The Lost by Charlotte Thorne (reading well TXT) 📕

Ch.1
He ran. Not the chilling air nor the brushes and scrapes from the foliage around him, made him pause. The wind was howling, but he did not hear it. The pounding unsteady drum of his heart in his ears was the only noise to him. That and the instinctual scream in his mind that demanded he run, run as far and as fast as possible. From the thing? People? He did not know. Was he running from nothing, no something inside him knew he must run until he collapsed from the studily increasing pain of his ragged breath being torn from his lungs, or he would die.
He didn’t notice the leaves were unlike any other he had ever seen, he did not see the trees towering around him, taller than any he was acquainted with in his existence. Just his scared and scattered thoughts, slipping through his mind, like bars of soap in wet hands. Wet, yes, the ground is wet, he thought. No, not wet, cold and soft like moss, why am I running through moss? Strange bird calls in the night were not noticed by him, but they did call as his noise disturbed their usually quiet world.
Now his sides were stabbing, his lungs were burning; his head was throbbing, throbbing with the beat of his heart. Finally he slowed to a stop, and his legs, shaking gave out underneath him. He fell to the ground on his hands and knees, and dragged in breaths that raked like nails through his sore throat and lungs. All he could hear was the blood pounding in his head, but slowly the noise faded. He looked around him, but it was so dark. Why is it so dark outside? He thought. Shouldn’t there be light from the light pollution? Or stars? Or moon? But looking above him, he only saw blackness, darkness. When his breath had returned and his heart studied, suddenly it became too quiet. He threw back his head ready to cry out, the strangeness of his situation, the fear of pursuit had taken their toll.
But suddenly, he heard a noise, a breath being drawn. It sounded torn, and scared like his had been. He stilled and focussed to his right, where they had come from. He strained so hard to here from the dense darkness; he could only determine was a bush beside him. He even held his breath, waiting for some noise. All was silent, even the birds who had previously sung, were silent in their fear of this intruder. And suddenly he heard it again; it was quick and stopped suddenly, as if a hand had covered the mouth to stop the noise. He didn’t waist a second, he dove for the bush, a great rustle was heard as the thing tried to escape, but his hand enclosed a wrist. A noise of fear was made, a female voice, and the person tried desperately to rank her hand away. But he held on and relief flooded him, another person, he wasn’t alone! The hand continued to pull and twist.
“Please!” he cried desperately. “Don’t leave, please don’t leave”
But his vision was beginning to fade, he felt like he had just sat up so fast the blood was rushing to his head, he was losing all strength in his arms and legs, and he fell to the ground. The woman’s hand slipped out of his grasp, but she didn’t move away as he feared, she came closer. Through his dimming vision he saw her lean in towards his face, her hands on both his cheeks. Why do her hands feel so strange? He thought. Is she going to kiss me? But she stopped inches away from his face; he wished he could see her expression. She was staring at him, studying him. He drifted off, unable to stop the darkness from descending any longer.
Tree bird stared through the darkness as easily as any of her forest brethren, but even she wondered if her eyes had been deceiving her when this creature had frightened her out of her mind. How strange you are. She thought to herself, as she examining the now unconsious form of this naked male. She had seen him running towards her moments ago, in fear she had dashed into a large bush beside her. But then the poor creature had fallen to the ground. A part of her had wanted to reach out to him, the same part of her that had wanted to save an abandoned Err when she was a child. But as she had learned from that incident, not all creatures wanted help from her kind. At first, only fear swam her mind, as she stared at his suffering form, her father had always kept her very safe, so she had only heard tales of the unnatural fire dancers. Was this creature one of them? No he was shorter than them, yet taller than her own people; his hair was thin like theirs though. Her own hair hung in several unkempt dreadlocks on her head, like her own people. But his hair looked soft and short. Unable to resist, tree bird ran her hands through his hair, it was soft as fur. What a strange creature you are. She thought, lifting his hands to examine them, she was surprised to see that he had five fingers, she felt each one and saw the last was the smallest. Tree bird lifted her own hand, it had four.
Suddenly she felt like she was a wrong child with her grandmother hearing tales of the various creatures covering their world, but none she could recall spoke of the five fingered man. Tree bird closed her eyes confused about what she should do. Whenever her people crossed paths with a fire dancer they killed it to ensure it would not bring others upon them. It was not wrong; it was a matter of survival. But the fire dancers, they were wrong; they killed for fun and vengeance. It was unnatural. But when tree bird had looked in to this creature's eyes, she had not seen the evil spirits her people spoke of, she only seen a man consumed with fear and pain. But will my brothers see a man? She wondered. No, they will kill him. Decided, tree bird rose and prayed to the tree mother, that she was not making a mistake.

Publication Date: 05-23-2009

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