Desparia

“Open your eyes!” My brain screams at me through the darkness behind my closed eyes. “Wake up!”

I don’t want to open them; they are heavy, and my eyes burn from the feeling of light hitting them. I slowly raised my head from the make-shift pillow made from my jacket. I lifted away from the mat achy from sleeping on such a hard surface. I looked down at my watch “9:38am, fuck”. I need caffeine, a shower, but mostly I need to hunt for breakfast.

“Charlie, come on”. Charlie has been my only loyal companion since before I even ended up in this shit hole. He is a German Shepard that I raised from my own world. However, we came to be here, he traveled with me. He’s not the bravest dog or even the smartest, but he is loyal. If that is all I can ask of him, I’ll take it.

My back aches as I get dressed. I pulled on my boots, strapped my Ka-bar to my boot, grabbed my nearly empty backpack, my pull-arm and I’m out the door.

Desparia, I’ve been stuck in this shit hole for years now. I can’t even remember how I got here. My mind has never been able to find logic in the existence of this place. If you’d asked me about alternate realms or realities before all this, I would have ignored the laughable idea. The sky is an orange tinge almost smokey look, any plants or foliage that grow here radiate anything but beauty, and the air is cold and stale. There are many different creatures that reside here, most of the ones I’ve encountered are vile and distorted. I keep a journal with me, logging the ones I’ve learned about so far. I’ve named them based on their character and categorized them the best I can.

The strangest thing about this place is it looks as if it used to be lively and pleasant even. There are buildings that look man-made and buildings that look more creature-made, something of a fantasy world. Where different species may have lived in harmony, but now it’s broken. Any architecture left is rundown, ransacked, and barely standing.

I headed towards the stream I passed yesterday. There might be something to eat there. I usually pick off any small vermin I can find for food, so hopefully I can have some breakfast this morning.

“Gotcha!” As I stuck a small rat-like creature with my pull-arm. I call them Creepers. They look like overgrown rats but have too many eyes, black greasy fur, and their tails have barbs along them that secrete an oil that causes you heart palpitations if it gets to your blood stream. However, they are edible, I reluctantly learned years ago.

There is one type of resident in this world that is not like the other creatures. They are almost human-like, but much smaller in stature, large round eyes, and have gray-blue markings on their skin. They are probably the only survivors of whatever old world this was before and look as if this world changed what they were before. They call themselves “Nada”. The Nada are not easy to communicate with, but they are trusting. I’m on my way back to one of their villages currently with some goods to trade. Grad is about a day away, and my konj, the closest thing this world has to a horse or mule, must have went roaming off in the night. Fucking great.

“Eat up, Charlie, we gotta find Loki” I named him that because the asshole tends to do what he wants, but I’m fond of him.

As I say that, I hear him clicking not far from me. These creatures click their mouths in a way that is very distinctive and usually means contentment, but in distress they scream so loud and high pitched it’s almost unbearable. They have dry leathery skin, with no fur and four large holes on either side of their necks that function like nostrils. This allows them a strong sense of smell which helps with their incredible navigational skills.

“Loki, come on! I’m not playing with you”. I can hear him through the twisted trees, snorting his large nostrils on the sides of his neck. “Loki!” He appears in front of me still snorting. My bags are falling down the side of him and its obvious it’s bothering him. “You’ve been up for a while, what did you get into?“. As he turns his body toward me, I see it. The black slimy blood of a Depresija. This disturbed creature is awful to run into, when they are near, they radiate an aura that is crushing to the soul. They stand 15 feet tall and bleed constantly. They have long gangly arms and 10-inch claws at the ends of their fingers. They are not impossible to kill, but it’s a hard enough task that I don’t want to deal with it now. “Where in the world have you been? Charlie, we gotta go!". I hop up on Loki, and we head west through the trees toward Grad.

We rode for a few miles and suddenly I felt it, the despair. The darkness that floods your mind is so heavy it becomes physically painful. It’s the depresija that Loki must have encountered earlier. I could tell by the intensity that it was fairly close, but the deafness hadn’t set in, so in theory we were far enough away from it. The problem is the feeling won't give any hints as to what direction the creature is in. I guided Loki north-east, pushed through as best I could, still in the direction of Grad. From this distance, we should’ve still heard the creature if it made any noise to tell me what direction to avoid.

“Charlie stay close” I whispered to him. We kept going until, “shit!" I couldn’t hear. Loki started getting restless. Now there was no way to know where it was. I kept Loki at a slow pace and pushed forward. The twisted trees around us kept us from going in a straight line. But eventually there was a small clearing and in it a dead depresija. Fresh enough to still have an effect on me, but dead for sure. I dismounted Loki and approached the creature. It’s eyes were pure white, as well as its skin. It’s black tare-like blood oozed out of orifices all over its body. It had eight long bony fingers and long claws on the end of each one. It’s mouth was black and bottomless.

Fresh depresija blood is useful, so I took out a vile from my bag and extracted some from one of its many orifices. “At least it’s dead, but who killed it?” It puzzled my mind. These creatures don’t seem to age out and die, not that I’ve ever seen. I’ve only ever known that you can kill them. So someone did this. Not a Nada, they are too gentle and docile. I noticed a piece of red fabric in its claws, I picked it up and put it in one of my bags on Loki’s back.

Charlie was shaking, he’d be whimpering if I could hear him. Time to go. But as we turned to leave, I saw footprints in the mud. Human? Too big to be Nada but definitely human-shaped. What the hell? I’ve never encountered another person here. I would never have thought there was. This was big, but I was running out of supplies and needed to get to Grad. So I pulled Loki through the trees.

Soon enough, we were through it, and the sense of hearing slowly came back into my ears. The crackling of my ear drums was a pleasant thing as we pushed through the end of that awful heaviness. I could hear Charlie panting, still stressed out over the ordeal.

“Charlie, you’re a good boy”. He heard and wagged his tail. Thankfully, the effects are temporary, but I can’t stress enough how bad they really are. We still had a long way to go, so I stayed off Loki and walked him by his lead.

Hours had passed, I gave Charlie and Loki a drink and put the rest away for later. It never gets sunny enough to warm your bones here. The air was thick, though, and water was precious.

As night fall came, I could see lights from the town. Grad was just ahead. The Nada were still very active and welcomed me as I came into the town. They knew me well enough to know I was a friend. It was a good feeling to be among them, they gave a sense of hope to a weary soul. I loved these people dearly and was very happy every chance I had to see them. They guided my konj to water and me and Charlie to the community fire. They gave us stew, fresh bread, and water. After many thanks, they took me to a hut to sleep. I layed in a small straw bed covered in hide and drifted off.