Finding Hope

The sky reflected the melancholy that was seen in the land.  A dull gray emanated from the once lucid blue above.  All around the land was dead and or dying.  Carcasses and corpses galore could be seen from every inch and every angle, Zed hoped with all his hoped he had left in him that the countryside did not look like his once-beloved town.  The fifteen year old boy took to all the precautions that he could think of.  He went to the shops and got what he could, after, of course, meeting with the dead clerks behind their counter.  Zed had gotten food, and equipment that would make his chances of braving the countryside all the better.  The boots he found fit perfectly and the vest he could fit ammunition in was oddly cool, despite its size.  The 12-gauge strapped on his back clinked happily as the boy walked down the dead path.

The fact that Zed had lived is in and of itself a miracle.  The boy shivered as thoughts of his parents corpses came back into his head.  The worst part wasn't that everyone was dead.  The worst part of this tragedy was the piercing laughter Zed had heard as everyone started dying.  As Zed hid away all he heard was laughing, a laughter of pure maleficence.  It haunted him more than the carnage he saw now.  From all angles it came from.

The edge of the village was in sight as Zed walked on, the boy looked back at his dead town and thought of the happiness it had brought him in the past.  He wanted to stay with all of his heart, but he knew he had to leave.  There was nothing left in the town for him.  After this tragedy nothing would bring back the same feeling he had felt before.  So Zed turned away from the town and headed into the unknown of the countryside, and he did not look back again.

Zed never traveled far out of the town. For all he knew the fields surrounding his place of life never ended, they seemed to go on forever, and ever.  The lush green seemed t stretch out for longer than possible, but nonetheless, Zed walked forward.  Nothing was around accept the green, the gray, and the road.  The memories of happiness from his town started to strike him once more, and soon Zed felt tears start falling down his face.  He did not like this drastic change.  This foreboding and threatening change.  His small world was becoming too huge now"and all too fast.  He noticed this even in the town; buildings that were once monolithic were now simply buildings the size of his home.  Even the trees were affected by this sick nightmare.  The yew trees h so much loved in front of his house that reached with their mighty branches to the sky now only reached to about the attic level.  Tears fell for the crushing reality of everything, for the nightmare had finally sunk in.

Step by step, Zed soon noticed that the green was fading.  The lushness was turning to charred earth, and soon it was complete black.  The road remained ever-intact, no matter how much Zed walked on.  The loss of color made Zed remember just how heavy his pack and his gun were, and soon the boy also realized his tiredness.  Soon a forest seemed to suddenly spring up out of the black and gray.  Zed was surprised to see that color was still alive in this world, the laughter didn't get it all!  He ran towards the forest and found that it echoed sounds of soothing reprieve.  Zed found a comfortable spot and put his things down, then ran off to find some branches.

Soon a fire was lit as the sun was lowering into the emotionless gray.  Zed lay next to the blaze in comfort, happy that the nightmare was taking a lull.  A wind kicked up and rustled the leaves of the trees all around him, which brought Zed back into the memories of his adventures in his Boy Scout Troop.  The memories of the summer's night campouts made Zed forget the sadness developing all around him.  He remembered learning how to light a fire, and how to handle a knife.  He remembered all the mistakes he made in trying to learn both, all the times a fire failed to take light and all the times the knife slipped, almost cutting him.  The best part of the memories, however, was not the memories of knowledge and mistakes.  The memories that most drew Zed away from the reality of his situation were those of his friends.  Not his normal friends, but his patrol friends.  The three that were friends beyond friends.  Zed thought long of the kayaking trips ending in some sort of merriment, and of the various mishaps that would find their way into the campsite when his patrol was around.  Zed thought of the laughter shared by the fire, and soon sleep came onto the boy.

Morning light hit Zed in the face, waking him up.  The wind was slowly creeping throughout the trees and kept a nice cool temperature.  The fire was ash by the time Zed finally got up from his position.  He packed up quickly and set off on the road once more.  He was happy that the morning was pleasant.

The only sound was the trees.  There were no birds songs and no insects flying.  There was only the breeze and the leaves.  Further Zed went on down the road, and the further he went, the darker the forest seem to grow.  Soon the tree's began to block out the light of the sun and Zed was plunged into sub-adequate light.  Further he still walked until he happened upon a clearing in the trees.  He stopped at the sight of this abnormality.  He looked around and saw nothing but empty land, even the road was missing from this miniscule spot of the forest.

