The Gatekeeper, Chapter 1: Downpour

On that day the sun did not rise. Gathering clouds raged the skies as the deep, grayish blue of the storm roamed unimpeded through from east to west. The spell of the Rains was about us and soon the waters would wash over all, without relief.

I stood up from where I slept and saw to my morning ablutions. My spear had fallen on the floor during the night and I hadn't noticed. A bad omen.

When I opened the door, I was greeted by the faint announcement of the waterdome come. I remember blinking a few times, as if taken aback by how fast time had seemed to pass. On that morning, I had woken up and I hadn't realized it marked ten months ever since I was sent there to guard the Esperite Pass. With nothing but my spear, my shield, my armor. Some coin. Some duty.

I drank from the last of the milk I was given after the last passage of the milkmaid through these parts. Her coming and going through the Pass was always a personal reason for joy. Thus I avoided the cobwebs of silence that tried to weave themselves into my throat, an unavoidable consequence of forced solitude.

On that day, not only the sun did not rise, but the milkmaid had also failed to make her crossing. I started wondering why and looked over the thin crack that was the Pass, trying to devise whatever went beyond the bright, white desert.

Nothing, as usual. I spent the remaining of my day over-polishing my belongings of war, to the point of obsession. At some point in the late afternoon I stopped, hearing steps that approached my door.

"Yes?", I suggested from within, holding onto my spear.

"It's me, boy", she said. Her voice sounded weary.

I left to the door, quicker than I should have, noticing then sweat marks feverishly populating her tunic. Her gray, homely hat was askew, her eyes betraying unusual affliction.

"Milk?", she asked, before collapsing on the weathered ground. Her keg was empty.

 

*    *    *

I cared for the milkmaid for many days, and, by the end, to my own expense. I spent hours just looking at her dormant self, as if, by wishing very hard to understand, understanding would come to me.

By the end of the tenth day she asked for me, and I was already there.

"What happened down there?", I asked. The rains had been bashing against the walls of the cottage for a couple hours, maybe more.

She remained silent. "Had you had any milk?"

"No?"

"Why not?"

"You hadn't any."

"Right", she replied. She stared at her hands. "I'm sorry I didn't bring any milk."

"It's alright. How are you?"

"Better. I... I don't think I'll be bringing any more milk."

I waited. She said, "The farms were abandoned."

I kept waiting, though I noticed she felt no comfort in my silent expectation.

"They were not there. The farmers, the dogs, the cows. Even the gardens were gone."

"What do you mean, gone? Burned? Razed? Pillaged?"

"No, not exactly. It was as if they had just left. There was still food in the cellar. I peeked, I hope they don't mind."

"No, they won't. Any guess?"

"I think... They fled? I'm sorry, I don't know what to say. I wish I had my milk."

I stood up and let her regather her thoughts. Whatever had happened down there in Imelgar was serious enough to call for a letter to the Representative.

With my gear on me and a crumpled piece of parchment well protected inside my waterproof pocket, I walked up to the highest point of the Pass and sang a song in the rain to call the birds. I knew it was poor weather for communication, but I kept singing until an old, battered night-jar came to me and stood on my shoulder, looking puzzled.

"Hello, friend. Care to send a letter?", I asked, already setting the piece of paper up his right foot. I never learned how to write, but the Representative would know what I meant.

When I went back to the cottage, the storm was strong enough to make the earth shake and the trees dance under the tune of its violence.

The milkmaid was gone. I looked around and tried to retrace her footsteps on the muddy dirt but the rains kept pounding over any vestiges she could possibly have left behind.

I was intrigued. Being told tales of farmers vanishing, and now seeing it happen right before me, this couldn't be a coincidence. Something was afoot.

That evening, I triple-locked the door and boarded the windows. Water had been already dripping by the corners of the frame and I brushed over another layer of waterproofer. I spent the remaining of the night tending to the fire and recounting the experiences of the day in my head, trying to go through memories as if they were a jigsaw waiting for me to give birth to sense.

By the next day, the rain was gone. A knock on my door.

Much alike eleven days before, I held fast to my spear and hailed. "Yes?"

"Piric Olbar, I suppose? Open up, this is Adamond."

I put the spear against the wall and ran up to open the locks. It took me some time, but after a few seconds I was staring at the face of the Representative herself. She seemed annoyed under her breath, her monocle strangely held on her blotched face.

