He doesn’t want to walk back the way he’s come. His head hurts just thinking about it.
And he doesn’t want to lie down, either, because that would mean he’s given up.
He doesn’t know much about himself—or really, anything at all—but he doesn’t think he’s the type to give up, to quit just because things got hard. It doesn’t feel right, deep in the core of him.
That doesn’t help him with the horse.
“Easy,” he says, because even though this is probably a dream, he doesn’t want to take the chance that it’s not.
The horse doesn’t move aside from its slow, lazy blink against the fly, and the flick of its tail.
He takes a step toward the horse, hand outstretched, fingers twitching and palm sweating above the tattoo. He wonders at it again, but now his fingers are close to the horse and its nostrils are flaring, as if it is trying to catch the scent of him.
“Easy,” he says again, because he doesn’t know what else to say to a horse that might be part of his dream. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Which might not be true, because if the horse comes after him, he’ll do what he needs to do to protect himself. He knows this just as sure as he knows anything.
His fingertips touch velvety-soft hair on the horse’s muzzle, and for a moment, he thinks himself electrified, but it’s so quick that he can’t be sure anything happened at all. It doesn’t hurt. The hairs on his arms do not stand up. The horse feels as real as anything, small hairs and skin under his fingers warm to the touch. The horse bows its head just a little, letting him run his hand up its muzzle to its forehead and forelock. Its ears twitch side to side and he can’t be sure anymore if this is a dream, because he can’t remember a dream ever feeling this real. There’s a weight to it, a heft, and even though he can’t really remember anything at all, somehow he’s certain he’s never dreamed like this, not with such startling clarity. He can smell the horse this close, something wild and musky, and he can feel its breath exhaled onto his arm, its lips pulling back to show teeth.
His hand is shaking as he touches the mane, and he has to pull away, has to take a step away, because if this isn’t a dream, if it is real, he can’t remember anything.
“Shit,” he mutters, and the horse snorts as if in response.
There is panic again, but the horse begins to walk away, distracting him from his clipped breathing, his sweating brow. Its hooves are loud against the road, sounding almost cartoonish, and it pays him no mind as it crosses into the trees on the other side. He watches it until it disappears from sight.
He pushes himself to keep walking. The first step is hard, but the ones after come easier. He looks over his shoulder every now and then to make sure the horse doesn’t try to sneak up behind him.
It doesn’t.
And that doesn’t make him feel any better.
IT’S ONLY another ten minutes before he sees it.
For a moment, he’s not sure what he’s seeing, not sure that it’s truly what it looks like.
He quickens his pace, just short of running. But he won’t run, because running implies panic, and he doesn’t need to panic, because it could be just a mirage, oka
y? It might not even be there; it might just be something his mind is conjuring up just because he wants to see it.
He fully expects it to fade away the closer he gets.
But there it is, set in front of him off the road to the right when he comes to a stop in front of it.
A sign.
It’s large and warmly painted, curved at the top. There’s a sun cresting a horizon, with rays coming out of it shaped like thin triangles. He almost expects it to have a face drawn on it, with big eyes and an even bigger smile, but it doesn’t. It’s just a funny-looking sun, and below it are little trees and a little path that leads to a little town with little houses.
He thinks quaint and sweet and where am I what is this words, there are words.
This is where he learns the next thing about himself.
He can read.
Because underneath the sun and the trees and the path and the little houses where he’s sure little people live inside, there are six words:
? Welcome To Amorea ?
Happiness Lives Here!