I am smart like you and I have been here long enough to have figured out all the answers. Next you probably want to know how you got here.”
Bur Rag, “Yes, how did you know.”
Phooka, “Elemental for those that can think. You were dropped here, pulled from some other world by some nefarious self-serving entity, they are in charge here right now. And if you are wanting to know how to get back there, I’ve been looking for that answer for a long time now.”
Bur Rag, “I was looking for a way home, wherever that is. Why is it that I don’t remember anything before this place?”
Phooka, “That’s the riddle of this life. If you knew this, you might be findin your way … home as you call it. The entity that brought you here, they gave you a vail to hide those memories from you, I’ve been working to break mine to this day. Do you have any other questions?”
Bur Rag, “Sure, how do I find this entity that brought me here?”
Phooka, “That’s another riddle as it was most likely you, a you that is at a higher level of understanding than you. You are right now on a rung of a ladder in between where these entities are and the next rung above them. It allows you to see them but it also hides us from them because they can’t focus on us.”
Bur Rag, “They see me but only at night, I the daytime I am invisible to them. But their animals see me at all times, why is that.”
Phooka, “They see you, most interesting. The animals are below the walking entities, a lower rung on the ladder, they see more of the world around them for that reason. But that doesn’t answer you other question. I suspect that the yellow sun here scatters your form allowing you to vanish in its light. That is special as I have never seen one that did this. It must be the type of entity that you are, do you know?”
Bur Rag, “No, when I showed up here all I remembered was my name. Is that because of this veil?”
Phooka, “It must be.”
Bur Rag, “How about this one, you haven’t see others like me, my entity type before?”
Phooka, “No, you are the first, most interesting are you.”
Bur Rag, “Understatement of the year. So you got any idea how I find this entity that brought me here?”
Phooka, “Well to my understanding, they are watching you right now, watching everything you do. You need only to ask them a question, but they may still not answer it. It is all part of life’s lessons, your doing you part of it right now in questioning it. You see, this world is where you do life’s lessons to teach your higher self that brought you here. It is done this way because they can’t do these lessons where they are, it has to be done here. Is there anything else?”
Bur Rag, “No, not that I can come up with right now.”
Phooka, “Then let me ask you one question, Where did you find that stick you carry, it holds much energy?”
Bur Rag, “I’ve had it when I woke up here, it protects me from the bad entities, makes them back away from it, it seems to be as alive as I am.”
Phooka, “May I hold it?”
Bur Rag, “Certainly.” And he handed it to him.
Phooka inspected it and said, “I see nothing in it, it does nothing for me, it must be tied to you and only you.” And he handed it back to Bur Rag. “It is special, keep it safe. You still have lessons to do.” He started to fade.
Bur Rag, “Wait, Just who are you?” With that, Phooka smiled and faded away to nothingness. He stood there looking at the empty branch and it came to him, that was not the one called Phooka, it was the one, the higher entity, the one that brought him here. “Damn! How do I get out of here!” He yelled out.
He contemplated it all, he must be right, he still had lessons to do before he could go, even from where he was. But why didn’t he see it earlier, the only one that could answer these questions that he had could only be the one who brought him there. “Damn!” He said it again.
Bur Rag continued his travels, he ran into all kinds of characters and creatures. Flame was a big one as he found many creatures that used fire, like the burning snakes, birds, lizards and even some humanoids. Then there were the water beasts, mermaids, dragons and even a few sharks that were made totally of water. There were lots of teeth and fangs, even some with boney mouths. But they all had one thing in common, they were beasts, bad entities, evil spirits and dangerous monsters.
Just where were the good beings, they had to be here too, why was he not able to see them?
He started with the inverse of that, why was he able to see all these other beasts? What was allowing him this ability?
The only thing he had was his tunic and this damn stick. Wait, the short staff, what was it doing? It had power, enough power to push the bad monsters away from him. It was an alarm too as it notified him of other sneaky bad individuals when they were near, and he didn’t see them right away.
He looked at it in his hand, he rubbed the staff between his thumbs in the recesses worn down for them. There was something about this stick that he needed to find out about. Was it what was allowing him to see these other beasts? He needed to test this.
He passed a field and saw three of these walkers, he seen them before. They looked like a pair of legs of one of the living entities but that was all, they had no body attached just legs. These ones were taller than him and had a deep glow to them making them very visible in the open field. But he also knew that they were not dangerous, the floating brains that followed them were, but he didn’t see any of them.
He stood up and dropped the staff to the ground, it chimed as it hit the ground, the noise did something as now the walkers, they were barely seen, their glow was softly showing them now, but he could still see them. He picked up the staff and they didn’t change back to their original brightness. He rubbed his thumbs against the stick and a spark happened between his thumbs and the stick. As he looked up the walkers started glowing again. That means that the staff was helping him to see these beasts better than without it. It must have been helping him see the others all along but only in a protective sense, it must be a rudimentary function like the alarm and repel functions that it did.
‘Lessons’, that is what the being said I needed to be doing. I need to learn how to control this staff, enable other modes that it can do, but how. It had to be connected to him and something that he could do right now. All he could think of was that he could speak and speak well from what he has seen of other beasts. Could it be voice activated?
The staff, it had secrets, but it didn’t have a name. If he was going to talk with it, he needed to call to it by its name. This staff, it had secrets, knowledge maybe even wisdom, but it was aware, self-aware and could make judgements on its own. He spoke aloud and said, “Staff, I name you ‘Sapience, the Cane of Secrets’.” It vibrated in his hands, he hoped that it meant that it liked its new name.
Still looking at it he said, “Sapience, show me the other unseen entities of this world.” Nothing happened, he was not doing something right.
He was contemplating it and he rubbed his thumbs on it again, the electric shock happened again. That was it, he needed to be rubbing it like a djinni in a bottle while he spoke to it.
He started rubbing it and said, “Sapience, show me the other unseen entities of this world.”
All of the sudden the heavy growth end started moving and wiggling and a yellow crystal poked through and showed itself inside the growth, it started to glow, and the wiggling stopped. Bur Rag looked closely at the crystal and with his other hand he touched it, it shocked him, and he pulled his hand back.
He looked up, he was shocked to see what he was seeing now. The field, it didn’t just have the walkers in it, there were a hundred other entities there, ghostly figures of the living entities. Where the walkers were all going in the same direction these new entities were going in all directions as if they didn’t know which way to go. Then one by one they stopped moving and looked his way, they seemed to be noticing him now. As he watched the started walking over to him until the crowd stopped a few paces aways from him, they seem to be mesmerized by his staff.
Bur Rag moved the staff to the right and then to the left, the ghosts followed it as if it held an answer for their situation. He was thinking that they were following the walkers as they were as close to an answer for them as they could get. Now this staff was their focus.
So, you have to ask, what would a ghost entity want in a world like this, was it any different than what he wanted, that was to get out. That was it, the staff, it knew the way out for them, it might even have a method for him to get out.
Bur Rag said, “Sapience, show me the exit that these entities are wanting.”
The staff shook almost out of his hand, but it turned upwards, and a beam of light came out of the larger end and struck the sky above them. Bur Rag looked up and an illuminated spiraling vortex was seen now by him. But the ghosts were not looking, their gaze was still fixed on the staff itself.
