A Journey to the Depths of Nowhere

Maya stretched out from under her owners arm, awakening from the dream state into the darkness residing behind her eyelids and, ultimately, into the waking reality that is personified as the 'real' world. To her, it was all the same.

The day was barely beginning, the sun just peeking over the horizon line somewhere way off in the distance, causing rays of light to peer through the trees and down into the grove that she and Tojii had used as their shelter through the night. This was Maya's favorite time of day, when the light of the sun just begins to dispel the darkness of night and a new beginning is forged.

Maya finally popped herself from under Tojii's arm and found a nice spot where the branches were parted just enough for the sun to hit her whole body. Upon reaching this place, she sat completely motionless, bathing in the sunlight.

"Ugh!"

Tojii's arms reached out into the open air above him, extending from behind two large oak tree roots that rose above and upturned the earth around them, creating an indentation of sorts that was of near perfect size for him to lay inside of.

"Good morning," he whispered as his arms gave into relaxation and flopped to his sides.

Maya still sat, still and calm, unaffected by Tojii's morning greetings. Growing up, Tojii's dad had drilled into him that he should meditate as Maya sat sometimes, completely free of the need to react.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," He sighed as he slowly scooted next to the pretty feline, "I should enjoy the silence as well."

As he propped his left leg on his right thigh and in time completed his lotus position, he took careful notice of his surroundings. After all, this place had harbored him and Maya with the utmost generosity and asked nothing in return for the favor. The earth was sill soft and wet from the light rain Maya and he had traveled through to get there from the night before. The terrain was luscious, a few fruit bearing trees sat within the grove across from the huge oak tree which looked over most of the forest, save for the rare tree that was even taller, as well as a small pond fifty feet or so to the left of the great oak.

His breath was slow, deliberate, deep, and steady, his chest contracting and expanding in the exact same way and at the same rate. As his spine straightened and locked, he began to lose track of time, the world, and desires. His gaze slowly shifted up through the trees, losing focus of the perceived vision of sight until nothing remained.



Tojii awoke from his deep meditative state to Maya playfully pawing at his toes. Peeking from behind the darkness of one closed eye, he watched her upon realization that he was conscious. The small black feline jammed her face against Tojii's knee and strolled around to his right hand, signaling that it was time for a petting. Tojii smiled, Maya was more than just a cat to him, she was a companion, a friend, and a mother of sorts. Maya's touch had always been like his mothers, and, after her mysterious disappearance years before, she had seemingly taken charge of the role, frequently offering him protection and love.

"Do you think I made the right choice in leaving, Maya?" Tojii fought back the tears. He had left his father just two days before in search of the world that he had been protected from.

"Yeah, everything is right to you. I thought you'd feel that way..."

Tojii stood, thanking the small forest grove one last time for its kindness with a bow as Maya pawed her way up the upturned earth the oak tree had caused and made the leap to his shoulders, where she'd walk to and fro or sit motionless.

"Thanks for coming with me, friend. It means a lot." He confessed while giving her a pat on the head.

Together, they moved from the grove and to the road that would lead them to the Light Kingdom... and the road that would actually lead far beyond.

"We've been walking for hours already, Maya! How much farther is this place?" Tojii exclaimed, wishing his tongue would receive a reprieve from dryness and his own chapped lips. They had been on the road for two hours already and probably had a couple to go -- a truly dreadful thought. Tojii pursed his lips, enduring the inevitable sting. No sense in turning back now, his thoughts raced about the possibilities of life within civilization.. He had wanted to see the world - and though he didn't enjoy walking long distances with little to no idea of which direction he was actually headed in - this is what it would take.

His pace slowed as he came to the base of a hill that the road stretched over and beyond. For some reason, this is important, Tojii thought.

"What's at the top of this hill could..." Tojii drifted into a silence in which his speaking faculties seemed inoperable. He stood still, Maya pacing back and forth from shoulder to shoulder, staring in what he had thought was the top of the hills general direction(as the decline and incline were too steep to see the Earth that sat at the hills higher points). Suddenly, and with a vibrant energy of determination, he began their journey up the hill, starting among the base of tree trunks amid the forest backdrop, soon to be on the level of the dense foliage protruding from every individual branch, and sooner after to be free of the trees entirely; on a level beyond. He took his last steps up the steep hill where his sentence was instantly completed by a mesh of nature and man, the combination fighting perpetually, trying to strike some sort of balance. Behind him lie miles and miles of forest, untamed, uncharted, dense land that not many had braved. Ahead of him sat miles of cultivated land, explored, traveled, tilled, and worked. The Light Kingdom sat a mile or so from here, sitting amidst an expanse of natural beauty that included an ocean backdrop. The mountain ranges must look beautiful from here whenever the sun sets, Tojii mused within his mind, referring to the mountains that the forest had kept hidden with their adjacent placement. These mountain ranges sat to the left of the kingdom from Tojii and Maya's perspective, far west. To the East was more farmland and beyond that, a forest housing a major river that supplied the natural world around him with life.

As Tojii and Maya embarked, the first step on the descent was taken by a changed man.

"Not much farther now."