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This is a story loosely based on my make-beleive adventures with my good friend.
This is entirely fiction, but when we were young (and you, too) we thought this could happen.
An original short story
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Red
Cedar
Part
one: The world
Chapter
I
“Tadpoles!”
Cedar exclaimed.
I looked into the
pond, “Where?” I asked.
“Over there, by
the rock.” she said, squinting.
I peered around a
cattail, I could see something swimming in wild circles. “I think
that's a minnow.” I corrected.
“No! It's a
tadpole. Minnow’s don't live in ponds.” she said, tightening
her brow.
I looked deeper into
the pond, I could see my own reflection staring up at me. The blond
curls, blue eyes, and smooth skin. “Look! It's like the mirror at
your house, the shiny one.” I said, thinking of the time we had
thrown banana's at it till we could hardly breath from laughing so
hard.
Cedar looked, seeing
her own red hair, freckles and green eyes. It was at that moment a
frog surfaced right in the reflection of her head. She made a little
screaming noise and jumped backward.
“It's just a
frog.” I said, puzzled slightly by her reaction.
“It scared me.”
she said in voice that made you want to comfort her
“Lets catch it!”
I suggested.
Cedar's face
brightened up, “Yeah! But when we do, what are we going to do with
it?”
I paused, puckered
up my lips, and squeezing my eyebrows until they almost covered my
eyes. “We can bring it to my mom to cook for dinner!”
“Ew, gross, who
would want to eat a frog?” she asked, sticking out her tongue in
disgust.
This is how most
afternoons went for seven year olds, going outside, running around,
and laughing.
Today was no
different, they found a pond at the back of the field, and that
entertained them until it was time to come in for bed. They said
their good byes, and walked to their houses, promising to meet at the
treeline the next morning, just like always.
A few hours later, I
awoke, it was the middle of the night, almost two O clock in the
morning. There was a tapping on my window. I sat up, blinking,
still tired from not getting enough sleep. I had stayed up till
almost nine at night, when I was supposed to be asleep at eight.
Another tap, I
looked just in time to see a small piece of driveway gravel bouncing
off the window frame. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
Cedar was down on the lawn, motioning for me to come. I nodded, and
ran to the bedroom door, then I thought about my parents, I might
wake them, that would be no good, slowly I turned the doorknob, and
walked down the hallway to the steps. The steps were made of wood,
and they creaked every time I stepped on one. When I reached the
bottom I tiptoed to the door, grabbed my coat and went out, still in
my pajamas.
When I got to the end of the porch, I saw Cedar. She was standing
under the big oak tree, fully dressed. …in her P.J's. I looked up
at the house, not regretting in the least leaving for a few minutes.
Then Cedar told me what she had planned to do. “Let's go to the
exgabaiton (she didn't know how to say “excavation” because she
was only eight) site, where my mom said not to go.”
“but, your mom said not to go there.” I said, worried.
“thats what I just
said, and anyway, doesn't that make you want to go there?” she
said ruefully.
I paused, “I guess
so,” in truth I really did want to, but I knew I would get in less
trouble this way, if we ever were found out.
“Then lets go!”
she said, not caring about my apparent reluctance.
Cedar ran off, I
followed, we both knew the way, we knew the neighborhood well,
between houses, over small hills, and around trees. Then we got
there. A huge hole, the dirt all piled up on the sides, and big
trucks with rocks in the back. I gasped, I had never been here
before, and had always wanted to, I loved big trucks, just like most
eight year olds boys. “lets get a closer look.” this time it
was my suggestion.
Cedar agreed right away, and we ran down through the maze of dump
trucks. They were big, yellow, and had huge black wheels, just like
the ones I had at his house, but a lot bigger. Cedar was more
interested in the dirt, she loved climbing things, and that included
big piles of rubble.
She jumped on the nearest one, and started her hike to the top, it
was hard, being eight, and it took about five minutes. But when she
finely did, she smiled, and laughed for no particular reason. I did
to, and eventually followed her. It was a great view, in our
opinion, it was only about seven feet off the ground, but to us, it
looked like fifty. “it looks like we can see forever!” Cedar
said.
My reply was, “except that way,” I pointed to the left, there
was a truck in the way. I said, noticing the log: Fred's
friendly trucks.
Cedar just glanced over, without saying anything. There was silence
for a few minutes, then I asked, “shouldn't we go back now?”
“if we want to get up early, then yes.” Cedar said.
And we were off.
But we didn't get very far, before we saw the old man who lived down
the street from Cedars house.
“Get behind the trashcan!” Cedar said.
We both dove for it. I skidded to a halt, but not before I hit my
head on the base of a stop sign. I could tell it left a bruise.
While I held my head, Cedar started to whisper: “why is that guy
walking in the middle of the night?”
my answer was silence, so she kept on talking, she liked to talk, I
could tell. “maybe he's a wherewolf that goes out at night, to go
and hunt for his food!”
Cedar was a very imaginative person who was always coming up with
wild ideas that she didn't believe herself. “if that was true,
then why would he do it on a night that only has half a moon?” I
asked skeptical
Cedar puzzled with this for a second, then said “maybe he is just
practicing.”
by this time he had passed by, and we dropped the matter altogether.
It only took us a few more minutes to reach Cedars house, it was
tall, a tannish color with white trim, just like the rest of the
houses in the neighborhood. I said goodbye, and once again promised
to meet her at the tree line.
I walked to my house, which was just beyond hers, it looked the same,
the only difference was that a light was on on the second story. My
jaw dropped, if that was my moms light, I was dead. Well, not
really, but in my opinion it was the same as getting a good talking
to.
I opened the door quietly, trying not to make any noise. The hinges
rattled slightly, even if it was a tiny noise, it seemed that any
noise was going to kill me.
Finally I made it in to the kitchen, looked around, and all was
quiet. I took a deep breath and started up the stairs. These
stairs were as bad as the door, creaking and groaning under my
weight. When I reached the top, I saw that it was my room that
still had the light on, and not my moms.
Sighing with relief I crept into my room, everything was the same as
I had left it. But then I thought of something, why was my light on?
Did I ever turn it on? I went through what happened in my head, I
woke up from the tapping noise, I got out of bed to see what it was.
It was Cedar, I went downstairs to see what she wanted.
That was it. I never turned it on.
I looked at the clock, it was now almost three in the morning. I
hopped into bed and fell asleep quite quickly.
I opened my eyes to the rising sun only three hours later. I was
still tired and groggy from the night before, or morning, however you
want to put it. I came down the stairs, rubbing my eyes, trying to
wake myself up. “finely up pickles?” my mom said, she was
making pancakes.
“mm” was my reply.
My name wasn't pickles, it was Eric, but after I “borrowed” some
pickles when I was five from the grocery store down the road,
everyone called me pickles.
“would you like some breakfast? Dady's already at work, so he has
had his, you can have the rest.”
I agreed and took the plate from my mom after saying thank you. This
was one of my favorite breakfasts, the idea of pouring real maple
syrup onto a piece of dough, sounded delicious to me. “so, are you
of to play with Cedar today?” mom asked, our family's were good
friends, and we were always seeing each other.
“yeah, today we are going to the woods.” I said, I was quite
exited about going there, we always had the most fun there.
As I finished my breakfast and was walking out the door, my mom
reminded me to check for ticks when we got back, after all, it was
their season.
When I reached the trees, Cedar was already waiting for me. “lets
go!” she said, after saying hello.
Chapter II
It took a moment for our eyes to adjust the eyes to the
dim light, the sun only filtered in through a few patches in the oak
branches. It was one of my favorite places to be, the heavy trunks
creaking and groaning, leaves rustling in the soft wind, and on the
ground, pine needless and pine cones from the few evergreens that
littered the forest.
It was here, that five years later we returned. Every
day after school, and then in the summer too.
It was now the second week of july, and we were going to
go exploring into the back of the woods, when we were younger, we
never dared go past here. What we called: the ring. Cedar
had come up with the name when she was nine. It wasn't the most
original name ever, but it was fitting, the tree's grew in a circle
around one big oak. I remembered all the times me and Cedar had sat
around there, talking and laughing, and just, having fun. As we grew
older it seemed like we didn't have fun. And if we did, it was very
little. That, I think is what summers are for.
“Which way do we go?” Cedar asked,
I pondered on this a moment, then said, “that way.”
with my finger pointing at a small entrance between the trees.
Cedar nodded her head, and we set off. This part of the
woods felt no different than the rest, just maple tree's and
evergreens.
Now that I was older, I began to notice things I never
would have seen as an eight year old, a robin fluttering over our
heads, a squirrel jumping from branch to brach, a butterfly hovering
lazily over a flower, bee's humming their way back to their hive,
even a badger poked it's head out from a hole in the ground.
I pointed these things out to Cedar, who had seemingly
been focused on the ground and her feet.
“cheer up,” I said, “a minute ago you were
bouncing all around waiting for me to be ready.”
she didn’t respond right away, “well, I was
thinking, what if we just…” she paused, “disappeared.”
I was puzzled by this, and asked what she meant.
“well,
think, where will we be when the woods end, like if we go to far,
what then?”
