Vision

Over the course of the next moments, a wave of excitement and energy swept over Ship and he felt he needed to move his legs.  He adjusted himself and reached a hand out to his side where a tall, dark object stood.  It was firm and rugged under his fingers.  He planted a foot downward into the green below him and wriggled at the touch of a few blades slipping between his toes.  Pushing himself up from his knee, and sliding his hand up the rough, tiny wall, Ship stood.

He gazed upwards again, watching the blue-white blinking in the green which waved and whispered to him.  Always keeping his hand upon the wall, he followed it.  Putting one foot carefully in front of the other, he stepped around until he found himself in the same place he was standing before.  Again, he circled it.  Again, faster this time.  Faster and faster until he broke out in a run.  Never letting his fingers lose touch of the rough wall for more than an instant, he leapt over the pieces of the wall which jutted out from the ground.  'Reee!' he called out.

Clumsily, he bounced to a halt and bent over with his hands on his slightly bend knees.  'Troo' he let out as he tried to catch his breath.  He looked up and patted the wall.  'Tree,' he said to it, and tree waved down at him in thanks.  Ship leaned up against it and looked out at his surroundings.  In the distance were blue-purple points with white tops, yellow and blue and green painted the bit below it. 

His stomach gave an awful lurch then.  Something he had not felt before.  He felt the need to put something in his mouth then... but what?  His eyes still slightly blurry to the colors ahead of him, Ship hesitated.  After another lurch, Ship pushed himself from the tree and stepped back out into the sun.  He began to walk.

As he walked, he named the things he saw, and his eyes became sharper and the colors stood out to him.  He passed through trees so thick they blotted out the blue above.  He walked past great golden tunnels without roofs in the ground with walls ten thousand feet high.  He jumped over streams and waded through rivers and swam across lakes.  He found some more trees with sweet smelling balls growing from them which he decided to suck on.  The sugar caked on his teeth and the juice flowed down his cheeks.

Continuing on, Ship passed a lake so large he could not see the other side.  He climbed rocks and peaked down dark caves.  He walked through valleys and rolled down hills.  So many colors and smells and sights he had never felt before... and Ship was happy.

Stepping between trees taller than he could see, Ship kicked at the needles under his feet and he heard a sound.  Ship froze and looked around.  He saw nothing, but then he heard it again.  A soft ruffle a few yards away.  He turned to look in the direction of the noise and he saw the world move.  As it moved, Ship was able to make out its shape... an odd box with long twigs beneath it.  From the box came a long, curved branch with a lump on the end.  The lump had two leaves of the same color on either side and two black spots and the pointed end was moving.  Ship stepped slightly closer to it, and it turned its two black spots to face him.  This wasn't a moving tree - it was another thing like him... but different.

Ship continued closer to it, and it stepped a few paces away from him.  He followed it, carefully stepping softly into the needles to make as little noise as possible and yet, with a twitch of its ears, it would match Ship's pace and step away.  Then, a crack, a giggle, and the deer was gone.  Ship, just as startled, forgot about the deer and ducked down behind a tree.  The sound he heard next was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

It sounded like the shadows he had known so well before being thrust into this other world.  It was higher pitched, and it hummed up and down and down and up.  Finding his courage, Ship leaned out from behind the tree and, as carefully as with the deer, stepped up behind another one slowly making his way toward the sound.  Then the sound stopped.  It was then he saw her.  Another living thing, more like himself, but shorter and different in stature with longer, black hair.  She wore aquamarine cloth which seemed to glow against the rusty needles around her.  She was looking around the forest, golden teardrops dangling from her ears.

'Hello?' she called out.

Ship, overwhelmed with excitement, stepped out from behind his tree.  The girl gasped as she turned to see him there.  He stood, frozen in place, unsure of what to say or do.  The woman turned to face him and reached out a hand.  Ship paused, but her smile calmed the bubbles inside him. 

'It's alright.  I will lead you.  Do not be afraid.'  Ship stepped up and took her hand, looking into her eyes. 

'Vision' he said to her, repeating the last sounds he thought he heard her sing.  His sight, even within the walls he had always known, had never been so clear.