The view that greeted me was straight out of a fairy-tale. The trees must have been ancient. Huge root systems bulged out of the rich earth. Their branches twisted towards the false sky as if burdened by the weight of it. These were woods the Brothers Grim would have been proud of. They were the enchanted forest that little Red Riding Hood skipped through every morning and the ones that Hansel and Gretel got lost in. I half expected to see a cottage hidden in the trees. While distracted by this landscape, I was dumped unceremoniously a few meters from the doorway. It promptly slid shut. Apparently they weren’t taking any chances with my small rebellions.
I got to my feet and dusted myself off. I rubbed my bruised forearms absentmindedly as I took my first real breath since being taken. My feet brought me to the base of the closest tree of their own accord. My hands reached out to run along the bark, and to snag a leaf or two from the lowest branches. I might never have seen a forest like this outside of a picture book, but I knew Earth trees when I saw them. And there were strangler figs too, wrapped snug against their hosts’ trunks.
Feeling a strange urge to hasten the inevitable, I set out on the most direct route to the heart of the forest. As I walked, scanning for movement in the trees, I wondered what creature would be waiting for me. Presumably it would be from Earth, unless the forest was made for me. I didn’t give that idea much weight, even if something at the back of my mind kept trying to say; It feels like it’s made for me.
Much more likely to be a bear or wolf, I thought. Maybe a human. I didn’t see any evidence that a person was living here. No traps, no carefully maintained path, no manmade structures, no systematic environmental destruction… I paused for a moment to listen, and something about the way the trees pressed down on me then made me consider for one brief mad moment that I might end up having to fight a witch after all. I chuckled internally at the thought. Which will it be? Wolf or witch? I continued on, choosing my footfalls with more care as I approached the centre.
The man, when I saw him, was a bit of an anticlimax. He was probably thirty-ish, with a bearing that indicated both intense activity and a lack of adequate nutrition. An impressive array of irregular scars and newer wounds littered his bare torso. Some sort of stiff animal skin covered his lower half in an arrangement that suggested it was more for protection than modesty. I thought he must have been cold. Silver cuffs encircled his forearms in a mirror to my own, and there was something gripped in his right hand. It didn’t look like any weapon I knew of.
He turned to lock eyes with me a spilt second after I saw him, as if somehow responding to the intensity of my gaze. No surprise showed on his face at the sight of me, which I dimly registered as A Very Bad Sign. I very carefully didn’t reach for my weapon, and allowed a look of relief to colour my own. It didn’t hurt to be cautious. “Oh thank God, another human!” Apparently insipid and overly friendly was the role I had chosen to play. I took a few steps towards him, feigning uncertainty when he didn’t respond. “Hello? Are you ok?” then something did occur to me, and feeling like an American tourist, I added; “Do you speak English?”
He unstiffened slowly, and moved his lips as if relearning how to use them. “Yes.” He replied finally in a hoarse voice that hid his accent. “Yes of course.” His eyes ran up and down my body, taking in the axe at my side, sizing me up. His posture stayed tense.
I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t dismiss me as a threat simply because I was female. Once I straightened up and looked them in the eye, people were always thrown a bit by my height and bearing. They said things like “Ah shit mate, sorry”, and “Why are you looking at me like that, why is she looking at me like that?” in slightly panicked tones. And I hadn’t been slouching since I was taken. There was no need, no need to hide at the edges, no need to slip by unnoticed.
“I’m so relieved you’re human, I haven’t seen anyone else here, have you?” I rambled in an overly friendly tone. If I kept talking, kept him focussed on what I was saying, kept acting like I wasn’t a threat, maybe I wouldn’t have to fight him.
My feet had taken me within five meters of the man, and I judged that was close enough. He hadn’t put the thing he was holding away as I approached, but he hadn’t tried to hide it either. I could now see that it was a length of some sort of cord, and there was also a pouch by his belt. He was taking some time to respond, so I started up again, drawing inspiration from the countless overexcitable girls I knew at school who had always seemed to have so much energy and never tired of talking. “How long have you been here? Do you know who took us? Why do you think they want us here? I’ve come from an enclosure over that way, where’s yours? I’m so sorry, I’m asking so many questions, I’ll let you answer.” I attempted a smile.
“No, I… don’t know. I don’t know anything, that could be, that could help you.” His speech was halting, underused, but the fact that he was making an attempt and hadn’t immediately attacked me meant he wasn’t entirely feral.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I replied easily. I really did want to find out what he knew. Build rapport, I advised myself, sharing creates the obligation of reciprocation. It must have been something I read. “I’ve only been here a little while and I’ve found out a few things.” I launched into an overenthusiastic retelling of the things I had surmised in the last week and a half. I told him my thoughts on the musical notes that gave us clues as to what was going to happen, I talked about sentience and food rewards, all while he stared slightly off to the side and ignored all the pauses I left for him to comment. I told him about the aliens I had fought, playing up the luck that had lead me to win my fights, and leaving out telling details such as Critter and my forays into the world of alien cuisine. “And then I woke up with these cuffs and got dragged out here. Do you know what they’re for?”