I didn't say anything, so she continued, “just think,
we could run away, we wouldn't have school to deal with, no chores,
nothing!” she was really getting going now and I couldn't stop
her. “I know it's a crazy idea, but we could do it!”
this was were I interjected. “No! We couldn't, and
even if we did-”
I don't know what I would have said, if something hadn't
slammed into me at that moment.
It was heavy, that I noticed when it put all it's weight
on me, I rolled over knocking it off with my fist. I didn't even
have time to stand fully before it attacked me again. I turned my
face away, so as not to be blinded, in that moment I saw Cedar being
attacked also, the creature was orange, with black stripes running
down it's back, almost like a tiger, but smaller. I continued to
struggle, and every time I moved it slashed at some part of me. When
I realized this I stopped moving, at the same time, it ceased it's
clawing and bitting. It wasn't out to kill us, it just held me and
Cedar down.
“stop moving!” I screamed,
she did, and only then did the two things still.
“Cedar, we have to fight back.” I said.
“But you just told me stop!”
“I know, but if we are going to, then we have to at
the same time.” I said, in a rasping voice, my lungs were being
crushed, it was getting hard to breath. It was only then, that I
thought this was out of the ordinary, it struck me that, these were
unheard of by me, and probably everyone else. I shook my head,
trying to think why this would seem normal, but no matter how hard I
thought, they seemed to have been here all my life. I turned my head
back to the thing on top of me, I found myself staring into pure
black eyes, a white muzzle, and long whiskers that were so stiff they
scratched my face. It looked so calm, and not angered at all, in
fact, I would have believed that they were quite friendly. …If
they had not attacked me.
By now I had most completely forgotten about fighting
them. I began to like them, they were my friends, I had always
liked them, the way they liked me. I wanted to play with them
and race on their backs, it would be the most fun I had ever had,
more fun than I had had with Cedar. She was a stuck up jerk, always
making me get in trouble, leading me to places I was not allowed to
go. How could I have ever been friends with her? No, I never was, I
had always hated her, and she hated me. It seemed that this thing on
top of me was the only thing nice to me, everyone else was so cruel,
my family yelled at me, my dog bit me, even the people down the road
resented me. I was alone in the wold, except for Chazec. That was
this thing on top of me, his name was Chazec. He had told me his
name, a long time ago. When I first met him as a cub. He had
befriended me, nuzzling me and sleeping in my lap. I had very clear
memories of him, and very fogged memories of the rest of the world.
Then he hit me like a lightning bolt. A huge paw
slammed into my head, claws raking my face, searing pain shot through
my left cheek, another hit me within a second of the first. Now I
looked at Chazec's face, his eyes were crazed with anger, my only
friend had turned on me. Another claw rained down into my helpless
form, that blow seemed to knock something back into my head. He
wasn't my friend, he was trying to kill me, and wouldn't stop until I
was dead. My body felt as though it was leaking energy, I had to
little left to do anything but kick once in Chazec's stomach. The
blow was enough to knock him off me, but not for long, I scrambled to
my feet, just in time to see Cedar doing the same thing.
Having grown up together, we both had the same ideas.
In this case, it saved our lives. We both turned and grabbed the
nearest stick possible, I now held a make-shift club, Cedar held a
pointed branch. I swung as it leaped at me. She stabbed. One was
now dead with a small puncture wound in it's heart, the other,
Chazec, was only dazed.
Thinking quickly, Cedar tossed me her new spear/stick.
This time it was my turn to kill. It took only one swift hit to the
head, I hoped it was not to painful.
I felt as though I was going to be sick, killing any
thing larger than a bug was hard, it was like, you had just committed
your life to some cult. You could never go back, you would always
live in a pool of guilt, knowing that what you had done could not be
undone.
Cedar must have been feeling the same way, either that
or she just felt like collapsing on the ground. I did the same.
I must have fallen asleep, because Chazec was already
starting to smell bad.
I looked down at myself, my jeans were ripped and no
small amount of blood was running from my forehead. For the first
time in what felt like hours Cedar spoke. “you all right?” she
said it with a very weak voice, that sounded as if it would die any
second.
“Ya, I suppose. What was that anyway?” was my only
answer.
“Can't say I know, but I think the one that attacked
me had a name, Masef.” she said, matter of factly.
“Mine's name was Chazec.” I said, “He told me,
but it felt like I had known him a long time. Almost all my life.”
I went on to tell how I had felt about it. Leaving out only the
part when I thought I hated her.
Evidently, she had the same thing happen to her. I was
relieved to hear this, and did not feel quite as bad about killing
it, now that I knew it had tricked us into liking it.
“That was the weirdest thing ever,” Cedar said,
“just thought I would state the obvious.”
It was good to hear something like that, it was
surprising how easily an odd remark could take your mind off a dead
animal lying two feet away. “what time is it?” I asked.
Cedar looked up at the sky, “judging by the position
of the sun... two in the morning.” she said this, trying her best
not to laugh. She did not succeed.
At first I just smiled, but then I too gave in and we
were laughing histaricly. When we finally stopped, tears trickling
down our faces, Cedar said, “We should go, your mom will be
wondering were we went.”
I looked down at our clothes, they were bloodied and
ripped. “think she will notice?” I said hopefully.
Cedar raised her eyebrows and spoke in a sarcastic tone,
“No, she will never notice…”
that set us of laughing again, it is hard to describe
how that was supposed to be funny, it's like when you are really
tired, and you think whatever anyone says is funny. It doesn’t
make any sense.
Somehow we had become light hearted in the last minute,
and I found it hard to believe we had almost been killed. “how far
into the woods are we?” Cedar asked.
“pretty far, or at least, farther than we have gone
before.” I replied.
She didn't have anything to say after that, so we left
for home.
When we finally reached my house, I still had to face
the problem of getting inside and changing my clothes before my mom
realized I was home. I was in luck, she had gone out to get
groceries, (I knew this because she had left a note on the counter.)
I ran upstairs, quickly changed my clothes and did my best to hide
the claw marks on my face. I did this by first washing away the dry
blood, so as to make it look like a thin cut from a thorn that I had
not seen. In the end it was almost completely gone, and not nearly
as bad as I thought it was going to be. Until I realized I had
changed into shorts, that plainly showed the worst of were I was
scratched, I saw my mom carrying a paper bag out my window, I quickly
changed out of the shorts, and into another pair of jeans.
I rushed downstairs to help my mom with the groceries.
As I did this I glanced at the clock, four in the after noon.
I was home about the same time as usual, I had made it.
The next day, before I left to meet Cedar, I had the
sense to grab my knife, and some apples, I figured we would want
them, especially after yesterday, I had been starving when I got
home.
It took only a short while to walk to the treeline,
Cedar was already waiting for me. She also had knife, and a bag,
probably holding some food, most likely trail mix, Cedar had a
craving for trail mix. “ready?” she asked, we didn't even
bother saying hello anymore, it was as if we had never left each
others side in the first place.
Within twenty minutes, we reached the ring. Yesterday,
when we past this place, we had met Chazec and Masef. …on
unfriendly terms. I was still wondering if their bodies would still
be there, or if some other wild scavenger would have “cleaned it
up.” I shivered to think of our encounter, and hoped we would not
have another one today.
“here's the spot.” Cedar said abruptly,
I looked around, seeing a bloodied stick, and two dead
animals. Not quite the things I wanted to start my day. “can we
not stop here?” I asked, not wanting to re-live yesterdays
moment.
Cedar didn't say anything, she just continued walking.
It was a while before we said anything, and when we did,
it was because we had come to a huge hill, or a mountain, whatever
you wanted to call it. Cedar and I both gasped at the sight of it,
and wondered if we had learned about it sometime in geography class,
it wasn't like either of us payed any attention in it.
“That looks like something we should know about.” I
said.
“it's not like anything I've seen before.” Cedar
said.
“…not that you've ever seen a mountain in real life
before.” I replied, recalling that we lived in a flat area.
Cedar thought for a moment, then opened her mouth to
speak, but shut it again after realizing this was completely true.
I stared up at the hill, from down here you could see
small specks moving around, which I assumed was another kind of
strange animal.
“Should we climb it?” I asked, barely hearing
myself
“Sure,” Cedar said without hesitating.
It took me a second to realize that she was talking to
me, somehow I had forgotten that I had said something. I shook my
head, as if trying to clear my thoughts.
We started walking, until we got to the foot of the
mountain, then it was more of a climb.
It took five minutes, just to get twenty feet of the
ground. We were getting nowhere fast. Forty minutes later, we
reached a ledge, and decided to take a short brake.
“what do you think those pig things are?” Cedar
asked, her eyebrows knitting together.
Now I could see the “little specks” that I had
noticed at the bottom were actually boars, or pigs, I didn't know the
difference. But they looked strange, they only faced one way, there
heads all pointed to the left of the mountain. There legs also had
something strange about them, one side seemed longer than the other,
unless I was seeing things that weren't there then there left legs
were longer than the right, fitting the slope perfectly. There was
more things that did not seem normal, like a dent in the back of
there head, that almost looked like eye sockets. But they didn't have
eyes on the back of their head. They had tusks, those looked normal
enough, except for their size, though the pig itself was only about
four feet long, the tusks were as big as my arm. The had very little
fur, and I could swear I saw their pink skin under the thin brown
fuzz. The other details were normal, yellow eyes, short tail, and
plain ugly ears.