"So, tell me what happened", she said, making herself comfortable and seeing if there was hot water in the pot. "Shall I?"

"Y-yes, of course", I stammered, as I started retelling what had happened and doing my best to keep it simple. The Representative despised details she deemed unnecessary in a story.

"I see", she replied, sipping chamomile tea she had just helped herself with. "And you are sure she wasn't an Endeavor?"

"Absolutely, ma'am. She was corporeal and her eyes looked right into mine."

"Could it be that she was simply embarrassed of inconveniencing you in your duty and left?"

I hadn't thought about that. "Sure, it could be the case, Representative"

"Her account of the Imelgian farms, however, is problematic. As you might have noticed. And I supposed I know what you should do next."

Perhaps I shivered a bit at her tone, I don't remember. "I don't have orders to leave the Pass, ma'am."

"Well, now you do. And please don't use night-jars next time, they're bad luck. You know how to draw, I suppose?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So, draw. Don't be fancy, just practical. Something I'd understand quickly and readily."

"Sure, ma'am."

She glared at me, a hard look. "Anything else?"

"No, ma'am."

"Very well, then". And without further notice, she stood up, handed me the cup and left through the door.

"A new Gatekeeper is on her way", she mentioned, as she crossed the threshold. "You may leave after her arrival."

And then, she disappeared. Astonished, I looked at the cup she just gave me. It was still full, and the tea still felt warm.

Vibe, Inc.

One day she decided to buy a few shares of a company and see what happened. Nothing fancy or risky, but still something to keep her hopes up on getting some extra cash and feeling like a finance guru with every little buck on the top of the previous one. 

She picked up her phone, opened a cool, young investment app and searched for the best option. A few scrolls and there it was: a telecom corporation was up for grabs.

With a swipe and a tap followed by another tap she bought it. She then went off to sleep, too tired to think of anything else.

The next day, a strange call took place in the wee hours of the morning. Some guy wanted to come over and take her to the company building, check-in some documents and you know, he added.

Except that no, she didn't know. Confused, she turned on the do not disturb and went back to her business. She was already getting late for gym.

Ready in her overbright workout outfit and overcolored sneakers, she was about to turn around a left corner when a black car stopped beside her. A dark-tinted window rolled down.

"Ms. Hane?", a voice flowed from within.

"Y-yes?", she answered, almost too shocked to think of anything else to do or say.

"Could you please come over to our meeting today? There's a few things we need to discuss."

The voice was low and slightly urgent. She hesitated.

"We could really use your input, you know."

Again, she didn't know. And she told them just that.

A brief silence. "You are Ms. Lana Hane, aren't you?"

She was. After a few seconds she entered the car, not after checking up the plate and sending it out to a number of groups she was in on Telegram.

The backseats were big and comfortable, and by her side sit a tall, wiry woman, perhaps on her mid-40s.

"We were eager to know you! We couldn't find the trust you belonged to, so we decided to come over and chat with you in person. I hope you didn't mind."

She did mind, but did not voice it. "No, of course not. What is this about?"

For a moment, she thought the woman looked at her as if she had been hit really hard on the head and needed medical assistance.

"Hm, er, about your... new role at Vibe?"

She recalled very faintly the logo of the company flashing up in the investment app.

"Oh. Ooooh, that. Hum, ok, I bought some shares yesterday", she considered, more to herself than to the woman.

Did they use to contact anyone who bought their shares, regardless of how meager the percentage was? Weird.

"Ms. Hane", the woman said, very delicately exasperated, "You effectively own 56% of the company at this moment".

Lana took it in very slowly, like a child who tries to pull out their baby teeth.

"Ex--Excuse me!?", she barfed.

The woman looked at her, now effectively with alarm and a tiny little touch of despair, and looked Lana over, her workout Martian alien green seemingly trapped inside the blackness of the seat.

With a strong display of will and self-control, the woman adjusted her suit and brushed off a single drop of sweat. "Well, no need to worry. Everything is gonna be fine", she said.

Lana didn't know to whom she was saying that, but tried to breath as slowly as possible on her way to the company building. On the panel screen, a big, round, yellow logo shone bright under the morning sun.

VIBE, Inc.

"Well. Fuck", she thought.

Mister Wizard and Us

The front door opened with a clang
Who’s there, we asked
That was our dear, friendly wizard
He hung up his robe and leaned his staff
Against the door.

