Upon The Mountain
As Dreya and her horse, Vail, gained height up the Mountain, Dreya noticed many seemingly out-of-place surprises letting her know that they were on the correct Path, towards Hope and Light and Answers. Delicate birds in a marvelous blend of colors, so small they could fit on the tip of her thumb, perched on a branch just above her head. In the Valley below, where she had just climbed from, there was no such thing… only the occasional tar-black crow could be spotted hopping across the dusty, barren Path; life down there had been sucked dry. Now, though, a sweet breeze, filled with the aroma of fresh daffodils and warmth, trickled across Dreya’s body; she squeezed Vail so that he would gallop faster towards the Top, for the anticipation of unveiling the Mystery of what had happened was overwhelming her.
Just ahead, a beam of light painted the Path where arching trees allowed its escape. Surely, this was the Top; this is where she would find Answers to the questions that had been tangling in her mind for weeks, beginning with the most basic of all: What actually occurred on that fateful day three weeks ago, when everything suddenly vanished except for a Path and a Wood? These things don’t just happen.
***
Dreya had been walking down Franklin Avenue, on her way home to eat her mother’s infamous meatloaf casserole, after spending all day working at her father’s “Good As New!” pawn-shop, selling overpriced electric guitars and malfunctioning digital cameras. Dreya was always glad for the brief escape into the fresh air. There was so much dust in her father’s shop that she could almost feel it layering upon her lungs with every breath that she allowed into her body. She told her dad this once, and he responded by telling her that she was being overdramatic and sounded like she was one of those “tree-huggers”. Dreya would never tell him this, but sometimes she really did have the urge to hug a tree, or anything else of the earth that was so wonderfully captivating to her. Anytime she was outside, Dreya felt so unexplainably joyful. Something about the way the wind brushed her shoulders and the sun warmed her skin, reminded her that she was so tiny in comparison to the great, beautiful world around her—and that Somebody even more Great and Beautiful had to have created it all. She loved Whoever it was that made all of this Beauty. Even when she was little, she couldn’t get enough of the outdoors; her mom would always scold her for coming home with grass stains and muddy cheeks, bruises and scrapes. Not much had changed since then. She walked down the sidewalk of her neighborhood, seeing the usual sights and sounds that she saw every Thursday coming home from work. That Thursday should have been like any other Thursday.
She remembered a sudden burst of light that had erupted from the sky above, to which Dreya had responded by gently closing her eyes and lifting her chin towards its expected warmth, like she often did when the sun came out from its hiding place in the clouds. But there was no warmth. In fact, there was no sound anymore either. Dreya allowed her eyes to open again, and immediately, she gasped. For she saw nothing. Nothing but bright, white light. She squeezed her eyes shut again—the only reaction she could think of. A few moments later when she opened them back up, she saw that she was once again standing in the middle of Franklin Avenue—or what she assumed was Franklin Avenue, considering she had not moved her feet from their position. However, the black concrete street had now become a narrow Path of dirt, its particles being brushed up into a swirling pattern of dust in the wind. Glancing towards her peripherals, Dreya saw that the white-picket homes that normally lined the road were now replaced with a wall of tall, grey, leafless trees. There were no signs of life anywhere, and certainly nothing looked familiar. It was almost as if she had been picked up and abandoned in the middle of nothing, with no one but the still air and the ashen clouds to keep her company. At the time, she had assumed the phenomenon was just a very strange, very realistic, dream that she would eventually wake up from. Perhaps this is what it was like to faint… it had been rather hot outside after all. However, when she fell asleep at a dried creek bed that night and woke up the next morning, covered in a dusty film, still at the dry water’s edge, she knew that something much more real had occurred when that beam of light came out of the sky. Dreya had no idea what the light was or whether she was the only human still alive; she felt completely helpless, for there was no logic that could explain what had happened. Surely, her family was in a similar place, completely safe, as she was. Dreya had always been a curious girl by nature, and she was determined to find out the meaning of all of this. The Path seemed to be created for her, and her alone, so she would follow it. There was obviously nowhere else to go, but forward. Perhaps there would be Answers at the end of it. What was there to lose?