“there kinda… cute!” Cedar said, even though she
probably that they were the most hideous things on the planet.
I raised my eyebrows, recalling that she had said a
naked mole rat was cute at the natural science museum. “do you
think we can get past them? I mean without them trying to kill us.”
I asked skeptically.
Cedar pursed her lips, and made her thinking face. I
had seen that look a lot, too much if you ask me. “maybe if we go
slowly and try not to scare them.” she said, still trying to come
up with a better way, but it seemed that we would not find one
anytime soon.
Not for the first time we proceeded with caution, but in
the end, that was not what saved us, in fact it almost got us killed.
We were about fifteen feet away from the nearest one,
about level with it, when it charged. Until now I had never seen a
pig try to attack someone, I didn't realize how fast they could run,
it's head flailing about, tusks waving just in front of it's head,
yellow eyes blazing with fury. I jumped out of the way, up the
slope, and then back down again as it flew by. This was my mistake,
now I saw what the holes in the back of their heads were for, the
eyes in front closed, and seemed to swivel around, now facing me once
again. It ran backwards, hind legs looking really funny, but even so
I jumped out of the way again. This time, I had the sense not to go
back down. But as went by, I noticed something I hadn't seen before,
it's legs had an extra joint. At first I couldn't figure out why,
but within seconds I saw them moving, it's legs bent the wrong way,
like they were broken, and just swinging about. But it went up the
hill as if it's legs were completely normal, side stepping all the
way.
Then I had an idea, not the smartest, but it would do.
When it charged me for the third time, I jumped up, and pushed it
down the hill. It rolled helplessly down, squealing and trying to
regain his balance. And when he hit a small bump, he scrambled to
his feet, looking dazed, but now he was at a safe distance.
Cedar had seen what I had done, she did the same. Soon
all the boars were cautious of us, and we made it past them.
“well that was fun,” Cedar said, apparently she had
enjoyed herself, and to be honest, I had also.
The rest of the way up the mountain, we laughed about
the pigs rolling down, it was a really strange sight.
When we did finally reach the top, it was almost two o
clock. “shouldn't we be getting home soon? I asked,
“maybe, but we probably cant get back home in two
hours, it took us all morning to get here.” Cedar said, “maybe we
can just spend the night up here.”
“won't our parents get worried?” I asked, not
wanting to scare my mom.
“well… yes, but still. If we could at least take a
break, then I suppose we might, possibly, maybe, be er… uh, able to
go home. … I guess”
even I could tell she really didn't want to go back,
clearly she had been having a lot of fun.
I argued that we should go, just because we could get in
a lot of trouble. But in the end, we did actually decide to stay for
the night. This seemed crazy at first but after we had found a good
rock to sleep under, it was quite fun.
After we had settled, I got to see what was in Cedars
bag. She opened it, and took out a matchbook, a small blanket, and
of course, trail mix. Evidently, she had planned on spending the
night. The rest of the after noon we spent making ready for our
night.
We found a small maple tree growing on the hill, from
that we gathered sticks, some of which I had to cut off with my
knife, and built a little shelter around our rock. After that we
bought some extra for fire wood.
It was almost seven, before I made the fire, and Cedar
brought out her trail mix. We were both starving after hiking all
day, and so we ate all the trail mix.
Soon we were sitting around the fire, talking. “I
told my mom we would most likely be staying out all night.” Cedar
said.
This surprised me, but now I felt better, knowing that
our parents would not be concerned. But I did not say anything.
“Can I show you something?” she asked, and without
waiting for an answer, she continued, “yesterday, when we killed
Chazec and Masef, I took one of their claws.” she took it out from
her bag, “I think it has some kind of poison in it. But I'm not
sure.” it was metallic looking, shining the color of silver. It
had a strange look about it, like it was glowing.
I stared at it, for what felt like a long time, before
saying, “This place is really weird. I mean, think about it, big
cats that have poisoned claws, mountains in the middle of plains,
boars with eyes on the back of their head, it's like were in some
other world.”
No one spoke, there was no sound except for the fire
crackling.
When Cedar finally did talk, she said, “ what are we
going to do for sleeping?”
I hadn't thought about this, there was only one blanket
between the two of us. “you can have it,” I said. She didn't
like the idea of taking all of the warmth, because it was in fact,
quite cold.
I soon regretted this choice because I lay, nothing
covering me, shivering for twenty, long minutes, before Cedar let me
in with her under the blanket. It was rather small, so I ended up
being close to Cedar, which, in most cases, people would have found
strange, but I considered Cedar as more of a sister.
When we woke up in the morning it must have been five
thirty. Because for some reason when you are sleeping out side, you
get up really early. I crawled out of our cave, and the first thing
I saw was a huge paw print.
Chapter III
The print was almost the size of my head, Cedar had seen
it too, we both drew our knives. There wasn't anything around, but
the wasn't what puzzled me. The claws had raked the ground at the
very edge of the cliff, continuing until it reached the far side.
Now, I was no tracker, but I could see that it had not just walked up
the cliff, that much was obvious. It looked like it had just leaped
onto it, but there was nowhere that it could have jumped from. But
when the tracks led to the edge of the slope, they did not continue
down. Instead they just stopped.
“what do you think it was?” Cedar asked.
“well… it couldn't have been another one of those
tiger things, they were smaller. I would say it was some bizarre
thing with wings.” I replied.
To be truthful, it did look like something had flown in,
and then just flew out. But as far as I knew, there was no giant
birds with claws in America, or anywhere, for that matter.
Cedar thought about this for a minute, then said, “do
you think it was nice?”
this seemed like the the weirdest thing anyone could
say, …ever. “what? Why would it be friendly? I mean,
everything else that we've seen here has tried to kill us.” I
said.
“True, but then why didn't it “try to kill us”
while we were sleeping?” she said, raising one eyebrow.
After she said that, I couldn't think of anything to
say, so instead I just went quiet.
Neither of us spoke for almost the entire morning. We
cleaned up our camp site, burying the ashes, taking down our
shelter, and wrapping up our blanket. For breakfast we had apples,
and I soon found out, that no matter how much you liked them, you
would still be sick of them after having your next three meals
completely made up of apples.
Then, once again, we were faced with the problem of
going home. At first Cedar said we should go right away, to this, I
agreed. But both of us had forgotten which way was home. I was
absolutely sure it was left, but Cedar said we had to go right.
In the end, we cam to an agreement that no matter what,
we would not stay right here for more than an hour, neither of us
wanted to find out what had walked through our camp last night.
“But if you look right, then you can see the boars
that we met yesterday.” Cedar was saying.
“But it looks exactly the same to the other side.”
I said, trying to reason.
Turns out, this argument didn't go anywhere, seeing as
all the sides of the hill were the same. That is, excepting
one. That side was a strait drop to the grassy plains below.
At last we came to an agreement, saying that we would
just go the way neither of us thought was the direction to home. In
truth, I thought it was our best shot.
Now, if you have ever spent the night on sharp rocks,
and uneven ground, then you would know how stiff I felt. And
climbing down a cliff face didn't help. Before now I had never
minded height’s, but looking down the three hundred foot drop, made
me feel a little nauseous. At this point I turned around and said to
Cedar that this might not be such a bright idea. Of course, she
disagreed, and said that I was just being a wimp. But that did not
stop me from noticing a half covered look of worry spreading across
her face.
“Well, here goes nothing.” I hardly realized she
had said this, until Cedar was lowering herself down the cliff.
Not for the first time I thought how stupid this was,
but I had already knelt down to started climbing.
Halfway down, I slipped. My foot had lodged itself on a
rock that was loose, and I fell backward. Now, in most cases
(assuming I would ever climb a rock again) I probably would have
scrambled to get a hold again. But this time my I had leaned
backward, to far out to reach with my arms.
It almost felt like I would have a heart attack. But
then I realized, I had never had a heart attack. So I wouldn't know
what it felt like.
It was then I screamed, for some reason it didn't feel
real enough before. It certainly did now.
I was looking down now, I had spun in the air so as to
see where I would land. I saw jagged rocks, that was it. I had no
hope of surviving. That is what I was thinking until I saw the
rocks... ripple? I shook my head so as to clear away anything that
wasn't really happening. But it seemed that the ripple did happen,
this I was sure of after I saw at least five more.
Then the weirdest thing about this entire trip happened.
I stopped falling. If anything, I had started to go back up the
rock face. I saw my hair whipping in front of my head, instead of
behind it. I saw the rocks at the bottom shrink back down. Suddenly
I was next to Cedar, with a look of horror on her face. It took us
both a long time to say anything or move at all, but when we did
Cedar said something like, “uh, wuh...” before she cleared her
throat and tried again. “you just fell, then... what?” even
the second time she didn't make any sense. But then, I didn't
understand either, so I didn't say anything.
I shook my head, still trying to comprehend my fall. I
decided it would be a good idea to start climbing again. Without
saying anything, Cedar agreed. That was something odd about Cedar,
she always seemed to be able to understand body language and read
other peoples expressions.
It felt like four hours before we reached the bottom.
But of course, it wasn't because the sun wasn't even all the way up
yet. Somehow we had managed to not fall the rest of the way. But
the climb did leave us with some nasty bruises and blisters.
We looked around us. Just rock, with a few patches of
sand. Me and Cedar both had the same idea. We walked slowly to a
small area of sand, stood for a moment, then collapsed face first
into the mound.