Bur Rag, he needed them to look upwards, so he raised the staff over his head and walked through the crowd forcing them to see the vortex above them. As he passed by them, they turned to look upwards, and they caught sight of the vortex, and they followed the staff no more. Then one of them got an idea and jumped up and left the ground as it floated higher. Others saw this and followed as all of them did the jump and floated upwards toward the vortex. Then one by one they disappeared into the vortex until there were no ghosts seen any more. Then a short time later, as they had left, the vortex shrunk away to nothingness.
He brought the staff down and thought about it, then he said, “Sapience, show me my exit from this world.”
He didn’t get a light like he just saw but he got a vision. It showed a living entity without a face and himself together, the entity grabbed the staff and stretched it out longer. It poked the end of the staff into the ground beside a wall. Then using the end as a pivot point, it swept the fat end of the staff from the ground up and over until it reached the ground again. In the swept area the wall changed to a blackness that you couldn’t see through. The faceless entity handed the staff back to me and bowed, it motioned to me then to pass through the hole, and I did and I was gone. The vision faded away …
He needed to find this entity for he knew more than he did, a lot more, but just who were they and where would he find them? This was a moot point until he found this entity, he would continue his current path for now.
He changed his tactics now that he could see others so he entered a tower of caves to see what he could find in them. The first one was enlightening. The living entities should know this, they are surrounded by those that either want to hurt them or save them. No one is immune from this tactic, pick anyone and there were others around them and typically not a single entity, it was more like ten of them. They watched everything they did, and I do mean everything. If you thought you were safe or immune, you were wrong.
This one person here, they are a self-serving soul. They have several negative connections like conduits of energy pouring into them from these external sources. Some like this one had others in so close contact that they didn’t even need a conduit, they just spoke directly to the entity forcing them to do unspeakable tasks. This person had a political connection, an influencer to a high government individual, they paid them off from funds derived from sources from the opposing side of their lives. The problem is that the one here didn’t even care where the funds came from or how it was changing the world around him to lesser than it should be as long as it didn’t directly affect him. It did and they didn’t even care or want to notice the effects. They were killing themselves just to purport these events, it was karma, like cutting off your foot to save yourself and then finding out that you still need it. Opps!
This is what he found in most of the cave towers, they just didn’t care about how they were affecting the rest. There was good here too, but it was being crowded out by these hidden individuals. They were fighting it, but it was really overwhelming them driving them to be opposing their true direction.
Bur Rag, he noticed that those with the larger caves were different from those in smaller caves, this goes for the towers and all the lower single level caves. He was in this tower with large caves and one in specific, it was large with many caves in it. There were three entities living here but they had room for ten, most of their cave sat empty of living entities but they typically had more of these hidden entities around them. These three had almost fifty of those that were hidden, it was like they were drawn to these self-serving entities.
This other tower on the outskirts was different, the caves in it were smaller with more living entities in them. There seem to be less of these hidden entities in them, maybe it was because of the available space here. Too many and they literally bumped into each other as they worked their entity. It was like these living entities has less power to control their environment and these hidden entities cared less to interfere with them. They were more in a containment process to keep them in this state rather than affecting others in ways that they larger cave folk did.
Then he came across the ultimate cave, it was huge and only four entities lived there. It had twenty others that they pushed around constantly as they did all the work in the place, which including protecting them from the lower souls that disliked them. But these four they had thousands of these other hidden entities as one of them was a high official in their government, these hidden entities seem to love these types. The head one in this cave had so many conduits connected to him that you could barely see the living one. These hidden entities had to fight to get close to him and maintain it for any time. And when he got together with his colleagues these hidden entities were like a hill in the area, it had to be putting severe pressure on them.
Bur Rag followed him for a time just to see how bad they really had it. The living entity went to a new area with many large caves in it, Bur Rag had to hold back as it was so full of these hidden entities that there was no room for him, there was barely enough room for the living ones there. He broke off when he saw this.
This was good as now Bur Rag knew that these self-serving entities would not be the one that he was looking for, the one that could send him home would not be one of these. They would be opposing them, an other-serving entity was what he was looking for. This would narrow down his search as it was easy to find these self-serving ones because of the crowd around them, these other serving had less, much less following them. Yes, there were some that had a conduit or two but nothing like what these self-serving entities had. Some were even working to rid themselves of these conduits, that was good in itself.
In contemplation he figured that the one he was looking for possibly had no conduits and limited hidden entities following him, he would focus his energy with these souls.
Focusing on it like this gave him a different view of what was here on this world, in this reality. If there was a self-serving entity that was doing bad, there was also an other-serving entity opposing them. This worked for the lesser and the greater in these categories, there was always opposition. So, the target group that he was looking for was these better souls, ones that have actually see what he was seeing in this reality, the ones that were wanting to change this reality to the better rather than the destruction of it.
In all of these groups he found variation in them, and he found that here also. He rated the good factor in a scale of 1 to 10. Anything 5 or less were in some level of transition, he didn’t expect to find the one he was looking for in them. These lower-level entities had knowledge of their opposition, but they didn’t know how to manipulate their environment like he needed.
He was able to narrow his focus even further now as he found out that the higher levels, the 9 and 10’s were to angelic and actually repelled him. So he was looking for the entity in these 6 to 8 ranges, it was someone that had the knowledge but was not too angelic to utilize it like he needed …
To be continued … Haiku …
‘Right now, I can’t see much, it is like I am in a bank of fog limiting my perception. But I can still smell, it is foul, like rotten eggs and mildew, it’s tolerable.’ Bur Rag stood still, it was no good to move when you can’t see, so he waited until the condition changes. When it did, he started to see something, first it was like sparkles in the fog, then as the fog lifted you saw more and more. When it was gone Bur Rag could finally see, he was standing there with his head held high looking at the night stars in the sky above him. It was beautiful.
But he came back to the present, that started with a physical assessment …
‘I am bipedal here, but I don’t think that it’s right, it doesn’t feel right. I feel that I should be walking on all fours, I try but this form doesn’t like it so I crouch a lot.’
‘I have a rod with me, it looks like a stick to me with a heavy end that I hold up into the air. I suspect that it is some kind of short staff, but I could be wrong. When I crouch it is as tall as I am but when I stand it is no more than a long club to me. It is worn to my hand as if I have had it for some time now, it also feels comfortable in my hand, or I would discard it.’
‘I am wearing a cloth, it has no sleeves and only hangs down below my waist, it is frayed. The sleeveless holes and bottom edge of it are rough as if I have worn it for some time now. The fabric is course, woven from a heavy thread. It doesn’t keep me warm, but I am not cold, that’s odd. In fact, I do not feel anything, no hot or cold, just a binding to the world around me.’
‘My hands and feet, they are not right. I have four toes on each foot and three fingers on both hands with two of them being thumbs on the outside, I have claws on the ends of my fingers and toes, that’s not right but my hands, they fit the short staff well.’
‘My knees, they bend both ways, I am not too sure which way is the right way. When I crouch, I bend them in front of me, when I bend them the other way I feel a springiness in them, still it’s not right at all or what I think I remember of them.’
I’m kneeling now on top of a grassy hill, they look like wild oats and field grasses. There is a tree beside me, it has a girth to it and a course bark on the exterior. It is cracked and spread as if the act of growing it breaks and twists it, the tree is not very old, it is only ten times my height, but it has leaves that are heavy and easily plucked. The leaf, it has seven rounded points on it, I don’t recall it either. It crumbles and breaks easily, it falls to the ground, there is gravity here.’
