《And far was the walk.》


 The first step. Often the hardest. (Prologue)

    dark...


    dark and cold...


    dark as the darkest night, cold as the coldest winter...A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Yet it is a comforting dark, one of still consciousness. One you know you are going to wake from.


    A flicker of light, nothing much, a small light, maybe the size of a lighter-flame at arms lenght.


    "Truly beautiful", I wished I could have said. however nothing stirred the darkness but the light. I moved forwards, or as such I hoped as the light became larger and larger, until it covered all that I could see.


    Now the dark and cold were no more, in the wake of the light and warm. My slumber ended.

 A Grey City

    As the bright warm light faded, my eyes slowly made out that I was currently located within a desecrated building, turned to nothing but rubble and dust. The moon was high in the night, a waning moon. In the low light I could make out the outline of a lump not quite like the others in the pile of rubble that this building had been turned into. For one the lump appeared to be breathing.


    Quiet, long, calm and easy breaths. Which would indicate that whoever, or whatever was infact asleep. I slowly and as carefully as I could went over to the lump of a creature to figure out what it was. From its outline I could not make out much. What I could make out was that the lump appeared to be wearing some sort of cloak. A navy blue cloak to be precise, however the light of the moon could possibly be messing with my ability to asess colour.


    I carefully poked the lump, in my mind, nothing other than a human could possibly be wearing a cloak. My theory proven correct as a face slowly pushed its way out of the cloak to meet mine. The gaze of the person lingered on my face, and I felt the need for an inquiry.


    "Are you alright?", a quick and easy question. hopefully the person was awake enough to answer.


    "Habla Espa?ol?"


    Well shit. I definitively did not speak spanish. However in a fit of genious unlike myself at the time I managed to ask a golden question.


    "Are you messing with me?", truly one question that would surely change the course of the entire conversation.


    "Yeah, actually. What gave me away?"


    The man surprisingly was in fact joking when asking whether I spoke spanish. I remained silent, not knowing the answer to the question, mostly because this was an unforseen result.


    "I actually didn''t know, I was just so surprised by your question." This was true, after waking up in an unknown location, who would expect to meet a spanish speaking man first.


    "I actually don''t speak spanish either"This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Ok... this man was purely messing with me.


    "why would you ask me then?", this man was getting on my nerves.


    "Because I thought it would be funny, and it was."


    "...", I was left speechless. The man, whose face finally became discernible after a cloud overhead passed. Was what most people would typically call "of scandinavian descent" blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, beard stubbles. Not particularly beautiful, but what many would describe as "awerage, mostly".


    "Do you have any id¨¦a of where we are?", I asked. Hopefully the man would know where we were so that we could get out of here, and possibly home. I had a pizza cooking if I remembered right.


    The man steadily got to his feet, he appeared to be slightly taller than me, but not by much, and we were standing on uneven grounding. He calmly looked around, and appeared to be taking in the sounds and smells, as well as the sights of our location.


    "None currently, However one could conjecture that based on the stars out and the size of the moon. Not on earth, or at least notanywhereon earththat I know of"


    That answer was more than I expected. especially as my head jackedfaster up than the jaws of a saltwater crocodile could snap shut.


    In the night sky I could see countless stars out, very similar to the earth that I knew of. Yet there were no constellations that I knew of that were present in this sky. everything seemed off. The moon as he said was not the right size either. A bitsmaller than what was usual on earth.


    "How do you propose we proceed? The air is clearly breathable. The night is not cold enough to kill us due to hypothermia, and there does not appear to be any hostile lifeforms that I have percieved."


    The man had a point. we needed to figure out what we wanted to do. There were countless possibilities. I clambered to the top of the rubble-pile to get a better view. What I saw was countless other rubble-piles, you could clearly see that there were remnants of walls sticking out of the individual piles. indicating that the piles used to be buildings.


    "I think you should see this before we agree on anything", the almost endless sea of rubble that spread out to the horizon was a sight to behold for sure, the problem was the lack of vegetation.


    The man who I just now noticed I hadn''t gotten the name of yet, gracefully as he could stepped up the pile. His eyes taking in the sight before him, seemingly rather uninterested in the rubble-sea.


    "I see no life anywhere, which is unsetling, but also a relief."


