The Wilderman

I settle my pack on my shoulders more comfortably, and relieve my orange tennis shoes of the southern Finnish wetland muck, which includes a wonderful blend of loose weeds, freezing water, mud, and more mud. The wooden trail has ended--or at least when I stepped off, around 3 hours back, but that was out of my own volition. I proceed on, trudging through this big mess of untouched wilderness. The sun in the sky shines cleanly through the myriad of trees, lighting my way through the heavy, ubiquitous shadow that lingers in these parts. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come this far,” I think, as I come to a somewhat deep bluff, in it plenty of animal carcasses strewn everywhere, their tendrils lying out on the cold foliage. “That’s funny,” I think, as I notice that almost all of the carcasses have the same wound, and an even more peculiar thing, there’s no bluffs in southern Finland, I mean, sure, there are hills, but not 25-foot drop offs. I trek down a difficult slope, and examine the bodies. They’re, for the most part, relatively fresh. Not more than two hours old. Deciding that this is a good place to start leaving a trail, I grab out my industrial sized red tape, and start wrapping it around every five trees or so. About twenty minutes into making my way through the forest, I start to hear the typical noises of sundown; the typical birds fluttering through the canopy, and the rustle of small creatures, returning to their homes, and the distant howls of wolves going hunting. Hearing the wolves reminds me to be careful where I hike; I don’t want to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.


The sun has now been long gone passed the treetops, and has now settled on the other side of the Earth, so now it is up to my flashlight to light the way. The howls have been relentless in their howling; hard to actually call it howling anymore, it has now morphed into repeated bursts of screeching, barking, and then whimpering. As I finish up pressing tape on a tall fir tree, I feel a vibration in the tape. I look up and around me and hear nothing save a low rumbling, which is now increasing in volume quickly. I hear the sound of wolves barking, grunting, and crying growing louder, almost as if it is coming towards me. I come to a clearing and look through the trees, straining my eyes, the trees making vision excessively difficult. I see the rise and fall of grey fur weaving through the trees and bushes, and am stricken with fear. I neither planned nor intended to encounter such beasts. Blindly searching for a place to hide, I find no serviceable location. I look out once again, and can now clearly see the faces of not five, not ten, but about fifty wolves charging at me. I quickly jump onto a tree and climb as fast as possible. Around fifteen feet up, I stop and watch as wolves pour in where I was just standing. They all stop in the clearing and turn around, facing the same way, their teeth showing and their faces scrunched up. “They’ve got no reason to be defensive,” I think, “nothing’s after them.” I wait for a couple of minutes, then the snarling dies down. The wolves and I sit there in silence, waiting for whatever is after them.



Suddenly, I hear the rustle of bushes, and the low padding of human feet on the ground, which now resembles mulch mixed with fresh planting soil you find at the home improvement store. Intently watching each and every corner around me, I am startled to hear loud shots being fired. “A Wilderman,” is the first thing that comes into my mind. This made up term I guess would be the combination of nature and a civilized being, creating an intelligent being, capable of animal-like durability in the wild. The only thing funny about the gunshots is their un-earthly quality. They sound fabricated, wavy, rebounding off of your eardrum softly even though they were as loud as a shotgun when they were fired. Almost like the gun noises you hear in a Sci-Fi movie, in Star Trek, of Star Wars. Wolves start dropping like flies, one after the other, and their guts spilling the same way they did back at the bluff. A figure steps out of the bush and keeps firing at the wolves. I can’t clearly make out what the figure’s face looks like, but it is a male, and he is wearing a baseball cap and a green and purple coaches’ jacket, straight out of the 90s. His jeans are acid washed, and he’s wearing boots. The only odd thing about him is that under his coaches’ jacket and silver, skintight suit with a few strips of glowing light, that isn’t too fluorescent. His feet are not in boots, they’re actually in same sort of material his shirt is in, and I can see that it is some sort of body suit. He fires a few more shots confidently at the pack, and they eventually run away, leaving around twenty more victims behind.


