PSYCHEDELICS | SCI-FI/FANTASY | ADVENTURE | FANTASY |

The Path Through the Psychedelic Jungle

Wake the Earth- book 1- chapter 4- part 1

Side note: Hey there, since my iPad died I haven’t been able to get things drawn for the chapters I want to publish. So for now I’ll be adding in some of the fractals that I’ve been using to make certain backgrounds, and posting the characters relevant to the chapters if I have them drawn.

If I publish a chapter and don’t have the relevant characters drawn, I will be publishing their character profiles after I replace my iPad.

Also, I would like to reiterate that if you don't want to be tagged in my posts, please let me know. I don’t want to piss anyone off, I just want people to read my work.

To read the previous section, click the link here.

Keisha bounds along her path, enjoying how effortless it is to jump onto and over things. She leaps onto the side of a tall tree and springs herself off, flipping to the side as she leaps through the air. Her movements are fluid as she lands and springs forward to another tree.

She launches off the next tree and as she reaches the peak of her jump, she notices that there is a small valley ahead.

She lands and sprints ahead.

From leaping onto a boulder, Keisha hurls herself into the valley. She lands a great distance down the trail and immediately pitches herself back toward the sky, keeping her momentum going.

As she sails through the air, she realizes that she is going to smash through a treed area. She swings her arms up to protect her face as she nears the branches, which pull away from her as she passes. This surprises Keisha and she messes up her landing, rolling down the path into the valley.

Keisha stands up from her bail and shrugs off the mishap. She looks up at the psychedelic trees and thinks for a moment.

“Did the branches just react to me?”

She walks over to one of the trees and touches it, she can feel its energy. She focuses her thoughts and envisions a branch growing beside her hand. The tree responds with a branch sprouting and growing right before her eyes. Keisha pulls her hand away in surprise, stepping back.

She looks back up towards the canopy and focuses her thoughts again. Keisha envisions the branches bending down to her. The branches bend down all around her, she summons the end of one of the branches up to her face. Wanting to see what kind of flower the tree produces, the branch pushes out a flower bud which blooms for her.

She smiles and wants to see the seed pod. The flower withers and a pod comes forth. She plucks the pod from the branch and sends the branches back to where they were originally. Keisha focuses her mind and makes the seed sprout in her hand.

Her mind is blown that she can do these things.

She looks back towards her path and continues sprinting on. There is a river at the bottom of the valley. As Keisha comes close to the river, she jumps toward another tree. She commands one of the branches to lower itself toward her. She lands one foot on the branch and then springs the branch and herself upwards.

Keshia soars over the river towards another treed area up the side of the jungly mountain. She reaches the peak of the plant-covered mountain and sees that it dips back into a lower area where it flattens out with the river curving back around through it.

She reaches forward with her right arm. A vine grows out of the ground, up a tree, and towards Keisha at her wish. She catches the vine in her right hand and swings around the tree. Keisha lands near the river and hears a voice.

“That looked like fun,” the voice says to her.

Keisha looks around to see who is speaking. A short dark red-orange woman is standing on the river, with the water rising up above the regular water flow. She turns her hand slightly, and the water she stands on stretches up and over the riverbank. She lowers the water to the ground and steps off.

“Hello Keisha, my name is Osumare,” the woman says to her. “I’ve been waiting for you for quite a while.”

Keisha just looks at her with a stunned look on her face.

“Uh huh,” is all she can think to say.

She can see that Osumare is a bit shorter than herself, and other than her dark skin she can’t make out any defining features. Keisha reaches out her hand to shake Osumare’s.

“Nice to meet you I guess,” Keisha awkwardly says.

Osumare shakes her hand and says, “Likewise. So where do we go from here?”

Keisha looks around, and then back at Osumare.

“Uh, wait, what? This is weird,” Keisha says as she shakes her head. “It’s like there’s some kind of blurred filter over you, like when the news censors people’s faces. And it’s only on you, not any of the landscape.”

Osumare replies, “You just got here, in time you’ll be able to see beings more clearly. It just means you’ll have to spend more time here if you want to see things more clearly.”

“But the landscape is clear,” Keisha says, “and the path is clear.”

“It’s because you are just coming into yourself,” Osumare explains to her. “Your awareness is only at the point of seeing your environment. The more time you spend here, the more your vision will clear itself up.”

Keisha shakes her head once again, “The longer I’m here, huh? Does that mean by the end of this trip, shit will be clear?”

