On the third day, Denise was able to come across something silver although she had failed to cross paths with an alternative food source.
The silver was actually something that looked like a leaf though very thick. The silver leaves sat on a stunted shrub that lived in the dark shadow of a large tree. The leaves gleamed like they had glitter, they also had strange ominous looking vines holding them to the ground.
The vines seemed to be sucking life out of something; either the ground or the large tree.
Denise rolled her eyes. Of course that wolf would send her out to pick poison in the name of seeing a god!
A second later, she noted that it did make sense that he would poison her. After all, how else would she see a god without dying?
She wondered whether the silverwhip was actually a silver leaf or something like that.
She poked the leaf several times with a stick just as a crude way of testing for poison even though it wasn't valid. Using a safer green leaf, she plucked three silver leaves causing the purple liquid in the vines of the silver leaves to squirt everywhere like chicken blood.
Denise jumped around, dodging the splashing purple liquid before leaving. She failed to notice the plant regrow quickly where it had been snapped and everywhere the purple liquid had fallen, new silver leafed plants grew at an alarming rate.
Her next move after that was to go to near dark areas, pick up weird looking plants and plant parts- except for a white round dome that hung one side of the bark of a tree. It looked like a gigantic white spot- the white spots that puffed into the fog.
She also collected all kinds of mushrooms, covering them with a leaf before she plucked them, in case they were poisonous.
That night, she didn't hear any hitting on her tree. She had specially made large fires. Instead, the night was filled with distant whimpers and cries. They sounded so desperate, as though pleading for a hope.
When morning came, the wolf arrived at her door promptly.
Denise damped all that she had collected at his feet, "here! This is what I found."
When a scowl started to appear on his face, she immediately burst out.
"Don't even say anything," she complained.
"I wasn't," he denied.
She mumbled, "I saw you opening your mouth. That's already saying everything."
"Opening my mouth! Saying everything!" he mimicked, "then what did I say?"
She had almost forgotten that he had super good hearing.
"Then what did I say," she answered.
"I'm asking you-."
"That's exactly what you said but I was being nice by erasing the part where you called yourself an arse for sending me out to find things I didn't know. Do you know how dangerous this forest is?"
"Ha! I'm the only danger in this forest,"
She cleaned her ears and scoffed, "my ears must be hearing things. I heard something weird about an overgrown puppy that runs with his tail tucked between his legs whenever it becomes dark."
His scowl grew deeper, "Xiao Hēi!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Your playing the wrong game by insulting my age,"
"I know, age can be such a sensitive topic. But its really hard for anyone to gauge your age when you fetch a stick to have fun,"
"Why would I fetch a stick?"
"Oohh! So you want to act like you don't know the basics of fetch the stick. You must be a pro in advanced 'fetch the stick' then."
"Here!" she picked up a thick stick from the ground and waved it in front of him, "Fetch!"
She hurled the stick outward. The wolf turned to look at it and Denise scoffed in triumph as if to say, he was no different from the puppies in her world.
Before the stick could get far, it hit the mark of a tree and bounced right back towards them. Denise screamed in surprise and ducked to dodge it and not get hit while the wolf simply watched the stick fly past him, unmoving, like mount tai.
The stick got stuck in the ground a few meters from Denise's foot. She stood up from the ground while watching the stick that almost took her head off.
She turned back to the wolf, "it seems your too good at fetch the stick. You don't even need to chase after it to get it. This is really advanced."
"There's a lot more I can do with a stick than just throwing it around," he grinned, "how about I show you."
He started to sort through the items she had brought and picked out some of them. He started to crash and mix several things. Most of which were foreign to Denise. He would disappear for a few minutes before returning with something new. Denise didn't bother asking because she knew he wouldn't answer.
He pulled out something black. It was pine shaped and composed of several long thin sharp needle like structures. Denise silently guessed that it must have been the chinTai needles he had talked about before.
"Come!" he called her when everything was done.
She walked over, "is this it? Are you going to summon a god with this?" She looked at the ingredients on the ground, "it a real witch's brew."
