A Stress Free Environment

by SimpleDude

Ch.2 A Stroll in the Woods

Josh had a few choices at hand. He could go back to his camping sight and forget this little incident had ever happened and totally abandon being brave and adventurous. For no reason other than instinct, he could follow the big scary lion-thing, or he could take the horse creature back to his camp.

Obviously there were hundreds of other options, but these were the ones that stood out the most to him. The first choice seemed alright, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. The second option was solid if he had a death wish. The buff lion-thing was scared when it first saw Josh, but that was probably only because it had never seen a human before.

‘What exactly is that creature anyway? It has the body of a lion, wings of a bat, and the tail of a scorpion. From what I can remember from my mythology class, all of its body parts point to it resembling that of a manticore. This place, wherever it is, has some interesting creatures populating it.’

The next time the manticore saw Josh, the result would probably not be a pleasant experience, since it would have likely figured out that Josh was harmless to a big predator such as itself. So it was final, Josh was going to go back to camp, but bring the small horse along with him. That was, if it was still alive. That manticore had hit it pretty hard in the head.

With slight caution and a bit of nervousness, Josh walked over to the location where the small horse had taken a hit. Now he could get a good look at it and see some details he had yet to pick up on until now. The animal had this tattoo of what appeared to be the Andromeda galaxy on its flank.

‘Who would be cruel enough to tattoo a helpless horse? Also, that is quite a peculiar tattoo for an animal to have. To be fair, it was just fighting a manticore.’

It was an interesting question that Josh was soon distracted from, on the account of noticing more noteworthy details. The colors of the equine were very out of place for an animal such as this, despite its incredible uniqueness.

“What are you?” Josh received no reply, but he hadin’t really expected one though. It’s not like the animal could talk and answer back. He laughed at the thought.

‘If only that was possible…’ Moments passed until Josh picked up the equine and hoisted it over his shoulders. He could feel the slow but steady rise and fall of its chest, which obviously meant that the creature was still alive.

It wasn't as heavy as he had originally thought, but that didn't mean it was weightless. Good thing he was used to carrying large backpacks on camping trips.

“I better check you for any cuts or bruises. You took quite a whack to the noggin,” Josh said to the equine on his shoulders. He wasn't sure why he was talking to this unconscious winged horse like a children's doctor, but it's not like that was the weirdest thing that had happened this day.

After checking the bat-winged horse for any injuries, Josh concluded that it would probably be fine as long as it got some rest. He was no doctor, but it looked relatively unharmed besides a few scratches and the fact that it had been hit in the head by an animal with a giant scorpion tail. It was hard to see any bruises underneath all of that fur, but it's not like he could do anything if he discovered any bruises anyway. All he had to cover up the small cuts was his bandana, and he only had one at the moment. His first aid kit was back at camp in his tent.

‘I should probably go ahead and get back to camp. No point in standing around.’ After one good around the area for anything that he might have missed earlier, Josh was off. With a strange creature on his back nonetheless.

While walking back, Josh was surprised at how much the forest now looked like the Amazon Jungle. It seemed as if the trees had grown and the brush had gotten thicker overnight, of course likely from this being a dream…

‘Surprising I didn't think of that at first. You would think that that would be the first thing I would have thought of, but then again, dreams tend to not want you to know that you are dreaming for some reason. Wait; so since I am dreaming, doesn't that mean I can control anything I want?’

Josh had stopped walking, a childish smile spread across his features. He couldn't remember the last time he had a lucid dream, but he knew they were the best type of dreams, since whoever was having the dream could control it.

‘I wonder if I could give myself wings and fly back to camp. Let's give it a shot.’ Josh had always enjoyed the exhilarating feeling of flying in an airplane, but he had wanted to feel what it was like to be truly one with the sky. Airplanes were nice, but they had their limits.

It would be awesome to be in control of a pair of wings. Josh knew it was a strange thought, but it didn't matter as long as the feeling of flying was as amazing as he had hoped.

Josh closed his eyes and imagined himself having a pair of wings.

‘Aanndd nothing, well that was a bit of a letdown. I was almost certain that would work.’ Josh was hoping that he could get his little wish granted, but apparently that wasn't going to happen.

‘Just when I was getting my hopes up too. Maybe I will be able to control my dreams in the future, not now though.’ Since there was no wing power bestowed upon him, he decided to just shrug it off and continue traveling back to his camp. The animal he was carrying needed bandaging and a good place to rest.

Josh had just now thought of a minor detail that he failed to notice earlier, what was he going to do with this creature in his possession? He needed an answer for this question when he got back to camp.

‘I could just tie it to a log after I tend to the few scratches it received in the confrontation with that manticore. After it has woken up and calmed down, I could let it go back into the forest. The “tying to a log” part might seem cruel, but think about it for a second; this equine was taking on a manticore that was much bigger than it.

I wouldn't want to be at the receiving end of this animal’s attacks, whatever they may be.’ Josh argued with himself. As if on cue, the equine yawned in his arms, which gave Josh a front row seat to see what kind of teeth this creature possessed. He sure didn't expect what he saw.

‘Yikes! This thing has vampire fangs! To be fair, why would I have expected anything other than the most outlandish possibility out here? It also has bat wings, so that kind of makes sense.’

This new discovery did, however, make Josh a little more nervous about this vampire-like creature. If watching old, scary, monster movies had taught him anything, it's that this thing would be dangerous and that he needed to get away from it as fast as he could. He opted to get back to camp as fast as he could, for now.

He needed to treat the vampire horse, and get it tied up so that it wouldn’t bite him and drink all of his blood. If it drank blood that is. It was certainly a discouraging thought for Josh.

To get his mind off of things, Josh decided to observe his surroundings while walking back to camp. The trees looked like they had been stolen from the Amazon rainforest, and so did all of the thick forest canopy that enveloped the trees’ roots. Not too far away from where Josh was walking, was a stream. Not a very deep one from the looks of it; however, it was moving quite rapidly for such a small stream. It was probably a part of the river back at his camp.

‘I wonder what caused my brain to have this jungle-themed dream. Probably just having this sort of dream because I am camping,’ as Josh was finishing up his thoughts and observing the wilderness around him, he noticed that he was walking up to his campsite. Relief filled Josh, and he soon felt his inner tension dissipate. It was almost as if these crazy things hadn’t even happened, but they did happen, and there was a creature in need of some help.

‘At least I will have plenty of time to read after I look at what little wounds the equine has.’

---

Josh took a deep breath, something he hadn’t done for a while. This experience had been both exciting and crazy, but now it was time to sit beside the fire and read a good book, while at the same time keeping an eye on the equine that he had tied up and brought to his camp not too long ago. The sun was in the middle of the sky, so it was probably around noon. That would leave plenty of time to read.

‘Finally, some time to relax. Though, I wonder if I will remember any of this when I wake up. It would be a funny story if I told my friends about all these crazy things that happened in my head.’

After Josh picked up a book and started to read it, he noticed that it was full and every page had comprehensible words in it.

‘How did I remember all these words? I haven't even finished reading this book, unless… unless this isn't a dream…but there is no way that is possible,’ Josh quickly shrugged the unwanted thought off of himself and went back to his reading.

To Josh, the chance that he was in a dream was around ninety nine percent, that one percent being the off chance that this was real. It wasn’t very often something happened even though the odds were almost completely negligible, but sometimes the world would say…”Screw you probability!” and it happened anyway. This may have been one of those times.

Author's Note:

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below. Thank's for reading!

Comments

[Aerigim]

camping sight

site as in location not sight