Nehrim:A Journey's End

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A Journey's End

A boat.. crying seagulls circling above it... fog... not even the slightest breeze, but it is bitterly cold. Between empty cloth sacks and broken glass bottles lies a large bundle wrapped in a thin material. Two dirty, shaking feet are poking out of it, at the other end a tousled tuft of hair can also be seen. Slowly, something moves. A livid, pale hand gradually pulls the cover away from the body. A person is revealed. He hauls hi {C mself to the side of the boat. Kneeling down, he looks into the reflective water. He recognizes himself in the hazy mirror. His face is like a skeleton's, his hair grey even though he has been alive less than thirty years. He opens his mouth. No more than five or six teeth are to be seen. He looks deeply into his eyes. This person recognizes nothing but faint, grey images he is staring at. He drops back down onto the bed made of a couple of sacks and that tatty piece of cloth. He reaches for some food. He burrows greedily until he finds a slightly mouldy apple. He bites i nto the mushy fruit, nearl y with relish, only to throw it up again afterwards. But as long as he feels satiated, he looks at his surroundings. The boat is no more than twelve feet, his visibility too. The only thing he can see is the sun, rising fast. He can look into the sun, darkened by the fog, without any problems. The seagulls are still circling above him, crying, as if they could smell death. Whimperi ng, he tosses and turns on his bedroll. The man only wishes that his torment would reach an end, no matter whether it ended in life or death. Yet he does not think of suicide... the man loved life too much for that, however in another way. He is still conscious and can only still hope. Hope that has reached an end

Suddenly his thoughts are interrupted, he knows this terrible feeling and learns painfully what it means. His stomach felt as if someone was stabbing him with a knife, the pain spread over his chest to his throat. Reaching the side of the boat just in time, he throws up. I do not dare go into detail of what came up, but one could see the dark yellow, turning black flesh of the apple he had eaten before. The boat rocked to and fro until the man fainted on his bedroll. As if he had spat out the last breath of life.


He remains in this position a couple more hours until dusk falls, the sun sets as quickly in the evening as it rises in the morning. The moons are now showing their glimmery faces, luckily for the lonely man the fog has lifted and the annoying birds have flo wn away. Now he has his glimmer of hope. A dense line of groups of stars lies across the whole sky. A slight breeze is blowing, warmer than the foggy air. But the line of stars stops above the water surface. The man sees the outlines of land. As if possessed, he sits up and paddles towards the coast with his hands. The water is still very cold but this does not stop him. The stretch to the beach seems infinitely long, his thin arms hanging over the side of the boat. As he lost his strength, he dropped to his bed.

He wakes up. He looks around. The lonely man finds himself in a small, warm room with elegant furniture and filled with light. He gets up from his bed and looks out of the window. Bewildered, he looks at the coast. The sun is high in the sky, bright rays of light penetrate through holes in the clouds and make the water shimmer. A white beach.. the leaves of the lush, green trees move in the wind and only their rustling and the calm rush of the waves is to be heard. It smells of life, life he had been yearning for for so long. The master of the house, a dark haired, tall man with a slight hooked nose and gleaming friendly eyes walks in.

"Finally you are awake; tell me, who are you?"
The host gives the poor man a large, hot bowl filled with meat soup.
"Thankyou", the man mumbled and drank nearly the entire contents of the bowl.
"Who I am?", the poor man continues, his voice still unclear. The master listens carefully. The poor man thinks, but unfortunately he does not know who he is anymore. "I am sorry, Sir, I don't know.", the person laments. The host answers kindly: "Gather your wits, you have surely been through a lot."

"Where am I?", the poor man interrupts him.
"You aren't from here? If not then you must surely have gone insane. This, my guest, is Nehrim. I can only be proud of this land and for good reason; I was born here. Life is good in Nehrim, I cannot complain.."
The foreigner slurps up the rest of his soup. He looks out of the window again, towards the coast of paradise and whispers: "Nehrim.. Nehrim, bless you and your inhabitants, for I owe you my life!"