"Stand still," he ordered.
Without a clear warning, she splashed her with a green liquid. Since she wasn't prepared, some of it ended up in her mouth and stung like hot pepper.
"What the hell!" she shot at him as she tried to spit out every bit of the substance.
She hadn't seen him make any liquids or seen where he had kept it. She was only surprised to find herself drenched. The smell of the liquid hurt more than the taste of it.
"What the hell is wrong with-," before she could finish, he stuck something in her mouth.
Immediately, she spat it out. She noticed that the thing she had spat out looked like a ball of fur- to be more specific- grey fur.
Denise felt rage bubble inside her, "what the hell are you doing?"
He threw a fistfull of red powder her way making her sneeze and cough to get it out of her lunch. He smeared a purple substance in her body, ignoring her struggles. Finally, he pulled out a vine that seemed to glow with a silver light but had beautiful blue pearl like flowers.
Denise who was sneezing for the life of her failed to notice that. She would have concluded it to be the silverwhip he had wanted.
She felt her eyes swelling, "what did you put on me, I think I'm allergic to it."
He suddenly said, "the greatest fear any beings have is the fear of their own deaths, and that this fear is a barrier to spiritual enlightenment."
Denise's eyes peered at him under red covered eye lids, "why does it sound like you said something all Sherman like? Wait- why are talking about death."
"Today, I will slay a god!" he unconsciously raised his chest and stood majestically as if waiting for a standing ovation.
"Yeah! Yeah! That- what does that have to do with me?" her loudness of her voice and anger escalated quickly, "I am almoST Blind and caN't feel my TONGue. Who asKED YOU to do THIS TO ME. WHY WOULD YOU POUR ALL KINDS OF SHIT IN ME WITHOUT MY CONSENT, YOU SON OF Aa-."
The next thing she knew, she was dangling over a pit filled with chinTai needles. She was tied so perfectly with the silverwhip that she couldn't even move a muscle. The silverwhip was tied to a high up branch of a nearby tree. However much she wiggled and shook, which was barely possible, there was no way the silverwhip would snap and no way she could climb up to untie it.
No matter how she looked at it (not that she was bothered to look at it any other way), whatever she was looking at was a trap. That idiot planned on catching a god using a simple animal trap! That was no even the middle of her worries. The worst of them was that she was part of the stupid low grade plan and acting as the bait.
"YOU SMALL BRAINED! TWISTED- I'M GOING TO KILL YOU WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU! YOU SON OF A-."
The wolf was no where on the scene. Denise dangled freely for the better part of the day. When she finally regained some energy after all her screaming, she did some sightseeing.
She discovered that when she squinted her eyes, she could just make out, through the gaps between the trees. what looked like the yellow grass of the savannah. When she listened carefully, she could almost hear the wind howl gently.
To her bewilderment, she was happy to find out that she was at the edge of the forest. If she just managed to get away from the low grade trap, she could make her way away from the wolf and never return and live happily ever after.
Then she thought of where she would go after the forest. By some synopsis, she could tell that staying in the forest, where she first appeared, would be the best option since she could find what exactly brought her there. Maybe then she would be able to go back home. But what if she never went back to the beast world? Despite everything, she still wanted to know what was going on in such a world or why she was in it.
Maybe she could make a few discoveries and go back with them. But just the thought of making discoveries made her laugh. She was always to reluctant to face anything unusual. How would she find out the true purpose of anything if she wouldn't stick around long enough to study it?
'CRACK!'
'THUMP!'
'DAM'
Monstrous cracks and thumps suddenly sounded close by. Denise immediately broke down internally. She wanted to go home as soon as possible. Home where there was nothing unusual except more non-shapeshifting human beings.
'CRACK!'
A small creature suddenly appeared in front of her. It had hot pink fur and deep purple strips. It's eyes were a pale green and it stared, wide eyed, at her.
Denise; ...
Word count ; 1744
(A/N; I think I've seen a creature like that somewhere, in an animation. Maybe trolls or the orlex)
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