“Yes, that’s sort of how it works. The next time you come here you’ll be able to see things better,” Osumare replies. “This is meant for you to figure things out about yourself. The fact that you’ve already figured out your element shows a lot about you. Your vision will be clear sooner than others.”

“Others, what others?” Keisha asks.

“In the various times I’ve been here, I’ve met other beings who…”

Osumare is cut off by the sound of earth rumbling.

She and Keisha look toward where the noise is coming from, and they see a small dark mountain rising up in front of them. The mountain lurches towards them and starts to break into pieces as it falls.

Osumare flicks her wrist. A wave picks up her and Keisha and carries them out of the way of the toppling mountain. The pieces of the dark mountain break into smaller pieces, form faces, and begin to roll/crawl toward them.

“These things found us quick,” Osumare says. “Focus your power and kill these things, before they fuck us up.”

Keisha raises her arms and bends trees near to the ground as she swung her arms down. The branches produced flowers that immediately wither away, to produce seed pods. Keisha swings out her arms and the trees rocket back into their placement, flinging the seed pods into the air.

The pods break open, scattering the seeds onto the advancing creatures. She snaps her fingers, and the seeds erupt into tree roots that grabbed hold of many of the creatures, sucking some life from them.

Osumare raises an arm and a giant tidal wave rises up and crashes into the creatures around Keisha’s trees. The full strength of the wave smashes down and dissipates into a small flood as it smashes outwards on the land. The torrent bashes into their enemies and crushes them out of existence, leaving a deep trough from the watery blast.

Keisha leaps into one of the trees and wills the tree to siphon the water up. She uses the absorbed energy to produce one brilliant-colored flower, which forms one potent seed pod. Keisha grabs the seed pod and jumps towards the remainder of the dark rocky beasts.

Slamming the seed pod into the ground, a shockwave erupts with giant roots shooting towards her enemies.

The rippling roots destructively smash into, through, and overtop the monsters.

From the massive thick root ball, a stout tree trunk tapers into a small sapling. The leaves shimmer with energy on this bonsai-style tree.

“That felt good,” Osumare happily exclaims. “I haven’t done anything like that in a while.”

“If you can do things like this, why not do them often?” Keisha asks, pointing at the puddles of water.

“My path led me here with the knowledge that I would be here for a long time,” Osumare explains, “and fighting these things uses a different kind of energy. So it’s much better to focus your energy inwards if you are going to be here for a long time, that way you can remain undetected.”

“So, ‘cuz I was fuckin’ around with my element,” she pauses in thought and continues, “in a way, I caused the fight?”

“You contributed to causing the fight,” Osumare explains. “When we met up I stopped focusing my energy inward, our combined energy brought them here. You fucking around just woke their attention.”

“Sorry ‘bout dat, what now?”

“I was here waiting for you, so you are supposed to lead me,” Osumare looks around. “My path ended here, your path will get us out.”

“Follow me,” Keisha says.

Keisha starts walking back on her path with Osumare following.

Back running on the path, Keisha blasts ahead with Osumare keeping up with her. She is glad that Osumare is able to move as fast as she, while Brutus usually complains about her speed.

Keisha wants to test Osumare.

Keisha jumps towards the canopy of the forest and summons a vine to her hand. She swings far and fast, releasing the vine, and soars into the tree tops. She wills a large branch to bend toward her, lands, and the branch flings her out and over the forest. Keisha glances back to see how Osumare is doing.

Osumare is still close to her. She commands a wave to launch her up above the canopy. The base of the wave is wide and rises up high, tapering thin and meant just for Osumare’s feet. It fires her upwards, like being shot from a cannon.

On the way down, Keisha summons another vine as she comes back into the canopy and continues swinging. Osumare raises a wave from the ground and dives into it. The wave rolls over and then rises up again, launching Osumare into the air once more.

They land close to one another and stop. Keisha looks at Osumare with a big smile on her face, and then a thought comes to her.

“I suppose we shouldn’t be fuckin’ around with our elements,” Keisha voices the thought, “those things will find us again, won’t they?”

“Yes, but we won’t be able to avoid that from here on,” Osumare explains. “You are very new to this, and we will be meeting up with others on your path. The energy won’t, nor should it be withheld. One way to help this out is to let go of mental blocks.”

“The pressure you feel from your family to start a family of your own, has caused you to feel guilt as you yourself have decided not to have children. Your grandmother died recently, and your parents are disappointed that you didn’t follow in your mother’s footsteps, and produce a baby that grandma could have held before she died. This is a mental block that holds you back, and you would do better to let go of such bullshit.”