    "Yeah, no life as we know it, but at least there aren''t any wolves or anything clich¨¦ like that."


    "I totally understan-


    "FUCKING HELP ME ANYONE!", the quite loudcry for attention was not easily ignored. As such we voicelessly turned towards the noice.

 All in a nights walk.

    After the not so subtle call for help, we both voicelessly agreed and turned tovards the direction we thought the noice came from.


    Since the pile of rubble we were both standing on was not much higher than any of the other piles around us, we decidedly headed in the direction of the call. After climbing three piles of rubble, and after hearing several curses flying overhead in the call for assistance. we both spottet what the cause of the call. A female appeared to be testing her ability to dig herself out of a pile of rubble. Either that or she slipped and the pile fell and buried her halfway.


    "Need some help?", I decided to take the initiative and before she spotted us.


    "Thank the revenge driven god in hell! I woke up in this blasted fucking pile of bullshit rocks! Now get me the fuck out of here!"


    Deciding to ignore the unneccesarry cussing, Myself and the man in the navy cloak started picking up rocks from the pile. Unfortunately since a loose pile of rocks is not the most solid material, we had to remove around half of the pile before the girl managed to struggle her feet free. the time spent was enough to probably cook two meat pies.


    As the girl strugled to rise to her feet, I asked the million dollar question.


    "My name''s Cole Friedman, what''s yours?", at least I would have a name to attatch to her face, which was of average structure, no features seemed to make a deep impression. black hair, brown eyes, small eyebrows and a big mouth.


    "Clara Noswell, thanks for getting me out of that pile of shit rubble."


    She seemed alright enough. nothing too out of place. she took a short look at her surroundings before she saw the sky. she appeared fixated by it for a while. staring at the stars, carefully inspecting every speck of light in the night sky. She looked torn about something before finally speaking.


    "What''s your name?", she pointed to the man of Nordic descent.


    "Sprechst du Deutsch?", now it was Clara who was at the butt end of the joke. I must admit, it is funny. She looked shocked for a second, before trying her very best german.


    "Ich heisst Clara, was nennen wir du?", Now I don''t speak german, but from her desperate attempt and most assuradly butchering of german grammar, she did rather ok.


    I stifled a laugh before it could make its presense known, however the man whose name I did not know continued with the joke, seemingly impressed with Claras ability to completely destroy the german language.


    "Ich bin Alfred Ohm, du kannst mich Alfred nennen. Ich bin 20 Jahre alt, mein hobby ist wolken-blicken und ich habe f¨¹nf geschwister. Wie alt bist du, wo hast du Deutsch gelernt und wieso hast du Deutsch sprechen wenn ich kann Englisch sprechen?", Wow, I did not know that random dude could speak fluent german. Nor could I possibly hope to understand what he just said, as whatever few words I could sort of make out was completely overshadowed by the fact that he spoke much too quickly.


    Clara just laughed and said.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "want me to translate this for you my non bilingual friend?", I was shocked could clara understand all that?


    "I''m Alfred Ohm, you can call me Alfred, I''m twelve years old, my hobby is people staring, and I have five sisters. Then he asked me how old I was, where I learnt german, and why I... hmm" She looked puzzled when she tried to recall the question. Then she shot up and quickly tried to punch Alfred in the gut.


    Alfred dogded easily and spoke clearly.


    "wrong, in several places too. I''m twenty, I like cloud-gazing, and I have five siblings.", I started laughing my ass off as Clara tried to beat the snot out of Alfred.


    "I''ll fucking kill you, you oversized moldy cheese!"


    Clara was easily dogded and evaded, I continued laughing.


    "And shut up! you ridiculous excuse for a ceasar salad!". She then proceeded to punch my gut, leading to me lying on the ground trying to get my breath back... goddamn she hit hard.


    We all laughed for a while. Letting the stress of the situation diffuse.


    "I''m deeply sorry Clara, nothing personal. It''s all part of the routine as you may have observed. I did the same for Cole over there.", I will admit that without Alfreds comedy and poor jokes the situation would have been way more tense.


    "It''s no fucking problem, just don''t trick me like that again. Or I''ll punch you in the gut.", Clara still had her colourful language to decorate her speech. It seemed this night would be calm.


