Prologue - A flashback and a fight.
~~Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains~~
Bright.
But of course, most sunrises are.
Even more so considering the fact that “sleeping under the stars” means that there is no tent in the way to block out the blinding light.
He planted one hand squarely over his eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position. From there, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and slowly stood up. He grabbed his canteen and strolled over to the cliff edge, gazing down at the valley that he would be hiking through today. From his high vantage point, he could make out the field on the far side of the valley, about a half-day hike out. Sighing, he turned back to his camp, simultaneously preparing breakfast as well as his mind for the trek the day would hold.
~-_-~-_-~-_-~
As the trail finally began to level out he let out a huge sigh of relief.
“Downhill is much nicer than uphill.” He thought to himself. “But flat beats hilly any day.”
Looking behind him, he retraced his path down the steep switchbacks that scarred the side of the precipice. The ache in his legs, quick to remind him of the ordeal he had just finished, brought his mind back to the present. He turned back around and continued on with his hike.
With nothing better to do while he walked, he began to reminisce about the life he lead. He had always been a pretty independent child, often preferring to play by himself than with the other children at school. Junior high and High school had both flown by in a rush of learning but, not surprisingly, did not leave him with any lasting friendships. The closest he had ever come to a true friendship was when he had teamed up with a classmate to play a co-op videogame together for two whole days before beating it. But of course, as is sadly often the case with sudden friendships, as time went on they lost track of each other, neither contacting the other until that bond from the video game was forgotten entirely.
After high school, he continued on into college. Unfortunately, he was not rich in any sense of the word, so he had to have his parents pay for much of his education. His parents, they were the bright memory in a sea of loneliness. They had always been there for him, always supported him through whatever he did.
He had been a Boy Scout for about 8 years of his life which was also where he found his love of the outdoors. During his time as a scout, he remembered, he worked as hard as he could to learn all there was to know about camping and backpacking; he even became quite proficient in first aid, a skill that had come in handy more times than he would have liked. However, there was one thing from his past that very nearly rivaled his love and appreciation of the outdoors. That one thing was the skills he gained from studying kendo.
As an early teen, his father had seen an ad in the newspaper about a program consisting of various Japanese martial arts, one of which was kendo. He quickly went and found his son and told him about this opportunity. Without missing a beat the boy bounced up and down repeatedly, simply bubbling with excitement. The very next week, the kid, now robed in the clothing provided by the instructor, was standing in line with twenty-seven other boys and girls just like him who were eager to learn martial arts. As the lessons continued, he learned self-control as well as how to properly wield a sword. But one day, his lessons turned very interesting.
~-_-~-_-~-_-~
CRACK!
The noise, loud as a gunshot, quickly silenced everyone present. There the young boy stood, legs slightly shaking, under the shadow cast by one of the older boys. Each of the students had been paired up to practice sparring and as their mock fight carried on, the young boy and his older counterpart eagerly began to intensify their actions. It continued like this for a few minutes until the older one, with a surge of adrenaline, drew his wooden sword back over his head and brought it swinging down with all the strength he could muster. Acting on instinct, the younger one brought his own wooden sword up, hands grasping opposite ends. As the sticks contacted, the one wielded by the older one managed to hit the other sword hard enough to make it actually snap in half, thus causing the loud noise that drew everyone’s attention.
The older one was staring down at his partner with looks of horror and apology playing across his face but to everyone’s surprise, the younger one was gazing intently on his broken sword. An idea played through his head and stepping back, he threw the top part of his sword aside, maintaining his hold on the handle with about a foot and a half of the sword itself. By sheer accident, he now, instead of the katana imitations like his classmates, had a short sword. Swinging it back and forth, he found that he liked the balance and the added speed with which he could move it. Setting his feet, he asked to continue the spar.
With a yell, he charged, swinging his sword in a wide arc; too late, he remembered that his sword was now two feet shorter than he had gotten used to. He missed spectacularly and the momentum from his swing spun him off to the side until he tripped over his feet and fell. He picked himself back up and dusted off his clothes, readying himself and remembering that he had to compensate for the loss of reach. But before he could advance again, the signal was given to end the session also indicating that the class was finished for the day. Turning to his instructor, he asked if he could practice his sparring with him, holding up his makeshift short sword. The man nodded, signifying his consent. They went at it well into the evening for many days in a row so that by the end of it the young student could handle his smaller weapon just as well as he could his previous, larger one.
