Stranger in the Woods

Chapter 11

When I woke up I was alone.  The woods were silent.  It seemed warmer and much darker and then I noticed that I was sitting against a dry wall of shale under an overhang.  It formed an alcove of about fifteen feet deep and about teen feet high.  I do not know how long I had been out, but as I moved and noticed that my pain was nearly gone.  I also did not know how I had made it to this place.  I was stiff but I had little trouble rising to my feet and walking to the entrance of the alcove.

As I looked outside, I realized that the entrance was at a drop off that went down nearly 100 feet. At the bottom was a stone creek bed.  I saw the dimming rays of the sun on the large wooded hill opposite the alcove.  I took a step back from the ledge.  I then noticed a well-worn trail leading around the corner of the alcove to my right.   I walked carefully over to the trail.  It was about four feet wide as I stepped out onto it from out under the overhang; a cool breeze blew across my face that refreshed me.  I stopped and closed my eyes.  The words of an old song came to my mind.

Down in the valley

Valley so low

Hang your head over

Hear the wind blow

It seemed so peaceful.  I felt content.  I turned and went back into the alcove.  As I examined it closer I saw that most of the shale on the ground had been crushed and there were small tufts of hair toward the back corner.  I picked up one of the tufts.  It was white.  I knew that it belonged to the unicorn.  I did not know how but the unicorn must have brought me here.  

I walked back to the ledge at the entrance and sat down with my legs hanging over the edge.  The cool breeze blew across my face again.  I held up the white tuft of hair and watched it dance in the breeze as I held it before my eyes.  My mind felt alert to the all my senses but numb to any complex thought.  I couldn’t seem to process what had happened or what was going on and I did not care.  I was here where I should be at the moment watching the tuft of hair from a unicorn in my hand blowing in the wind.

I then heard a thumping that sounded as if it were coming from above the alcove.  It seemed to echo with dull thuds around the woods on the hills across from where I sat. I got up and walked over to the trail and listened again.  I could still hear the thumping, an inorganic sound that seemed to grow and fade in intensity.  I also heard a faint snort from around where the trail turned a corner on the steep side of the hill.  Where the trail led was out of my sight, so I began to walk down it and away from the alcove’s entrance.  As I rounded the corner, the trail went up the hill.  It was well-worn and, although it was rather steep, I was able to walk up it with little difficulty.  I stopped when I made it near the summit of the hill.   

The unicorn appeared from the other side of the hill and stood at the top of the rise, about twenty feet away.  It remained at the summit stationary in the dim light of dusk.  I stood staring at it for a while and then began to approach it.  Again, the sound of the thumping came into my consciousness.  It seemed to have a motion to it, above me, beyond the tops of the trees, but it softly drifted toward the back of my mind as I approached the unicorn.  The creature alone occupied the focus of my attention.    

It huffed as I neared its side.  It was an enormous creature.  It was so graceful though.  So unreal.  I moved slowly to the front of the unicorn.  It still remained stationary.  I had a sudden sensation that something was wrong.  I felt very odd, yet not afraid.  I walked and stood in front of the creature and looked up at the tip of its beautiful horn.  Even in the dusk it sparkled.  It seemed to have a faint light of its own.  Indeed the whole creature seemed to faintly glow.  Not in an iridescent manner, but the pristine whiteness of it seemed to reflect whatever faint light still remained in the twilight.

I followed the horn’s length with my eyes to the long face and looked directly into the dark eyes.  They were pitch black yet seemed to be fluid in their blackness.  Pure.   I then noticed the unicorn’s breathing.  It was heavy and consistent.  It still stood stationary looking not at me but through me, as if in a trance.

An odd inkling came to my mind, like a thought put there for me to discover, and I had found it.  My mouth dropped as I pondered what began to become a revelation to me.  I moved slowly to the other side of the creature and then saw the dark black spots on its side with thin lines streaming from them.  The dark spots were circular and seemed to glisten and the thick dark lines fluidly ran from them down the side of the unicorn.  I reached out with my hand and touched one of the lines and felt the warm sticky wetness that I knew was blood.  I looked up to the heavens and silently wept.