The Lightbearer's Gift

Waking up from sleep was a slow process for me. The first thing I felt was a cold wind flowing over my body and the uncomfortable feeling of tall grass digging into my back. It battered my sides as the wind caused the blades to flutter about. A feeling of wrongness welled up in me in the midst of my half-asleep musings, and with a force of will, I snapped myself out of my stupor. I quickly sat up and glanced around to view my surroundings.

I was in a large circular clearing of grass, surrounded by tall trees, all gently swaying in the wind. A particularly strong gust picked up and blew my hair into my face. This caused an even greater concern as the wind whipped up long, pure white hair around me.

The white hair felt alien to me. Why did I think that?

"Wait," I said aloud.

"Who am I?"

Those words seemed to echo across the clearing as I tried to piece together anything that could be called an identity. But I could remember nothing, not my name, age, where I lived, my parents, siblings, or where I grew up. It was as if anything that could even remotely give me an idea of who I was, had been cleaved from my mind. The harder I tried to find something that I could use to define myself, the greater my despair.

I sat there for several minutes in utter panic as I tried to get a grasp on what was happening to me. Why am I in the middle of a forest naked? Why was my hair such an unnatural color of white? Why did I even consider my hair color unnatural? These questions tumbled over one another in my mind with no answers to be found.

"No, let's focus on the situation in front of me," I said, to break my spiraling thoughts.

"First things first, I need to get control of this situation and perhaps find some clothing.".

That gave me some calm and a simple goal to work towards as there was nothing else to focus on.

Taking a stand, I examined the rest of myself. I was not a very tall man, I thought, though I had no frame of reference for what my height should be. My skin was as pale as snow, with not an ounce of muscle. I didn't look malnourished by any means, but being this slender in the middle of a forest with who knows what lurking around was not improving my mood.

I reached a small, almost delicate hand to my face to move the hair away and once again found something strange.

"My ears are pointy," I said in shock.

Again, like when I noticed my hair color, the feeling of alienness welled up in me. They were at least a hand and a half long by my estimation. It was as if this body wasn't mine. I had no memory of anything else, so why did it feel so wrong? In my mind there was a basic understanding of what a natural humanoid form should be, and the ears and hair were direct contradictions to this. As there were no answers coming to me as to why my form seemed so alien, I tried once more to focus on my original objective.

Not knowing where to go, I looked around for some sort of reference point. There was a particularly large tree near the edge of the clearing.

"Pine?" I said to myself as I started to walk towards it. Once I was close, I began to realize how truly large the tree was.

I knew pine trees could be massive, but the image I had in my mind couldn't compare to this monstrosity. It towered over all the other trees.

"Okay," I resolved.

‘I'll keep this to my back and just keep moving forward. The sun is on my exact right, so as long as I keep it there, I should be going in the same direction.

'Hopefully, I'll find a river or something.’ I thought to myself.

I started walking and hoped I wasn't doing something stupid. Common logic dictates that I should stay where I was until help arrived, but nothing in this moment made me feel as if common sense would apply to my situation.

I set off at a moderate pace, but there was hardly a change in my environment, even after an hour of walking. The sun's position changed slightly as it was now slightly higher in the sky, other than that there was still a seemingly endless expanse of trees.

The exhaustion started to set in, and my feet started to hurt as my body, clearly, was not used to walking barefoot along the forest floor. The sun was still coming from my right, so I was at least going straight. The pain in my feet became even more intense and despite the morning chill sweat was running down my face and back. Deciding to take a break, I rested against a nearby tree. I took deep breaths trying to calm my racing heart.

This traveling was more exhausting than I had predicted as navigating the dense thicket of the forest floor and uneven terrain pushed me to exhaustion. While walking I tried to glean more into whatever knowledge I had. The information available to me was at times random. For example, the squawk of some unseen bird would bring images rushing into my mind.

Eagles, hawks, crows, along with a random spattering of information along with it. The same thing happened with most every sight and sound that I encountered in the forest. It was as if whatever fog that surrounded my memories was slowly being lifted as more and more information presented itself to me. But try as I might, details of my own identity and history remained elusive.

'I'm going to need water soon before the headache and fatigue set in.' I thought to myself. Dehydration might kill me before exposure will.

"Wait, what?" I said in bewilderment.

Unlike the random spattering of information that usually accompanied my revelations, my mind was filled with intensely detailed information on the subject of dehydration.

“Dry mouth, delirium, low blood pressure. Water containing electrolytes is necessary to recover. If the patient is unable to drink, IV hydration may be required.”

I recited this diagnosis aloud in a practiced fashion and silently marveled at the detail and clarity of the information.

“Blood pressure? electrolytes?” As I questioned those terms even more knowledge began to reveal itself.

For the next several minutes while I rested, my mind constantly churned with information on various aspects of biology. The dizzying complexities of anatomy and medicine was a fascinating subject. I could have spent hours pondering the information locked in my mind until the snapping of a twig brought me out of my musings. It was so slight that I wouldn't have noticed if not for it being such a clear change from the constant wind and rustling leaves. A small part of me realized, my ears twitched in response to the sound.

It was definitely from where I had just come from. I was unsure if I was just being paranoid, but my instinctive reaction of my body to the sound prompted me to behave with caution. I moved as stealthily as I could into a particularly dense set of bushes, careful not to make the same mistake that my possible pursuer did.

