2 The Encounter
070627
07:52
D A Y 2 7 1 6 S.P
D A Y 1 1 2 6 S.A
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Birds. All I can hear are the birds, it must be morning.
My eyes snap open, forcing the sticky tears and cold rainwater to pull apart from my eyelashes into the dark scenery around me. Morning? Daylight! I can't help but shout out loudly for my life, arching my body forward and with my legs I shuffle my butt backwards until I can reach some sort of solid object. The vision in front of me is blurry, typical. My eyes betray me and I analyze my entire body, to feel any sense of warmth upon my skin. The ground is wet, cold. A forest, I'm in a forest. I painfully widen my eyes until full vision is obtained, where the fuck am I? It's morning. I can't be out here, what time is it? I must be pretty far from the mountains. I can feel the back of my head, cold to the touch as it holds itself heavily up from the muddy pile of browny-orange and tangy-red leaves that spread across the browny-green mossy ground beneath me. The trunks surrounding me, closing me off one by one almost as if they're getting closer. A birch look, white with brown and black stripes, some are just plane white and others have been forced down by the harsh winds, allowing some sunlight to touch the muddy ground in front of me. The landscape I'm in almost doesn't seem real, my eyes burn up from the light of the sun in front of me, but I don't close them despite the tears beginning to warm my cheeks. I'm far from the warmth, is it really warm still? Or does it just burn like it would any other normal survivor. The sky, I can't see thankfully. The trees arch over me like a roof, covered and cluttered with huge leaves overgrown and not tended to for years. The pain from the beam of light strikes a clenching headache and I raise my head up more to gaze around, realizing where I actually am. As far as my eyes will let me see, there are nothing but the thin tree stumps, huddled together making it so only the thin survivors could easily fit through. I seem to have knocked out in a clearing, well a four by four clearing the size of my length if I were to lye down completely. In forests like these this is the biggest clearing you'll get, compared to the dark wood forests on the mountains in Denom. To my left, more trees, all shading the ground. The lack of sunlight has caused some areas to perish, whereas chunks of fully grown ferns and shrub have sprouted beautifully with just the rain from the leaves alone.
It may be dark down here, but with how bright that one beam of sunlight is, just a leaf breaking from a stick above me could let a little bit of the sun shine through, and I'd be done for. Remember that, Tiana.
From the color of the leaves in the trees, and the depth of the dead ones covering the muddy ground, it must be Autumn. To dangerous to be in a forest, I need to run. I quickly crane my neck back to get a glimpse of the view behind me, revealing that not all sights can be as pretty as the one in front of me. A trunk, the width of my thigh but the top, never to be seen, positioned behind a body. A dead body. Is it standing? Resting on the tree? From the looks of it's torn up bloody clothing, it's facing away from me. Could it really be one. Is it dead? It has to be dead, it would've sniffed me out and killed me while I slept. I roll over so my chest is now facing the dead body attached to the tree-stump. Tilting my head a bit more to the right to see what it's front looks like. It isn't too far from me, about three or four meters away, too close for comfort. My breathing starts pacing as I fear what's put it there, did it get itself impaled on a branch and is sitting still, ready to attack? No, my breath slows down as I see my blade in it's throat, and dried up blood stick to it's grey and blue flannel. At the end of each buttoned up sleeve, is a cold and pale colored hand, as for the fingers...
My hand moved forward to help push me up onto my swelling feet, but shudder at the sight of blood smeared mercilessly on my palm and wrist, in between my fingers and nails. Putting one and two together, I did that. Right, I ran into one last night. They aren't fond of moving around in the night, but they can if walking bait were spread out in front of it. The bait being me, I remember now. I was running, walking. For how long, I don't bloody know. Swiftly I wipe my hand across my black pants, in attempt to clean at least some of it off but it's been a couple hours since I was awake, it'll stain for a bit until I find some water.
Before rising to my feet, I search around for any beams of light that may cut straight through me, simile. Despite the apocalypse, lack of education and trust issues gathered these last few years, English literary techniques seem to have stayed with me. If I could I would adore being able to teach kids what I know, but are there anymore kids left? I haven't seen a child under the age of eighteen in too long.