‘A stary sky is above me, it looks so alien to me, so does this world. I don’t recollect any of these constellations, just where am I.’
‘I am pleased that they let me remember my name, it is Bur Rag, but who is this they? Damn, I wish I could remember.’
‘I am going to stay here, I want to observe any changes if they’re any here at all.’
I am breathing, that seems right. The air it has a major element in it, it is inert, a mixer element. There is another but only a quarter of what the major element is, it is Oxygen. I'm breathing the Oxygen out of the air. It is not all of it, there are contaminates, a minor percentage of it has dozens of chemicals in it, that must be why is smells so. The air, it’s moving slowly, it is a breeze. That means this world is moving maybe spinning.’
A noise was heard, it was a flapping noise, something is out here. Bur Rag followed it as it swooped down into the field grasses in front of him, it picked up something and the flapping noise returned. It stopped in the tree above him. He looked up, there was an entity up there now, it looked to be tearing apart something and eating bits of it. Then as it noticed him it made another noise, it sounded like, “Who.” Then it happened again, and the entity looked down at him.
He said, “I am Bur Rag, where am I?”
All he got was another, “Who.” And the entity continued with its meal.
He repeated, “I am Bur Rag, what are you?”
He got no response although it was not frightened of him as it finished its meal and flew off. In a few moments he no longer heard the flapping sound. Whatever it was it could fly.
He looked at his arms, they could not fly, they were not built right. His upper arms were a long solid form down to his elbow, but his lower arm split into two lengths and combined again at his wrist.
Since he was looking at his form he continued down to his legs. They were odd as the length of them from his hip to his knee was longer than his knee to his ankle, why was that? Also, he saw a spike coming out of his heal, it was another claw like the flying one had. He moved his foot and looked at the imprint left behind. There were the four claw marks forward and one behind, there was a single pad at the rear and two pads up front without interconnecting pads. One pad up front look to work with the three smaller toes. He lifted his foot and matched it up with the footprint. This definitely was not right. He flexed his foot and he could touch his toes to his heal, this meant that he could grab ahold of larger items with them, like the flying entity grabbing the limb above him, he could do that too.
Bur Rag raised his head again to look at the sky, it has changed, no it is moving. That means that this world it’s spinning on an axis. The stars that were to his left were now right above him. He tried to focus on a single star, the rotational point and he found it, that makes it either the north or south pole of this rotation. He put a hand down to the ground and felt for a magnetic connection. He rotated around a spot feeling the waves of energy, once, then twice and then a third time. He locked into it and then he looked up, it matched the star that wasn’t moving, it was aligned with the north magnetism that he was picking up on. That meant to his right was east and to his left was west, but how did he know about all of this? Why did they let me remember these things? ‘But magnetism, is that the reason for the gravity here?’
He waited as the stars rotated above his head, then he caught something else, a lightening of the eastern sky. There was a sun here and it was coming up for the day. It definitely proves that this world, it was spinning.
He focused on the brighter stars, there was one near the upcoming sun and two more behind him, they were possibly local planets in a solar system, it would make sense.
He waited as the light got brighter then it peeked over the horizon, it was a sun. Not a big one but sizeable enough to project heat, he could feel it although it didn’t make him hot. That could mean that it is too far away or very small in size, he thought the later.
The sun was up now, and it was showing a haze in the air, possibly moisture build up, a fog of moisture but it wasn’t feeling right. It had an odd coloration, moisture would be a white color, this was a bit on the orange side, that must be the contamination that he noticed earlier.
‘It looks thicker over there.’ There was more over the next hill, so he decided to check it out. He got up and started to run toward the next hilltop, he was fast as it only took a few hundred strides to get there.
He stopped and looked behind him, his stride marking was still there, they were three times his height, was that possible? It must be the legs, the longer upper portion of them would give him a longer stride. It might even help him with his jump. So, he looked up and kneeled down with his knees bent forward and jumped, he cleared twice his height and came back down to the ground. He thought about it and crouched again but this time with his legs bent backwards. He jumped again and this time he cleared four times his height. This meant that with his knees bent backwards he could jump higher, he would remember that.
But he was right the contamination was greater here as he could almost taste it. He looked around and there was something different below him. It was a solid path, there were all kinds of sizes of metal beasts rolling on wheels going in both directions on it. He focused on one of them and it was leaving a trail of pollutants behind it. The bigger ones left a bigger trail. Whatever they were, they were being nice to each other as they all passed each other on the same side of the trail leaving only a few hand distances between them, it stirred the air they were so close.
He wondered where so many of these metal beasts were going. He decided to follow them, he went to his right staying up high so he could watch them more.
The sun was higher in the sky now and he came upon some structures along the side of the path, some of these metal beasts turned off the path to visit them. It was then that he noticed them, there were other entities inside of the metal beasts. It was another bipedal entity, not like him but different.
They opened a door in the side of the metal beast and stood up. This one immediately grabbed a device in their hand, it was something a little bigger than their hand. Yes their hand, it had four fingers and a single thumb, and they worked the face of the device with their other hand. It seemed to distract them as this one entity ran their foot into a short step almost making the entity fall forward. ‘Probably shouldn’t be working this device while they walked.’ He watched as this entity went into the structure through another door.
He watched as others came up, some stopped at a free-standing roof and plugged in a device into the metal beasts. These ones did a similar thing to the one that went into the building, it was a similar device.
It was then that he noticed, the entities, they were different from each other. Some were tall and some were not as tall, all of them were shorter than he was when he stood up. But they were all clothed, some had close coverings that split to cover their legs and others had a loose covering that swung as they walked. All of them had different coverings on their upper bodies, that one has the same one that covers them up from top to their legs.
They had head coverings, most had strings of some sort extending out of their heads but there were some that had nothing. There were even some that only had them on the sides of their head and the top was void of them. There is one with a covering on their head, it may be to protect their void head.
The one that plugged in their beast was now done and pulled the plugged-in item out of their beast spilling some kind of liquid on the ground. They jumped back as to not allow it to touch them, it must be some kind of caustic liquid for them to do that. But the jumped into their metal beast and then it rolled back to the path and jumped back into the line up with the rest of them passing by.
The other that went inside came out of the structure, it still had the device in its hand and missed the step again, falling the distance to the ground below. ‘That one should not be looking at their device, that was twice that they missed the step.’ But they opened the door of their beast and went inside. He watched as the metal beast did the same as the other as it jumped back in line with the other beasts on the path.
It was possible that these entities were guiding these metal beasts on this path.
Bur Rag sat there and watched these entities, they were spinning a circle around in their beast like this is what guided them, most interesting. Then there was one entity that came out of the structure with a container in it hand while it worked its device with the other one, the step got them too as they fell and the container which held some kind of liquid fell and splashed all over the ground. Again, these handheld devices were the culprit again.
Throughout this whole time the metal beasts passed each other on this path as he watched, it was so odd. Then one of them did a bad thing as it didn’t get into the flow of the others correctly and two of the metal beasts collided with each other. The one going faster spun in circles and came to a rest in the grass beside the path. The other one stopped beside them. Both metal beasts were damaged.
Then the entity in the spinning beast got out and started yelling in some foreign language to the other, it had the tight legs coverings. The other one was inside their beast and opened a portal on the side of it to talk with the other. They were both yelling at each other when another one of these beasts stopped behind them, maybe there to calm the situation. It has flashing lights and was colored differently than the other. The one who spun was a white color, the other was a blue color but this new arrival with the flashing lights was black and white colored.