“Like you said, they’re cuffs, shackles.” His posture had relaxed a lot, but occasionally he would glance around in a way that made me nervous. He seemed to realise more was expected of him. “Haven’t seen who took me, unless you count the Wisp thing, and I’ve been here a while – six months at least. I’ve had to fight near a hundred monsters… and I’ve beaten every one of them.” His eyes glanced up then, looking for a reaction.
I kept my face steady, but I didn’t know if that was what he was looking for or not. It didn’t seem like he was going to continue. “So, do you think they want us to fight then?”
He laughed, and it was such a normal laugh that my face broke out in a reflexive grin. “What else could they want, sweetheart? There’s only one other thing I can think of, and I don’t think they had it in mind when they put me in with the tentacled monster, or the minotaur, or the dinosaur for that matter. Of course, I’m always willing to try…“
That wasn’t where I wanted the conversation to go. I schooled my expression and tone into something approximating indignation, as befit the role I was playing. “They might want to see how well we cooperate.”
“Cooperate?” I didn’t like the sound of his laugh anymore.
“Stranger things have happened.” my response was weak and automatic. The fight was inevitable. I suddenly knew it, but didn’t let it show outwardly. He had known it from the beginning, he had just been letting me spoon-feed him information to better know my strengths and weaknesses. Well, I had also been paying attention. “Why do we have to fight?” It was worth one last attempt. “What happens if we don’t?”
“Oh sweetheart, you are new. I don’t know how you managed to get those cuffs.” He paused and let the cord in his hand unravel. It was a sling. “If we don’t fight, we only get the one warning, which should be happening right about… now.” His timing was spectacular. As the sound rang out, he took a step forward. He had a stone ready in the sling.
“And what does that mean? The warning?” I asked as I unhooked my axe and took several unhurried steps back.
“They send something in, something you can’t beat. I won’t go through that again.”
I ducked behind a nearby tree just as a stone flew through the air where my head had been. I decided not to stick around to see where he put the next one. Taking a jagged path to make it harder for him to aim, I put some distance and several trees between us.
“You won’t win,” He called out from somewhere to my right in musical tones at odds with what he was implying. “Know why?”
I edged around the tree I was leaning on, then darted behind a huge root system that had excellent cover. I didn’t think it was a good idea to answer.
He continued without my input anyway. “You’re too green. Too trusting. You’re not a survivor.” He paused, and I could hear his footsteps getting closer.
I eyed a girthy tree in the distance and prepared to move. “Hate to break it to you,” I told him in my normal monotone, “I haven’t been entirely honest.” As I ran to my new cover, a projectile spun past my ear.
He laughed delightedly. “Can’t convince me you’re not green. You’re still wearing the same clothes you came here in. I bet you don’t even have a single scar on you.”
“Maybe I’m just that good,” I retorted, “Your scars mean you’ve let yourself get hit.” This time I didn’t move from my cover.
“You’re just a little snake hiding in the grass,” He was closer again. “Come out and we’ll find out who’s right.”
I raised my axe and gripped it tightly. “I’m not hiding. You know where I am.” As he began to round the tree, I kept it between us as a barrier. He wasn’t coming closer, unwilling to give up the advantage of distance. Well I could play the snake as well as anyone. “I know the real reason you want to fight me.”
“What?”
“You’ve been trained.”
“What?” By his tone, I knew I had chosen the right approach.
“Sit, stay, go get him, that sort of thing.”
He growled.
It was me that laughed then, high, cold, and mocking. “Good dog.”
He did come closer as he rounded the tree then, and I was ready for it. I charged at him as he let off a shot that just glanced my abdomen. His aim was off, or maybe he had aimed too low, forgetting about my height. I was upon him before he loaded his sling again, and brought my over-polished stone axe down on the arm that held the sling. It hit his metal cuff with an awful scrape and thud, and he dropped the sling involuntarily as he struggled to scamper away. To his credit he didn’t scream, only let out a grunt, though his arm must have been broken under the metal. I picked up the sling and tucked it into a pocket. Some meters away he made it upright, and white-faced and sweaty, brought his fists up in a fighting stance.
The blow I had been dealt on the side was beginning to hurt worse than it had any right to. I was starting to develop some sympathy for Goliath as a result. “What, no melee weapon?” I mocked the man purposelessly, “It doesn’t pay to specialise, we’re supposed to be generalists you know.”
He responded with a noise that didn’t involve words and ran at me. I swung my axe in a motion that went wide, but caused him to duck out of the way enough for me to be able to put a bit more distance between us.