    "Do you think there are more people lying about? You said you awoke within that pile of rubble. there may yet be more survivors.", Alfred took control of the situation and focused our attention. Me and Clara looked at eachother, with a nod from both of us Alfred took it as his responsibility to cook up a plan.


    "If they are anything it''s asleep, we cannot really effectively find someone if they don''t actively try to be rescued, calling out and such. I think resting and waiting until daytime will prove to be the best option for finding other people."


    "But what the hell about people like me, who woke up in a fucking rock-pile? Isn''t there a risk they could die if they don''t get help, like you helped me?", Clara put forth an interesting point.


    "If they are fully submerged within the rock-piles they are as good as dead if we step on the pile by accident searching for people. waiting for them to naturally wake up would, I believe bring the most merit in terms of people rescued.


    As such I propose a resting period until the break of dawn, not only will finding living people be easier because of the increase in light-level, more people are likely to be awake the longer we wait. Any issues with the plan proposed?", Alfred could talk, that''s for sure and his points did make sense.


    "I agree with Alfred, Clara I don''t want to risk accidentally killing anyone, or missing someone we could have saved because we couldn''t see them in the night-light."


    "Ok, fuck, fine, I relent.", Clara seemed reluctant, or she was just swearing, as appeared as usual for her. Her colourful language did not help my evaluation of her intentions.


    After we all agreed we split up, but still within view-distance to pick up anything burnable, I found some strips of cloth and an old wood beam. I went back to the center of our gathering, waiting for the others. Clara arrived shortly bringing with her some wood-shrapnel, it appears to have been completely torn asunder when the building collapsed. Alfred also came back. he brought back a large piece of cloth.


    "I found a poncho of some sort. as you Cole are the one wearing the least heat trapping clothing here I believe you should have it. to keep your core temperature at a stable level.", it was true, Alfred wore a large navy-blue cloak covering his body trapping heat, and protecting his body from whatever rain may come. Clara was wearing a thick woolen sweater, I didn''t recognize the style, however I did notice some rather intricate patterns. Me myself however was only wearing a black and white striped t-shirt, as well as a pair of jeans. The poncho would be a welcome change of attire.


    After Clara showed off her fire-starting skills involving nothing more than a lighter and the bone-dry strips of cloth that I found. we started a passable fire, and I fell asleep.

 A morning most sinister

    I was awoken by the sound of a "Yo!", the source still unknown.


    I opened my eyes, the sky was still dark. but it was brighter than I remembered seeing it earlier. The source of the "Yo!" made itself known, as Alfred wawed at me to get up, he also brought his index to his lips indicating that I stay quiet.


    I sat up, got to my feet in a crouched position and quietly sneaked over to where Alfred was also crouched.


    "I think you should see this", his voice was a whisper, silent but determined. He reached into his pocket and produced a strip of paper. the strip of paper seemed harmless enough, nothing really unordinary about it. he pointed to a particular mark on the paper, it looked like writing.


    "mass... ...age estima... ...ths ar... 5...lion", from the get-go my assumption was "massive damage estimated deaths around 5 million" possibly the disaster that struck this city, or maybe a neighboring city, before moving to this one.


    "What do you make of it?", Alffred asked me.


    "I believe that it may have been a disaster on a grand scale for it to end up in the newspaper, but not massive enough on its own to destroy this city, otherwise we wouldn''t have found a record of it here.", My hands were cold, sleeping on the bare ground was not good for your health, but my hands were cold with the realization that this may be the last record of a dying civilization. maybe ours.


    "I concur, there is a very direct feel to the message, as if it was given as an on site report."


    Neither of us spoke as we took in what the message might mean for our situation. if we were the last surviors it might mean we had no hope of ever returning to our respective families. but it might also mean a new chance. The previous order of the world had left me little more than broken and bitter for all the things that happened. I felt a twinge of happiness, happiness for being free. nothing tying me down to my previous world. Nothing but my memories. Weird really the ancient egyptians said that there are two deaths, one where you physically die, and the other when you leave the memories of the people left behind. Or at least that''s what I remember being said in an episode of a cartoon I used to watch. It may not have been the most accurate source of history knowledge, but it got the job done.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    "What do you want to do now?", I asked Alfred. He looked at the paper-strip and took a breath, a slow breath, one that he probably knew would end in a sigh, yet he still did it. Then he did sigh, a long and quiet sigh. A sigh of relenting will.


