The forest was dark, with streams of soft moonlight shining down in patches barely illuminating the forest floor. Elliott stumbled on a tree root, but caught himself before he could fall. He kept running, fear of what lay behind him overriding the unease he felt at entering deeper and deeper into the woods. He had never gone so far in before, but he didn't have much choice. Not too far behind him, he could hear voices shouting and hooting in excitement. Gary and his friends were not too far behind, and while Elliott wasn't entirely sure of just what it was they would do to him if they caught him, he knew it was going to be bad. Tree branches scratched at his face and slapped his chest, each time making the boy wince as fresh pain would flare up. Underneath his blue t-shirt were bruises, some old and fading, some fresh and still darkening.

Elliott burst out into a clearing, sliding and falling onto his back from the slick mud underneath his feet. He clamped his mouth shut to keep from letting out a groan, having gotten the wind knocked out of him a little. He slowly got to his feet, using some nearby rocks he was lucky enough to avoid cracking his skull on to help steady himself. He slowly and carefully crossed the clearing, trying not to slip and fall again, his entire back and the back of his head and his lucky red baseball cap now caked in mud. His jeans were as well, a few of the patches sewn on having apparently torn open.

He entered the trees, sticking to the darker shadows until, in dismay, he realized that he had lost one of his sneakers in the muck, seeing it not too far away, partially sticking out. He thought about going back to get it, when a larger boy followed by two others burst into the clearing, looking around. The one leading the little pack was looking around wildly, his dirty blonde hair in a mullet. He was wearing a green army jacket and some torn jeans, as well as a pair of black boots.

"Get out here, ya little freak!" Gary snarled, stomping around and slipping a little. On his left was a boy a little younger, and quite a bit chubbier, bent over with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily, wiping the black hair that was plastered to his forehead away with a big meaty palm.

"C-can we please stop for a rest, Gary?" Bernie wheezed out. He was wearing denim suspenders with a red shirt on. Over on the right was a boy the same age as Gary, his frame was skinnier, but he was much more wiry. His hair was dark brown and in a loose ponytail. His face had quite the acne breakout on it. He was wearing a faded purple Hawaiian shirt with a white tank top underneath and the only clean and not-torn jeans of the trio.

"Yeah, Gary," Troy said while he squinted his eyes and looked around. "I think we lost him. But he'll have to come back to the center some time. We can get to him then."

Gary whirled around and glared at his friends. "He hasn't gotten much further than us."

"What makes you say that?" Bernie asked, wiping his brow again and standing up straighter. Gary then pointed in the direction of the hiding Elliott. Elliott's breath caught in his throat until he saw that Gary was actually pointing a little bit more to his right, in the direction of his lost shoe.

"He's not gunna get much further with only one shoe on, boys," Gary said with a wicked grin. "And when we find him, I'm gunna teach him a lesson about why it's a very bad idea to steal from me." The boys started to move in the direction of the shoe, and Elliott, his eyes wide, quietly crept away in a different direction. He came upon a creek and began to walk alongside it, shivering a little in the chilly night air. Gary had always seemed to have it out for Elliott at the children's center, and Elliott for his part had done his best to give Gary a wide berth.

But naturally, when the money Gary had been saving from his odd jobs, being old enough to actually start some part time work at age fourteen, just two years older than Elliott, had gone missing, Elliott had been his top list of suspects. Elliott had no idea who took the money, but he knew that the caretakers at the center wouldn't do anything to help him, he had chosen to flee instead of try and plead his case since Gary had already, and loudly, made up his mind as to who the culprit was. Elliott sniffled, but bit it back, determined not to cry.

Crying doesn't do anything to help you, he thought to himself. He sighed as he pushed his way past some bushes, wondering just how far he had traveled. Looking up, he froze. He was now standing in a new clearing, though this one was filled with tiny stone structures. There were tiny lights shining along what appeared to be miniature cobblestone roads, with sets of houses and buildings, built from different materials, at the very center of it all being a castle almost as tall as he was. It was like something out of a fairy tale. He stepped closer and saw that there was a stone wall surrounding the tiny city. It ran along and connected to a large circle of stone towers with crenellations. Elliott took note when he saw little figures standing on it. In fact, Elliott started to take notice of small figures everywhere.

With his eyes adjusting to all the light, they went wide as Elliott realized he was looking at little mice, rats, rabbits, even some cats, all standing stock still and staring right at him. They were all wearing clothes, standing on two legs, with those on the walls and standing on the tiny road near his feet wearing shining metal armor. Out of the corner of his eye, Elliott saw a mouse wearing a green hooded cloak and dark brown dress standing at the top of the nearest tower. She froze when their eyes met, both his and her mouths dropping open in surprise. She took a step, but missed her footing and started to slip.

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She let out a loud shriek that spurred some nearby guards into action as they desperately tried to grab her. Unfortunately, she was moving too fast and slipped over the side. Without thinking, Elliot ran forward, small animals scattering out of his way with his feet accidentally knocking over carts laden with tiny objects, like tiny wooden crates and tiny pots, some of which fell out and smashed on the cobblestones. Reaching with cupped outstretched hands, Elliott just barely caught her halfway down. He looked down at his hands at the mouse girl, who stared right back up at him. He gingerly set her back down on the wall. She hopped back a bit, holding onto some of the crenellations, but taking the time to smile up at him. Elliott had opened his mouth to ask her what was going on, when a gruff and loud male voice asked that instead. Out from a nearby tower came a gray-furred rat wearing bright blue robes with a simple white tunic and brown trousers on underneath.

