Afetis in English

Chapter 3

I slowly open my eyes, the light dazzles me. I blink. The world is blurry, as if it were painted in watercolor. My eyes are filled with spots of color. The sounds are muffled, as if they were passing through a thick wall of cotton. A dull pain that pulses at the back of my head. I blink again, trying to chase away the fog that obscures my vision.

I'm lying on the ground, my back against the moisture of the ground that gives me a shiver. I try to get up, but my limbs refuse to obey me. I stay there, lying down, trying to gather my thoughts. What happened? There was this light then, the dark, the void. Little by little, the details around me begin to become clearer, to slowly clear up like when you manipulate the focus of a camera.

A forest? I close my eyes, I try to focus on my breathing. It's just a dream. I reopen my eyes. No, it's far from a dream. With one hand, I grab the grass. It's real. It's there. A wind of panic takes hold of me. I put a hand on my forehead as I sit up with a good headache.

I'm so shocked that my breath is almost cut off. I look around me. What is this place? Where am I? Panic rises a notch. I've been parachuted into a whole other world like the great fantasy and fantastic books I read when I was younger.

This forest has a strange aura, it's a whole other world, I still doubt I'm on earth. Each tree seems to whisper to its neighbor secrets carried by the wind. The leaves of these trees seem to sparkle with a strange light as if they were impregnated with magic. I've never seen such a lush forest. The flowers with shimmering colors grow in abundance and give off a scent of intoxicating sweetness that makes my head spin. I lift my nose and discover the extent of the trees. They are really gigantic, that the giant sequoia of America could pale. Their trunks are as wide as houses, it's surely exaggerated to say that. Their branches extend towards the sky like outstretched arms. And the roots sink deeply into the bowels of the earth, they form a whole underground network. The roots come up in some places on the surface and are covered with small white mushrooms, quite adorable I must say. To my greatest surprise, hundreds of crystals of more or less large sizes decorate the forest and give it a fairy-tale era.

The only noise I perceive now is the melodious song of the birds, their sweet chirping, which has nothing to do with the raucous cawing of the crows from the prefecture next to the high school with which we often wake up. A light breeze stirs the leaves, letting them escape a soft murmur. As incongruous as it may be, all this brought down the tension that had set in me. It's a continuous soothing sound, almost like a slight rustling of paper.

I get up in silence and scan the surroundings. My curiosity pushes me to move forward cautiously.

I was rocked all my childhood by tales, stories in which a human crosses the borders of worlds, passing through a mirror or a wardrobe. These stories made me dream, but not to the point of imagining that it was possible.

The questions are piling up and I'm having trouble finding answers.

I put a hand on the trunk of a tree, it may be a thousand years old. Its bark has a brown color like the earth with gray nuances that make me think of stone. The aspect is rough under my fingers. I observe it. There is something special about this tree that I have never seen before. The bark of this tree forms a real painting, the wood, which can be perceived under this shell, is the canvas. The bark is the irregular paint, bearing the mark of time in each crevasse and crack that run through it. This paint, so special, seems to want to testify to a history of survival against weather hazards in other words the elements, such as water that must have infiltrated many times in the crevices and sensitive little corners. The green moss, still soaked with moisture, offers a magnificent adornment to this specimen of a tree whose name I do not know. It is a green as intense as that of the leaves. In some places, the bark has flaked off, revealing the tender wood underneath. It's a striking contrast with the hardness of the outer surface. There's no doubt, the bark must have seen many woodpeckers come to feast on the multitude of small insects, which offer a miniature ecosystem in its discreet folds when you see this king of the forest from afar. This tree seems alive and touching its bark is like touching the pulse of the tree. Under my fingers I feel like I can feel a heart vibrating. A ladybug lands on my hand, I have a little start, I didn't expect it. It has a beautiful red color, like a ruby, its wings seem to shine in the sun. It finally flies away.