I felt the sun-heated grains of crushed rocks warming my
chest, and the glare of the direct sunlight on my back, and somehow,
I felt, cold. Something inside me felt as though it wasn't supposed
to be here, like I was somewhere that wasn't natural to me. But, for
reasons I cant explain, I didn't mention it to Cedar. And if she had
the same thought, she didn't show it.
“where are we headed?” Cedar asked.
It was such an abrupt question, that I didn't answer
right away. “I thought we were trying to head back home?” I
said, raising my eyebrows.
“well, that is what I thought, but then I felt like we
should keep going.” Cedar put on a puzzled look, “But looking
back, didn't we both want to go home?”
I was silent for a moment, before stating that she had
wanted to keep going.
She denied this at first, but then she seemed to recall
what she had said, leaving her more confused than ever.
Of course, it chose that particular moment to attack.
The half second of confusion, completely unaware. The first sign of
it was movement under the sand.
“Man, this sand really isn't that soft, when you think
about it.” Cedar cajoled, “It's like the rocks under it are
moving.”
“I think I would agree... but when you really
think about it, it's like a massage.” I countered.
Suddenly, something slammed into my gut, flinging me
upward a foot. I made a very unattractive grunting noise, that
probably made my self esteem drop about forty feet. I rolled away
from a second shot at me, this time I could see my attacker. Ore at
least, part of it.
What appeared to a flaming paw, but evidently wasn't on
fire, (in fact, it was rather cold, and made my stomach go numb, if
that is possible.) a second one sprung up a few feet from the first,
this time nearly punching Cedar in the face.
At first, it appeared that whatever it was, under the
sand, was trying quite hard to kill us. But as soon as we were
safely on the rocks, twenty feet away, I realized it was just
climbing out of the ground. Not in fact, trying to cook us with cold
fire.
By the time we could see all four legs, two more tips of
“fire” emerged from the ground on either side.
Within a few moments, the entire chest was coming up.
Soon, just the very back, and head of the thing was still under.
Now, I realized that the tips of black fur, and fire that I saw, were
wings, each one bigger than me. Only then could I see how big it
was. It seemed to be black, underneath the cold fire, but I found it
hard to tell. The chest alone was longer than a full grown man, at
least seven feet long. The legs were stocky, and well built, each as
long as my leg. The tail, which I just noticed, was at least three
meters, hard, and scaly.
The head emerged, I didn't know what to expect, a
wolfish head maybe, but certainly not this. Part of it did resemble
a dog, perhaps a German shepherd. It had long ears that stuck out
behind is head a few inches, smoldering yellow-red eyes, that matched
it's flame coating almost to well. What I didn't expect, was the
beak. It was a sleek black, glinting from the suns glare. Almost as
long as my forearm, with six inch teeth, protruding from it.
The creature was now lying on it's side, staring at us.
My first thought was to turn-tail and run. But
something held me back, my guess was that it was Cedar. Then I
noticed it wasn't moving, other than the slight heaving of it's
chest. On it's side was a huge gash, with dark red blood spilling
from it. Once agian I felt a surge of passion for the huge thing
that almost killed me.
Suddenly I had a headache, on like this had happened
yesterday, when Chazek had started talk into me through it's mind.
But this time, instead of the big cats growl, a new voice spoke
inside my skull, a soft hiss, somehow mixed with a bark.
Save me. With a
pang of dawning comprehension I realized that it was coming from the
half dead bird/dog at my feet, again, I suddenly knew it's name,
strazla. I've come far, following you, waiting for the
perfect time.
I wasn't sure what that meant, but I was afraid it was
not going to be anything good.
Now I will die, and lose my soul to the queen.
Unless, you can save me. It
repeated the message save me several
times before I took a step forward, confronting it with my pocket
knife. I glared at it, now wary, after it saying that it had been
following us for a long time. It was Cedar who broke the silence.
“well, get going!” she shouted.
Apparently she didn't have the slightest care that it
was almost dead. Although, I could understand why she wanted it
gone.
It shifted it's position, but didn't move away. Cedar
whipped out her knife,and almost threw it at the things head.
Somehow I managed stop her, but the beast lying on the ground still
flinched and jumped up to it's feet. The wound on it's side was
fading, it gave me a look, was that resentment in his eyes? It was
hard to tell with an animal.
Apparently it had been faking it, trying to lure us
closer, almost like what Chazec and Masef had done. When I looked
again, it was gone.
Chapter IV
“Whats that?” This was the first time Cedar had
spoken in four hours, it was good to start a conversation again.
We had left the cliff, after much argument about which
direction to take. So far we had been traveling through grassy
hills, studded with coffee black rocks and patches of sand.
I looked up to where she was pointing, over the horizon
line was what appeared to be a cluster of boxes, silhouetted by the
sun reflecting off of a coastline. That was bad news, we hadn't seen
any water on our way into the woods, so we were obviously going in
the wrong direction. But for some reason that didn't stop us, it
felt like I was eight again, running through the woods with sticks,
(swords at the time) pretending to be knights, discovering new lands.
Now, after what I had seen since yesterday, I felt pretty sure we
had discovered new lands, none of the landscape seemed normal, all
alien and strange.
As we got closer to the
“boxes” we realized that they were actually houses, and shops,
but they all looked old fashioned, more like the huts we had learned
about in our history class, from ancient times. So did the people,
all though that sounded weird, I pictured walking up to one of them
and saying, You don't look normal, are
you from a thousand years ago? Definitely
not. Each of them looked like they had a purpose, selling something
at the market, yelling to each other across the town square (doing
who knows what), fixing tools, and even fishing. There was no idle
hands to be seen.
At first I was
surprised to see that there was any humans in this place, but then I
recounted the boars we came across earlier, and I thought better of
it. Soon, we had walked into one of the side streets, and were
making our way towards the center of town. After shoving through
crowds, we reached a fountain, in the middle of it was a life size
statue of... Strazla? But how could that be? I pondered over this
a moment, but was to confused to say anything.
Although, Cedar apparently noticed also, and did speak.
But not to me, she turned, and walked over to the nearest person, a
medieval-looking police man, at least, that was my assumption, after
seeing his sword and shield in hand. “um, excuse me uh, Sir, could
you possible tell me what that statue in the middle of the fountain?”
her question was brief, and unprepared, so not only was
the man slightly bewildered, but Cedar's words were unclear, due to
her miscalculation of the soldiers attention span. It seemed he was
deliberately ignoring her, or he didn't understand the red headed
girl. Naturally, I took her spot and tried again. “uh, we are...
lost, and, um, do you think you could get us back to... somewhere?”
of course, my speech was no better than Cedars, it sounded dull even
to me.
But this time the guard actually looked at us, I could
now see his features, bushy brown eyebrows that matched his frizzy
hair, a greenish blue eye color, a thin, red mouth, that reminded me
of Cedar's, when she was utterly lost, or confused. He was tall, at
least a foot over me, and thick-chested, making you look beyond his
small pot belly, and see him as some big buff guy. Now the “Big
buff guy” was staring at us, without any sign of understanding in
his chubby little cheeks. That was a little harsh, they weren't
exactly chubby, but they did remind me of a chipmunks.
After trying to communicate with him further, and
failing quite miserably, we left him, and decided that talking to
people would not work, realizing that they didn't speak english. I
should have guessed that right away, if we were from basicly
different worlds, why would we be able to understand each other?
I sighed, and turned to Cedar for an idea. She had
nothing, apparently, because she gave me the same blank look. “what
now?” I asked, without anything else to say.
She opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by
yelling.
“Yeust rae srantegs! Yeust peask luanange!” I
realized it was the guy I had been “talking” to a moment before.
About a year ago, me and Cedar had suddenly had an
obsession over fighting pretend monsters, at first, I had assumed
that our “skills” we had learned from slaying orcs and other
classic bad guys would be useless, now I saw that battling
back-to-back was quite effective, she drew her knife, I drew mine,
flipping it in my hand. I could feel our shoulders pressing against
each others, Cedars sweat soaked shirt stuck to my own, her hair
brushed against the back of my neck, our non dominant hands touched,
and just for a moment our fingers locked, I grasped her hand for a
second longer, before the rest of the men came in.
Each of them was dressed like the first, Iron breast
piece, with leather straps and silver buttons running down the gut,
and then into a steel sort of tunic, that was the only thing I could
think of to call it, it was certainly not a T-shirt or a sweater.
Each one had a it's own shaped helmet, some carved into an animal,
like a bird, or a wolf. In common with the helmet, they all had
customized shields, with the same symbols. Soon, we were surrounded
by six or seven men, all of them pointing swords at us.
I could see all of their faces, each one with the same
look of resentment in their eyes.
Me and Cedar had watched plenty of movies together,
after those, I always imagined that I could fight, and kill, someone
very easily, it seemed that guards were never tough in the least, now
I saw first hand that there was a reason they were chosen to protect
the town, they obviously had skill.
Although they jabbed and kicked at us, it was clear
they did not want us dead. They were trying to grab us, and I
suppose take us somewhere. They did, in the end, and took our
weapons, of course. However, I did mange to see that Cedars
pickpocketing skill were com
ing to use. She was good at it, I had learned that
after I had lost my wallet to some “unknown cause”.
