Story part 2

Build a great fire.

There was neither doubt nor hesitation in my mind that I should obey the lamb. I had chosen to follow to follow it already obedience to its undeniable authority seemed to be a given. I left immediately to gather the wood to build this great fire and presently found myself before a great, jagged mountain range. This range encompassed the field I had been in and created an instantaneous division between the meadow I had been in and the rest of the world.

Indeed, even the atmosphere had a dramatic change. The sun that had been so gently warming me had presently vanished behind a great furry of black clouds. Every so often, a deep rumbling of thunder would reverberate through the irregular crags of the mountainside. As each boom of thunder rolled across the mountain, small rocks rained from above as if the lifeless, rocky mass was so brittle it was threatening to collapse in on itself.

There was no gentle transition from the vitality of the field to the inertness of the mountains. The life that had flourished everywhere the eye could see in the meadow immediately stopped 50 feet from the base of the mountain range. In the place of rich, soft soil of the field, the ground surrounding the mountain was rough, and cracked as if beaten down by countless years of brutal sunlight.

The mountains loomed before me so fearfully, so majestically terrifying that I first recoiled in horror at the thought of traversing this mountain. It was only with the thought of that mysterious lamb that I was able to draw forth the courage to and step out onto that hostile ground and approach the mountain.

At once, I became aware of the fact that I had no shoes, nor any form of foot protection. In fact, my entire attire seemed tailored only for the perfect environment of the meadow. A white, simple shirt and matching loose pants rippled pleasantly in the wind of the meadow, but in domain of the mountain, it offered as much protection as my bare skin. The wind furiously charged down the side of the mountain and spun away in tiny circular torrents as the impacted the ground. Each gust brought with it new pinpricks of countless dust particles the wind tore from the ground and chafed across my skin.

The ground sizzled from the moisture of my skin and scalded the sole of my foot the moment I took a hesitating step onto its unwelcoming surface. Though I wanted to surrender and abandon the instruction of the lamb, I found myself unable to accept the thought of disappointing it. For some time I walked up and down the mountain range searching for some area that was less harsh than the rest, but no matter how far I went, the schism between the mountain and the meadow remained resolute.

As I stubbornly plodded along determined to find a way across the mountain, my foot brushed past an oddly soft and large leaf. As my foot touched it, it released a soothing aloe that eased away the pain in my feet and cooled the burns of my sole. Stooping, I inspected the plant and found that each leaf was roughly the size of my foot and was impossible to rip save tearing the leaf from the steam of the plant. Moreover, the steam was wrapped in a fine, thin vine-like string that coiled its way up and down the steam of the plant.

Taking off a single leaf, I placed it on dead ground of the mountain and firmly pressed my foot against it. Though it sizzled loudly, the heat was diminished to a tolerable, if not slightly uncomfortable, level. At once, I took several leaves and with the string-like vine fashioned a crude pair of shoes for myself. As I finished and stood proudly with my hand made shoes, I thought for a moment the wind held in it the gentle fragrance of the lamb. I briefly considered looking around for the lamb to ask if it knew where I could get some proper shoes, but I felt as if time was pressing and choose to continue on instead.

Story part 2