Strange dreams have taken a hold of this place. Every one of us, even Honani, is experiencing them. I wonder if it is because of all the time we've spent sitting in the ancient meeting home reading, studying, and debating the legend. Strange shadows on the walls, and a one handed man. The dreams are different for each of us, and I won't go into detail about them, but they all contain those two things. A one handed man....Running Bear and I found a hand in the temple.Perhaps his spirit is trying to contact me, trying to warn me. Only my dreams don't seem like warnings. They seem like..a threatened invitation. That's the best way I can describe the..strange, pulling feeling I get. I want to walk into the shadows.

The walls are closing in. I can feel them. The spirits are restless. The enemy is close at hand. But which enemy?

Dreaming

Zia, no offense, I think puts far too much weight on one dream. I do believe her ideas have merit, especially knowing what i know about our father, but..sometimes, dreams are just that. Dreams. 
I did dream of the faceless creature of legend. I saw it first as a hazy black shadow against the wall of our refuge, but the longer I gazed, the clearer it became. It stepped from the wall then, and I saw it as clearly as I see the waking world. Something over seven feet tall, dressed in an odd manner that I've never seen the like of before. It had limbs, but they were very elongated, as if something had stretched them. It held out one of these arms to me, but I didn't move. The blank white face seemed to study me intently. Something strange did happen though...The longer I stood staring, the..mood seemed to change, and so did the creature's arm. It flickered between a hand and a..tentacle, I think is the right word. As suddenly as it appeared, it was gone. I realized then that I was back in the waking world.
I rolled over, and realized that the wall in my dream was the exact same one as I was sleeping against. Honani grumbled something about sleepwalking, but he talks in his sleep constantly. Just another one of his strange sleep-comments. (He may very well try to kill me, after seeing that publicly posted. Hmm. Something has to take our minds off the situation at hand. Why not a little murder?)

We heal, slowly but surely. Zia says it may take another week for my brother to be able to use his arm, since my father's arrow cut into a  nerve. My leg is fine, though it does hurt to walk on. My father attacked his own flesh and blood...he is an honorless coward, and for that I am truly sorry I did not kill him where he stood. 
But for some reason, I was afraid when I saw him. Not fear of him, but fear as a general sensation. Fighting him was difficult...as if something didn't want a blow to land. I spoke to Zia, and she says it may just be the peaceful intent of the spirits dwelling here..But that doesn't make any sense and she knows it. I know what she wants to say. I know she wants to blame it on the creature in that story.
My sister, Chumana, says that she dreamed of this thing last night, but that she felt no fear, only welcome. I always knew telling stories in the darkness made thoughts run wild. Just not that wild..

Short Update

We finally were able to escape the Chief's eyes for long enough to slip into the sacred dwelling...Thanks to Honani and his willingness to jump headfirst into a situation.
We were sitting by a very small and, what I thought was well concealed, fire. Honani was leaning up against a tree on the perimeter, making us more waterskins, when a quick shadow crossed the camp. All of us dropped down and grabbed whatever weapons were nearby. First thing I thought was that we were on some ancestral spirit ground by accident, and they didn't like it. I was quickly corrected when an arrow glanced off a tree branch three feet from Chumana's head. Honani dashed off into the darkness in the direction of the arrow.
Running Bear yelled at him to stop and tried to give chase, but was stopped in his tracks by another arrow lodging itself in his shoulder.
Arrows continued to bounce off of the ground and trees around us as Chumana and I tried to tend Running Bear's arm. Then, a pained howl and the arrows stopped.
Moments later Honani limped back into the firelight, a knife sticking out of his calf and blood staining the white stripe in his hair."He's unconscious. Now is our chance. Zia, how far?"
I said nothing, but motioned for everyone to grab as much of our supplies as they could carry. The site wasn't far...I'd been circling it for weeks looking for a way in past the Chief that wouldn't alert him to the spot, and bring his ill-intent into a sacred place.
We managed to get all but a few things that could be replaced...Twenty minutes later we descended the hidden ladder into one of Mesa Verde's treasured secrets.

So far the spirits seem to be okay with us residing here. I will speak with some one night soon, to discover more about their terms of our stay. Until I do this, we've been sleeping in what would have been a public-use area...no sense in angering someone by walking into their house like we own the place.

Now that we aren't running for our lives, I can interview Chumana and Honani more about their father's dealings...And continue to try to decipher this strange legend.

Honani, The Badger

My father is an idiot of the worst kind. He refuses to subdue his pride, refuses to admit he's wrong. I'm not buying in to what the rest of this camp says just yet, though I do find Chumana's story disturbing. What I find more disturbing is that the honored chief of a village could be so stuck in human affairs, that he would exile his own wife and children is some desperate far-flung attempt to save face and save power. 