To be continued...
This is entirely fiction, but when we were young (and you, too) we thought this could happen.
An original short story
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Red
Cedar
Part
one: The world
Chapter
I
“Tadpoles!”
Cedar exclaimed.
I looked into the
pond, “Where?” I asked.
“Over there, by
the rock.” she said, squinting.
I peered around a
cattail, I could see something swimming in wild circles. “I think
that's a minnow.” I corrected.
“No! It's a
tadpole. Minnow’s don't live in ponds.” she said, tightening
her brow.
I looked deeper into
the pond, I could see my own reflection staring up at me. The blond
curls, blue eyes, and smooth skin. “Look! It's like the mirror at
your house, the shiny one.” I said, thinking of the time we had
thrown banana's at it till we could hardly breath from laughing so
hard.
Cedar looked, seeing
her own red hair, freckles and green eyes. It was at that moment a
frog surfaced right in the reflection of her head. She made a little
screaming noise and jumped backward.
“It's just a
frog.” I said, puzzled slightly by her reaction.
“It scared me.”
she said in voice that made you want to comfort her
“Lets catch it!”
I suggested.
Cedar's face
brightened up, “Yeah! But when we do, what are we going to do with
it?”
I paused, puckered
up my lips, and squeezing my eyebrows until they almost covered my
eyes. “We can bring it to my mom to cook for dinner!”
“Ew, gross, who
would want to eat a frog?” she asked, sticking out her tongue in
disgust.
This is how most
afternoons went for seven year olds, going outside, running around,
and laughing.
Today was no
different, they found a pond at the back of the field, and that
entertained them until it was time to come in for bed. They said
their good byes, and walked to their houses, promising to meet at the
treeline the next morning, just like always.
A few hours later, I
awoke, it was the middle of the night, almost two O clock in the
morning. There was a tapping on my window. I sat up, blinking,
still tired from not getting enough sleep. I had stayed up till
almost nine at night, when I was supposed to be asleep at eight.
Another tap, I
looked just in time to see a small piece of driveway gravel bouncing
off the window frame. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window.
Cedar was down on the lawn, motioning for me to come. I nodded, and
ran to the bedroom door, then I thought about my parents, I might
wake them, that would be no good, slowly I turned the doorknob, and
walked down the hallway to the steps. The steps were made of wood,
and they creaked every time I stepped on one. When I reached the
bottom I tiptoed to the door, grabbed my coat and went out, still in
my pajamas.
When I got to the end of the porch, I saw Cedar. She was standing
under the big oak tree, fully dressed. …in her P.J's. I looked up
at the house, not regretting in the least leaving for a few minutes.
Then Cedar told me what she had planned to do. “Let's go to the
exgabaiton (she didn't know how to say “excavation” because she
was only eight) site, where my mom said not to go.”
“but, your mom said not to go there.” I said, worried.
“thats what I just
said, and anyway, doesn't that make you want to go there?” she
said ruefully.
I paused, “I guess
so,” in truth I really did want to, but I knew I would get in less
trouble this way, if we ever were found out.
“Then lets go!”
she said, not caring about my apparent reluctance.
Cedar ran off, I
followed, we both knew the way, we knew the neighborhood well,
between houses, over small hills, and around trees. Then we got
there. A huge hole, the dirt all piled up on the sides, and big
trucks with rocks in the back. I gasped, I had never been here
before, and had always wanted to, I loved big trucks, just like most
eight year olds boys. “lets get a closer look.” this time it
was my suggestion.
Cedar agreed right away, and we ran down through the maze of dump
trucks. They were big, yellow, and had huge black wheels, just like
the ones I had at his house, but a lot bigger. Cedar was more
interested in the dirt, she loved climbing things, and that included
big piles of rubble.
She jumped on the nearest one, and started her hike to the top, it
was hard, being eight, and it took about five minutes. But when she
finely did, she smiled, and laughed for no particular reason. I did
to, and eventually followed her. It was a great view, in our
opinion, it was only about seven feet off the ground, but to us, it
looked like fifty. “it looks like we can see forever!” Cedar
said.
My reply was, “except that way,” I pointed to the left, there
was a truck in the way. I said, noticing the log: Fred's
friendly trucks.
Cedar just glanced over, without saying anything. There was silence
for a few minutes, then I asked, “shouldn't we go back now?”
“if we want to get up early, then yes.” Cedar said.
And we were off.
But we didn't get very far, before we saw the old man who lived down
the street from Cedars house.
“Get behind the trashcan!” Cedar said.
We both dove for it. I skidded to a halt, but not before I hit my
head on the base of a stop sign. I could tell it left a bruise.
While I held my head, Cedar started to whisper: “why is that guy
walking in the middle of the night?”
my answer was silence, so she kept on talking, she liked to talk, I
could tell. “maybe he's a wherewolf that goes out at night, to go
and hunt for his food!”
Cedar was a very imaginative person who was always coming up with
wild ideas that she didn't believe herself. “if that was true,
then why would he do it on a night that only has half a moon?” I
asked skeptical
Cedar puzzled with this for a second, then said “maybe he is just
practicing.”
by this time he had passed by, and we dropped the matter altogether.
It only took us a few more minutes to reach Cedars house, it was
tall, a tannish color with white trim, just like the rest of the
houses in the neighborhood. I said goodbye, and once again promised
to meet her at the tree line.
I walked to my house, which was just beyond hers, it looked the same,
the only difference was that a light was on on the second story. My
jaw dropped, if that was my moms light, I was dead. Well, not
really, but in my opinion it was the same as getting a good talking
to.
I opened the door quietly, trying not to make any noise. The hinges
rattled slightly, even if it was a tiny noise, it seemed that any
noise was going to kill me.
Finally I made it in to the kitchen, looked around, and all was
quiet. I took a deep breath and started up the stairs. These
stairs were as bad as the door, creaking and groaning under my
weight. When I reached the top, I saw that it was my room that
still had the light on, and not my moms.
Sighing with relief I crept into my room, everything was the same as
I had left it. But then I thought of something, why was my light on?
Did I ever turn it on? I went through what happened in my head, I
woke up from the tapping noise, I got out of bed to see what it was.
It was Cedar, I went downstairs to see what she wanted.
That was it. I never turned it on.
I looked at the clock, it was now almost three in the morning. I
hopped into bed and fell asleep quite quickly.
I opened my eyes to the rising sun only three hours later. I was
still tired and groggy from the night before, or morning, however you
want to put it. I came down the stairs, rubbing my eyes, trying to
wake myself up. “finely up pickles?” my mom said, she was
making pancakes.
“mm” was my reply.
My name wasn't pickles, it was Eric, but after I “borrowed” some
pickles when I was five from the grocery store down the road,
everyone called me pickles.
“would you like some breakfast? Dady's already at work, so he has
had his, you can have the rest.”
I agreed and took the plate from my mom after saying thank you. This
was one of my favorite breakfasts, the idea of pouring real maple
syrup onto a piece of dough, sounded delicious to me. “so, are you
of to play with Cedar today?” mom asked, our family's were good
friends, and we were always seeing each other.
“yeah, today we are going to the woods.” I said, I was quite
exited about going there, we always had the most fun there.
As I finished my breakfast and was walking out the door, my mom
reminded me to check for ticks when we got back, after all, it was
their season.
When I reached the trees, Cedar was already waiting for me. “lets
go!” she said, after saying hello.
Chapter II
It took a moment for our eyes to adjust the eyes to the
dim light, the sun only filtered in through a few patches in the oak
branches. It was one of my favorite places to be, the heavy trunks
creaking and groaning, leaves rustling in the soft wind, and on the
ground, pine needless and pine cones from the few evergreens that
littered the forest.
It was here, that five years later we returned. Every
day after school, and then in the summer too.
It was now the second week of july, and we were going to
go exploring into the back of the woods, when we were younger, we
never dared go past here. What we called: the ring. Cedar
had come up with the name when she was nine. It wasn't the most
original name ever, but it was fitting, the tree's grew in a circle
around one big oak. I remembered all the times me and Cedar had sat
around there, talking and laughing, and just, having fun. As we grew
older it seemed like we didn't have fun. And if we did, it was very
little. That, I think is what summers are for.
“Which way do we go?” Cedar asked,
I pondered on this a moment, then said, “that way.”
with my finger pointing at a small entrance between the trees.
Cedar nodded her head, and we set off. This part of the
woods felt no different than the rest, just maple tree's and
evergreens.
Now that I was older, I began to notice things I never
would have seen as an eight year old, a robin fluttering over our
heads, a squirrel jumping from branch to brach, a butterfly hovering
lazily over a flower, bee's humming their way back to their hive,
even a badger poked it's head out from a hole in the ground.
I pointed these things out to Cedar, who had seemingly
been focused on the ground and her feet.
“cheer up,” I said, “a minute ago you were
bouncing all around waiting for me to be ready.”
she didn’t respond right away, “well, I was
thinking, what if we just…” she paused, “disappeared.”
I was puzzled by this, and asked what she meant.
“well,
think, where will we be when the woods end, like if we go to far,
what then?”
I didn't say anything, so she continued, “just think,
we could run away, we wouldn't have school to deal with, no chores,
nothing!” she was really getting going now and I couldn't stop
her. “I know it's a crazy idea, but we could do it!”
this was were I interjected. “No! We couldn't, and
even if we did-”
I don't know what I would have said, if something hadn't
slammed into me at that moment.