The Path had a few curves, but was generally flat and bleak. She walked upon it for a week, finding a few barely-sputtering springs to drink from, and dried fruits to nibble. The excitement of finding Answers by way of the mysterious Path, had long since vanished and was now replaced with the numbing sense of hunger and desolation. The silence was deafening. The still air was suffocating. The lack of color was blinding. And there seemed to be no escape from the barricade of thick, stark trees that lined her Path. She dared not to pass their border, for beyond them was only more and more grey sights; she feared what she would find if she were to step into that empty wilderness. One day, she heard a distant rumble, and the ground beneath her seemed to tremble slightly. Then, she saw him: rounding the corner ahead of her was a radiant, white horse that seemed to be aiming right for her. Dreya didn’t even try to move out of its way—at that point she assumed nothing could be worse than her current situation; perhaps the horse would trample her down, as a favor. Instead, the horse came to an abrupt stop, nose to nose with Dreya; the air exhaling from its nostrils was enough provide the first breeze to her face in days. His eyes were a translucent blue, and seemed to penetrate her own as he twitched his eyebrows in her direction, communicating in a voiceless language. He was obviously not from around here, for he seemed free and full of a vibrant vitality, so unlike the bleak dreariness of the Path that she had been walking upon. She imagined he might even be able talk, had it not been for the simple fact that he was a horse and not a human—considering the circumstances, of her being whisked onto a secret Path and the world disappearing, though, she was willing to believe anything at this point. Perhaps, at the least, he would be able to take her to the mysterious place that he came from, somewhere further down the Path; a place with life and beauty, and most hopefully: Answers. Dreya mounted the horse and decided to call him Vail, short for Valiant; he was her hero, rescuing her from the mundane walk of emptiness that she had been engulfed in, alone, for over a week.
A few days into their walk, Dreya heard a sound in the distance, as if a row of chalkboards were being simultaneously scratched with the fingernails of rebellious children, creating a horrible shrieking noise. The sound of humans, tons of them—all screaming. A cold shiver flew through Dreya’s spine, and the hair on her arms stood tall. Panic caused her heart to thump loudly in her chest. She must help! She must see! Her family could be out there! Dreya gripped a handful of Vale’s mane in her fist, and forcefully urged his body towards the muffled cries beyond the trees. He didn’t budge so she tried again, this time yanking much harder than before. Instead of veering to the sounds, as Dreya commanded, Vail began sprinting forward. Frustrated and dismayed, Dreya slapped Vail’s white coat and pulled his mane enough that he could do nothing but halt his stride. Finally when they came to a stop, all Dreya could hear was her own gasping and muddled choking as tears fell down her face and throat. She leapt off Vail’s back, and shot him a rage-filled glare.
“Why would you do that to me! Don’t you hear them, Vail? I need to find where those voices are coming from!” Dreya could barely speak, for more tears bubbled up and her lip began quivering.
She hadn’t let herself cry until now. She had been holding onto the hope that there was a reason why she was the only human around. She hoped that perhaps time had just stood still, and everyone else was peacefully holding their motions until something would trigger life to begin again, something that she would find at the end of this Path that had been laid out before her. But now she was proven wrong. There were other humans still around, and something bad was happening to them. Dismissing Vail’s stubborness, Dreya ran towards the trees, eager to find where the sounds were coming from. Just as she was about to pass the first grey trunk, the front of Dreya’s body was suddenly struck with a strong blowing force, enough to knock her painfully to the ground. The back of her head slammed the ground, followed by a sharp ache that traveled through to her limbs. She slowly sat herself up and reached out toward the trees with a trembling hand, fearing the unseen power and strength in that wind. Her hand was quickly met with yet another forceful gust that pushed her whole arm away from the tree’s perimeters. Dreya was trapped. She looked up and down the never-ending Path, lined with these trees that held an invisible force, locking her within their borders. A heavy burden of shock cloaked itself on her body, and she sat there on the dusty Path in complete silence, sans for the echoes of screaming that still muffled through the shield of trees. Vail timidly walked toward her, as if he could sense her need for quiet comfort. He gently nudged at back of her throbbing head with his nose, and she glanced up with tears in her eyes, suddenly remembering her anger towards him.
