From our correspondents

Introduction

His name is Thomas. He is a man – a human spirit, like millions of others on the Earth. When you could still meet him on the Earth, you may not have recognized him among other people. He was simply a part of the society average, which stands out neither upwards nor downwards, neither to the left nor to the right. He had a job he did not love too much, but it supported him quite well. He lived alone and had a single great passion. He loved reading books! But not just any books, he loved the fantasy genre, because it enabled him to break away from the reality, which he considered merely a grey background. Like most people, he was tired of the system governing the Earth, he felt chained by it. The everyday routine – get up in the morning, go to work, leave work in the afternoon, go shopping, go home, go to bed in the evening, get up in the morning, go to work, leave work in the afternoon... He felt this life was wearing him out, he had nobody to live for, nobody to give meaning to his life, and so he read on and on.

He tried to suffer through the morning at work, while in the afternoon he spent his leisure time experiencing fantastic adventures with the heroes from his books and in the evening, while falling asleep, he kept imagining he was one of them. He dreamt about life somewhere else, about life in countries like those in his books. However, this passion of his, dwelling on fantasies, is not as innocent as it appears to people living on the Earth since it gives rise to many threads that are going to influence Thomas´s life in the future. These are strong, solid threads, looking as if alive. Thomas was already girdled around by them, as if tied up, and most of them were aiming in approximately the same direction, somewhere far away into the unknown. It almost looked as if they wanted to drag him away somewhere, but so far something was hindering them. To somebody who would have seen the threads, it might have seemed that the weight of Thomas´s body was the only obstacle hindering them. Nevertheless, there was nobody like that around him. Not even Thomas could see them, nor anybody from the majority of other people on the Earth. They were the threads that every human weaves around him- or herself, the threads of his or her own volition. If we wanted to be dramatic, we would say they are the threads of destiny. And it would be true.

*

An accident

That day began as any other day. In the morning Thomas got up and went to work. As soon as he had finished, he hurried to a bookshop. On that day they started selling a new book by his favourite author, which he had been looking forward to for a long time. Impatiently he was carrying it home and with his inner sight he could see himself living through new adventures. He was rushing down the street and suddenly – as if something had poked into him and his eyes faded out...

... When he regained consciousness, he was lying on some sandy gound in the middle of the night. It must have been night because he could not see anything at all. It was funny, for surely he was in the centre of a city and there it is never completely dark, not even at night. To his surprise, he realized he had nothing on himself, wearing just some ragged clothes. And he was cold, terribly cold. His teeth were chattering and he tried to find out where he actually was. And where was the book he had bought, he realized in dismay. He had been looking forward to it so much and now it seems to have been lost. He was fumbling about. However, he stopped looking for it a moment later since he suddenly felt absolutely exhausted and fell over on his back again. He lay there helplessly, gasping for breath. He felt that a fit of panic was taking hold of him. What happened? Where is he? How did he get there? A moment ago he was in a city, it was day and he was rushing home with the new book! He felt like crying. If only he could see something...

He fell into a deep sleep which rather resembled unconsciousness. When he came round again, he felt a little stronger. He tried to get up, but it was too much for him. So he tried to scramble at least. Still it was completely dark around him, but if he looked out, this way he could get somewhere. He was creeping, falling, clashing against rocks, fainting occasionally, and then crawling on again. He did not know how long it had been going on like this, because he did not have any concept of time.

It had been ages since he stopped calling and shouting. Not only he could utter just some croaky sounds, he also came to the conclusion that he was alone there near and far. Apart from the fact that he could see nothing, he could not hear anything but whistling wind either. The ground was still the same as well, just sand and rocks. He had nothing left but to scramble on. Growing despair was his devoted companion and constant dread was sitting behind his neck. In spite of that he had a slight notion that if he had stopped, nothing would have made him move on and he would have completely sunk into inevitable doom. That was the only thing keeping him on the move. He hoped to escape this wasteland of the eternal night once and to get somewhere else.