When it came time for graduation, the kid had risen to be one of the top students of his class. And rightly so as he had proven himself rather proficient with a short blade; he had beaten most of his fellow students at least once. Standing in line with the other graduates, he recalled a particularly fond memory of one of his recent spars with his instructor. The whole class had started using real swords, carefully of course, and he had seen his dad using a machete to chop off sticks from a fallen tree branch the day before. The result was the kid bringing in his dad’s machete as his “short sword.” In the engagement that followed, the instructor was impressed; the machete seemed to be perfect in every way for the kid. That same machete was now strapped to the kid’s waist as he waited for his turn to be recognized. Every graduate of the program was given the sword they had trained with as a gift, so of course, as the machete belonged to the kid’s father, the gift became that much more specia-
~-_-~-_-~-_-~
The sensation of his right foot catching on the edge of a rock startled him back into reality. He took in his surroundings and realized that he had traveled quite a distance while he was under the influence of his subconscious. Gazing up at the sky, he guessed that it was probably late afternoon to early evening since the sun was in the process of sliding down towards the horizon behind a range of mountains. He turned back to his path and realized that he was nearly at the field he had set as his next overnight stop from way back at his cliff-top campsite.
Once he had reached his new camp, he set down his backpack and reclined against a tree stump, taking a long swig from his canteen.
“Nearly empty?” He held his canteen up to his face as if it would answer the question for him, “Sigh, I’ll have to filter some more water soon.”
Placing his canteen on the ground, he slouched a little and closed his eyes, relishing in the cool evening air. But a rustling noise followed by a low growl quickly roused him from his reverie. His eyes shot open and stared past the rose colored sky, his mind ignoring all sensory input save that of hearing in the hopes of locating the direction of whatever made those noises. “It” was to the left of him at nine o’clock. As he stood up, he began to silently draw his precious machete out of the sheath strapped to his belt. Turning to his left, he saw that “it” was not an “it” at all; “it” was a “they” and they were two large snarling wolves.
A single bead of sweat ran a track down the side of his neck, simply adding to and emphasizing the point that he was more nervous than a third grader before their very first play. He swallowed, trying to calm his nerves, which actually helped some.
“Okay, I’ve got to remember back through all those years to my time in kendo. That’s only about 10 years, no big deal right”
He let out a deep, guttural growl of his own. “Back off! Go on, get out of here!”
His only warning was a bark and a short howl before the closest one leapt at him. He swung his right arm up in an attempt to intercept the wolf with the machete but he was too slow. Sharp, burning pain lanced through his left forearm as the wolf bit down, hard. His intense cry of pain combined with beating the animal over the head with the butt of the machete startled it long enough for him to pull his injured arm out of the snapping jaws of death. He stood there, a shadow hovering over his face, as he stared in shock at his left arm. The limb in question was hanging limp at his side with little rivulets of red dripping from it at a steady pace.
A low growl indicated the intent of the second wolf, startling him back to the fight. Instinct took over and he leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding a lunging bite from the second wolf. In one fluid motion, he pivoted on his feet and swung his machete down, attempting to hit the wolf before it had time to recover and retreat. Contact was made and the beast fell, letting out a pitiful whimper as its life essence began to drain out.
He pulled his machete out of the dead wolf’s neck turned to face his one remaining opponent. It slowly began to stalk towards him, growls quickly turning into snarling. When it was finally 30 feet away, it suddenly started sprinting at him. He got into a defensive stance and started to swing as the dog leaped at him. He had swung a little early so all he ended up doing was giving a good cut to the wolf’s foreleg but not before a flailing paw managed to score a line down his side, tearing his shirt and drawing a small amount of blood in the process.
He drew his injured arm back a shot it forward straight at the wolf’s head. The punch sent the animal reeling but dropped him down onto one knee as he clutched the bite on his arm. The two remained where they were for about three minutes, eyes locked and glaring flaming daggers of death at each other. The battle of wills continued until finally, the wolf broke eye contact, granting dominance. It turned tail and limped out of the clearing and into the forest as fast as it could.
He staggered over to his makeshift camp and pulled out his first aid kit from his pack, grabbing some antiseptic and clean bandages. Medicine in hand, he began to treat his injuries. As he was working, a lone howl rang through the night air. Even without seeing the source, he knew that it came from the wolf he had just fought. Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as a collection of howls rose up to join the first. This was going to be a long night.
~-_-~-_-~-_-~
Sleep had mercifully come quickly. It wasn’t all that surprising though, considering he had hiked for a whole day just to end up fighting for his life once he reached camp. Unfortunately, the new day brought fresh problems of its own. There was a large pack of hungry wolves that were probably waiting for him in the forest. And while he believed he had treated it before it had gotten infected, his arm was still injured and he couldn’t really use it for much. The good news was that it wasn’t his “sword” arm; he could still defend himself if he was attacked.
