Jake woke up feeling trapped, struggling to breathe in the dark. He tried to sit up, but his head slammed into a wooden roof inches above his nose. Gasping for breath he tried to reach out and push up to free himself but found to his hour his arms were pinned tight to his side by the close confines of the walls around him. With horror, Jake realized he was trapped, unable to move. Jake tried to scream for help but his mouth wouldn’t open, it felt sewn shut. Across from him, by his feet, he saw a split begin to appear in the roof above and dirt began spilling into the box he lay in. He flailed around, desperate to try to stop the leak but it was no use. Soon his entire body was entombed in the dirt, and before long his head sunk below the ground, as he let out wordless screams for help.
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Jake sat up with a scream. Quickly feeling his mouth to find it unsewn and finding no sign of dirt stuck to his body, it took him a moment to calm down and regain reason. Looking around the camp site he saw the trio in various states of preparation.
Leopold was still asleep on the ground, having given no response to Jake's startled cry and Lana sat nearby bundled in blankets reading. She gave Jake a worried look after his cry but didn’t call out to him. Rick meanwhile still sat where he had last night during dinner, and it looked to Jake as if he hadn’t moved a muscle since he saw him last. Looking around him, Jake saw no sign of a knife near his bed. It wasn’t Rick who woke him up this time, but rather his own night terrors.
Rick glanced toward Jake, who was still a little out of it following his dream, before letting out a sigh and standing up. He shook his legs out a bit and stretched out his arms before walking towards Jake.
“Get up kid, you’re going hunting with me.”
“What?” Jake asked, unsure if heard Rick right as he was still a bit disoriented, “How can I hunt? I can’t even hit the tree properly.”
Rick shrugged saying,
“Experience is the best teacher kid.” Before he hooked Jake under the arms and dragged him upright to his feet. Still confused, Jake figured arguing any further would be mute and let himself be led away into the darkness of the forest. He was glad he kept the knives lent to him in his pockets at all times since the wolf attack, as Rick left him no time to gather any sort of luggage.
Jake thought they’d keep walking deeper into the forest, but he found himself walking along. Turning, he saw Rick leaning against a tree bathed in a small swaft of light, still dwarfed by the light coming from the campsite they were hardly a few yards from. Rick looked deeply uncomfortable, his face stuck in a sort of scowl as he reached back behind his head and started scratching aimlessly.
“You know, I grew up in Largo mountains.” Rick said after a while, not meeting Jake's gaze as he stared at him with confusion. “Way deeper into the range, farther back past where you met us. But I grew up climbing those cliffs since I was a baby. Had no problem running or climbing the mountain paths or ridges, could do it blindfolded. But when I was old enough my dad decided it was time to take me down to the forest proper. Not the little patches of trees stuck growing in the mountain, a real proper forest.”
Jake leaned against a tree now across from Rick who cast his gaze firmly downward, avoiding Jake at all costs.
“When we reached the forest, I was terrified. I’d never seen so many trees in my life before, and I hated the way they seemed to sway, the way their branches obscured the sky above. I couldn’t move properly like I was taught up in the mountains. The idea of hunting down in the forest terrified me, it seemed like an endless sea of green that stretched on with no end.”
Rick gave a slow shake of his head, his eyes twinkling even as his lips tightened into what looked like a grimace on his face.
“My dad, he saw how scared I was and just said ‘Close your eyes’ before taking the lead and guiding me. The thought of entering the woods still scared me, mind you, but losing my way from my dad was even scarier so I just shut my eyes tight and followed behind him, letting him guide me. Know what happened?”
Jake shook his head no. Rick nodded before saying,
“Nothing. There was nothing to worry about in the first place. It was just the woods, was harmless before The Corruption. Of course, back then, it felt like a huge deal to conquer that fear, my dad leading me on.”
Rick looked up with a nod to see Jake's expression before saying,
“What, only you're allowed to tell stories?” He shook his head and got off from the tree he leaned on, moving as if to leave off into the woods before stopping. His whole body shook as if fighting itself, before with a sigh his head dropped and he turned back towards the tree, leaning against it.
“When the sky was stolen and The Corruption spread so rapidly, our little village didn’t know what to do.” Rick began again, a quiver of emotion in his gruff voice Jake couldn’t ever recall hearing before. “We tried our best to hold its effects off with torches, but they would always burn out so fast, and only magic really worked to hold it at bay. Of course, we never realized that. No one in our village specialized in magic. We thought it would distract us from the hunt. As time wore on, more and more people started going feral, more and more rabid. Unrecognizable. We… we put them down despite my protests. I swore I could see something in their eyes sometimes, something human still.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Rick reached up and wiped his mouth with his hands as he stuttered for a moment, his hand seeming to shake. Whether in rage or with something else, Jake couldn’t quite tell.
