The pale grass danced down the winding dunes that continued inside the dark sapphire walls. There was no thought of returning to the Infinite Desert behind us. We sought what was beyond our understanding. There was more than the cycle. More than pale grass and gray sand. The proof surrounded us in the towering blocks. The forked paths brought out voices we had not heard before from within the Roamers. Worry of choosing the wrong path. Worry of only wandering more in the gray sand. Desire of the fields of green with orbs of red. Desire to see the tall creaking lines of white encompassed by sparkling yellow dots. The Roamers tore in half. There was no agreement of the path to choose. Both were chosen. Both would be known. The tradition of survival and experience split by desire and worry.
Only the lost wandered from us in the pitch black. As far as I knew, there was no more pitch black. In the midst of dispute between the Roamers on which path to follow, a lone Roamer took off to the left path. I was among the Roamers who refused to separate. The Roamer began shouting, “They’re here! They’re here! The tall white lines are waving to us beyond the walls! The yellow speckles are dancing for us to come!” Other Roamers began breaking off. Running to the left path. Proclaiming they saw the white lines and yellow dots. “They’re shining off the walls. Can’t you see their glow?” Those who stayed together saw no glow. We could see nothing more around the left turn than gray sand and pale grass as we approached the dividing wall. More Roamers split off to the left path. “Please forgive us. We must follow the white and yellow. Don’t you hear it calling us?” We pleaded for them to stay with us. To wait for a consensus. They all disappeared around the left path, leaving Roamer traditions behind.
The separation stung. We saw nothing more than desert and grass down both paths. We could not follow those who chose their own path. Together, we agreed to continue through the walls of the right path. The paths here were shorter. Too many turns to know in which direction we were heading. The further we pushed through the sand, the more narrow the walls to the sides of us grew with the stark white still hanging above the bricks that rose out of the sand. Soon the walls were close enough we could almost touch both sides with our arms stretched out. The bricks were much larger this close up. They looked solid from a distance. Now we could see the dark sapphire pigments swirling in the light of stark white. The Roamers were now in a line with the walls wisping past our shoulders. I could not look away from the brick to my right as I watch everyone continue ahead out of my vision. The stark white was growing inside.
I pressed my right hand against the wall for the first time. A faint white outline grew around my handprint until it was completely opaque. An opposite white hand print flared next to mine. More began to appear. Spiraling out from where my hand rested on the stone. Crawling up beyond sight towards the top of the wall and sinking below past the sand. I could not remove my right hand. The white handprints began leaking solid white liquid as hands and arms emerged from the translucent stone before me. Growing to lengths inroamer. Reaching towards me. I felt a hand rest on my left shoulder. My vision swung. The Roamers wandering ahead of me had come back to find me. “Are you coming?” I turned my gaze back to the dark sapphire wall. The flourishing stark white arms gone. My hand no longer trapped against the stone. No other Roamer saw what I did. I know because I did not mention it. None of them mentioned it. I began to wonder if I chose the right path.
The walls kept us shuffling one in front of the other through the sand. The sky above a solid line of white. There was no release of space to see close ahead. The long line of Roamers collided. My head smacked into the Roamer in front of me. The jaw of the Roamer behind me accelerated into my neck. The desert ended. Motionless luminescent liquid covered the sand beyond sight. It met our ankles, cooling the calloused bottoms of our feet. The water rose to our shins and knees as the walls began to part from one another. We floated further into the walls on the path we had chosen. Taking full gulps of liquid we only had drops of before. Rest our legs for the first time.
The cycle returned. Pitch-black drained the stark white sky and merged with the dark sapphire walls while we floated in the waters below. We did not feel as whole in this cycle. Our voices uniting us together in the stillness. Many voices were missing from the Roamers who took the left path. The waters began to carry us. We grabbed onto each other, fearing the loss of more Roamers. The current picked up. Waves splashing onto my face. Into my nostrils down to my lungs. Coughing for a clear breath. I plunged below the surface. The ground was nowhere near below me. I fought to surface. Breaking free from the waters. I floated in the pitch black as faint specs began shining above, one by one, until there were too many to count. Pitch black crawled away as the walls were outlined in livid light emanating from millions of shining specs. For the first time I could see the other Roamers in the dark. We were still together. Sleep was impossible even as the ground returned beneath us in the waters. We continued swimming until green shoots began waving in the ripples of our movement. The shoots were sweet. Sweeter than anything tasted before.