He heaved himself up onto his feet and began to tear down the camp. As he worked, his brain went into overdrive thinking about what he should do. Having an injured arm, out here, on his own…if something went horribly wrong, that injury could throw the odds in death’s favor. He would have to be extra careful. Next, where should he go? He was in the middle of a mountain range and the nearest town was where he had planned to end his backpacking adventure.
“Oh well,” he thought, “nothing left to do but stick with the plan and keep moving forward. Allons-y.”
He hefted his pack up onto his shoulder and began to walk off toward the edge of the forest. With each step that brought him closer to that line of trees and vegetation, he felt the butterflies in his stomach getting more and more agitated. It was as if those little imaginary insects could tell that something potentially life-changing was going to happen soon.
Now, there are usually two common reactions to the butterflies-in-the-stomach scenario: one is where you give into the sensation and just curl up into a fetal position, trying to hide from whatever might happen. The other one is quite the opposite; it is where one steels their resolve and chooses to confront this happening face-on. This second response is what the lone adventurer went with and picking up his pace, he walked right up to the line separating open field and shadowy forest.
The sun was at his back but even with a massive gaseous ball of fire giving its light in aid, the trees of this forest seemed impervious to any breach of their leafy defenses. On any other day, he might have just taken the long route around this forest but his arm was in a bad way and wasn’t going to get better with him just standing there. So one swig of water, two deep breaths, and a quick wake-up smack later, he took his first steps into the dark forest.
He stopped, stood up, and took inventory. Body: Whole. Head: Attached. Arm: Still injured and still smarting. Sanity: There but beginning to fade. Machete: Check. Backpack: Check. Scary monsters trying to attack and munch on human flesh: Not there. With that accomplished, he felt a good deal better. He spontaneously reached out a picked a leaf off of a nearby tree and just held it in his hand. He held onto it as if it could protect him and keep his sanity grounded. With his placebo protector in hand, he continued on in his trek.
A little while later, he began to notice small changes to the environment. It started off subtle; the forest seemed to be getting lighter as if he was nearing the other side. He took a few more steps before having a spark of brilliance. He reached up again, plucked a leaf from the tree in front of him and compared it to the leaf from the edge of the forest. He was confused by what he saw: the leaf he had just grabbed was the same shape and was probably the same species as the leaf from the boundary but for some odd reason, the second leaf had almost two times a lighter shade of green. He stood there slightly slack-jawed for a moment before shrugging and simply chalking it up to another one of those funny quirks of nature that mankind will never understand.
A few minutes more of walking and he took notice of another strange thing happening. There was a strange smell wafting through the air, not like a single stream of smell that may come from, say, a pie on a windowsill, but more like completely saturating the air. It was a smell that most definitely did NOT belong in a forest and instead, belonged in his grandmother’s kitchen. That smell, though faint, was unmistakably the smell of his late grandmother’s “world famous” fudge brownies; it had that slight hint of cinnamon, his grandmother’s own little flair, the signature of an artist.
At this point, he was sure that either his arm had gotten infected and he was now beginning to suffer for it or he was simply starting to lose his mind. Either way, he had to get out of the forest fast! He picked up the pace until he was speed walking as fast as he could comfortably. However, if he hadn’t been moving so fast and was paying more attention to his surroundings, he would have noticed a strange patch of phosphorescent blue lily-like flowers to the side of the path he was going down. In fact, he didn’t take note of much at all, he was that focused on getting out of this forsaken forest as fast as humanly possible.
He would have remained in this state too if he wasn’t dragged roughly back into reality by a menacing sound coming from his right. He stopped on a dime and rigidly turned his head, worried that the wolves from last night had finally found him. What he saw next surprised, relieved, and scared his hair right off at the same time. Standing in front of him was a creature that roughly resembled a wolf in shape but was somehow made entirely of wood! As they faced off, he could hear the creature’s ragged breathing.
“HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?!”
That question couldn’t be pondered for long because with another growl, the thing charged him, murder gleaming from where its eyes should be. He quickly backpedaled to get away from the thing trying to get him but it had a head start and a much greater speed. It jumped and rammed him with its full body weight, practically throwing him into the tree behind him. His head hit the trunk with a painful bang and everything went black.
[A/N: Some of you will probably whine/complain/Rarity about my using the smell of fudge from PonyFall. Truth is, I liked the idea so I’m using it to indicate that “We are not in Kansas anymore.”]