The next morning I
woke with a disturbing sensation that that I did not understand. It was like I
was hunted. I lay still and listened. Nothing but the birds, insects and wind
in the trees. I sniffed the air. No scent but the sweet, damp smell of the Yew
tree. Slowly, I sat up, unwrapped my traveling cloak, and looked around.
Nothing. Yet still I felt… watched.
I decided it was because it was the first time
I had ever woken alone. My family have a good nest, a solid platform of wood
and rope high in the bows of an Oak tree, and I missed it. I missed the warmth
of my sisters and mother beside me. I hoped they were not sad or afraid because
of me.
I was doing a strange and lonely thing… but
I had to know if there was an end to the forest- if there was anything outside of the forest.
I walked beside the river for three more
days. The forest never changed, just trees and shadows and leaves, but the
river grew wider and stronger. The curent flowed the same way as I walked, and
the current seemed to get faster with every stride. One the first day I swam
some times, and I could swim fast with the current, but soon I became too cold.
On the second day the river was so strong that I was afraid to swim in it, and
went only to the bank to drink and wash. Some times I was hungry, but then I
would catch a rabbit. Somes times I was lonely, some times excited about my journey,
some times lost in the beauty and scale of the forest.
But always I felt watched… hunted, but
never could I detect my hunter. One time, on the second night, I was afraid of
the Orc. We are nothing but food to the Orc, and if they saw me before I saw
them, I would be meat. But the Orc are not a quiet or patient creature. If they
were hunting me I would have heard them, or I would have been eaten.
I did not enjoy the nights. The forest is
so very dark. When were are young we often climb very high in the trees, and
when we climb very high at night we see strange lights in the sky. There are
tiny white lights that seem so far away, and we call them Stars, and a big
silver light that changes shape. We call that moving, changing light the Moon.
Some say that it is the daughter of the Sun, but I think it is a vast flower
that grows and blooms and closes forever. But the point is that these lights do
not reach us in the forest, so it is totally dark. Totally black. Darker than
when you close your eyes in the day time. No shapes, no shadows, only black.
I missed The People, and did not like to be
alone in the blackness.
The forest is dangerous, so people should
not be alone.
On the fourth day that distant feeling of
being hunted changed greatly. It became a knowing of being hunted.
In the morning I was stalking a rabbit. I
was almost close enough to throw a knife, when the rabbit suddenly ran. It had
not heard me. It had smelt Orc. I smelt it too, and climbed up the nearest
tree.
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