Hidden Society by Denis Daniel (short story to read txt) 📕

“Quiet Ryan, I won’t let you scare it away again,” I whispered to my best friend.

We'd known each other for as long as I could remember, since we were in diapers, I think. And we always went out hunting together.

We were chasing after a game, this is what I did most of the time in my daily life. We used it as food for both my family and Ryan’s, because like I said, we’ve known each other for a long time. We were more like one family, except we had different parents. And our parents had been friends for as long as they could remember. That’s how things were in my world. We knew things, and we did things; some just happened to be there and others were just routines. Didn’t matter how they started, or how they happened to be there. We just did what we always did, and knew what we always knew.

“Whatever you say boss.” He whispered back.

Don’t take him seriously, I wasn’t really his boss. He said that because he was trying to be sarcastic, his usual behavior or I might say that’s his humor.

We moved slowly towards the deer, which was eating grasses tentatively while propelling its head from side to side to make sure it wasn’t being followed. The bush was thick with lots of trees and over grown grasses that covered our vision, and made it hard for us to see and move swiftly. Eventually after sometime, we came to a spot that was perfect for a shot.

But then suddenly, when it was quiet and my target was clear to take a shot, we heard a snap of a branch, a dry one; so it was pretty loud. It chased my one and only kill I had for the day. I was pretty pissed at Ryan at first because I thought it was him. He always had lousy footsteps.

“I told you not to move. It’s gone, are you happy now?” I blurted out on him, I just couldn’t help but get extremely furious at him. Now we were going to have to trap some birds or rabbit, instead of a whole week meal. All congratulations to him.

“It wasn’t me, I swear.” He pleaded. And I believed him right away, which made my anger vanish instantly. Among things Ryan wasn’t, was being a liar. He never lied to me, ever. So I was left with no choice but to believe him.

“Let’s find out,” I suggested as we were heading to the right side where the sound came from.

We didn’t rush to it because we did not know what it was; for all we know in bushes like this you might find all sorts of things. Cautiously, carefully and slowly we walked past the trees as we used them as our cover approaching our target. It was so much quiet now, almost like there was nothing; the only sound was of my feet on the ground, moving as quietly as possible.

Something was different though: it wasn’t supposed to be this quiet, there was no wind, no birds screeching and trees were still, like they were frozen.

It was morning, just after sunrise, and I was used to hear birds singing and trees branches moving frantically with wind blows; but now everything stopped moving. I couldn’t feel that smooth, cold and fresh air that always caressed my skin whenever I went hunting.

Something was seriously off today. I didn’t know what it was, but I was going to find out. I was forward and Ryan was following close behind me; and I could tell that all his nerves were activated. He sensed the same thing I did, and he had never been very good with danger, as a matter of fact, he always stayed away from it. But I’m always the one who drags him into it.

I think today was one of those days. The quietness and stillness of the environment, and the dryness of the air was a sign. It was a sign that it was something major, something big. And unlike Ryan, I on the other hand, the bigger the danger the more exciting it’s gonna be.

As we approached closer and closer, we started to see something glowing. The sun was covered by the trees, so we couldn’t say it was because of the sun.

It was something foreign, new and hadn’t seen before in my life. It was bright, white light; it couldn’t be a lamp and it couldn’t be fire either. The light was unusually bright, even the brightness of morning couldn’t dim it; it was clear and strongly lit.

I was very curious; in my mind, it was going to be the best hunt ever. Some kind of unicorn or some unique animal, which was going to wash out all our poverty. But before I could prepare my arrow for a shot, to shoot whatever that was waiting couple feet away. Ryan put his hand on my shoulder, showing some kind of sign that it wasn’t a game, but something else.

I put back the arrow which I was about to remove from the sheath. Then I looked forward, only to be taken aback with the view. We started to see a white dress, actually a glowing white dress; a wedding dress to be specific. It seemed to have a body under it, I mean someone was wearing it.

The question was; why was a bride hiding in the forest? Where the hell did she come from? Who the hell was she? And why was she lying down, was she dead? Who on earth will kill a bride and why? Well, questions kept flowing in my mind while we were standing right where we were, about eight to ten feet away from the body.

Her face was covered with grass; her feet were covered by the dress and her hands were tucked under her body. The only thing we could see was her dress.