Another entity got out of the black and white beast, it had a small metal plate on their chest and as soon as the other two saw it, they calmed down. This metal plate must mean something to them.
Bur Rag watched as they sat there for a time with the metal plated entity until another metal beast showed up and pulled in from of the spun metal beast. It grabbed ahold of it and pulled it on its back and the entity in that beast used other items to tie it down.
The entity with the metal plate handed something to the entity in the second metal beast and they jumped back into the flow, this time making it successfully and it left the site of the incident. The other entity eventually hopped into the larger beast on the side opposing the other entity and they joined the flow. The last entity with the metal plate sat on the front of the flashing beast and looked to be moving a stick on another kind of device, not like the first one but something with thin sheets of connected materials on it. It sat there for a few more minutes oblivious to its surroundings and then closed his device and put in a pocket. Then it got into its metal beast and joined the flow, others slowed to let him in as this colored beast seem to indicate something to the other beasts or the ones spinning the circle inside of them.
Bur Rag sat there the whole day until the sun sank behind the hills behind him and something else caught his attention. All of the sudden the structure in front of him started glowing, something was lighting it up. It also happened to the metal beasts, they had white lights up front to see the one ahead of them and red lights on their rear, it must signify something.
But throughout this whole day these beasts kept passing each other, they were going somewhere. He looked to his left and there was nothing but the lines of red lights to be seen. But to his right there was an illumination in the distance, so he decided to check it out.
He got up and ran atop the ridge he was on until he could see what was causing the illumination, there was a grouping of structures there doing it. He stopped and crouched on the hilltop to observe.
There were structures here, hundreds of them. Some of the light, it was coming from them. There were other lights coming from the ends of tall sticks that were along the paths here. The path he followed in, it split up, some crossed over the first one high enough for all the metal beasts to go under. These split up paths split up more so there was one in between two of each line of structures lining both sides of it. Whatever beast is making these paths, it needed to come back as there were holes in this path that needed to be fixed.
The first line of structures, it bordered the grass land, he decided to go down and take a look at them a little closer. Up he popped and he trotted down closer to one. There was a wall separating the grass land and the structures land, this one had a tree on the far side of this wall. Bur Rag looked up, there was a limb above him that looked supportive, he bent his knees backwards and easily hopped up to land on it, his clawed feet wrapped around it and held on.
This tree was different, its skin was white, its leaves were larger and had five points that were jagged.
He crouched down on the limb and looked at the structure in front of him. There were openings all along the back side, they seem to be covered with some kind of transparent material, like the metal beast but these ones were flat with the face of the structure. It allowed him to see inside the structure. The first opening had some kind of overlapping structure covering it that would not allow him to see inside. But two more had some kind of cloth covering them, one was open, and he could see a small entity inside. It looked like a younger version of the entity in the metal beasts.
As if the small entity felt that it was being watched it turned to look out the opening, its face changed and looked like it was in shock. It screamed a very high pitch sound and ran away.
It was an odd item as Bur Rag felt the scream down to his bones, it kind of charged him with energy, he didn’t know how or why. But he dropped from the limb behind the wall and trudged on to another house further down. He stopped when he heard a commotion in the same yard behind him. There was a voice of several different entities including the higher pitched one, he couldn’t understand any of it. After a few moments the voices stopped, and he heard them go back inside the structure. The energy in him subsided but it left him with a feeling of sustenance like he just ate something, it felt good because he was hungry. He wanted more.
On the other side of this wall was another tree but it was different than all the others he had seen. This one had a fibrous bark that was colored red, the limbs instead of branching upwards bent downwards toward the ground. There were not leaves but it had a different stringy growth of a deep green. He jumped up to a limb on it, he grabbed ahold of it and crouched, the limb was sticky.
Below him was something different, it was a structure, but it was made of a thin cloth. There was a light inside of it that showed through, and it looked like there were two smaller entities inside of it. They were talking but once again he didn’t understand it, so he waited.
He watched as another object showed up in the night sky, it had a crescent shape, but you could see the outline of a spherical object. It was a moon, this world, it had a moon. He would have to see if it had more than one.
The moon was above him now and one of the small entities came out of the cloth structure and walked over to the fence and started to leak a liquid out of its body. It finished and then as if it felt it was being watched it looked upwards and saw Bur Rag looking down at it. Its eyes opened wide, and it ran for the fabric structure and dove in. There was a commotion in the fabric structure as the one woke the other. Then both heads popped out of the structure and looked upwards, there was a gasp and then a dual scream as both of them saw Bur Rag. He felt the energy again and it filled him up.
They both jumped out of the structure and ran to the solid structure and went inside. A little bit later another entity came out, it was rubbing it eyes and speaking words that were still not understood. The two smaller ones were peeking out from behind it and pointed up into the tree. The larger entity saw Bur Rag sitting there and it went quiet. It backed into the structure and a moment later it came out with a stick in its hand and a light stuck on its head. It pointed the stick into the air and an explosion happened.
To the right of Bur Rag a limb fell to the ground, broken by the noisy stick. Bur Rag saw that the entity was now pointing the noisy stick at him but before it exploded, he dropped to a lower limb as the one he was on exploded into bits. He said, “Watch it, you’re going to hurt something with that stick.” But that was not what the entity heard, it only heard screeches and clicks.
Bur Rag jumped down behind the wall and took off behind him to the hilltop again. But the entity was not satisfied as it was now looking over the wall with its light, but it didn’t see him. The light only extended a small portion up the hill, it was way too little to see him up on top. After a short time, the entity went back inside, it seemed to be satisfied of the outcome of the event.
Bur Rag was confused as to why the entity just did that, he wasn’t bothering anything but this entity, it was intent on hurting him, he didn’t like that. He decided that it was just a misunderstanding but to make sure he kept to his hilltop until morning came around.
The sun came up just as it did the day before and Bur Rag wanted to find this entity with the boom stick to talk with it as there must be some kind of confusion involved there.
He went around the structures and down to the path that crossed in front of the structures. He kneeled down to inspect the path further. He wiped his hand across the black surface of it and brought his hand up to smell it, it smelled of tar and oil. It was like they had glued pebbles together with the tarry substance to make this path and all the other ones too, how odd.
Bur Rag got up and walked down the center of the path and all of the sudden the metal beast to his left woke up all by itself. It surprised him but then others did the same including the one in front of the structure with the entity that had the boom stick. He walked up to it and put his hand down in the air it was breathing out its back end, it was nasty, definitely this was the contamination he was noticing in the air or at least it was part of it.
He stood there watching the beast and it seemed to calm down as it warmed up with heat coming from the front of it now. Then the entity with the boom stick came out, Bur Rag was sure that it was the same entity. It was carrying one of those devices in one hand and a container of liquid in the other, it drank from the container and opened the door of the beast. Bur Rag watched as it sat the container down and worked the device some more, then it touched a few things on the inside of the beast and grabbed ahold of the round object.
He watched as the entity looked right at him and he said, “Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?” But the entity did not respond, it was like it didn’t even see nor hear him, why was that. But it closed the door and the beast backed out of its spot and onto the black path and took off passing right by Bur Rag in the process.
‘I see others, they don’t see me, I wish they did as I barely recognize myself.’