    "What humans are known to historically do after a natural disaster, move on.", Alfred had a sad look in his eyes, I felt the compulsion to say something, but I knew that I shouldn''t.


    As if planning this for ages, Clara chose that moment to wake from her own slumber.


    "What are you fucking whispering about?", ever the colorful language, Clara brought an end to the decidedly closed discussion.


    "Nothing really, I do hope that our whispering did not wake you?", Alfred chose to reply.


    "Well you fucking did, so shut up and go back to sleep you bad impersonation of a llama.", I still could not really understand her resoning for swearing so much. but I decided to let the matter lay still for now.


    As such I laid down myself, the poncho providing somewhat of a softening effect to the hard layer of rock. It may still have been hard, but it was considerably better than nothing.


    I fell asleep counting the unfamiliar stars coating the almost twillight early morning sky.


    And I awoke once more, this time not from a friendly "Yo!" however. This time silence greeted me, as I sat up to find a deserted camp-fire, a blood-trail leading away from the camp-fire, and three sticks making an arrow pointing the direction of the blood-trail.


    "well shit."

 A friendly foe

    Out of all the things that could have struck my mind, the idea that the sticks forming an arrow in the direction of the blood-trail being anything other than a trap was not one of them.


    The blatant challenge for an approach either meant that whoever, or whatever that had kidnapped my ''friends'', either were too lazy to carry me or they enjoyed messing with me. I was not sure of which though. Is it still considered kidnapping, if the kidnapped is an adult? adult-napping? Yeah ok, adult-napping.


    On one hand, if the foe was friendly enough to leave my directions for my friends, who was I to decline.


    On the other... they could just be severely messing with me.


    I looked at the blood-trail, a few drops, not much, but enough to be clearly visible. it looked dried, most likely it had been there for a while.


    I could have been marching to my premature death, but would abandoning my friends ensure my survival, All I would be doing is dropping all the support that I could have and essentially going by myself. Judging by the lack of yelling for help that was non-precent in my immediate area, I decided to follow the arrow, and blood-trail.


    I have no idea for how long I walked, but it couldn''t have been long, the early morning sun was still low in the sky. I followed the arguably easily followed trail of my friends and their would-be captors. The blood had stopped, but the arrows of tiny sticks were still prominent. What adult-napper, would leave a trail? unless Alfred and Clara just wandered off and decided not to wake me. That was also a very real possibility... what dicks. Either way I continued the march.


    Soon I spottet a building inbetween all the piles of rubble, not a massive skyscraper or anything, more like a stone-Igloo if anything, made of piled rocks that were built in arches. The arrows of sticks led me towards the building.


    "Anyone there!", I shouted in my ''manly man'' voice toward the building, hopefully intimidating whoever thought to adult-nap my friends.


    Of course the stone-igloo being a building incapable of comprehending, much less even hearing whatever I said, didn''t respond.


    Someone who might be inside responded though.


    If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation."Cole, shut the hell up!", definitively Clara, judging by the cussing and the girly voice.


    "Glad to hear you too Clara!", always a treat with clara. So friendly.


    Something not so friendly though, might be the larger than average, ugly looking fellow who stepped out of the stone-igloo. He then proceeded to grab rocks the size of my head, one in each hand, and they looked like billiard-balls in his hands. Definitively larger than the average man, If I had to place a name for him, I''d have to say Richard, but If I had to place a name for the species I''d have to say troll.


    Richard the Troll, such a happy fellow.


    A rock narrowly misses my head by an arms-lenght, my body being longer than an arms length, naturally got hit...


    didn''t say it missed, only that it missed my head. it hit my lower stomach. thankfully nothing too important was there, although a very peculiar pain could be felt in my appendix.


    Richard the Troll, not so much a friendly fellow.


    I got to my feet before another rock got the chance to hit me again.


    Then another rock hit me again... in the same spot. This time the pain spread from my appendix to the rest of my bowels. thankfully, bowels being bowels were soft tissue, not easily tearing, At least I didn''t feel any broken bones.