Movement stirred towards the center of the clearing, which alerted Zed.  The boy looked and saw a glowing set of antlers and illuminated eyes.    He thought he saw the body of a deer, but he had never seen a deer with glowing antlers before.  The animal drew closer and Zed started to grow scared, he reached for his gun and pointed it at the animal.  Still the deer drew closer and closer, Zed tightened his finger on the trigger of his 12 gauge.  The deer seemed not to care and still crept closer to Zed.  Soon the barrel of the gun was touching the deer's head.  Zed could not find it in himself to shoot the creature, for it seemed that it did not want to do any harm.  Zed lowered the gun and looked at the deer.  The creature met his gaze and ran off into the forest, as if to signal Zed to follow it.  Zed put down his pack and his gun and ran after the deer.

Zed followed the deer for what seemed like a long time, and started to notice that the forest was gaining light again.  The trees were no longer green but red, and Zed could see another clearing up ahead.  He ran up to the new clearing and saw the deer standing in the center.  He walked closer to the deer and as he did the wind began to kick up, this time with a fierce intent to it.  The red leaves were soon being ripped off of the limbs by the power of the wind.  Zed watched on as the leaves formed a cyclone around the clearing that held him and the deer and felt as fear began to worm its way into his heart.  The red cyclone started moving faster, but Zed noticed that there was no sound to the chaotic scene.  All was quiet even though all around him chaos was running free, and the deer just kept looking at him.

Zed tried to move towards the deer but found that he could not move.  The fear in his heart soon took on the form of dread as he watched the deer just look on, almost judging him.  Then the silence of the chaos was broken by a familiar terror.  The same laughing that Zed had heard the day before was now in the forest, and in the cyclone.  Louder and louder the laughing grew and still the deer just watched, all the while the cyclone grew faster.  Zed felt all of his muscles release at the tension of the chaos, as if he had passed out, but still he was standing.  The wind was keeping him from falling, somehow.

The deer turned his head at this and then started towards Zed as the laughter still continued.  With each step the deer seemed to emit a sound of bliss which drowned out the laughter, but only for a split second.  Step by step the deer drew closer, and step by step the laughter was drowned out.  The deer was once soon within touching distance of Zed, and let out its tongue and licked the boy.  Zed felt everything go blank and soon saw everything go black.

Zed's eyes shot open as he regained his consciousness.  He looked around and saw nothing of the forest.  All around Zed lay a vast expanse of plain.  The plain was not green, however, and did not have grass.  Instead, the ground was black and very hard to Zed's foot.  He knelt down and felt the ground, it felt very rough.  He knew what this material was; it was black-top.  He looked around and saw the black go on for miles, but soon he realized he was missing his pack and his gun.  The last two things he had from his town were now gone.  He accepted the sadness that was beginning to fill him and started to walk on.

The day seemed never ending.  The sun stayed in the same spot for hours, Zed was beginning to think that day would never end.  The gray of the sky and the black of the ground made everything seem dreary and Zed soon began to adopt hopelessness into his myriad of feelings filling up his insides.  Fatigue soon began to draw onto the boy and he felt himself slip back into unconsciousness.

Zed opened his eyes for a second time, and looked around once more.  The same black still filled the landscape and the sun was still in the same spot, poking through the gray.  This time, however, there was a discrepancy in the black, there was something on the horizon.  Zed ran towards the object poking out in the distance.  Within a couple minutes of running Zed could make out what the shape was, although the revelation made him feel all the more strange.  The object on the distance was a car, a green car.  He ran up to the car and opened the door an looked into it.  The keys were in the ignition, but that was about it.  Zed got into the seat and started the car.

The car hummed healthily and the seat and mirrors were positioned perfectly for Zed, only he did not know how to drive the vehicle.  He put his foot on the gas pedal and heard the car engine blare up, but the car did not move.  He looked puzzled by this and began to look around.  Zed hit multiple buttons and even accidently started the wipers up before finding the shifter behind the wheel.  He moved the arrow to the "D" on the marker in front of him and soon felt the car lurch forward.  Zed was driving.  He put his foot on the acceleration as hard as he could and felt the car start to move as fast as a cheetah at full sprint, perhaps even faster.

The sun was finally nearing the edge of the gray sky.  Zed felt relieved that the day was soon ending.  As the sky grew darker the lights of the car came on and Zed was now driving in the dark.  He was still going extremely fast and was enjoying everything about it.

Hours went by through the night, Zed soon started feeling dreariness setting on him.  He felt his eyes grow heavy and soon they started to blink.  He closed his eyes for a couple seconds and soon heard a thundering crash and felt the car skid.  Zed's eyes shot wide open and he saw blood on the windshield and something on the ground.  He jumped out of the car and ran over to the creature, he saw glowing antlers.  He had hit the deer from the forest.

Blood was flowing from the beast like a river, its glowing eyes stayed locked on Zed.  Zed felt disgusted and horrified with himself for what he had just done.  He felt the animal convulsing in pain and watched as the blood still seeped out, nearly never ending.

