Chapter 21

Magical Beasts

As Grey got closer, the rumbling got louder. He paused every moment to listen to the ground. The forest changed as he approached the large creature. Fauna spread out and his feet touched what seemed to be humungous leaf. Lilies twenty-feet long, their long sepal leaves, swaying beneath him. He was careful not to fall off their edges, he didn't know what lay below these lilies. It wasn't water that surrounded him, but something sticky and wet. A viscose goo that clung to his walking stick that prodded in front of him. He crawled past on the lilies, afraid to stand up. A sweet smell filled the air. Jasmine.

A soft growl came from behind him. Grey froze.

Grrr....

A growl that traveled through his body. Grey's thoughts raced. His breathing slowed. He lay flat. No sound. No movement. Grey could not hope to outrun anything. He could only wait for danger to pass. The creature was near him, a few feet away. It's paws pressed softly on the lilies, sharp talons digging into the leaves. Grey could feel the lily he lay on sink into the goo. His feet touched something damp, but even so he dare not moved. Fear rising in his chest. He might drown like this. Drowned by fear. Deeper he sank. His waist. His arms. His neck. He waited, resisting the urge to scream as a deep wetness covered his body. As the slime reached his head. The thing flew off. It's mighty wings beat in the air. Paws of a lion. Wings of a bird. A flying beast.

Grey paused for a moment, waiting for the beast to get far enough away, then began to wade through the goo. His mouth barely over the surface. His head almost completely submerged. Beat. Beat. The beating of his heart. He calmly reached forward. Using his hands and feet. He began to part the goo as if he were swimming in slow motion. If he moved too fast, the goo would pull him down faster than he could swim. His hand clung to a nearby lily. Using the sticky goo, Grey slowly pulled himself on top of the lily and out of the slime. His stick and bag lost behind him.

Breathing hard. His nerves racked. Grey threw up. An acid smell filling the air. His mind swirled with worries. He didn't know why the monster didn't notice him. Was it the mud? Was it sleeping and just woke up? Grey thoughts turned towards the sound in the distance, the rumbling couldn't be heard from these lilies. He had to make his way back to solid ground to find that large beast. He placed his hand on the leaf, feeling its firm texture, and crawled the rest of the way through on all fours completely terrified.

After a few hours, Grey had made it to solid ground. The moss on his hands. His heart felt a sigh of relief. He placed his head on the ground again and listened, but he could no longer hear the distant rumblings of that enormous beast. His mind sank in worry. He hadn't found anything. His throat parched with thirst. He sat in a stupor wondering what he should do next. He had to think. He had to be clever. What could he do to survive? He listened to the sounds in the forest. The birds their shrilled calls, some loud and noisy, others soft and melodious.

His mind thought back to his days in the mountain. Most birds stopped their calls during the day. And even if there were several birds here that called during the night, their calls must certainly be different. He could use this to tell when he needed to rest. When the day birds stopped their calls it must be night, and night was when most beasts were active. The question was how to sleep without being attacked? He thought deeply. His hands grasping at the things around him. Sticks, leaves, trees, dirt.

How could he use this? He couldn't hope to build a shelter made out of wood and leaves. He would have to gather all the materials and tie them by hand completely blind. Something he had never done before in his life. It might take him hours into the night by then he might already get attacked. Also, with him moving all the time it wouldn't be possible for him to consistently get back to camp. The ground itself seemed to change with things disappearing and appearing at will. If he waited a few minutes, everything around him would change. He had no way of telling direction.

His hands touched upon the dirt and then a reed that lay next to the lilies that he passed by before. He thought about drinking the weird slime that lay near the lilies but then thought against it. If it was poisonous that would be sure death. If he got desperate than perhaps he would try, but for now he would try to avoid such a bad ending. He cleaned the slime off his body, rolling over the ground and letting it stick to the dirt, wiping his hair clean using the dirt. He felt around after cleaning the slime and took a few reeds, leaves, and sticks he could find. He touched each one, getting a feeling for their shape in his mind. He tried to imagine a way to use what he had. His hand touched the ground again. Dirt. Dirt. Dirt as a shelter? He could maybe make the dirt his bed?