“You knew this would happen if I got too close, didn’t you, Vail? You tried to keep me from finding out that I’m stuck on this Path… Well, what about them?!” She almost threw her arms in the direction of the trees, but soon remembered that the strong wind would return if she did.
Vail shifted his large, blue eyes from the trees, to Dreya, then from Dreya, to the forward Path. Her anger dissipated as she saw his soft attempt to help her to understand something.
“No. I can’t go, Vail. Not when I know that something terrible is happening just beyond these trees.”
Just then, a wave of realization hit her. That could have been her out there screaming in fear. In fact, whatever happened when that great Light erupted, was causing all of this desolation and pain… and for some reason she was kept safe. She was chosen to be on this Path. Vail had found her, not the other way around. She had sensed the need to move forward on this Path ever since the day she first found herself upon it, and now she was starting to understand why. With all of the madness out there beyond the trees, someone needed to be kept safe; someone needed to be able to find Answers for why all of this was happening. Dreya still didn’t understand why she was the one on this Path, or what was happening to the people beyond the trees, but she suddenly felt a strong sense of urgency to move forward and find out why.
She glanced one last time at the scream-filled trees, took a slow, deep breath and turned toward Vail, hoisting herself up onto his back.
After riding upon his back for over a week, Dreya finally saw something other than grey clouds when she looked out over the barren treetops. There was a piece of a mountain poking through the sky, so tall that she could only see its midsection; the rest seemed to ascend high above the grey blanket of clouds. Vail began to pick up his pace, sensing the nearness of their destination, which Dreya then realized was the Mountain ahead.
***
Now, after climbing the Mountain for about sixteen hours, stumbling over fallen tree-trunks and stopping for desperate sips of water, Dreya and Vail were finally to the Top. They had finally found an end to the Path they were following, to the place that had been eagerly awaiting their arrival, ushering them in with bursts of colors at its Gate, found in exquisite birds and the warm, aromatic breeze which skimmed Dreya’s skin. Her heart quivered in anticipation.
The fur coat on Vail’s face was suddenly brightened to a glimmering shade of the purest ivory color as he stepped through the vine-strewn arches that led him into a sunny meadow. Dreya reached out her arm to catch the vine that threatened to take her own face hostage, and pushed it aside.
The sunbeams were so intense; they felt like sharp needles stabbing at the lids of her tender eyes. She couldn’t keep her eyes from blinking in response, so she raised her hands to them instead, finding solace in the darkness that she had become so accustomed to along the grey Path. It had been weeks since she had seen sunlight. This bright light brought back the memory of the day when everything disappeared, but somehow this brightness felt kinder. Uncovering her eyes, Dreya was pleasantly surprised by her surroundings, in awe of the tremendous Beauty that enveloped her. Vail let out a whine, shook his head right and left, and then lifted his front legs with a sudden burst of ecstatic energy, as if he was itching to be free of some invisible shackles, now that he was apparently home. Consequently, Dreya was the one inhibiting his freedom because her body suddenly shifted backward in response to Vail’s stance, and she rolled underneath herself, shoulders and feet creating a near-perfect circle until she finally made it to solid ground, bottom-first, on the cushion of grass beneath her. As soon as she gained her bearings, Vail galloped away, glad to be free of Dreya’s weight.
The emerald grass that held her seemed to dance in unison to the bird-songs that filled the air. A warm breeze grabbed the brown tendrils of hair that had been folded into a loose braid at her neck and threw them across her face—she didn’t even try to brush them back, but instead let them linger upon her face to tickle her lips and fasten on her eyelashes. To gain a better view of where she had found herself, Dreya lifted her body up to standing. Why, this didn’t resemble a summit of a mountain at all. In fact, it seemed as if she had walked into another world altogether. She noticed hills that rolled as far as her eyes could see, each of them covered with an array of wildflowers: violets, lavender, juniper, lilies. There were numerous trees scattered in a pattern that let the wind flow through them easily, allowing the leaves to rustle the sound a wonderous melody. One was spotted with fresh crimson apples, another was blooming pink; each tree was unique from the next.