He held his position there as others came out of their structures and hopped into their beast and rolled off onto the black path, some even had smaller entities with them, they sat in the rear of the beasts. But the odd thing was none of them saw him at all, it was like he was invisible to them. It didn’t make sense as the one entity did see and hear him the night before, but now with the sunup, they didn’t. This was all so confusing.
Then a long yellow metal beast turned onto the black path and stopped, several smaller entities boarded it and it took off only to stop further down the path to pick up other entities.
Bur Rag looked up at the sun, it was a yellow color and slightly blinding. He thought about it for a moment and figured out that it was somehow hiding him, making him more than invisible while it showed, he was a ghost, most intriguing.
While he stood there trying to figure this all out a door opened in a structure and a smaller four-legged entity came out, it was furry but only his foot in length. It stopped and started to lick itself, that was until it saw him. It stopped immediately and looked at him.
Bur Rag walked up to it, and it started to hiss at him. This entity, somehow it was seeing him so he said, “You see me, can you talk?” But all he got was hisses and growls and it ran away to a nearby tree and climbed up into it. Obviously, it couldn’t talk, but it did see him where the upright entities didn’t in the daylight. This was compounding the confusion.
He crouched down and sat there watching the entities and a short time later another beast showed up. It was four time the size of the other one but just as furry. It didn’t notice him and walked up to the green grass there and sniffed at it for a second then it squatted on the spot and leaked some liquid on it. As it finished up it saw Bur Rag and it stopped in its tracks and started growling at him, it saw him too just like the other furry one.
Bur Rag stood up and the entity backed up as if it wasn’t expecting this. It looked one way then the other and started whining now, then an instant later it ran away up to a structure and went in through a smaller swinging door in a bigger door.
This was all so bewildering to him but there was one thing that all of it had in common, every entity on seeing him generated a level of fear, and it was the fear energy that it was feeding upon.
‘What has someone done to me, they put me here on this world, I seem to generate fear to all of the entities on this world and I am feeding on the same to sustain me.’
He continued on down the path hoping that his confusion would fade if he could understand these entities more. He came upon one of the metal beasts and came in closer to take a look at it. It had four black flattened torus’ that it rolled on the black paths with, he touched one and it poked a hole in it and it started hissing, a stale and different nasty smell came out of it. It was pliable material and flexible as it lowered itself down to the path, there was some kind of air in it and without it, it went flat, he didn’t mean to do that.
He continued his inspection, this time a little more carefully. The openings were that clear material allowing him to see inside, then something caught his eye, there was a reflection of an object on the side of the beast. He looked at it and there was another entity in it, he moved, and it moved too. It didn’t take him long to understand that the other entity, it was a reflection of him. He took a moment to look at himself. His head was slightly triangular, but the odd item was his eyes, they were glowing red like they were burning with a fire. They obviously were the thing that was scaring the other entities, they scared him.
He pulled back as an entity came out of the structure and walked right past him and up to the beast. They looked down and stated something that was not understood as it saw the totally flattened torus on the beast. Out came one of those devices and it touched it several times then it put it to its head and talked some more. It was obviously distressed at the issue, but it turned around and went back into the structure again with the device to its head.
This was all so perplexing, none of it made any sense.
Bur Rag continued down the black path, he watched as may others came out of their structures and hopped into their beast and left the area. He watched as one of them left their door open to their structure, he took a chance and went inside.
He stopped just inside and looked around, there were all kinds of objects inside. It looked like the structures were cut up into several caves with doors on them but this first one was totally open. There were seats in there where these entities must sit upon and there were short, small tables with them. Mounted on a wall was some kind of opening, pictures were being shown on it, colors were vivid on it. He came closer, it was thin and there was nothing behind it but the wall, it made no sense how this was being done.
Then he noticed that there was another entity in the structure, it was kind of dressed like the others. It saw the door open and went over and closed it while hanging onto to a round object on it, most curious it was. It didn’t see him, so he stood there watching it. It grabbed a black stick and pointed it toward the pictures, and it changed to another picture, it was a window to other places.
So, while it was watching the pictures, Bur Rag decided to take a look around the structure. There was another room with more metal beasts in it, one felt cold, and another was warm as if it was just heated up. Off to the opening side of the structure there was another metal object, it had two squarish bowl shapes in it with rounded corners on all sides and bottom. There were holes in the center of the bottom that had some kind of fixture in it and several objects sitting it in. some were the shape of the container that he saw earlier, others were flat and round and made of some kind of clay. Mixed into these were metal objects, some with points and others with a sharp edge on them. There was some kind of liquid on and in the objects, he touched it and brought it up to his mouth, he recognized it, it was water.
Around the cave there were doors and walls all made of something that looked like the trees, one of the doors was open. Inside it was more of the clay and container objects, these ones were shaped possibly to hold liquid themselves. There was an attached cave there, it had more of the tree items, but these were free standing, it looked like seats and a larger raised flat structure of the same material.
Past it was a path that went deeper into the structure, it led to three other caves that had these flattened structures in them, each of a different size. Then he came to the last cave, it was not the same as the others. There was a seat and a built-in bowl made of clay, both were odd to say the least. Then there was a bigger bowl, large enough for one of these entities to lay in. It had a moving wall on it that you can almost see through.
Bur Rag had seen enough and returned to the way he came in, the entity was there still, he watched as it picked up the black box and changed the picture once again.
He had enough and went to the door, he remembered the entity and what it did earlier, it grabbed it by the round object, so he did the same and pulled, it didn’t open. Then he noticed that it turned in his hand, so he did, and the door opened. He passed through it and left it open like the previous entity.
He stepped out of the structure and turned around to look at it again. The entity inside must have seen the door open again and showed up in the opening. It peered out and looked one way then the other, not even seeing him standing there not two paces in front of it and it closed the door once again.
‘Why is it that they can’t see me? They must not know that there are these others like me that are here always walking around them in silence, seeing all that they are doing, good and bad? If I am one, then that would mean that there are others here in a similar state, I need to look for them.’
He had a thought now, a direction, a purpose to find others like him. It was better than walking around taking fear energy from the others here, although he still did this to feed himself.
He stepped out to the path and kept on walking, he found that he needed to be along the side of it as these entities in their metal beasts, they didn’t seem to care where they took them because there were many altercations that he saw daily. That long beast that carried the damaged beasts had many customers, and there were many of them too just for this need.
It was days later when he was in another low-lying group of structures. He was watching the entities from a grassy spot in front of a structure, it was more of the metal beasts going back and forth to these structures. But down the path came an animal, it was like some of the ones he had come across, but this one was as big as he was. It was a four-legged beast, long hair that was in total disarray and what looked like blue fire coming off its back and green glowing eyes.
Bur Rag was in his crouched state so he was not as visible as he would be standing up, but he was noticed by it. Around them the metal beasts were doing their normal routine and this beast, it slowly walked down the opposing side of the path and stopped across from him. They spend a moment looking at each other, sizing up the opposition as it was.
Bur Rag took the opportunity and spoke, he said, “I am Bur Rag, do you have a name?”
It replied, “Cu Sidhe, do you know where we are?”
Bur Rag, “No I don’t, it is an odd reality, I’ve been watching it for days now. How long have you been here?”
Cu Sidhe, “Unknown, forever, I hate this place.”
Bur Rag, “Will you come closer, we can talk.”
Cu Sidhe, “No, don’t trust. Badness in hidden.”
Bur Rag, “You’ve seen others, others like us?”
