God Hounds

Chapter 1: The Boy

The bright and beaming white ball was firm above the sky as it stared down at him. It was a full moon. His breaths whirled rapidly. Gusts of air looped in and out of his lungs in an unstable, and unending, cycle. His head throbbed violently, like something inside was drilling his brain and he couldn’t reach for it. It felt like he had slept for a millennium, and his brain had already been shattered to pieces while he was asleep. He just woke up, after all. It felt as if he had just come back to life, after being left for dead—deep in a forest with no life in it.

It was just… dark, woodland hell all around him. He was lying down in a small patch of seemingly dead grass. It looked as if the tiny pasture spot was purposely prepared for him—to die in an open, meadow-carpeted coffin. But, around him, it was all just trees. They stretched on; almost for forever. And without the sun, they were just color black. He couldn’t decide if the trees were also just victims of the darkness around him, or they were the ones causing it. They were gloomy, wooden needles that stood quietly around him. He could feel them taunting. He could feel them watching. Or did he feel them mourning? For him? He was in his own funeral, apparently paralyzed on his coffin grass. And maybe, the trees just wanted him to stay dead. Beyond those trees, however, it was just pitch black.

He searched for sounds, as if his ears crawled around the ground to find anything. But there was nothing. Just the white noise of the wind brushing against him. He hoped for wolves, or stray dogs, to howl and bark against the moon-gleamed sky. But again… it was just the wind. He waited; for the song of a bird in the night, or the simple hoot of an owl. He learned slowly, that he had to be okay with just the wind. His eyes focused on the moon. When he was done looking and had realized that the moon wasn’t actually moving and he was just dizzy, he looked to his sides. Turning his head—even in the slightest way—was already a chore. It was like his brain had just rolled over.

His eyes darted deep into it. Into the woods. Was something calling him? Or keeping him away? He thought to himself. The woods gave his hollow mind something to think about, at least. It was cold, but he was sweating. His lips shivered, and if he could see his breath, he’d be in a fog by now.

He began to feel the dried-up leaves in his hands, as his fingers came back to life—or at least, to his senses. He realized he was still lying down, his eyes back up again at the unreachable bright moon directly above him. Why was he lying down? He asked himself. He checked if he could still remember how to use his hands and his feet. The leaves rustled as he took footing and raised himself up to sit. It was the only sound in the forest. He got to a sitting position and checked around him again. His mind grew tired of thinking about the black trees that danced provokingly around him. Questions came. He wondered why his first thoughts were if the trees were alive and waiting to eat him, or why he woke up in the deep forest, when… in the first place, he didn’t even remember who he was.

He tried thinking. Harder. Maybe closing his eyes would unlock something within his memories. It didn’t work. His head just pulsated even harder. Still, his earliest memory was when he just woke up minutes ago. He hoped it would just naturally come back to him. Sooner. Later. When he’s done everything else.

He wished for other people. Rescuers, hopefully. Maybe someone could hear him. “Hel—” he tried to scream for help. But his throat just fought back. It felt like he just opened a wound inside his throat. His lips were dry and cracking; and his voice was just damaged and pathetic air. The pain just to make a sound wasn’t worth it, he found out. Screaming was useless. Speaking was useless. Help from others wouldn’t come. He didn’t even hear himself scream.

The emotions were there, at least. Tears coasted down his cheeks. He was hungry. Or thirsty. He didn’t know. He got up. With whatever strength he had left, he got up. The world spun around him. He dropped down to his knees again. A burst in his stomach suddenly pushed up, and he vomited. But it was only saliva. Thick saliva, coming out of him. His eyes began to tear up again from the vomit. He spat on the freezing flora ground, and wiped his mouth. He crawled—no, he dragged himself—towards a large stone that could let him see the angles better and protect his back. Why would he want to protect his back? Why would he want to see the angles better? He questioned in his mind. Maybe it was the cold. Yes, it could be the cold, he thought to himself. He looked around. Maybe there were sticks he could use, or stones, he thought. To make a fire. To keep him warm. To make a signal, so maybe other people can see. He stopped thinking. How could he remember this? He asked himself, again. The questions. In a way, they made him a little calmer. A little more focused. He heaved, deeply; then breathed out. He wiped the tears off of his face. The sticks, he repeated in his mind. The sticks and the stones.

All he could do was crawl. He hauled himself, painstakingly, through the dead pasture and into the abnormal forest. He watched as the moonlight came down on that timberland, but it couldn’t get in. The forest wasn’t affected. The moon’s radiance, no matter how bright, couldn’t even get a single ray of light through the woods. He couldn’t understand. There were openings. But no light dared to enter. It was like there was a barrier that separated the woods from the shining sky. No matter how striking the moonlight was, the forest was still almost pitch black. Just as he thought: hell… or a funeral. He got distracted. The sticks, and the stones, he went again inside his head.

