It was as if she'd blinked, and gone from day to night in an instant. Tara let out a quiet gasp- it was so dark. She felt around for the cavern wall, only to realise she couldn't find it with her fingertips. Her hand just passed through the cool air as far as she could reach without finding resistance. Even if she reached right upwards, up and up until her arm hurt... there was nothing. Had the cave somehow widened that much, in the short distance she had walked? When she turned her head to look back the way she'd come, she saw no light, and wondered at this for a few moments. How could the brightness of the day have disappeared so quickly behind her? Maybe the sudden change from light to dark had muddled her senses... She walked forward, her curiosity over the cavern itself overpowering that uncertainty.
After a time of this, she was surprised to notice that the ground felt... spongy, beneath her shoes. Grass, in a cave? Though, she no longer quite felt like she was in a cave... Kneeling down to examine the ground revealed that her guess had been right, regarding the grass, at least. The thin blades of grass were just visible in the dim light, as her eyes gradually adjusted. She stared hard, willing her vision to sharpen faster. The grass in front of her just seemed to stretch on and on, and she was beginning to notice something else, shapes extending from the ground ahead. Her eyes followed the tall, thin structures upwards, to where they began to split and spread outwards... for an instant she didn't recognise them for what they were, squinting- then she saw what was above, and her eyes widened.
There was no longer a roof above her- there was only sky, at first clouded over but now clearing, revealing a miraculous array of unfamiliar stars. Tara gazed upwards in amazement. The shapes reaching up from the earth were trees.
The realisation was swift and absolute; even for a child who had discarded all fairytales at the same time she'd left behind Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Tara had discovered another world. It was undeniable- the cavern was magic.
With the sky clearing, she could make sense of her surroundings by the light of those strange stars. There was something unusual about them, though she couldn't quite understand what it was. Her father often liked showing her the constellations when she was allowed to stay up late, and she had grown familiar with the pattern of stars in the sky above her house. These stars made different shapes altogether- she would have to bring her father here someday and show him, she thought. There was no doubt in her mind that she was going to show her family this place; they would surely love it.
She was in some kind of forest, trees scattered around her with their branches reaching tentatively up to the sky. It seemed wetter, here- maybe it had recently rained? They certainly weren't in drought, at least. Thick moss clung to the tree trunks, soft to the touch. It was different than any forest she'd known. Not dry like her hometown, prepared for merciless sun, nor as teeming with life as the rainforest she had once been to with her family on a holiday. It was quieter, here. She hadn't even seen a single bug.
Kenzie would be disappointed by that, she noted, though if anyone was going to be capable of finding whatever creatures lived here, it was likely to be him. When she brought them all here, her and Kenzie could climb the trees, their mother watching them, warning where not to place their feet. Though she couldn't do it anymore since her leg was hurt, their mother had once been an avid tree climber. Many of the trees here didn't have branches low enough to reach easily, she noticed- Kenzie might have to lift her up, then jump up himself. Maybe if Tara looked hard enough, she could find a smaller tree for her mother to climb...
Another time! Now, she wanted to go home and tell them of her discovery. Kenzie would be downright disappointed if she solved all of this place's mysteries before he could come and see them. It wasn't his fault that the high school started the holidays later than her school did. With the summer holidays starting for him tomorrow, they could explore as much as they wanted!
She turned back around, with the intent of returning to the cave. It wasn't there. The way she had come looked to be just more of the same dark forest. A different placement of trees, maybe a few fallen branches... but no cavern that she could see. Maybe she had walked father than she'd thought? No... surely not that far. She'd been walking straight, anyway.
This was when her excitement began to wane, a worm of fear finding its way in. She reasoned it away as best as she could. Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to locate the entrance. When she was standing close by on the outside, she'd felt the cool air of this place, passing through. So, if she could find a place where she felt warm air, the passage was probably nearby.
With that simplistic logic, she went back the way she'd come, looking carefully as to not miss anything. She stretched her hands and arms out to sense any changes in the air, making her movement look almost like a slow, spinning dance. All the while, her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, drinking in the wonder of this new reality.
The trees stretched up much higher than the ones at home did- and moss hung thickly from the tree-trunks, the same that had been growing around the entrance to the cave. Or so she thought, anyway- Tara knew very little about the moss from her world, let alone the moss from this one. As she walked, focused on the temperature of the air around her, she searched for any wildlife. Back home she surely would have heard something by now. A kangaroo, or a rabbit, or few birds, disturbed by her footsteps and feeling in whatever direction was safest. But this whole forest was immensely silent- only the slightest breeze stirring the leaves... Or at least it had been, until now.