Cu Sidhe, “Many, most worse than me.”
Bur Rag, “That’s acceptable, it’s good to finally meet one here.”
Cu Sidhe, “I hunt bad dying souls, what do?”
Bur Rag, “I’m not too sure what I do but I seem to scare these entities and in turn I feed on their fear. Are you hunting now?”
Cu Sidhe, “No, I wait now. Bad soul inside. Soon.” As it turned to point its snout toward the house behind him.
Bur Rag, “A bad one, what did it do?”
Cu Sidhe, “Kill many, gas them far away, move here to hide, I found.”
Bur Rag, “You have a purpose, that’s good, I have yet to find mine. Have you seen any others like me? I am looking for them.”
Cu Sidhe, “No, beware of others.”
Bur Rag, “I’ll leave you to your waiting, if you see others like me, tell them I am looking for them.”
Bur Rag got up and walked away as Cu Sidhe laid down on the grass in front of the structure as he waited. It was good, he found another, not like him but others in this hidden world, that means that are more to find. He did take note of the worse statement from Cu Sidhe, that meant that any other might not be as nice as he was.
It was two days later when he came across another. He was in a tall structure area and there was a narrow path between two of them. There was a pile of refuse there and it stirred, a head popped out. It had a body covering that covered it completely from toe to hand, all that was seen was part of the face from the nose up. He approached it slowly remembering the words of Cu Sidhe.
He got about five paces away and crouched down to look at it, the eyes were dark rimmed, its hair was white and unkept, it was looking right at him. Bur Rag said, “I see you, you are not of this reality, what are you?”
It didn’t say anything, all it did was shriek a scream that would curdle your blood. Something happened, he short staff he still held in front of him caught the scream and vibrated from it. The top of it started to glow and the light seemed to cause the entity to fall back into the pile.
Bur Rag, “My name is Bur Rag, who are you?”
It didn’t say anything for a moment, the staff seemed to causing this so he lowered it. It finally said, “She … I am female … I am banshee.”
It was the first time that Bur Rag recognized this, he saw this in the other entities, they were different but he didn’t put it together, the entities here were both male and female. This banshee, she was female and she started to crawl toward him. he raised his staff and she backed up again, it was holding her back. He asked, “What do you do in this reality?”
The banshee said, “I kill weak ones, eat souls. Kill you, eat soul.”
Bur Rag, “Well I can’t have that, my staff seems to be holding you back so forget about that soul eating thing for right now. Where do you come from?”
She lifted part of the debris pile and showed a circling vortex, her one foot was inside of it, it must be holding her here. he said, “Is that were you come from?” She nodded slowly. “Is that were you take your victims?” She nodded again, it seemed she was of few words and he was getting nowhere with her. “Can you leave this place?”
She answered this time as she was nodding, “Hole moves, takes me to victims.” She pulled down her mask and showed her viscous teeth, “Need to eat, you look tasty.”
He staff pulsed and she pulled back into the pile and hid but he could still see her eyes in the pile, her gaze didn’t move from him at all. He wasn’t going to get anything out of her but death, it was all that she was about. But his staff, it was good that he kept it, it held her back, maybe it will do the same for others. He left the path and went back to the main path and left the tall structures. It was good, this place was her feeding grounds.
A day later and he was following another path that was crossing a forest of tall trees, he was looking for more of the hidden beasts but he was not finding them, but his staff was as it started glowing. He stopped to look around, then he saw it way up in one of the trees. This one looked viscous, it had a skull of a deer with squiggly horns as long as his arms were. It had arms that were longer than his with claws on hands with five fingers, it had a course outline in the mist.
The staff was vibrating when it slid down the tree trunk to land on the ground ten paces away from him. It shielded its eyes or lack of eyes in its skull with its arm and Bur Rag lowered his staff. He got a better look at the beast, it had rib bones showing, inside there was a darkness hiding what was left with him. But its skin was not right, it looked like the trunks of trees that it surrounded itself with, made good camouflage.
Bur Rag spoke, “I am Bur Rag, do you have a name?”
It looked back at him and noises came to its mouth, it was rough as it tried to form words. It was pretty obvious that it hadn’t spoke for some time now but then words came through. It said, “I am Wendigo.” And stood upright to him.
Bur Rag said, “Do you have a purpose?”
Wendigo replied, “I eat flesh of those that get lost, are you lost?”
Bur Rag, “No, I am looking for others like me, you speak well tell me of yourself.”
Wendigo, “I was a man at one time but that was a long time ago, it is why I can speak now. I was the shaman of a local tribe but I was killed by another man that had a stick that went boom, he was not like me, he was white skinned.”
Bur Rag, “You’ve been here the whole time then, in this forest?”
Wendigo, “Yes, your new here aren’t you. I never see your type before.” He stepped forward and the staff pulsed, it stopped him. “You carry a power, it bothers me, get rid of it.”
Bur Rag, “Not going to happen, it keeps the bad ones back here and there seems to be a lot of them, you being one of them. Can you tell me where I am?”
Wendigo, “Yes, you’re on a land called the United States, a state called Virginia. You are fifty miles from the ocean over there to the east, there is a lot of meat there. If you are going that way, try to send some of them my way, I am hungry.”
It was another meat eater, so far I have ran into two meat eaters and one soul eater, this is becoming a pattern. Maybe it is just this area he will have to see. Bur Rag bowed to him and said, “I leave you, eat well, just not me. If I see one I will send it to you.”
It was getting dark, the sun was about to drop behind the horizon just as Bur Rag passed one of the local entities, it was walking the opposite way and walked right past him. Then the sun dropped behind the hill which meant that he could be seen now. The entity looked behind itself and saw him and his burning eyes, he was scared and ran in fear, he was heading right for Wendigo, that was bad news for him. But it fed him with the fear, that was all that he needed.
His next encounter was with a bipedal beast that had a bald head with a beak that was half as long as it arm, the beak was dripping in blood. It called itself Coracos, the crow demon and the raven devil. It ate small young entities that it stole from the structures of the other entities here. The interesting part is that his staff was quiet during his meeting, he was not a problem like the others were. But he knew little of where he was, he was just another beast that was confused like him.
The next one was in a lake, it poked its head above the water to look at him but it didn’t talk. It had a lizard head and bipedal body, its hands and feet were webbed so it could swim easily, he was in little danger from him as he swam away. It probably needed for someone to be in the water for him to be a problem.
The next one was not so as his staff pulsed with energy, this was a really bad one. He came across a huge structure with multiple floors, each floor was completely void of walls so it was wide open and it looked like no living entity was residing there. Bur Rag searched floor by floor until he came to the top floor, it was where he found the entity. It looked like a man, a ghostly man with glowing eyes, it may have been one at one time. It didn’t stand but crawled on his hands and knees and he groaned and moaned between screams. It was enough to make Bur Rag leave the premises, his staff agreed with him.
Bur Rag had some primary questions that he needed answered, he was bound to find someone that could answer them. He wanted to know how he got here and who was responsible for it. And he wanted to know why he can’t remember anything before this place. On top of all that he wanted to know how to get out of this crazy place and return to his origin home and if it is even possible. The answers were out there and if he spent enough time here he would find the answers he was looking for.
Until then he continued his wandering, finding those that can’t be seen just about everywhere, if these entities only knew what he has seen, they would be running from the chaos in droves.
