Transparent Color's

Maliki is unusual I must say. His boyish looking face I saw when he was a statue looks a little more mature now. It’s as if he has gained back some of his years stolen from being frozen. As we sit eating our morning breakfast, I observe him more. He’s about six feet, wearing dark beige pants and a crème colored shirt, which goes nice with his sun tanned complexion. The sleeves of his shirt go half way down and attach to his arm that outlines the muscle. Brown boots cover his feet. He has brown shaggy hair that obviously hasn’t been managed in a while. He has green eyes, a somewhat scruffy face, but none the less a very attractive one. Very manly. His body is fit and seems extremely strong. When he smiles his teeth are pearly white and his voice is powerful to make any girl swoon. He has gentleness to it as well, like what I heard last night. He seems very witty and a take charge type, which can cause some problems, because I do not like to be told what to do or have a good sense of humor. But he has the knowledge of this strange land, so we most definitely need him.

“Alright some things you both should know about this land before we go. It’s very mysterious and mystical. Always keep a strong mind, if it senses weakness it will go after you through dreams, trickery, and trances. The worst is when your eyes start playing tricks on you, and you start losing the sense of reality from a dream. Remember keep your mind strong.” As he says that last statement he points to his head and looks at me. I look back at him puzzled.

“Why is this land so mysterious and mystical?”

“It happened over time, evil affected it”.

“Hmm maybe Mr. Minds was right fencing us in” I look at Toby.

“I said affected not infected. There is still beauty. No one should be caged in like an animal.”

We all become silent and start to get ready for our journey. Last night Maliki told us we need to get to the path, which will lead us to the Grand City. He says first we need to find a hut he made twenty years ago; there are supplies we could use. That is, if it’s still there.

I quickly check my leg when they both are facing the other way. It’s hurting a little more today and seems to be redder; I probably didn’t clean it out good enough that first night. But I can’t spare anymore water, so I just wrap it up tight again and block the pain from my mind.

“It’s becoming late in the morning; we should head out if we want to get to the hut before dark.” Maliki picks up our bag and wraps it around his body.

I get up, my leg a little sore and stiff. Why lie to myself, my leg is in complete pain, one of those sharp ones too. I must be showing it all over my face because I see Toby looking at me. “Is everything okay with your leg?”, he asks.

“Yes just a little scratch from the fence, nothing to be worried about.” I shake his hair and start following behind Maliki. He watches me as I struggle not to limp. Maliki looks but doesn’t say anything. Good, I do not feel like explaining anything.

The scenery is the same from 1 mile to 5 to 15, it all looks the same. It kind of has me wondering if we are really moving forward or in a circle. I stay to myself observing Toby and Maliki as they walk and talk. I’ve never seen Toby so animated and well, talkative. He always talked my ear off but I’ve never seen him talk to anyone else. This puts a smile to my face.

“Oh, you should have seen Maggie beat the pulp out of this wild animal. It was practically on top of her going to bite her face off, then WAP! She hit it with the metal canteen.” Toby had a twig in his hand and as he said WAP, he hit the twig and broke it on a tree in passing. Maliki smiles and looks at me with surprise.

“Right, Maggie? Isn’t that what happened?” Toby gleams with pride.

“Yes Toby, you explained it exactly as it happened.” I smile and give a little laugh, then notice Maliki looking at me with a grin, so I stop and separate myself a little further from them.

We walk for another four hours, stop for an hour to eat and rest, then off we go again. The sun is going down, so I look across towards Maliki and say with a loud voice, “So are we close? It will be dark soon.”

“What?” Maliki yells.

“Are we close?” I yell back.

“What? I can’t hear you, you’re too far away?” he says in a sarcastic way while pointing to his ear. I do not find this amusing. Toby burst out laughing. I just turn my head and keep walking, with a bit of a limp.

“Alright, alright, no need to get mad, Limpy, yes we are close. Look to your right,”

I stop and look to my right and see in the distance a blue structure. Relieved, I start walking a little quicker. Wait, did he just call me limpy?! I turn and give him a look. He doesn’t look at me but I can see a grin on his face. The corner of my mouth starts turning up, I quickly stop it, I should be mad, not amused.

When we reach the hut, I see it has been made out of a large blue tarp. It is torn and very dirty. Maliki goes inside the opening, I go to follow, but stop and tell Toby he can wait outside next to the opening so we can see him. He nods with relief. I go inside.

Maliki looks at me when I enter then to the opening behind me to see Toby outside. “Is he okay?”

“Yes, he just doesn’t like old, dirty things.” I look around the hut. “So where are all the supplies? There’s nothing in here.”

“Just in case there are animals or other humans, it’s better to hide your supplies.” He starts digging in one of the corners.

I move up to where he is digging to see the top of a box. The sides start to show and now he’s digging around the sides. He nudges it, until it’s out all the way. It’s a medium size square box. I’ve never seen a box like this before; he says it was made out of metal. All we have at the City is plastic or wooden boxes.

