Chương 93: Flower Meadow

A quite familiar scent struck his nose, and Lloyd opened his eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched into a faint, involuntary smile.

"I'll take this as a gift after all my efforts." He found himself in the middle of a field of small blue flowers, low ones, barely reaching his knees, a cool breeze brushing gently against his face, blue petals swirling around him — so many that some had already gotten tangled in his hair, settling on his shoulders in a thin, fragrant layer.

The thin stems of the flowers swayed slightly, brushing against each other with a faint, rustling sound, and here and there tiny, translucent insects flitted through the air like glowing pollen, leaving behind faint, shimmering trails. He breathed in the floral scent with pleasure, filling his lungs with something soft, almost soothing, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease for the first time in a long while.

He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that all of this had turned out to be yet another fabrication. Though the sky here no longer looked as convincing as it had before — it resembled more of a smooth blue surface, without even a hint of clouds, as though someone had carelessly painted it with a single, even brushstroke, not bothering with details, not even bothering with gradients of color.

The ground beneath his feet was soft, springy, as though made not of ordinary soil but of something lighter, airier, giving slightly with every step, like a feather mattress.

Around him stretched what seemed like an endless field of flowers, extending in every direction as far as the eye could see, without a single hint of a horizon or boundary, but far off in the distance he could make out some dark silhouettes — too far away for Lloyd to make out clearly, so he set off toward them at an unhurried, light pace, the low stems parting easily before his feet, not even reaching his knees, only occasionally brushing against his shins with soft, cool petals.

With every step, petals swirled upward in whole clouds, then settled slowly, as though in slow motion, spinning and shimmering in the dim, even light of the fake sky, like snowflakes falling in reverse.

As he got closer, his eyebrows shot up again in astonishment — it was hard to believe what he was seeing, though by this point in the day he'd already witnessed no shortage of strange things, things that should have long since numbed him to any further absurdity, made him accept it all as part of some new, insane normal.

There, in the middle of the field, stood two palm trees, clearly completely out of place in this landscape, their broad leaves swaying lazily, even though there wasn't the faintest breeze here capable of causing such movement — the air around them remained utterly still, frozen, as though time flowed just a little differently in this particular patch of the clearing, as though these few square meters had been torn straight out of some entirely different, far more carefree world.

Between them hung an enormous yellow hammock, strung up on thick, twisted ropes that creaked faintly with every gentle sway, rocking back and forth with a lazy, lulling rhythm, and in it slept peacefully an elderly man, his chest rising and falling steadily in the rhythm of deep, untroubled sleep, entirely at odds with everything Lloyd had endured over the past three days, with all the blood, fire, and terror left somewhere behind him.

But it wasn't the palm trees, the hammock, or even the old man himself — so wildly out of place in this entire setting, as though he'd been accidentally teleported here straight from some tropical resort in the middle of something far more important, yanked out of his lounge chair along with an unfinished cocktail — that surprised Lloyd. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. It was the man's size that stunned him.

The man stood roughly three meters tall, and even after living a full year in this new world, Lloyd had never once encountered a person so enormous, let alone in the world before the catastrophe, where dimensions like that would have seemed utterly unthinkable, something out of science fiction or old, half-forgotten fairy tales about giants that had been read to him deep in his childhood, long before his entire former world had been turned upside down.

But with nothing better to do, he made his way toward the man anyway, trying to tread as quietly as possible, carefully skirting the denser patches of flowers so as not to accidentally make any extra noise, not wanting to disturb this fragile, deceptive silence before its time, feeling his heart pound harder with every step.

"I'm definitely going to regret this." Approaching as close as he dared, stopping right at the edge of the hammock, studying the massive, wrinkled face of the sleeping giant, framed by a thick gray beard, Lloyd spoke — his voice came out uncertain, almost timid, swallowed up in the flowery silence of the clearing. — Um, excuse me.

The man continued lying in the hammock, snoring steadily — the sound carried across the clearing with surprising volume, almost deafening against the surrounding stillness, making the nearest flower stems tremble faintly from the vibration, petals scattering off them in a light shower with every particularly loud snort.

It seemed as though Lloyd's words simply weren't reaching him at all, dissolving somewhere into the thick, flower-scented air, as though the very atmosphere of this place swallowed every sound except the giant's snoring. So Lloyd repeated himself, a little louder this time, trying to inject more confidence into his voice, even as everything inside him tightened with awkwardness and a growing sense that something unpleasant was about to happen. — Excuse me.

The veins in Lloyd's neck bulged with mounting irritation — this kind of behavior was clearly starting to get to him, and some insistent inner voice kept telling him that this insolent old man was either simply ignoring him or outright pretending to be asleep, secretly watching his clumsy attempts to get his attention, amused by this little performance.

Unable to hold back any longer, he shouted at the top of his lungs, pouring into that scream all the exhaustion and irritation built up over three days, all the pain of the battles he'd survived, all the desperation of these last few hours. — Excuse me!

In that same instant, Lloyd regretted his own lack of restraint — after all, a giant of this size wouldn't have the slightest trouble crushing his skull as easily as swatting an annoying insect, and arguing with something of that size and potential strength clearly wasn't a wise move, especially after everything he'd already been through today.

But it was already too late, the words had already left his mouth, echoing across the entire flowering clearing, startling a cluster of glowing insects that scattered off in every direction in bright, shimmering sparks.

The snoring stopped abruptly, leaving behind an awkward, ringing pause hanging in the air, and the silence that followed struck Lloyd as far more unsettling than the snoring itself had been — and the giant slowly, lazily opened his eyes, each eyelid lifting with a heavy, almost ceremonial unhurriedness.