The Breaking Revelation
(A short story)
FANTASY-MYSTERY-DRAMA-THRILLER
Location: Woods, Tillamook County, Oregon
Then Present: 2015
Camping in the place called Woods, Oregon, that night, Caylus' left leg gets trapped into a steel jaw trap. He bleeds and bleeds. His body squeaks and aches with pain. When a considerable amount of thick pool of blood forms, the venom in the jaw perhaps, turns the pool of blood purple. The pool now starts producing it's own fluid and oozes out even more and more of it's kind. It almost looks like a drowning scene, the only difference was that the fluid was now pulling Caylus inwards into something that was proving to be hollow. A window of some sort, into the wild muddy ground. While it continued to slowly pull a giant mass of him inside, he had begun to accept his fate. "What more pain can I endure?", he thought after the bloody encounter. He was mostly unconscious; several hallucinations ruptured his brain and he had lost the sense of reality. He eventually completely passes out, tired of dripping blood and sweat.
Dazed, his eyes open, soaking in the sunlight while blinking repeatedly, still trying to match the brightness as opposed to the gloom of his night. He notices his backpack lying beside him as he briefly takes a glance of his surroundings. It was morning he realised. His left leg had healed and he was all well to get back up on his feet to get the hell out of there. Biting his lip to feel the chap, he realizes something weird. He had a lip piercing on the right lower lip, but he somehow feels it gone. "It must have ran away with my misery from yesterday", he chuckles to himself. It was a tiny piercing that mostly goes unnoticed by the skin. He didn't feel light headed anymore, as if no drop of blood left his body. Not paying much heed to it he lifts himself up easily, grabs his backpack and starts to make his way back, but with caution. The thought of another possible jaw trap hiding in plain sight continues to haunt him. All he wanted to get back to was his old cabin at the sea lake to grab his suitcase and then to his home in Missouri. If only he'd have known what he was destined to witness ahead.
Caylus Weiss Hunter is a 25 year old arms agent. All he has access to is his old family woods cabin in Oregon with no other family- except his aunt and dad. His mom had passed away just after giving him birth and all he knows is that her name was Malia Frans. His dad was a poacher the last time tha he saw him and was in and out of jail, for which he had to bail him out several times. His dad wanted to continue the family legacy of hunting animals for their teeth and skin. As you can now guess, that's where his surname- Hunter comes from. Caylus was brought up almost entirely by his aunt Sally, in Missouri, USA as she expected nothing from her cousin- his dad. There was something that Caylus didn't know about yet and this incident was just the beginning of the unleashing of his supposedly- damned roots.
The forest was very dark and misty with lush trees rooted everywhere and the air around had a certain distinct smell to it. Something felt different. He struggles to find his way back to the cabin, he couldn't locate the landmarks anymore so he pulls out his compass and heads north. Perplexed, somehow he reaches Woods Lake which relieves him a bit as he was just a few miles away. He notices a direction board for the lake which was strikingly written in reverse. It read,
" Woods Lake ahead. No diving. "
What was more weird was that it said,
"Maintained by Mayor Rogers (1989 -)".
He thought that some Arthur was the mayor. At this point he didn't know what was happening, he assumed it was from the last night's mishap. He continues for a few miles, mostly just spaced out. He finally reaches the cabin where he tries getting in with his key. The latch was different and so the key didn't work. He peeps in from one of the back door windows where he notices something very strange. In the glass window he notices his reflection, his hair all messy and clothes patched with mud. What completely baffles him was that he hadn't lost his piercing after all, it was intact, but on his lower-left lip.
" What the heck? I'm pretty sure it was my right lower-lip that was pierced.",
he freaked out. He quickly notices his watch in his right hand instead of his usual left and his pounding heart on the right.
Suddenly a truck dashes into the parking space around the cabin and outside appear, two young newlyweds, decorated in flowers and white. The bride was breathtakingly beautiful. Caylus' attention shifts to these two who somehow seem have been trespassing when he wasn't around. He notices something oddly familiar. The number plate on the truck matched his dad's which made him pay more attention to the dude. He was a 6 feet lean man in his late twenties. It was him. His dad. Young, handsome, not in jail. Caylus almost choked on realizing this. He bangs his head on a tree trunk nearby trying to wake up from a dream and then realizing that it's not, barfs out in the wild. He notices freshly gardened tomatoes which weren't even there yesterday and that were now covered with his barf.
He quietly spies on the couple who had now unloaded and unlocked into their home. Subconsciously, he tries to connect the dots. The "1989" on the lake board is the year he's somehow in. Still unclear how this happened it was obvious to him that the accident had something to do with it. He moves a little away from the cabin, still not ready to believe that everything is real. He just saw his dad return from his marriage day. But the woman, she didn't look like his mom, at least not like in the picture he had of her. Not sure who this other woman was; shocked that he had a secret marriage, Caylus instead tries to find his way to the main road so that he could escape this hell hole. "That steel jaw trap did this to me", he murmured in frustration. He couldn't find any trap while on his way to the road, hoping he stumbled onto one so that he could flip back to reality.
Suddenly a colony of bats swarmed over Caylus's head and he heard a big scream in the distance. He rushed to the pay phone, trying to locate the direction of the scream. He realizes that he had found his way out of the woods.
Trying to locate the voice of the woman, he sees a hand in the distance. Caylus drops on his knees, cries out in pain as he recognizes that face in his arms. The woman gathers all her strength and says,
"Oh my dear son, mother loves you very much".