All of a sudden, he came up to an abyss. He was horribly shocked when he unexpectedly reached out into nowhere. He did not know what to do next, he only knew he had to move. He cried with despair. His whole soul was calling for help. His desire to get out of there was so intensive that it drowned the immense hopelessness. Where is he really?! Why did he get here?! Suddenly, it dawned on him. He remembered how he had been hurrying home down the street, how he had briefly caught sight of the shining headlights and had felt a clash which cast him aside. He recalled the terrified cries of the people around him, how he had risen off the ground and called at them that he was all right, but they could not hear him; how he had then attempted to pick up the bag lying at a distance, but his hand had gone through its handle as if it had been made of air. He recalled the scary moment when he had turned and seen himself lying on the ground, twisted into a position which had made him feel sick. Suddenly, he could even remember his funeral that he had witnessed together with the others, and then the light tunnel through which something had been pulling him. It was the threads that were dragging him that way towards the place where he had anchored them with his own volition and thoughts. He still could not see them even now. They were too subtle for his sight to be able to see them.

“So I truly died?” he asked himself. “But how come? I am still alive,” Thomas thought in reply. “Then is it really true that life after death exists? Perhaps it does... and so this must be the world beyond the grave. How appalling it is,” he trembled.

Suddenly as if he had seen some dim light in the distance on his right. He began crawling in that direction and was careful not to fall into the abyss out of which deadly icy air was engulfing him. He scrambled slowly on and on until he crept up to the light. It was a chip of kindling wood stuck in the ground and next to it there was a man sitting with his head in his hands. All excited Thomas crawled up to him and addressed him. The man jerked himself and surprised looked at him.

“What, a man!” he exclaimed. “I thought I was going to stay here forever alone! I´m so happy to see you! My name is George.”

“And mine is Thomas,” replied Thomas, delighted at the unhoped-for course of events. “Do you happen to know where we are?”

“I think I do,” George gave a silent sigh. “I suppose we are in the other world. At least I can remember my death,” he glanced at Thomas with uncertainty.

“Yes, I recall mine as well,” Thomas shivered. “And what are you doing here, actually? Why were you sitting here so depressed?”

“You know, in this world it is necessary to keep on moving forward all the time for some reason. I don´t know where it came to me from but I know this for sure. As soon as you stop and give up proceeding for a longer time, you start yielding to weakness, fainting, and something inside is telling me that if you don´t pull yourself together again as soon as possible, plucking up all your courage, you´ll succumb to the death there is no return from, out of which you never wake up in another world. And I can´t go any further. It´s impossible to go back, that would equal death and on the way ahead there is an abyss yawning at us. Directly in front of us there is a bridge over it, though. But there is standing a... monster!” George shuddered.

“A monster? What are we going to do?” Thomas pondered.

“I don´t know. When I tried to approach it, it started to sway its rod and drove me back. Fortunately, it didn´t follow me up here. It´s standing there on the bridge waiting...” George trembled in desperation.

“Perhaps we could defeat it together, couldn´t we? There are two of us now!”

“Oh no. You haven´t seen it! It´s much bigger than we are, muscles everywhere, it has a rod and looks invincible at first sight. Moreover, you and I, we are hardly dragging along, so how would you imagine it?” George despaired.

Also Thomas sat down down-hearted and wondered what to do next. They sat like this for long, and creeping drowsiness slowly started to take hold of their souls.

*

The Power of Determination

All of a sudden, Thomas braced himself. This way they are really going to perish in eternal sleep. They have to try it at least! He took the torch and dragged towards the bridge to have a look at their adversary. To his surprise he also noticed that he could suddenly stand. With great difficulties though, but he could. Cautiously he stepped onto the bridge and kept advancing. All at once a burly figure bolted up in front of him out of the dark. When the light of the torch touched it, Thomas was seized with terror. The creature was taller than him by its head, its shoulders were twice as wide as his, all muscles. Its tiny sunken eyes were wildly looking him up and down out of a hideous face and out of its mouth two canine teeth jutted upwards. Thomas stepped back in fright, turned and returned to George as fast as he could.

