A journey behins - part 9

Part 9.

If it was a dream or not she was not sure of, but she could in fact see the
horseman in front of her now. Somehow it was strange as she looked at him and he
just stood there, still and hardly moving. It was as if her was waiting for his
mark to enter the stage or something. Could it be… a frozen dream with
movement ? But how strange was not that, a dream is either something where you
experience things or you simply does not recall it. She had never heard of a
dream that stood still in time while moving.
Did she dare to confront the horseman ? Would he see her, well he should have
already seen her as she was in fact standing in front of him now, but still if
she touched him would he then react ?

She started to walk towards the horseman while looking at him carefully, the
slightest move resembling an attack or anything and she was prepared to dodge
and run. Soon she was close enough to be able to touch the muzzle of his horse.
But there was no such thing under the large armour covering the horse.
It seemed as there was nothing at all under it as she looked.. just a skeleton..

She stepped backwards and gasped for her discovery. She had not seen it before
for the actions of the horseman and the details around had taken all her focus.
But now she saw that the horse, it was a horse indeed, but only the remains of
one; the skeleton. The gigantic armour and coat that was covering the horse had
hidden this to her in her earlier visions. But as it was breathing there were
still air coming out from its muzzle, as if it was still alive despite being a
skeleton.
But it had not moved or tried to avoid her when she was closing in, perhaps she
would be able to have a closer look without being noticed. What a strange dream.

She gathered her courage and walked towards the horseman again, she had backed
some distance when she had found out about the horse, so she had almost to start
over again with the walk it seemed. She looked at the horseman as she approached
him. It was strange though, in the distant she had barely been able to
distinguish details on his armour, details that should become clearer as she got
nearer, but the odd thing was that when she came closer the details were
vanishing. She was now as close again as she had been when touching the horse
but she took a few more steps and was now next the side to the horseman and was
looking at him. The armour seemed gigantic but totally shiny and glossy, no
details or ornaments, not even a dent, could she see on it. It was as if it had
been forged from one single piece of metal which made it look as it melted
together. She wondered how its surface would be to touch and contemplated to try
it out. She stretched her arm and hand and doubted a second before she let her
fingers touch it.
Suddenly, as her fingers touches the hard and cold armour the horseman turned
his head and looked at her with a evil grin. The last thing she saw was his big
red demonic eyes and the grin..

She awoke with a shout, it had been a dream again. A strange one it was; did the
dream stand still eve though she was able to move or was it the dream itself
that wanted to show her something.
Anyhow it had been a bad dream, a nightmare for her and she wanted to forget it
as soon as possible. Especially his eyes as they had almost burned themselves
into her mind. She had seem them for a short while, still she could remember
them clearly for some reason.
The night had turned into morning, the dream must had taken its time with her
since so little happened but so much time passed but she got up and stretched
and suddenly it was like something told her that today she should wander a bit.

She did a quick look that she had everything with her, the knife, the medallion,
her bag with some berries and so on and as soon as she was done checking she
looked at the area around her.
It seemed as she would head towards the forest this time, or well it was as
something had pre-set her course and she didn’t really questioning it since so
many strange things had happened since she had found this rock. Odd that it
hadn’t happened to anyone else before here though, quite many had already passed
along this route and were bound to experience something like this, so why her.

She walked towards the forest and soon she found herself in its outskirts, the
nice line it former as if it did not want to extend any further then this formed
a wall of trees in front of her. It was almost a scary sight but also soothing
and welcoming, she felt as she could travel safe in this forest. She took her
first step into it and it almost seemed as the roof of trees bended over here
covering the sky only letting sparse rays of light through creating spears of
light that lit it up. It was a beautiful sight to see how the stems formed
pillars accompanied with the light. It all had a shimmer around it that gave her
a feeling of a welcoming as she walked into it. She just walked where she
thought she was headed, perhaps if she tried to escape the rock on the hill she
was inadvertently drawn back to it. Perhaps her mind had to be free in order to
become free from the circular travelling she had done before.

She walked on for perhaps an hour or so, still in the small bliss the forest had
created when she walked into it, she looked around to see if there was something
she could use. She had found another small bush with the strange berries at the
roots of a tree, just in one of the places where the trees let the sun pass
their roof. It stood there happily alone as if it was guarded by the tree
itself, growing towards the sky which held the warmth of the sun giving it
energy to grow even more. She had gently picked a few of the berries in case she
would have to eat later on.

She almost lost time as she walked further and further into the forest, still it
seemed as the time stood still in here, there was still rays of light coming
from the rooftops and she did not look close enough to see if they wandered on
the ground telling of the suns movement on the sky, but she did not really care
since this was the first comfortable thing she had experienced since she had
started her journey.

Suddenly it was something that grabbed her ankle and almost made her loose
balance, but she reacted quickly and was standing on her two feets hastily. She
looked around to see if there was someone who had grabbed her, if so they must
have moved quietly as she had not heard anything but herself walking.
But there was none around and she noticed that it was a small root that she had
got entangled into. Strange as she could not recall passing near enough to get
entangled like this, she set herself free and looked around.
Not far away there was something resembling a small hill and on it there were
something that seemed to be an old cabin. How odd that it would be in here,
wonder whom had lived here she thought to herself as she somehow decided that
she wanted to give it a closer look.
So she changed her path now heading towards the cabin while looking at it and
around to see if there still was someone living in it. But it seemed as it had
been abandoned a long time ago, and a tad run down. She was not far away from it
now and she could see the small path that once was used by the one or those that
lived in this cabin, it originated from the door of the cabin down the little
hill and then sort of faded away into the forest as they would probably have
taken many different directions when reaching this part of it. As she walked on
the path she felt something warm against her chest and notices that it was the
medallion that suddenly had turned warmer then it had been before. Did this mean
it was familiar with this place ? Was this the workings of the medallion again ?
As she stood in front of the door she though to herself : “Well, it might not be
a rock. But I am on a hill again…”