Soon the convulsing stopped and Zed felt as the life flowed out of the deer and saw that its antlers were growing dim.  The deer closed its eyes.  Zed watched as light started to encase the deer's body, and fill it.  The light became blinding and was soon gone.  Zed looked down and saw that the deer was gone.  He went back to the green car, with dried blood all over him and all over the ground.

Driving went from being joyous and great to being sad and loathsome.  The dark sky around Zed reflected the grief that filled his heart and  the black of the ground made him feel all the more hollow.  Every mile felt more and more cumbersome as the car hummed down the road; the never-ending road.  Zed couldn't stand the sight of his surroundings and turned the headlights off, the dashboard lights went with them.  True black now encompassed the boy driving and he felt fuller with his sight being gone.

Twenty minutes down the road the car began to lurch, as if gasping for something.  Zed realized what this could mean and turned the lights back on.  Just as he feared, the gas arrow was beyond the E.  The car was running out of fuel.

Zed's car made it down the road another minute before finally giving up on running without its refreshment.  Zed got out of the car and noticed that he was no longer surrounded by the black and hard ground, but was instead now surrounded by a bridge.  He looked back and saw the black plain behind him, on his sides were cables holding up the bridge.  He was at the beginning of the massive structure, he went to peer off the side.  Down below was dark water with the moon reflecting in it, which made Zed look to the sky, the moon was visible once more.  Zed looked down the road and saw nothing but dark as the bridge led on into oblivion.  He started walking forward nonetheless, for oblivion was better than the black plains he had just left behind.

The car was now out of sight as Zed looked back.  All he could see either way was darkness, deep and foreboding.  He took each step slowly for fear of what could change in the roads terrain, beneath he could he the movement of the water.  Further and further Zed walked into oblivion, and further and further he sunk into it, and he accepted this.

Zed soon became accustomed to the darkness and began to hasten his steps to that of normal pace.  He felt his thoughts start to drift back to the deer he had killed, and his heart once more grew saddened and hollow.  The memory of its antlers dimming out was as painful as a knife wound or a gunshot, the beautiful light that emitted from them going away was the worst thing Zed had ever caused.  He felt his shirt and remembered of the dried blood that was still on it.  A tear slid down his cheek for the deer.

Just as the memory of the deer came did Zed remember the thrill of freedom he felt when he drove the green car.  The high speeds, the feeling of being unchained, the bliss of the sounds of the engine.  Then he remembered how quick it was taken away, the feeling of being like a bird flying for the first time and then swiftly being pinned down.  He grew sadder still for the knowing that he could never feel that euphoria again.  A tear slid down his cheek for the loss of his freedom.

After the memory of the car came the forest, the place where he lost his pack and his gun.  The serene and majestic forest that soon turned into a hellstorm of chaos.  The place where the deer looked at him and then set him free from it.  He left the only reminders of home he had left in that forest, and he could never get back to it.  A tear slid down his cheek for the things he left behind, most importantly, the picture of his family.

The forest memory gave way to his town, the only life he had known.  The place where the great and monolithic yew trees grew oh so tall!  The place where buildings were enormous compared to anything else in the world!  The place where everything was right and just!  The place where he was innocent!  The place where everything was taken away.  The place where the yew trees grew so small and the buildings seemed to diminish in size.  The place where he left and never looked back… A series of tears slid down his cheek, and soon were followed by a storm of tears down his cheek.  Zed wept for the loss of everything, for the hollowness he now felt in his heart.  Zed wept for the loss of his innocence and the beginnings of true  knowledge setting in on him.  Zed wept, and he wept.

Through the tears a light emerged from the darkness, and then another.  As Zed walked on step by step more lights soon revealed themselves to him, and soon he saw a grand city.  Zed forgot his tears and ran to the lights.  The city was so grand to Zed!  Never before had he seen anything like it.  He looked at the buildings and did not see the same enormous buildings as his town, but instead he saw normal buildings.  Then he saw the people walking around the streets, and then he saw the ones talking by the fountain.  He heard talk of scholarly pursuits and occasionally a titter or two of a party had the night before.  Zed ran into the lights of the city and felt his heart grow full, but not entirely, he still had long to go before his hollowness would be gone.  Regardless, Zed walked on into the lights as they grew brighter and brighter, until they blinded him.  Then the piercing laughter started once more, the same loud noise.

"Zed!  Wake up or you'll be late for your own graduation!"  Zed heard his mother say from downstairs as his alarm clock was shaking his room.  Zed was indeed late, he ran to his closet and grabbed his cap and gown and ran out to his green Ford Taurus.  Within seconds he went speeding down the road to his graduation, fearful of what his future held.