I’ve come to rest, he said
And to see you, my children.
What else to do, he said
Under this nightsky of yours?

There we stood for hours
He told us of what he had seen
Heard, kept
Touched with his bare fingers
Under his light feet
All that, he said
I have become.

Stale hours came as we slept
We woke up, he was there
Standing at the edge of the window
Smoking.

Breakfast is ready, children
He said.
Grated cheese rind, smoked chicken skin
Under the daylight, skylit moon

We licked our fingers to the bone

More stories, wizard
We asked.
He wouldn’t have it, not now.
I have to go, he said.
I will see you when I see you
And smiled.

Let us know when you come again
To our house
Sure.

He grabbed his robe
Lifted his staff
Walked out the door.
Light were his feet
Dwindling down the path.

We looked at him from afar
His hat pointing to the stars

Goodbye, mister wizard
Until we see you again
Mister wizard,
Goodbye.

Algumas palavras

Olá,

O blog passou nos últimos dias por uma reestruturação. Modifiquei o layout, esquema de cores, fontes, disposição de conteúdo e outras coisas mais. Talvez a maior mudança tenha sido a exclusão das ilustrações inseridas em alguns contos. Dei preferência à leveza em detrimento do luxo, por assim dizer (hahaha), então acredito que ficou melhor assim.

Aproveito o momento também para divulgar outros projetos em andamento:

O Sertanista: um blog muito parecido com este em proposta, com uma única diferença: a temática é unicamente voltada para a construção do gênero neosertanista. Portanto, aqueles que ainda se lembram de A Balada de Floriano que postei aqui alguns anos atrás poderão encontrar histórias bastante similares por lá. O neosertanismo mereceu um espaço à parte, restando a'O Hierofante explorar todo o resto.

A Random Heroes Saga: nascido de uma aventura de Dungeons & Dragons 5E, o blog se dedica a romantizar partidas de RPG onde os personagens foram criados a partir de números aleatórios. É escrito em inglês.

Por enquanto, é isso. Agora em maio será o mês de aniversário deste blog, comemorando 10 anos de publicação. Foi, e está sendo, uma longa jornada, mas não prometo muito mais atualizações, especialmente com o surgimento dos blogs irmãos. Mas surpresas podem vir, quem sabe?

Até a próxima,

H.

225

I woke up next to her.

In the past two days I had the longest trip of my life. I wondered if the pilots slowed down just to spite me, if the wait in between flights were pregnant of more and more hours, being born repeatedly right in front of me. I could not bear to wait anymore.

I was coming home.

I arrived right into her arms. Soft, warm, tight. We kissed and cried a little, out of emotion, out of everything we were holding back all this time. We had just completed our contracts as long-distance relationshippers, we graduated from being in different spaces, we traveled in time and now we were under the same stars. We were gods.

That night, I made her promise we would sleep in the same bed. We had to. Just being there, sleeping in each other arms. No words. Only peace. And realization. And love.

I did not dream that night. It felt just as if all this time I was already dreaming, roaming endlessly through days and months waiting to be united with her once and for all.

And then, finally, I woke up. Right next to her. And I felt like our lives were always like that. Like we had never said goodbyes. I kissed her lightly on the forehead and she opened her eyes. She smiled. There was something magic, something wild, and my heart pumped harder.

"Is this real life?", I asked.

Her smile widened.

"It is, my boy."

Season of Shade

There was a shout outside and a bang in the doors.

"Let me in", someone said. "My daughter's sick, she needs help!"

No one replied. They were too scared thinking this would be another ruse from whatever lied beyond the walls of the city. Those days were dark and terrifying, and the season of shades would not pass for another two revolutions of the moon.

The outside man insisted for hours, and only silence welcomed him. He started to cry in several moments, only to become angrier and scream more and more in revolt.

"I'm of your kind, don't you see!?"

But much like any others who tried the same, his voice faded and succumbed also to the darkness. His last words were more of a resigned whisper.

"They've taken her. They've taken her..."

In the the town no one spoke about the shade. It was the unsaid rule, the slow and sure piece of advice everyone would follow without the need of speech. The everyday intown activities took place and there was nothing else to do about it.

The crops were halted during that season. There was no point in cultivating anything in the season of shades. The whole day seemed long and tedious, in spite of the hanging sense of despair that lingered softly in every corner. People would pass by, apparently busy with their own business, but Aidan knew better than that.