“Eventually, the game around us was infected as well and stopped reproducing. No more sex drive once they were infected, just an urge to kill. At first, it wasn’t an issue. Our hunts were coming to us, just made it easier to get the meat. But soon, a famine settled in on the village as all the game died off.”
“In desperation, my family would start sending me off on longer and longer hunting trips. Each time, I’d be away for days, weeks later on, at a time savaging what was left of the mountain for game. Each time, I’d come back a failure while my family would have dinner waiting on the table saying they’d bartered for meat or some monster had come to attack the village while I was out. I never questioned it much. All I noticed was the rotting, my mother and father slowly falling apart. They were losing hair and weight rapidly and their skin was beginning to slough off in flakes and turn gray. I just wanted to keep them safe.”
Rick stopped talking for a moment, a gloved hand emerging from the darkness to cover his mouth. He looked at Jake like he might vomit. When he continued his story, it was from behind the veil of his hand, like some sort of protective wall.
“The last time I left the village; my parents didn’t see me off. They didn’t wake from their beds when I called their names or responded to my calls at all. I… I just thought they were sick. It was while I was walking through the back rocks behind our cottage that I found it. Human bones, scattered in haphazard piles amongst the rocks, some with meat still rotting and dripping black blood to the floor. It disgusted me, and I knew at once what my family had done.”
“I rushed back to the village, I couldn’t have been gone longer than an hour, but it was too late. The ground was stained red, and corpses lined the pathways or dangled from the broken windows of the cottages that were still left standing. There couldn’t have been many of them, only fifteen or so, but that morning they rose from their beds as members of The Swarm and descended on the village. And, amongst them right in the center stood my parents.”
“I can still remember it now, the sight of them standing in their sleepwear, drenched in blood feasting on corpses. In horror, I called out to them, and in response, they just turned and lunged toward me. My father scratched me down my arm, rendered it useless for a while, and my mother bit into my chest. I managed to shake her off, but all that I saw standing across from me was death. My parents were gone, but I struggled to accept it till they lunged again. My mother caught hold of my shoulder while my father caught hold of my legs.”
“It was only blind luck that let me escape them, in their haste to devour me they collided with one another and their grip loosened long enough for me to escape. I ran, trailing blood as The Swarm who were once my neighbors followed. I only remember running in a blind frenzy, the paths and trails I spent my whole life learning useless to me in my panic. The last thing I can recall from my escape was falling, rolling down a cliff into a ditch, slipping into unconsciousness certain of my death.”
Rick removed the hand covering his mouth, his body giving a shiver, but he still refused to turn around and face Jake who sat listening in silence, spellbound.
“The next time I woke up, I was with a group of refugees from Largo. Lana had found me, collapsed by the side of the road. She healed me, probably saved my life. She let me travel with her family, and soon after I met Leopold. The two were kind to me, they didn’t needle me or ask questions about the mountain or The Swarm like others. They just let me heal, just cared for me.”
As he recalled his time with Lana and Leopold, his voice carried a brief tone of contentment about it before it darkened again.
“I couldn’t focus though. Couldn’t take my mind off them. I didn’t know how to feel anymore. I felt so distraught at their loss, yet so enraged and confused at their cannibalism, the way they massacred and destroyed my home. Our home, the home we’d built. I only found solace in one thought, the thought of tracking them down and killing them. No matter how long it takes, no matter what laws I break, I won’t stop. I’ll find them and make them pay. Then finally, they can lay in peace.”
Rick finished, turning towards Jake for the first time since he started. The shadows dancing around obscured his face, but his hands were clenched tightly into fists and there was an air of finality and determination about him as he spoke.
“You know kid, when we first met, I hated you. You slowed me down, and over the years anything that slowed me down was unnecessary. Not to mention we knew nothing about you, what sort of risk you posed. I was all for leaving you to die on the mountain, even if it made me a hypocrite.”
Rick said, shrugging.
“Then the longer you hung around, hate gave way to indifference to a feeling of deep discomfort when you hung around. Yet at the same time, I felt compelled to help you. I couldn’t understand why till last night. You remind me of me, kid. A me from not too long ago. Sure, there may be differences in our skill level, but the way you act, the way you think? Reminds me of myself from not too long ago. From a time, I’m not happy to remember.”
“But last night, more so than anything, I saw you had it too. That same drive, a goal you won’t stop working for till you achieve it. You’ll either achieve or die trying. You shared yours last night, thought it was only fair for me to share mine today.”
Jake gave a nod, unsure of how to respond to Rick from here on out. Rick seemed satisfied, turning back around from Jake and saying,
“Go practice with the tree some more kid. You were right, you're nowhere near ready for a moving target.” He stood there, waiting for the sound of Jakes steps to retreat into the background. After a moment he reached up and wiped his eyes clean with his hand, before pressing further into the darkness of the forest.