Oh, right. Zia says I'm supposed to introduce myself. Call me Badger, or Honani if you like saying interesting names. I'm sure you can guess the name: My spirit animal is the fierce badger. Stopping at nothing, fighting until the very end, very grounded. I struggle with the spirit realm, which is probably why I'm the resident skeptic of the group.

I'm the only one the spirits didn't seem to affect that Halloween night. I mean sure, I felt sick and lost a few hours, but that happens in the desert on long journey with little water. Heat stroke does things like that., people. 

Chumana

Where shall I begin, but to tell you of myself? I am Chumana, the Snake Maiden. I am called this because when I was born,  a viper of the desert rest itself next to me but did not strike. The snake is my guardian. Most fear him, but I respect his ways. The snake is a curious creature, but not the creature of evil he is made to be. 

I am Running Bear's sister. I do not know why he calls himself of that name, but he forbids me speak his true name. I chose to run with him because of the darkness that is within my father. I shall now tell you a tale of our family's downfall, and why it is so important he never find us.

About seven cycles ago, my father came home with some words written on a piece of paper. He said they were from a young boy passing through, a boy with no hand. He said that the had been divinely inspired to pass along a legend long forgotten, and had lost his hand in pursuit but gained enlightenment. He refused to give his name, calling himself only "The Emissary". Father read these words and soon began to act very strangely. He would remain awake late at night, rereading. He would go out into the night and sometimes not return until daybreak. At first he seemed fearful of the night, but as time passed on, he changed. 

Our mother one night while he was gone stole the papers from a hidden hole on our wall. She read them herself, and the very next morning confronted him.I confess, I do not know what transpired in the conversation. But every night thereafter, my mother also began to consume herself in reading the words The Emissary left behind.

A cycle and a half later, the symbol started appearing. My father became more and more agitated, my mother, more paranoid. She began to refuse my father's company. She held a meeting with a few elders and told them what she had read and seen. They ignored her, of course. And then, father discovered the symbol in their bedchamber and perceived it to be the ultimate abandonment.

He forced her out of the house, on a journey of purification. Or, so he said. 

But I caught him talking in his sleep, two nights before Running Bear and Zia returned. He mentioned the box dwelling, sending her there to be "Remade". And that he was sorry he had failed. Then he screamed, and awoke, and ran from the house.

I am resigned to the fact that Zia is right about this. That there is more to it than a broken life symbol. When something is worshiped as this figure was in the dwelling....It is bigger than a legend. But what if it is real? My father then serves a false god of death.

In which this blog almost came to an abrupt end.

I wish I was joking about the title. I was so preoccupied with getting to Mesa Verde and avoiding the Chief and his friends that I sort of forgot the day. October 31st. The Day of the Dead, Halloween, The Beginning of the Winter Calendar..Whatever you call it, one thing is certain. It is a day for precaution. Why anyone celebrates it is beyond me, but maybe that is just my experience with the spirit world talking. All I know is, Halloween is the day the veil between the living world and the realm of the ancestors grows very thin. It is a day of transition, leaving everything vulnerable.

We were walking through an empty stretch of desert, we didn't really have a choice but to cross this open patch of ground. It was nearing midnight, the darkness was covering us almost completely. It was decided that we'd go at it at a slow run, spaced out. We were almost exactly halfway across the stretch when Running Bear crumpled to the ground.  Naturally I thought the Chief had shot him. We've managed to stay only a half a step in front of the bastard this whole time. He's attacked us twice already with no real damages, but..I can't enter Mesa Verde until I've lost him. I can't let him find my place. It...is too sacred for the evil he would bring there.

Running Bear's sister screamed and ran to him. She rolled him over and...his face...He looked frightened. "Spi...Spirit...." Spirit? A spirit did this? And then I remembered. It's October 31st, and we're on potentially active ancestral ground.  I don't know what happened here in ancient days. I know little about what happened anywhere, unless I get a friendly spirit to talk. And this one obviously wasn't feeling friendly.

Running Bear's brother then spoke up. First time I ever heard him say a thing. "Zia. Look. Look around us. The dead walk."

Holy. Fucking. Hell. You know the saying "When Hell is full the dead walk the earth"? Yeah well. It has truth rooted in the legends. All of us were enveloped by a literal wall of spirits. Unhappy ones. Screaming voices, cursing, howling...It was painful. Soon, all of us were on the ground on our knees, hands pressed against our ears. They assailed us from all sides. I don't know how many of you have ever been physically attacked by something not completely of the physical world, but, it is decidedly unpleasant. And can be deadly in the long term. And it's hard to fight back.

Pain. Unnatural pain. Oh, it hurt..
And then they disappeared as quickly as they had come.  I looked up at the sky. Blessed daylight. The sun was rising. Oh, thank you Great Father.. And then I realized something.

We'd been in the same spot, under attack by these strange spirits, for almost five hours.