She was sick of all that. She wanted to leave. She wanted to dive into the unknown.

Whether that was a sense of mindless selfishness or some kind of madness driven by the shade she would not know. She did know, however, that her future did no belong to that place. Not at all.

Her mother had passed at her birth and her father raised her as a boy. Of course, many knew she was a girl long before she realized it herself, but she did not care anymore. In her heart it did not matter. With time and labor in the carpentry she decided that what her father did was for the best, and left it as it is.

On that day, while tending to the polishing of wood, she had decided. Sudden like a storm, the resolution came and took roots. She packed her things without telling anyone and went for the town gates. Aside from the watchers no one else guarded the towers. She took a deep breath and opened the gates before anyone got a hint of what she was doing.

Slowly the people became aware and started calling her name in confusion. But it was already too late and she had already left through the small crack she held open for her passage. Behind her someone kept shouting "crazy bitch", but she did not recognize the voice. Maybe one of the watchers.

The road was terrible and not well taken care of, as it was expected in that time of the year. With herself she only had a pair of plain clothes, a travel sack and enough provisions to last for three or four days, or maybe a week, if she fastened the belt. There was a bit of regret in her chest, but it was too late. No one would open the gates for her, not until the end of the season. So she kept going.

The day was filled with a sour soundless tone, and the eyes were hindered by some sort of obscurity that covered the shapes of things. Vegetation would no grow, and the one that existed had already withered beyond salvation.

The ashes of the pavement and the ragged nature did little to upturn her mood for most of the walk. Now that she was outside she did not know what to do. She wished she was as sure as before, and now was angry with her foolishness, not because of the decision she had made, but for the uncertainty that followed.

The night came unnoticed and she got a place under a very old and dead oak trunk beside the road. She could not risk a fire, so she ate gloomily piece of cheese that tasted like toe nails. The sleep followed, dreamless and undisturbed.

When she woke up, there were shadows all around her.

She stood up quickly and grabbed a hard piece of stick that lied nearby, fencing it towards the creatures. They were a dozen pale dark misty-like beings in the shape of animals: a raccoon, a squirrel, two bulls and a big dog. Their lines were twisted and magnified, as if seen by a very dirty and odd shard of glass. They kept looking at her, muted by their own thoughts.

Aidan stopped moving the stick around. "Hello?", she half asked.

"You don't belong here", twitched the squirrel. It was thrice the size of a common specimen, much like the others.

"Humans perish under the Shade, mister", thwarted one of the bulls. "They don't last long, no they don't."

When the others started to mumble, the husky dog talked. His baritone voice was more human than anything she imagined, and was filled with also unimagined sorrow.

"Girl, you too shall perish. In one way or another your humanity is forfeit. Now you have to survive with whatever is left."

It startled her that she was addressed as "a girl" by the dog. She did not understand what could happen to her and why those animal shadows were there. For all she knew everyone who left town during the season never returned. The people that came by and asked for help were never attended, for fear that they were ghosts in disguise, or something worse. No one understood why the season of shades existed and since when or anything. There was only the unknown.

"What should I do?", she finally asked.

The shadows were quiet. The dog spoke.

"You can do many things, girl. One of them is to survive."

"But how can I survive under the shade? We've never seen anyone to return from it!"

"Yes, it is true. It is impossible to thrive under the shade. That is why you have to survive in it. Like we do."

She then looked to the blurred grayness produced by their vaporous bodies and a sudden glimpse of understanding enlightened her face when she realized their true nature.

They cast human shadows.

"Now I see you understand. Come with me, if you will. The shade has already started to take its toll", said the dog, motioning the group to leave.

Aidan bowed and look around herself. The twilight world was starting to make sense.

And she followed.

Days later her father left the town to look for her. He searched for three days, until he found her beside a river bank. Changed.

He ran back to town, astonished and terrified. He was in rags and banged the doors.

"Let me in!", he shouted. "My daughter's sick, she needs help!"

The Gatekeepers

It was just another night of May.

The weather was strangely damp, in spite of the season. Broderick hid himself under the blankets and thought about the following days. His father had decided to move to a better job, in a better company in another place, far away from there. The prospective of living in a bigger city scared him, but not as much as dwelling in a urban jungle of grayness and cold floors. "You'll do good, Rick. You'll do just fine" said his father. Rick was not that sure.