    This time I scrambled to my feet, and actually tried getting away from Richard before he got to throw another rock at me. Richard being Richard took it upon himself to throw more rocks, some the size of my chest. Thankfully it seemed the two first rocks hitting were the result of dumb luck. The rest of the rocks he threw would be the equivelant of a kid guessing random numbers, hope he doesn''t get yours. I began to climb a rock-pile trying to get some sort of cover from the Troll. Hoping to climb over the hill as best as I could. The Troll seeing this threw more rocks, like trolls do.


    I got over the top of the hill, and slid down the other side.


    Richard the Troll saw what appeared to be in his mind, the tiny troll-like man sinking into the top of the rock-pile.


    Richard thinking this to be his chance walked over to the pile the man ''sunk'' into, and began smashing the pile with his fists. "The man would definitively be dead after this." was most likely what Richard thought about as he smashed and dug in the pile.


    I walked slowly around the pile and towards the stone igloo that the troll appeared from, being quiet as to not attract attention. The troll being as trolly as it could was using all his limited focus on smashing and digging in the pile that I climbed over.


    I entered the Igloo, nothing to guide me other than my fear of the troll, and the shouting of Clara.

 A dark dank dome

    The angry growling of a troll could be heard in the morning sun as it smashed through a rockpile, being quite the energetic troll Richard spent his whole effort in to crushing the pile.


    I, not wanting to wind up like the pile, wisely decided to move into the structurally questionable stone igloo. Angry troll growls could be heard as well as the sound of a continuously falling pile of rocks.


    My intestinal pain was shockingly numb, probably because of the adrenaline pumping through my body just like a bodybuilder with his steroids. My eyes needed a moment to adjust to the relative darkness within the igloo. It was not exactly without numerous holes in its domed celing. However the abrubt change from having the morning sunshine on my eyes to dank dark igloo interior made me stop for a moment. After my eyes naturally adjusted I noticed two very particular things.


    One. Trolls have no interior decorating skills. It was a mess! food lay strewn about everywhere! the crumbs could attract ants! Bones of several small animals lay intertwined with the foodstuffs. Most notably was what I recognized to be somewhat similar to a human skull. Probably an ape of some sort.


    Two. Clara was laying cradling a familiar blonde-haired someone. down in a pit in a corner of the room. the pit was atleast 3 meters deep. The walls of the hole basically unclimbable with nothing but bare hands.


    "looks like someone was busy while I got rocks thrown at me."


    "Oh fuck you Cole, He''s injured. Would you fucking mind helping us out of here?", what she said sounded legitimate. His head was covered in far too much Ketshup than we had access to at the moment, I decided to trust her judgement on this issue, but I swore if he had had access to ketshup all along he was going to regret it.


    I listened in on the growling of the troll outside. Content with still hearing the sound of a rock-pile being smashed I nodded at her question and proceeded to pull a ladder out of my ass.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Like fuck I did.


    The only thing available that could get them out of the hole, that was not my magical ass ladder. Was the strewn about pile of food and bones.


    The premise is simple, throw down a pile big enough that they can climb out of the hole on their own.


    The execution on the other hand... going about as smoothly as my wrinkly grandma''s face over coarse sandpaper. Why would sandpaper be going over my wrinkly grandma''s face? no reason in particular. She once got involved in a horrible arts and crafts accident. Grandma never again ventured near a sandpaper-belt.


    I pushed as many bones and foodscraps down the hole as I could. I did hear some angry yelling at first. but i think she got the idea after I pushed a sizeable amount into the hole... That... sounded better in my head. After the fifth pushed load she yelled for me to stop... ok... I''ll just stop that now.


    "I think I can fucking climb the fuck-hole now, but I need you to fucking, take care of fucking Alfred!"


    "I''m not particularly fond of fucking Alfred, but I''ll do my best!", to her credit... She did not seem to want to castrate me at the moment... so I think I''m safe.


    "Cole I swear to fucking Christ, If you do not fucking grab his shoulders and take care of fucking Alfred I''ll rip your head off!", She seemed pretty adamant that I fuck Alfred, thankfully I''m not into rape so I grabbed his shoulders and clara took his legs. She gave him a mighty hoist, and I fell over with an unconscious and injured Alfred on top of me.


