Navigate

by Sleestack

The Between

Trip awoke standing up, on what seemed to him to be non-existent ground. He surveyed the world around him. Everything around him was white, and cracked like dried mud, revealing shades of silver. There was no sun, or moon, or any other identifiable source of light, yet somehow, it was bright as day.

In the distance, he could see trees, or what looked like the completely black silhouette of trees. Whatever they were, there were a lot of them. Some had leaves, and some were bare. They went as far as his vision could see, and probably farther from what he could tell. Each one of the trees were a pretty large distance away from each other, maybe around a hundred feet. The roots grew into the invisible ground and spread in all directions, resembling black veins, some of which visibly pulsated.

Trip tried to take a couple steps forward, but found that any kind of movement was almost impossible. The air around him was thick, and while he could breathe it easily enough, moving his limbs required an amount of strength Trip wasn't sure he had. He strained his head to look down and also saw that some of the vein-roots were attached to his foot.

No, they weren't attached to his foot, they were grown into his legs. He forced himself with extraordinary effort to turn around, and saw that the vein-roots belonged to a tree he was standing directly underneath. He looked up and saw the tree was very large, and had many leaves. He looked down and saw that it had more vein-roots growing out of it than any other tree he could see. When he focused on the tree, he could could only think of one word; “Home”.

Behind the tree, he saw something. A speck of yellow, the first actual color he had seen since he entered this place. He pushed all the muscles in his body to move to a point where he could see all of what was there. Eventually, he saw it; a giant yellow snake, about the size of an eight year old child was curled upon itself underneath the tree on top of a vein-root.

Trip stared at it for a few seconds, and, almost as if it had sensed him there, its eyes focused and it uncurled itself into an upright position. Trip noticed now that the snake had what looked like a smiling expression on its face, and, strangely, eyelashes. It tilted its head observing him, and even slid closer to him.

Normally, Trip was kind of put off by snakes. He wasn't afraid of them, but he didn't particularly like them. But this snake had a sort of friendly aura to it. It poked its nose under Trip's hand. Trip wondered how the snake could move so easily when he himself could not. After it was done observing him, the snake moved back slightly, putting about a foot of distance between them.

They both stayed there, face to face, for a long time. Trip never once thought to give a command to the snake, or even to try making a motion at the creature. His mind, much like his body, was sort of at a standstill. When he looked at the snake, and could only think 'yellow'.

The snake opened its mouth, and a voice came out.

"-ain damage is minimal thankfully. As soon as he wakes up, his motor and reasoning skills should be intact. Phil’s a very lucky kid, Mr. Stern."

Phil? How did this snake now his real name? The snake didn't open or shut its mouth as it produced the feminine voice. It merely stood still with what seemed like a smile on its face. Suddenly, it tilted its head to the left, and the voice changed.

"Okay, that's... that's really good. Tell me, ma'am, did the police say how the accident happened?"

That was a masculine voice this time. A voice he recognized. The snake tilted its head the other way.

"Reports said it was a collision, but no other vehicle was found at the scene of the crash. Frankly, with the damage being as bad as it was, I don't see how any car could have left in one piece."

The snake tilted its head again.

"Do you think, maybe, it might have been intentional?"

"The crash?"

"Do you think Trip might have crashed his own car?"

"I actually don't think he could have, Mr. Stern. Whatever hit him, got him straight on the passenger side. It had to be big, big and strong. It must have been a tank or something. A black tank."

"What?"

"They found black pai-"

The snake closed its mouth. Trip felt somewhat as if hearing the rest of the conversation should have been important, but he didn't really mind. He was distracted by the trees. They were moving, now, as though they were floating on water. The vein-roots had been shrunk as if whatever liquid that may have flowed through them had been sucked back into the trees. The trees as a whole moved in no particular direction, but a lot of them seem to be moving closer to Trip.

The snake opened its mouth again. Another feminine voice, similar to the first one, maybe the same, started talking.

"-ery lucky. With as bad of a crash he was in, most people would probably be dead, or paralyzed. He's definitely going to be up and moving again, hopefully sooner than later."

"Okay. Okay." this new voice sounded very sad, very young. Also a girl. Also familiar.

"You okay sweetie?"

"I'll be fine, it's just..."

"Do you need a minute?"

"Do you mind?"

The snake closed its mouth for a quick second. Trip could feel pressure on his hand, as if someone had grabbed a hold of it.

"Hey, Trip, it's me. Can you hear me? Look, I know you didn't do this. Dad's getting all freaked out, but I know you wouldn't do this on purpose. You're gonna get better. I know you’d probably just say I’m in denial, but... but I’m not. I know. And... I know it's awful, but, the first thing I thought when the nurse told me you were going to get better... don't get me wrong, I was worried before, but when she said you'd be okay, I had a very clear thought. I said 'He did this so I would stop making him watch MLP with me.' Isn't that awful? You've got how many cracked ribs and I thought you did this on purpose... I'm almost as bad as dad..."

A nervous sounding laughter came out of the snake's throat.

"Well, as soon as you wake up, I'm bringing dad's laptop here and we're going to watch the next episode together."

Annoyance welled up in the top of Trip's skull. He couldn't feel the emotion itself, but he was aware that he would be feeling it under normal circumstances. But of all the facts he could rationalize at this moment, he could tell this wasn't a normal circumstance.

The snake closed its mouth yet again. It tilted its head to the left, and opened it again.

"Next episode." it said, as if it were playing back the words it just spoke. The snake gave as close to an intrigued look as it could with its limited facial features. "Next episode." It said again. "Next episode. Next episode."

The trees started moving again. Much quicker this time. At least twenty of them were definitely heading in Trip's direction. His head involuntarily turned to one, that was a little bit larger than the rest, and had more leaves than most. It was also moving much quicker. He looked at it, and the irritation formed in his skull again.

The vein-roots came from the tree and started inching their way over to him. Trip felt the need to look back at the snake, but his muscles were too weak now to do even that. He could only fixate his eyes on the completely black foliage coming closer to him at an increasing rate.

Suddenly, the vein-roots from that tree raised themselves and lunged themselves at Trip. They wrapped themselves around his torso and started spreading all over his body. They started constricting him, and he could feel them crushing his ribs. But oddly, it didn't hurt. It was as if the vein-roots were rearranging his bones, not breaking them. The roots spread down to his legs and up to his shoulders. As they started creeping up past his eyes and blocking his vision, Trip was able to gather his thoughts and say one thing, which surprisingly, was not drowned out by the roots.

"Oh, fuck."

Comments

[Jayellow]

Wow, no comments on this chapter? I thought it was surreal as fuck, and I liked it. Good job sir!

[Noctua6]

Weird but cool. I'm guessing the bigger tree was... well, it's kind of obvious.

This story should get more attention, though. It's very intresting.