It was heavy, that I noticed when it put all it's weight
on me, I rolled over knocking it off with my fist. I didn't even
have time to stand fully before it attacked me again. I turned my
face away, so as not to be blinded, in that moment I saw Cedar being
attacked also, the creature was orange, with black stripes running
down it's back, almost like a tiger, but smaller. I continued to
struggle, and every time I moved it slashed at some part of me. When
I realized this I stopped moving, at the same time, it ceased it's
clawing and bitting. It wasn't out to kill us, it just held me and
Cedar down.
“stop moving!” I screamed,
she did, and only then did the two things still.
“Cedar, we have to fight back.” I said.
“But you just told me stop!”
“I know, but if we are going to, then we have to at
the same time.” I said, in a rasping voice, my lungs were being
crushed, it was getting hard to breath. It was only then, that I
thought this was out of the ordinary, it struck me that, these were
unheard of by me, and probably everyone else. I shook my head,
trying to think why this would seem normal, but no matter how hard I
thought, they seemed to have been here all my life. I turned my head
back to the thing on top of me, I found myself staring into pure
black eyes, a white muzzle, and long whiskers that were so stiff they
scratched my face. It looked so calm, and not angered at all, in
fact, I would have believed that they were quite friendly. …If
they had not attacked me.
By now I had most completely forgotten about fighting
them. I began to like them, they were my friends, I had always
liked them, the way they liked me. I wanted to play with them
and race on their backs, it would be the most fun I had ever had,
more fun than I had had with Cedar. She was a stuck up jerk, always
making me get in trouble, leading me to places I was not allowed to
go. How could I have ever been friends with her? No, I never was, I
had always hated her, and she hated me. It seemed that this thing on
top of me was the only thing nice to me, everyone else was so cruel,
my family yelled at me, my dog bit me, even the people down the road
resented me. I was alone in the wold, except for Chazec. That was
this thing on top of me, his name was Chazec. He had told me his
name, a long time ago. When I first met him as a cub. He had
befriended me, nuzzling me and sleeping in my lap. I had very clear
memories of him, and very fogged memories of the rest of the world.
Then he hit me like a lightning bolt. A huge paw
slammed into my head, claws raking my face, searing pain shot through
my left cheek, another hit me within a second of the first. Now I
looked at Chazec's face, his eyes were crazed with anger, my only
friend had turned on me. Another claw rained down into my helpless
form, that blow seemed to knock something back into my head. He
wasn't my friend, he was trying to kill me, and wouldn't stop until I
was dead. My body felt as though it was leaking energy, I had to
little left to do anything but kick once in Chazec's stomach. The
blow was enough to knock him off me, but not for long, I scrambled to
my feet, just in time to see Cedar doing the same thing.
Having grown up together, we both had the same ideas.
In this case, it saved our lives. We both turned and grabbed the
nearest stick possible, I now held a make-shift club, Cedar held a
pointed branch. I swung as it leaped at me. She stabbed. One was
now dead with a small puncture wound in it's heart, the other,
Chazec, was only dazed.
Thinking quickly, Cedar tossed me her new spear/stick.
This time it was my turn to kill. It took only one swift hit to the
head, I hoped it was not to painful.
I felt as though I was going to be sick, killing any
thing larger than a bug was hard, it was like, you had just committed
your life to some cult. You could never go back, you would always
live in a pool of guilt, knowing that what you had done could not be
undone.
Cedar must have been feeling the same way, either that
or she just felt like collapsing on the ground. I did the same.
I must have fallen asleep, because Chazec was already
starting to smell bad.
I looked down at myself, my jeans were ripped and no
small amount of blood was running from my forehead. For the first
time in what felt like hours Cedar spoke. “you all right?” she
said it with a very weak voice, that sounded as if it would die any
second.
“Ya, I suppose. What was that anyway?” was my only
answer.
“Can't say I know, but I think the one that attacked
me had a name, Masef.” she said, matter of factly.
“Mine's name was Chazec.” I said, “He told me,
but it felt like I had known him a long time. Almost all my life.”
I went on to tell how I had felt about it. Leaving out only the
part when I thought I hated her.
Evidently, she had the same thing happen to her. I was
relieved to hear this, and did not feel quite as bad about killing
it, now that I knew it had tricked us into liking it.
“That was the weirdest thing ever,” Cedar said,
“just thought I would state the obvious.”
It was good to hear something like that, it was
surprising how easily an odd remark could take your mind off a dead
animal lying two feet away. “what time is it?” I asked.
Cedar looked up at the sky, “judging by the position
of the sun... two in the morning.” she said this, trying her best
not to laugh. She did not succeed.
At first I just smiled, but then I too gave in and we
were laughing histaricly. When we finally stopped, tears trickling
down our faces, Cedar said, “We should go, your mom will be
wondering were we went.”
I looked down at our clothes, they were bloodied and
ripped. “think she will notice?” I said hopefully.
Cedar raised her eyebrows and spoke in a sarcastic tone,
“No, she will never notice…”
that set us of laughing again, it is hard to describe
how that was supposed to be funny, it's like when you are really
tired, and you think whatever anyone says is funny. It doesn’t
make any sense.
Somehow we had become light hearted in the last minute,
and I found it hard to believe we had almost been killed. “how far
into the woods are we?” Cedar asked.
“pretty far, or at least, farther than we have gone
before.” I replied.
She didn't have anything to say after that, so we left
for home.
When we finally reached my house, I still had to face
the problem of getting inside and changing my clothes before my mom
realized I was home. I was in luck, she had gone out to get
groceries, (I knew this because she had left a note on the counter.)
I ran upstairs, quickly changed my clothes and did my best to hide
the claw marks on my face. I did this by first washing away the dry
blood, so as to make it look like a thin cut from a thorn that I had
not seen. In the end it was almost completely gone, and not nearly
as bad as I thought it was going to be. Until I realized I had
changed into shorts, that plainly showed the worst of were I was
scratched, I saw my mom carrying a paper bag out my window, I quickly
changed out of the shorts, and into another pair of jeans.
I rushed downstairs to help my mom with the groceries.
As I did this I glanced at the clock, four in the after noon.
I was home about the same time as usual, I had made it.
The next day, before I left to meet Cedar, I had the
sense to grab my knife, and some apples, I figured we would want
them, especially after yesterday, I had been starving when I got
home.
It took only a short while to walk to the treeline,
Cedar was already waiting for me. She also had knife, and a bag,
probably holding some food, most likely trail mix, Cedar had a
craving for trail mix. “ready?” she asked, we didn't even
bother saying hello anymore, it was as if we had never left each
others side in the first place.
Within twenty minutes, we reached the ring. Yesterday,
when we past this place, we had met Chazec and Masef. …on
unfriendly terms. I was still wondering if their bodies would still
be there, or if some other wild scavenger would have “cleaned it
up.” I shivered to think of our encounter, and hoped we would not
have another one today.
“here's the spot.” Cedar said abruptly,
I looked around, seeing a bloodied stick, and two dead
animals. Not quite the things I wanted to start my day. “can we
not stop here?” I asked, not wanting to re-live yesterdays
moment.
Cedar didn't say anything, she just continued walking.
It was a while before we said anything, and when we did,
it was because we had come to a huge hill, or a mountain, whatever
you wanted to call it. Cedar and I both gasped at the sight of it,
and wondered if we had learned about it sometime in geography class,
it wasn't like either of us payed any attention in it.
“That looks like something we should know about.” I
said.
“it's not like anything I've seen before.” Cedar
said.
“…not that you've ever seen a mountain in real life
before.” I replied, recalling that we lived in a flat area.
Cedar thought for a moment, then opened her mouth to
speak, but shut it again after realizing this was completely true.
I stared up at the hill, from down here you could see
small specks moving around, which I assumed was another kind of
strange animal.
“Should we climb it?” I asked, barely hearing
myself
“Sure,” Cedar said without hesitating.
It took me a second to realize that she was talking to
me, somehow I had forgotten that I had said something. I shook my
head, as if trying to clear my thoughts.
We started walking, until we got to the foot of the
mountain, then it was more of a climb.
It took five minutes, just to get twenty feet of the
ground. We were getting nowhere fast. Forty minutes later, we
reached a ledge, and decided to take a short brake.
“what do you think those pig things are?” Cedar
asked, her eyebrows knitting together.
Now I could see the “little specks” that I had
noticed at the bottom were actually boars, or pigs, I didn't know the
difference. But they looked strange, they only faced one way, there
heads all pointed to the left of the mountain. There legs also had
something strange about them, one side seemed longer than the other,
unless I was seeing things that weren't there then there left legs
were longer than the right, fitting the slope perfectly. There was
more things that did not seem normal, like a dent in the back of
there head, that almost looked like eye sockets. But they didn't have
eyes on the back of their head. They had tusks, those looked normal
enough, except for their size, though the pig itself was only about
four feet long, the tusks were as big as my arm. The had very little
fur, and I could swear I saw their pink skin under the thin brown
fuzz. The other details were normal, yellow eyes, short tail, and
plain ugly ears.
“there kinda… cute!” Cedar said, even though she
probably that they were the most hideous things on the planet.