    Now that I had some time, I looked to confirm that it was infactnot ketshup. very important.


    Clara lifted herself from her hole, and we darted as fast as a girl and a boy could carry an unconscious man between them. But not before Clara took her time laughing at me lying under Albert, promising to tell this story to my kids if I ever had some. Joke''s on her! I''m the one telling the story!


    muahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAH!


    Sorry kids...


    back to the story

 Brain Boogie Boogaloo

    Just what single cause brought us together for this specific moment I wonder. What possible creed is fulfilled upon me and you dragging this unconscious man through a field of rubble-piles?


    These thoughts among a plethora of others were making their voices known within my head as Clara and me lifted Alfred between us. We had probably been lifting him for quite some time, by quite some time I mean probably around 15-20 minutes. plenty of time to get away from a troll who angrily tries to destroy every pile of rocks he sees you get behind instead of going around the pile.


    Since I had nothing better to do, and as Clara seemed to be in no mood to talk, I settled for my own thoughts. Familiar rhythms made their silent appearance within my head, and a symphony of imagination was created. I spent my time listening to my own music inside my head, my breathing going along to the rhythm. My steps falling in line with the drums. slowly and ever so quietly a whistle was made apparent from my mouth, and I fell into the trap of whistling a catchy tune over and over again. The lyrics clearly resounding in my head.


    You can tell by the way I use my walk,


    I''m a woman''s man no time to talk.


    My head & body orchestra was interrupted when Clara gave me a mean glare. Quite rude, as I thought the choice of the song was quite appropriate for our current scenario. Still I chose to relent as I knew pissing her off was more trouble than its money''s worth.


    I continued my boogie silently this time as I studied the injury that Alfred had taken upon himself. And I must say was it a spectacle, he had probably got more blood outside his head than inside of it. The wound was not too large, however the large amount of blood likely meant he''d stay unconscious for a while longer at least. He''d likely acquired said wound when either foolishly protecting me or Clara, or just from being unlucky. I''d have to ask Clara eventually, however my silent boogie I felt was more important.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    That... and my lungs were burning more than Australia in the midsummer. And they treat bushfires like a common nuisance. Looks like pushing piles of bones and food scraps around made me build up quite the sweat. I also wouldn''t condone lifting a grown man for over 20 minutes now. I gave Clara a meaningful look, filled to the brim with whining. She must have either agreed or deemed it more beneficial to succumb to the whining for now.


    I quickly took in the surrounding area. Quiet and grey stone piles were still surrounding us. Not claustrophobically surrounding us, but more gently. Like a wall protecting us from prying eyes, and angry trolls.


    Since my lungs had gotten a chance at actually breathing oxygen once more instead of liquid lead. I felt it necessary to acquire information in regards as to how Alfred had been injured. My words not quite as eloquent when leaving my mouth, sounded more like a mix between heaving noises and deep breaths.


    "How did he hit his head?", yes I must say, I''m quite the charmer.


    "He woke up, and woke me before the troll managed to hit him with a rock. I played dead, you... seemed to need the sleep, and the troll seemed to either forget that you existed or just didn''t care enough to go back and get you after he dumped me and Alfred into that hole you found us in.", Ok... I really needed the sleep then. Well at least I now know to sleep lighter when in unknown territory and without a guard-dog or noise-trap to alert me of impending doom... good to know.


    Nothing more was said as I climbed on top of a rock-pile in order to scout the area.


    Nothing of notice was present in my initial glance, however my eyes soon caught the sight of green.


    Like the sun in the sky it was quite easy to notice the green when nothing obstructed the view. pure luck dictated whether or not you could see the green between the piles of rocks.


    Whether the green indicated trees, or giant green boogie-men. who knew? I was determined to check it out, and it was also the opposite direction of where the troll was located. Totally a win-win situation. I urged for Clara to come up as well in order to see for herself. and she complied.


    Her gaze lingered on the green far out on the horizon. We both instinctually knew that it was the correct destination for the time being. As we had no source of food, no clean supply of water, and certainly no neatly chopped up wood to use for fires to signal any sort of rescue from our current position.


    We knew, and as such we moved.