Caylus who was speechless, gathers all his courage and replies,
"I will find out who did this mother, I will."
"No need my son, I wanted y-ou to see what happened to me after I gave you birth, it-it wasn't your fault. I'll al-ways be here, you're one-of a kind dear"
Struggling to continue she concludes, "25 years is-urgh- the right age to learn the truth, st-stay strong."
She hands him a piece of necklace which had a golden bird on it which she tells him to always wear. Before he could ask what the truth was, she smiles and reassures him by clenching his palm. She closes her eyes and succumbs. There was no blood. No stain of injury. Caylus hugged her until there weren't anymore tears left to cry. It was high time he knew what really went down. Caylus slowly falls asleep with her in his arms, from mental exhaustion and when he wakes up he slowly realizes he's back into his world. With his mother not in his arms anymore, as anxious as he already was, he now feels his heart pounding on the left and his piercing back on his right lower-lip. It felt normal. Not sure what to make of all this, knowing it wasn't a dream, he runs straight to his old man for answers. Weiss Hunter, his dad was living in Portland, Oregon.
After seeing each other after months, instead of a mere small talk, Cay jumps straight to getting answers. He pounces on the floor and explains the dread he went through the past 36 hours to Weiss, who was seated on the couch. After a long silence, Weiss sighs and breaks down,
"My poor little boy..."
Caylus wasn't expecting a meltdown. Weiss realizes that Malia would have appeared and he begins to make sense of the situation.
"Cay, To get it out there, I'm not your real father but I do love you."
Caylus' face goes pale, he contains himself.
Weiss continues,
"I had to take you in just as a favor to repay your mother for all that she had done for me. She was brave, just like a phoenix. She was feisty and rose from the actual flames-turned ashes of death. She was a phoenix. And so are you. Believe it or not my son, you are."
"I took you for granted, your immortality was an excuse to me and so I bailed.."
"Stop! Is this some kind of a sick tantrum of an explanation that you are selling to get out of jail the next time? You know I'd still bail you out. I mean, I can handle being an orphan but this story is just nuts. Am I a joke, Weiss or dad?, I don't even know you anymore!", Caylus blurts out in pain.
Weiss holds Caylus' palms and sighs," I can't even imagine the kind of week you must have had out there son.." ,
"A week?, and am I an actual- actual bird now, somehow? What even.", Caylus cuts in.
Weiss clarifies, "yes a week. And not just a bird. A symbol of persistence and strength. Your mom was cursed by a witch named Maya in 1989 and was sentenced to the final impactful death of her entire 200 year old existence. I know it is a lot to take in and I am sorry about what happened to your mother. You were a gift by that then-ally witch but as soon as the witch foresaw that you will be the reason of her death, she summoned your mom to an eternity of death. It is unlikely for a phoenix to die permanently but nature always has a loop hole and the witch very well had it in her. This all happened in 1989 and you saw her in then-present."
Caylus then asks," How could I be the death of a witch I don't even know? Now, I will though, after all that she has put us through."
Weiss said that the witch went against nature to make Malia birth him; that in turn made her responsible for creating him against nature for which she was punishable.
Maya's coven used to perform black celestial magic and she was immediately cursed to rot inside out for creating a being. She had only done Malia a favor, like himself by taking him in. Both, Weiss and Caylus had their own realisations going, but Weiss' was more like repentance.
Malia was a kind phoenix. She never expected anything in return, but people chose to help in some little way. She was enticing, saved Maya's as well as Weiss' life several times. Malia and Maya used to work together on several occassions to eliminate evils, especially during the 50s. He further explained saying that he activated the phoenix powers the minute he came in contact with the steel jaw traps, "I laid them last year when you turned 25."
"Don't you know it hurt like hell? You probably killed me. ", Caylus exclaimed.
Caylus had actually died after he bled but then healed back up like any phoenix might. There weren't any actual fires and ashes but his mom's way of then meeting him the day he activates this side of him. He was a phoenix the moment his bled out dry. The necklace was hers which now remains with Caylus for eternity.
He won't see her again when he dies next time. Caylus doesn't know how to digest all this. After deep thinking, he asks,
" Who was the woman you married and how did my mother happen to die near?"
"Oh Beck? she was just a school sweetheart that I impulsively got hitched to in the same year, we were happy for a while, and then the rest is history.", he answers.
"Your mom didn't die in the same woods, it's just the setting that she thought you'd come to. We all hung out at that cabin. She pulled a classic Malia, she always roasted my lack of firm decision making skills.", he recalls.
"The witch linked the two worlds so that Malia could just see you as a phoenix, a plea the witch agreed to - after all they were former allies and she helped her have him but most importantly, to keep her last wish.", he adds.
"It's all a reflection of 1989, and that is what I think your mom meant by the reversed world that you mention. She was a quirky one like you, kid."
Caylus makes an agreeing face. He still doesn't know how to go about from what he just learnt.
He wears the necklace that his fist held tight for hours. He realizes the sacrifice his mother made so that he could live a life but, is still conflicted. He wants to believe it but refrains from accepting it just yet. The appearance of his mom did do a number on him, but he still is left unconvinced about him being a legit immortal half bird.
"Do good, son, your mom conveys."
Weiss signs off before grabbing a beer from the fridge in his trailer out in Portland.
"Oh, and I am a coyote.", he sips.