From my viewpoint I see Wilderman surveying his kills, then examining each one, until finally coming to one, reaching into it, yanking its heart out, then pulling it up to his lips, then devours a chunk of the still-beating organ. I gasp apparently too loudly, and am greeted by a blinding light, and a shower of gunfire, and that same, mind-boggling sound. I fall out of the tree, flailing my legs, trying to catch onto something, and fall flat on my back, and black out. I awaken what seems like minutes after my fall, and see the man standing over me. “He-llo,” he shakily says. His voice has an otherworldly depth and volume. It travels to my ears very sharply and efficiently, though having a calm tone. Through blurred eyes I examine his face. He has two very large grey eyes, with a larger than normal distance between them, a straight nose, average lips, and a clean-cut thin beard, and a slightly grown in mustache. The lights in his illuminated body suit have now turned from sharp silver to a peaceful apricot color, but the rest of it remains silver. “H-ello,” he says again. “Hi,” I reply. “Do you ne-ed hel-p? My n-ame is Ainö. Let me help you up and I can ge-t you some warmth, shel-lter and fo-od.” He takes my hand and gracefully lifts me up with ease. He now carries me baby-style, and I watch his face remain emotionless, and the moonlight coursing through his eyes.


We arrive and he sets me down on a silver chair, made from the same material of his undergarment. I sit adjacent to a glowing cube-shaped tent. Ainö paces over to me with a small bowl of some liquid. “Drin-k.” I lift the bowl to my lips and nearly choke on the surprising taste. Why, it’s better than almost anything I’ve tasted. There’s no way to describe it, but it’s whatever you want it to be, a beautiful creation of man. “Thank you,” I say.
“You, you have n-ot told me yo-ur name”
“Sorry, it’s Nathan,”
“Na-tha-n, nice to m-eet you.”
“Thanks. So, what brings you out here? I see you were hunting, but I must advise you, the government doesn’t allow it, I advise that you be careful. What do you need with dead wolves?”
“Oh, yes. You see, I--, I wa-ssss….” His voice was now sounding distinctly Scandinavian. “I was working. Yes, I was sent b-y the town of Jvylapäivä, to con-trrol the wolf popula-tion in this aaa-rea. In additio-n to that I was colle-c-ting samples, I am a, a…a researcher.”
“Oh, I see. That’s very cool. The Finnish wilderness is such an inspiring landscape, I love coming out here to camp.”
“Yess. I agr-ee.” I try to ignore his broken English, but, after a while it grows hard, but I do my best to forgive him anyway. We continue talking about the forest, Finland, the world, and where we come from. He claims to be from Northern Norway, and I told him I’m from America. “Oh, yes, very nic-e, Ameri-ka has many great aircraft reception locations.”
“Reception?”
“Oh, did I say reception? I meant Reservations, many gr-eat reservation-sss. Sori.”
“But you also mentioned aircraft?”
“Yes, I did, didn-t I? You mustn’t tell any-bod-y, but I work with a comp-ny that is in commu-nication with the governm-ent, to, establi-sh a new system of advanced, airportsss.” I don’t ask which government, but I figure the American government, but, I’m not sure.
“Don’t worry, its safe with me. That’s awesome though!”
“Yes. We hope it wi-ll be successful, and peaceful for the Eart-h. Well, it is get-ting late now, let us sleep.” We crawl into the tent which is extremely warm, and is comforting in the midst of the chilliness of the night. We lie down next to each other, pull the blanket up, and then Aino curls around my body. “Sorry?” I blurt out.
“Oh. Forgive me, that is ho-w I sleep wi-th others whe-n I am sha—a-ring a bed.”
“Okay, that’s fine then. Night.”
“Goodnight.”
His tall structure creates a surrounding wall of heat around me. This nice feeling creates something I haven’t felt in a while. I smile in the darkness, close my eyes, and fall to sleep.