“You see, what did I tell you? We are lost!” moaned George.

Thomas sat dispirited beside him and felt how the little bit of power he had felt before is leaving him. At once he realized that the creature on the bridge looked just the way he had imagined a troll who had been – in fairy tales and some fantasy books – guarding bridges and hindering travellers in their journeys. Yet in fairy tales a hero always appeared and beat the fearful troll back. Here there are only the two of them. It´s not possible, it´s not fair, he wanted to shout in desolation. However, this despair inside him slowly started to transform into an angry resolution. They can neither go back, nor stay here, so they will simply advance no matter what happens! He turned to George and shook him.

“Get up, let´s go and fight the troll! We have nothing to lose! We´ll find suitable rocks, there are plenty of them, and we´ll try to get on the other side! It can´t be worse than here. Come on, get up now, I won´t leave you here!”

Thomas grabbed George and forced him up onto his feet. They started searching for suitable stones, which could be used as interim weapons. George unwillingly at first, but Thomas´s determination seemed to give him strength. In short they were ready. They did not even notice that suddenly they had enough power and they could move quite at ease. They dashed towards the bridge shouting, and when they got to the troll, they flinged stones at him, hoping they would surprise him and manage to toss him down into the abyss. All of a sudden, they were standing on the other side. There was no trace of the troll as if he had evaporated, and for a while only Thomas had an impression that he had overheard a furious sizzle in the wind.

“You see, we have made it!” George rejoiced and Thomas joined him. He suddenly realized that it was no longer so dark. He could even dimly recognize his surroundings. The ground here was not so bleak, here and there the rocks were overgrown with lichen. Before long George also realized this and looked around in surprise.

“But where to go now? There is some light shining on the horizon over there. It looks a bit like morning twilight, shouldn´t we go there?”

“I´m all for it. At least we´ll have a direction. Where there is light, there will be life too, contrary to this wasteland.”

They set out forwards. The journey was strenuous and full of rocks. From time to time weakness was taking hold of them both, but when one of them slumped down tired, the other one supported him as much as he could. Surprisingly enough, it supplied the supporting man with more power, instead of making him weary. The landscape through which they were going was slowly changing for the better. As the shine grew stronger and still more light was around them, new and new plants gradually started appearing as well. After some time they got to a place where it almost looked like on the Earth on a gloomy day. Well, except for the vegetation the kind of which none of them had ever seen before, not to speak about those bizarre animals, which occasionally flashed past in front of them. In a short time they reached a shaggy path and at its end they discovered a dilapidated hut. They entered. However, nobody was there. The interior of the hut was in a desolate state too. The furniture had fallen apart long ago, well, if the relics haphazardly scattered all over the room had ever once been furniture at all. The air stank so rotten in there that they had to go out and get some fresh air. What next? They decided to return onto the path and look where it was going to lead them following the opposite direction. Soon they passed the place where they had previously joined the path and went on. The path was slowly getting wider there and it gradually became less and less overgrown. They walked on until Thomas stopped abruptly.

“What´s the matter?” George asked anxiously.

“I don´t know but there is something I don´t like here. As if something was wrong,” Thomas answered and tried to find out what he disliked there. However, he couldn´t figure out anything, so they slowly set off again. They had walked a few steps more when it dawned on him. Silence! He realized that he had not heard any sounds for some time already. Suddenly, birds, animals, everything grew quiet, the only thing left was the breeze rustling in the foliage. Having discovered this, he was overcome with an intense feeling of danger. All of a sudden, there was a crack in the bushes behind them. Thomas turned round and got stiff in horror. The figure standing in front of him had as if stepped out of the books that he had so much loved reading during his earthly life. A hulky muscular figure, a short thick neck, green skin, a hideous face with a boar´s fangs jutting out of its lower jaw, and holding a big sword in its hand.

“Ork!” Thomas had had just enough time to think of this before the big sword thrust through his body in a whistling arch. He could not hear George´s terrified outcry any more. –