I raised my eyebrows, recalling that she had said a
naked mole rat was cute at the natural science museum. “do you
think we can get past them? I mean without them trying to kill us.”
I asked skeptically.
Cedar pursed her lips, and made her thinking face. I
had seen that look a lot, too much if you ask me. “maybe if we go
slowly and try not to scare them.” she said, still trying to come
up with a better way, but it seemed that we would not find one
anytime soon.
Not for the first time we proceeded with caution, but in
the end, that was not what saved us, in fact it almost got us killed.
We were about fifteen feet away from the nearest one,
about level with it, when it charged. Until now I had never seen a
pig try to attack someone, I didn't realize how fast they could run,
it's head flailing about, tusks waving just in front of it's head,
yellow eyes blazing with fury. I jumped out of the way, up the
slope, and then back down again as it flew by. This was my mistake,
now I saw what the holes in the back of their heads were for, the
eyes in front closed, and seemed to swivel around, now facing me once
again. It ran backwards, hind legs looking really funny, but even so
I jumped out of the way again. This time, I had the sense not to go
back down. But as went by, I noticed something I hadn't seen before,
it's legs had an extra joint. At first I couldn't figure out why,
but within seconds I saw them moving, it's legs bent the wrong way,
like they were broken, and just swinging about. But it went up the
hill as if it's legs were completely normal, side stepping all the
way.
Then I had an idea, not the smartest, but it would do.
When it charged me for the third time, I jumped up, and pushed it
down the hill. It rolled helplessly down, squealing and trying to
regain his balance. And when he hit a small bump, he scrambled to
his feet, looking dazed, but now he was at a safe distance.
Cedar had seen what I had done, she did the same. Soon
all the boars were cautious of us, and we made it past them.
“well that was fun,” Cedar said, apparently she had
enjoyed herself, and to be honest, I had also.
The rest of the way up the mountain, we laughed about
the pigs rolling down, it was a really strange sight.
When we did finally reach the top, it was almost two o
clock. “shouldn't we be getting home soon? I asked,
“maybe, but we probably cant get back home in two
hours, it took us all morning to get here.” Cedar said, “maybe we
can just spend the night up here.”
“won't our parents get worried?” I asked, not
wanting to scare my mom.
“well… yes, but still. If we could at least take a
break, then I suppose we might, possibly, maybe, be er… uh, able to
go home. … I guess”
even I could tell she really didn't want to go back,
clearly she had been having a lot of fun.
I argued that we should go, just because we could get in
a lot of trouble. But in the end, we did actually decide to stay for
the night. This seemed crazy at first but after we had found a good
rock to sleep under, it was quite fun.
After we had settled, I got to see what was in Cedars
bag. She opened it, and took out a matchbook, a small blanket, and
of course, trail mix. Evidently, she had planned on spending the
night. The rest of the after noon we spent making ready for our
night.
We found a small maple tree growing on the hill, from
that we gathered sticks, some of which I had to cut off with my
knife, and built a little shelter around our rock. After that we
bought some extra for fire wood.
It was almost seven, before I made the fire, and Cedar
brought out her trail mix. We were both starving after hiking all
day, and so we ate all the trail mix.
Soon we were sitting around the fire, talking. “I
told my mom we would most likely be staying out all night.” Cedar
said.
This surprised me, but now I felt better, knowing that
our parents would not be concerned. But I did not say anything.
“Can I show you something?” she asked, and without
waiting for an answer, she continued, “yesterday, when we killed
Chazec and Masef, I took one of their claws.” she took it out from
her bag, “I think it has some kind of poison in it. But I'm not
sure.” it was metallic looking, shining the color of silver. It
had a strange look about it, like it was glowing.
I stared at it, for what felt like a long time, before
saying, “This place is really weird. I mean, think about it, big
cats that have poisoned claws, mountains in the middle of plains,
boars with eyes on the back of their head, it's like were in some
other world.”
No one spoke, there was no sound except for the fire
crackling.
When Cedar finally did talk, she said, “ what are we
going to do for sleeping?”
I hadn't thought about this, there was only one blanket
between the two of us. “you can have it,” I said. She didn't
like the idea of taking all of the warmth, because it was in fact,
quite cold.
I soon regretted this choice because I lay, nothing
covering me, shivering for twenty, long minutes, before Cedar let me
in with her under the blanket. It was rather small, so I ended up
being close to Cedar, which, in most cases, people would have found
strange, but I considered Cedar as more of a sister.
When we woke up in the morning it must have been five
thirty. Because for some reason when you are sleeping out side, you
get up really early. I crawled out of our cave, and the first thing
I saw was a huge paw print.
Chapter III
The print was almost the size of my head, Cedar had seen
it too, we both drew our knives. There wasn't anything around, but
the wasn't what puzzled me. The claws had raked the ground at the
very edge of the cliff, continuing until it reached the far side.
Now, I was no tracker, but I could see that it had not just walked up
the cliff, that much was obvious. It looked like it had just leaped
onto it, but there was nowhere that it could have jumped from. But
when the tracks led to the edge of the slope, they did not continue
down. Instead they just stopped.
“what do you think it was?” Cedar asked.
“well… it couldn't have been another one of those
tiger things, they were smaller. I would say it was some bizarre
thing with wings.” I replied.
To be truthful, it did look like something had flown in,
and then just flew out. But as far as I knew, there was no giant
birds with claws in America, or anywhere, for that matter.
Cedar thought about this for a minute, then said, “do
you think it was nice?”
this seemed like the the weirdest thing anyone could
say, …ever. “what? Why would it be friendly? I mean,
everything else that we've seen here has tried to kill us.” I
said.
“True, but then why didn't it “try to kill us”
while we were sleeping?” she said, raising one eyebrow.
After she said that, I couldn't think of anything to
say, so instead I just went quiet.
Neither of us spoke for almost the entire morning. We
cleaned up our camp site, burying the ashes, taking down our
shelter, and wrapping up our blanket. For breakfast we had apples,
and I soon found out, that no matter how much you liked them, you
would still be sick of them after having your next three meals
completely made up of apples.
Then, once again, we were faced with the problem of
going home. At first Cedar said we should go right away, to this, I
agreed. But both of us had forgotten which way was home. I was
absolutely sure it was left, but Cedar said we had to go right.
In the end, we cam to an agreement that no matter what,
we would not stay right here for more than an hour, neither of us
wanted to find out what had walked through our camp last night.
“But if you look right, then you can see the boars
that we met yesterday.” Cedar was saying.
“But it looks exactly the same to the other side.”
I said, trying to reason.
Turns out, this argument didn't go anywhere, seeing as
all the sides of the hill were the same. That is, excepting
one. That side was a strait drop to the grassy plains below.
At last we came to an agreement, saying that we would
just go the way neither of us thought was the direction to home. In
truth, I thought it was our best shot.
Now, if you have ever spent the night on sharp rocks,
and uneven ground, then you would know how stiff I felt. And
climbing down a cliff face didn't help. Before now I had never
minded height’s, but looking down the three hundred foot drop, made
me feel a little nauseous. At this point I turned around and said to
Cedar that this might not be such a bright idea. Of course, she
disagreed, and said that I was just being a wimp. But that did not
stop me from noticing a half covered look of worry spreading across
her face.
“Well, here goes nothing.” I hardly realized she
had said this, until Cedar was lowering herself down the cliff.
Not for the first time I thought how stupid this was,
but I had already knelt down to started climbing.
Halfway down, I slipped. My foot had lodged itself on a
rock that was loose, and I fell backward. Now, in most cases
(assuming I would ever climb a rock again) I probably would have
scrambled to get a hold again. But this time my I had leaned
backward, to far out to reach with my arms.
It almost felt like I would have a heart attack. But
then I realized, I had never had a heart attack. So I wouldn't know
what it felt like.
It was then I screamed, for some reason it didn't feel
real enough before. It certainly did now.
I was looking down now, I had spun in the air so as to
see where I would land. I saw jagged rocks, that was it. I had no
hope of surviving. That is what I was thinking until I saw the
rocks... ripple? I shook my head so as to clear away anything that
wasn't really happening. But it seemed that the ripple did happen,
this I was sure of after I saw at least five more.
Then the weirdest thing about this entire trip happened.
I stopped falling. If anything, I had started to go back up the
rock face. I saw my hair whipping in front of my head, instead of
behind it. I saw the rocks at the bottom shrink back down. Suddenly
I was next to Cedar, with a look of horror on her face. It took us
both a long time to say anything or move at all, but when we did
Cedar said something like, “uh, wuh...” before she cleared her
throat and tried again. “you just fell, then... what?” even
the second time she didn't make any sense. But then, I didn't
understand either, so I didn't say anything.
I shook my head, still trying to comprehend my fall. I
decided it would be a good idea to start climbing again. Without
saying anything, Cedar agreed. That was something odd about Cedar,
she always seemed to be able to understand body language and read
other peoples expressions.
It felt like four hours before we reached the bottom.
But of course, it wasn't because the sun wasn't even all the way up
yet. Somehow we had managed to not fall the rest of the way. But
the climb did leave us with some nasty bruises and blisters.
We looked around us. Just rock, with a few patches of
sand. Me and Cedar both had the same idea. We walked slowly to a
small area of sand, stood for a moment, then collapsed face first
into the mound.