Getting as low as possible to the ground, I waited for something to happen. About a minute passed and I was beginning to think I was just being paranoid when another crack, quickly followed by two more, rang out much closer than before. The wind, which had been my almost constant companion in the forest, had died down at this point, and I could hear the footsteps approaching.

A strange humanoid creature walked out of the bush. It was a truly grotesque thing, with skin almost as green as the grass. It had clawed hands, beady yellow eyes, and a too-large mouth on its head. It was wearing nothing but a small leather cloth around its waist and carried a crude-looking pack across its back. While the creature was half my height, it had defined muscles on its arms and chest, but the weapon it carried was the most concerning. It was nothing more than a stick with three jagged rocks sticking out of one end. However, the way the light glinted off the rocks made me realize that it was far more dangerous.

'Obsidian,' I thought to myself.

There were jagged obsidian rocks embedded near the end of the stick. A cold chill ran up my spine at the thought of what kind of damage that could do to me. The creature stopped by the tree where I was resting and sniffed the air. Its large pimpled nose twitched as it tried to catch my scent. A feeling of dread came over me as I realized I never thought of the creature tracking me through my scent. I hoped that it would wander off after not finding me where it expected. Suddenly, the wind picked up again, and once more blew some of my hair into my face. Almost immediately, the creature locked onto where I was. With a screech, the creature ran towards where I was hiding.

I did what only made sense to me at this point and ran. The small green monster, hearing me running away, screeched even louder as it gave chase. I sprinted as fast as I could, dodging trees, leaves, and stray branches that littered the forest floor, but the creature remained behind me.

Sparing a glance behind, I could see that I was at least 60 feet in front of him.

'Okay, I'm faster,' I thought to myself.

After around two minutes of running, I realized that those small legs were unlikely to keep up with me. That small amount of reassurance that I was faster than the monster quickly ran out as I started to tire. This body of mine was clearly not used to extended running and I could hear the creature getting closer as I slowed. Panicking, I realized I had to do something before the creature caught up to me. Noticing a clearing in the forest ahead I decided to run towards it with the creature hot on my tail.

There was a small fallen tree in the center with many broken and mangled branches littered around it. I was likely only a few seconds ahead of the creature so once I reached the tree I frantically searched for something to defend myself with. Looking around near the base of the fallen tree, I spotted a broken branch a little longer and slightly thicker than my arm. The moment I ducked down to pick it up, something flew over my head and the sound of it burying itself in the fallen tree rang out. I looked up to notice that it was the creature's ax. At the same time, it sprinted into the clearing, claws bared, heading right for me.

I didn't have time to dislodge the creature's ax, and there was no way I could sustain much more running.

'It has to be now,' I thought to myself.

I could try to kill it while it was unarmed, but those claws and the wiry muscular arms gave me some pause. It was only 10 feet away now as I shifted my branch in both arms. The creature closed the distance and leaped for a swipe to disembowel me. At the same time, I swung my improvised weapon as strongly as I could. In a horizontal arc, I met the creature mid-air. I clocked it on the side of the head. That didn't arrest its motion though, as it barreled into my chest. We fell to the ground, the creature landing on top of me. However, it seemed it was too stunned to remember that it planned to tear me to pieces. Immediately, I shoved it off of me and scrambled to my feet. The little monster was still alive and groggily rising to its feet. My grip on the branch was broken so I quickly picked it back up again and closed the distance for another attack.

The little monster apparently had the wherewithal to dodge my swing and scampered back a few steps keeping a single eye on me. Apparently, my blow had hit him right above his left eye and opened up a wound that was slowly trickling dark green blood that was obscuring its vision. It tried to wipe the blood away, but a fresh drop would soon replace it. Seizing its distraction, I opted to close the gap between us and went in for another swing. I brought my weapon in another horizontal arc aiming for its right eye. However, the creature nimbly dodged out of the way. I attacked twice more, each a wild swing to its body. It dodged the first and blocked the second with a forearm.

The branch I was using shattered, and my forward momentum caused me to lose my balance. I caught myself before I could fall, but this gave my opponent enough time to pounce once more. Without thinking I reached my hand out to stop it from getting to my vital areas and caught it by the throat. His momentum when he tried his second lunge caused me to tumble backward and fall to the ground with him on top of me. Fortunately, my fully extended arms were longer than his, and he could not reach my throat. Realizing this, the creature decided to take its frustrations out on my arms.

It dug its claws into my biceps, and I screamed in agony as the creature tried to get a bite at me. The only thing keeping me from being killed at this point was that my right arm was around its throat and on its head. I could feel its legs kicking and clawing at me; however, its toenails seemed not to be sharp enough to pierce the skin.

There was no escaping the monster's strong grip as its claws were hooked into my flesh. The harder it fought to get to my throat, the more it ravaged my arms. While on the ground, I noticed that we had fallen close to its ax. We were right next to the spot where it had embedded itself in the tree. If I could get him off of me, I could grab the ax and end him, at least that is what I hoped. Using the hand that was holding its head, I dug my thumb into its eye as hard as I could.

This, however, made him even more angry; even with my finger locked in its eye, it seemed like it wouldn't let go. Feeling my arms weakening and despair setting in, I tried for one last attempt to throw him off of me.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, "GET OFF OF ME," and with every ounce of my strength, attempted to shove the creature off my chest.

What happened, however, was completely unexpected.