Chapter 24: Chase

He dashed through the forest as fast as his little pawed feet would take him. He narrowly avoided trees and jumped over large rocks. Nothing would get in his way, he had to keep running with no end in sight. If he didn’t, the predator would catch him. He hadn’t seen it, but his large ears had heard it. And even now, he could hear the predator keeping pace.

But he could also hear the ground rumble with each step it took. It was large and would soon tire before he did, it wouldn’t get to him. But that was only true if he didn’t make a mistake. Simply put, he had to be perfect.

This had happened a couple of times before and each of those times he had succeeded by the skin of his teeth. And this time he would do it too, if he was lucky. After skill, luck really was the biggest power in the animal kingdom.

And it seemed his luck wasn’t running out just yet. He could hear the predator’s footsteps getting further and further away. But that didn’t mean he could stop, if he did then it would still catch up to him. He kept his little feet treading along, pounding against the dirt.

There was a rock larger than any he had gone over before. It was tall but it was quite wide also. Too wide for him to go around without the predator cutting him off. He couldn’t slow down, he had no time to waste. But yet the obstacle was getting closer, an obstacle seemingly impossible to get over.

But he’d have to, it was the only way. He stilled his mind, not letting it get the better of him. He was nearly there, the optimum spot to jump. Before he could truly think about what he was about to do, he had made it to the spot and leaped.

The rock got closer, the top of the rock was just above him. He wasn’t going to make it. He had been right, it was impossible. He was going to slam into it, hurt himself, and then fall back onto the ground where the predator would rip him to shreds.

But then his vision kept rising into the air, and then his body soared by it, the fur on his belly scraping against it. He had made it. He felt his brain light up in exaltation.

And then he saw what was on the other side.

It was a steep drop-off with trees all around. He had jumped too far. He tried to point himself downward, to touch the ground with his feet, but it was useless. His body glanced the side of a tree and he felt blinding pain as his leg shattered.

He hit the ground and rolled end over end. He felt branches scrape against him. Something sharp stabbed into him. He hit a stone rock, flew into the air, and the last thing he remembered was crashing back into the ground.

He felt something wrap around him. Something soft Benoit didn't have fur. His eyelids felt so heavy but he forced them open. He was being held by hands. Not paws that any rabbit possessed but human hands. No, not human. He had seen a human before and this person wasn’t that. This woman had small horns and catlike eyes. Her tongue flicked out and it was split and pointed.

Was this the predator? No, the predator had four feet, he had heard it. But it didn’t matter. This woman was smiling at him, she was going to eat him he was sure of it. It was all over, his luck had run out once and for all.

“It’s okay,” She whispered not in the tongue of other two-legged beasts but of his own, “Don’t be scared.”

Her words were lies, she was going to eat him! But he couldn’t move, everything in his body hurt too much to do so. There was nothing he could do but accept fate. He closed his eyes. He hadn’t ever been eaten before but he had seen it happen to one of his brothers. He had seen his brother’s eyes just as the predator bit into him. They were so wide, so full of pain.

This was going to hurt more than what he was already going through.

But the pain never came. Instead, he felt something wrap around his shattered leg. He took the bold move of opening his eyes and saw it was a vine. A faint, green glow came from the vines.

“See?” The woman whispered. “It’s okay, nature will nurse you back to health. You’ll get a second chance.”

She was right, the vines had healed him. It had taken a few more days and a couple more remedies she made in her treehouse, but she eventually healed him better than he had been before.

He had always been taught that everything was a predator, but that woman had healed him. He would’ve died without her help, where she used her five-fingered hands to use magic.

He wouldn’t waste this second chance.

He had explored much more of the forest than he had ever seen before. And now, he hopped silently through the forest, continuing his adventure into the wilderness. Something was walking not too far away, he could hear it coming toward him. He went still, listening closely. Whatever it was, it was walking slowly, carefully, looking for something. Looking for him.

He began to slowly creep away, being as careful as he could to not rustle the leaves on the ground and trying to blend his black-furred body with the shadows.

He heard the creature’s feet pounce against the ground in his direction. He ran, hopping as fast as he could through the forest's underbelly. The creature was quick but was still a good distance from him. Even so, he could hear it gaining on him. How it had seen him, he didn't know. All that mattered was him getting out of dodge.

He dove into a hollowed log that lay on the ground and grew still, listening. Fear rushed through him as the creature’s footsteps stomped further toward him. The creature knew where he was, it had to! But he forced himself to stay still even so, if the creature knew where he was then he had no chance of escape.

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The creature’s footsteps stopped at the log. He felt his little heartbeat pound behind his fur and his body ached to quiver from the fear. He kept still, not even breathing.

There was a footstep, then another. Each one went further away from the log. The creature was leaving. He had done it.

He relaxed his small body, grateful to have made it out. His second chance hadn’t been snuffed out just yet. He was alive.

Carefully, he stepped out of the log back into the forest. He listened for the creature’s steps and heard them still heading away from him.

And that wasn't all he heard. He realized then there was a sound of small, padded feet touching wet ground nearby. Possibly, just maybe, it was another one of his species. Perhaps even a woman. He’d have to take the chance to go toward the sound. It was a risk but one he was willing to take with his second chance.