He tried digging into the dirt and found it spread rather easily, as if it were a soft clay. He could dig a hole. Dig a hole like a rabbit! Excitedly, Grey began to dig into the ground. He spent several more hours to part the dirt. He lay the entrance with leaves and sticks. Once he had a space big enough to fit his body. He heard the calls of the birds change. The loud shrilled voices becoming soft pale 'hoots'. Owls. It must be night now. Grey lay in the hole and slept. He passed his first night in the forest.

~~~

In the early morning, Grey woke up to a dry feeling in his throat and a grumbling in his stomach. He was still in his hole. He pressed his ear against the ground to listen to his surroundings. Nothing moved. Birds began their morning calls. Grey brushed aside the leaves and sticks he had put in the entrance of his shelter, and crawled outside. His body felt a little different. A little stronger. When he took in a breath of air. He could feel the air passing through his lungs. A cold gust of air that lingered in his chest. Was he awakening? He remembered Iris saying they would feel a change after staying in the forest. He had to find his meditation area quickly.

He crawled on the ground, feeling the forest around him. His sense of touch had gotten better. Grey could feel earth beneath him. It was small, but it was as if he could sense the world a few centimeters from where his hands and feet touched. He found himself touching a piece of grass he had sensed earlier in his mind. Grey crawled over a rotten log. His hands then touched a soft leaf. A row of ferns. He could hear a gently vibrations through the ground. A beast. He lay low. His heart as calm. The beasts moved slowly in through the forest. Their movements neither quick or slow. They simply moved from one location to another in a leisurely manner. Grey drew closer, wondering if the creatures were like deers.

He crawled on all fours, breathing on the ground. He made his way to one of the moving beasts. So close. He heard the subtle chewing of teeth on grass. His mind relaxed. Unthreateningly, he kept close and waited. He could use this right? His head hurt from thinking, but he had keep himself collected. Ready. These creatures ate grass so that must mean they weren't hungry for meat. So staying near them wouldn't be too dangerous as long as he didn't upset them. They also probably had a way of sensing danger so he was safer near them and could use their senses to his advantage. And lastly, these creatures must go to a pool of water sometime in the day. He only had to follow them to find his water source.

He lay on the floor of the grass and waited. The forest all around him. He let his mind drift to the world and began to meditate. The leaves rustled. The wind blew. The earth shook. The trees swayed. The air it began to do things. A light shined beneath him. He could not see it, but the light was filling the earth. He could imagine it in his mind. Tiny particles of light rose up from the ground. Little white balls of fluff that floated in the air and touched the trees. Where they touched things grew and became life. The leaves as they fell to the ground they dispersed into light, returning power back to the earth. It was all connected.

His mind returned to reality. The sounds of the beasts moving off to the distance. Grey followed them. His mind clearer than it had ever been in all his life.

~~~

The creatures led him to a stream. The streambed was a trickle of water. Grey could lay on top of it and block it from flowing, but even so, the smallest water source was still water. He drank his fill, washing his hair and clothes. The creatures he had followed stood and filed in like a line, drinking one at time. They were much more slower moving than Grey had thought. He had one brush up against his face, curiously inspecting him. It felt scaly, a big snout that sniffed till it was content. He wondered if now he was a part of their herd?

He drew close to them and reached out with one of his hand and pet its back. A back hard with a protective shell. A turtle? He crawled amongst them and began to familiarize himself with their personalities. Each turtle acted a little bit different. The largest one liked to cough and spit and things it liked. It found a spot and spat everywhere and stayed there for a good thirty minutes. The one with a two bumps on its shell liked to brush its face up against things. It rubbed on the rocks and on the trees and on Grey's face. Grey grew fond of this turtle and named it Kuu.

He spent the rest of the day living amongst these turtles, learning their sensibilities so that by the end of the night. He could rub and prod the turtles in the direction he desired. If he could not see, then the turtles could see for him! He could still make his way to a better spot to cultivate. He fell asleep content. From the distance, a large owl, larger than any creature, a seventy feet long flew over the forest. It's gaze piercing it howled through the night. A howl unlike any other, it silenced all sounds in the forest, leaving only a faint lingering vibration in the air. A human scream could be a heard from a distance, but in the morning it had faded. Too far away to wake Grey from his sleep.

And thus, Grey passed his second night in the forest.