Submission (#5708) Approved

The thick foliage enveloped Sariel as he picked his way carelessly through the untamed wilderness.  The air was heavy with humidity, and the incessant chorus of insects filled his ears, creating an overwhelming white noise that seemed to fill his thoughts.  With each step, the undergrowth appeared denser, the forest growing mazelike.  Thought bubbled as if to the surface of quicksand, before sinking below the surface.  Images flittered through his mind – grey whittled trees, thin and curling as if burnt to a crisp, but still clearly living, leaves and vines, brown and stained, shriveled, a floating island, smashed to pieces upon the ground, its once vibrant yellow crystals dull and fading quickly.  The calls of the birds and insects crowded in, temporarily wiping the images from his mind.  The process started again, images flashing, insects chirping, stuck in a cycle.

Overhead, the daylight waned as darkness settled.  Sariel had failed to even notice when a wary stillness descended upon the forest, and the sounds of the jungle quieted, shifted, rose and then plummeted to silence.  Sariel’s senses heightened, and he became acutely aware of the rustling of the leaves, the feel of his sore tired feet, and the dryness in his mouth, throat parched.  He jerked, lifted his head, eyes wide, heart pounding in his chest.  In his distraction, he had failed to notice the passage of time.  Had even failed to notice the path his paws took, mindless and unseeing through the jungle.  Twilight had crept up on him while his thoughts buzzed with despair or with the song of a thousand screeching insects.

As he looked about, trying to place where in the jungles of Kyendi outside his home he had wandered in his stupor, the ground beneath his feet suddenly hardened, turned loose and gravely, and he stumbled.  His panicked feet padded over suddenly bare ground, free of vegetation, rocky and pebbly, distinct in its sharp oddness, and he fell downhill, sliding and crashing against soil, tree, and earth alike until he landed with a solid thud where the hill levelled off.  His momentum stopped by the sharp stinging rocks.

Dazed, he pushed himself to his feet, coughing.  He lifted his head and looked around, feeling confusion settle like a fog.  The once lush and vibrant jungle of emerald leaves and crimson flowers had transformed.  Now, jagged peaks loomed in the distance where canopies should have obscured the horizon.  The tops of the mountains belched a thick layer of ominous dark clouds—no, smoke—that obscured the sky and gave a dull pallor on the land.  Streams of molten lava snaked their way through the rocky terrain, casting a red glow on everything around him.  The ground beneath his feet was obsidian black, covered in dust and rock undoubtedly made of the frozen magma.  This was Zevija, no doubt about it.  From where, he didn’t know, but he recognized the scent of stinging sulfur, the line of volcanoes looming over the horizon. 

Sariel’s heart raced, his thoughts slow and sluggish.  He had been in Kyendi.  Now he was in Zevija.  His head hurt from trying to cram the two thoughts simultaneously in his head.  The air was suffocating him, hot and acrid, clinging to his fur and lungs.  A sense of dread gripped him, seeped into his bones, clogged up his lungs.  He was woefully underdressed for such an occasion.  He could not be in Zevija.

Fear racing through his arties, morphing into a jittery panic that made his chest hurt, he turned to escape.  Twisting wildly to look behind him.  Eyes barely registering the loom of verdant trees.  Feet unaware of how the cruel jagged rocks scratched his pads.  How he left little drops of blood beneath his feet, as his sliced feet grasped uphill towards the scent of greenery and away from the red hot lava just a few feet away.

He sprinted, scrabbled, fell and ignored the pain that jolted through muscle and bone.  Just up the hill, the jungle beckoned him, familiar sounds and scents and sights offering a glimmer of something that felt like hope.  His breath came in panicked gasps as he scrambled, fearing that every second he took in climbing the treacherous hill was one second farther from freedom.  That the line of trees overhead would disappear, leaving him stranded in this land that would surely dash him against its rocks and leave him forsaken.

Then he was home – the jungle enveloping him in its familiar scent of moist earth and greenery.  He ran wildly, only stopping when he stumbled and tripped on the reaching vines and leaves.  Collapsed on the ground, on his side, tangled in vines, sucking deep ragged breaths into his lungs.

It was only as the adrenaline leached from his pounding blood that he realized he had stumbled upon an overwild border.  One that took him from his home in Kyendi to the wild magma streams of Zevija.

Something about this felt dreadfully wrong.  First the miasma, then the oily wall of contamination, and now this?  Something had to be terribly wrong with the borders of Kyendi.  This harrowing journey was proving more than what the kittom could bare.  And he was still far from the path – his lost meandering, and his panicked flight had ensured he was truly lost today.  It felt as if the world he once knew was crumbling around him, tearing at the seams in ways that were shaking him to his core.