He lifts up a latch that keeps the lid tight, and takes it off. Inside there is a belt with little knives attached to it on one side, a big canteen on the other side. It also has a large pocket with a zipper. He unzips it, to check the inside; I lean over to peak as well. It contains some more food pills, some medicines, and lighters. He wraps the belt around his waist then takes a bag out of the box.

He opens the bag and there is a little dart shooter, with a box of what he says “poison darts”. He takes out some of the darts and places them in slits on the side with the canteen. He places the box of darts back in the bag, and checks out the dart shooter to make sure it is working correctly before returning it back in the bag. The last couple of things I notice in the bag are a blanket, two folded plastic square mats, a liquid water cleanser, an extra pair of socks, and a compass.

He puts the strap of the bag over his head and across his chest. He then looks at me, “Okay it’s getting late, let’s go”.

He moves to leave but I grab his arm, “Hey wait is there anything here for me and Toby? And I thought we were staying here for the night? It’s practically dark out.”

He looks outside with some concern on his face before replying, “No, it’s not safe here, I know of a better place for us to camp out. It’s not too far but we need to move.”

He uses a serious tone I haven’t heard from him yet. He exits the hut with me following behind him. He starts to break the hut down, by breaking the wood that held it up. He hands me and Toby each a long stick looking staff and keeps one for him. He rips some of the tarp up and wraps it around one end of his stick. He takes a little bottle out of his zipper pocket on his belt and sprinkles some liquid onto the tarp. Then he gets one of his lighters and the tarp goes up in flames. We have light now.

“Follow close behind me. If you hear any sounds ignore it and keep moving. Maggie, make sure you don’t let go of Toby’s hand. Oh and don’t look up,” he says, and then motions his head for us to move out.

As we walk a few miles I can’t help but think, Any sounds? Don’t look up? I’m starting to get a little frightened, but I refuse to show it, I have to stay strong for Toby. My hand is glued to his. I can feel him shaking. Night falls fast, faster than normal. I look down at Toby, but it is too dark now to see his facial expression. Maliki is moving faster, I can tell by his flame decreasing in size. I grip my torch and steam train ahead following the glow ahead of me.

In the distance behind us, I can hear a faint screaming and screeching sound. I yell to Maliki, “What is that?”

All he says is “Ignore it and keep moving!”

The sounds get closer and now Maliki is next to me and grabs my arm, we are running now. Toby’s little legs can’t keep the pace, so I yank my arm away from Maliki and pick Toby up. In doing this both our sticks drop to the ground. The screeches and screams are now above us, Toby has his hands over his ears and since his mouth is right up to my ear I can hear him screaming.

From the faint light of his torch, I can see Maliki has his dart shooter out and ready, searching the sky as he runs. “Move, Move” I can imagine his mouth saying. I run as fast as I can, I almost feel like I’m flying. Then suddenly I feel a claw in my back and realize my feet were off the ground and I am flying. Toby is latched onto me screaming even louder deafening my right ear. I start screaming too, but Maliki’s name.

The animal that has my back suddenly falls to the ground, along with me and Toby. I land on my back with Toby on top of me. The wind knocked out of me, I feel myself being pulled up. Maliki has Toby in one arm and me in the other. I hear the flying beast behind us. I then see Maliki’s light on the ground about fifty feet in front of us. We reach a dark opening, it must be a cave and he puts us down on the cold floor of it. He reaches into his bag and pulls out one of his folded plastic mats and hits it on the ground. When it hits the ground a hologram screen covers the opening of the cave and the beast flies past us.

Toby and I are still on the ground shaking. I look over at Toby and he starts to cry, so I hold him close. Maliki is still watching the outside. As I am holding Toby in my arms, I start looking around the dim lit up cave. It is cold and damp. I can hear drips of water landing on the ground. Good, there must be some water close by, we will need that.

Maliki finally turns towards us and pulls the other folded plastic mat out of his bag and lays it down in front of us. He grabs the torch he made and puts the flame on the mat, the mat lights up in flames. We now have a fire.

Maliki sticks the staff in between some rocks; his green eyes turn towards me. He takes off the bags and places them on the ground next to me, and squats down beside. He tells me to turn my back towards the light, so Toby moves off of me and I do so. Maliki lifts up my shirt to reveal my back. I feel a chill go up my spine.

He takes the only canteen with water we have and washes the claw scratches on my back. It stings. Then he takes a tiny bottle of medicine out of his zipper pocket and drips it on each scratch, a total of six. He uses his strong thumb to apply the medicine all across the mark.

Maliki pulls my shirt back down, “It should feel better by morning.” The light must be radiating his face because his smile shines. I watch him as he pulls out the blankets, he wraps it around me. My eyes follow him to Toby and a blanket goes around him as well. Maliki my…our hero, moves to a rock to make food.

I say softly, “Thank you.”