I am now dreaming;
I stand in the bluff I saw earlier today, same time of day and everything, but the bodies are gone. I look at the cliff face and see a small glowing aquamarine light emanating off the face. I notice a breeze gently yet firmly pushing me towards the cliff. As I stand there, a cold mist starts pouring in over the cliff top, and the breeze turns into a fierce, howling wind. There are no clouds in the sky, only the empty void of space as the ceiling of this dreamscape. I look at my feet and see that they are slightly off the ground and I am being push rapidly at the wall. I shriek as I am slammed against the surface, and realize that the light coming from the rock it some sort of word, written in an unearthly language, and I see animals engraved in the language, wolves. The symbols are like nothing I’ve ever seen before and the light turns off every ten seconds or so, another light illuminating another word or code right next to the previous one. The light travels to different words around the wall, and the speed at which the light shines from each word increases as the ground starts glowing a strange mix of blue, white, and silver.
A beam forms and shoots towards the heavens, clearing the fog and revealing a huge silver ship, coming closer…closer…closer…its here. The ship itself has one huge pane of God-knows-what kind of material going around it, creating a panoramic view. Inside I see a dimly lit space with what looks like medical beds, tables, and chairs. There are many off contraptions along the walls, and figures buzz by, their silver luminescent body suits flashing here and there. The whole scene is almost silent, the wind, the ship everything. All the is audible is a low humming coming from the ship. Two long legs extend from the bottom of the ship as it makes contact with Earth. From a seemingly ordinary side of the ship a door or some sort of hatch materializes and a light green beam shoots out, pointing directly at me. The light falls on my face and I suddenly hear deep buzzing noises, resembling alarms, going off in different tones and pitches. Another blue light beams straight down and there, standing with his arms outstretched, is Aino.
“Aino! What is this?!” I scream
“My ship. Come”
“Your ship! How can it be! Your huma—.” I stop. I now realize what I have previously missed. His choppy speech, his futuristic weapon, his glowing suit, and his facial features, and standoffishness. How could I not see this before!
“Come with m-e,” says Aino
“No! I will not! I’m dreaming! I know for a fact I AM dreaming! I won’t go!” I quickly run out of the reception spot and into the forest. I really must not be dreaming. As I run I notice I am not getting tired, and my footfalls are extremely quiet. I look down and see that I am wearing the same body suit as Aino, and figure that it supplies air and gives you stealthy abilities. I stumble through buses and nearly slam into trees, desperately trying to escape. Behind me I hear Aino calling out my name, telling me to come back. I brush against a branch, and it tears my suit, and suddenly my streak of running, supplied with oxygen, is now a hopeless battle with empty lungs. I stumble about now, trying my hardest to escape. In an effort to save myself, I give one last one hundred meters a try and feel the ground change from soft soil to hard asphalt. I stop in the road and look left and see two blinding headlights, coming at me about ten feet away. In a split second I feel about half the impact of getting hit by a semi-truck but also half of the feeling of being transported to a different setting, the feeling you get when you are swept underwater by a wave.


I awaken and feel excruciating pain move through my entire body, and see that I am naked in a bed. The ceiling above me is a sterile white, as is the room around me. I sit up, and look out a huge panorama window, and see the undulating blue, green, and white blob that is the Earth, and the grey silent sphere that is the moon. I don’t know why, but I get sick on myself. I look up and see a door open, through it enters Aino.
“Welcome,” he says.
As he says this, I realize that it was he who saved me, he wasn’t trying to harm me, and he was my friend. Now I’m headed off to who-knows-where with him, and I have yet to be introduced to the rest of the crew aboard this ship. Aino is wearing his standard uniform, the same one I’m wearing. He walks up to my bed and something happens. The glowing strings on our suits come out of our suits, and wrap around each other. The same warm apricot color fills them and causes our entire suits to glow in that color.
“What is this?” I say weakly.
“Bonding, for when we arrive, we will be partners, friend-s, bro-thers.”
“Land where?!” I say loudly, sending a rush of pain to my head.
“Shhh. We’ll get the-re soo-n enough. Rest now. I am well. You are well. All is well. Now, sleep.”
I start drifting off to sleep as I hear a loud explosion and see red flashing lights. A blaring alarm goes off and figures rush in and out of the room, then I finally drift off to sleep in the midst of the surreal emptiness of space, and the hectic incident that has just occurred, whatever it may be.


My eyes flip open and I see the roof of the tent. The time seems to be around early morning, probably around 4:30. I take a deep breath and review what I have just gone through. It felt so lifelike, everything, the ship, me running away, being in the suit. I knew it was too good to be true. Now I must get out. I can’t just put all of my trust in Aino, though, now I honestly don’t know what to think of him, or who he is, or could be. I start to get up, almost forgetting about who was right behind me the whole night. Aino is still embracing me, supplying warmth, his eyes wide open, I must’ve awoken him. We both sit up, and I look at him.
“Don’t go, stay.” He says
“Why?”
“I want to show you—what it is like.”
“Like what is li—” Suddenly, a small ball of blue light is visible coming down from the sky. I crawl out of the tent and see the exact thing I saw in my dream, the beam, the words on the wall, everything looks the same.
“Come with me, with us, do no-t run this time.” I smile, and nod. Together, we walk out to the center of the circle, look up, and see the blue light encapsulate us, and then we are lifted upward, not the way an elevator does, something entirely different, a weightless, effortless feeling. He steps up into the blinding white light first, then takes my hand and helps me in, helps me into an entire world that is not my own.