Forest Nightingales - The Forest Wants to Play

Another Truth

We eventually find our way out of the old jail thanks to an idea Lancelot had after finding some rope, although, I have not climbed down a rope in years and the height was mesmerizing. One part of the forest looks the same as any other part to me as we make our way to the Oracle caves. The weather does not hold out and so the heavens open and the rains begin to pour. Lancelot seems to know where he is heading and to break the cold silence I ask him a question on something I heard him say,

“Lance, is it okay if I ask you, why did you mention John?”

Walking across a shallow stream he simply smiles.

“You mean when I made my marvellous entrance?!” He says with a hint of sarcasm. “Well, my name is John, not Lancelot”

John fills the canteen with water from the stream and takes a drink then offering me the canteen.

“I said my name was Lancelot because of how I am dressed, and I suppose I thought it was amusing at the time”

I ask 'why?' and he simply replies saying, “You looked like you needed cheering up, sorry”

The journey through the forest was long and arduous, but the gaps within my situation are filled by the talks that I and John have. He is John Dear one of the lost students that was unaccounted for and he also tells me that the John Dear that I had been talking to was in actual fact the tutor, formally named Andrew Weaver. They have all been trapped within the forest twenty years, not the forty years 'Andrew Weaver' had said.

There is a conflict in my mind to whom is telling the truths and who I am willing to believe is in reality helping me. To be able to comprehend the words from two people that say the same and one of them is telling me the truth, but I can not decide whom. He says that he hid in the cottage as neither Pythose nor Andrew dared enter the cottage as it would sap both their energies. Their souls are locked in the cottage and so as the cottage decays they remain untouched by time any further.

John tells me that we are coming to the edge of the forest and the only obstacle that stands in our way of the Oracle Caves is a dried glade. As we walk onto the glade, gazing at the mountains that reach the heavens, a chilling feeling remains with me. A feeling that all is not so simple and John also gets that feeling when an ominous wind blows by. John whispers to me, “Run on my mark” and we continue to walk, John waiting for a sign.

The ominous wind blows by, colder this time and John shouts “RUN!” for the sound of crunching leaves alert him to someone following us. From out the trees jumps the beast running with awesome power as it tears at the ground to get to us. The stench of its blood lust is so strong that nothing stands in its way for it just tramples them into dust. I run as fast as my legs will allow and as the mountains get closer so does the beast. John runs into the caves and as I follow I trip on a rock falling into the caves with beast grabbing hold of my shoulder hanging me in the air.