If you want to track my progress more closely or be my "writing buddy" my NaNo username is "theloveofinches"
Here's the next installment of chapter 2!
Don’t run.
The creature had broken into a jog and with a few more steps
it leapt into the air toward Kale’s head. Kale held up the machete and turned
his face away, quickly closing his eyes.
There was a slicing thud as the animal fell onto the
weapon’s point and slid down it at an unnatural speed. Kale could not support
its weight as it thrashed on top of him. He did not feel the bruises forming on
his shoulder and knee as he escaped from under the writhing form. The creature
did not get back up. It lay spilling its blood as it lay across a fallen tree
underneath Kale. It slid slowly further down until Kale could not see or hear
it any longer.
If that thing was the
worst of my trouble, I might be okay here.
Kale began to traverse the broken forest, wanting to escape
the increasingly rancid stench of blood and dying flesh before it caused him to
vomit. Finding a place still somewhat distant from the white edge of the area,
he sat with his back to a fallen tree. The patch of grass he managed to find
was relatively soft, but he was almost hyperventilating from the animal’s
attack, and the grass would have to wait, along with sleep he very well needed.
It would have been so easy to lay his head back and rest. It would have been so
easy to just follow Corten out of the forest before this even began. Why had he stood motionless in that
clearing? Why had he blamed the other man for his misfortunes? Corten had never
done much to control Kale besides telling him to stop asking such stupid
questions. Kale realized now why his questions had been stupid.
Where are we going?
How is Rothdrak the
sun of Enya?
Do you work at all?
The last one challenged Kale’s mind the most. He had yet to
understand what exactly these men did for a living or why, but he had an idea
it had nothing to do with anything Kale had heard of. It was likely not of the
government. It couldn’t have been anything normal.
You’re not even human.
The questions did not come like he expected they would.
Instead of wondering about every possibility, he felt more sure in the unknown
of his identity and being than he ever had when he was in control of his life.
Perhaps this was his inner adrenaline junkie making itself known. Perhaps Kale
was simply running on too little sleep, and Corten could have slipped something
into his drink at lunch.
Either way, there was no chance of Kale drifting off propped
against the log, in the too bright but seemingly sunless white domed field. He
did zone out for a long while, though. The air in front of him filled with
spots and shadows in the nothingness. His neck could no longer support the
weight of his thoughts. His head lolled and swayed, his eyes blinking
unnaturally fast. His mind scrambled for something solid to grasp.
Without warning, Kale’s arms dropped, and his body relaxed,
appearing lifeless to the sleeping forest and the sky of white fire, the smell
of the dying creature finally drifting over him, and the blood on his weapon
drying in the heat.
--
Kale awoke suddenly with a stinging pain in the right side
of his face and a stick poking sharply into his side. Upon his eyelids opening,
he was met with the sight of Alexander, Kenton, and Roth. He could also see a
glimpse in the corner of his eye of Corten’s off-white shirt that he was wearing
the night before. They did not rejoice at his awakening, but only stared at him
with tilted heads and twitching fingers. Corten’s hands were hidden behind his
back, as usual. He did not seem disappointed or surprised, much unlike the
mixtures of those and other emotions displayed on the faces of the other three
men.
“Did I survive?” Kale asked, honestly wanting an answer. He
couldn’t tell yet if the backwood was a room, a forest, heaven, or some sort of
limbo. But all the men laughed heartily. A small squeak could be heard in
Alexander’s fading chuckle as Kenton responded.
“Finally, youngling, you have asked a good question—” There
was another snort from Roth’s general direction “—I believe we should go into the darkroom and
discuss your current state before I respond, however.”
“Alright. Someone help me up? I’m not sure how my head is
right now.”
Alexander offered his hand and lifted Kale up with ease. His
head dizzied for a short moment before stilling. Kale looked around with his
blur-less vision as they walked and noted that the tree he rested on was the
only one remaining in the backwood. He thought to ask whether this was normal,
if the trees would grow back, where they went, and why they fell in the first
place, but he did not want to ruin his new reputation of asking the good
questions. He still expected explanations at some point.
With every tree gone, Kale expected the door he entered
through to have appeared where it was previously hidden. Yet there was not a
single thing in sight besides the ground, the single tree, and the endless
whiteness beyond the borders of the backwood. He tripped over his own foot
then, and Corten caught his arm. The man did not look at him. He held the same
blank expression that usually graced his face, and simply held onto Kale as
they walked. Kale was not sure how he could get lost in such an open space, but
perhaps that was not Corten’s reasoning for the gesture.
Finally the group reached the outer limits of the grassed
area. The door still hadn’t appeared, and Kale began to question the sanity of
these men. Disappearing things, random attacking lion-lizards, darkrooms and
white skies and backwoods? What even is
a backwood? Obviously it’s complicated, since it involves all those things, but
can somehow also be a person.
The whiteness, Kale learned, worked quite like the darkness.
It acted almost as a portal between doorways or worlds or maybe universes. He
wasn’t sure where they were in time and space when they weren’t in the hallway
or somewhere in Torman.
In a matter of seconds according to Kale’s overly occupied
mind, they reached the doorway to the darkroom and entered the basement closet
where Kale first met the five men. He sat down with ease, and the others
surrounded the rest of the table.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Alexander began.
“What’s that?” Kale asked, not even bothering to prepare for
whatever joke was coming his way.
“You’ve been redeemed.” Alexander looked around at the
others, then to Kale, and folded his hands in front of him on the table. Kale
held his gaze, not having a clue how to respond. Alexander continued. “You
still don’t know what you are—we understand that. We will explain everything—“
“Yes, you’ve said as much,” Kale interjected, his irritation
with the promise growing quickly.
“You have to trust us. I know, that can’t be an easy thing
to grasp right now. You barely know our names. Why should you believe us when
we promise you the world?”
“You sound like you already have an answer to that. Why
don’t you just go ahead and tell me.”
“I will. Kale, we know you have no one. You have no family.
There are very few people in your life, and many of them are not significant in
any way. You lose touch with reality and bring yourself back by finding ways to
enjoy yourself. You explore, go out to every place imaginable, yet you never
meet anyone or take anyone with you.”
“How do you know all this?”
“We know you better than you know yourself, Kale.”
You’re not even human.
The words flashed through his mind again. His eyes dropped to the table, then
reverted back up to Alexander.
“What… am I?”
“Please don’t think of this the wrong way. I told you first
off, you have been redeemed. That is very good news. It means you have options—“
“WHAT… am I?” His hands slammed down on the table in
punctuation. For a moment there was nothing but silence. Then Alexander spoke.
“A demon.” 
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