Dreya let her eyes fall to a close and stood completely still amidst the breeze and the music and the tangible sweetness that laced the wind around her. She hoped that this was not a dream. As her mind began to drift blissfully, something indistinguishably rough rubbed upon the exposed skin on the outside of Dreya’s shoulder, startling her out of her stance. Dreya quickly turned in the direction of that which had commanded her attention, half-expecting to find a burly old man with hands that had been roughened by the wilderness staring at her. Instead, she stood face to face with a large slate of bark that was stretched around the perimeters of a tree, revealing that the fingers upon her shoulder had simply been the branches of this massive structure. Odd—she could have sworn she was the only one standing there just a moment ago.
A subtle movement in the tree’s bark caught her eye. At that, Dreya had to blink. And step back. And stretch her neck forward in curiosity. Was the tree moving, or was it just her? Peering closer at the wrinkles in the bark, Dreya saw them widening and shifting. What in the—
A second branch wrapped its arm toward her, flicking Dreya’s elbow with a bundle of leaves. A deep groan escaped from the trunk of the tree as it stretched and grew inch-by-inch right before her naked eyes.
A faint whisper, in a language she had never heard before but recognized immediately, trickled out of the leaves at the top of the tree. She understood the words clearly, as if she had heard them her whole life and just now deciphered their meaning.
“Closer”, it said. The tree’s mysterious language was intermingled with the sound of wind and wood, creating an orchestra of enchanting sounds.
Roots were suddenly protruding through the ground beneath her feet. Thick and round, they wound freely about the tree and her bare toes, forming a path for her to follow to its trunk. Dreya touched her smooth palm to its rough skin and felt deep comfort emanating from its form. Tracing its wrinkles with her delicate fingertips, she searched for a handhold that would allow her to ascend into its branches. Almost immediately, a series of five knots in the bark formed at the height of her calf, up to her chest: steps enough to reach the first branch.
“Well alright then,” Dreya said as she stepped upon the first sturdy knot in the wood and quickly made her way up the tree, branch by branch, the tree still moving and growing under her. The higher she got, the more she had to climb, for new branches were sprouting left and right. The arms of the tree seemed to lift her through its leaves, easing the burden of the climb, until suddenly she saw sky again. Now Dreya heard laughter bubbling from a clump of leaves and branches.
“Well, well! Whatdya know?!” said the mystery laugher. She saw a pudgy white hand emerge first, followed by a small, stout man with lemon-blonde hair and a wide grin. How long had it been since the last time she had a seen another human? Surely it had not been so long that she was becoming delusional. This man had the features of a human, but was clearly not from the same world that she had lived in for her whole life. He wore a pair of bright purple trousers that seemed to be made of woven flower petals, and his brown striped shirt looked to be made of a mixture of bark and green moss.
“You finally made it!” he said.
“Yes, I guess I did...” Dreya said. How did he know she was going to arrive? This place was becoming more and more curious each moment.
“Sir, I am wondering if you would be able to help me,” Dreya said, “I have many questions about something that happened in my world and, and how did you know that I was coming here, and—“
“Oh, dear girl, shhh… you are exactly where you need to be then. See, this tree is unlike any other tree you have ever imagined. It will answer all of your questions.”
Answers… finally!
“Does it speak? I thought I heard a voice…” Dreya asked.
“Did you understand what it was saying?”
“Yes, sir, it whispered, ‘closer’ to me. So I did indeed come closer, and the tree started moving, and, well, here I am!”
“Splendid! Oh, He must have something magnificent for you then. I must leave so that you can hear Him.”
“Wait! No, don’t go! I don’t understand who this is or what’s going on!”
“I will tell you one thing—He requires silence on your part. You do nothing right now! You sit. Climb up there to that tall branch that is thicker than the rest and wait.”
