Brothers Teaser

A young boy runs from something in the woods.

Each step he took was harder than the last, as the runny earth clung to the soles of his shoes every time they made contact with the soft loam underneath. His legs burned and his lungs called for relief through the uneven white puffs of smoke that escaped from his mouth to join the endless ether above the rustling leaves. He wanted to stop: every fiber of his being yelled at him to duck behind a tree and catch his breath, but he knew that the moment he did they'd find him. He'd be caught.

He thought himself the loudest thing in that forest that night. His squelching footsteps louder than the deluge coming from above clashing against the nearby river. His haggard breaths louder than the winds that howled through the trees. His bones, squealing with every movement, louder than the cacophonous chorus of crickets and night birds that filled the autumn air. His thumping heart-beat like a war drum louder than the pitter-patter of rain on the brightly colored canopy above.

Alayen picked his way through the forest ground through the slight slivers of moonlight that poked through the canopy of leaves, and all encompassing storm clouds above. When had the sun set? Where had the time gone? It was still early evening, when the sky was orange when he set out: he should have been back by then, his family would be worrying about him no doubt.

Behind him he heard it: the distinct sound of crunching leaves underneath a foot. Had they caught up with him already? No. He was sure that he took twists and turns rarely taken, there was no way that they could keep up with him. No way. He ducked behind the shadow of a large oak tree and listened. There it was again. Crunch. Crunch. Slow. A steady cadence. Crunch. Crunch. Too steady to be the wind. Crunch Crunch. Too slow to be an animal. He was found.

The crunching footsteps stopped, and Alayen chanced a peek from behind his cover: and sure enough, a silhouette darker than the night was standing in the middle of the path that Alayen had run down just moments before. It's head twitched from side to side, as if it were tasting the air for Alayen's scent. He imagined his pursuer a giant snake, or a blood hound. Some anthropomorphized beast that could see through the dark of night, and see his beating heart.

“I know you're out there.” The dark silhouette called with an equally dark voice into the forest.

It's voice seemed to echo off of everything around young Alayen: off the branches, bearing to the howling winds. Off the soggy loam all around. Off the very darkness that surrounded hims. It reverberated through him like a rolling thunder down a plain.

Alayen pressed his back against the tree: trying his damnedest to melt into the shadows and vanish: he pressed the palm of his hand to his mouth, trying to stymie the flow of white smoke escaping, to stymie the sound of his harsh breaths. To hide from that dark shadow, to hide from that dark voice.

A flash of lightning blinded him, a crash of thunder deafened him and before either could recover, he felt warm breath trickling down his cheek. His eyes shot opened and met the cerulean orbs staring at him from beyond the darkness.

“Found you.” That horrible voice whispered.

Alayen’s skin shivered.

A pale hand reached out from just beyond those cerulean orbs, like the reaching claw of one of the innumerable nocturnal birds of prey above the canopy. Instinctually Alayen ducked below the outstretched hand and rammed his shoulder into his pursuers center of mass, causing him to tumble backwards, and away from the tree. Alayen caught himself from collapsing on top of him and pressed his back against the tree again. Once his back made contact with the solid wood he rolled to the right, off the tree and back the direction that he was sure he came from.

“Hey!” That dark voice called from behind the tree as his pursuer struggled to stand. “Get back here!”

But Alayen didn’t. No. Instead he ran. He ran as fast as his young body could carry him. Zipping past the oaks and sycamore that lined up all around him. The forest seemed to stretch and turn with his every step, as if to stop him from escaping. Where was he? Had he seen this tree before? He looked to the heavens: for the stars that would guide him back to his small cottage on the edge of the woods. But the stars hid, the very heavens hid behind the thick layer of black clouds and brightly colored leaves.

How’d he know he was going the right way? Instinct? All he knew was that the trees began to thin. Was he still being chased? He couldn’t chance a look backwards, no, he had to keep his pace. He had to keep where he was going to make sure he escaped those cerulean orbs: that voice that echoed off everything in creation.

He strained his ears: he listened to the disturbances in the dark. And over everything: over his panting breaths, over the pitter patter of rain on the brightly colored canopy above him. Over the cacophonous chorus of crickets and cicada, screaming into the night, another sound. The sound of hurried footsteps following closely after him.

Alayen urged his legs onward: pressed his body against the oncoming wave of exhaustion that washed over him as the cold rain that dripped off the canopy above him. Each step he took brought him further out of the thick woods: the trees on either side of him becoming less and less dense, and he began to recognize things more readily: here was the branch that he broke on the way into the densest parts of the forest, and there was the berry bush: the last one with fruit still on it in the whole forest, he was sure that he and his brothers had been picking at over the last couple of days. And there, to his right, was the stump of the oak that his father felled just last week for the lumber and firewood, and there, just ahead, was the opening to the cleaning where his tiny cottage stood.

He could smell it on the air: the smell of mutton roasting on a spit over a roaring fire. The smell of ash on the air, being tossed about by the storm’s wind. The smell of home. Alayen glanced back, and those cerulean orbs were still close behind, but he’d make it to his home before he was caught: he was sure of it.

That momentary lapse in concentration caused Alayen’s foot to dig into the muddy ground and pull up a root of a nearby tree: his foot became entangled in it and he fell face first down the hillside that separated the treeline and the clearing. He slid down the slick hillside: dragging muck and grass with him, and skidded to a stop near the foot of the hill.

His pursuer stopped behind him, and before he could spring back up and clear the distance to his house his pursuer pulled him up by his collar to his feet and swung him around to look him in those sinister orbs.

“You weren’t s’posed to run, Al.” Alayen’s brother’s face glowered under the moonlight: specs of mud splattered across his pale cheeks, and stained his dark hair. His brother’s shoulders heaved, and the white smoke fumed from his mouth and nostrils like smoke, “You cheater.”

Author's Note

A part of my first chapter of the book I'm working on, "Brothers," all things in here are subject to change: if you like it please say something, if you see something that needs to be changed, say so!