There were odd entities that he found along the way, they were the quiet ones. They walked the paths, the forests, the mountains and swam the lakes. They enters their structures and hovered around the living who didn’t see them. Above all they couldn’t be stopped as they could go anywhere, even through walls.
In one mountain community he found dozens of them, crab-like, walking heads, there was even one that used its tongue as its method for movement. This one was mostly tentacles, the next one was all mouth, one eye and legs to haul it around. There were ones that walked on two legs, others that walked on four and several that walked on thousands of them. Bur Rag felt energy, it must be the mountain that is producing it and that is what is calling them here. In the process, he discovered that it was an old volcano that was snow capped for most of the year. The commonality here was that all of them could not talk, most didn’t even notice him, they were lower lifeforms.
But this was not the only place he found them, they were in their cities, in jails, at places that sold food stuffs, warehouses and parks. They hung out under bridges, in candy stores or just sitting on your doorsteps, if they only knew this. This one group was at a factory, getting in machines and affecting conveyors, damaging their metal beasts and tearing down signs. They were in alleys, doorways, windows, parking lots and there was one in a wood pile sucking on wood chunks making them unusable in the end. They were all unseen and mute, those that saw him were uncommunicative.
It was not until years later he found some answers, it came from a creature hanging out on a limb of a tree in a park setting. It had the body of a harry monkey with the head of a rabbit. It stood as tall as he was and crouched in a similar fashion.
He saw it in the tree above him, it didn’t make a noise, he figured that it was just another quiet one, so he stopped to look around the area.
Then it spoke in an Irish accent and said, “You look lost, it that or you are looking for something that your not finding, which is it?”
Bur Rag looked up, it was on a limb that was above his head height and he answered, “Yes, I am looking for answers that is all. My name is Bur Rag, what can I call you?”
It replied, “I am Phooka and I may have the answers you are looking for. What shall I be tellin you about?”
Bur Rag, “Hopefully you can answer this, What are we?”
Phooka, “That’s easy, we are all window fallers. We came from unknown worlds and dropped into this one mostly to cause fear in the souls here.”
Bur Rag, “That is what I do, every one of them that sees me creates a level of fear which I feed upon. I don’t mean to do it, but it just happens like a reflex. How do you know this?”
Phooka curled his tail around the limb so he could better look down to see Bur Rag and said, “I am smart like you and I have been here long enough to have figured out all the answers. Next you probably want to know how you got here.”
Bur Rag, “Yes, how did you know.”
Phooka, “Elemental for those that can think. You were dropped here, pulled from some other world by some nefarious self-serving entity, they are in charge here right now. And if you are wanting to know how to get back there, I’ve been looking for that answer for a long time now.”
Bur Rag, “I was looking for a way home, wherever that is. Why is it that I don’t remember anything before this place?”
Phooka, “That’s the riddle of this life. If you knew this, you might be findin your way … home as you call it. The entity that brought you here, they gave you a vail to hide those memories from you, I’ve been working to break mine to this day. Do you have any other questions?”
Bur Rag, “Sure, how do I find this entity that brought me here?”
Phooka, “That’s another riddle as it was most likely you, a you that is at a higher level of understanding than you. You are right now on a rung of a ladder in between where these entities are and the next rung above them. It allows you to see them but it also hides us from them because they can’t focus on us.”
Bur Rag, “They see me but only at night, I the daytime I am invisible to them. But their animals see me at all times, why is that.”
Phooka, “They see you, most interesting. The animals are below the walking entities, a lower rung on the ladder, they see more of the world around them for that reason. But that doesn’t answer you other question. I suspect that the yellow sun here scatters your form allowing you to vanish in its light. That is special as I have never seen one that did this. It must be the type of entity that you are, do you know?”
Bur Rag, “No, when I showed up here all I remembered was my name. Is that because of this veil?”
Phooka, “It must be.”
Bur Rag, “How about this one, you haven’t see others like me, my entity type before?”
Phooka, “No, you are the first, most interesting are you.”
Bur Rag, “Understatement of the year. So you got any idea how I find this entity that brought me here?”
Phooka, “Well to my understanding, they are watching you right now, watching everything you do. You need only to ask them a question, but they may still not answer it. It is all part of life’s lessons, your doing you part of it right now in questioning it. You see, this world is where you do life’s lessons to teach your higher self that brought you here. It is done this way because they can’t do these lessons where they are, it has to be done here. Is there anything else?”
Bur Rag, “No, not that I can come up with right now.”
Phooka, “Then let me ask you one question, Where did you find that stick you carry, it holds much energy?”
Bur Rag, “I’ve had it when I woke up here, it protects me from the bad entities, makes them back away from it, it seems to be as alive as I am.”
Phooka, “May I hold it?”
Bur Rag, “Certainly.” And he handed it to him.
Phooka inspected it and said, “I see nothing in it, it does nothing for me, it must be tied to you and only you.” And he handed it back to Bur Rag. “It is special, keep it safe. You still have lessons to do.” He started to fade.
Bur Rag, “Wait, Just who are you?” With that, Phooka smiled and faded away to nothingness. He stood there looking at the empty branch and it came to him, that was not the one called Phooka, it was the one, the higher entity, the one that brought him here. “Damn! How do I get out of here!” He yelled out.
He contemplated it all, he must be right, he still had lessons to do before he could go, even from where he was. But why didn’t he see it earlier, the only one that could answer these questions that he had could only be the one who brought him there. “Damn!” He said it again.
Bur Rag continued his travels, he ran into all kinds of characters and creatures. Flame was a big one as he found many creatures that used fire, like the burning snakes, birds, lizards and even some humanoids. Then there were the water beasts, mermaids, dragons and even a few sharks that were made totally of water. There were lots of teeth and fangs, even some with boney mouths. But they all had one thing in common, they were beasts, bad entities, evil spirits and dangerous monsters.
Just where were the good beings, they had to be here too, why was he not able to see them?
He started with the inverse of that, why was he able to see all these other beasts? What was allowing him this ability?
The only thing he had was his tunic and this damn stick. Wait, the short staff, what was it doing? It had power, enough power to push the bad monsters away from him. It was an alarm too as it notified him of other sneaky bad individuals when they were near, and he didn’t see them right away.
He looked at it in his hand, he rubbed the staff between his thumbs in the recesses worn down for them. There was something about this stick that he needed to find out about. Was it what was allowing him to see these other beasts? He needed to test this.
He passed a field and saw three of these walkers, he seen them before. They looked like a pair of legs of one of the living entities but that was all, they had no body attached just legs. These ones were taller than him and had a deep glow to them making them very visible in the open field. But he also knew that they were not dangerous, the floating brains that followed them were, but he didn’t see any of them.
He stood up and dropped the staff to the ground, it chimed as it hit the ground, the noise did something as now the walkers, they were barely seen, their glow was softly showing them now, but he could still see them. He picked up the staff and they didn’t change back to their original brightness. He rubbed his thumbs against the stick and a spark happened between his thumbs and the stick. As he looked up the walkers started glowing again. That means that the staff was helping him to see these beasts better than without it. It must have been helping him see the others all along but only in a protective sense, it must be a rudimentary function like the alarm and repel functions that it did.
‘Lessons’, that is what the being said I needed to be doing. I need to learn how to control this staff, enable other modes that it can do, but how. It had to be connected to him and something that he could do right now. All he could think of was that he could speak and speak well from what he has seen of other beasts. Could it be voice activated?