If he was right, it'd mean meeting a wonderful girl and they'd have children. It was a nice idea, it was something he could pursue and maybe actually achieve. All he had to do was not get taken out by a predator or fall down a cliff like last time. He just had to not be foolish and unlucky like last time. That was all it took to survive really, and with his second chance, it’d be easy.

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Fendrin didn’t even have to use a spell to take out the foolish rabbit that had been unlucky enough to meet him. He had seen it rum into the fallen log beside him to avoid the bendra coming for him. He had stood still and watched as the bendra left and the little rabbit walked out of the log. All it took to take it down was a simple stone, hardly even made a mess. Had that little retch not learned a thing about survival?

It mattered not, its new life would be much more worthwhile than its old one ever would’ve been. “Roth lig midrid paln,” He whispered. He put his index finger onto the rabbit’s side and pushed in between its ribs. “Palan madrad,” As the words passed through his lips, there was a bolt of energy that shot down his arm, through his index finger, and into the rabbit. The rabbit sputtered.

The energy was there. He pushed his mind forward, feeling into the magical void like the Necronomicon had taught him. He found the rabbit's consciousness floating in confusion. He nearly touched it to put it back into its body. This was simply an exercise to keep his magic fresh, he didn't intend anything fancy for the little creature. But then he sensed something else. Something ancient and so, so much bigger than this puny rabbit.

He tried to grasp it but couldn’t quite seem to form it within his mind. It was so shapeless as if perhaps it had never truly had shape before. No, that wasn’t right. It had a shape, it had something physical but he couldn’t quite grasp it. It was something so truly big it would never fit within his puny human grasp no matter how much magic he ascertained.

Was this it? Was this the ‘unholy’ spirit that society always talked about? But as he tried to touch it, merely scraping its edges like a fly, it didn’t feel similar to his magic. It didn’t feel quite like magic at all. There were no elemental bases, no concrete familiarity. Only form, only thought, only idea. It felt like he was a two dimensional shape trying to grasp the understanding of the third dimension. There was simply something he couldn’t and never would understand about it.

He tried to push himself into it, to try his hardest to understand. But that understanding didn’t come, just a headache that began to pulse through his mind.

He felt himself then reel back, as if the gust of wind of something big moved by him. And it had, it was the consciousness, the entity. It had moved, it was still alive.

He tried to back away from it but found no matter where he searched, all he saw was it. It was all encompassing, he couldn’t escape. He tried to close his mind away from it but found himself unable to open his eyes. Was this the end? Was he too late?

No, the consciousness wasn’t trying to attack him. It was gelatinous, unforming in its form. Like a cloud, it was simply passing over him.

It hadn’t even realized he was here in the first place.

But something else had. It was within the entity, that was why he hadn’t sensed it before. But now inside, he could feel it. It had a similar energy to this ginormous consciousness but it was different, much more similar to his own. Human. It was human. The consciousness was moving toward him. He could sense it reaching out to him, wanting him to accept it.

This entity was the unfamiliar wave he had felt while researching inside his shelter, that was obvious.

He felt something deep inside, something that irked him. This felt wrong, this felt unholy. Not his own magic. But this consciousness, this person, wanted him to join. Can I leave? Surely, but did he want to? He had been trying to become a Necromancer, to conquer death. This entity seemed to have conquered idea itself. Or had it always been like this? Was it simply just moving toward his planet as a means of travel?

So many questions he wanted answers. And this consciousness, reaching out to him, wanting him to grab ahold could give him them. All he had to do was accept. All he had to do was give in to the unknown.

He didn’t regret his decision, as a scholar of the unknown, he found there really was never a choice at all. He took hold of the human consciousness, holding it tight. The entity was suddenly gone. All that was left in this space of darkness was him, the rabbit, and this human. He pulled the human toward him, into him, and then down his arm into the rabbit’s body.

He was allowed to open his eyes once more. The rabbit's body was still. Had it all been a ruse conjured up by his mind?

No, there was a twitch. Then another. The rabbit’s stomach began to undulate. Then one of its legs moved slowly, stretching and testing its new body.

“Do you understand me?”

The rabbit hesitated, tilting its head at him, but then it nodded.

“Good, you will teach me what you know. After which, I will grant you a human body, do you agree with these terms?”

It hesitated again, thinking about its options. It didn’t want to agree, he could sense that within its cold, dead eyes. But it nodded once again.

“Good, come. We have a long journey ahead of us until we reach our destination.”

He walked past the rabbit into the forest. For a moment, the rabbit didn’t follow him. He thought it would try to run away, to take its new, small life and try to find a new way of life. He wouldn’t allow for that, he’d hit it with an acid spray in a mere moment if it tried that. But, ultimately, it started to follow him. It seemed to understand what Fendrin was capable of. He liked that, he was the one in power here. All that person was was a little, reanimated rabbit.

He smiled at the thought of all the things he could learn, the new powers he’d possess once he’d acquired the skill to use whatever it was that the entity he had sensed possessed. He felt that whatever it was, it would be powerful, very powerful.

But he had not lied to the rabbit, they were indeed far away from their destination in District Two and there was one big hurdle they’d have to cross through. The barrier.

But once they had made it across, he felt quite certain he’d be able to settle in nicely and use the bigger monsters there to make something spectacular. And with the new powers, he’d surely make something more than just spectacular, he’d make something devastating.

He’d be a ruler of a new world.