8. Chapter 8:
Chapter 8:
By the next evening, I had run out of food.
I had managed to exhaust all of my rations, even somehow extending them to one and a half times the length of time that they were originally intended for. I had been carefully controlling what I was allowed to have each day, and had been forcing myself to walk through the stomach cramps and fatigue that hunger brought. I soon found that even with my dedicated attempts, all food was really and truly gone.
For some reason, like nothing else that had happened to me thus far, propelled me into a fit of despair and fear. I was anxious that I would not be able to survive, and that little Wea would never be found, and I feared more for my friends, who would never know what had happened to me. it felt as if I was falling from the sky, with no control over where I could go and the wind hitting my face preventing any sensible thought or consideration. I felt useless and futile in my actions, but the scrawled name on my hand pushed me to try and control my emotions, and I somehow calmed myself down, and stood up on my feet. I had found nothing so far in the forest that could reliably sustain me - the leaves and herbs were only medicines. I decided that it was more than likely that at least some sentient beings lived in the woods, and that I had no other option, really, to find them and beg for help.
I came upon the idea of climbing up one of the massive trees that I stumbled across every so often, and looking around to see any sign of habitation. Where there were houses or tents, there was food.
Once I found a tree tall enough, I placed my pack carefully at the base so that I would not be weighed down and could focus my energy on the ascent. I used my rope to try to sling up to the very top of the tree. I attached one of my four-pronged hooks, and tried to throw it up to the top, but the tree was so tall that all of throws did not even reach halfway up the tree. Luckily, my years in the guild had somewhat paid off. I had seen thieved scaling massive buildings by climbing some way up the tree, before stopping somewhere safe and throwing their hooks further up the building, then repeating this until they got to the top. I thought, with no real other options, that I would be able to do the same.
I slung the hook up with all of my energy, and made sure that it had wrapped around and hooked onto a branch that looked thick and stable enough to support my weight. I made sure to put the hook near the point of connection, as I knew that would make it as strong as possible. I, almost out of instinct, uttered a word or two to the tree to tell it what I was about to do, even though I had never done something like that before, and the words seemed to be uttered in a voice different to mine. there was no point worrying about that now, however, and I began to Pull myself up the tree, using my feet to hold onto the trunk with. Eventually, I managed to learn the best way to pull myself up, and got into the rhythm of it.
While i was climbing, I saw that the tree was so brimming with life It almost seemed too full to still be called only a tree. On the lower branches, there were the tiny nests of birds and squirrels, the mating season had passed weeks ago, and so I saw small chicks in most of them. Once, I saw a chick pushed out of the nest to its death by another chick, and realised that the chick that had done the killing was likely a Reffl Cowbird or Cuckoo. I had seen the behaviour before as a thief, looking at the fledglings on top of some of the town's tallest buildings, and learned that it was called brood parasitism. I wished that I could have saved the chick, but I knew that it was not my responsibility. I had another child to save.
As I stormed up the trunk, i saw snakes gliding between the branches, their ribcages expanded to catch the wind and allow them to move gracefully from branch to branch, so that they could ambush the dull-violet bats that hung silently from the branches. One of the bats once landed on my head, and I had to place it carefully on a nearby branch in order to protect it from being crushed by the large fleshy leaves I was pushing through.
On another branch, I saw a small group of beetles who had swarmed into one large, pulsating ball. every so often, one of the beetles would fly out and spray a caustic substance at one of the small creatures that were trying to catch and consume some of the beetles. Their carapaces glimmered with an opalescent shine, the colours shifting and changing as I looked at them from different angles, making it almost look like one great blob of colour.
Once I neared the attachment point, I carefully walked out onto the branch. I grasped onto it for dear life while I carefully extricated the hook. it was lodged in the wood very deeply, and I had to painstakingly pull it out. Every shudder and shake threatened to plunge me to my death, and so I did not try to pull away with too much force. Every time I looked at the ground, it seemed to be changing in size continuously, but I tried not to let it affect me, and threw the hook back up the tree, standing for a petrifying moment on the branch before tying myself back onto the rope. I had used a knot which allowed me to slip rope past as I got higher, and so made sure The rope was as taught as possible every step of my journey.
the leaves of the tree, as stated previously, were fleshy and largely one shade of green. I picked a few as I climbed, and tired to see what was inside. They had a leathery outer skin, and the inside was jelly-like in consistency. While I was pulling out the hook, I noticed, too, that the trunk also had the same jelly-like substance in it. It did not smell of much, and I did not dare taste it, even though I was tempted to.