“We’re not going to fight anymore,” I told him, having finally wrestled control of myself from the ineffectual hands of spite, “We’re going to stand here, being cordial with each other, until they send in whatever it is you are so afraid of, and then we are going to deal with it.”
“No!” The vehemence in his voice was startling, though not unexpected. “It took me weeks to be able to walk again! I wont get lucky twice, it will kill us both!”
When he came at me again, I kicked out with my foot and hit him square on the chest. He folded and lay in the dirt for mere seconds before he was up again.
“You have to choose between me or it!” I bellowed, giving a few swings of the axe to ward him away, “And I’m right in front of you, I’m bigger than you, and I have a bloody axe!”
He looked me in the eyes, and by what I saw there I knew I would never reach him. “Yes,” He said simply and calmly, “But you don’t know how to use it.”
He came at me again, and took the full force of my next swing in his shoulder, but then in one deft movement, he spun and grabbed hold of my wrist. Pain shot up my arm, wrenching a gasp from my lips, and I dropped the axe to land between us in no-man’s land. I grappled him and pushed forward, forcing myself between him and the axe, while he repeatedly kicked at my shins. I had him slammed up against a tree when he kicked my knee at the right angle, and we fell in a heap onto the forest floor. He was up first and reaching for the axe, but I grabbed his animal skin garment and pulled. Mercifully it stayed on, and he toppled down beside me. Knowing that if he was able to reach the axe it was over, I rolled to pin him, stuck my hand into the gash on his shoulder and squeezed. He did scream then. I was playing dirty, but I didn’t have much time to hate myself for it with his fist hitting me repeatedly in the face and neck. I jumped up and away at the first opportunity, but he was up again and following.
I blocked a punch, and several kicks, while somehow managing to keep the axe behind me. I blocked another punch, but it was a distraction for the next one that landed well placed on my abdomen. I doubled over, desperate for the breath that he had forced out of me. A handful of dirt splattered against my face, rendering me temporarily blind. I hit the ground before I registered he was on top of me, and was manhandled face first into the dirt. A vice closed around my throat. He had me in a chokehold with my arms pinned beneath me. As I struggled, he tightened the hold and pain flared around my throat. I relaxed minutely.
Six minutes, the ever-helpful voice in my head supplied. Six minutes before permanent brain damage. Less to pass out. I had no doubt that as soon as I did he would get the axe. Quicker that way. Not entirely for the first time, I considered the fact that I might die. My throat was burning so much that it ate up all the other pain in my body and expanded. It was impossible that I was still able to think, but I was. I wanted air more than anything in the world. More than I wanted to see my sister again even. And I could still think through it. And I was going to die.
I relaxed into the thought, let the realisation wash over me, and as I did, I felt my body relax as well. The pain didn’t go away or even lessen. The indescribable need to breathe still racked my body, but neither of those things mattered in the wake of the understanding that I was going to die. For some reason I thought of Critter, stuck in a bare enclosure with food that would quickly run out, and no understanding of why I had left. To be honest, most of the time I wasn’t sure he knew I was there in the first place. Nonetheless, I imagined him waiting, the night growing colder as the fire died, surrounded by tools that were of no use to him. The spears that I had put so much energy into just laying there in a useless pile. My flint tools, laying… Not in the enclosure, in my cargo pants. The ones I was wearing.
I tested my arm. It was numb, but he had shifted his weight enough that I could wiggle it, and I did. I wiggled it out from under my body and down to the pocket where I kept my second flint hand-axe. The man hadn’t noticed, too preoccupied with checking if I was unconscious. I closed my eyes, gripped the hand-axe tightly, and with the last of my strength, brought my arm awkwardly around to the front. Without missing a beat, I took a swing up and back where I imagined his face would be. To my surprise, I felt it connect solidly with the side of his temple.
I think I did pass out then, if only for a second, because when I opened my eyes the man was coming back towards me holding one hand to the side of his face and the other around an axe. But at least I was breathing, I thought. If I died now, at least it was without that awful all-encompassing hunger for air. I felt a bit uneasy watching the man approach, but I couldn’t place why. Something just wasn’t right about the picture in front of me. That’s right, I thought as he hefted the axe onto his shoulder. That was my axe, I was the one who had made it, and I needed it back.
I don’t know how I got to my feet, or how I managed to swing my hand around to hit his face again and again, but in the end I had my axe back, and I could rest. I didn’t have the energy to tuck it into my pants, so I just focussed on not letting it drop. I need it, I told my hands, you can’t let go.
Somewhere in this hopeless daze, I felt my arms clang together and knew what was coming. I knew it was pointless to resist. Instead, carefully keeping my hands clenched around my axe, I rag dolled. If I was being honest, it was only partly out of protest and mostly out of necessity.
“Fuck you,” I whispered to the Wisp and the world as I was dragged back to my enclosure, “Fuck you.”
ToWitToWhom 