The wind eventually dropped dead, or maybe it just stopped entering too. Only the rustling of the leaves as he crawled made a noise in the empty darkness. No crickets, even. There was an old saying that if there were no crickets in a forest, an aswang was nearby. Or was it a witch? A demon? How did he know this? He thought again. And again, he was distracted. The sticks and the stones, for the fire. And the leaves as well, he repeated in his head.

He reached the tugging bundle of bushes. Their branches and leaves seemed to pat him on the head, like a dog, as if congratulating him for crawling that far to pick a stick. A short twig rested underneath the crackle of flora. He picked it up, along with a stone that he had found, then crawled back to the large rock that protected him a little bit from the cold.

He placed the stick on top of the stone. He figured if he spun it fast enough, the fire would come out. Was that right? He questioned himself. He started to spin it, anyway. His palms firmly pressed the stick on both sides, and he spun it back and forth. But his arms tickled, awfully. Both his arms dropped like jelly, and the stick toppled over. He leaned on the stone wall, both his arms strengthless and free from energy by just spinning a wooden stick. The stick and the stone wasn’t going to work anyway, he thought to himself. There was never really going to be a fire.

Was he really there to die? The thought raised in his head. Then why wasn’t he dead? Maybe he attempted to commit suicide but failed, he guessed. Maybe he did succeed, and this was hell. He chuckled voicelessly, just a puff of hopeless wind disappearing into the woods; and hoped that humoring his circumstance would make things better. It really didn’t. His lips cracked open, and he tasted the blood that rushed out of it. Every minute he spent in the forest took a small percent of his life, it seemed. He could still taste, at least.

Now all he could do was think. So, he thought of how he knew the concept of hell without even knowing about his own name. IDs—that was right—it could help him remember. He reached for his pockets. He hoped for a wallet. Nothing. Nothing was on him. It got more hopeless. Did someone try to kill him? And now he somehow managed to survive? He checked his body. Maybe there were wounds, signs of a past he now can’t reach. But there were only scratches and tiny itches caused by his own movements earlier.

A sound. A rustle. But it didn’t come from his side. It came from the forest. Something fell. He knew he couldn’t feel his arms anymore, but he was already on his feet anyway. The darkness was still there, but it became less taunting. The trees now felt like they were cheering him on. For something. The rustle, the place the sound was coming from, was a little farther than he expected. But it didn’t matter anymore. His legs were wiggling but he could manage. The bushes, as well, were violently reacting to him going deeper. He felt like the twigs and the branches were holding on to his feet, telling him to stop. The rustles, as he walked past the bushes, grew more to be like whispers. He continued deeper. It wasn’t just about the sound he heard anymore. He knew he could walk now, after all. The branches from the small trees scratched his arms furiously. He felt a little more relieved, now. He could feel his arms again. Eventually, he was using his hands to block and shove the plants that stopped him from going further. But he arrived. And the forest stopped bothering him.

It was a mango. Green and unripe. He couldn’t help but smile. He grabbed the fruit and didn’t think twice. His teeth bit down into the food, and he found himself remembering what it was like to have something in the stomach again. The fruit would taste better with salt, he thought. His lips were still bleeding, and it hurt every time the mango’s fluid brushed against it. But this was food. He wondered when the last time he ate was. He chuckled emptily, again. He could remember that mangoes tasted better with salt, but couldn’t remember his own name.

He continued to think about the small and simple things. Maybe salt could bring back his memory, he believed. He’d try to think of anything. Where could he find salt? He asked himself. He didn’t think he’d need to find it, though. To him, mangoes always came with salt. The questions stopped. It didn’t help. He had finished off his mango without completely enjoying it.

But another one dropped. He stopped, motionless. He started to think, but stopped before another word came to his head. There was another mango. This time, he thought, there wouldn’t be interruptions. As he bent down to grab the fruit, another one dropped to the ground. And then another one. And another one. And another. It seemed to suddenly rain with fruits. He laughed pathetically. Of course, he realized, he was under a mango tree. His eyes slowly crawled up to the fruit-giver beside him, but he stopped before he could see the furthest up. Because there was another sound, amidst the falling of mangoes. Something louder. Something heavier. Something… else. He turned around him. There was a rope, at first, on the grass. His eyes followed. It was covered up. And it rested easily on the ground. The white fabric around it hid it perfectly from him. But he knew anyway… that he was staring at a dead body.