The staff, it had secrets, but it didn’t have a name. If he was going to talk with it, he needed to call to it by its name. This staff, it had secrets, knowledge maybe even wisdom, but it was aware, self-aware and could make judgements on its own. He spoke aloud and said, “Staff, I name you ‘Sapience, the Cane of Secrets’.” It vibrated in his hands, he hoped that it meant that it liked its new name.
Still looking at it he said, “Sapience, show me the other unseen entities of this world.” Nothing happened, he was not doing something right.
He was contemplating it and he rubbed his thumbs on it again, the electric shock happened again. That was it, he needed to be rubbing it like a djinni in a bottle while he spoke to it.
He started rubbing it and said, “Sapience, show me the other unseen entities of this world.”
All of the sudden the heavy growth end started moving and wiggling and a yellow crystal poked through and showed itself inside the growth, it started to glow, and the wiggling stopped. Bur Rag looked closely at the crystal and with his other hand he touched it, it shocked him, and he pulled his hand back.
He looked up, he was shocked to see what he was seeing now. The field, it didn’t just have the walkers in it, there were a hundred other entities there, ghostly figures of the living entities. Where the walkers were all going in the same direction these new entities were going in all directions as if they didn’t know which way to go. Then one by one they stopped moving and looked his way, they seemed to be noticing him now. As he watched the started walking over to him until the crowd stopped a few paces aways from him, they seem to be mesmerized by his staff.
Bur Rag moved the staff to the right and then to the left, the ghosts followed it as if it held an answer for their situation. He was thinking that they were following the walkers as they were as close to an answer for them as they could get. Now this staff was their focus.
So, you have to ask, what would a ghost entity want in a world like this, was it any different than what he wanted, that was to get out. That was it, the staff, it knew the way out for them, it might even have a method for him to get out.
Bur Rag said, “Sapience, show me the exit that these entities are wanting.”
The staff shook almost out of his hand, but it turned upwards, and a beam of light came out of the larger end and struck the sky above them. Bur Rag looked up and an illuminated spiraling vortex was seen now by him. But the ghosts were not looking, their gaze was still fixed on the staff itself.
Bur Rag, he needed them to look upwards, so he raised the staff over his head and walked through the crowd forcing them to see the vortex above them. As he passed by them, they turned to look upwards, and they caught sight of the vortex, and they followed the staff no more. Then one of them got an idea and jumped up and left the ground as it floated higher. Others saw this and followed as all of them did the jump and floated upwards toward the vortex. Then one by one they disappeared into the vortex until there were no ghosts seen any more. Then a short time later, as they had left, the vortex shrunk away to nothingness.
He brought the staff down and thought about it, then he said, “Sapience, show me my exit from this world.”
He didn’t get a light like he just saw but he got a vision. It showed a living entity without a face and himself together, the entity grabbed the staff and stretched it out longer. It poked the end of the staff into the ground beside a wall. Then using the end as a pivot point, it swept the fat end of the staff from the ground up and over until it reached the ground again. In the swept area the wall changed to a blackness that you couldn’t see through. The faceless entity handed the staff back to me and bowed, it motioned to me then to pass through the hole, and I did and I was gone. The vision faded away …
He needed to find this entity for he knew more than he did, a lot more, but just who were they and where would he find them? This was a moot point until he found this entity, he would continue his current path for now.
He changed his tactics now that he could see others so he entered a tower of caves to see what he could find in them. The first one was enlightening. The living entities should know this, they are surrounded by those that either want to hurt them or save them. No one is immune from this tactic, pick anyone and there were others around them and typically not a single entity, it was more like ten of them. They watched everything they did, and I do mean everything. If you thought you were safe or immune, you were wrong.
This one person here, they are a self-serving soul. They have several negative connections like conduits of energy pouring into them from these external sources. Some like this one had others in so close contact that they didn’t even need a conduit, they just spoke directly to the entity forcing them to do unspeakable tasks. This person had a political connection, an influencer to a high government individual, they paid them off from funds derived from sources from the opposing side of their lives. The problem is that the one here didn’t even care where the funds came from or how it was changing the world around him to lesser than it should be as long as it didn’t directly affect him. It did and they didn’t even care or want to notice the effects. They were killing themselves just to purport these events, it was karma, like cutting off your foot to save yourself and then finding out that you still need it. Opps!
This is what he found in most of the cave towers, they just didn’t care about how they were affecting the rest. There was good here too, but it was being crowded out by these hidden individuals. They were fighting it, but it was really overwhelming them driving them to be opposing their true direction.
Bur Rag, he noticed that those with the larger caves were different from those in smaller caves, this goes for the towers and all the lower single level caves. He was in this tower with large caves and one in specific, it was large with many caves in it. There were three entities living here but they had room for ten, most of their cave sat empty of living entities but they typically had more of these hidden entities around them. These three had almost fifty of those that were hidden, it was like they were drawn to these self-serving entities.
This other tower on the outskirts was different, the caves in it were smaller with more living entities in them. There seem to be less of these hidden entities in them, maybe it was because of the available space here. Too many and they literally bumped into each other as they worked their entity. It was like these living entities has less power to control their environment and these hidden entities cared less to interfere with them. They were more in a containment process to keep them in this state rather than affecting others in ways that they larger cave folk did.
Then he came across the ultimate cave, it was huge and only four entities lived there. It had twenty others that they pushed around constantly as they did all the work in the place, which including protecting them from the lower souls that disliked them. But these four they had thousands of these other hidden entities as one of them was a high official in their government, these hidden entities seem to love these types. The head one in this cave had so many conduits connected to him that you could barely see the living one. These hidden entities had to fight to get close to him and maintain it for any time. And when he got together with his colleagues these hidden entities were like a hill in the area, it had to be putting severe pressure on them.
Bur Rag followed him for a time just to see how bad they really had it. The living entity went to a new area with many large caves in it, Bur Rag had to hold back as it was so full of these hidden entities that there was no room for him, there was barely enough room for the living ones there. He broke off when he saw this.
This was good as now Bur Rag knew that these self-serving entities would not be the one that he was looking for, the one that could send him home would not be one of these. They would be opposing them, an other-serving entity was what he was looking for. This would narrow down his search as it was easy to find these self-serving ones because of the crowd around them, these other serving had less, much less following them. Yes, there were some that had a conduit or two but nothing like what these self-serving entities had. Some were even working to rid themselves of these conduits, that was good in itself.
In contemplation he figured that the one he was looking for possibly had no conduits and limited hidden entities following him, he would focus his energy with these souls.
Focusing on it like this gave him a different view of what was here on this world, in this reality. If there was a self-serving entity that was doing bad, there was also an other-serving entity opposing them. This worked for the lesser and the greater in these categories, there was always opposition. So, the target group that he was looking for was these better souls, ones that have actually see what he was seeing in this reality, the ones that were wanting to change this reality to the better rather than the destruction of it.
In all of these groups he found variation in them, and he found that here also. He rated the good factor in a scale of 1 to 10. Anything 5 or less were in some level of transition, he didn’t expect to find the one he was looking for in them. These lower-level entities had knowledge of their opposition, but they didn’t know how to manipulate their environment like he needed.
He was able to narrow his focus even further now as he found out that the higher levels, the 9 and 10’s were to angelic and actually repelled him. So he was looking for the entity in these 6 to 8 ranges, it was someone that had the knowledge but was not too angelic to utilize it like he needed …
To be continued … Haiku …