As if on cue, the man leapt off of his feet and down a descending branch, swirling out of sight until Dreya heard the muffled thump of his feet hitting the grass below.
Dreya obeyed the commands of the small, pudgy man and ascended up the tree a bit more. Sitting upon the thick branch he had alluded to, Dreya felt an immediate wave of peace wash over her whole body. Her shoulders dropped forward a bit, and she let her feet loosely dangle. A warm breeze gently stroked her face, and she leaned her head upon a pillow of leaves next to her. Her eyes became heavy and finally dropped completely, leaving her mind to freely wander within the vines and greenery of the mysterious tree.
Suddenly, the beautiful Voice that called her into its branches started speaking to her again in His unique, yet understandable, language. “Dreya, dear one, I brought you here to prepare you,” He said, “I want you to see how good it will be for you one day. I want you to feel the peace that you will one day be able to experience forever. When you go back down to the Valley of the Mountain, it will not be as you knew it to be. It has become a place of fire, destruction, hatred, and war. Your family will not know who you are, and your friends will betray you. The Evil One has attempted to take the seat of Authority, but I would not allow it. That is why you saw a bright, white light; for in that moment, a portion of his power was released onto the World, and if your eyes had seen it, you would have been altered forever. Some humans were able to see the Tide of his evil power coming towards them, and they found safe places to hide. Others, like you, were saved when I chose you and placed you on my Path. Unfortunately, many humans were destroyed. I tried to show them who I was before the Evil One released his power, so that I could save them, but they would not see me. But Dreya, you saw me. You noticed my wind; you appreciated my branches. I know that you have always loved Me. Dreya, I am asking you to return to the wretched Valley and fight for me. Show the humans who I am. Tell them that I am real, because now you have seen me, heard me, and sat with me. I will bring you back to this Mountain Top when the task is finished, but until then you must walk among the destruction. It will feel like you are alone at times, but I will be there to help you, showing up in every unexpected place, speaking with you and walking with you. Just as I lifted you up onto these tall branches, I will lift you up in the Valley when you go back. Do not let fear take you as it has taken the others. You are strong, dear one, and I have chosen you to fight for me.”
As the Voice echoed out into a quiet hum, Dreya’s eyes lifted opened, as if they were commanded to do so. She sat still, mouth open just enough to breathe in short, effortful breaths. She wanted to cry and giggle and run and hide and leap for joy all at the same time!
“W-why me?” was all she could utter.
“Go…” the Voice whispered softly.
She knew that she had to go. She didn’t want those left in the Valley to fall as prey under the Evil One. In fact, her body suddenly felt energized with Purpose. Dreya gripped the branch above her, and tested her weight upon it by gently lifting her feet off of the solid space where she had been sitting. It held. So she swung her legs in towards the tree and propelled her body out of the leaves, until she landed with her feet firmly planted on the ground below. She felt strong.
Dreya saw a gap in the forestry next to her that seemed to lead out to a Path, different than the one she had taken to arrive to the Top; the one she had previously taken was now overgrown with all sorts of vines and wildflowers. Looking around at the shimmering leaves and the clear blue sky, she saw that this would be her only way out. As she stepped closer and closer to the Path, she noticed that if she looked far enough down its way, the trees started losing their leaves and vibrance. She must remember that one day she will be able to return. A cool, sharp breeze startled her skin, coming from the Path. Clearly, the Valley was going to be a frightening surprise to return to, but she was ready. She had seen enough Beauty to now be able to handle the horrible pain of seeing a destroyed Valley. Dreya was given supernatural strength by the One whose Voice spoke power into her. She would not have to go into the Valley alone, for there were others that she would meet upon the Path, just like the Voice said; together, Dreya and the other saved ones would save anyone that was willing to listen about the Truth of a Purposeful life that brings more joy than anything of the Valley. She was ready. Her muscles twitched with anxiousness, and finally, without much more thought, Dreya let her feet move beneath her, propelling her whole body forward. She ran as fast as she could toward the place that needed her most, and she wouldn’t stop until she got there.