The wind caressing her outstretched hands was no stronger than before, but she heard a louder rustling in the foliage. A branch crunched, somewhere ahead. It didn't sound like a branch falling, and besides, the wind wasn't strong enough for that... was there someone else here? Should she call out a "hello", and hope that they knew where the exit was? She stayed quiet, hesitating- not yet feeling fear.
Then the breath- the growl. A deep, rumbling thing that made her heart beat a fiercer pace, made her take a step backwards without thinking. Her 'friendly greeting' died before it reached her lips. That was not a friendly sound.
Even before the sound of that something faded, another growl rose- this time from behind, and to her right. She turned- she couldn't see anything, not yet. Just the same expanse of forest in all directions, empty and dark and no longer still.
Then another, another, all in chorus. A sound that didn't rise in pitch, only in volume as they drew closer on all sides. There was no direction she could move in that moved away from all of them- any step would bring her closer to the source of one of the sounds. She was frozen. Surrounded. Prey.
She hugged her drinkbottle close to her chest, feeling the desperate thud of her heart even through it. A long moment of quiet, then. The moment before her simple trust in this world was shattered, never to be put back together.
Motion.
Quick- a blur of grey in the corner of her vision, off to her right. Coming towards her.
Her survival instinct, screaming.
Run- but where do I-
RUN.
She fled in the direction she thought the cave might have been, praying the creature that had growled from this direction before had moved. Maybe there weren't as many of them as it sounded like there was. Maybe the sound just carried further in the still air. The cave had to be here somewhere, didn't it? It should be here. She could have ran right past it without realising, but she wouldn't risk stopping-
A wet, open-mouthed snarl ripped through her thoughts. The source of the sound was in front of her, and it was big. She screamed and changed direction- left, ducking between the close trunks of two trees so quickly that she only got a glimpse of the thing. It slammed into the trees behind her, unable to force itself between them- all she could do was keep running.
That glimpse would linger in her memory for a long time. Larger than her, larger than an adult- though her memory would make the creature even larger, fitting the fear she felt of it. If Tara was a child afraid of dogs, she would have likened it to a dog. But the dogs she'd known had been friendly, the kind of creatures that she didn't notice the teeth of. She knew this only as a thing, a huge and terrible thing with sharp, dripping teeth and small eyes that stared her down.
Another rose up out of the dark before her- she ducked behind the tree to her right and kept on running as its momentum caused it to run past, too late to turn to catch her. She felt the heat off its body for a terrifying moment, but it barely registered in her mind. She was already as terrified as it was possible to be.
She was surrounded. They'd made their way around her before closing in and now she was surrounded. She heard the thud of huge steps coming from ahead, rhythmic, running, ready to bear down on her.
Run. Can't run. Run- Hide. Have to hide.
She was standing still, gasping for breath, eyes roving for anywhere, anything that might provide safety, that might let her live. She stretched out her hands again to feel for warmth in the air, but she could barely feel them.
She wanted someone to save her. Her mother would know what to do. Kenzie would know what to-
Tree.
She didn't stop to think if the creatures could climb. Maybe on some level she had associated them with dogs, and had assumed they couldn't- or maybe she was just going to take the chance.
She scrambled up the tree as best she could- jumping to get a hold in the tree's first fork, kicking her way up, bark and moss crumbling beneath her fingers as she clawed her way from one branch to another. She wasn't thinking, anymore. She was barely seeing, the only thought in her mind was up. The tree shook beneath her- a heavy weight thudding into the trunk, claws carving chunks out of the lower branches. But she was beyond them now, always seeking the next handhold.
It felt like a long time before she stopped, clinging desperately to a branch barely thick enough to hold her weight. Her drinkbottle and her flowers lay somewhere scattered on the forest floor, dropped in the chase. Her legs and arms stung from a dozen tiny cuts and scrapes.
Beneath her- so, so very far beneath, she didn't think she had ever climbed up this high before- she could see them, still. The black and grey and tan of them, the big eyes and teeth of them (though this was mostly imagined, she could only make out the blur of their faces), staring back up at her, unable to follow but wishing to. So very much, wishing to.
How long would they wait for? She didn't know.
She sat up in the tree and cried, trying to be silent but failing, for a very long time.