“How did you know that?” Keisha asks.

“I’ve been waiting for you here for a long time,” Osumare explains, “I’ve studied you in many ways, all to bring out the best qualities you have. I may not be your guide to this realm, but I am a bit of a guide to your own improvement. After all, I will need to make sure you are strong enough to get us out of here.”

“Okay, so you’re just using me to get out of here?” Keisha jokes.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Osumare replies with a laugh. “We could have left if we wanted to. But when your path calls to you with instructions to stay put, you stay put. I’ve strayed from my path before, and then I was shown why I should’ve stayed on it. This comes from experience, there can be many ways to follow your path. If you see an option you’d rather take, but it doesn’t follow your path, don’t take it.”

“Right, okay then let’s keep moving,” Keisha commands a tree branch to bend down to her, she steps on and it launches her into the air. Osumare follows with a wave.

They launch themselves far across the sky, but as they descend, Keisha can see a dark liquid beginning to swirl in the area where they are about to land. A moment of fear comes upon her, but changes quickly as something pushes her and Osumare further and away from the dark pool.

They land and Keisha looks around to see what helped them. She sees a skinny, yet somewhat pear-shaped, olive-skinned woman floating in the air above them, lowering herself down to the ground.

“Thank you Lyric,” Osumare says to the woman, then looks at Keisha, “This is the friend I was telling you about.”

The dark pool swirls and surges towards them. As Lyric sets foot on the ground, she unleashes a blast of air that cut through the pitch-black fluid. The watery mass splits into many dark creatures, which flow away from the attack.

Keisha waves her arm towards the monsters flowing off to the left, a thick mat of moss lifted up like an arm from the earth and smashed into the demons. The dark enemies slosh into the moss and the moss absorbs them.

The monsters scream as the moss consumes them.

Osumare’s waves aren’t overly effective in this battle, being liquid themselves, the fiends are only slowed by the crashing water. She still sends them swirling off and is able to defend and shield her companions when the demons get too close.

Lyric blasts and obliterates creatures left and right, spraying their remains onto the ground. Her blasts cut like a saw, splitting the beasts open. One by one the monsters fall to the group of three.

Keisha commands tree roots, moss arms, and many kinds of flowers to smash and suck the liquid life from the monsters. Blooming flowers burst with strength, pop their seed pods out, and forcefully shoot the seeds at the liquid fiends. The seeds immediately burst into flowers as they suck the creatures' essence.

A small group of monsters are swirling around in a wave controlled by Osumare. Lyric directs a sharp blast of wind straight into the mass of liquid, slashing most of the demon into obliteration. Keisha swings her arm from her hip to behind herself, and overhead, commanding a moss arm to crush and absorb the rest of the creatures.

The three of them convene. Keisha notices that Lyric is between the height of Osumare and herself.

“How is your energy holding up?” Keisha asks. “That was pretty intense.”

“I’m doing fine,” Lyric says, “that was my first fight in a long time. I also haven’t been here as long as Osumare.”

“True, I’m an ancient, as some beings like to point out,” Osumare answers back. “Just because I’ve been alive much longer than most others, doesn’t mean I’m not still young here.”

She pounds on her chest where her heart would be.

Keisha smiles, she looks at where the path leads to. Still going downhill, in the distance it looks like it ends at a cliff edge.

“So we’re going that way,” she says pointing in the direction of the path.

She turns and continues sprinting down the path with Lyric and Osumare in tow.

End part one.

To go to the next part, click this link.

I’m tagging those that might be interested in this work:

The Sturg | David Perlmutter | Smillew Rahcuef | Michael Burg, MD (Satire Sommelier) | Grimsby Hackney | Elle McIntosh | Jason Provencio | Maxine Stone | Charles The Scientist | Miss Catherine La Grange, spinster | Tracey A Ferrant | Illuminati Ganga Agent 86 | MJ Creed | Joe Wade | JF Danskin | Synergy | Alexander Semenyuk | Victor Cardenas | Anne the Vegan | Rayne Sanning | Robin Wilding 💎 | Rusty Shackleford | Rikki Doppler | Adeline Rivero | Mark Suroviec, M.Ed. | Christine Heart | May More 💜 Tales | Ginger Bangs | [Bad] Ideas For Writers (& Life) | Kristine Laco | Christopher Robin | Ginger Cook | Lindy Vogel

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