The sky here was both gray and empty. The uniform tone did not seem to be a dense cloud. Or maybe in this world, it wasn't a cloudy shroud, maybe there was never a blue one here. I've met worlds with lavender-colored skies, a sky as bright as a slice of mandarin, a scarlet and golden sky, but I've never seen such an empty gray sky before.
The wasteland lying in front of me, too, did not shine with paint, but also did not seem to be a fresh canvas, which should have touched the brush of creation to finally breathe life. It seemed that this world had long since decayed, turned into ashes, and the world had already been destroyed, becoming almost dust and ashes.
An uncomfortable world, although there is no danger here, and ... no one alive, it seems, too.
Chasing after beacons, flashes of fire in the night, bright stars, I forgot that I could find other worlds. Those where you realize with stunning clarity that there is no movement.
I wasn't sure if I'd stepped on the palm of my hand, but when she pointed out the direction of the pendant with her nose, I walked there, walking on the cracked ground, which knew no water, no songs of rain, no rustle of herbs, no knowledge of anything...
Has this world always been like this?
Doesn't the gray hill ridge on the horizon hide a fertile valley where herbs, flowers, and animals are found in abundance?
Where will the silver streams run, where will the winds be alive?
Tiredness instead of light flowed from the gray sky, soaking every cell of the body, and soon I realized that it is necessary to either get out of here or stop for a rest.
I couldn't make a fire or replenish my water supply. I sat on the hard ground and stared into a series of hills, trying to solve their mystery.
I put a pendant in my palm again. He looked like a little seed, pouring gold, amber, and buckwheat. It was in my pocket when I stepped on that gray wasteland.
Grain? Grain!
Without thinking about why I did it, I plundered the dry ground. She succumbed badly, so I had to pull out the knife to deepen the resulting hole. Finally, it became big enough to lower the seed. I weighed the pendant on my dirty hand again, so I put it in the hole and carefully covered it with loose dust. Leaving all doubts aside, I reached for a flask of water and generously watered my landing.
Strangely enough, all these actions took so much strength that I leaned back on my own backpack and dozed off.
***
Every world has its own dreams. Somewhere they are filled with fears, somewhere fairy tales, and here too were gray and empty. It was as if I was looking into the infinity, which turned out to be a dense sheet of cardboard and only.
I was as far away as I could, almost shoving her away, maybe even shouting something until suddenly there were cracks in the cardboard. Laughing, curling up and down, they looked more and more like bizarre branches of a growing tree. And, of course, it calmed me down.
I woke up from the jolt and didn't know what had happened right away. The darkness was spreading over me, so I thought it was night, but then I frowned, perplexed. The dense curtain of the branches, not the darkness, was what surrounded me. I was lying on the young branches, bending over from every awkward movement, and I couldn't feel the earth under me at all.
Closer to the barrel and grasping at it for safety, I looked back and tried to understand what had happened. It turned out that the seed had given rise to a sprout, what a sprout! He turned around in a real forest, made a lot of noise, opened new kidneys, and the air was full of spring scents.
With a smile, I moved across the branches. It was risky to step over, jump over, and climb a lot, but still, I was able to go higher and find a place in a tight crown where I could see more.
The grey wasteland turned into a merry and young forest, and the hills on the horizon were also green. Amazing!
Where did the water come from in this desert?
How did they grow so fast without any sun?
Has this world come alive? Were you not afraid of the grey emptiness?
Of course, I couldn't get to the hills, but I sat down on a branch, leaning my back against the trunk, and covered my eyes, enjoying the wind and the song of the growing trees. Soon I was lost in dreams and feelings.
Every thought I had was definitely not mine, either, as if the world was pulling those pictures out of me, trying to make them come true.
When I felt that the borderline of the world was close and ready to open the door to me, the world around me was so transformed that I would never have known it if I hadn't lived with it. Beautiful and bright, multi-colored and strong, he shone with new colors.
The door opened right in front of me. It turned out to be painfully difficult to cross the threshold, but still, I overcame myself. I turned around just once to make sure I didn't dream. Or did I dream about it?
A young forest was shaking its branches in my wake. And above the crowns stretched a dazzling blue sky, so clear, just like in the lake water, one could dive into it...