I felt the sun-heated grains of crushed rocks warming my
chest, and the glare of the direct sunlight on my back, and somehow,
I felt, cold. Something inside me felt as though it wasn't supposed
to be here, like I was somewhere that wasn't natural to me. But, for
reasons I cant explain, I didn't mention it to Cedar. And if she had
the same thought, she didn't show it.
“where are we headed?” Cedar asked.
It was such an abrupt question, that I didn't answer
right away. “I thought we were trying to head back home?” I
said, raising my eyebrows.
“well, that is what I thought, but then I felt like we
should keep going.” Cedar put on a puzzled look, “But looking
back, didn't we both want to go home?”
I was silent for a moment, before stating that she had
wanted to keep going.
She denied this at first, but then she seemed to recall
what she had said, leaving her more confused than ever.
Of course, it chose that particular moment to attack.
The half second of confusion, completely unaware. The first sign of
it was movement under the sand.
“Man, this sand really isn't that soft, when you think
about it.” Cedar cajoled, “It's like the rocks under it are
moving.”
“I think I would agree... but when you really
think about it, it's like a massage.” I countered.
Suddenly, something slammed into my gut, flinging me
upward a foot. I made a very unattractive grunting noise, that
probably made my self esteem drop about forty feet. I rolled away
from a second shot at me, this time I could see my attacker. Ore at
least, part of it.
What appeared to a flaming paw, but evidently wasn't on
fire, (in fact, it was rather cold, and made my stomach go numb, if
that is possible.) a second one sprung up a few feet from the first,
this time nearly punching Cedar in the face.
At first, it appeared that whatever it was, under the
sand, was trying quite hard to kill us. But as soon as we were
safely on the rocks, twenty feet away, I realized it was just
climbing out of the ground. Not in fact, trying to cook us with cold
fire.
By the time we could see all four legs, two more tips of
“fire” emerged from the ground on either side.
Within a few moments, the entire chest was coming up.
Soon, just the very back, and head of the thing was still under.
Now, I realized that the tips of black fur, and fire that I saw, were
wings, each one bigger than me. Only then could I see how big it
was. It seemed to be black, underneath the cold fire, but I found it
hard to tell. The chest alone was longer than a full grown man, at
least seven feet long. The legs were stocky, and well built, each as
long as my leg. The tail, which I just noticed, was at least three
meters, hard, and scaly.
The head emerged, I didn't know what to expect, a
wolfish head maybe, but certainly not this. Part of it did resemble
a dog, perhaps a German shepherd. It had long ears that stuck out
behind is head a few inches, smoldering yellow-red eyes, that matched
it's flame coating almost to well. What I didn't expect, was the
beak. It was a sleek black, glinting from the suns glare. Almost as
long as my forearm, with six inch teeth, protruding from it.
The creature was now lying on it's side, staring at us.
My first thought was to turn-tail and run. But
something held me back, my guess was that it was Cedar. Then I
noticed it wasn't moving, other than the slight heaving of it's
chest. On it's side was a huge gash, with dark red blood spilling
from it. Once agian I felt a surge of passion for the huge thing
that almost killed me.
Suddenly I had a headache, on like this had happened
yesterday, when Chazek had started talk into me through it's mind.
But this time, instead of the big cats growl, a new voice spoke
inside my skull, a soft hiss, somehow mixed with a bark.
Save me. With a
pang of dawning comprehension I realized that it was coming from the
half dead bird/dog at my feet, again, I suddenly knew it's name,
strazla. I've come far, following you, waiting for the
perfect time.
I wasn't sure what that meant, but I was afraid it was
not going to be anything good.
Now I will die, and lose my soul to the queen.
Unless, you can save me. It
repeated the message save me several
times before I took a step forward, confronting it with my pocket
knife. I glared at it, now wary, after it saying that it had been
following us for a long time. It was Cedar who broke the silence.
“well, get going!” she shouted.
Apparently she didn't have the slightest care that it
was almost dead. Although, I could understand why she wanted it
gone.
It shifted it's position, but didn't move away. Cedar
whipped out her knife,and almost threw it at the things head.
Somehow I managed stop her, but the beast lying on the ground still
flinched and jumped up to it's feet. The wound on it's side was
fading, it gave me a look, was that resentment in his eyes? It was
hard to tell with an animal.
Apparently it had been faking it, trying to lure us
closer, almost like what Chazec and Masef had done. When I looked
again, it was gone.
Chapter IV
“Whats that?” This was the first time Cedar had
spoken in four hours, it was good to start a conversation again.
We had left the cliff, after much argument about which
direction to take. So far we had been traveling through grassy
hills, studded with coffee black rocks and patches of sand.
I looked up to where she was pointing, over the horizon
line was what appeared to be a cluster of boxes, silhouetted by the
sun reflecting off of a coastline. That was bad news, we hadn't seen
any water on our way into the woods, so we were obviously going in
the wrong direction. But for some reason that didn't stop us, it
felt like I was eight again, running through the woods with sticks,
(swords at the time) pretending to be knights, discovering new lands.
Now, after what I had seen since yesterday, I felt pretty sure we
had discovered new lands, none of the landscape seemed normal, all
alien and strange.
As we got closer to the
“boxes” we realized that they were actually houses, and shops,
but they all looked old fashioned, more like the huts we had learned
about in our history class, from ancient times. So did the people,
all though that sounded weird, I pictured walking up to one of them
and saying, You don't look normal, are
you from a thousand years ago? Definitely
not. Each of them looked like they had a purpose, selling something
at the market, yelling to each other across the town square (doing
who knows what), fixing tools, and even fishing. There was no idle
hands to be seen.
At first I was
surprised to see that there was any humans in this place, but then I
recounted the boars we came across earlier, and I thought better of
it. Soon, we had walked into one of the side streets, and were
making our way towards the center of town. After shoving through
crowds, we reached a fountain, in the middle of it was a life size
statue of... Strazla? But how could that be? I pondered over this
a moment, but was to confused to say anything.
Although, Cedar apparently noticed also, and did speak.
But not to me, she turned, and walked over to the nearest person, a
medieval-looking police man, at least, that was my assumption, after
seeing his sword and shield in hand. “um, excuse me uh, Sir, could
you possible tell me what that statue in the middle of the fountain?”
her question was brief, and unprepared, so not only was
the man slightly bewildered, but Cedar's words were unclear, due to
her miscalculation of the soldiers attention span. It seemed he was
deliberately ignoring her, or he didn't understand the red headed
girl. Naturally, I took her spot and tried again. “uh, we are...
lost, and, um, do you think you could get us back to... somewhere?”
of course, my speech was no better than Cedars, it sounded dull even
to me.
But this time the guard actually looked at us, I could
now see his features, bushy brown eyebrows that matched his frizzy
hair, a greenish blue eye color, a thin, red mouth, that reminded me
of Cedar's, when she was utterly lost, or confused. He was tall, at
least a foot over me, and thick-chested, making you look beyond his
small pot belly, and see him as some big buff guy. Now the “Big
buff guy” was staring at us, without any sign of understanding in
his chubby little cheeks. That was a little harsh, they weren't
exactly chubby, but they did remind me of a chipmunks.
After trying to communicate with him further, and
failing quite miserably, we left him, and decided that talking to
people would not work, realizing that they didn't speak english. I
should have guessed that right away, if we were from basicly
different worlds, why would we be able to understand each other?
I sighed, and turned to Cedar for an idea. She had
nothing, apparently, because she gave me the same blank look. “what
now?” I asked, without anything else to say.
She opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by
yelling.
“Yeust rae srantegs! Yeust peask luanange!” I
realized it was the guy I had been “talking” to a moment before.
About a year ago, me and Cedar had suddenly had an
obsession over fighting pretend monsters, at first, I had assumed
that our “skills” we had learned from slaying orcs and other
classic bad guys would be useless, now I saw that battling
back-to-back was quite effective, she drew her knife, I drew mine,
flipping it in my hand. I could feel our shoulders pressing against
each others, Cedars sweat soaked shirt stuck to my own, her hair
brushed against the back of my neck, our non dominant hands touched,
and just for a moment our fingers locked, I grasped her hand for a
second longer, before the rest of the men came in.
Each of them was dressed like the first, Iron breast
piece, with leather straps and silver buttons running down the gut,
and then into a steel sort of tunic, that was the only thing I could
think of to call it, it was certainly not a T-shirt or a sweater.
Each one had a it's own shaped helmet, some carved into an animal,
like a bird, or a wolf. In common with the helmet, they all had
customized shields, with the same symbols. Soon, we were surrounded
by six or seven men, all of them pointing swords at us.
I could see all of their faces, each one with the same
look of resentment in their eyes.
Me and Cedar had watched plenty of movies together,
after those, I always imagined that I could fight, and kill, someone
very easily, it seemed that guards were never tough in the least, now
I saw first hand that there was a reason they were chosen to protect
the town, they obviously had skill.
Although they jabbed and kicked at us, it was clear
they did not want us dead. They were trying to grab us, and I
suppose take us somewhere. They did, in the end, and took our
weapons, of course. However, I did mange to see that Cedars
pickpocketing skill were com
ing to use. She was good at it, I had learned that
after I had lost my wallet to some “unknown cause”.
To be continued...
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