I soon reached the top of the tree, and made myself stable via a branch to my left and right on which I placeed my feet. The wind up there was quite strong, and I could feel and see the tree flexing quite a lot under me, sinuous waves of motion making the top of the tree wave about. I cleared my eyes, and looked over the woods that I could see.
I could see for miles and miles. The air was clear, and there were barely any other trees to block my vision, the one I stood on being the tallest for many miles around. The forest was a mat of dark green, thick and largely anonymous, most areas looking the same as others. Most.
In relative proximity - about one and a half day's walk - there was a large clearing, in which I could see some sort of earthy mound near the largest river I had seen in the forest up to then. What saved me from dismissing the mound as just another harvesttmen colony, was the fact I could see smoke billowing out of a fire in the centre of the clearing, and structures which could only have been made by a truly sentient being.
I was excited - I felt as if I had been saved from an endless desert by being given water to drink. I felt as if the woods had done something good for once. Speedily, I shuffled down the tree, it was evening by now and I was determined to get down before the sun was extinguished, and so I sped down the trunk.
Once I got to the last few branches above the ground. I noticed something.
My Pack was not there.
I was enraged. The last thing Sew had ever given me, the last symbol I had to remind me of him... lost.
I scrambled up the tree a few more branches, and looked over the woods once again, though with a more restricted but more detailed point of view. I saw a small, slender brown shape running off into the forest, dragging my bag behind it. It was running into the direction of the clearing, so I would be able to make some progress while I was hunting for my bag.
I ran after it with all of my remaining strength, my stomach seemingly clawing at my lungs and intestines, looking for food but finding none. I tried to hold my breath while I ran to help stop the pain, but It only made it worse, and my run slower. I was able to ignore it after a while, however, and soon saw the little creature again, before it dissapeared into the underdrowth.
I knew that I needed to keep running. It was getting cold, and I knew that I could not let myself stop running. I was hungry, and cold. This was not a god combination. I knew that if I stopped running. I would die. If not immediately, a few hours or days later. I would not be able to get running again if I stopped, and would be stuck achingly close to my salvation. I was determined not to let that happen.
I remembered being told a story where an old woodsman had been cutting wood in a forest quite far from the town I had lived in, and got tired, because he had been working all day on the wood. He laid his axe by his side, and built a cushion of pillows. The next day, he woke up, cold but nothing much had changed otherwise. He worked that day too, not eating anything because he usually ate at his house just nearby. "No problem, " he said, "I'll go get some foot tomorrow." That night, he woke up, and could not gather the energy to get up. His legs ached and he could not feel his arms. The cold had sapped the energy away from him at night and he had not had the food to generate more. I tried with all of his might to move, but just could not manage it, and was soon possessed by the spirit of death, who told him to take off all of his clothes, making him unbearable hot for the last few moments of his life. His wife was said to have found him the day after, carrying a bowl of porridge.
I ran for what must have been hours, I eventually stopped feeling every thud my feet made when they hit the ground. I began to hear the gurgling of the water as the night approached. I spotted the little shape for the last time that day, as we were both walking sluggishly. I did not have the energy to run but I was determined not to stop.
Once it got so dark I could not even hope to see whatever it was, I tried to rely on my ears, but the trees and leaves absorbed the sounds I could have used, and so I was stuck following the gurgling of the river. eventually, I got to the edge of the river, and followed its curving and predictable path with my feet and hands for hours.
The water was cool, but in a strangely comforting way. I began to feel as if I was burning up, but I splashed myself with the water to keep me from falling into an endless and uncontrollable sleep, the cold was terrifying, but what by body could do to itself was even more so. I kept on pinching myself, so that I would be able to feel something. I kept drifting off into places I could never quite describe fully. they were so dreamlike yet painfully real, and they helped me to keep going, if mindlessly, on my route. I soon began to hear the spitting of a fire, and smell the deep and robust ash and smoke that emanated from within, and these invigorated me, giving me enough energy to continue crawling.
I had nothing, and the thought of having something was exhillarating. I could have warmth; I could have food; I could have other people to talk to, someone to share my worries and hopes with. I could even get help. These self-delusions and lies that I told myself made me feel more alive, more physical and made sure that I was not going to give up before I arrived.
I soon began to hear the muffled sounds of voices. I did not know if they were voices in a language I knew, or even human voices, but they seemed intelligent, and I knew that they might help me. That possibility churned up so much in my heart, and I did not want to risk it all of my life up to this point being for nothing. At some point, I heard a single, joyful laugh. the laugh cemented in me that I was going to be fine, know what I used to call happiness once more and that those that called the clearing home would help me.
I do not remember what happened for the rest of that night, for I stormed on sentient no more, but pure animal fury and rage at existence, fuelling my crawling and running and dragging, keeping me alive.