There was no way the knights were going to find her in a place like this. Yes, we live in a kingdom, and we have a king, even though I’ve never seen or heard him in all nineteen years of my life. It was up to us to help her. I was hoping and praying that she’d still be alive. I was in condition of taking a corpse home. My parents would kill me for sure, together with the corpse; they are not cruel people, but they’ll do it because I know the kingdom’s rules and going against them will bring trouble to all of us.

My parents, my younger twin siblings: a boy and a girl, and myself; also to Ryan’s family too. Well, the kingdom doesn’t accept strangers, until they are reported and registered as new citizens. Finding a corpse is a lot more complicated; the only action taken, they throw you in the dungeon first, while investigating on the murder. Because you’ll be the first suspect.

That’s why I was praying for her to be alive. And there was one way of finding out; going over to where she was and check on her. And since now we knew it was a human, we didn’t need to move cautiously anymore, despite her unusual remarks, she still needed help and we were the only people in the area.

And when we got there, she was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Her face, her eyes, her mouth, her nose and her hairs; were like a very well created portrait and the glowing made her even more beautiful.

She had a long face with perfect jawlines and cheekbones; her eyes had long eye lashes and thick pitch black eye brows; she had small red lips that were well formed; her nose was long and straight and curved perfectly. Her hairs were long and pitch black, just like her eye brows and eye lashes. In short so far, she was the prettiest being I’ve ever seen in my life.

“Is it possible that we are looking at an angel right now?” Ryan asked amazement playing on his face, eyes wide open, almost out of their socket. Whom I’d long forgotten was with me.

“She is not an angel. She is a girl, prettiest girl in the land. And she needs our help,” it’s not that I don’t believe in angels, I do. But this girl was not an angel, I could see blood pulsing in her veins from her neck, and that was a proof enough that she

was a human, “come on, let see if she can wake up.” I suggested as I moved towards the girl to wake her up.

I got on one knee and tried to pull her up, but right at the moment I put my hand on her a huge blow of wind washed over us and took the light with it and almost made us fall. It was not a normal wind, it was strong and warm, and it ended in an instant like it was never there, within seconds it was gone. The girl wasn’t glowing anymore, she was just a beautiful girl lying on the ground.

Her beauty was enchanting and her complexion was like nothing I’d ever seen. It was compelling; I couldn’t help but caress her face and see how it felt like. Her skin was cold, but not much, and soft, very soft. But unexpectedly, out of nowhere she leaned on my hand, and out of panicky I removed it quickly.

I assumed she confused my hand with somebody else’s. But suddenly she seemed to come to her senses and her eyes were shot open. They were gray and very attractive, that’s how I could see them; she looked around and the first person her eyes rested on was me. She looked like someone who had been asleep, rather than unconscious. She moved her hands and brought them to her face and looked at them; she had very beautiful fingers and finger nails too, kind of hands I would’ve liked to caress my face. Then she moved her legs like she was testing if they could move. After that she looked at me again and then Ryan, who was still puzzled and amazed with the whole situation.

“Where am I?” she asked softly. Her voice was soft and captivating; neither Ryan nor I could answer the question right away. I didn’t answer the question because I was wondering what this being that was in front of me was. She had no flaws, she was almost perfect; but then I came to my senses.

“Oh, you are in the forest, as you can see.” I replied, and I couldn’t tell if I was trying to be sarcastic or charming, the words just came out of my mouth.

“I mean, which country?” she asked again, irritated this time. So much for first impression.

“You are in the northern kingdom of seven kings of imperial king Julius, if that is what you wanted to know.” I replied, a little annoyed with her attitude.

She pulled herself to sit, “okay! A kingdom, that’s real!” she looked confused and surprised and amused at the same time. It seemed like the word kingdom was somehow new to her, something she didn’t think was an actual thing.

“I’m Ryan and that’s my friend Peter.” Out of nowhere Ryan introduced us to her. I didn’t mind him doing that, but I wasn’t comfortable with it; you can’t just introduce yourself to a total stranger you found in the forest, doesn’t matter her beauty.

“And I’m Lexa, nice to meet you.” She responded. Her accent was different too from the one we were used to. She talked differently, her words were formed differently; everything about this girl was different.

She attempted to get up but failed, so I helped her up. When I put my hand around her to pull her up she looked