It was strange.

The hunters from her village were supposed to have returned by now. Surely nothing could've happened to them.

Elder Randy, or how Araya calls him, uncle Randy who was an ‏elite, a pillar of foundation for the entire village, was considered a force to be reckoned with even by the standards of other nearby bigger villages.

The young and the old folks of the village loved him and even after having crossed his 60s; staying young and healthy.

Even though she knew even knew the Garudan Forest was very wide, and most of it hadn't been explored, yet she believed nothing or no one could beat him.

While such a strange occurrence was not common, it was not like such a thing hadn’t happened before.

Samburu’s or their commonly called name ‘The long legs’ loved to drink red-tree sap alcohol. While Randy rarely drunk, he would let loose on rare occasions, happy or sad.

One such time was when they had hunted a cross-horned rhino.

That was a tremendous achievement even by the standards of the bigger villages and was the main reason their village could stand toe to toe with the number of accomplishments the bigger villages had made.

On the night he hunted the cross-horned rhino, he had drunk through the entire night with his teammates in glee.

She hoped something similar would be the case this time too, but couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

He was a father-like figure to her.

She still remembered the day where Randy had, by chance, encountered Araya and her mother on the outskirts of the forest.

~

“Come on, I’m sure we’ll find a village nearby”

Both of them were starved and cold.

At dusk, the forest was a hostile place for those who couldn’t protect themselves, yet her mother wanted to keep moving. It was cause she had hope, hope that they would find a village soon.

Yet the world didn’t seem to yield to her pleas.

There wasn’t a single village in sight.

The fact that most trees were tall and bushy didn’t help.

Soon after, both of them collapsed and night had come.

She had given up the thought of her survival and decided and to concentrate all her efforts on ensuring the survival of Araya.

Both of their hearts defeated; her mother pleaded,

“Garuda!! Isn’t the forest a place too scary for a lone child?….”

It was a last-ditch attempt but when she had told her friends about her plan to escape to the Garudan forest; they had mentioned as a casual fact that a guardian entity called Garuda protected the Garudan forest.

“….”

Other than the chirps of the few birds that hadn’t reached their nests yet, there was silence…

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Having expected this, she wasn’t too surprised, yet a look of disappointment was seen on her face.

Crack~

She quickly turned her up and saw a figure almost blending with the darkness.

It was Randy who had heard her shout. He realized it was a shout for help and had come rushing over, even leaving his team behind without giving explicit instructions.

She looked at him in disbelief, for she thought he was garuda.

“Oh Garuda, please save my child……… I will pay any price…even my soul, just to save her, so just plea-”

“Garuda huh?..” Randy cut her off with his deep commanding voice

“Well, I guess even I used to believe in such mythical beings”

“Huh?…..”

Confusion was written all over her face.

She firmly believed for a second that he was Garuda due to how coincidental his arrival was with her plead for help.

“Yet to think there would be a day I would be mistaken for a being like Garuda…..ha!”

He chuckled as he took off his black scarf.

Even if she could make out the upper portion of his face due to it being smeared in what looked like black dirt, she could easily understand that he was a person and so far he had shown no ill intentions; in fact, he seemed light-hearted.

“My names Randy, you?”

He didn't like to talk a lot and often cut straight to the point.

“….I am Molly and this is my child, Araya”

So far she liked him but was still wary of him.

“Oh! didn't notice the little girl there,” he said as he waved to Araya.

She remembered little from after she had waved back, but she remembered that a few more figures had come from the dark and helped her and her mother to their village- The Samburus village.

~

“Araya! Come help me put the clothes out for drying.”

“That odd bit of rain and wind yesterday has made things harder than they should be.”

“Ah!”

She was pulled out of the memory lane as she stepped outside to the porch where her mother was hanging the clothes for drying.

She heard her mother add to what she said before in a hushed voice

“Still, I wonder why Randy hasn’t come back yet. Did he get some good catch and is still drinking?”

She glanced at the wooden clock.

“Even in that case, he should’ve come back by now……..”

“…..”

“Mother, can I go fetch water from the river instead of hanging the clothes for drying?”

“Hm ok but make sure to not get lost anywhere……..and come back soon.”

She knew Araya liked to roam the forest, so she didn’t find the request odd.

Araya quickly hopped over and went over to her favorite spot near the lake where she had seen the weird object fell from the sky; completely glossing over the fact that she was supposed to take water from the river.

“Now that I think about it, could that have to do something with why Uncle Randy hasn't come back?” She pondered to herself.

After a few minutes of walking, she reached the spot and as she was about to reach there; from a corner of her eye, she saw something drop to the ground.

This made her slow down a bit and slowly peak from the side of a tree.

She saw nothing but a few odd humps on the ground…..

_

That was certainly close.

He was too careless this time. Being too absorbed in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed that someone had approached him.

Luckily, his body instinct helped him turn the liquid form and evade that person.

He climbed a nearby tall tree and observed the person who had approached him.

He saw observed that it was a female native of this world.

“It would be bad if she had connections with them,” he thought.

He watched as she inspected the pits where he had buried them.

She seemed to have understood what was in the pits as she rushed off in the direction where she had come from.

“Oh well, that's that. I'll have to leave soon before this becomes more of a problem than it already has become.” He thought to himself.

He had been a weird feeling for some time now and it seemed like it's body was trying to give him directions. He decided to go in the direction where his body wanted him to go.

As he was travelling, he had made a point to himself to never to do what he had done before and create weird soul connection with a dead person or animal till he could control it properly.

The emotions that he felt were artificial and were not his. It was mainly why he could recover from such intense emotions so quickly.

Being affected by such artificial emotions could damage him in the long run.

He went on leaping from tree to tree, covering enormous distances until he observed a colossal tree that was about a 150 meters with a girth of about 10 to 12 meters. He was thoroughly confused.

How could he have not noticed that giant tree from afar?

The vegetation was also getting thinner, showing that he might be moving to the outskirts of the forest .

He felt that this had to do something with the strange feeling his body kept sensing.

Soon he approached the base of the giant tree.

The vegetation was thicker just around the base of the giant tree.

He tried focusing on the feeling.

It was coming from the giant tree……..but not quite; it was from a figure sitting near the tree….