The coast is clear and I rise to my feet slowly, if there were any intruding rays of sunlight I would be able to see them. I use my clean hand to tap around my torso and legs to see if I've been injured, I don't remember much from last night. I'll figure it out later. Finally, my gaze diverts to the right and I search the unfamiliar area, it's cold enough to start snowing, that would be amazing. Candall isn't this cold, the goosebumps on my skin are rock hard and my shitty pocketed vest and red sweater don't do me justice in the cold. My heart starts to pound at the thought of having no where else to go to, go back to. I'm lost.
"We shouldn't be out here."
A voice, did I hear a voice? Regardless it would try to kill me either way, I can't be out here, I can't be out here! On my feet, I begin to run towards the corpse I had left last night. What if it isn't dead? What if I pull this out of it's chest, and it pounces. If it does I'd be able to hold my own for a bit, but it daytime and I'm in a forest that's too quiet. If that voice really wasn't a monster maybe they would help, or use me as a distraction for them to get away. I have to risk it.
My cold hands, despite the rain water from the ground still drenching my sleeves and skin, wrap quickly around the base of the blade. The weapon isn't that big compared to some others I've seen wield swords or guns, but it's bigger than a knife, the size of my forearm at best. A strange feeling takes over me, am I afraid? Still, I begin to pull the blade back towards my chest, my eyes glued to it's rotted face. It didn't have anything a face would have left on it, just bulges and lumps of raw flesh and swelling. It looked bigger last night. With a final exhale the blade is ridded from the corpse and I don't see any movement. It's hips lean forward suddenly, it's neck rests back onto the tree and it's feet stick in the mud at the base of the trunk. Folding backwards, until it hits the ground. A thud occurs shortly after.
"This forest is too quite, we should have more people with us. We'll be screwed if we face a one of those freaks!"
A second voice shushes the first, "Keep it down, we'll head back now if you're gonna be such a pussy."
Voices, two of them. They sound far, but I'm not taking any chances with people anymore. I step back cautiously, searching my perimeter trying to find the bodies of the two voices. One sounded low, a deep but soft voice that maybe someone tall may own. And the other one sounded young, whiney. Like he needed a hug or his ass beat for being too scared to ride a bike with training wheels. I guess having cautiousness as a trait nowadays is special, taking risks is too much now. It's either do or die, no trying.
"What is that?" They were close now, I can hear a rifle of some sort being raised into the air, probably aiming towards me now and I can't even see it. Everything in this forest blends too well together, and I'm here in black jeans and a sweater. My only form of protection being a bullet proof vest I was given, and an overgrown kitchen knife.
"We see you! Come out, already," The whimpier man calls out, probably the one holding the gun, I can hear his hands shake over the trigger from here. "What if it's a freak? What if there are more?!"
"If you're gonna freak out, put the gun down!" The man with the deeper voice growls at his younger friend. Finally, I can't get a visual on them, but they're about five or ten meters away in front of me. "And we can't see anything, everything here looks the same, stop waving that thing around!"
Leaves shudder dramatically and out of habit I drop to my knees, my elbows tucked in and my head pointed straight at the corpse that had folded backwards previously. The smell travelled its way up my nose and the need to resist gagging betrays me. Where did that noise come from. I'm back to the familiar feeling of cold and muddy leaves, from the sound of the shelter above us it begins to rain heavily. I crane my sight over to there the dangerous beam of light had struck the ground earlier and it's gone. It must be cloudy.
"That wasn't the trees, it was on the ground." In the position I'm in I can finally spot the two survivors, also crouched down onto the ground, there's no sunlight around due to the sudden weather change but you can never be too cautious here. The sound of birds vanishes instantly, almost as if it were turned off by a clap, and I glare blankly at the two men. They're sides are facing me, and their heads pointed to my left, where the noise came from.
"You think?"
"Yeah."
They are right, we aren't alone here. There's something close by, but it's a bit darker now so we shouldn't see too many monsters out and about. The place is pretty empty anyway, maybe some people came and cleared them all out in this area, maybe these guys are those people.