"What is all the commotion? If that was Grady deciding to do some late-night demolition again, I will have words with him," the rat said, his voice grumpy. He spotted Elliott and froze in his tracks, looking up at the human boy with orange eyes. As Elliott watched, the rat held up a paw and started to trace lines in the air, his eyes beginning to glow. A blue ball of light shot out from his paw, and Elliott barely managed to jump out of the way, avoiding it hitting him directly in the head. Panic flooding his mind, he turned and ran, instinctively making a serpentine route as he started sprinting back the way he had come through the woods.

"AFTER HIM! SUMMON THE FALCONS!" Elliott heard the voice behind him, presumably one of the tiny soldiers. He looked behind him to see various animals in shiny metal armor giving chase, spurring him to run harder.

Elliott burst out of the trees, looking behind him as he slid forward in the slick mud. He reached out to grab ahold of something, only grabbing fistfuls of air. Down he tumbled before slamming into a tree. He let out a gasp as all the air had been knocked out of him again, only this time, he was having trouble catching his breath.

"Elliott?" Looking up, Elliott could see Gary and his friends standing above him on a rocky outcropping. Elliott gasped some more as he pulled himself away from the tree, a sharp pain in his chest. Looking down, he could see that he not only had slammed into the tree when he fell, but also his chest had slammed into a sharp and jagged branch, which had partially impaled him. There was a wet sucking sound as he pushed himself off of it, before he collapsed to the ground and writhed and moaned in pain.

Above, thanks to the light of the moon, the three boys could see a dark black pool starting to form under Eli. Blood. Gary had gone pale and shook his head.

"I just..." The words died on his lips as he looked on helplessly. Gary soon found himself being shaken by Bernie.

"WE GOTTA GO!" Bernie screamed, turning and running.

"Gary, Bernie's right, we gotta go," Troy said, taking Gary by the arm and starting to tug. Gary stared blankly down at Elliott and reached out.

"B-but..."

"NOW, GARY!" Troy yelled, pulling harder.

"W-we gotta tell someone," Gary whispered as he was dragged along, tears forming in his eyes. Soon, they were gone, having left Elliott there in the ditch. But not alone. Hidden in the underbrush were the soldiers, with archers, mainly squirrels, hidden high up in the tree branches. Elliott saw as some brown and white birds gently landed near where he lay, whimpering and crying from the pain and from his broiling emotions.

Is this really how I die?! he wondered in his head, letting out a sob at the unfairness of it all.

From the back of one of the falcons, which Elliott noticed all had tiny saddles with little animal people riding them, hopped down the rat in the blue robes. He paused when he looked upon Elliott, frowning as his eyes spotted a gaping wound as well as the blood trickling down into the mud from around where the branch had gone in. Elliott's breathing hitched as it started to become harder and harder to fill his lungs. Dots were dancing at the borders of his vision when he spotted the mouse girl he had caught. She saw the state of him, her paw shooting straight to cover her mouth. She then ran over to the rat and grabbed his arm. Standing next to the rat, Elliott saw that the mouse girl was much shorter in comparison due to the species size difference.

"Argus, why are you just standing there?! We need a medic unit here now! He's hurt!" she said, her voice sounding almost childlike, but not in an immature way.

"The skilled healers are cloistered for their conference. By the time we could get inside to talk to one of them, he could already be dead. The only ones readily available are apprentices, and not even their teachers have worked on a human before. So many factors are different that he could die both while they try to figure out which methods and combinations of their spells and herbs will work!" The rat, whose name apparently was Argus, scratched his chin.

"But there has to be something we could do!" the mouse shouted. Elliott noticed some of the guards approaching him with their shields raised, spears at the ready. While some looked upon him with fear, others' faces showed pity.

"... There is one thing... but, it's risky, Holly..."

"Well... someone's gotta try something!" the mouse girl called Holly cried out. Argus sighed and snapped his fingers. His eyes began to glow bright blue, and he held up his middle and index clawed fingers from his right paw/hand to his throat and said Yvtorus! The word reverberated like distant thunder in the otherwise silent clearing. He muttered under his breath for a few seconds, all the while the darkness was creeping in for Elliott. As his vision began to fade, a small black bird with some white feathers on its chest, a raven, landed with another, slightly paunchier and dark brown-furred, rat riding on a saddle on its back. This rat was also wearing a blue cloak and what appeared to be blue and white striped pajamas. His eyes looked blearily at the scene as he quickly approached Argus and handed him something in a black satchel.

Elliott whimpered as he watched Argus remove what looked like a miniature white satellite dish attached to a silver flashlight handle that Argus needed both hands to wield. He fiddled with some dials on the side, and bright white fiery light crackled to life in the center of the little dish. Argus pointed it directly at Elliott, with the boy croaking out another sob.

"I'm sorry if this doesn't work," he heard Argus say right before the beam fired. Elliott's vision completely blacked out, the darkness enveloping him.