He loved that town. Ballburg was nearly a village, and even as time passed it did not grew nor diminished. It felt like it would be eternal and forever like it always was. Rick loved how the stars could be seen at night, how the willows grew in the sidewalks, when it rained and it washed all the way through St. Antonia Street; the smell of new made bread from Big Al's family bakery, the secret hideout he built by himself near the woods, where he kept his comics and some cookies and other provisions, just in case of an incoming end of times.

However, he had to follow his father and it seemed definitive. The day before he had avoided saying goodbye to his friends and spent the whole day in his bedroom, peeking throught the window to see if anyone would come to talk to him. Big Al came once, but did not insist, and left soon afterwards. Rick felt a little bit upset and disappointed. Maybe Big Al should have insisted more. No one came for him, though he was certain that their departure from that small town would have been news heard anywhere. Maybe even noticed in the newspapers that day, he wondered.

He could not sleep, at any rate. The blankets felt too warm and he felt his skin clamp with sweat. He threw them aside and opened his window. Outside the night was rather muffled. The neighborhood seemed quiet, except for some cats that querreled once in a while in a roof somewhere. The wind was not blowing, the trees were static and the stars seemed painted in the sky, pale and faint. Beyond the limits of Ballburg he saw the only road that crossed the town silent without cars nor trucks. 

But then, Rick noticed the slightest trace of gold crossing somewhere near the woods. He realized that that happened oddly near his private hideout and found that queer. Perhaps he should check that out? It would be his last night there anyway. Once, he tried to sleep over in the hideout without his father knowing, though he was quite unsuccessful. Amidst his not so comfortable sleep in a bed of leaves, he heard someone shouting his name in the woods. Afraid of being discovered, he simply ran back home, where his father was waiting, in disbelief and anger. Rick was grounded for two weeks after the incident, but at least his hideout was not found.

Grabbing his backpack and flashlight, he sneaked out still wearing his pajamas, though he had the care to put his sneakers on and to stuff his towel inside one of his pack pockets. He crept carefully until he reached the front door, and then he was gone.

Rick knew every single street that existed in Ballburg, mostly because of his walks and plays with Big Al and Alan and Fra. Everybody would know that they were playing, not because of the noise or anything, but because they used to use the whole town as playground for their games. It could represent both the smallness of Ballburg - often called Smallburg, for all that mattered - or the grandiousness of the children's play, which seemed much more accurate, since the town were not that small either. Should he know his way, he would remember very clearly about each time he had first found them, as Jacko The Pirate or Eddie Dane the Gunslinger or Sir Plume of Roundhill, and so on. 

Lurking behind the barber shop and following the alley that led to the gas post of Mr. George, he found no one. Blessing his luck, he even stopped moving so slowly and started to walk swiftly and more unworried. The road beside the gas post was flanked by high grass, and in a sharp turn to the left where the "Welcome To SmBallburg" stood he strode.

Walking past the grass and shrubs that hindered his movement was not a challenge for him, he had done that so many times before. Soon the unseen path followed towards the woods, which lied tall but compact in the far borders of town. Rick would soon find the right rocks and figure the way to his hideout. He was searching for anything that would seem to be the source of that golden light, but he did not see anything out of usual. The trees were broad and had sharp leaves, hiding the night sky from him as he entered deeper in their grounds. The earth was moist as if it had rained, but Rick did not know if the rain had happened at tall. He held his flashlight tight and decided that that would be the right time to light it up. Turning on the cranky switch took a while, but he finally did it and pointed the mechanic light towards the dark under the leaves.

There it was, his private bunker. Cleverly built in the middle of three particularly big oaktrees that grew too close to each other, he fixed the wooden roof with some scraps from the carpentry and did some personal decoration in its insides. Up the den he had spread many leaves and some mud as camoufflage, and at its sides he nailed the sheets of some sort of rough plastic used in tents. It was more a hole in the ground than a lodge, but it seemed to work as hideout just fine.

Rick crawled inside and saw his comics, half buried in soil and wrinkled by humidity. He cursed for having forgotten to put them in the plastic bag the last time he had been there, but nothing could be done then. He put them in the bag anyway, with a taint of annoyance in his face, and checked for the survival package he had hidden there. Food, water, a tiny medical kit, one battery, scissor, knife, a pair of clothes and socks, and that was it. Rick was especially proud of his insight of managing to think of a pair of socks, since it would be terrible if he had to keep living in a post-apocaliptic Ballburg wearing the same dirty ones.

