Marco Northern was bored as beans, and going just a little mad.
Ever since his crash landing into LusciousLocks, he felt he had been wandering through the woods for days on end. The sky in LusciousLocks was impenetrably dark, and the thickness of the woods only made things worse. His helmet flashlight had long since lost power, though fortunately his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. He became overly perceptive of shadows, movement, and sound, while becoming entirely oblivious to details and color.
Still, what bothered him most was having no sense of time. Had the sky been a swirly haze of dark clouds, with some hint of sunlight behind it, maybe then he could have coped. But as it was, the sky was black, his watch was frozen, and time dragged endlessly. When he woke from sleep, he had no way of telling how long he had slept. When he walked, he had no way of telling how long he had been on his feet. His internal clock had gone haywire, and he was beginning to feel just the faintest hints of mania creeping in.
“Don’t lose it Marco,” he told himself. “You were trained for situations like these.” Except he wasn’t. Being stranded in a hostile country, he could deal with. Finding food in the wild, using nothing but his bare hands, he could handle. Distinguishing north from south, he could (at least in the presence of daylight) normally manage. But in LusciousLocks, everything was just wrong. His very sense of reality was beginning to slip away.
His entire life, Marco had managed his time carefully. His hunger didn’t determine when to eat; the time of day did. How tired he was never determined whether he’d take a nap or go to sleep; his schedule and list of duties did. But now, with no sense of structure to guide him—with no mental landmarks or guidelines whatsoever—he felt he was beginning to lose it. He found it strange, how the loss of what he initially thought to be nothing more than the subjective and inherently meaningless concept of time, could result in his feeling so intensely removed from reality.
Luckily, he hadn’t run into any more monsters, but the air around him seemed to be growing progressively warmer. Humidity within the forest was rising, and Marco was finding it harder and harder to breathe. Fatigued, he decided to call it a day, taking shelter in a nook between two massive tree roots.
As soon as he lied down, he felt a strange, familiar presence. A smell, or essence—a something he couldn’t quite figure out. Probably nothing more than more signs of his oncoming insanity, but whatever it was, he felt oddly comforted and safe between the roots. Then he thought of Lithuania… And more quickly than he expected, Marco found himself drifting into a deep and peaceful sleep…
…A sleep that would last only a few hours—for that very night, the entire woods of LusciousLocks were to burst into flames.
Ever since his crash landing into LusciousLocks, he felt he had been wandering through the woods for days on end. The sky in LusciousLocks was impenetrably dark, and the thickness of the woods only made things worse. His helmet flashlight had long since lost power, though fortunately his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. He became overly perceptive of shadows, movement, and sound, while becoming entirely oblivious to details and color.
Still, what bothered him most was having no sense of time. Had the sky been a swirly haze of dark clouds, with some hint of sunlight behind it, maybe then he could have coped. But as it was, the sky was black, his watch was frozen, and time dragged endlessly. When he woke from sleep, he had no way of telling how long he had slept. When he walked, he had no way of telling how long he had been on his feet. His internal clock had gone haywire, and he was beginning to feel just the faintest hints of mania creeping in.
“Don’t lose it Marco,” he told himself. “You were trained for situations like these.” Except he wasn’t. Being stranded in a hostile country, he could deal with. Finding food in the wild, using nothing but his bare hands, he could handle. Distinguishing north from south, he could (at least in the presence of daylight) normally manage. But in LusciousLocks, everything was just wrong. His very sense of reality was beginning to slip away.
His entire life, Marco had managed his time carefully. His hunger didn’t determine when to eat; the time of day did. How tired he was never determined whether he’d take a nap or go to sleep; his schedule and list of duties did. But now, with no sense of structure to guide him—with no mental landmarks or guidelines whatsoever—he felt he was beginning to lose it. He found it strange, how the loss of what he initially thought to be nothing more than the subjective and inherently meaningless concept of time, could result in his feeling so intensely removed from reality.
Luckily, he hadn’t run into any more monsters, but the air around him seemed to be growing progressively warmer. Humidity within the forest was rising, and Marco was finding it harder and harder to breathe. Fatigued, he decided to call it a day, taking shelter in a nook between two massive tree roots.
As soon as he lied down, he felt a strange, familiar presence. A smell, or essence—a something he couldn’t quite figure out. Probably nothing more than more signs of his oncoming insanity, but whatever it was, he felt oddly comforted and safe between the roots. Then he thought of Lithuania… And more quickly than he expected, Marco found himself drifting into a deep and peaceful sleep…
…A sleep that would last only a few hours—for that very night, the entire woods of LusciousLocks were to burst into flames.
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