We floated beneath the new livid sky, peering up at the lights above us with the sweetest grass we had tasted. A light began to shimmer over the wall to our left. A gray orb floated over the lights, shimmering brighter than those behind it. We could see so much in the dark. None of us moved. We could only watch as it crawled its way over the sky until it was behind the other wall, and stark white began to wash away all the shining specs. The livid sky began to mix with stark white bleeding strands and splotches of red, blue, and orange. A growing shimmer crept along the top of the left wall. A sphere of pure white, smaller than the gray orb, broke into the sky. We could not look at it for very long. It stung us like the eclipse. We looked down. Hiding from it. Afraid of what might happen should another eclipse occur. We could see the sphere reflecting off the waters below us, bringing the gray sand underneath to our focus. The sky was now blue around the sphere, encased by the dark sapphire walls we could no longer see the tops of. The cycle had not returned. It had changed. We wondered if those who had taken the left path saw the same new cycle. The experience of all Roamers was fractured.
Gray sand rose out of the water, and the grass shoots continued until they began to mix with pale grass. The sand faded away in dense new shapes that unraveled in celadon, moss, emerald, olive, malachite, juniper, evergreen, myrtle, and sage in sporadic patterns. The further we went, the larger the greens began to grow. Some the height of a Roamer. Others three to four times our height sprouting trunks of brown that shot leaves from every end. Behind a grouping of thick bushes and swaying trees we met the first living being that did not look like anything we had experienced. Four long legs connected to a hulking torso that towered over us. Its face sprouting shooting brown branches turned, ripping leaves from the bushes as it met our gaze. It leapt into a sprint into the forest until we could no longer see its form as it faded into the brown lines and green slices beyond. The Roamers had no idea what to make of what we saw. We decided not to follow it. We saw the trees and bushes begin to climb the sky and followed their lead.
The higher we climbed, the less dense the forest became. Soon the valley below came into view, and more of the same four legged creature we stumbled upon earlier. Another hill was across in the distance. The dark sapphire walls towering over all below them. I smelled smoke for the first time. The Roamers followed the scent as it grew, consuming our senses. Red and orange flames danced out over knee high bushes. Fire. Pure energy. It was warm. It felt so similar to the sphere of pure white in the blue sky. Beneath the flames were black and white branches crumbling away in its power. Fallen branches were added to the flame for us to bask in their consumption. The intensity expanding the flame's reach. We sat near it. Deciding to stay here to see if the new cycle would repeat or if the cycle we knew would return. The white sphere journeyed across the sky and disappeared behind the wall. The pitch black came and washed away as the shining specs returned. We watched their light dance off the lush green hills and valleys we could see below. The gray orb returned over the left wall. The new cycle appeared to be here to stay. We hoped, at least. We welcomed the new cycle. The fire began to grow smaller. A few of us split into the dark to find more branches to grow the fire back to embracing warmth in the cold night.
I was alone. The fire shining behind me through the trees and bushes to guide me back. I heard rustling to my right. I froze. My breath stopped. I could see shadows moving slowly. The light from the fire barely illuminating the form. It had four legs I could make out. They were white. My chest began pounding. My vision attached to this creature. It shuffled to the front of me, crushing branches and leaves. Yellow dots glowed out the underbrush. Growing in size. The creature was coming closer. My body shaking. My insides twisting. It leapt from the ground into the branches above me and dashed through the treetops until I could no longer hear it. I gather what broken branches had fallen from the creature and rushed back to the fire and the Roamers. I could barely speak of what I saw before I could tell none of them were listening to me. They pointed in the distance. There was another fire on the hill across from us.