As there was nothing unusual in the hideout, Rick crawled outside and began his search for the golden phenomenon. He had no idea of what that could be, though he expected very secretly that that would be the unrebukable evidence of life beyond Earth. Maybe he would ran into a couple UFOs and palaver with alien ambassadors from Venus, but he could not be sure. Once he saw this TV program lecturing that people should be skeptical and scientific, yet he had only the faintest clue of what that meant.

Striding in the woods, he held his flashlight and walked over the same places without finding anything different or extraterrestrial. But then he glimpsed a quick brightness right where the trees would end and the wide crops of corn would soon start to be visible, should the sun rise again in the next day. His pajamas were already soiled with black earth, but he did not care. He kept following invisible tracks among the oaktrees and then he divised a tiny golden streak gleaming in the night.

In the other side of the woods the air was much cleaner and fresher. The rambling of the breeze was soft, and the trees moved their leaves without much noise. However, Rick stared in pure bewilderment to a golden streak that crossed the nocturne darkness, crossing star and clouds in a perfect line. The streak would run again through the same route to form a square made bright. To Rick it seemed like a door being drawn with golden ink by God's hand. It was huge.

The light lines shone in the dark without going away. Its radiance grew stronger, and then it opened from the inside. Silently, a door made of the night and of the stars simply appeared out of thin air. Behind it, there was a light that overhelmed everything. Rick could only protect his eyes with the back of his hand, but after a while he was able to see what was coming from that door of wonders.

A shadow was standing. The shade of a giant, with limbs and head and body that resembled much those of a human, yet much bigger and strange. Its shapes were round and long, its features concealed in the shadows cast by the tempest of lights behind it. It just stood there for a long while.

And Rick just stared at him. He believed in every single detail of that mad appearance: it was there and it was truest than anything he had ever saw or heard or felt. Tears poured from his eyes, but he did not feel until his mouth tasted their unexpected saltyness.

"Who...who are you, mister?", a tiny voice claimed.

Rick woke up from his bewilderment and searched for the child that had spoken, only to notice that he was the one. He was speaking to the shadow giant under the threshold of light.

The shade did not move, but inside what was supposed to be his head a white globe opened and shone opaque. Rick felt his gaze upon him as if the weight of many ages were put over his back. He felt tired and weary and old. He wanted to scream, but he had no mouth, and no one to speak with. He was alone, yet everything happened in front of him, and behind him. He was supposed to be there and could not leave unless many weird and bizarre things would happen to everything and everyone. He was prisoner of the Door. He could not leave, never.

But he was leaving.

"THE GATEKEEPERS...THE GATEKEEPERS ARE LEAVING THEIR GATES"

Spoke the shadow giant. His voice was higher than heaven, deeper than hell; it spoke to grandest things and tiniest things, to the oldest things and newest ones, spoke to Rick and went deep to his heart and soul. 

And then he was gone.

Rick blinked many times, astonished with the vision of the door being left open, the golden lines fading in the twilight that preceded the sunrise and dawn. He felt a sudden emptiness in his chest, a sense of sadness and relief. Something that was always there had left forever, and all he could do was to look for something to fulfil that hole again.

He felt dizzy and sat under the branches of a silver fir that stood nearby. He scratched his eyes in a way that only children might fashion, and stared to the corn field that now could be seen in the rising sun light. If he focused for some seconds, he would see the faintest gilded lines still shining. Rick was amazed.

"I do believe it, yes I do" he said, in a half murmur.

"Hey-lo, yo'd betta believ', me-boy!" a voice behind him spoke. Rick turned horrified, just to see that the tree was moving its branches with almost a happy tone. It was dancing. 

"You! You talk!"

"Hell-ya, I do, I do ver' much! If thes' trees coul' talk, they say? Well-o, they'r now!"

And all around him the trees started to dance and chant with awkward voices that soon became choirs. Here and there stones would grow legs and walk as they wished. Butterflies soon appeared with tiny humanoid bodies, roaming randomly around the woods. From the corn field ahead, Rick saw wolves made of earth and mud sniffle the air, snarl at the trees and pack together to go some place else. Far in the horizon, clouds gathered together in the shape of enormously fluffy statues, soon to clash thunder and storm among themselves. Rick was overwhelmed. 

The Gatekeepers were really gone.